Tag: 3 Stars Page 50 of 55

The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch

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On December 13, 2013

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

The Theory of Opposites
The Theory of Opposites

by Allison Winn Scotch
Paperback, 306 pg.
Camellia, 2013

The Theory of Opposites starts off with a bang — a Rube-Goldberg of verbal and physical slapstick. Raised by a self-help guru, raised in an atmosphere saturated with and run by her (best-selling and almost universally acclaimed) father’s theories, Willa Chandler-Golden’s life is about to fall apart the way that her day falls apart before she even leaves the apartment this fateful day.

She loses her job, learns that she’s not pregnant after all, learns that her parents are both in the midst of a late-life crisis, learns that the twelve-year-old son of her husband’s dead friend will be spending the summer with them, her husband may be stepping out on her. Oh, yeah — and then a couple weeks later her husband decides they need a break from each other. He’ll be moving across the country, sharing custody of his “nephew.”

So, Willa does what anyone finding themselves in this situation — she agrees to help her best friend write a self-help book that ties into her favorite Reality TV Show. As an added bonus, their book will flatly contradict her father’s near-Nobel Prize winning work.

During this break, catastrophe strikes Willa’s father and brother, her mother’s life turns upside down, and The One Who Got Away comes back into her life.

Somewhere in all this, Willa tries to figure out just what she wants in life, what she believes about life, and what kind of person she’s going to be. The question The Theory of Opposites tries to answer.

There’s fun to be had in the reading, but it’s not as if there’s a denial of the seriousness of it all. Scotch deals with some pretty serious issues with the same light, deft touch she brought to her past novels — breezy enough that you can let the uncomfortable details slip by, but honest enough that they’re in front of you all the time. I don’t think this was quite as satisfying as her The Song Remains the Same, but it was good enough to keep me looking for whatever comes next.

—–

3 Stars

Shake Down by Joel Goldman

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On December 11, 2013

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Shake Down
Shake Down

by Joel Goldman
Kindle Edition, 397 pg
Amazon Digital Services, 2011

Goldman’s pulled off what so many try, and so few succeed: a new (and worthwhile) angle on a procedural that raises it above the masses.

He doesn’t do it with story — I think that’s an almost impossible task — he pulls it off with character. It’s the easiest, and the most effective — characters will stick with you a lot longer than stories. FBI Agent Jack Davis is one of those characters that’s taken up residence in the back of my brain.

Jack’s not doing well — his wife is divorcing him, his adult daughter is doing everything she can to call into question the term “adult” — in recovery (again), dating an undercover FBI agent of dubious character (in Jack’s mind, anyway), he’s still morning the murder of his son years before, and he’s barely hanging onto his career until he can retire with full benefits.

Even this is familiar ground — Jack’s dealing with some sort of undiagnosed neurological disorder causing uncontrollable shakes, momentary blackouts and confusion. And he has to keep this quiet, because the instant the FBI catches a whiff of this, he’s out of a job.

So how does Jack deal with this while investigating a number of drug-related murders? Particularly when it becomes clear to Jack (if not anyone else) that these murders are far beyond simple turf battles. Well, that’s his challenge.

Goldman clearly did a lot of homework for this one — particularly on microexpressions as indicators of truth-telling/lying, and Kansas City history — and it shows. Frequently clumsily. His info-dumps didn’t detract too much from the story, but they sure didn’t add to it.

The procedural part was solid, if uninspired, the requisite twists and turns — ditto for the plot and suspense — basically, the skeleton was there. The flesh he put on it, the characters — not only Jack and his family, but his fellow FBI agents, the suspects, criminals, and bystanders — they brought life to this, and made it better than the sum of its parts.

I’ll be back for more.

—–

3 Stars

Concourse by S. J. Rozan

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On December 10, 2013

In Authors, Fiction, Lydia Chin & Bill Smith, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, S. J. Rozan

Concourse (Lydia Chin & Bill Smith #2)Concourse

by S.J. Rozan
Series: Lydia Chin & Bill Smith, #2

Hardcover, 280 pg.
Minotaur Books, 1996

I was pretty enthused to grab the second book in the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith series — Lydia’s voice and character was so strong, and her interaction with her sometimes partner Bill was not your usual P.I. partner/friend/sounding board fare. You add in the strong possibility of another case in/around Chinatown? This really had the look of a series I could sink my teeth into.

