Book Review of Black Wolf

This is the follow up to Red Queen, which I raved about last year and is now a series on Amazon Prime.  The follow up – Black Wolf – isn’t as good although it does return us to the fascinating character of Antonia Scott, a woman with special abilities that have been trained to solve crime.  The ending of the first novel set Scott up with a new nemesis, and at the beginning of this second we find her still focused on that directive – but a new case calls her away and she is sent to retrieve Lola Moreno, the pregnant wife of a murdered Russian mafia figure.

Moreno and her whole scenario are not what they appear which is engaging but hardly a surprise.  But the whole novel feels like Gomez-Jurado is biding his time – place filling before he gets to the real point which is hinted at again in the novel’s final chapter. Even the title refers to something quite non-central to the narrative.

This is solid storytelling – and a delightful read in the sun between races at the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix this weekend.  But it is a let down after the first explosive novel.  Let’s hope it picks up again in the third instalment.

Book Review of Pineapple Street

I’d heard good things about this book and so picked it up on a bit of a whim. I wouldn’t say it was worth all the rave reviews, but I did find as the book went on, I became more interested in the lives and the problems of the three women at its centre.  

The first, Sasha, married into the wealthy Stockton family – but does not understand their ways. Because of this,  members of the family have taken against her – and her husband, while loving, does not actively take her side enough. Worse still, they live in the traditional family home on Pineapple Street which all drop into on a whim, and that they do not feel they can change and make their own.

Farley was born into the family but deferred her inheritance to her children so as not to ask her husband Malcolm for a prenup.  What seemed like the ultimate romantic gesture has consequences when Malcolm loses his lucrative banking job and Farley considers what she left behind to be his wife and full-time parent of their two children.

The third, Georgiana was the spoilt baby of the family – totally privileged and never thinks about money.  She works for a non-profit and her life is a series of dinners and parties.  But she too has change coming her way as people in her orbit encourage her to ask questions of her lifestyle and of the generations of inherited wealth at her disposal.

The book brings the three women together and apart and together again. It’s about family, money and the consequences of being raised with wealth.  A solid outing that ends well for all.

Book Review of The Rachel Incident

This was a book that continually surprised me and in the best possible way.  It’s a book about being young, wanting what your older peers have, keeping secrets, and what happens when those secrets take over.

The blurb tells us that our main character Rachel is attracted to her literature professor – and that her gay best friend James decides they can entertain themselves by planning her seduction of him.  From this, I had certain expectations of the book that were quickly subverted.  There were plenty of times The Rachel Incident surprised me and kept me powering through to see what on earth James and Rachel would get up to next as they try to find their place in the world.

Caroline O’Donoghue has created a compelling narrative here that doesn’t run to the salacious but is nonetheless dramatic and believable.  Told largely in retrospect, the older Rachel intersperses this tumultuous time in her life with her older and wiser self, and the book ends well with loose ends coming together and many hatchets buried.  A balanced coming-of-age story that is also a real page turner.

Book Review of Red Side Story

I read a lot of Jasper Fforde in my twenties – and in fact the name of my book blog is derived from the first I picked up.  “The Well Of Lost Plots” is a part of the Thursday next series, an inventive concept around a world in which people can enter books (and specifically, investigate crimes in there). 

Red Side Story is the second and likely final in the Shades of Grey world – one which was not as popular with his other readers but I liked immensely.  It’s a world in which your social status is tied up with your ability to see colour (see the link to the first book for details) and your ability to pass on the colour that you can see.  Eddie, our main character is hapless in many ways, but his 87% ability to see red has him targeted by Violet, an awful purple girl as the father of her children.  We never want purple to see too much blue, after all.

The problem Is not just that Violet is awful, but that he loves Jane, raised as a Grey but recently shown she can see a little green.  And Green and Red do not mix.

Beyond the personal elements which play out quite interestingly, is the nagging suspicion that all is not right in their world, and that it appears, someone is watching them.  And what can this mean in a society where the expectation is total control?

