Derek is the head bookseller at Better Read Than Dead and reads mostly trashy crime.
Occasionally he reads outside this genre and is often surprised by the result.
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Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent "tweets". I tweet infrequently but generally in answer to the question: "What am I reading now?" but also with the occaisonal piece of industry gossip. Find out what I'm reading now at http://twitter.com/Sydneybookbore.
Bleed For Me
Michael Robotham
April 2010
PB $32.99
Michael Robotham has written three or four books in this series and I think he's just getting better and better. His primary character is psychologist Professor Joseph O'Loughlin and although he's very definitely an Australian writer, Robotham sets his books in the English countryside near Bath, which gives him a wider canvas. One of the many things I like about the O'Loughlin character is that he's suffering from an early onset form of Parkinson's disease, that he control's with medication, but which looms as much as any other character in the plot. O'Loughlin's sidekick, retired policeman Victor Ruiz, is also well-drawn, complete with his rough edges and his fondness for boiled sweets. O'Loughlin is separated from his wife but still sees a lot of his two daughters as they live in the same village. Charlie, his older daughter, has a 14 year old friend called Sienna Hegarty who turns up at the family home late one night, traumatized by shock and covered in blood. The police immediately discover that the blood is not hers, but at Sienna's home they find her father Ray, a retired copper, face down in a pool of blood with his throat slashed and his skull caved in. Although the blood covering Sienna was her father's, she claims no memory of that night, and as Joseph O'Loughlin tries to unlock the secrets of Sienna's memories, he's concerned that she shows no regrets about her father's death. What was happening behind the doors of the Hegarty household, and how is it going to affect O'Loughlin's already strained relationship with his older daughter? And what influence does the charismatic teacher Gordon Ellis have over the girls and what part did he play in the death of Ray Hegarty? It's another first class psychological thriller from Michael Robotham.
House Rules
Jodi Picoult
April 2010
PB $32.99
I've been a great fan of Jodi Picoult since the very beginning. I just LOVED Perfect Match, the red-herrings, the little corkscrew paths she took us down, the OMG moments, and finally the breath-taking denouement. But I'm starting to think her best work might be behind her. Her recent books are all extremely readable and entertaining, and in every Jodi Picoult novel you learn so much about a subject you've never, ever thought about. Last book it was Brittle Bone Disease. This time around it's Asperger's. Jacob Hunt is an 18 year-old high school student with autism, which presents as Asperger's Syndrome. He's intellectually very bright, he has a photographic memory but his social skills are grossly under-developed, and when stressed, he flips right out and shuts down completely. One of Jacob's passions is crime scene investigation and when someone very close to him is killed, Jacob stages the crime scene to point the evidence away from him. But the detective finds his evasiveness indicative of guilt, and Jacob is arrested and tossed in jail. An experience which he finds untenable. So begins the trial. Jacob's mum, Emma finds a lawyer, but although as a single parent she can't afford the best, in Oliver she employs a willing, if inexperienced attorney who will understand Jacob. As is usual with Jodi Picoult, the book is told from four different viewpoints, Jacob, Emma, Oliver and Theo, Jacob's brother. We reader's learn much about Asperger's and Fibonacci numbers and autistic behaviour and crime scene investigation, and it's very entertaining. But my only query with this book is why didn't anyone, Jacob's mum, the detective, his brother, anyone, ask Jacob if he did it!
The First Rule
Robert Crais
February 2010
$32.99
I'm a bit of a fan of Robert Crais' Joe Pike and Elvis Cole series. The First Rule is a Joe pike story – that's not to say I don't like the books where Elvis Cole is the lead bloke. They're far more cerebral, but there's nothing like a bit of big, bad Joe Pike to brighten your day. Pike is out running when he's stopped by a group of detectives with some bad news. His long-time friend and colleague, Frank Meyer has been gunned down in home invasion along with his wife and two children. Back in the day Frank was one of Joe's mercenaries, but for the past ten years has lived clean, running a small but successful import business. This is the seventh in a series of home invasions and the cops are from a task force investigating the crimes. In the previous six, the victims have all been dirty, living off the proceeds of crime, but Pike knows this is not the case with Frank, and vows retribution on the head of whoever organised the crime. But Pike finds he's not just up against a bunch of local gang-bangers, but a branch of the powerful Eastern European mafia. Pike makes accommodations with the police so that he receives some of their intel and sets out to find the killers of his friend and avenge the deaths. It's a pacey read from Robert Crais and fans of Pike and Cole will feel right at home.
