Picks of the Week

PASSPORT TO PERIL, by Robert B. Parker

(originally posted on July 20, 2009)

No, it's not *that* Robert B. Parker, though the sly nod-and-wink should be put to rest now. Because this book is a real gem, a twisty and fast-moving tale of a man with someone else's passport, a chance meeting with a beautiful girl, and a train ride that's not going to end well - and will only be the beginning of all manner of European adventure for one resourceful and stubborn American expat. A pity this Parker's output was so scant, but that means I'll have to savor the other two books once I track them down.

THE MISSING INK, by Karen Olson

(originally posted on July 20, 2009)

To be honest, I'm still not sure if the packaging of Karen Olson's new novel (and first in a new series) is a boon or a disadvantage, but I do know this book is a terrific mystery, with a memorable lead character named Brett Kavanaugh who knows her way around tattooing instruments and Las Vegas's craziness equally well, a missing person kickstarting an amateur investigation with legitimate reasons for Brett to put on her sleuthing hat, plot points that surprise and make perfect sense and just the right setup for future installments. I've no plans to ink myself anytime soon, but I'm very glad to know I can visit Brett's brightly colored world this time next year. 

OF BEES AND MIST, by Erick Setiawan

(originally posted on July 20, 2009)

It is rare for me to put a book down after I am finished and burst into tears, but such is the effect that Erick Setiawan's gorgeous, disturbing, exquisitely written debut novel had upon me. It works its own fairy tale magic by way of the Brothers Grimm, but throughout I felt the spirit of Angela Carter's THE BLOODY CHAMBER permeate the text, especially in the way Setiawan plays with expectations of which characters should be trustworthy and meriting the reader's loyalty and trust. Suffice to say this book did my head in for quite a while, and that sort of reaction is very, very rare.

THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE, by Michel Faber

(originally posted on July 20, 2009)

In a departure, I spent three months, off and on, reading this book, which more than lived up to all the hype that preceded it in the seven intervening years since its publication. The language is plain-spoken and ribald, Rackham is genuinely dazzled and bamboozled by the turn his life is taking, his wife Agnes is all too believable as someone in the grip of forces beyond her mental control, and then there is Sugar, ready to seize her destiny but still not quite equipped to handle what comes next. Watch your step indeed, but that hesitation before the plunge is totally, utterly worth it.

DISMANTLED, by Jennifer McMahon

(Originally posted on July 20, 2009)

McMahon is, bar none, of the best new talents to emerge on the psychological suspense scene, because in this and her previous books, she has a knack for getting inside the fractured minds of both children and adults. DISMANTLED, her first hardcover, is twice as long, more ambitious and a tad unwieldy, but the flashback scenes of college dares and initiation rites contrasted against present depictions of marital discord and a young girl's clinging to some semblance of stability all come together against a once and current question most pivotal: what really happened to Suz, the charismatic center of a group of friends ready to dismantle authority and flout rules and conventions? The journey on the way to the answer goes in wonderfully strange places, but it's the ending that kicks hardest.