Upstairs and down
I discovered two weeks ago that there was a brand-new installment of the Ashmore Castle series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles and, because I had read the last one almost a year ago, decided to reread that one and then the new one. So I have just spent almost two weeks reading The Mistress of Ashmore Castle again, followed by Rivals at Ashmore Castle, also apparently known as The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle? They both have exactly the same plot description—perhaps the name is different in the States than it is in England?
The publishers are going all out to exploit comparisons to Downton Abbey, The Crown, and Bridgerton, but I think the most apropos is the similarity to Upstairs, Downstairs, considering that we get to eavesdrop and spy on the people and the relationships amongst both the “quality” and the servants. And sometimes, of course, there is the scandal of a crossover between those classes.
Harrod-Eagles has done a nice job keeping both personal and historical content going, so that you get a real sense of context from these novels. There is a particular focus, via several characters, on the gradual inroads made by business into upper-class society; a mere 20 or 30 years previous, no one in the titled class would have considered marrying or even befriending a “tradesman,” but as familial wealth declines and business advances, both marriages and forays into new enterprises are undertaken by people from both sides of that divide, and in the process we get to see some of the innovations coming to early 20th-century England in 1905. There are also further glimpses into the women’s suffrage movement and the tentative breaking down of barriers to careers for women, although that’s a fairly small part of this story.
These things are only the backdrop, however, for the continuing soap opera that is the Stainton family, and many changes are made both above and below stairs.
Giles is home from Egypt, chastened by his boneheaded misunderstanding of the feelings of the lovely Italian Julia, and has retreated somewhat reluctantly into the arms of his loving wife, Kitty, and the management of their property and family. Richard, Giles’s younger brother, is still mooning over the impossibility of a relationship with his father’s former mistress, Molly, who has decamped to America to shepherd her daughter’s brilliant career as a concert pianist. But Richard finally decides that he has had enough of the frivolous life (and also of being poor and dependent on his brother) and focuses his energies on creating an innovative new business supplying milk to London with the help of Nina’s husband, Joseph Cowley, the wealthy and good-natured entrepreneur. Nina still struggles with her feelings for Giles but is attempting to channel them into her marriage while dabbling in politics against her husband’s wishes.
Rachel has struggles of her own; she wants to be with Angus (she does! really!), but is also reluctant to give up her social successes and many flirtations for a much less extravagant lifestyle as a tradesman’s wife; luckily, she isn’t free to make that commitment until she turns 21, since her mother is determined to marry her to a nice Russian prince or some such, so as long as she can resist other offers, she can keep partying. Alice, meanwhile, has found an outlet for her passion by focusing on her art, with both positive and negative outcomes. And Sebastian and “Uncle Stuffy” both unexpectedly explore a future with new partners.
Below stairs, Mr. Moss suffers two losses, Afton considers his role, new footman Frederick is perhaps more than he seems, and Dory fearfully contemplates a change of status.
From train crashes to unexpected marriages to forbidden passions, the theme of this latest installment seems to be upheaval. I will definitely continue to read this series with anticipation and enjoyment.
Meanwhile…
I have needed to play catch-up with Harrod-Eagles’s other series that I have followed for many years, the Bill Slider police procedurals. There were two books I hadn’t yet read, so I picked them up from Kindle Unlimited after I finished the Ashmore books. I read the first one, Easeful Death, then started the second one, Deadly Force, only to realize that what was once gripping now felt somewhat stale. (I have, after all, read 25 of them!) I don’t know whether I have permanently run out of steam on these or whether it’s just a temporary boredom because I wasn’t in the mood for mainstream mystery right now, but I decided to put the second one aside for the moment in favor of a new book I discovered in a reading group; it has something to do with pirates, so it sounded more fun than solving yet another grim murder. I’ll report back soon.
In celebration of dogs
The phrase “the dog days of summer” comes from the ancient Latin phrase diēs caniculārēs, meaning “days of the dog star.” The ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the brilliant light and proximity of Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky and part of the constellation of Canis Major) combined with the Sun’s heat to create stifling weather, droughts, bad luck, and fevers. Modern-day science has proven that Sirius does not radiate extra heat to Earth; the extreme temperatures are, rather, a result of the Earth’s tilt during mid-summer. But I think I’m sticking with the conclusions of the elders, because “dog days” are now eternally identified with the torturous, unbearable heat of August. Whenever anyone uses that phrase, I picture the dusty main street of a town in the Old West, with strays lying in whatever patches of shade they can find, panting from the heat.
