Book Review: Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovich

Smokin' Seventeen is one of those books that one enjoys not so much for their plot and action, but for their humor. The author seems to be interested more than anything to entertain the reader and she does that in a splendid way, as she leads her main character Stephanie Plum from one hilarious situation to the next.
     Stephanie works as a bail bonds officer, or rather enforcer, in her cousin Vinnie’s office in Trenton, New Jersey. Her job is to arrest those whom Vinnie bailed out of jail, but somehow failed to meet their obligations. Even though she sounds a bit angry and whiny every now and then, it’s more than obvious that her job suits her fine. She just loves the action, the nonstop movement, the fact that things over there never get boring. But there comes one day, when they turn out to be a little more than interesting, as just behind the “bus” where the business office is housed, just for a little while, the corpse of a member of mafia is discovered. And that will be only the fist, as another few are to follow. These facts will somehow convince Stephanie that probably she’s a future target as well; but, why? That is the question.
     As expected the answer will not come easily. Besides the woman has absolutely no free time to look for it, since she’s busy as ever, as she has two arrests to make. The first one has to do with an old man, who’s more than convinced that he’s a vampire, and is scared to death of daylight, and the second of a circus bear that was given to Vinnie as a guarantee, and which has somehow managed to escape.
     And as if that’s not enough Stephanie has to cope with a few things in her personal, or rather love life as well, as she thinks that it’s just about time for her to decide, which of the men in her life she would like to take as her permanent partner: Will it be Morelli, the cop, her official lover, or Ranger, the private security guy with whom she feels better when in bed? Or how about following her dear mother’s advice and pursue a new relationship with an attractive man from the past, an ex athlete and seemingly great guy, who’s pretty hot as well, and apparently knows his way around the kitchen?
     As one can surely understand her life is nothing but easy. However she manages to live it day by day and handle any problems the moment they arise. The thing is though that during the last few days everything seems to be going wrong for her. Could it be that Morelli’s grandma’s curse really worked or should she just blame herself for what is happening? This question will follow her every step from the very beginning to the inescapable end of this story, and as long as the answer eludes her she’ll never manage to get some peace of mind.
     However difficult life seems to be for her though, its depiction is more than enjoyable to the reader, since while reading about it he or she’ll come face to face with some hilarious characters, like her sidekick Lula, who can eat a mountain for breakfast, while some of the scenes are simply laugh-out-loud funny. As for the killer, one just has to put two and two together to discover who it is, but that doesn’t matter much, because by then, he or she will simply enjoy a beautiful ride and come out of it with a big smile.