Deeper Than The Dead
Tami Hoag
January 2010
PB $32.99
Tami Hoag has had, in my ever so humble opinion, a couple of duds with her Florida horse series, but she's bounced back here with Deeper Than the Dead. She's set the book in 1968, an era before cell phones and DNA and her text acknowledges some of the fashions and trends of the time. One of the fascinating aspects of the book is that it revolves around three children, Tom Crane, Wendy Morgan and Dennis Farman who all live in the picture perfect town of Oak Knoll. The three kids stumble on a body, and with the local cops struggling, they call in Vince Leone from the new developed profiling unit of the FBI. The kids are excellent characters in themselves, but it's their teacher Anne Navarre, around whom the book revolves as her relationship with Vince blooms. Of the three children, Tom and Wendy have normal loving parents, but Dennis's father is the deputy Sherriff – a man wound up so tight his rage is palpable, and his anger continually bubbles to surface. But what is normal and loving in Oak Hill? We readers know that one of the kids' parents is the killer, but Tami Hoag leads us on a merry dance through this quiet town where nothing ever happens, dragging red herrings across our garden path until the final moment when Anne Navarre discovers the truth and nearly ends up another victim.
61 Hours
Lee Child
March 2010
PB $32.95
The new Jack Reacher thriller, 61 Hours, is pretty much like the dozen or so books that preceded it in that it's most enjoyable, (in a blokey sort of way), if fairly predictable. The thing about 61 Hours is that the ending is far from predicable - in fact, it's a bit of a shocker - but more about that in a moment.
The book begins when the bus on which Reacher's hitched a ride skids from a icy road in South Dakota. It's in the middle of a severe winter storm and with most of the roads blocked, Reacher and the other passengers are billeted in the nearby town of Bolton, which survives on just one industry, the huge state and federal prison that dominates the town. Reacher immediately senses a heightened state of anxiety and unease in his rescuers, and it's not just the storm. We cut to the lawyer defending the head of the bikie clan who manufacture and control the crystal meth distribution in the state. The bikie issues a set of instructions to the lawyer, fourteen criminal proposals of which one is the murder of the elderly schoolteacher who witnessed his drug buy in a local car park. Bolton's police force is attempting to protect the teacher, prosecute the bikies and battle the storm, but they're losing the battle. Meanwhile, a Mexican drug lord is preparing to fly to a disused military facility outside Bolton to recover nearly $50 million in amphetamines left over from WW11. So, Jack Reacher to the rescue? Bolton's Police Chief recognises that Reacher has investigative skills and contacts in the military unknown to his men and presses Reacher into service, and there the predictability ends. The bad prosper; the good die messily, Reacher struggles. The book's title is the beginning of a countdown to the explosive finale, one which will leave you wondering if there will ever be another Jack Reacher novel. I hope that there will be, but if not, 61 Hours would be a good place to end.
Rain Gods
James Lee Burke
August 2009
PB $32.99
This new book by James Lee Burke is as far from Dave Robischeaux, with all his angst and introspection, as you could hope to be. In Rain Gods, JLB has returned to the beautiful and powerful writing which was the hallmark of his earlier work. In Sheriff Hackberry Holland, he has created a powerful new protagonist reminiscent of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell from No Country for Old Men. Like Bell, Hackberry Holland is man past his time. The dried-up, dusty border town in South Texas that he serves has seen changes he could never have imagined. His county has become a highway from Mexico as all manner of drugs and violence finds its way north from the border. And Sheriff Holland is over it all.
The book opens when Hackberry Holland (Hack to his friends) is called to the rear of a broken down mission building by an anonymous caller. There he discovers an unimaginable crime; the bodies of nine Asian prostitutes have been buried in a shallow grave and over the course of the afternoon, Hack, working alone and with respect, uncovers the bodies and the crime.
