Picks of the Week

THE MAN IN THE BLIZZARD, by Bart Schneider

(originally posted on August 22, 2008)

Augie Boyer likes his joint, his contemporary poetry and his life as a private investigator who doesn't have to take on too many cases. And then, of course,a lady walks into the office looking to track down a missing husband and draws Augie into a maelstrom of anti-abortion activists, crazy violin collectors and a rally where his rock star daughter is the highlight act (and thus, a potential target.) Schneider's done his genre homework but it's the wistful, laid-back, post-60s quality that makes this novel stand out.

THE GOOD THIEF, by Hannah Tinti

(originally posted on August 22, 2008)

Scruffy orphans, enigmatic relatives, talkative thieves, the threat of danger, a road trip, a quest, family ties - this book, Tinti's debut novel, is a delightful fusion of Victorian principles and literary quality that, above all, is good fun and good reading. I'm a tad surprised it's published as a novel for adults, because it has a similar feel and scope to M.T. Anderson's THE ADVENTURES OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING, but I suspect there will be a strong crossover audience for this as well.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson

(originally posted on August 22,2008)

There is a 2000 word essay - at minimum - I will have to write about the book and the two that will follow over the next two years, but for now, let's just say I fall into the camp that believes this book is amazing, a real watershed moment for international crime fiction and an amalgam of every trope, every trait and every major characteristic of crime fiction going right now. There's this sense of energy and enthusiasm and righteous indignation that permeates the narrative so that we feel how excited Larsson was to share his vision with what was first a small world, and now a much larger one. But read it and decide for yourselves.

THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES, by Paul Auster

(originally posted on August 22, 2008)

I am new, and very late to the game, to Paul Auster's work, but after this I have a strong desire to read everything else he has written. As is his wont, Auster tells this story from the vantage point of a middle-aged man unmoored from his family and recovering from a major health bout, now ensconced in a Brooklyn apartment and about to embark on a picaresque of family members old and new within the borough and off to Vermont. The writing is both easily accessible and embedded with multiple layers; and when I was finished I couldn't help thinking this would have made a much, much better movie than LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.

THE ANGLO FILES, by Sarah Lyall

(originally posted on August 22, 2008)

Lyall, a London correspondent for the New York Times, entertained the hell out of me with this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, often illuminating take on what it's like to be an American living and working in the United Kingdom. (Probably, I suspect, because I spent a summer in that fair city a few years back.) It's also, by dint of her being married to Robert McCrum, a strange look at what it's like to be in literary circles over there and have to adapt decorum tactics among journalists and bookish types.

ENVY THE NIGHT, by Michael koryta

(originally posted on August 22, 2008)

After three novels featuring Cleveland P.I. Lincoln Perry, Koryta really stretches his writing muscles with this standalone set in rural Wisconsin where retribution and revenge loom large. For Frank Temple, especially, the impending explosion of violence will give him a chance to come to terms with the secrets of his father's past as a contract killer and how it's held his own life hostage. And for Koryta, it's a chance to open up his vision, write from several points of view and show the repercussions of past acts upon those with years to reflect or no time at all. After ENVY THE NIGHT, I wonder if pure genre exercises can satisify Koryta's writing equations, and if not, that's the best possible thing.