And almost immediately, that all came to a crashing halt. The voice wasn’t quite right, the interactions the first person narrator had with the other character didn’t fit Lydia — ohhhh, it dawns on me — Concourse is from Bill’s point of view. Huh. Whaddayaknow?

After the initial confusion and mental gear-shifting, I settled in for a good read. This is a gloomier, darker read than China Trade. Bill doesn’t have the same fight, the same ambition that Lydia does — and a whole different set of demons to deal with. Some of which we see here: Bill’s called in to help a former mentor/father figure with problem that’s resulted in the death of another member Bill’s surrogate family. He takes an undercover role in the investigation and calls in Lydia to uncover what she can about the parties involved from the outside.

What follows is a twisted path down real estate, NYC politics, revenge, the dark side of charity, the way the elderly are treated, and a touch of redemption. There’s a few punches thrown, some gun play, a lot of booze. Your basic ingredients for what this is — a solid PI novel.

The thing that’s kept me thinking is the Lydia/Bill relationship/dynamic. It felt a little different this time, coming from Bill’s perspective. But the core was the same. It was pretty clear in China Trade that Bill’s feelings for Lydia go beyond the flirtation she’s determined to see them as, but it was still nice to see that fully — he’s serious about her, but is willing to wait for her to come around. However playful it seemed for her, it’s not for him (again, I was pretty sure of that last time). It makes his flirtation a little less enjoyable, a little more sad.

In the end, I have a better perspective of the two of them as characters, a fuller picture. After years of seeing Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in the Elvis Cole series, Robert Crais really only gives us the same looks at the same characters in the books told from Pike’s perspective (this is nothing negative about Crais, it’s only a thought I had now, and in a moment of leisure I might come back to and further develop). So for Rozan to pull this off is quite an accomplishment.

I don’t know who will be telling the tale in the next book — I’ll hopefully figure it out a bit more quickly — and I don’t care, either way, I’m looking forward to it.

—–

3 Stars

Dusted Off: Rizzo’s Daughter by Lou Manfredo

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On December 9, 2013

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Rizzo's DaughterRizzo’s Daughter

by Lou Manfredo
Hardcover, 304 pg.
Minotaur Books, 2012

Not the best of the Rizzo books, but it’s still one of the most compelling and honest (and brutal) books I’ve read this year.

Manfredo has never shied away from the ethical gray areas — this time he dives in further than before (and honestly, maybe veers to the more black than gray area).

The mini-cases that are featured here, alongside the two major cases, as perhaps more interesting than their counterparts and once again give you insight into the world of the NYPD as much as they give you something interesting to read. The procedure is authentic, the violence isn’t dazzling as it is in similar books, which makes it more brutal and more real.

Even though this wasn’t my favorite, what Manfredo has set up for the two Rizzos in blue can’t come fast enough for me. So glad I stumbled onto this series.

—–

3 Stars

Dusted Off: Rizzo’s Fire by Lou Manfredo

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On December 9, 2013

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Rizzo's FireRizzo’s Fire

by Lou Manfredo
Hardcover, 304 pg.
Minotaur Books, 2011

It’s always tough to follow up a strong first book–and Manfredo isn’t the first author to come up a little shorter the second time around.

Still, it’s a solid read. Each page, each moment screams “authentic.” Not just because of what Manfredo used to do, though that certainly helps. The way that Rizzo and Cil have to juggle cases, call in and ask for favors, cut deals with all sorts of unsavory types, play politics, so on and so forth–if that’s not as close as you can get to reality, I don’t know what is.

The central case is less-than-gripping, but it’s still good to see solid procedure in a police procedural (even if our heroes cut a few corners). And I could sit and listen to Sergeant Rizzo tell war stories and share his philosophy of crime solving for hours.