The guy who called it in, Pete Flores, is an unwitting accomplice, but he knows that the discovery is going to bring some heavy shit his way. He leaves town with his girlfriend Vikki, but not before they have a run-in with a hired killer called The Preacher, who has been sent from Houston to clean things up.
So begins a really excellent story. Burke weaves together the threads that include a New Orleans crime baron and his local operator, Nick Dolan who owns a short string of skin clubs and escort services. There's Hack's sidekick, the lonely Pam Tibbs, competent and dedicated who would dearly love to bed Hack, who's at least smart enough to know it'd only end in tears. And then there's the Feds, playing their own long game and keeping Hack and Pam as from the loop as possible. It's a good story, but for me it's James Lee Burke's writing that casts the spell. His words flow from the page, evocative and telling as he describes the desert and the characters that fill the story. There's some violence of course, this story is not going to end happily, but for Hack to end the cycle of killings and bring justice to the guilty a judgement day must take place for him and The Preacher.
Black Ice
Leah Giarratano
July 2009
PB $32.95
With her third crime novel, Leah Giarratano just gets better and better, writing a tight, self-assured story that moves forward with great pace towards its denouement.
This time around we find Giarrantano's protagonist, Detective Jill Jackson, working undercover in Sydney's seedy western suburbs. Living alone in crappy public housing, surrounded by low-life of every type, Jill is making a pretty decent job of infiltrating and cracking the gangs who supply the illicit drugs and produce ice, or crystal meth. Despite the lows caused by her life-style and the continuous consumption of cask wine, Jill's life does have some bright moments - when her boss, Superintendent Last wants to meet with her, he sends a team to kick down her front door.
In this book we meet Jill's supermodel sister Cassie, whose world is so completely different from Jill's that she lives in another universe. Cassie's boyfriend is a high-flying criminal lawyer, Christian Worthington, who is also the supplier of all manner of drugs to Cassie and her eastern suburbs set.
The third major player in this book is Seren, recently released from prison after serving a sentence for narcotics possession. The narcotics she was holding when she was arrested belonged to Christian Worthington, and she has vowed to exact a heavy price for the time she has spent away from her son.
Girarratano weaves the three strands together with skill and dexterity. Cassie is introduced to one of Jill's targets - a major ice supplier, and quite by chance the sisters are thrown together at a party in Merrylands. Jill (masquerading as Krystal), pleads non-verbally with Cassie to keep her drug addled mouth shut or Jill will lose her life. After some fast-paced action which flits from beautiful apartments overlooking the city to crystal meth labs in the burbs, Giarratano brings her ensemble together for a climatic finish as Worthington attempts a major score with both Cassie and Seren in tow.
Although Leah obviously draws on her enormous experience as a clinical psychologist working with both victims and psychopaths to flesh out her characters, she demonstrates increasing confidence and writing skill with each and every book.
Road Dogs
Elmore Leonard
May 2009
PB $32.99
Ian Rankin and Dennis Lehane both love Elmore Leonard and so do I. I wrote recently that his quirky, oddball sense of humour had rubbed off on his son Peter in his first book, but plenty has remained with the old fella for Road Dogs. Here Elmore has pulled together a cast of characters who have generally had a run in one of his previous books. We've met Jack Foley, Cundo Rey and Dawn Navarra before and this time around its Foley's story. Foley, fans will recall, was America's foremost bank robber with over 100 hits to his name, but after a minor slip-up, he's doing 30 years for his crimes. In prison he meets Cundo Rey, millionaire hustler and former go-go dancer whose smart lawyer has got him a much reduced sentence. Cundo hooks Jack Foley up with his lawyer and soon Jack's out of there in just 30 months. During their time in Glades Correctional Jack and Cundo are "road dogs" - watching each other's back and looking after each other. But Jack owes Cundo for the reduced sentence and Jack knows that at some stage Cundo's going to collect on the debt.