Fforde lets us in on the secret at the end of the novel which is why I think the planned trilogy may have been cut short. 

It was long-ish but had me laughing out loud in places, particularly in the beginning.  Fforde continues to be a unique thinker and this too, does not disappoint.

Book Review of The Secret History

They call this a modern classic, and while there is much of interest here, it is honestly too long. It felt like a burden to finish and there was plenty that Tartt could have pulled in and still created the same effect.

It centres around Richard, a young man ashamed of his suburban background and desperate to improve himself.  He manoeuvres his way into a college, keen to study Greek – which he found an unexpected aptitude for – and comes to admire from afar an elite group of scholars chosen by an infamous tutor to immerse themselves in the classics. They are wealthy, haughty and mysterious and he longs to be one of them.  He remodels himself as the sort of person they might be friends with, telling numerous lies and regularly visiting the op shop along the way, but has his chance to make his mark when he assists them with a bit of unusual translation in the library.

Soon he is included in the program although an outsider initially into their secrets. Observing, he notes the power shift to the penniless and manipulative Bunny who has stumbled upon a dark secret the other four would rather keep to themselves.

Richard is drawn into their web at this point, and becomes a sort of wide-eyed participant in their eventual murder of Bunny and the ensuing madness in which guilt works upon each.

None of the characters are likeable but they are compelling. You understand Richard’s fascination but also know – as he does too late – that few whom we put upon a pedestal can live up to the image we place upon them. Reality is never true to the fantasy we create of them.

Tartt prides herself on creating a modern Greek tragedy here – and I’d say this is rather successful.  It has the feel of a classic book although not that old, and revisits many of the tropes of this kind of literature.  But it was a slog to get through.  Time for something lighter next time.

Book Review of The Housemaid’s Secret

This was pretty weak – but served as an excellent palate cleanser in the midst of a longer slower book.  I read it in three days.  Short easy chapters and a relatively obvious if unbelievable storyline.  It also turns out it is the second book in a series, but I didn’t miss anything by not reading the first.  I also don’t feel particularly pressed to go back to it – or to any other Freida McFadden while we are at it.

Millie is a housemaid trying to become a social worker – but really she is a defender of battered woman.  She has developed a reputation in secret circles for helping woman escape their abusive husbands – but her lover and partner in crime Enzo has left to be with his dying mother, and Millie finds herself alone and in desperate need of employment. 

Her new employer – for once – is a husband.  Douglas Garrick takes care of household matters as the wife is unwell – closed into a room where Millie often hears her crying.  But she is not allowed to make contact with her.

Millie has never turned her back on a woman in need – that’s why she has a prison record.  So when Wendy Garrick’s situation appears dire – Millie steps in.  But as we are only half way through the book, the reader knows there will be more to the situation than meets the eye. 

None of this is ground breaking – I was onto this book’s secrets pretty quickly and found myself scoffing towards the end at some plot points that were unbelievable.  But nonetheless, I enjoyed powering through the short chapters.  The right book at the right time – but I wont read this author again.

Book Review of The Fireground

This was a freebie I think on Audible and as I like Dervla McTiernan, I thought I might give it a go.

It’s different to a lot of other mysteries in that much of the seven hours of plot is devoted to exposition and setting up the characters – with only the last two hours or so addressing and investigating the crime.

We set up two sets of characters who will eventually meet.  Flynn and her sister Kaiya were orphaned in their teens and upon reaching 18, Flynn takes legal responsibility for her sister – putting many of her hopes and dreams aside.  We also meet Noah whose mother was a victim of domestic abuse, who finds refuge in mixed martial arts and feels compelled to help women in danger.  Just before these two stories really collide, he and a friend have helped another abused woman escape her policeman husband.

Although he has seen her before in his martial arts classes, Noah and Flynn connect when he finds her contemplating suicide at the beach one night.  Kaiya – who struggled with her own mental health in the years preceding disappeared and likely died in a fire whilst on a camp with a group of climate change activists that Flynn had always found creepy.  Flynn never knew what really happened to her – but a suspicious text Kaiya sent before her death suggests there may have been foul play.