Not a great book, but a really good one.

—–

3 Stars

Rock On by Denise Vega

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On November 21, 2013

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, YA/MG/Children's Books

Rock On
Rock On

by Denise Vega
Hardcover, 296 pg.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012

I can’t remember what it was that made goodreads suggest this book to me, but I put it on my To Read list over a year and a half ago, and really only picked it up because it was front-faced on a library shelf I walked by last week, and my stack was pretty light. Glad I did pick it up though.

I’ve got a soft-spot for rock band novels — ever since The Buffalo Nickel Blues Band, which I read about 400 times in junior high. The Commitments (one of my all-time favorites), Eddie and the Cruisers, Juliet, Naked and a handful of others I can’t recall at the moment. There’s something about the raw emotion that the music taps into that just grabs you, makes a solid connection between the characters and the reader.

This is more than that (as the subtitle informs). Primarily, we’ve got the story of a high school band on their way to the High School Battle of the Bands. But that’s not the emotional core of the novel, it’s just the framework to hang the rest of the stories on.

Sure, Ori’s a great guitarist — practically too good to believe (but hey, it’s fiction, relax). But when it comes to girls? Fuhgeddaboudit‎. Nervous, anxious, trembling, not-at-all-confident — pick your synonym, and that’s him. As he and his band start gaining a little notoriety in the area, he’s finding himself receiving a bit more female attention (which is both great and mortifying for him). There’s one girl in particular . . . well, read it yourself. It’s a sweet story, well told. Nothing that’ll rock your world, but it’s nice.

But even that’s not the core of the novel — the fractured relationship between Ori and his older brother/former idol Del is where this book lives (or at least wants to). It takes time to get the full story, but Del goes from being the Top Dog in high school to a former jock/college drop-out during his first semester, he moves home and things between the brothers deteriorate quickly. Without this the rest of the book would barely be worth reading (as much as I liked it), watching Ori struggle to find the brother he worshiped in this current version, Del struggle with his current reality, and the brothers struggle to be civil — that’s the ultimate story being told here. And as well-done as it is — the emotions are right (on both sides), it’s utterly believable and relatable — but there’s something missing. I wish I knew what it was, but it’s just not as good as it wants to be.

I don’t want to overlook some of the other supporting characters — Ori’s little sister, his next-door neighbor/friend/band webmistress, and the eventual bass player are well-drawn, and I’ve been glad to spend more time with one/all of them — the bassist in particular.

A nice touch to this is in between some chapters, Vega provides logs from the band’s blog on a local music site — the blog posts themselves, mostly reiterate what we already know, but the comment threads? A lot of fun to read — and nice way to get a different perspective on events than Vega’s characters or the readers have.

A fun, quick read, emotionally satisfying, and almost as good as it tries to be — a pleasant way to while away a couple of hours.

—–

3 Stars

Autumn Bones by Jacqueline Carey

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On November 14, 2013

In Fiction

Autumn Bones
Autumn Bones

by Jacqueline Carey
Hardcover, 424 pg
Roc Hardcover, 2013

I quite enjoyed Carey’s UF debut, the first Agent of Hel book last year, Dark Currents, and was glad to see the sequel pop on my radar this fall. I’m not sure I enjoyed this as much as Dark Currents, but it was close enough, to not spend much time comparing the two.

Half-human/half-incubus, Daisy Johanssen has grown a bit more comfortable in her role as Hel’s Agent on earth — a liaison between human and eldritch communities most of the time, occasional supernatural cop. She’s also grown more comfortable with herself i general, even dating someone regularly — a normal human being, Sinclair Palmer — the Jamaican immigrant we met last time, when he was busy getting various fairies to assist in his tourist bus business.

Except he’s not all that normal. His family, Obeah practitioners, have decided it’s time for him to come home — without taking a millisecond to consult him. He resists this summons — with the assistance of Daisy and most of the local magic practitioners. Mom and sister don’t take this too kindly and proceed to let a restless spirit loose in the town to wreak whatever havoc it can until Sinclair decides to come home.