All of this is to say, today is NATIONAL DOG DAY! For which that was a rambling and not especially pertinent intro, except for the fact that it’s 100 degrees in MY western town today, and my tongue is also hanging out.
For all of us staying in the shade for the next week who need something to pass the time, here are some titles of books either specifically about a dog or with a prominent canine character.
F I C T I O N
Blue Dog, by Louis De Bernieres
After the death of his father, Mick is sent to live with his Grandpa on a cattle station in the Australian outback, a tough place to grow up. But when Mick discovers a lost puppy in the wreckage of a cyclone, he finds a companion who will share that journey with him. By the author of Corelli’s Mandolin.
Lessons in Chemistry, by Bonnie Garmus
A stray taken in by the scientist-turned-television star, Six-Thirty is a dog who proves two hypotheses: One, dogs have the capability to learn human vocabulary, even if they cannot voice it themselves, and two, humans defy logic. For it is through Six-Thirty’s inquisitive and deeply logical brain that we are offered an insight into what life is like as a Very Good Boy.
Frederica, by Georgette Heyer
Frederica, the protagonist of one of Heyer’s popular Regency romances, ends up in the middle of an unexpected adventure when she takes the family dog out for a walk around Green Park. Lufra, a large, boisterous mongrel, charges the cows grazing there and draws the wrath of several park attendants. Afraid the dog might be impounded, Frederica blurts out that the dog is a pure-bred “Barcelona collie” and belongs to a Marquis who will be extremely angry if his costly canine companion comes to any harm. Unconvinced, the mob traipses over to the Marquis’s residence to sort things out and, luckily, he clocks what’s happening, goes along with the lie, and saves the day.
Seven Perfect Things, by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Thirteen-year-old Abby Hubble rescues a litter of seven puppies dumped in a nearby river in the Sierra Nevada. She can’t bring them home to her volatile father, so she hides them in an abandoned cabin, where she and the puppies are discovered by grieving widower Elliot Colvin. A friendship develops between the two, but it’s threatened when her father wants to move the family hundreds of miles away.
The Friend, by Sigrid Nuñez
A woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend, only to find herself burdened with the dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is exacerbated by the suffering of the dog, a Great Dane traumatized by the unexplainable disappearance of its master. The woman refuses to be parted from the dog, even though dogs are forbidden in her apartment building, and the book uses this pairing to explore the themes of death, writing, and relationships. The National Book Award winner for 2018.
Dog On It (Chet & Bernie Mystery #1), by Spencer Quinn
A series told from the POV of the dog, Chet. If Chet doesn’t see/hear/smell it, neither do we. And Chet gets distracted easily (Squirrel!), which parenthetically saves us from a lot of unnecessary tedious details. Chet is intensely loyal to down-on-his-luck private investigator Bernie, and puts his extraordinary nose to good use in helping Bernie solve mysteries. This first book led to 15 more, plus some interim short stories.
Dog Days, by Ericka Waller
Three strangers’ lives unravel and intersect as they discover what fate has in store for them with their dogs by their sides.
The Dog I Loved, by Susan Wilson (who has written several other dog-themed books)
Two women—a former criminal and a disabled war veteran—navigate paths towards independence aided by two dogs.
“The average dog is
ANDY ROONEY
a nicer person than the average person.”
N O N F I C T I O N / M E M O I R
Off the Leash: A Year at the Dog Park, by Matthew Gilbert
A group portrait of dog people, specifically the strange, wonderful, neurotic, and eccentric dog people who gather at Amory Park, near Boston’s Fenway Park.
Oogy: The Dog Only A Family Could Love, by Larry Levin
At the animal hospital to have their beloved but terminally ill cat put to sleep, Levin and his twin sons, Dan and Noah (themselves adopted), discover the ugliest dog they had ever seen (he had been used as bait for fighting dogs when only a puppy). The dog seemed determined to belong to them, so they took him home and called him Oogy (an affectionate version of “ugly”).
