Malbrey #2
I had no real intention, after finishing Gentlemen and Players, of continuing to read the Malbrey series (or at least not now), but the sequel was available at the library while everything else in which I was interested was wait-listed, and I did kinda want to know what happened next and to whom, so…I checked it out.
I almost quit reading Different Class about 30 percent in because, in the flashback portion of the story, one of the little sociopathic boarding school boys tortures a mouse, and I really don’t need to be reading about that right now.
But…I kept going. And it was for one specific reason, which was that I haven’t recently encountered another author whose use of metaphor and language spoke to me like Joanne Harris’s does.
One example was when a new teacher joins the staff and the protagonist (Classics Master Roy Straitley, still) notes that he’s a “Suit,” and basically falls into line in every respect with Dr. Devine, his mentor on the staff. Straitley remarks that the new teacher is “a bonsai version of himself,” the most vividly literary way ever to say that Dr. Devine has a “mini-me.” I love a literary phrase that also makes me laugh out loud and picture Mike Myers in a bald cap and a white suit.
Another is when Straitley is reflecting about the new school Head, who has turned out to be one of Roy’s troubled students from 20-some years ago, and ruminates, “”He’s the one releasing the ghosts, like a child with a magic lamp that, instead of casting light, releases nothing but darkness…”
Then I hit the 50 percent mark and decided that, after all, literary language could only make up for so much. The animal torturer moved on to multiple and then increasingly more horrifying subjects to satisfy his “condition,” as he calls it, and yeah, it turns out that I’m one of those bleeding hearts who can cheerfully regard the murder of a fellow human being when it furthers the mystery, but draws the line at killing off the dog (or pulling the wings off of flies, for that matter). Basically, the balance shifted and I cared less about literary expression and more about not putting any more nightmarish visions into my long-term memory. So Joanne Harris will have to find another reader, because although this guy will probably get his in the end, I can’t bear to read through all the things he did to deserve it. On to less disturbing material…
Plagued by the penultimate
Have you ever reached the denouement of a book, the place where all the hints and clues and separately insignificant moments are tied up for you so that you have that blinding flash that the author has purposefully manipulated, that one in which you say “aHAH!” and suddenly understand everything that has been happening? You feel so satisfied with that moment of revelation, only to turn the page and realize, after flipping even further, that there are still multiple chapters to go in the book—and maybe you felt impatient and somewhat robbed of your moment at having to keep reading?
I, like so many other people, have incorrectly thought of the word “penultimate” as meaning the last, or the greatest, something that is somehow beyond the ultimate when, in fact, the definition of penultimate is, in Brit-speak, “the last but one,” or in American, next to last. It is the part just before the last. And this is what I see as a big flaw in so many books, the most recent one I have read being Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame.
I have mentioned several times in various reviews on this blog how much I loathe an epilogue—the wrap-up in which the author apparently grows tired of showing the reader and decides to tell instead, an action I almost always consider an easy out. I wrote about it most notably in my review of Things You Save in a Fire, in which the author wrote a near-perfect ending but then continued past it to wrap up each and every little hangnail, robbing the reader of the feeling of completion in order to give the author the satisfaction of thorough explanation. I concluded that review by saying, “The difference between an author who knows when to quit and one who doesn’t can be as slight as 20 extra pages, but what a difference it makes. After all, isn’t imagination a big part of enjoyment when it comes to the peculiar habit of reading?”
This was also my experience with Gentlemen and Players.
There are two narrators in this book about a posh British boys’ school called St. Oswald’s: the classics professor, Roy Straitley, otherwise known as Quasimodo (his room is in the Bell Tower and, yes, he’s a bit hunched), and a mysterious antagonist who shares a complicated past (and a deceitful present) with the school and whose stated intent from the beginning is to bring the school down by irretrievably tarnishing its reputation. Straitley (for the most part) narrates the action taking place in the present, while the mystery person is concerned with telling about the experience of being raised in close involvement with the school and its professors, students, administrators, and staff, but nonetheless remaining an outsider, never being able to be of the school. It is an exploration of age, gender, class, work ethic, and values—but all of those are subsumed in its identity as a psychological thriller, a cat-and-mouse game.
