Picks of the Week

GO WITH ME, by Castle Freeman, Jr.

(originally posted on February 27, 2009)

I remember hearing much in the way of positive buzz when the hardcover edition was released last year, but somehow I remained deaf - until now. Barely 160 pages long, GO WITH ME packs enough story and viscera for a novel three times that length, making every word count, every sentence sing and every emotion resonate through the entire square footage of the small Vermont town where one woman has had enough with being targeted and finds revenge is the best answer. Get a copy, tell others do so as well, and spread the word about Castle Freeman, Jr.

STARVATION LAKE, by Bryan Gruley

(originally posted on February 27, 2009)

In Starvation Lake, the reach is small, the townsfolk know what goes on in each other's houses - or think they do - the boys play hockey and most worship the ground that Jack Blackburn walked on until his mysterious death ten years earlier. Then the wreck of his snowmobile shows up a few miles away from where it should have been and just like that, skeletons aplenty get dredged up. Prodigal goalie turned disgraced big-city newspaperman Gus Carpenter has returned home to run the local newspaper and this is the story of his lifetime, but as Gruley carefully reveals in this well-written, graceful yet heartbreaking debut, there is much grime lying beneath the shiny surface of winter ice.

THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, by Joseph Boyden

(originally posted on February 27, 2009)

Here's another author I wished I had discovered when everyone else did, as he racked up seemingly every known Canadian literary award nomination under the sun with this or his earlier novel, THREE DAY ROAD. But Joseph Boyden is a true talent, able to describe the roar and pitch of Northern Ontario towns like Moose Factory and Moosonee in concert with a gripping account of a bush pilot's life contrasted against his niece's desperate search for her younger sister - and her own potential redemption. I raced through the narrative, but with so much to chew on it's hard not to think about THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE even as I read other books.

REVENGE OF THE SPELLMANS, by Lisa Lutz

(originally posted on February 27, 2009)

I loved the first; the second not as much. But the third account of the madcap adventures of Isabel Spellman and her highly neurotic, overly effective family of private investigators tops 'em all. Lutz has finally figured out what makes her characters tick, and even if the reader figures out the obvious long before Izzy & company do, the delay in their reasoning makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint. And now that youngest sister Rae inches ever closer to adulthood, look out for further comedic possibilities.

THE TOURIST, by Olen Steinhauer

(originally posted on February 27, 2009)

Like many, I was sad to see Steinhauer's five-book historical espionage series come to an end, but when I read THE TOURIST and was totally blown away with how he's fit his voice within the confines of a contemporary setting and today's concerns about terrorism, loyalty to one's country and government and to family. The book thrills, but Steinhauer takes care to keep the reader thinking and contemplating about the actions, often brutal, that are to come. This deserves all the advance hype and the audience that is sure to expand with publication.