E. B. White On Dogs, edited by Martha White
The best and funniest of the Charlotte’s Web author’s essays, poems, letters, and sketches depicting over a dozen of White’s various canine companions.
F O R C H I L D R E N
Pig the Pug, by Aaron Blabey (picture book series)
Pig is the greediest Pug in the world. He is ill-tempered, rude and unreasonable, and does not want to share his toys!
Good Dog, Carl, by Alexandra Day (picture book for young children)
The first in a series about the babysitting Rottweiler. The first has notably sparse text, but sequels such as Carl’s Summer Vacation and Carl’s Snowy Afternoon are more elaborate.
Chester and Gus, by Cammie McGovern (middle school)
Chester flunks out of service dog school (he is not calm when there are loud noises), but then he is adopted by a family for their son Gus, a nonverbal autistic boy. Told from the dog’s viewpoint, who struggles to figure out how best to help his person.
If this list doesn’t offer what you seek, I have featured a similar column for several years, and you can still access those, as well as some individual longer reviews about dog-related fiction:
https://bookadept.com/2025/08/26/best-in-show/
https://bookadept.com/2020/08/26/the-dog-days-of-summer
https://bookadept.com/2024/08/26/dog-day-afternoon/
https://bookadept.com/2021/10/14/a-boy-and-his-dog/
https://bookadept.com/2021/09/05/coming-of-age-w-dogs/
It’s International Cat Day!
Let’s talk about some titles with cats as their theme!
MILLIONS OF CATS,
by Wanda Gág
This is considered the first American modern picture book. Before 1928, most picture books in the United States were imported from Europe or relied on standard separated text and static art. Millions of Cats was one of the first books to use double-page spreads where the art flows across both pages to tell the story. It won a Newbery Honor in 1929. It’s the story of an old man and an old woman who were very lonely and decided to get a cat. But when the old man went out searching, he found not one cat, but millions and billions and trillions of cats! Unable to decide which one would be the best pet, he brought them all home.
SIMON’S CAT,
by Simon Tofield
This artist started out publishing his animations about he and his demanding cat online, mostly on YouTube, and the book came afterwards. The cat’s daily escapades accentuate the hilarious and typical behavior of cats everywhere.
THE CAT WHO COULD READ BACKWARDS, by Lillian Jackson Braun
This is the first in Braun’s series of “The Cat Who…” cozy mysteries. She wrote the first in 1966, penned a couple more, and then wrote hardcore crime fiction for 18 years before returning to fill out this series; she ended up writing 29 of them. One reviewer on Goodreads says, “I have never seen a cat-themed novel depict a human / feline relationship better than Lillian’s do.” The characters and writing are quirky, the mysteries are offbeat, and it’s a good cup-of-tea rainy-day read.
POETRY FOR CATS: The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse, by Henry Beard
What if famous poets’ cats also wrote poetry? Pretty funny if you are not familiar with the original works but even better if you are.
I situate myself, and seat myself,
And where you recline I shall recline,
For every armchair belonging to you as good as belongs to me…
—Walt Whitman’s cat
If you can disappear when all about you / Are madly searching for you everywhere, / And then just when they start to leave without you, / Turn up as if you always were right there; / If you can shed your hair in any season, / And cough up half of all that you devour, / And rush from room to room without a reason, / Then sit and stare at nothing for an hour…
—Rudyard Kipling’s cat
Do not go peaceable to that damn vet, / A cat can always tell a trip is due, / Hide, hide, when your appointment time is set.
—Dylan Thomas’s cat
Just a few to get you started—you can find thousands more in the “lists” category on Goodreads!
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5848.Cat_Lovers_List
Stepmother, reimagined
I just finished reading Lady Tremaine, a debut novel by Rachel Hochhauser that reimagines the Cinderella story. But honestly, this is less the story of Cinderella (her stepdaughter Elin) than it is of the protagonist, Ethelreda the stepmother.