Dawn Navarra's been waiting seven years for Cundo, living in his house on the Venice canal, (that's Venice California not Venice Italy,)and she's been trying hard to stay faithful. Jack gets released a few weeks before Cundo and arrives in Venice only to be seduced by Dawn, and so begins a compelling dance, with Dawn looking to score big and be rewarded for her long wait for Cundo - but knowing Cundo will kill her if he knows what she's been up to with Jack.
The subplot includes Lou Adams, a FBI special agent who's made Jack his pet project. Lou's convinced that Jack can't live without robbing banks, and Lou will be there the next time he tries it.
Love, lust and revenge on the Venice canals. By the book's end there'll be body bags as well. But who will get spend Cundo's money and who will get to see the inside of a cell. It's another great book from Elmore Leonard.
Die For You
Lisa Unger
$32.95
June 2009
I'm a bit hot and cold on Lisa Unger. One book is great, the next just woof, woof, woof. Beautiful Lies = Great. Sliver of Truth = Woof! Luckily, her new book Die for You is everything we could want from this mistress of psychological suspense. Her books often follow a similar story-line; ie: Much loved and trusted partner/husband/girlfriend/spouse disappears and subsequent investigation show that aforementioned much loved and trusted partner/husband/girlfriend/spouse were not who they pretended to be and actually didn't exist at all. Put that way it seems a little mundane - stretched over 350 pages by Ms Unger it's anything but.
This one is about Marcus and Isabel Raines who are living a comfortable life in Manhattan. She's a writer; he's a successful designer of computer games. One morning he sets out for work and simply doesn't return. We follow Isabel through the early evening. The anticipation of his return. The expectation. The concern. The panic. His cell phone is off and he's not at any place she can think of. She calls the police who of course tell her to wait 24 hours and finally as dawn breaks and now numb with fatigue she takes a cab to his office. When Rick, his co-director arrives, he is as mystified as Isabel, but then the door crashes open and the office is filed with gun toting FBI agents.
Later, with everyone who worked for Marcus dead, and her bank accounts drained dry, Isabel sets out to make some sense of what has happened to her. When she returns home she finds her home has been ransacked, just as the office was. The detective assigned to her case is sympathetic, but nothing it seems is going to bring Marcus back. Then the police make a startling discovery, Marcus Raine died five years earlier. The man Isabel has been living with is a complete stranger.
It's a fast paced read, popping back and forwards from the happier days of Isabel and Marcus to the present, with a narrative that drives forward to the startling conclusion. Definitely not a dog, Ms Unger.
The Increment
David Ignatius
May, 2009
PB $ 29.95
Isn't Iran just the flavour of the moment? David Ignatius is a prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post and he's been covering the Middle East for over 25 years. His writing is careful, considered, but with an underlying degree of truth that underpins his story. I really enjoyed his last book, Body of Lies, and the movie with Leonardo Di Caprio and Russell Crow wasn't too bad either. That novel showed the difficulties of the spook on the ground, struggling to hold onto his resources and often his life, while those back at head office shuffle the deckchairs endlessly.
This is the story of Harry Pappas, a somewhat sidelined CIA chief of the Iran Operations Division. Harry has been wounded by the loss of his only son in Iraq, and has been pulled from the field for the job of running Persian House. With no resources on the ground in Iran, Harry and his team can only wait and observe, until one day a message comes through the CIA website. A scientist in Iran's missile program has sent secret and potentially explosive information to the CIA. So begins a gentle game of cat and mouse as Harry starts to woo this potential contact. The information is red hot. It suggests that the Iranians are much further forward with their nuclear program that the Americans thought. Harry proceeds slowly but the guys in National Security are hot to trot. They want to release the information and bomb Iran - a move that Harry knows will just get his informant killed sooner rather later.
In cooperation with a British team of irregulars called The Increment, Harry makes contact with the Iranian scientist and begins to debrief him. But nothing is what it seems in the world of spy and counter-spy and very soon, just like Roger Ferris in Body of Lies, Harry Pappas is being out manoeuvred by those above him.
It's a very believable spy thriller that John Le Carre would have been happy to have written. Let's hope there's plenty more stories like this one left in David Ignatius.