The prose is literary, as is appropriate for a tale about a school that still values the teaching of Latin (its motto is Audere, agere, auferre—to dare, to strive, to conquer); but we are at the juxtaposition of old and new as dusty classrooms make way for computer labs and crusty eccentrics have to learn how to check their email to get departmental updates.
The mystery part of the plot is undeniably thrilling; but in order to reach it, there is a lot of set-up in the present and a lot of flashback to the past that is occasionally a slog to navigate. I’m not saying it’s not necessary; I’m just not sure the payoff is adequate. I will say that it is quite crafty, and the twists and turns the story takes are worthy of a Patricia Highsmith novel. But after experiencing the major revelations near the end, I could have wished that they had been the finale, rather than the penultimate. Granted that there are sequels and the extension of the story beyond its climax does lead the reader towards those stories; but I’m not sure I believe the let-down from that rather spectacular revelatory climax was justified.
There are three sequels to this book, although I find it hard to image there is that much more material to explore here, and you could easily read this as a stand-alone and be done. I may read the others at some point, to find out. I have vastly enjoyed some of Harris’s other works, including Chocolat and Peaches for Father Francis, Five Quarters of the Orange, and Blackberry Wine.
One purely cosmetic warning about this book: If you decide to read it in Kindle form, as I did, you may find it quite confusing when the narrator switches from one protagonist to the other, because there is no indication of who is speaking, beyond tone and context. In the hardcover and paperback books, symbolism in the graphic form of a White King or a Black Pawn from a chess set at the beginning of each chapter signalled from whom we were hearing. This would have been easy to incorporate on the Kindle version, and that they didn’t was a problem.
Darlings
The title of this book is pretty good at pointing up the false affection shown to three foster children by a deeply narcissistic sociopath masquerading as a loving foster mother. I don’t have a lot to say about this book; I enjoyed it less than my favorite of Sally Hepworth’s (that would be The Good Sister) and more than my least favorite (The Mother-in-Law), so it falls somewhere in the middle with the others of hers I have read (three to date).
I did like the format Hepworth chose, in which we get the alternating point of view of each of the three foster sisters—Jessica, Alicia, and Norah—in adulthood and also in childhood (present and past). I didn’t care much for the psychiatrist session segments of the book, mostly because I was so uncomfortable with the way she wrote the therapist’s part (he was so repellent!), but it did render a little more intrigue as the story went on. I felt like the murder mystery was a bit generic—I mean, after we get an idea of who Miss Fairchild (the foster mother) is underneath her sugary sweet façade, it’s hard to believe any red herrings about who could have been responsible for the body buried under the house (that’s a minor spoiler, we find out about the body almost immediately). But the thought that the killer (if there is one) might get away with it definitely carried the suspense further, a good move on the author’s part.
I think part of the reason I didn’t love this book, apart from it feeling obvious in some respects, is that I didn’t feel a strong connection to at least one of the foster children (which turned out to have some basis in reality). I won’t say which one, because that would spoil things further. But it was a fairly engrossing read, and I think most people would find it a quite satisfying example of relationship fiction with a suspense twist. It also points up the ongoing problem of the way fostering is handled and the many opportunities for abuse of that system, which I appreciate.
Three stars out of five for me. But you might like it better.
Silence is golden
I picked up The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides, on the basis of a bunch of enthusiastic reviews by people on two Facebook reading group pages, and after finishing it, I have to ask…WHY?
I’m not going to use up a lot of space on this one. You may decide to read it anyway, and be as enamored of it as the many who gave it five stars on Goodreads. But here are my thoughts:
The main character is a psychotherapist, but his actions in this book lack any credibility, and in fact may well do a disservice to those who are considering therapy. It’s not the character himself (although I found him to be an unsympathetic one practically from the first page), it’s the lack of knowledge exhibited by the author concerning mental health diagnoses, treatments, and medications. Yes, it’s fiction, and in some instances I would say, Read it for the plot, the suspense, the twists, and don’t pay too much attention to minor inaccuracies; but this book goes too far. The drugs he mentions don’t act as he says they do. The treatment methods are slipshod and would never be tolerated by any facility for whom a licensed psychotherapist would work. The procedures in the supposedly locked and secure facility are laughable. The personal interactions between doctors and patients, doctors and doctors, spouses, and strangers on the street are not believable.
