Scan barcode
jhscolloquium's reviews
904 reviews
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
The genesis of the literary collaboration of powerhouse authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan on Mad Honey is literally something out of a dream . . . In May 2017, Boylan awoke to the realization that she had dreamed she was writing a novel with Picoult about a "girl who died; her boyfriend, who had been accused of her murder; and the boy's mother, who was torn between the compelling evidence of her son's guilt and the love she bore for him in her heart." They had long been fans of each other's work. When Boylan Tweeted, "I dreamed I was co-authoring a book with Jodi Picoult," she soon received a private message from Picoult asking what the book was about. Picoult, who is known for examining thorny social issues through her fiction and had been contemplating a book focused on transgender rights, was intrigued. Picoult imagined "creating a trans character who was so real and compelling that . . . [readers would] love her for who she was, not what she was." They began crafting the book in early 2020, just as the world shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The book opens on December 7, 2018, the day on which Olivia receives the kind of phone call every parent dreads. She is a beekeeper who returned to her home town of Adams, New Hampshire, twelve years ago with her son, Asher, now a high school senior. The story is related through two first-person narratives. From Picoult's perspective, the division of labor was mandated by the subject matter. Thus, it was agreed that Picoult would draft Olivia's account. Asher has been dating Lily since September. She is a new student who relocated from Point Reyes, California, with her mother, Ava, a U.S. Forest Ranger who accepted a desk job in order to facilitate her transfer to New Hampshire. Lily's narrative, drafted by Boylan, begins on the same day as Olivia's and is presented on alternating chapters. However, as Olivia's account moves forward in time, Lily's moves incrementally in reverse chronological order. The co-authors agreed, however, that they would each write at least one chapter in the other character's voice, and re-edit each other's work in order to ensure continuity and consistency. The technique worked, leaving even the authors unable, after revisions, to recall which portions they penned.
Olivia is a strong, protective mother who has already taken bold steps to protect her only child. As the story progresses, she tells the story of how she met and fell in love with Asher's father, as well as why their marriage ended in divorce. Revealing those details gradually, as Olivia's strength, resolve, and faith in her son is tested, proves highly effective. Specific junctures in the investigation into Lily's death -- Asher's interrogation, arrest, and the ensuing trial -- dovetail with past events to provide insight into Olivia's psyche. She loves Asher unconditionally, but there is strong circumstantial evidence linking him to Lily's death, which is ruled a homicide. Current events trigger Olivia's memories of incidents that occurred during her marriage, culminating in the moment when she knew it had reached the proverbial point of no return. Olivia took steps to ensure that Asher would be protected from his father's influence, so Asher has not had a relationship with him since he was six years old. Still, Olivia is unsure about how much Asher remembers of their life with his father and worries that Asher could have inherited undesirable traits from him. Her brother, Jordan, one of New Hampshire's most famous defense attorneys (who has appeared in prior Picoult novels), agrees to defend Asher and has he explains the legal significance of the evidence against him, Olivia's belief in Asher's innocence wavers. She understandably questions whether her child has a capacity for violence that resulted in the death of the girl he loved. And that is one thing she is sure about: Asher loved Lily. But Olivia also learns that Asher has kept secrets from her, invalidating some of her assumptions about her son's character and further challenging her belief in his innocence.
Olivia is a highly sympathetic character with whom readers, especially parents, will readily empathize. Moving to Adams in order to keep Asher safe and shielded from his father's example was a sacrifice, but she does not regret having returned to her hometown for the sake of her son. Asher is poised to graduate from high school and begin college, leaving Olivia to think about her own needs and desires for the first time in years. She liked Lily from the moment she met her, and was thrilled to see Asher happy. Picoult (and Boylan) compassionately and believably portray Olivia's internal emotional struggle as she desperately wants to believe that her child is not a killer, and questions her parenting and whether she did enough to prevent him from becoming like his father. Like Lily, Olivia knows Asher to be a "gentle, gentle spirit" but, also like Lily, she has seen his temper flare and it frightened her. Her anguish, as Asher's bright future teeters, is palpable and credible, especially when Jordan competently and frankly explains the legal peril in which Asher finds himself.