Book Review : Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

If someone asked me to describe this book in just a few words I’d say that Pigeon English is this year’s Room. And that because the narrator is a young boy here as well, but not one kept in captivity, but an immigrant that arrives to London from Ghana with his mother and older sister, and having to live in a housing project, which feels like a ghetto, is trying hard to adapt to this new reality.
     Harrison Opuku is a boy gifted with lots of imagination and love for the others as well. A kid, like the kids used to be, before the digital era arrived with all its side effects: hard and tender at the same time, poor but satisfied with his life, a big dreamer, but above all someone who cares about other people. The hard facts of his life so far may have made him a bit more mature than other kids of his age, but the cruelty of this world did not manage to take away his goodness. If he becomes strong headed and hard every now and then he does so in order to survive, and he’d never try to bring harm to anyone; at least not intentionally. Harri, if nothing else is someone who knows how to love. He loves his mother, who’s trying quite unsuccessfully to put the fear of god, or rather of her, into him, to give him discipline; he loves his sister, Lydia, who every now and then seems to be somehow losing it; but most of all he loves Agnes, his little sister who’s stayed behind in Ghana, and who’s going through a serious illness. And he sure loves his dad, and misses him, since he was left behind too.
     Harri, however, doesn’t only care about playing all day or just for his family. He also cares about the people around him, especially if something bad comes their way; anything bad. And that’s exactly what happened to a boy his age, who was killed for his lunch. Harri, having his friend Dean by his side, is determined to find out who the killer is, since the police doesn’t really seem to care that much, and bring him to justice. Of course it will not prove so easy to accomplish this mission, due to the lack of experience and founding. However, using tricks they pick up from CSI and their very special binoculars, the boys will set out on a journey of discovery. During it Harri will come to learn and understand more about the country that’s now his home and will also start creating new words, while throwing in a few aphorisms for good measure, every now and then as well: “I do know the shape of a mother’s grief”, “Grown-ups love sad news, it gives them something special to pray for”, “Laughing is the best way to make them admire you”, “That’s why people wave to each other, because it makes them belong”. Wearing his new shoes, which are definitely Bo-styles, he’ll also come to realize that he’s the best runner at school and that will prove handy in a number of occasions.
     The narration though, even it has at its epicenter Harri’s everyday life, is also used as a tool to criticize the modern English society. A society where crime became a way of life for many kids, where the people living in the poor areas feel and are excluded from the equal opportunities that everyone talks about but no one is working hard enough to establish, and where the authorities do not do too much to stop things that are considered disgraceful when happening in the third-world countries, from taking place on their own turf.
     Kelman seems to have taken over the body and the mind of his narrator, so his voice sounds more than convincing. Harri is an eleven year old kid and he sounds exactly like that. He may have been through a lot already, but his soul remains pure, childish; but also kind of sly and curious.
     This is a great novel about growing up and coming to terms with the world around you, and is highly recommended to anyone who’s interested in good literature.

Book Review: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

This is the sequel to The Magicians, a bestselling novel that came out a couple of years ago to much critical acclaim.
     In The Magician King we find the protagonists of the first novel in the land of Fillory, which they now rule. Eliot, Quentin, Julia and Janet are the kings and queens of that magical place, with the first holding the post of the High King. Since the day they settled there they spend their days in idle tranquility, without many, or any rather, ups and downs, and all over their realm there’s peace. However, as they are soon to find out, that peace is fragile, and if they do not act promptly, as a cranky seer advices them to, it will be shred to pieces, and catastrophe and death will ensue.
     The four of them, at the beginning, will not take that prophecy too seriously, because, well, who would really believe the bleak ramblings of a talking animal, but time will prove them wrong. Before that though, Quentin, as if suddenly awoken from a beautiful dream, will come to realize how boring his life has become, and so he’ll set on a seemingly not that important quest; he’ll sail to a far away island in order to receive the taxes ought to the kingdom. But in order to do that there are some other things he has to take care of first. To start with he has to find the perfect ship and then the best warrior there is to take along as his bodyguard. Later rather than sooner he gets ready and he sails away, in the company of some fearless sailors, the said bodyguard, a young cartographer and Julia, the most accomplished of the magician-rulers of the land.
     What though starts as a simple journey ends up as a big adventure. An adventure that will lead our heroes first to their destination and from there onwards to Chesterton, Massachusetts, Quentin’s birthplace, and after that to Venice, where they’ll meet Josh an old friend of his, and a strange girl called Poppy. The city of the filthy waters and the endless canals, where they’ll also meet a dragon, won’t be but a simple stop in their adventurous journey, as soon they’ll return for a brief spell to Fillory, before setting off again for the Neitherlands, which seems to have fallen victim to the wrath of the gods. Their quest will one day lead them even to the underworld, but until that happens they will go through a lot of troubles; troubles which will finally open their eyes to the truth and make them realize that the animal’s prophecy is about to come true. Unless… Unless they discover the seven golden keys that can save their world from the coming doom.
     As these things take place in the present time, the author gives us in a parallel narration the back-story of Julia, a now almost all-powerful witch, who in the past though failed to pass the exams and thus study in the same school her friends did. And a sad story it is. Her life until reaching a unique school in France and the utopia of Fillory has been full of hardship and pain, violence and disappointment. What we read makes us better comprehend her complex character and understand her cold manners; her unwillingness to smile.
     Grossman does not hesitate to talk about sex and rape in a language that at some points can be described as harsh, but nevertheless, necessary. These are just (or not just, ok) couple of facts of everyday life, he seems to think, and as such they deserve to be explored; especially the impact they can have on one’s psyche.
     He also doesn’t hesitate to pay respects to some other authors and books, or even legends, so here and there we read about the exploits of Merlin and Harry Potter, about The Chronicles of Narnia and even Shakespeare (one of the characters is called Failstaff).
     The Magician King is a great fantasy novel, which will surely offer much joy to the friends of the genre. If I can judge by its ending, I’d say that there’s more to come in these series, and I for one look forward to it.