It’s kind of a weird one, and for that I liked it. I always enjoy it when someone does a thorough job of turning a fairy tale on its head—witness my enthusiastic reviews of the books of T. Kingfisher who, in some cases, renders them well near unrecognizable. In this case, the poor downtrodden Cinderella is, instead, a classic example of privilege, existing in her own little fantasy world of “proper” womanliness while rejecting the stepmother whose efforts put food on her table, and the stepsisters who likewise labor for the family’s comfort.
In this version, Cinderella’s/Elin’s father has died and has left his estate in a form impossible to maintain: The house and grounds do go to his second wife, Ethel, but all the money has been left as a dowry for his daughter, unable to be broached or to be used for anything save as a bribe for a future husband. So the mother and her two natural and one stepdaughter are left in a drafty, decaying hall with no means of supporting themselves or its upkeep. Over the course of a decade or so, they sell off everything valuable (jewelry, silver, sculptures, furniture, portraits, picture frames) from the house while struggling to maintain the façade of respectability, hoping for marriages for the girls. They are assisted by two stalwart elderly servants with nowhere to go, who stay for love and a roof over their heads and labor alongside Ethel and her two daughters—sewing, picking the apples from their extensive orchards to sell at the village farmers’ market, and learning to do what it takes to survive with no money and few resources. While the five women do this, Elin sits in her turret room reading etiquette books and refusing to expose her pale skin to the sun or her delicate hands to the harshness of work.
While it’s an interesting take, it’s a little hard to go with it, perhaps because we are so accustomed to the idea of the stepmother as the villain and the poor child as the innocent victim redeemed by true love. There is a crucial element missing…until we meet the prince, and the queen, and another key member of the court. Then roles move around once again and dilemmas receive more clarity of purpose. I don’t want to say more than that and spoil the story, so I will just say that it is worth reading for the imagination involved to create it, and for some of its resulting themes.
“A prince without a retinue
otto, lady tremaine
is just a man with bad manners.”
The writing was evocative, although there were some careless mistakes in grammar and construction that could have been resolved by a more thorough editing. The character building was a little spotty, so that some figures were well-rounded and others too ephemeral. But…it was a debut novel and as such gives room for improvement, with good prospects, I would say, for its author if she can come up with something this creative.
Having said all that, I would refer you to the Kingfisher novels if you want this level of originality but with much superior exposition.
Mad Mabel
I was really looking forward to a new Sally Hepworth novel. Although I have felt lukewarm about a couple of her titles, I liked The Good Sister well enough to read it twice, and so many people raved about this one. But it turned out to be one of those books that I liked more right after I turned the last page than I did on later reflection, and since I left writing this review for a couple of days after finishing, my initial reaction has cooled with a more analytical frame of mind. I ended up feeling a bit disappointed with it. It’s not a bad book, but there are issues, for me, that kept it from a truly high rating.
Hepworth’s books are often promoted as mystery or suspense, but that description seems to me to be misleading and may be the source of some people’s disappointment with this book in particular. It’s true that she writes about people’s interpersonal drama and accentuates key moments that are major turning points, but the creation of the suspense here comes more from the construction of the timeline and its revelations than it does from true tension, and the “big reveals” ultimately fell flat. The whole “Mad Mabel the murderer” notoriety was built on one truth buried by a lot of rumor and supposition that didn’t turn out to be so dramatic as the build-up would indicate, and all the back-and-forthing to get there became tedious.
As for the set-up—the story’s key elements seemed stale to me. The curmudgeonly oldster with the secret soft spot for [fill in the blank] feels so overdone. I mean, stop to name a few others in this vein: A. J. Fikry. That guy called Ove. Even Vera Wong qualifies. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a quintessential story about a cranky old person and a young child crafting an unlikely friendship, but there are also Arthur Trulov and Maddie, Frank and Red, and Joseph and Mrs. F. And yeah, Ove again. Even the bit about the old person supposedly disliking animals but adopting one nonetheless when no one else wants it (and then secretly falling for it) has become a cliché.
Finally, some of the character-building felt decidedly lacking. I mean, the evil villains—that’s how they were painted, but the explanations were surface or nonexistent, they just were. The police officers were caricatures. Some of the neighborhood people who were supposedly instrumental remained cardboard cutouts until so late in the story that I didn’t care any longer. There just didn’t seem to be enough justification for some of the interactions in this story. The best character for me was the child, Persephone, who was written with all the ebullience and spontaneity of a real seven-year-old and maintained her fresh appeal throughout.
