Reviews

William Kent Krueger: Heaven’s Keep

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“The mountains became deep blue in the twilight, and the canyons between were like dark, poisoned veins. Though the sun had dropped below the rest of the range, it hadn’t yet set on Heaven’s Keep, which towered above everything else. Its walls burned with the angry red of sunset, and it looked more like the gate to hell than anything to do with Heaven.”

If you’ve been following Cork O’Connor as I have, since the first book in this fine series, it’s almost hard to separate one from the other. In a steady stream since the publication of Iron Lake in 1998, we as readers have been treated to the arc of Cork O’Connor’s life, and by association, the life of his family. In the first book, Cork and his wife Jo are estranged; she’s been having an affair. Painfully and slowly, through the course of the next five or so books, the O’Connors draw back together. With Heaven’s Keep, Krueger brings the circle to a close with Jo’s death. read more

William Kent Krueger: Blood Hollow

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This is the welcome and long awaited return of Cork O’Connor – he’s been missed, and his return is a worthy one. This novel finds Cork perhaps the closest to home in all the novels – the story is very much a small town story of interwoven connections, both good and bad. It also shines the spotlight on Cork’s sister-in-law, Rose, the cook/housekeeper and heart of the O’Connor family, who in this novel leaves home to housekeep temporarily for the Catholic priest. I think one of the reasons Kent Krueger has such a wide appeal is that there’s plenty of action for male readers, and for female readers, there’s both a sensitive exploration of women’s feelings and emotions, as well as a real honoring of women, no matter what their role. Rose is a case in point. She’s a simple housewife, no more, no less, and she aspires to nothing more. That’s not an especially honored role today, but Krueger makes it explicit that their family couldn’t function without her. When she leaves, it’s as though something is missing. read more

Kathryn Casey: Deadly Little Secrets: The Minister, His Mistress, and a Heartless Texas Murder

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Now that we’re in the middle of another political campaign, perhaps it’s time to examine the proposition that ostentatious religious piety is somehow indicative of inner virtue. To all those who boast of how devoted a church (or temple) goer their candidate is, how full of praise and prayer, how supportive of the precepts of their faith, I present Matt Baker, popular hardworking pastor, devoted family man and product of good Christian parents, the very embodiment of those old time Texas Baptist values – and also, oh yeah, a thoroughly depraved murderer. read more

S.J. Watson: Before I Go to Sleep

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This was a book club selection, and it’s one of the few I can remember where I had advance e-mails from delighted club members saying how much they loved this book.  One woman even came in and bought another copy to give to a friend.  When I finally got to reading this book – a multiple award nominee this year in the U.S., and last year in the U.K. – I found out how intelligent my book club members really are.  I loved it too, and like them, I couldn’t put it down.  I was making a drive home and had to pull into a rest stop to finish reading it.  The last book that required such a drastic measure was Michael Connelly’s The Poet. read more

William Kent Krueger: Trickster’s Point

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William Kent Krueger is one of the best pure storytellers I can think of.  The way he presents each character in his books makes them at the same time ordinary and mythic.  His central character, Cork O’Connor, is no exception, a peaceful warrior detective who has weathered losing his wife and has maintained a stable inner core through all his travails.  He is a hunter and a discoverer.

In this story, Cork has been out hunting with an old friend, Jubal Little, who ends up dead thanks to an arrow through his chest. Jubal is not only Cork’s friend but the first candidate for Governor in Minnesota with Native blood, making his death big news.  It becomes clear that  Jubal and Cork’s relationship was both long and complicated,  and the story of this novel is essentially the story of a friendship.  Cork is the main suspect in Jubal’s death as he had stayed with Jubal while he died instead of going for help.  Also, the arrow, handmade, is distinctively one of Cork’s. read more

Louise Penny: The Beautiful Mystery

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This novel, the eighth in Penny’s award winning and beloved Armand Gamache series, is yet another variation on the golden age form she uses as a template.  This one is basically a classic locked room mystery, though it’s so much more, as are all of Penny’s novels.  Set not in Three Pines but in the obscure and remote monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-des-Loups (literally “Among the Wolves”), the victim is a monk, and the only two officers on site are Gamache and Beauvoir.

This is a beautifully constructed book, the form following the theme.  The monks of this obscure monastery are world renowned for their beautiful rendering of Gregorian chants, thanks to a recent CD that achieved wide distribution and acclaim.  Gregorian chants are sung to a very set and specific set of rules, and are simple and repetitive, the singing and listening both a form of mediation and prayer. read more

Julie Kramer: Shunning Sarah

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Julia Kramer’s skill set is extremely varied:  she’s funny, she writes suspenseful books, she tells you a bit about the way TV news works, and her books are an enjoyable breeze to read.  Why that is is a mystery, as she tends to actually cover some very dark territory in her novels, and they’ve gotten a tad darker lately.

She’s also, since her first novel, sharpened her skills as a straight up mystery writer.  She’s gotten terrific at twists and clues, and at setting up a story that gives the reader a fair chance at figuring things out.  In this novel, set partially in Minnesota’s Amish community, she takes two disparate worlds, the “English” and the Amish, and sort of pits them reluctantly against each other. The book opens with a terrific scene of a farm boy falling into a sinkhole and finding he’s there with a dead body.  While the farm boy isn’t the point, the dead body is the point, this wonderful scene setter grabs your attention and gets you completely invested in the story Kramer wants to tell. read more

Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl

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I think it’s safe to say this is the book of the year, and there isn’t always a “book of the year”, a book everyone’s talking about and reading.  But the premise and the voice in this book are so original and so captivating that the story will probably stay with you for a long, long time, and you’ll probably want to talk about it.

The author is definitely channeling psychological masters like Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith.  Putting together this lean, vicious, compelling book is a real act of writerly fortitude, because it’s an exhausting and sometimes terrible sprint.  And, like a Rendell or Highsmith book, when you get to the twisty middle, you know things are only going to get far, far worse. read more

Cornelia Read: Valley of Ashes

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Sorrow is always your own, offering no temptation to fickle gods.  Fucking joy, on the other hand?  You might as well string your heart from the ceiling for use as a frat-party piñata.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Cornelia Read’s voice is one of the most original, vivid and memorable in all of contemporary crime fiction.  I think I would be happy to read anything she wrote, in novel form or no, but happily she also writes wonderful novels.  While her books are technically a series, I think each of them stand well alone, and each have a different slant which sets them apart from one another. read more

Julia Keller: A Killing in the Hills

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Here’s some advice: run, don’t walk, to the stack of Julia Keller’s first crime novel, A Killing in the Hills, and stash away a first edition for yourself.  I rarely make this prediction but I am predicting Keller’s career will be a long one.  This is a wonderful first novel, strongly reminiscent of some of Laura Lippman’s best work – her stand-alone crime novels that, like this book, are about so much more.

A Killing in the Hills is set in the tiny, and fictional, Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, but the assured writing and sense of place make clear that while technically Acker’s Gap is not a real place, the town Keller is describing and writing about most definitely is real.  The book kicks off with the kind of random and senseless shooting that we have become all too familiar with recently:  three old men are gunned down in the middle of a busy lunch time at a fast food restaurant in Acker’s Gap. read more