The Scarecrow
Michael Connelly
May, 2009
PB $32.95
This is Connelly's best book since The Poet. I guess I get a bit hot and cold on Michael Connelly too sometimes. His Lincoln Lawyer series was going along nicely until Connelly jumped the shark and made the lawyer the half brother of Harry Bosch! But no such trouble with The Scarecrow, it's just a ripplingly good read from start to finish. Connelly has reprised Jack McEvoy, the newspaperman who broke the Poet story, in his last days at the LA Times.
As Jack cleans out his desk in a world where on-line papers are making the paper ones redundant, he is determined to go out with one big story. He has a small story about a 16 year old drug dealer who has confessed to brutally raping and strangling one of his crack customers. The confession sounds suss to Jack and although he offers to look into the story to placate Alfonzo's grandmother, he's hoping for an expose that will leave his mark on the newspaper world. Jack is being replaced at the paper by Angela, a newbie straight out of Journo School, and she assists Jack to track down the finer points of the story. The little story about a crack dealer suddenly takes flight when Jack discovers a number of murders spread across the country with the same MO. As Jack flies off to Vegas to follow a lead his identity is stolen with his credits cards and license suddenly becoming invalid.
The Scarecrow is a long-term serial killer who has managed to operate for years below the radar, using his cyber skills to mask his identity and his crimes. He has planted a trap in a website and knowing that Jack and Angela have connected the killings, sets out to eliminate them. As Jack is waylaid in Nevada proving his identity, Angela is brutally killed and Jack framed for her murder. Jack is rescued by Rachel Walling, the FBI agent also introduced in The Poet, but The Scarecrow is buried so deep that he may elude the resources of the FBI. It will take the nose of the newspaperman to finally uncover the true identity of The Scarecrow, but the cost to Jack and those around him will be immense. Probably the best Michael Connelly I've read.
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn
May 2009
$32.99
This is Gillian Flynn's second book after Sharp Objects which was published for Christmas 2006 and was fabulously dark and spooky. Flynn's new book, Dark Places, lacks the initial punch which made its predecessor so good, but as it unfolds it becomes increasingly compelling. It's the story of Libby Day who was just seven years old when her devil-worshipping older brother massacred her family - well that's what the book jacket screams at us anyway. Libby Day is now 24 years on from the event that killed her family and she's managed to spend her way through the $300,000+ donated by caring well-wishes. The money spent Day, who is initially hard to warm to, casts about for other means of rasing some cash and happens upon an odd group of crime followers, called The Kill Club, who will pay her to speak to their group. It's obvious from the outset that they want more than Libby can give - in terms of information and the whereabouts of her step-father, but that aside, over time the group starts to persuade Libby that maybe her brother wasn't guilty of the murders at all. This is a problem for Libby. She hasn't seen her brother since he was incarcerated, mainly on her evidence twenty years before, but as her eyes slowly open she reaches out to her brother and the remaining elements of the family to try to discover the truth. The book is told from the viewpoint of Libby, her brother Ben and her Mother Patty and the time shifts from the present to the events leading up to the killings in 1985. We learn that Patty was struggling to bring up four young children as a single mother and her home was about to be repossessed. The children's hand me downs were passed from one to another to another, and there was barely enough money to put food on her table. Ben, as the only male in the house is certainly a troubled child but as unlikely a devil-worshipper as you could hope to meet. But the whole family suffers from poor self-esteem and very little hope that their circumstance might improve. The history of the Day family unfolds alongside Libby's present day story as she slowly uncovers the events of fifteen years previously.
Like Sharp Objects it's creepy and atmospheric and Libby Day is a seriously flawed young woman. But she's beautifully crafted by Gillian Flynn and as you read this book you'll be drawn into the hopelessness and complexity of the little lives and you'll find that the final twist is a real kicker.