Aside from that, the characters are wooden, the plot is all over the place—including half a dozen unnecessary sub-plots that are nothing but blatant red herrings to distract you from what the other hand is doing—and there’s a fair bit of misogyny exhibited by most of the male characters, and uniformly negative portrayals of the female ones.
My headline for this review may be misleading: You could have taken it to imply that this book with “silent” in the title is golden, i.e., I’m recommending it. You would be wrong. While it may have turned out to be golden in terms of profits, my sole piece of advice would be to take it off your TBR list and breathe a sigh of relief that I saved you from wasting valuable leisure reading time.
Frivolous
The dictionary definition of that title is “not having any serious purpose or value.” You would think that at my age I would consider carefully the books on which I am going to spend my remaining reading time, and look for those that are worthwhile, or profound, uplifting, meaningful,, maybe educational; but it seems that I instead have the occasional need to abandon all thoughts of quality of phrase, good characterization, or realistic world-building to read something that is the snack food equivalent of Cheetos or Skittles. I believe there’s no type of book more addictive than a good thriller, and even the bad ones have the power to keep your attention if the plot points are sufficiently twisty. I proved that point to myself by reading The Housemaid, by Freida McFadden, and then the sequel, The Housemaid’s Secret.
This book has been touted on the “Friends and Fiction” Facebook page I have started to follow as a slightly more upscale version of the “What Should I Read Next?” crowd. The post-ers on F&F seem to read more, more varied, and generally better fiction, but the common denominator of “Oooh, I couldn’t put it down!” still prevails, regardless of quality. Here I am, sounding like a total snob, when one of the tenets of readers’ advisory is “Never apologize for your reading taste!” (Betty Rosenburg’s first law of reading, Genreflecting, 1982), and another is “There is no such thing as an objectively ‘good’ book.” While I try hard to refrain from shaming people for their book choices, what would a review blog be without a little gentle mockery now and then? Especially when it’s directed at myself…
The Housemaid and its sequel star Millie, a down-on-her-luck ex-con who’s trying desperately to find a job that will give her somewhere to sleep besides the back seat of her Nissan. Since she went to prison in her teens and stayed there for 10 years, she has few marketable skills; while she has done her share of fast food gigs, the holy grail at the moment is a job as a live-in housekeeper. The problem is, most people run a background check on someone they plan to hire to fill that role, and once they find out Millie’s past, they politely shut the door. But finally, Millie’s luck changes: Nina Winchester, beautiful and poised on the surface but giving off a bit of a weird vibe, offers Millie a position cleaning, cooking, and occasionally nannying for her little family—husband Andrew and daughter Cecelia—and Millie jumps at the chance. She rapidly discovers some disturbing nuances in the household, but beggars can’t be choosers, so she puts up with Nina’s foibles and her spoiled brat of a daughter, all the while trying not to covet Nina’s lifestyle, not to mention her handsome, soulful, and much put-upon husband. Then things take a dark turn…Dum Dum DUUUUUMMMMM!
The narrative in this book is first-person, and pretty much at the level of “Dear Diary.” It’s hard to tell whether the characterizations are kept purposefully opaque or whether McFadden is just not a good describer. The point of view switches around for sections of the book, but the voice stays a little bit too much the same. The plot twists are arresting, but some of the events on which they are based are laugh-oud-loud ridiculous, as in sitting in your chair reading along and then shouting “Oh, C’MON!” at the text as your cat bolts off your lap in terror. The redemptive value of bits of dark humor here and there can’t be overstated. But still…there’s something that keeps you reading. I loved how one Goodreads reviewer, Dan, put it in his synopsis:
This book is not as clever as it thinks it is. You probably won’t want to put it down. But you may be asking yourself what the hell you just read.
DAN, GOODREADS REVIEWER
As for the sequel, it is exponentially less believable than the first. And yet, I finished it and went looking on Goodreads to see when book #3 in this series will be published (June 2024). Let’s face it: Even Cheetos and Skittles can be addictive.