And havoc is wreaked — so Daisy has to work on both tracking down and trapping this spirit, preventing much more of the town being destroyed, saving Sinclair, and how yeah — figuring out who the guys buying up more and more of the city is.

Meanwhile, Daisy’s working with the Outcast (ghouls) to better understand and use whatever supernatural abilities she has. Not only was it good to see Daisy grow to do more than just wave that magic dagger around, this provided a good opportunity to better understand the Outcast has a group and as individuals. This may have been my favorite part of the book.

There’s a subplot involving the vampire group in town and Daisy’s best friend’s family, carried over from the last book. I liked this a lot more than I expected to when it was reintroduced, and look forward to the exploration of this a bit more in the next novel.

I really could’ve lived without quite as much detail about the sex lives of Daisy (and others), but given this is the author of the Kushiel books* — this is pretty decent. Also, one reference to her friends becoming her Scoobies à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer is enough — I think we got 3 or more here. C’mon, Carey — if we’re reading this, there’s a better than average chance we know the show and have already noticed what’s going on with Daisy’s friends. When you beat the horse like this, it’s just not that sporting.

A well-told story, good characters, actual character development and lots of potential for the series as a while — better than more than a few UF novels I’ve read this year.

—–

* This observation is based solely on impressions I have of the various books by that name, no first hand knoweldge — I could be totally out to lunch.

—–

3 Stars

The Arrivals by Melissa Marr

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On November 7, 2013

In Western

The Arrivals
The Arrivals

by Melissa Marr
Hardcover, 274 pgs.
William Morrow, 2013

This is a very hard book to describe, which is a positive in this case — a portal fantasy involving sympathetic vampires, semi-domesticated dragons, outlaws and magic — in a Wild West-ish setting. On second thought, guess it’s not that tough to describe after all.

That may sound like Marr’s tried to throw too many things into the mix, and technically she made have — but she made it work well enough to get through almost 300 pages. Decades ago, a brother and sister (Kitty and Jack) from the Berkeley Area in the late 1800’s vanish and reappear in a new world, called The Wasteland. Some time later, they’re joined by others — including a Prohibition-era mobster, Edgar and then others from various periods in America. And other than one particular event in their background, there’s virtually nothing these people have in common.

Once they arrive in The Wasteland — each new person has to make a decision, to live with Jack and “The Arrivals” or to become a henchman to a pretty twisted proto-mafioso. Independence or some sort of servitude. The majority opt for the security and safety of the latter.

Oh, did I mention there are demon-summoning monks roaming around?

Jack and his people make ends meet doing odds and ends for the local governor, and other miscellaneous figures. Just trying to eke out a living, have a little left over for fun (read: whiskey).

It could be coincidence, it could be a matter of timing, or maybe it’s just the new presence of someone who showed up from 2013 Earth — but things that have been pretty much the same for decades start to change — and the Wasteland will never be the same.
quickly develop into well-rounded characters. This is probably Marr’s strength (not a knock on anything else she did here), as we see that the heroes aren’t always that heroic, most of the villains aren’t that bad either (most of them).

It’s a fun read, a quick read in an incredible world, with well-build and realized characters. Worth your time.

—–

3 Stars

The House of Hades by Rick Riordan

By

On October 29, 2013

In Authors, Fantasy, Fiction, In Medias Res, P-U, Rick Riordan, YA/MG/Children's Books

The House of Hades
The House of Hades

by Rick Riordan
Hardcover, 597 pg.
Hyperion Books, 2013

I guess I already said the essence of what I have to say about this back when I checked in midway. This is a fun read, but a tad formulaic. However, it’s Riordan’s formula, so he pulls it off very well.

Hades didn’t charm me as much as his book usually do, and I’m not sure if that’s just me, or if it was a flaw in the book. Part of it was knowing that there was one more book, no matter what victories the Campers scored, they were only going to set the stage for the ultimate battle. Even as I say that, I know that’s not the case — but a lot of it just felt like marking time until the final installment next year.