Black Water Rising
Atticia Locke
September 2009
$PB TBA (HB instore now $45)
Atticia Locke is a great discovery for us crime readers and Black Water Rising is a great debut thriller. Set in Houston in 1981, it's the story of Jay Porter, a lawyer who might have come straight from a Dennis Lehane novel - struggling to make ends meet, a one man band with his biggest hope for a client a low rent call girl. This client, if she can ever get her shit together, might just be awarded a settlement that will keep Jay afloat for another month. His wife is heavily pregnant and as the book opens Jay is taking her on a moonlight cruise on the bayou, but he can't even pull that off properly. The boat is tired and dingy; Jay and Bernie the only two passengers. Jake's American Dream is a simply one - his wife, his baby - and in the child he sees a new start for himself. Then the humid night air is shattered by a scream and Jay, against all his instincts and his better judgement, impulsively dives into the bayou and saves the life of a drowning woman. So begins a spiral that drags Jay even lower, pulling him into a murder investigation that entangles his past with the money from the big end of town. Beautifully crafted with a fine sense of place, Jay Porter and his struggle for justice will stay with you long after you turn the last page of this stunning new book.
Handle With Care
Jodi Picoult
April 2009
PB $32.99
I'm a huge fan of Jodi Picoult but I have to confess that I wasn't sure I had the strength for Handle With Care. We all know that Miss Picoult writes about families, relationships and love and frequently places the reader in the position where you must make a moral judgment - which is just as likely to be swept away by Miss Picoult in the next chapter. Handle With Care is the story of Willow O'Keefe, a baby born with osteogenesis imperfecta or brittle bone disease. The description of Willow's birth in the prologue is as harrowing a piece of writing as I've ever read. Picoult drags at your heart-strings with her description of this tiny baby, already with broken ribs and long-bone fractures being torn from her mother's body.
Before Willow is five she's had over 100 breaks - some minor but many sufficiently serious to leave her in casts for months at a time. On a family holiday to Disneyworld, she trips, breaks both femurs and is treated by the local hospital. The Florida emergency room doctors misdiagnose the many old fractures they see on the X rays as child abuse, the police are called, and Willow's parents, Charlotte and Sean are taken away for questioning. With this drama behind them the family returns home with Sean bubbling over with anger at the way they were treated. A personal injury lawyer advises the family against any legal action but suggests a case could be made for 'wrongful birth' - Charlotte's obstetrician should have diagnosed the OI and given Charlotte the opportunity to terminate the pregnancy. Charlotte, burdened under the injustice of the health insurance provider, the medical bills and costs of raising a special needs child decides that this is an appropriate course of action and instructs the lawyers - the only problem being that Piper, the OB, is Charlotte's best friend in the whole world.
So we embark upon the emotional journey that Jodi Picoult writes so well. In providing quality of life for Willow Charlotte must lose her best friend and potentially destroy her family.
Awakening
SJ Bolton
March 2009
PB $32.95
In the second book by SJ Bolton she has avoided the usual 2nd book blues by inventing a new character and location whist maintaining her tight writing and sense of place. Her first book, Sacrifice was set in the confined location of the Shetland Islands and here too much of the action is confined to the small unnamed village on the banks of River Liffin.
The book revolves around Clara Benning, a vet at a wildlife rescue centre called the Little Order of St Francis. Clara is young, fit, but reclusive as a childhood injury has disfigured half her face. We first meet Clara when her warm-down is interrupted by a neighbour who has just checked on her baby's afternoon nap to find an Adder, Britain's most poisonous snake, asleep on her baby's chest. No sooner has Clara saved the day and vanquished the Adder when more snake-related dramas crop up in her village. An elderly man has died from the poison from another Adder, and on returning home the next night Clara is called to another neighbour's house where at least a dozen grass snakes have forced the family to flee the house. In collecting these snakes Clara also comes across a Taipan, a snake never found in the UK and one of the deadliest of the species.
Clara knows that this level of snake activity is unprecedented. But as she and Australian snake expert Sean North unravel the mystery of the snakes, they uncover links to a barbaric ancient ritual and find that the abandoned house at the edge of the village is anything but.
In Clara Benning SJ Bolton has created a likeable and competent heroine. Her self-imposed isolation and shyness is eventually broken down by Sean North and her neighbour Matt as they unravel the secrets of the village. Awakening is an excellent thriller but probably shouldn't be read by ophiophobics.
