Footsteps in the Dark

Synopsis:

Siblings Peter, Margaret, and Celia, and Celia’s husband Charles have just inherited a ramshackle old house from their uncle. It is a bit primitive, without electricity or phone, but what is really worrying, to the women in particular, are the stories of a ghostly and dangerous monk who haunts the house and the grounds. Peter and Charles are less convinced about the existence of ghosts, so when odd things begin happening, they are sure that there is a logical explanation for the whole thing, and set out to discover what it is.

Thoughts on the story:

I love Heyer’s mysteries so much, even if they are quite general quite predictable. In a mixed blessing, this one had decided less silly characters than the other Heyer mysteries I have read (“Death in the Stocks” really took the cake for insipid yet fun characters, although they also made an appearance in “They Found Him Dead“). This one was a bit different than the others, since there was less of a strong police presence investigating the crime and more a focus on the effected family trying to figure out what, exactly, was going on. And, to my surprise, the ending of “Footsteps in the Dark” was not nearly as predictable as the other two. I was completely wrong in my guess as to whom the Monk was, although I figured out the true occupation of another character quite a long time before Heyer’s reveal.

Thoughts on the audio production:

I’m so-so on Maureen O’Brien as narrator in this production. On one hand, her voice was just as I might have imagined the one belonging to one of Heyer’s stories. On the other hand, she spoke far too quickly in the beginning, so much so that I considered using my iPod to slow down the speed of the audiobook. I’m still not sure whether she slowed down or I simply acclimated to it, but I had a difficult time catching what she said initially. Now, this does fit the feel of Heyer, but it also impeded the listening process, so on the whole I think it was a negative. Also, one of the secondary characters were French, and her French accent was absolutely painful, really the stereotypical bad French accent.

Overall:

Not mind blowing in story or narration, but still quite enjoyable. Heyer mysteries are a great palate cleanser, I really need to get a backlog of them both in print and audio.

Buy this book from:
BBC Audiobooks America

This review was done with a book received from the library.

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Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer – Audiobook Review

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The Gendarme

The first thing that caught my attention about “The Gendarme” was the arresting cover. I found it very reminiscent of the National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl, if a slightly less intense gaze. When I read the jacket copy and saw that it was about Turkey and the Armenians in WWI, I was totally sold.

And, although, it was not at all what I expected, “The Gendarme” did not disappoint.

Emmet Cohn was born Ahmet Khan in Turkey at the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, he does not remember much of anything before he woke up in a British hospital during World War I with severe head trauma. He made it to the United States due to the determination of his American nurse, whom he married. After a long life in which he considered himself American first and foremost, Emmet, 92 and recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, has become dreaming again of Turkey. Specifically, he is dreaming of being a gendarme – which is odd, because he is positive he was a Turkish solider, not a gendarme – who is taking a group of Armenians to Syria and is beguiled by an Armenian girl with two different colored eyes, Araxie.

I really enjoyed “The Gendarme,” the way it worked through memory, sins of the past, aging, sickness, duty, and repentance. The two storylines were worked together masterfully, particularly considering there was not always a visual cue of transition. One thing bled into another with ease and occasionally when the transition was overly quick, it was wonderfully evocative of exactly what Emmet must have been going through with his tumor and increasingly frequent lapses between waking and dreams. I adored the uncertainty – shared by Emmett himself – of whether or not we could trust him as a narrator, or whether him tumor and previous head trauma left him unreliable. There were times I felt that I shouldn’t buy the blossoming relationship between Emmett and Araxie, with all of the hardships between them, but Mustian wrote them so compellingly that I had a difficult time not believing their relationship, unlikely as it may have seemed.

In “The Gendarme,” Mustian blends history and the human spirit beautifully. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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The Gendarme by Mark Mustian – Book Review

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An Interview With…Me!

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Numb

One afternoon after a sandstorm, a man walks out of the desert and into a circus. He’s wearing a bloody suit, with no memory and no feeling anywhere in his body. For lack of more information, everyone just calls him Numb. With his gift – or curse, depending on your point of view – of not feeling pain, Numb is an obvious match for the freakshow of the circus, piercing his hands with an awful lot of things. He’s relatively happy at the circus, until the manager of the circus decides to put him in a cage with the circus’ lion. At that point, Numb knows it is time to move on, and try to make his way in the world and discover what he can about his past.

What a charming, quirky story this is. I loved Numb, both the story and the character. Quite often when a character does have a real name – and very infrequently is he actually addressed as ‘Numb’ – it keeps me at a remove from them. I didn’t find this to be the case at all for Numb, however. He obviously wasn’t your typical guy, from his affliction to his dubious fame, but he had an everyman sort of feel regardless. What “Numb” was really about was identity: both finding out who you have been and figuring out who you want to be.

