"Dragon Tattoo" Nauseates; Perplexes

By erika on 7/30/10 1:18pm
Add Comment

I heard SO MUCH about Stieg Larsson's  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  It has a strong female character!  It's practically feminist fiction!  I would pick it up and turn it over and read the back, and flip through the pages and read a paragraph here or there and put it back, puzzled. 

I mean, it seemed like "same old same old" to me.  And the prose I caught in bits and pieces didn't exactly wow me.

I was finally motivated to read the book when I learned of the impending movie.  I'm glad that I did, if only because I can re-sell the book.  You can't re-sell your movie ticket when you don't like a movie, more's the pity.


Read more >

Waiting For Godot, by Samuel Beckett

By ecoscott on 6/10/10 9:20pm
Add Comment

"What shall we do tomorrow?"

"What shall we ever do?"

And so goes one of the conversations, or perhaps one more moment of the seemingly endless conversation that is "Waiting For Godot." Yes, it's a play. It's an absurdist classic by Samuel Beckett, and you may be wondering why it's in the Mystery Book Club- because it speaks to the greatest and most enduring mystery of all time- why are we here?

Read more >

Dennis Lehane, "Shutter Island" Book Review

By erika on 5/31/10 10:22am
Add Comment

I read this book under slightly odd circumstances.  I should say that I NEVER guess "the truth."  I'm always the one who's surprised when the ghost in the old warehouse turns out to be Old Man Harrington in a rubber mask.  Every time I think, "Well I didn't see THAT coming!"  

There have been two exceptions to this woeful lack of perception on my part.  The first time I watched "The Sixth Sense," I guessed that Bruce Willis was a ghost about three scenes in.  I have no idea where I got that from.  I thought it was so obvious that I was surprised to learn that everyone else was surprised at the end.


Read more >

"Valley of Bones" by Michael Gruber

By MichaelP03 on 3/11/10 8:07pm
Add Comment

Valley of BonesValley of Bones

Michael Gruber's Valley of Bones does not have interesting characters. It does not have an interesting plot. It does present an interesting look at the culture of Cuban-Americans living in Miami, Florida. From a literary perspective, however, this book is about as rewarding as an expired lottery ticket without the winning numbers.

Read more >

"Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton (part 2)

By MichaelP03 on 3/8/10 4:27pm
Add Comment

Rising SunRising Sun

 I imagine that someone who's much more interested in Japan, Japanese culture and Japanese-American relations than I am would find Rising Sun a veritable treasure chest (with a good old-fashioned crime story thrown in to make things spicy). The information (and bubbling paranoia) may be dated - the book was released in 1992 - so it might serve better as a historical snapshot than a finger on the pulse of Japanese-American relations. And at that, it works great. As a novel, however, it disappoints.

Read more >

"Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton (part 1)

By MichaelP03 on 3/8/10 4:22pm
Add Comment

Rising SunRising Sun

Michael Crichton's Rising Sun is a decent whodunnit buried under layers of explanations of Japanese culture, the differences between Japanese and American cultures, the usual technical details that go with novels like these, and a history of Japanese-American corporate espionage. It reads, in fact, less like a novel and more like Japan for American Dummies, with a backstory thrown in for exposition.

 

Read more >

Dick Francis

By lisala on 2/14/10 5:53pm
Add Comment

Much-loved British mystery novelist Dick Francis passed away today at his home in Grand Cayman, at the age of 89. Not only remembered for his career as a best-selling novelist, though, Mr. Francis was a renowned professional jockey during his youth. Mr. Francis was born in Lawrenny, south Wales, in 1920. His father was a jockey and a stable manager, and at the age of 15, Mr. Francis quit school to follow in those footsteps. By 1938 he was training horses professionally, though his career was interrupted by World War II. Mr.

Read more >

Robert B. Parker (September 17, 1932-January 18, 2010)

By lisala on 1/29/10 10:23pm
Add Comment

Parker died last week at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 77. His wife stepped out for a class, and he was at his desk, writing. When she came back, she found him still at his desk, but no longer one of the living. I do feel very bad for her; it's a terrible loss and one that one doesn't ever really recover from. You just learn to go on. I've only lately come to admire Parker; a mere two years. But I've been reading all I can. I admit that I'm partial to the Spenser novels, as I've noted before. But I want to talk about one of the ways Parker has left a lasting mark, a legacy, that will go on, long after I'm gone. Parker was honest about the world and about people in ways that not any people are.

Read more >

Dorothy L. Sayers Clouds of Witness

By lisala on 11/23/09 9:35pm
Add Comment

 


Dorohy L. Sayers
Clouds of Witness
HarperTorch, 1995.
ISBN: 0061043532

It's been a very long time since I read any of Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey books. Clouds of Witness is the second in terms of chronology; properly speaking, it should be preceded by Whose Body?. All of the Whimsey novels and short stories are set between the end of World War I, and the start of World War II. They involve the solving of mysteries, usually a murder, by British aristocrat and amateur sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers in an interview once described Wimsey as a cross between Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster, from P. G. Wodehouse's novels.

Read more >

The Colorado Kid

By sarajean on 11/10/09 10:51pm
Add Comment

When I saw that over 200 plus people had reviewed Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid at Amazon—and that it received a median review of only three stars!—I had to laugh. Either people don’t like it when an author “breaks genre,” or they don’t like an unresolved ending. Of course, there’s also a leading photo on the book’s cover that hints at more resolution.

Me? I like both. I don’t think it’s fair to peg authors based on one or two works and then expect them to keep creating similar works. Yes, it’s made King into a multimillionaire—but it also made him branch out under a pseudonym to try other genres. (Which isn’t that true, considering that much of Bachman’s work was as scary, if not moreso, than King’s!)

Read more >