     This one comes out in the U.S. next week.

Book Review: Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum

If you got tired of the fast paced American thrillers and the British mysteries, of the noir novels of the European south and even of the Man himself, Stieg Larsson, and you seek something different as far as crime fiction is concerned, then you’d better take a look at the work of Karin Fossum. Her novels have been translated in 25 languages so far and according to the press in the English speaking world, she’s "The Norwegian queen of crime."
     I must say that Fossum writes unlike any other crime author I’ve read so far. The mystery in Bad Intentions doesn’t seem so important to her, she hardly pays any attention to it. And that’s exactly why she kind of points out straight from the start how things are going to end up. However, by the time that happens, she embarks on a journey into the souls of her characters and the dark that lies within them, and through the dialogues she tries to share with the reader some philosophies of life. And finally, she points out that any given fact, even a simple, though tragic accident can change somebody’s life for good and, if he’s weak enough, even shred it to pieces.
     It all begins when three friends travel to the Dead Water Lake for the weekend. One of them, Jon, is on leave from a psychiatric facility where he’s been treated for depression. As it looks, a few months back, something happened, which made him lose his will for life; but exactly what we’re not to discover really soon. We’ll find out however that the three of them share a terrible secret. And it’s exactly that secret that led Jon initially to depression and after that to suicide; because yes, Jon will die. He’ll fall from the boat they are riding into the deep waters of the lake and simply vanish, right in front of his friends’ eyes. One of them, Reilly, will want to try and save him, while the other, Axel, will stop him from doing so, because he’s sure that there’s nothing he can do about it; the waters are deep and dangerous and if he dives in he’ll end up drowning himself, he says. So, with no other option available, they return to their cabin, and try to make up the story that they will tell the cops the next day in the morning, when they’ll call them. Axel seems to be on top of the situation, while Reilly is at a loss. He’s so badly shaken that if he doesn’t pull himself together they’ll blow their cover. Things though will go fine after all, as when they meet the cops, inspector Konrad Sejer and his partner Jacob Skarre, they’ll manage to stick to their story. But even if they sound truthful, Sejer has doubts about their sincerity. Something smells fishy to him and he’s determined to find out what.
     As time goes by nothing changes for Axel, who’s confident as ever in everything he does, but the same thing cannot be said about Reilly, who seeks refuge in the words of the Koran, which he’s started studying at just about the same time as Jon’s life took the turn for the worse. He and Axel continue to meet very often and usually their discussions have to do with just one subject: the death of their friend. Every now and then though they talk about their respective philosophies of life and that’s exactly when their differences come to light. They both meditate deeply about life and they both like to shoot aphorisms to make a point. “Imagine if people always told the truth, it wouldn’t work. Society would fall apart”. “If freedom is a torment, then it’s not worth much”. “How quickly it can change, the life we think has been marked out for us”. “Every life is unique and so is every death”. “Better starve free than be a fat slave” (old proverb).
     The dialogues cover a quite big part of the book; dialogues between friends, between cops, between mothers. Every single one of them seems to carry his or her own ghost. Some of them know to cope with it and some don’t.
     In the end the solution to the riddle concerning Jon’s death, will be provided by life itself, by nature, as one more body will appear on the surface of a different lake, and then the cops will only have to put two and two together to set things straight.
     This is fine novel that can be easily read and enjoyed by every fan of fiction; crime or otherwise.
     It comes out in the USA next week