Noah volunteers to go on a retreat with the group to see what he can find out.  The last few hours have some very quick discoveries and whilst the resolution of the novel is satisfying, there’s not a lot of drama and not a lot of reason for what happened to occur.  I’m still not sure that there was enough reason for Kaiya to have been targeted and for the group to be so sketchy. Still, the characters are likeable and the book was pretty engaging.

Book Review of One Day

A lot of people had this listed amongst their favourite books, and conversation was sparked about the title again with Netflix recently dropping an adaptation.

I like the concept – following two characters on the same day for 20 years in their journey towards getting together, although in actuality it was somewhat less compelling than I thought.

Emma and Dexter meet just as they graduate university – he is handsome and charming, always with a woman on his arm, and she is clever and awkward.  He is clearly not ready for her in his early twenties, but likes her enough to stay close friends with her for the next twenty years.

We watch the highs and lows of their twenties and thirties, Dexter’s success as a TV presenter with is matched only by his lows with drugs and alcohol and unsustainable relationships and Emma’s gradual progression through teaching, a safe and comfortable relationship into becoming the author she always wanted to be.  On July 15^th each year, we touch base with them – which is kind of artificial as we don’t always see, think about and spend time with people on the same arbitrary day each year. So you have to take this with a grain of salt.

The characters progress well enough to keep you reading to see where they will land, always with the assumption that they will get together at some point.  Nicholls does have a nasty surprise in store a bit before the end which gave me a bit of a shock – and then the rest of the book must unfurl differently.

All in all, not bad – although I struggle to see why it is quite as popular as it is.

Book Review of I Have Some Questions for You

I’d heard this was good and it was a slow burn at first – and then utterly absorbing as it unravelled.

Bodhi Kane is a podcaster who returns to the private school she was on scholarship at to teach to short courses.  There are many reasons for this – but in the back of her mind is the murder of a fellow student that has always haunted her and many of her classmates.

Thalia was beautiful and popular – and the athletics coach who went to jail for her murder was someone who didn’t seem to know her that well.

When Bodhi’s students (with some suggestion by her) begin a podcasting project that looks at the case again, Bodhi must re-live some of her teenage experiences, where she felt much like an outsider in a wealthy privileged school.  While she may not have felt she knew Thalia well, they were roommates for two years and in that time, there were observations that she made that as an adult, she can now ponder and turn over.

Needless to say, the student podcast sparks a new investigation.

Bodhi’s memories lead us down several paths of possible killers, and one in particular.  What is true though is that justice can be blind – and children perhaps do not have the maturity to interpret what they see around them.  Many clues were there all along – and even adult readers will miss some of them until they are put together for us.

A worthy and interesting read.

Book Review of Hidden Potential

Think Again is one of my favourite books – a clever, entertaining and insightful look that encourages us to consistently update our thinking and seek out new ideas and points of view.  The examples and advice range from the personal to the professional.

I was naturally excited about his new book Hidden Potential, but found it resonated less that his previous book.  Don’t get me wrong, Grant remains a brilliant thinker and excellent writer, but Hidden Potential is a book that would have resonated more with me a handful of years ago when I was still teaching and still working in leadership.  Adam Grant is clearly writing as an organisational psychologist here. Most of the focus is on helping others learn and in helping teams gel, rather than on personal growth.  It’s relevant – but it has you focussing more outwardly than inwardly.

There are still good tips on maximising your own potential that focus on looking for advice, not feedback and being selective about WHO you seek advice from, and on making learning FUN for yourself, but this is clearly a book for leaders and coaches.  There is a whole chapter on schools which is incredibly interesting and one I would encourage all my teacher friend to read and the final chapter is on teams and team building to generate the best results which is also a must-read.  For those in that sphere.  But less personal development here than I might have expected.