Psycho Thriller
Yes, “psycho” is an abbreviation for psychological thriller, but also…well, there are characters in this book that might qualify for the title without the abbreviation.
The Fake Wife was not my favorite Sharon J. Bolton thriller, but at this point Bolton is almost an automatic read for me. The book is certainly full of twists and turns, some expected and some definitely not. It’s complex and intriguing, but you really have to pay attention to know what’s happening at any given moment. There are multiple flashbacks from several characters to follow, and we get threads of the story from all directions—the victims, the perpetrators, the cops—that all weave together to gradually reveal what’s going on.
As the book opens, Olive Anderson is having dinner on her own in her hotel dining room in Hexham. A beautiful stranger walks up and seats herself at Olive’s table as if she belongs there, and then starts an elaborate game of pretense, engaging the waiter in banter and implying she is Olive’s wife. Olive is intrigued and decides to play along—it’s a lot more fun than sitting there by herself mulling over her marriage to Labour MP Michael Anderson. But as the evening goes on, the lighthearted pretense morphs into something else, and soon Michael is reporting Olive as missing and DS Lexy Thomas and traffic cop PC Garry Mizon are teaming up to try to solve what becomes an increasingly complex and bewildering situation.
This is an immersive domestic puzzle combined with a police procedural, adding more characters into the mix as the plot continues, with back stories that completely change what you were thinking at the beginning. It’s almost impossible to figure out who is telling the truth—if anyone is. The characterizations are excellent, and as for the setting, the beautiful but frigid winter scenery in the north of England provides both background and an extra sense of menace. If you like reading books that are set at the same time of year and in the same climate you are currently inhabiting, this is definitely a winter tale!
I’m kind of hoping Bolton decides to bring back the odd police couple in another book—their relationship provides both depth and humor in a story that is otherwise kind of dark. But if you enjoy dark (and confusing and exciting and suspenseful), this book might be a good one for your reading list.
Writer of the dark
I have been a longtime fan of Sharon J. Bolton‘s books, variously characterized as mystery, suspense, or thriller. I defined the difference between those in a previous post; let me recap here:
First of all, neither a suspense novel nor a thriller is about solving a crime, they are about stopping a killer or a crime. So they are not necessarily a whodunit as is a mystery; we may know who the villain is from page one.
In a thriller, the protagonist is in danger from the outset, and action is a required element. Pacing is the key ingredient. In suspense, danger is more important than action, and the protagonist becomes aware of danger only gradually. Setting and mood are key. There must be terror, confusion, upset, and conflict.
A thriller has to start off with a bang, and have a clearly defined hero and villain, because the thriller is all about the push and pull between the two. By contrast, the only real requirement of a suspense story is that it build, and that it keep the reader on edge with a series of reveals or surprises until the final one. Suspense can be present in any genre; a suspense novel is simply one where the reader is uncertain about the outcome. It’s not so much about what is happening as what may happen. It’s about anticipation.
Bolton is a nuanced writer, with examples of all of these in her repertoire, sometimes putting the characteristics of all three into one volume. I would call Daisy in Chains a psychological thriller, and perhaps The Craftsman as well, while Dead Woman Walking would probably fall more into the suspense line. And then there is her ongoing mystery series, featuring Detective Constable Lacey Flint, from which I just read #5, The Dark. I am always thrilled when a new book in this series is published, because they are so involving, so ingenious, and so suspenseful—they leave me breathless. This one was no exception.
Lacey is, first of all, such an intriguing character. She comes out of nowhere, makes a name for herself by exhibiting “derring do,” aka extreme recklessness in solving cases for the London police by any means necessary (including dangerous undercover work), and then takes a baffling sidestep from advancement up the ladder to instead become part of the Marine Policing Unit, working on the Thames river. She’s aloof, almost secretive, even with her best friends and occasional love interests, and as the series progresses you learn that her secrets are not garden variety and she has a good reason (several, actually) for maintaining her solo status; but at the same time, you wish for her that she could let it all go and simply be happy! In short, it’s hard not to get involved with her life story.