The central conceit of Riordan’s mythology books is that these kids — near-teens or teenagers — are beating various and sundry mythological creatures — from monsters, to nymphs, to Titans or gods — in a variety of contests, even in battles to the death. Which can be hard to swallow sometimes, if you stop and think about it. But this is a common thing even in the old myths — mortals outsmarting these types. Too many of these contests in Hades are resolved by the Campers goading their opponents into making an obviously stupid move. Once or twice a novel, they could get away with it. I should’ve written it down, but he used that trick at least three times (maybe four or five) — in any event, it was enough that I groaned at least twice.

I don’t want to come down to hard on this book, I did like it. I haven’t chuckled at an obituary like I did at the one included in this book in a long time (you were supposed to, I’m not that twisted). There were some great character moments, some good personal growth — most of which I can’t get into without getting really spoilery. But, in short — Frank’s growth (in every sense of the word) was fantastic; Percy (and to an extent, Leo) realizing some of his former blunders and broken promises — he really comes off looking far less heroic and more human (which ends up making him more heroic). I do wish we’d had a bit more Reyna, I think she was given short-shrift, but what she did was probably more important in the end than what happened in most of the book.

Leo Valdez, however, is the hero of this book (and he’s come close to being the hero of one or two others in this series). Riordan really makes him shine throughout. It’s a real pleasure to read every one of his scenes — whether he’s the point-of-view character for that chapter or not.

I’m looking forward to the final book in this series, I do fear that it’ll be the last Riordan series I read. Unless he returns to adult fiction, that is. I have one son that currently provides me excuses to read Riordan, but he’s getting a bit long in the tooth for these books and has pretty much decided this is it for him. Hopefully, we can get his little brother into them, so I can keep going.

—–

3 Stars

Review: Leader of the Pack

By

On October 24, 2013

In Andy Carpenter, Authors, David Rosenfelt, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, P-U

Leader of the PackLeader of the Pack

by David Rosenfelt
Series: Andy Carpenter, #10

Hardcover, 360 pg.
Minotaur Books, 2012

I’m sure these are laborious at times, and it takes a lot of effort to make a novel read as smoothly as these do, but it really seems like David Rosenfelt is on automatic pilot these days with his Andy Carpenter books, they’re consistently entertaining, clever, and filled with the requisite twists for a good mystery — he almost has to be working off an assembly line.

The investigator/bodyguard Marcus in the Hawk/Joe Pike/Bubba Rugowski role here is ever closer to the super hero that Rosenfelt has had in mind since his introduction — he eats more Michael Phelps, fights better than Batman and talks only a little more than Marcel Marceau. But it’s fun, and there’s no pretension to anything approaching realism, so it works.

The same is true for Sam, Andy’s accountant/hacker. He’s faster with a computer than is possible, and somehow gets into places he shouldn’t be able to very easily. Again — it’s fun enough that it’s excusable, and he’s not nearly as nigh-omnipotent as Marcus is, he messes up, is far too focused on being in the field, in the midst of action. I worry this’ll either spell doom for him soon, or he’ll become as incredible as Marcus. I do miss the song-talking Sam days, though — but I can’t imagine Rosenfelt going back to that now.

I realize that with the bench of recurring characters he’s established, not everyone gets the kind of “screen time” they once did, but there was so little of Laurie in this book I was pretty disappointed — part of the charm of the books is the two of them working together. Hopefully that’s rectified in the next book.

These were all thoughts that came to me after I read and stopped to think about it — by page 2 or 3, most of my critical functions turned off and I just had fun with the book. But one thing did stick out to me, the big crime that’s being carried out during the trial (and has a direct bearing on the outcome of Andy’s case — not that anyone could tell him about it, until it’s too late) has been so big, so epic in scale that it’s mind-boggling. They almost feel like they don’t fit both in tone or scope with the rest of the book/series. When the bad guys did _____ this time, it really took me out of the moment. It didn’t ultimately detract from the book (I don’t think), but it was incongruous enough, that I had to work at it for a chapter or two.

Still, one of the most enjoyable mystery series around — I laughed, I got tense, I didn’t see much of the ending coming at all.

—–

3 Stars

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