American Rust
Philipp Meyer
May 2009
PB $32.99 (HB in store now)
Although there is a death at the beginning of this book and there is a crime investigation it is definitely not a crime novel. Set among the rust belt of Pennsylvania, where in a short period in the late 1970s 150,000 men lost their jobs due to closure of the steel mills, it's really a story about the loss of the American dream. It revolves around two young men, childhood friends, but as different as chalk and cheese. Isaac, no bigger than a child with an IQ practically off the scale, and Billy Poe, fast enough to win a football scholarship and big enough to play pro.
Their fate is sealed when Isaac steals $4000 from his aging father and sets out for California where he knows he'll be accepted into an astrophysics program. Poe is trapped by indecision, still living with his separated mother in a trailer, unable to take the single step that will also set him free from the Monongahela River Valley. Poe agrees to walk with Isaac as far as the railway line, but in a harrowing opening scene they encounter three homeless men, a fight breaks out, and although Isaac scampers away Billy Poe has never run from a fight in his life, and one of the men is killed.
As Isaac continues his journey to California, Poe is banged up in a brutal State Prison, which he reasons is where he belongs, and so steadfastly refuses to admit guilt or to say anything which might clear his name. Unaware of this Isaac continues on, his imagination and intelligence failing to make up for his lack of street smarts as he rides the trains just as his forebears did in the Great Depression.
The characters are perfectly drawn, Isaac's ailing father and his beautiful sister Lee; Poe's mother Grace - worn out from years of just struggling through life and Bud Harris, the over-worked, understaffed local cop who is just trying to hang on until his retirement.
It's a magnificent book in so many ways. Underlying the whole story is the hopelessness of all the players. Even Lee, who escaped the valley when Isaac and her mother died, is trapped in a loveless marriage, and despite having married into money, her cage is as tightly locked as the people who still live in the shuttered towns of the valley. Lee's isolation reflects that of the other key characters, Grace alone in her trailer, Bud Harris living alone in his mountain cabin, Poe in prison and Isaac on the road. It's also a novel of hope and redemption, of how people cope with catastrophic change and the lengths we would all go to if we had to save a child.
I don't normally agree with anything Patricia Cornwell says, but she thinks Philipp Meyer will win the Pulitzer, and I think she might be right.
My favourite book
All the Pretty Horses
by Cormac McCarthy
The writing of Cormac McCarthy in this book is simply beautiful. Each phrase so carefully crafted you feel as if you can gently hold it in your palm. Essentially it's a cowboy story and coming of age novel. John Grady Cole is only sixteen years old when his grand-father dies, and with his mother absent and estranged from his father he has no cause to stick around. He and his friend Lacy Rawlins ride their horses across the Rio Grande where they meet Jimmy Blevins, only fourteen years old but already an accomplished sharpshooter.
The book tells of the adventures of the trio, of traumatic experiences with the corrupt Mexican officials, of the changing weather which is a character all of its own, of the cowboys they meet along the road, and finally of John Grady Cole's brief romance with the daughter of a hacienda owner. Although it's set in 1948 it seems of a much earlier time but for a story of being at one with animals and nature it doesn't come much better than this.
My favourite author
Jodi Picoult
I love this woman. She's the bubbliest person you'll ever meet and her writing is superb. I really enjoyed her new novel The Tenth Circle for it's portrayal of an ordinary family of the brink of destruction, and Vanishing Act for its storytelling and the sense of place, but for my money, her best work by far is Perfect Match. Part crime thriller, part court-room drama, part "how-far-would-you-go-for-the-one-you-love" story, Miss Picoult stretches the reader with every new chapter. Just as you've comfotable with a concept, she grabs your comfortable envelope and stretches it almost to tearing. And the ending of this book has such a twist that I doubt anyone will see it coming.
Her titles have all been re-jacketed recently by her Australian publisher and take pride of place on our bookshelves. Her website is worth a visit and of course the address is www.jodipicoult.com
What's beside the bed
I've just finished the new Tess Gerritsen and will have my review of that up in a day or so. But I picked up the new Vince Flynn and (I'm almost ashamed to say), I'm enjoying it enormously. Extreme Measures sees our hero Mitch Rapp out there doing battle with bad guys (both out there and at home), and never pulling a punch or compromising his extreme right-wing views. I love it!