Lily's story also begins on "the day of" her death. Five days earlier, Asher picked her up at her house, promising a wonderful surprise. But things did not go as Asher hoped and Lily has missed the past three days of school because she hasn't felt well, but she is also avoiding Asher and her classmates. Lily is a talented cellist who, like Asher, is excited about graduation and college. She considers her mother, "Ranger Mom," not just a "badass," but also her staunchest protector, defender, and friend. Indeed, Lily reveals how Ava, like Olivia, has proven that she will do whatever is necessary to take care of her daughter, shield her from harm, and help her lead a happy life, authentically. Because readers are informed immediately that Lily has died, getting to know her and understand her emotional journey is bittersweet, but exponentially more poignant and impactful. While Asher's future hangs in the balance, Lily's has been obliterated, leaving her mother grieving and, like Olivia, wondering if Asher could be capable of taking her only child's life, just as she was on the brink of attaining so many of her goals. Like Asher, Lily's relationship with her father has been troubled and she is estranged from him. She has even lied to Asher, telling him her father is dead in order to avoid explaining the reasons why he is no longer part of her life. She says, "People always talk about how their love for you is unconditional. Then you reveal your most private self to them, and you find out how many conditions there are in unconditional love." At the beginning of their romance, there is more about Lily that Asher does not know, and Lily fears that if Asher learns the real reasons why she and her mother moved to Adams, their relationship will end.
Picoult is known for her skillful misdirection and shocking revelations, and Mad Honey is no exception. Readers are expertly drawn into Lily's compelling story, a big portion of which is, of course, focused on her relationship with Asher and its evolution. It is deeply moving, in no small part because Boylan flawlessly captures Lily's teen tone, style, and angst. Boylan deftly conveys Lily's emotional struggles, joys, and determination to navigate the world as her true self, buoyed by her mother's tireless and unconditional support. She also educates readers by setting forth information in a straight-forward manner that enhances readers' understandings of various issues and the practical ways in which they can be addressed. She and Picoult thoroughly enmesh readers in Lily's challenges before abruptly revealing, in dramatic fashion, one salient fact that decimates assumptions held up to that point and forces readers to view Lily's journey through a completely different lens. Which is, of course, the point. With knowledge of what Lily went through and who she was, Picoult and Boylan ask readers to see her in exactly the same way they did before they were made privy to private details about her.
In true Picoult fashion, Mad Honey is a clever and absorbing murder mystery featuring riveting courtroom scenes that is marred only by its predictable and, frankly, overused resolution. The story is punctuated with details about bees and beekeeping that parallel the action in the characters' lives, as well as a deeply touching and thought-provoking meditation on social issues. It is an examination of motherhood, depicted through the characters of Olivia and Ava, both of whom are called upon to stand firm in their convictions about and defense of their child. They have both "protected them from their fathers, giving enough love to spackle over the hate." They have sacrificed their own dreams in order to shield their children from physical and emotional abuse, as well as the aftermath thereof. Olivia is undergoing the unbelievably stressful experience of seeing a child accused of a heinous crime, facing possible imprisonment for life, and digging deep within her emotional resources to be balance the need to pragmatically evaluate the evidence and its implications against what she knows about the child raised. In contrast, there is nothing more Ava can do for her child except mourn and remember her, and hope that justice is served.
Mad Honey is also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be one's true self and how hard that can be when others -- sometimes even those who should steadfastly accept and love us unconditionally -- refuse to accept us as we are. It's the candid and excruciatingly heartbreaking story of a girl who wanted most to be, and be seen and acknowledged as just that: a girl whose internal self-concept matched what she presented to the world. Through their characters, they ponder the concept of privacy vs. secrecy. "There is no set of rules that dictates what you owe someone you love. What parts of your past should be disclosed? . . . Where is the line between keeping something private, and being dishonest? What if the worst happens? What if honesty is the thing that breaks you apart?"
Boylan says that as the manuscript was nearly finalized, she was "dogged by two melancholy thoughts" that readers will undoubtedly share. First, for Ava who lost and will always miss her only child. But also for Lily, who will not go on to college or have all of the other wonderful life experiences to which young people look forward, in no small measure because far too many real girls like her are killed every year. But Boylan hopes that by telling Lily's story, she will "open hearts" and "shine a light on issues that you may have never thought about in this way before." For Picoult's part, she doesn't want readers to take anything away from reading Mad Honey. Rather, she wants readers "to give -- a chance, a thought, a damn. . . . [D]ifference is a construct. We are all flawed, complicated, scarred dreamers; we have more in common with each other than we don't. Sometimes making the world a better place just involves creating space for the people who are already in it." And that's the clear message imbued in Mad Honey, a book that should be required reading in every high school and college in America because that's the deceptively simple and quite timely point that Picoult and Boylan make through its characters.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
The book opens on December 7, 2018, the day on which Olivia receives the kind of phone call every parent dreads. She is a beekeeper who returned to her home town of Adams, New Hampshire, twelve years ago with her son, Asher, now a high school senior. The story is related through two first-person narratives. From Picoult's perspective, the division of labor was mandated by the subject matter. Thus, it was agreed that Picoult would draft Olivia's account. Asher has been dating Lily since September. She is a new student who relocated from Point Reyes, California, with her mother, Ava, a U.S. Forest Ranger who accepted a desk job in order to facilitate her transfer to New Hampshire. Lily's narrative, drafted by Boylan, begins on the same day as Olivia's and is presented on alternating chapters. However, as Olivia's account moves forward in time, Lily's moves incrementally in reverse chronological order. The co-authors agreed, however, that they would each write at least one chapter in the other character's voice, and re-edit each other's work in order to ensure continuity and consistency. The technique worked, leaving even the authors unable, after revisions, to recall which portions they penned.