Booker Longlist Announced

This year's longlist for the Man Booker prize has been announced. Read the full list below:

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

For more info visit the Man Booker Prize website

Book Review: The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht

The Tiger's Wife is one of those books that manage to carry the reader’s imagination away simply by their myth; a story where it’s not that easy for one to tell the difference between the real and the imaginary, where tradition and everyday life many times come into collision, before finding their binding threats in the world of story-telling. Obreht, the young author, won the Orange Prize for this book, and before reading it I had my doubts as to whether she deserved it or not. Now those doubts exist no more. She did deserve it. As someone who lives close to, and every now and then in, the Balkans, I can understand better than most outsiders the realities of its people, enjoy its myths and legends, and meditate on the recent history of the region.
     But, let’s take a look at the story. Natalia, when she was still a young girl, used to go often to the zoo with her grandfather, sit along with him in front of the tigers’ cage and read The Jungle Book. Their favorite hero, as one would expect, was a tiger, who time and again was coming into life in Natalia’s imagination. But that was not the only tiger she knew, as every now and then her grandfather would talk about another one; one that decades ago arrived all of a sudden at the village of Galina, where he grew up. The animal used to terrorize the people just by being there, even though most of them didn’t even manage to get a glimpse of it. The only people that were not afraid of it were him, and a young deaf mute girl, who was married against her own will, with a tyrannical man. The two of them agreed, without any words spoken of course, to protect the tiger from the evil men, and the woman, sooner or later, and after her husband’s disappearance, would come to be known throughout the village as The Tiger’s Wife.
     But stranger things have happened during the long life of Natalia’s grandfather; none stranger though than his meetings with an undead man, some sort of a magician or not. Gavo, that was his name, had the ability to read in the coffee cup when one was to die. As the story goes, he used to travel from one place to the other, unchanged over the years, foretelling people’s deaths. Her grandfather, despite all the rumors and what by his own eyes has seen never came to fully believe in his magic. Sometimes reality though can prove harder to comprehend than fantasy. If one asked him one day what he best remembered of his meetings with Gavo, he would only mention this aphorism: “The greatest fear is that of uncertainty”.
     The narration travels back and forth in time, covering many decades and two big wars, in almost an offhand way. (“Doors are probably wide open, and blowing a breeze of paramilitary rapists”). And even though most of the story takes place in the past, the present is not quite absent from these pages; the present and its modern paradoxes.
     To put first things last: When we meet Natalia, she’s a young doctor and she’s travelling with her friend Zora, to offer their services free of charge at an orphanage in the non-existent city of Brejevina. In the fields surrounding the property the members of a family are working day and night to recover the corpse of a man, who’s believed to have cursed them all. It is on the way there that Natalia is informed for the death of her grandfather. After her departure the old man set on a journey that led him at a place not far from where she’s staying, and where he breathed his last.
     That was exactly the reason that pushed the girl to start a trip back to memory lane, where the present and the past interconnect, the prejudices resurface and history finds its way into the world of legend, or the opposite.
     This is a great story, told in a flawless narrative manner. If I can judge from the author’s debut I’d say that we should expect to see much more from her in the future. Now, as to whether she will be able to meet the expectations, that’s a different story. Let’s hope she will.