Maybe the fault lies not with the book but with this cantankerous reader. I gave it four stars out of five when I finished it, then downgraded to three a couple of days later. Perhaps reading it after thoroughly enjoying the originality of Kingfisher’s Thornhedge did it a disservice by comparison. Who knows? At any rate, it gets top marks from about 90 percent of its readers, so don’t let me stop you—draw your own conclusions.
One P.S.—what is up with that cover? Mabel is in her 80s. Most of the pertinent action happens either when she is a young child, a teenager of 14-17, or an elderly woman, so why on earth is there a 35-year-old on the cover?
At the base of the tower
I have previously spoken here of how delightful I find the fantasy tales of T. Kingfisher. While she does write completely original stories (as well as some that are more horror than fantasy), many of her books are retellings of traditional fairy tales. The thing that sets her apart is the whimsy and originality with which she manages this. I have read many fairy tale retellings, mostly because that became an exceedingly popular format in young adult fiction while I was still the purchasing librarian for the YA book collection at the library where I worked. I was often disappointed at the lack of innovation and also the tendency towards “romantasy” that many of their authors chose, so when I discovered T. Kingfisher, I was taken with her unorthodox approaches, some of which make the generative fairy tale all but unrecognizable but always give good value to the story.
The most recent one I read was Thornhedge, which is based on the stories of Rapunzel, sequestered in a tower, and of Sleeping Beauty, whose slumbering kingdom is surrounded by a well-nigh impassable hedge of thorns and brambles.
In the legend of Rapunzel, a pregnant woman craves a rare salad green (rapunzel, or rampion), and her husband steals some from the garden of a powerful witch. As revenge, the witch takes the baby (or in some versions the father sells the baby to the witch), and locks her in a doorless tower hidden deep in the forest. We all know the story of how Rapunzel’s hair grows long enough that the witch can climb up her braid to visit her. One day a wandering prince hears her singing and pretends to be the witch to get her to let down her braid. He ascends, the two fall in love and that’s where the Disney version stops; the Grimm’s fairy tale has a much darker ending, with banishment, blindness, and eventual reconciliation of the lovers.
Charles Perrault was responsible for promoting the basic Sleeping Beauty tale of a wicked fairy’s curse that ultimately sends a princess and her kingdom to sleep for 100 years. The castle is surrounded by a protective hedge, and a prince breaks through the hedge to awaken the beautiful princess with a kiss.
Kingfisher had just completed a Sleeping Beauty-related book for children (featuring hamsters instead of people), and her mind continued to toy with themes after she was done. What she thought about was, What if the princess was locked in a doorless tower inside a daunting hedge not to protect her but to protect everyone else from her? and Thornhedge started writing itself. To continue that line of thought, what if the fairy sent to bless the child was inept or distracted and didn’t deliver the correct wording, so that in defense of humanity she had then to remain close at hand to make sure that no well-meaning romantic king’s son hacked through the hedge and broke down the wall of the tower to get to the princess, who, once awakened, would eat him for lunch and then go on a rampage from which no one could defend themselves?
In Kingfisher’s version, the guardian is Toadling, a homely woman who can transform into a handsome toad. She has her own complicated back story that I won’t go into here, because it is hard to explain but also because it’s best read for itself; and that story connects her with her charge, the sleeping princess, and makes her responsible for preserving the spells, wards, and physical deterrents that keep the princess quiescent. But many years after she’s thinking that it’s finally safe to let down her guard, since everyone who would have the slightest memory of the tower or its inhabitant is long dead to the third generation or beyond, a wandering knight happens upon Toadling and her charge and Toadling must decide what it is incumbent upon her to do to fulfill her charge.
The magic was concentrated near the top of the remains of the tower, but she could feel it from here. It was like stepping into a warm rain. Individual droplets of magic beaded invisibly against her skin,
TOADLING, THORNHEDGE, T. KINGFISHER
and she brushed them away with her hands.
It was her own magic, but it had been separated from her for so long that it felt unfamiliar, like returning to a childhood nursery when one was grown.