Olivia is a strong, protective mother who has already taken bold steps to protect her only child. As the story progresses, she tells the story of how she met and fell in love with Asher's father, as well as why their marriage ended in divorce. Revealing those details gradually, as Olivia's strength, resolve, and faith in her son is tested, proves highly effective. Specific junctures in the investigation into Lily's death -- Asher's interrogation, arrest, and the ensuing trial -- dovetail with past events to provide insight into Olivia's psyche. She loves Asher unconditionally, but there is strong circumstantial evidence linking him to Lily's death, which is ruled a homicide. Current events trigger Olivia's memories of incidents that occurred during her marriage, culminating in the moment when she knew it had reached the proverbial point of no return. Olivia took steps to ensure that Asher would be protected from his father's influence, so Asher has not had a relationship with him since he was six years old. Still, Olivia is unsure about how much Asher remembers of their life with his father and worries that Asher could have inherited undesirable traits from him. Her brother, Jordan, one of New Hampshire's most famous defense attorneys (who has appeared in prior Picoult novels), agrees to defend Asher and has he explains the legal significance of the evidence against him, Olivia's belief in Asher's innocence wavers. She understandably questions whether her child has a capacity for violence that resulted in the death of the girl he loved. And that is one thing she is sure about: Asher loved Lily. But Olivia also learns that Asher has kept secrets from her, invalidating some of her assumptions about her son's character and further challenging her belief in his innocence.
Olivia is a highly sympathetic character with whom readers, especially parents, will readily empathize. Moving to Adams in order to keep Asher safe and shielded from his father's example was a sacrifice, but she does not regret having returned to her hometown for the sake of her son. Asher is poised to graduate from high school and begin college, leaving Olivia to think about her own needs and desires for the first time in years. She liked Lily from the moment she met her, and was thrilled to see Asher happy. Picoult (and Boylan) compassionately and believably portray Olivia's internal emotional struggle as she desperately wants to believe that her child is not a killer, and questions her parenting and whether she did enough to prevent him from becoming like his father. Like Lily, Olivia knows Asher to be a "gentle, gentle spirit" but, also like Lily, she has seen his temper flare and it frightened her. Her anguish, as Asher's bright future teeters, is palpable and credible, especially when Jordan competently and frankly explains the legal peril in which Asher finds himself.
Lily's story also begins on "the day of" her death. Five days earlier, Asher picked her up at her house, promising a wonderful surprise. But things did not go as Asher hoped and Lily has missed the past three days of school because she hasn't felt well, but she is also avoiding Asher and her classmates. Lily is a talented cellist who, like Asher, is excited about graduation and college. She considers her mother, "Ranger Mom," not just a "badass," but also her staunchest protector, defender, and friend. Indeed, Lily reveals how Ava, like Olivia, has proven that she will do whatever is necessary to take care of her daughter, shield her from harm, and help her lead a happy life, authentically. Because readers are informed immediately that Lily has died, getting to know her and understand her emotional journey is bittersweet, but exponentially more poignant and impactful. While Asher's future hangs in the balance, Lily's has been obliterated, leaving her mother grieving and, like Olivia, wondering if Asher could be capable of taking her only child's life, just as she was on the brink of attaining so many of her goals. Like Asher, Lily's relationship with her father has been troubled and she is estranged from him. She has even lied to Asher, telling him her father is dead in order to avoid explaining the reasons why he is no longer part of her life. She says, "People always talk about how their love for you is unconditional. Then you reveal your most private self to them, and you find out how many conditions there are in unconditional love." At the beginning of their romance, there is more about Lily that Asher does not know, and Lily fears that if Asher learns the real reasons why she and her mother moved to Adams, their relationship will end.