Book Reviews… Preview

OK people, I’ve been reading really hard for the past few weeks, and some of the stuff that fell into my hands and dropped into my brain was quite amazing. In the near future I’m going to deliver to you quite a few book reviews of titles yet to come out in the U.S. but also some that are already in the bookshops, electronic or otherwise. The reviews of the books that haven’t come out yet I will post about a week before their release (you can see the publication date at the end of each entry), and as of this moment the list stands as follows:

Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum. A great psychological thriller. (9 August)
The Magician King by Lev Grossman. I’m still reading it, so for the time being, no comment. (9 August)
The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen. A great detective story from Denmark about a clever but troubled cop who’s willing to go where no one has ever been before. (18 August)
Nairobi Heat by Mukoma wa Ngugi. A detective story from Africa. A different view of the world. (13 September)
Penguin Lost by Andrey Kurkov. Black humor from the Ukraine… and beyond. (27 September)
Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy. Now, what more can I add to that title? (27 September)
The Dead Kid Detective Agency by Evan Munday. Absolutely great. The fans of Neil Gaiman will love this one. (1 October)
Shards by Ismet Prcic. A refugee’s odyssey, from Bosnia to California (4 October)
Cain by Jose Saramago. Brilliant. The last book of a master storyteller that shreds the Old Testament to pieces. Provocative and funny. (6 October)
Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz. Interconnected stories about life in a village in Israel. Very much about love and less about war. (20 October)

The following books are already out and will find their place in this blog sooner or later:

The Preacher by Camilla Läckberg. Murders and mysteries in an otherwise peaceful Swedish town. A good read.
The Train by Georges Simenon. The name of the author is all that one needs to know to read this book.
Pearl in the Sand by Tessa Afshar. A love story with a historic-religious background. The ladies will love it.
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman. Trying to find a home far away from home and solve a mystery as well. The story of a special boy told in superb style.
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. Dark and funny. The story of a man and a penguin and much more. Love, death, mystery, paranoia. Excellent.
Carte Blance by Jeffery Deaver. The Bond is back, and maybe he’s better than ever. A job well done by the popular thriller writer.
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. An amazing journey into the worlds of fantasy. Great writing and excellent plot. (This book is very popular these days, but so what?).
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht. History and legends, myths and reality, and a beautiful narrative voice from a very young and promising author. Winner of this year’s Orange prize.
Smokin’ Seventeen by Janet Evanovich. The funny adventures of a special lady and her friends in a city full of criminals and… toothless vampires.

Read on…

Book Review: Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

This book I’ve read more out of curiosity than real interest, since its heroine is Sookie Stackhouse, famous from the cult vampire series True Blood, which I really enjoy watching. I’m saying out of curiosity because, with the exception of Bram Stocker’s Dracula, I’d say that I’m not really a fan of the specific genre of literature.
     Anyway, in Dead Reckoning (the 11th of the series if I’m not mistaken) we find Sookie, who has recently discovered that she’s part fairy, living with her great-uncle Dermot, who looks a lot like her brother Jason, and her cousin Claude, both of whom have more fairy blood in them that she does. Their symbiosis is not exactly perfect, not even close to that, as Claude quite often manages to get on her nerves, while Dermot doesn’t really try to help her put things right. However the troubles she faces at home are only trivial if compared with those she has to put up with at work, since some people try to kill her not just once but twice, while her very good friend and boss, Sam, who’s a shape shifter, also seems to be having a hard time to make ends meets. And as if that’s not enough, Victor, Eric’s, her new boyfriend’s that is, worst enemy is appointed regent of the vampires in their county. Victor seems determined to provoke Eric in any way possible and thus draw him into a fight that he’s certain to win. The latter, who knows well who his enemy is and how he thinks, will be left with no choice but to ask for the help of Sookie and others, in order to strike first. Among them will be Sookie’s ex boyfriend, Bill.
     In the meantime, in the now famous, or rather infamous, city of Bon Temps, a lot of things start to change as some new species of creatures arrive at the scene; like goblins, different kinds of werewolves, elves etc.
     Each passing day brings along with it a surprise, most of the time bad, for Sookie, who though, after all she’s already been through, doesn’t seem to be scared of anything or anyone anymore. With her characteristic cool and furious manner, she seems to travel lightly from one place to the next, trying to make good deeds, to help her friends out or even give them a wakeup call when they lose their way, all the time being desperately in love with Eric, someone who has eyes for no other woman.
     Some of the episodes here are laugh-out-loud funny, quite a few are dramatic, but either way they are all fun to read. The author is only interested in entertaining the reader and she simply does that. Now, if you were to ask me which I like the best, the TV series or the book, I’d answer without hesitating for a moment, the first. Let us not forget that behind it is the creator of one of the best series ever made, the fabulous Six Feet Under. But at the same time, let’s not forget, if it wasn’t for the books there would be no Sookie, and without Sookie, well…
     This is a book that can be read in one sitting and I’m sure the vampire or, specifically, the Sookie fans will enjoy it.