Then there are the mysteries, and this latest is a doozy. It relates to what’s been happening in the world during the past few years as women’s rights have begun to be rescinded and certain men scheme to steal even more freedoms in their attempt to turn the world back to when they ran things without dispute and the women stayed home and had babies. In The Dark, there is an underground movement lurking on the dark web that is stirring up the “incels”—men who are involuntarily celibate and therefore harbor a deep dislike of the women who deny them—as well as any other guy who has felt overlooked in favor of a woman, for whatever reason. They target women who (they claim) have benefitted from affirmative action, those who they perceive as having favored the rights of women over men, and pretty much all women who choose more successful, more attractive men (or other women) over them.
And they aren’t just talking—they are inciting men to violence, staging actions such as harassment of women walking alone on the street after 10 p.m., intensive catfishing on dating sites, and the like. The women are both terrified and outraged, and the police are using every traditional and cyber tool at their disposal to figure out who are the ringleaders. And Lacey is, of course, smack dab in the middle of all of it, having been in the right place at the right time to foil their opening act, when a baby is stolen from its carriage and tossed into the Thames on a pool float and Lacey is in the area in her kayak to pull off an audacious rescue.
The scariest part of the story is when one of the incel leaders figures out that he has a past connection with Lacey, and she suddenly becomes the focus of everything he hates in women. All of the regulars from previous books—Dana, Helen, Victoria, Mark Joesbury—are present, along with some new characters from Joesbury’s team, plus Emma Boston, a reporter who plays a pivotal role. The book is as dark as its title, and scarily believable, given recent activities by the religion-obsessed right wing active in many countries today.
The suspense throughout is riveting, and I will confess I lost some sleep sitting up to read this. It’s been a while since Bolton wrote a Lacey Flint, and I was so glad she was back. Bolton has a new book (not in this series) coming out on November 9th, and I already have a pre-order destined for my Kindle the minute it’s 12:01 a.m. on that date! If you’re not familiar with Bolton’s books and you crave more thrillers and mysteries, start reading!
Endings
Does the ending of a book alter your perception of the entire story? This is what I’m pondering, a few minutes after turning the last page of The Moonlight Child, by Karen McQuestion. The book had a compelling premise and an engaging presentation, but the climax and aftermath of the story was too casually told for what had gone before. And that was the crux of the problem, I think—the author ceased showing us and instead starting telling, and the whole story suddenly lost its mojo.
Sharon Lemke is recently retired and reveling in the ability to call all her time her own. She had thought that she would be at loose ends and perhaps immerse herself in volunteer work, but instead she is simply enjoying each day. One night she stays up late to watch a lunar eclipse, and from an upstairs bedroom window she observes something that puzzles her. In the house behind hers, a little girl, perhaps five years old, is standing on a step-stool doing dishes while the lady of the house apparently berates her. First of all, why is a child of that age performing household chores at midnight? and second of all, Sharon knows a little bit about these neighbors, the Flemings, enough to know that they have one son, Jacob, who is 17. So who is the little girl?
Soon after this incident, Sharon’s daughter, Amy, an attorney, calls her to ask a rather large favor: She is a mentor for a teenager, Niki, a former foster child who at 18 has just aged out of the system. Niki hasn’t been able to find an appropriate place to live, and Amy wonders if Sharon would consider letting Niki stay with her for a while. Sharon somewhat reluctantly agrees, but after Niki arrives the two form a bond much like grandparent and grandchild, and both are pleased to go on with the situation.
Niki’s bedroom overlooks the Fleming family’s back yard, and after she, too, notices some odd occurrences surrounding the anonymous little girl who apparently lives with them, she and Sharon decide to call social services. But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly; the two become impatient and decide to do a little detective work on their own, to find out who this child is, and what relation she bears to the family. This sets some dramatic events in motion.
I really enjoyed about 85 percent of this book. The characters were interesting and memorable, their interactions dynamic, and the story moved along at an exciting pace, with numerous small surprises to keep things interesting. The psychological aspect of the antagonist—the sociopath, Suzette Fleming, whose selfish needs drive the story and motivate the actions of every member of the Fleming household—was fascinating to observe, and the differences between her perception of the world versus what other people were actually thinking were quite entertaining.
