The Angel’s Game by
Carlos Ruis Zafó "takes us into a dark, gothic universe …and creates a
breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy.” Blending deft, evocative
writing with a bit of magic realism, Zafón keeps the reader turning pages, but
in the end, the truffles don’t make for a satisfying meal.
The Fixer by bestselling
author, Joseph Finder, is a story of a investigative
reporter who loses his job,
fiancée, and apartment and has to move back and renovate the home of his miserable
youth. He finds millions hidden in the walls and sets out to learn the secrets
of his comatose father who turns out to have
been a “fixer.” Finder has
written good books, but this isn’t one of them.
If he had taken another six months to edit and revise, this could have
been much better.
A Tightly Raveled
Mind by Diane Lawson is a book that Freud might have liked, but I
didn’t. Dr. Nora Goodman is a sexy forty-something psychoanalyst with
a handful of one-dimensional, neurotic
patients who, like their analyst, can't
seem to allow themselves happiness, love, or success. I liked the descriptions
of San Antonio and some of the psychobabble as Lawson tried to blend crime-solving and
psychoanalytic understanding of unconscious mental processes.
Rise and Fall of Great
Powers by Tom Rachman is the disjointed story of Tooly Zylberberg and her
Dickensian, peripatetic life. Covering three continents and switching back and
forth over thirty year, the novel left
me more confused than the reviewer who gave it high praise. The SF Chronicle called it, “inventive… full
of wonderfully quirky, deeply flawed, but lovable characters.”
*The Book Seller by
Cynthia Swanson gives Kitty Miller the opportunity to experience both paths in
Frost’s “Roads Not Taken.” She has come
to accept her unconventional single life and loves the little bookshop she runs
with her best friend, Frieda. Then, she
starts having realistic dreams about a different life involving a great
husband, beautiful children and different challenges. Reminiscent of Sliding Doors “The Bookseller is a delightful and
haunting exploration of identity, love and loss. ..written with great style and
compassion.”
Blood on Snow by
Jo Nesbo was called a “ perfectly pitched thriller" (Sunday Mirror) Perhaps, but
I found it to be a terse, dark, introspective
first person account about the work life and musings of Olav, a contract
killer for a ruthless crime boss.
Beneath the murders and other failed criminal efforts, Olav has a heart
of gold, if only he didn’t have a bad childhood and dyslexia. Don’t look for a happy ending.