Book Review: One Summer by David Baldacci

One Summer is not the first family drama written by the great crime author (read the excellent Wish You Well) and we sure hope it will not be the last.
     Baldacci seems to be leaping from the one genre to the other without any apparent difficulty. On the one hand in his books we meet trained killers, read conspiracy theories, and enjoy scenes of fast paced action, and on the other we find ourselves enjoying stories full of love and tenderness and, yes, with a touch of melancholy at the top. However, even the latter, manage to grab the reader by the throat and never allow his or her attention to drift away for a single moment from the action, from start to finish.
     It all begins when we meet Jack Armstrong, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran. He’s a dying man, confined in bed, breathing with the help of machines, at his home in Cleveland. What the enemy bullets and the bombs haven’t managed to do, is now done by a mysterious illness, from which the chances to survive are minimal, or rather nonexistent. However he’s not alone, as he always has by his side his loving wife Lizzie, whom he married when very young, and his young sons; Jackie, who’s just two years old and Cory, who’s twelve. They all seem to have come to terms with the idea of his demise. However, there’s someone who’s not there for him, and that hurts. His daughter Michelle, or Mikki, as they all call her, is a girl of sixteen who at a first glance doesn’t seem to know how to handle the situation, so instead of sticking close to him, she chooses to stay as far away as she can. Jack, trapped day and night in his own bed, in his very home, he mentally visits his past, counts his blessings and spends as much time as he possibly can talking to his family, but also secretly writing a series of letters to Lizzie. Through these letters he intends to explain to her some things, and confess some others, while, in a way, he also wants to convince her to go on and lead a happy life after he’s gone.
     Christmas day will be his last; or, at least, that’s the plan. However destiny, as usually is the case, has its own plans for him. Thus on Christmas Eve the wheels will suddenly turn and Lizzie will die at a traffic accident. As one would expect now things will dramatically change, as Jack will not only lose the love of his life, but also his kids, who will move away to live with their grandmother and aunts, each in a separate home, leaving him behind to die. Death, his death, seems to be the only thing he can control anymore and any time he decides to leave the world, the exit door will open. The only thing he needs to do is push a button and ask the doctors to put him out of his misery. However, even though death looks to be an attractive option, something holds him back from embracing its graces, despite the fact that “Sometimes living was far harder than dying”. As he reaches the point of no return, and decides to put an end to it all, exactly then the miracle happens; he starts to get better. Nobody can believe this miraculous reversal of fortune; not his doctors, not even himself. Each passing day though brings him closer to full recovery, and as time goes by his will to live is getting stronger and stronger. Now, with the help of his best friend Sammy, is determined more than ever to put things right, and make a new beginning with his kids. To achieve that though, he first has to make peace with his past. “You should respect the past. You should never forget the past. But you can’t live there”. The road to salvation will be long and winding, and Jack, better late than never, will at last come to realize that he needs other people’s help to reach his destination.
     This is a well written story that talks about love and death, about the big passions that rule our lives, about the darkness that lurks in the teenage soul, as well as for the big truths that we fail to see, even though they are constantly right in front of our eyes. A brilliant novel by a master storyteller.

By the same author

Hell's Corner
The Sixth Man