But…then a few things happened that turned me against it. First of all, although Sharon Lemke is initially set up as an important protagonist, she all of a sudden takes a back seat during the crucial action of the book, which was disappointing. I felt like the author decided to relegate her permanently to “grandma” status, rather than allowing her to keep her agency.
Second, the crucial scenes in the resolution of the child Mia’s situation were in some ways excitingly written, but we suddenly lost touch with the thoughts and emotions of Suzette, who was the driving force of all the internal action throughout, and the rest of the book becomes simply a series of narrated events without the context of her delusion. The whole ending resolved itself with comparative ease, but in the process it became truncated, leaving the reader (or, at least, this reader) feeling dissatisfied even though everything had been wrapped up.
So, my question: Does the ending ruin the rest? Not entirely, but sufficiently to change my opinion of this book from an enthusiastic five to a somewhat tepid three. All I could think, for the last 15 percent, was, Damn! and it was going so well!
A dark one
I just finished Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier, and it definitely lives up to that quote I used two books back about Hillier imagining the worst and then writing about it. Lest you should be taking the title seriously, based on that information, let me reassure you that there is not a jar filled with literal hearts—they are the cinnamon red-hot variety. But if you are a person, like the main character Georgina (nicknamed Geo), who associates tastes or smells with particular events from life and is thus permanently put off from ever enjoying them again, you will probably not be eating red-hot cinnamon candies any time soon. I will say up front that this book is not for the sensitive or squeamish. It is gritty, explicit, and dark. I have a fairly strong stomach when it comes to reading this kind of story and still found it challenging. So now that I have given you the “trigger warning”…
Jar of Hearts is ultimately about three friends: Angela Wong, the popular girl—cheerleader, guy magnet, gorgeous and charismatic; Geo Shaw, the otherwise engaging one whose light is slightly dimmed by keeping company with her best friend, Angela; and Kaiser Brody, who follows in Geo’s wake like a smitten puppy dog. This is who they were in high school; but when this story begins, Angela is 14 years dead, Geo is the star witness (and accused accessory), and Kaiser is the arresting officer of Calvin James, serial killer, Geo’s former boyfriend and the one being tried for Angela’s murder.
This is a book about friendship, obsession, jealousy, and death—but all the assumptions are out the window from the first page. No one is innocent among the interconnected friends and lovers whose actions doom one another to various fates, and although at least two of them would like events from the past to remain buried forever, the others will actively or passively guarantee that’s not going to happen.
The story’s pacing is designed to keep you looking for answers throughout its five parts, with clearly defined jumps from past to present and back again, and new elements to the story that have you second-guessing absolutely everything you know about everyone involved. It explores the question of nature vs. nurture, and highlights the theory of the deficiency of the underdeveloped teenage brain and the psychology behind ideas about compartmentalization and deflection. It is chilling, involving, and more than a little messed up. In other words, Jennifer Hillier delivers again.
It’s thriller time
I’m not usually an avid reader of thrillers, but after my extremely positive reaction to Jennifer Hillier’s Little Secrets, I wanted to see if she (and I) could repeat the experience, so I checked out Things We Do In the Dark. And although I didn’t love it quite as much (I liked the set-up and characters in Little Secrets better), it turned out to be a similarly riveting read with some fascinating characters, unexpected twists, and a great ending.
Things look bad for Paris Peralta. She’s been married to a wealthy, successful man more than 30 years her senior for just a few short years, and now he’s dead and she’s been accused of his murder. But as horrifying as this is to Paris (especially since she didn’t do it), it’s not the worst eventuality she is anticipating as a result of all the publicity surrounding Jimmy’s death. Paris has a past full of secrets she doesn’t want exposed, and there is one specific person who knows who she was and what she did. Paris thought she was safe from Ruby Reyes, who was serving a life sentence for committing a murder of her own, 25 years ago, but now Ruby is unexpectedly out of prison early and is all too ready to exploit her knowledge about Paris’s past to get what she wants. And she may not be the only person from back then who is a threat to Paris—having your picture on the cover of every magazine in town when you’re trying to maintain a low profile can be hazardous!
The minute I finished this, I went to the online library to put a hold on the e-book for Hillier’s Jar of Hearts. She has a new fan.
The Book Adept 