There is some some and language, but I think the themes and readability of “Numb” makes it great not just for adults, but for older teens as well. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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Numb by Sean Ferrell – Book Review

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The Report

In 1943, a shelter in Bethnal Green, London became the site of the largest civilian accident of World War II. Citizens of Bethnal Green, anticipating a retaliatory air strike, crowded into the station. Before 9pm, 173 of them were dead, although the Germans did not bomb London that night. After the accident, there was much finger-pointing in many directions: from the lack of light and the late arrival of the constable to the general existence of Jewish refugees. In order to quell unrest, the government appoints the young and popular local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to conduct a private investigation. He works with surprising speed to create a report he hopes will mend the broken ties of the city in general and Bethnal Green in particular.

When I picked up “The Report,” I expected a competent novelization of a fascinating historical event and mystery. I also expected the account to be somewhat dry, if interesting, based both on the less than titilating title and the fact that it is essentially the story of how a governmental report came to be. Still, I was interested enough in the Bethnal Green tragedy, of which I had never heard before, to give it a go.

How wrong I was to be expecting something dry!

Kane takes an ensemble cast of characters and manages to make all of their stories compelling, without spending so much time on character development that she loses the thread of the story. A major element in this success is the inclusion of a secondary storyline, that of a documentary film maker – who has his own ties to the tragedy – who contacts Dunne to enlist his help in a documentary that will memorialize the 30th anniversary of Dunne’s report. This storyline serves as a nice foil to the primary storyline,  moving events along and explaining what is necessary, without being overly expository.

“The Report” is a surprisingly compelling novel about a seemingly unlikely subject. A fabulous read if you are at all curious to explore history and human nature. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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The Report by Jessica Francis Kane – Book Review

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Let’s Take the Long Way Home

The last thing Gail Caldwell expected to find when training her dog Clementine was a best friend, but that is exactly what she found in Caroline Knapp, and more. Gail and Caroline’s dog trainer suggested then spend some time together because they were so alike. Both women had puppies they’d gotten less than a year ago, they were both writers, both recovering alcoholics, athletic, and incredibly independent. From that fateful meeting, the women formed a lasting bond that would sustain them until Caroline’s death of lung cancer, a short time after being diagnosed.

Released earlier this August, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is getting a lot of buzz. While I was at BEA, a representative of Random House listed it as one of the publishing house’s top 5 picks for book clubs this coming year. I must say, for about 140 pages, I didn’t really see it, and that is a long time in a book that is less than 190 pages long.

It also took me about that long to realize what my problem was with it. “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is billed as a memoir of Gail and Caroline’s friendship, but it was almost more of an extended essay about their friendship, without the strong narrative of many of my favorite memoirs. Not that Caldwell didn’t have a strong voice, she does, but her writing milieu is on the critical side. Caroline was the columnist and memoirist in their relationship. Knowing this I’m not surprised that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” was so much more like an essay, but it did not grab me as quickly as a more narrative-driven version of this story might have.

Of course, I can imagine that in many was, the essay structure was easier to write than the narrative would have been. There is so much love and pain, friendship and grief in this story, that for Gail to have gone deep into the story of her relationship with Caroline might have been deeply painful. Unfortunately, the pain is much of what makes this story so compelling. It was during Caroline’s sickness and after her death, the last 40 or so pages, that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” really came into its own. Suddenly the pages seemed to be almost turning themselves, and my heart was fully immersed in this story.

Although I’m sure it would have been infinitely more difficult to write, I wish that Caldwell had been able to infuse more of the emotion from the end of “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” into the beginning of the book. However, even though I more appreciated the book for what it was than truly loved it, I think it is a must-read for any woman who has lost a close friend.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell – Book Review

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After I finished “Mockingjay” I had a really, really difficult time reading. I picked up one book on Tuesday and read about 15 pages, and then never picked it up again. A couple more books got picked up, looked at, and put back down. I finally was able to settle on Sean Ferrell’s “Numb,” but even that took me much longer to read than normal, considering it was under 300 pages and a quick read. Although I couldn’t read, I was able to listen to audio, and when I stayed home from work with a bad headache on Thursday I pretty much laid in bed and listened to my Sara Paretsky’s “Body Work” for 4 or 5 hours. I think I finally got back in the swing of my reading with Jessica Francis Kane’s “The Report,” which I started late Friday night and finished early Saturday afternoon. It was fabulous, so look for my review on Tuesday.

Most of what I finished this week I also read this week, but here’s what I read that has not yet been reviewed:

The books I both finished and reviewed (or, as in the case of “Mockingjay,” ‘reviewed’):

I know, I know, they are strangely blue. I also want to say, yes, I may have technically finished 6 books this week, but “The Rembrandt Affair” and “American Music” were both nearly done at the beginning of the week, and “Body Work” was an audio. Plus, I read “Mockingjay” straight through in the middle of the night. It still ended up feeling like a slow week because after early Tuesday morning I didn’t finish anything else until Friday night.

This week I also reviewed:

and the audios of “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire”

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Mockingjay

This isn’t really going to be a review, just thoughts about “Mockingjay.” After reading “The Hunger Games” three times and “Catching Fire” twice, and anticipating “Mockingjay” for a year, I think I’m too subjective to do an actual review. For my opinions about the previous books in this series, please see my thoughts on the audios and my reviews of both “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire.”