This is a novella, being only 116 pages—but the story, the characterizations, and the world-building are worthy of a book five times the size. Kingfisher really knows how to create a mood, a personality, an atmosphere, and if you enjoy a twisted fairy tale, do seek this one out.
Bonecrack
I was in the mood to pick up another Dick Francis novel last week, and this one was much more suspense than mystery. From the beginning we know who the bad guy is, and the plot becomes an ingenious series of ploys to both appease him and hold him off from worse offenses than he has already committed in order to get his way.
Neii Griffon is a former antiques dealer who sold his successful chain of stores and then set up shop as a consultant to businesses that need his expertise to go from failing to thriving. But he grew up in his father’s shadow in a prestigious stable where six million dollars’ worth of horseflesh is housed, trained, and raced on behalf of various owners, so when his father is in a serious auto accident and isn’t able to run the stables for several months, Neil steps in.
At this most unfortuitous moment, unmeeting wishes collide and Neil has to figure out how to keep the horses and stables safe and also to survive on a personal level. A crime czar whose 18-year-old son has expressed the desire to be a top jockey insists that Neil’s father’s stable take the son on and immediately give him premium rides on winning horses. Despite everything Neil can do to explain to the man the unreasonableness and sheer impossibility of his desires, the man is not deterred, and his threats are some of them made real to convince Neil otherwise. Neil must give the young man a chance to be the rider he wants to be without compromising the wishes of the horses’ owners or the integrity of the track, all without telling anyone else who works at the stables why this new apprentice is receiving preferential treatment or involving the police when crimes are committed to ensure Neil stays in line.
Although there is a certain formula to his novels, Francis always manages to make the moral quandary and the practical solution interesting. And any Dick Francis protagonist would meet this challenge bravely, intelligently, and pragmatically, without ever giving in to such threats, regardless of the harm that will inevitably come to him. (Yes, some of the cracked bones are Neil’s.) The working out of all of this provides much of the enjoyment received from reading them.
This was perhaps not the most exciting nor the most ingenious of Francis’s books, but I really enjoyed the tension of the situation and the evolution of the characters.
Blood sport
There seem to be several opinions about why horse racing has been called a blood sport. One definition I found submitted that it was because of the term “bloodstock”—the selective aristocratic breeding of thoroughbreds from pure bloodlines. But most historical definitions cite the concept of bloodshed involved in sporting events such as bull- and bear-baiting and cock fighting. In recent times, the definition has been expanded to also include the intense physical toll on the horses, track safety issues, and the treatment of retired race horses.
These are the putative meanings behind the title of Blood Sport by Dick Francis but, ever a one to find a clever double entendre, the plot turns the pursuit of horse thieves into a blood sport as well, since they are not inclined to be either found out or deprived of their ill-gotten gains.
Gene Hawkins is a “civil servant” from an unnamed department whose job seems to consist of screening people for highly sensitive work. It is several times implied that this job includes forays out of the office for some high-risk hijinks as well. Gene is good at his job—he is intelligent, innovative, introverted and, at the moment, clinically depressed after a failed relationship brings home to him how pointless much of his life is turning out to be. He is confronting the challenge of how to fill three weeks of vacation time when his boss (possibly fearing that he will succumb further to his depression) asks him to take on a special project.
Dave Teller is a millionaire American who purchased an expensive and prestigious racing stallion with plans to breed future winners for the track, only to have the horse go missing. Weeks after it escaped its paddock, the insurance company and Gene’s boss are both thinking this might have been a theft rather than an accident, especially because two other horses (one of whom was also partially owned by Teller through a syndicate) went missing in a strikingly similar way.
Gene takes the case and pursues people and clues from New York to Wyoming, California, and Arizona. Although he was initially hired to find the latest missing horse, he eventually has his eye on locating the other two as well, and goes about all of it in a clever, understated way that holds your attention from beginning to end.
