This Charlaine Harris series is my guilty pleasure, the dirty secret I try not to read in public. I don’t think they are particularly great, but sometimes when life is tough you just need brain candy, and this is where I turn. Ironically, I read the next book in the series before this one because I simply didn’t realize I had skipped it. Her writing style is such that each book spends half the time explaining what happened before, and it had been a while […]
Late, as ever, to the party
I know everyone read this last year or so, but I’m always behind on these things. Other books I haven’t read yet: The Kite Runner, All the Light We Cannot See, and Life of Pi. But, as usual, there was a Kindle deal on this book, and since I’m a sucker for a good murder mystery, I picked it up. The story alternates between several narrators: Rachel, the actual girl on the train; Anna, Rachel’s replacement in her husband’s life; and Megan, our eventual victim. […]
Tana French is an evil sorceress. Her words are her magical weapons.
It’s not entirely hyperbole when I say that Tana French is magic. When I’m reading her books, more than with any other author I’ve ever read, I feel ensorcelled. Like, I’m being pulled in to the book with ropes that have been tied around my emotions, and it’s entirely not in my control how much I’m allowed to be inside the story. Her books are wrenching. So much humanity in there. Joy and suffering and pain and longing and regret. All at the same time. Plus […]
Courtroom thriller without the usual Lescroart oomph!
Neither as meaty nor as finely drawn as Lescroart’s earlier and more emotionally complex thrillers, The Fall nonetheless fits the bill for a combination murder mystery/courtroom drama that dovetails with this country’s soaring racial tensions between police and African-Americans. The Fall deals with the first major legal case of Rebecca (“The Beck”) Hardy, daughter of Lescroart’s serial hero Dismas Hardy. The Beck is now an associate in Hardy’s law firm and gets her first chance at a murder trial in defense of one Greg Treadway, […]