To be completely honest, I was sort of bored at the beginning of “Mockingjay.” Maybe not bored, exactly, but not nearly as excited as I thought I would be. In fact, I sort of wondered why I was up in the middle of the night reading. The fact that Peeta wasn’t around for a long, long time might have been part of it, but I think more it was that Katniss was just sort of moping around, unsure of what she really wanted to do. Plus, she kept ending up drugged in the hospital, which always felt like a slightly cheating way for Collins to get her through situations.

Things started to turn around for me when Katniss went into the first disputed district. I loved how she stood up to Gale, determined to not just kill people who might be innocent. Finally, that felt like Katniss to me. It made me really dislike Gale, though, although he almost won my heart a bit with how he treated Katniss most of the time they were together in District 13.

The most horrifying moment of the whole book – perhaps the whole series – for me was Finnick’s revelation that President Snow had been pimping out the Victors. These are people that have had miserable lives in their districts, been pitted against other teenagers in a kill or be killed contest and manage to live, and now they are sexually abused? I almost threw up. “Mockingjay” got me really attached to Finnick, actually, and I was sort of devastated when he died.

A less devastating death for me was Prim’s. I know a lot of people didn’t like that scene, didn’t realize I was Prim, but I thought that was perhaps the most masterfully written scene in the entire book. I felt that I was truly experiencing the situation with Katniss, and she didn’t initially realize she was watching her sister die either. It seemed fitting to me that Prim died at the end of the series, since the entire thing started with Katniss trying to save her sister. It gave a sense of how much bigger than just Katniss and her family the entire thing had become, but was also a reminder of all that the people of Panem lost under the old regime and during the rebellion, a warning against complacency in the future. Plus, at least if Prim was going to die, she was dying doing something she loved and she felt was important, instead of being forced into the Games.

As to the romantic angle: I am SO GLAD that Collins did not kill off either of the boys. Regardless of who Katniss ended up with, if she had ended up with him only because the other boy was killed off, I would have been very annoyed. I was glad she ended up with Peeta, and glad that she realized that he is the one she needed, even if she hadn’t needed to get away from Gale after his weapon being used against Prim because, again, if she had seemed to end up with Peeta just because of Gale’s weapon I would have been really disappointed.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins – Thoughts (Spoilers)

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The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, narrated by Carolyn McCormick
Published in print by Scholastic Press
Published in audio by Scholastic Audio

This is just going to be a commentary on the audio editions. I have previously reviewed the print versions of both “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire.” The following thoughts are completely spoiler-free.

When I first started listening to audio versions of “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire,” I was very disconcerted. There is pretty much no way at all that Carolyn McCormick’s voice could pass for that of a teenage girl. Don’t get me wrong, she has a gorgeous voice and I would love to listen to her read literary fiction, but it seemed very odd in the first person narrative of a teenager (incidentally, this is the second Scholastic Audio casting in a row in which I thought at least one narrator sounded far too old for their character – perhaps there is a dearth of narrators who can pass for teens?).

Although I had a hard time with such a mature voice narrating Katniss’s inner-most thoughts and giving voice to her words, McCormick did a fabulous job with the voices of other characters. Between “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire,” McCormick appears to have been given direction to actually do a voice for Katniss, instead of narrating in her own voice. Although it was still odd to hear Katniss’s thoughts in McCormick’s voice, it did help me believe her words as those of the teenager a bit better.

McCormick did a fabulous job with most of the voices, and imbued “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire” audios with the danger and drama of the books, so over all I would say these are highly recommended, even if her Katniss really had to grow on me. I can’t wait to get the audio of “Mockingjay” for a reread.

I borrowed both of these audiobooks from the library.

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The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins – Thoughts on the Audio

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American Music

Milo is a severely wounded war vet. Honor is a physical therapist coming to the rehabilitation hospital working with Milo, massaging his back – and only his back, because he refuses to lay on his back. Except something odd is happening whenever Honor touches Milo. Somehow, memories of the past are welling out of Milo’s body when Honor works on him. Not memories of his past, but of seemingly unconnected people, primarily from the last 100 years.

Mendelsohn’s writing is absolutely gorgeous and completely lyrical. That being said, it took me quite awhile to get into the book. Although beautiful, the way the writing is crafted – particularly the lack of quotation marks and, occasionally, other punctuation – served to separate me from the characters and kept me from getting a good feel for them for a good 100 pages. Flashing back to the past didn’t help that, although it did provide the interest in the novel.

I loved the way the stories ended up coming together, for awhile there I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. I must say, I am still slightly unsure how the harem of the Ottoman Empire really connected to the other stories. It just didn’t seem to come together in quite the same way, although I have my suspicions of what we are meant to take from it, but all of the other stories connected to one another in just one way, and this didn’t quite fit the mold.

If you’re a fan of gorgeous writing, don’t hesitate to pick up “American Music.” If you tend to need a good measure of plot and character, stick with “American Music.” You may not be sure about it at the beginning, but the story will grow on you, and it is worth it by the end. Recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

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American Music by Jane Mendelsohn – Book Review

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