This was an unusual—and somewhat dark—story from Dick Francis in a few ways: First, it took place primarily in America and, while it was tangentially about horse-racing, had none of the usual scenes from the track and the breeders’ farms. Second, the protagonist is emotionally in a bad place. Francis has gone there before (as when Sid Halley, champion jockey, loses his hand in a terrible accident in Odds Against), but never has that mood suffused a book as it did this one. And finally, while there has been some form of violence present, usually perpetrated by a central villainous character, in most of Francis’s somewhat formula stories, it has rarely felt as personal as it does here. Still, this was a solid mystery with an ingenious plot that was just sufficiently convoluted to keep me reading. I’m glad I didn’t miss this one.
Letting go before the end
Today I decided not to finish a book, which is a rarity for me but does happen. I had been waiting weeks on the library waitlist for Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I never picked this one up back when it came out in 2005, probably because that was the year I started library school to get my masters degree, and fiction was temporarily under my radar except for whatever I was reading for school. But the book kept popping up on the several Facebook reader pages to which I belong, and I finally decided I needed to circle back.
Yesterday I received my email notice from Kindle Unlimited that there were new titles awaiting my selection as part of my subscription. I browsed them and found several books that I was surprised and delighted to get “for free,” and this morning I woke up having decided to quit pursuing Never Let Me Go so I could go read one, hopefully to be more entertained than I have been for the past couple of days spent on Ishiguro’s supposed masterpiece.
This has been a unique reading experience for me, in that the story was simultaneously slightly intriguing and the most boring chain of meandering day-to-day reminiscences I have ever read. It’s as if the author decided, “What if I wrote a book about completely ordinary people in somewhat extraordinary circumstances, but didn’t focus on their uniqueness or their peak experiences or their defining moments but rather just dwelt on every dreary mundane bit of their lives in minute detail for almost 300 pages?” What a slog.
I went into it knowing virtually nothing about the story (I did that on purpose, because I’d heard that’s what you needed to do), and when I realized what it was about, I felt cheated—because I have encountered it before, in a much more captivating form, in a young adult novel—The House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer, which I actually read during library school for my readers’ advisory class. And which, by the way, came out in print three years before NLMG, so this book wasn’t even particularly unique. (Not implying anything here, but…not as creative as everyone who lauds it as a true original may think.)
Anyway…I was keeping on simply because so many people gave it such rave reviews, but…I’m bored, I’m dispirited, I’m slightly depressed, and I’m moving on. I had great respect for this author based on The Remains of the Day, but this one isn’t that, and it isn’t for me. Letting go now.
Ironwood
Ironwood is Michael Connelly’s latest, and it’s billed Catalina #2, starring Detective Sergeant Stilwell, who is now further along into his career as head of the sheriff’s department substation on that island off the coast of Los Angeles County, but it’s a combo cast, since for one of the two story lines he collaborates with Renée Ballard and the Open/Unsolved Unit of the LAPD.
I haven’t had a truly glowing review for one of Connelly’s new books for a while now, and this one isn’t going to be the exception. It’s not a BAD book, but…I found it disappointing. I am just not connecting with this Stilwell guy. Honestly, he doesn’t have much of a personality, and I don’t even remember (if we have ever been told) what he looks like! Tall, short, style sense, facial hair, I couldn’t tell you. And that’s the case for all the other characters too. They are names, they are in some cases uniforms (park ranger, plainclothes, whatever), but everything pretty much rests on dialogue, and I’m finding that kind of lackluster.
This was a two-story mystery, and one of them (the discovery of a serial killer operating both on the island and on the mainland) started out intriguing and then was unexpectedly truncated and dropped, while the other (the fatal shooting of one of Stil’s deputies) remained open at the end of the book, so there was little satisfaction.
I enjoyed it when Stil got together with Renée Ballard and the Open-Unsolved guys to coordinate the one takedown, but then that…went away, as if Connelly was simply tired of the story thread and didn’t want to continue it. The last scene in the book when you find out some things about the murder of the deputy was the most exciting, but it also stopped short.
There are lip-service mentions of Harry and Maddie Bosch but Harry doesn’t actually appear on the page, and Maddie is present at one briefing but doesn’t speak! Like I said, it’s not a bad book, but if I contrast it with some of Connelly’s early Bosch books or his Lincoln Lawyer series, these Catalina ones fall even flatter than the Ballards, for me. Three stars, but only just.
The Book Adept 