Picoult is known for her skillful misdirection and shocking revelations, and Mad Honey is no exception. Readers are expertly drawn into Lily's compelling story, a big portion of which is, of course, focused on her relationship with Asher and its evolution. It is deeply moving, in no small part because Boylan flawlessly captures Lily's teen tone, style, and angst. Boylan deftly conveys Lily's emotional struggles, joys, and determination to navigate the world as her true self, buoyed by her mother's tireless and unconditional support. She also educates readers by setting forth information in a straight-forward manner that enhances readers' understandings of various issues and the practical ways in which they can be addressed. She and Picoult thoroughly enmesh readers in Lily's challenges before abruptly revealing, in dramatic fashion, one salient fact that decimates assumptions held up to that point and forces readers to view Lily's journey through a completely different lens. Which is, of course, the point. With knowledge of what Lily went through and who she was, Picoult and Boylan ask readers to see her in exactly the same way they did before they were made privy to private details about her.
In true Picoult fashion, Mad Honey is a clever and absorbing murder mystery featuring riveting courtroom scenes that is marred only by its predictable and, frankly, overused resolution. The story is punctuated with details about bees and beekeeping that parallel the action in the characters' lives, as well as a deeply touching and thought-provoking meditation on social issues. It is an examination of motherhood, depicted through the characters of Olivia and Ava, both of whom are called upon to stand firm in their convictions about and defense of their child. They have both "protected them from their fathers, giving enough love to spackle over the hate." They have sacrificed their own dreams in order to shield their children from physical and emotional abuse, as well as the aftermath thereof. Olivia is undergoing the unbelievably stressful experience of seeing a child accused of a heinous crime, facing possible imprisonment for life, and digging deep within her emotional resources to be balance the need to pragmatically evaluate the evidence and its implications against what she knows about the child raised. In contrast, there is nothing more Ava can do for her child except mourn and remember her, and hope that justice is served.
Mad Honey is also a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be one's true self and how hard that can be when others -- sometimes even those who should steadfastly accept and love us unconditionally -- refuse to accept us as we are. It's the candid and excruciatingly heartbreaking story of a girl who wanted most to be, and be seen and acknowledged as just that: a girl whose internal self-concept matched what she presented to the world. Through their characters, they ponder the concept of privacy vs. secrecy. "There is no set of rules that dictates what you owe someone you love. What parts of your past should be disclosed? . . . Where is the line between keeping something private, and being dishonest? What if the worst happens? What if honesty is the thing that breaks you apart?"
Boylan says that as the manuscript was nearly finalized, she was "dogged by two melancholy thoughts" that readers will undoubtedly share. First, for Ava who lost and will always miss her only child. But also for Lily, who will not go on to college or have all of the other wonderful life experiences to which young people look forward, in no small measure because far too many real girls like her are killed every year. But Boylan hopes that by telling Lily's story, she will "open hearts" and "shine a light on issues that you may have never thought about in this way before." For Picoult's part, she doesn't want readers to take anything away from reading Mad Honey. Rather, she wants readers "to give -- a chance, a thought, a damn. . . . [D]ifference is a construct. We are all flawed, complicated, scarred dreamers; we have more in common with each other than we don't. Sometimes making the world a better place just involves creating space for the people who are already in it." And that's the clear message imbued in Mad Honey, a book that should be required reading in every high school and college in America because that's the deceptively simple and quite timely point that Picoult and Boylan make through its characters.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Suspect by Scott Turow
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
In Suspect, bestselling author Scott Turow revisits Kindle County, the setting of eleven previous novels. The story is related in a first-person narrative from Clarice "Pinky" Granum, the granddaughter of one of Turow's most beloved characters, esteemed defense attorney Sandy Stern. Now retired and residing in an assisted living facility, Sandy gave Pinky his Cadillac CTS which Pinky describes as "not the ride I would have picked for myself." Considering she is covered in tattoos, and sports a magenta mohawk with a blue undercut on one side and a nail in her nose, she "gets some looks" when she climbs out of the vehicle. Pinky has endured failure in her life, most notably a difficult relationship with her mother, a lost shot at Olympic glory in the half-pipe event, and her dismissal from the police academy following a positive drug test. To her credit, Pinky acknowledges her mistakes, including that she "screwed over" police detective Tonya Eo twelve years ago when it became clear that Tonya, "a nice person with a heart that had been pretty much unscarred until I stomped on it," wanted more than Pinky could give. But Pinky also embraces her uniqueness, refusing to pretend to be anything other than smart, tenacious, and unwaveringly loyal, even if not yet ready to settle down. She is a tireless and dedicated private investigator, a job she loves and is extremely good at, undoubtedly because of her insatiable curiosity. Her instincts are good, but not infallible and she sometimes takes reckless chances in her pursuit of answers. Fortunately, Tonya still has feelings for Pinky and, after so many years, is willing to provide assistance to the extent that she is able without crossing ethical boundaries.
Pinky describes her father, grandfather, and Rik Dudek, the attorney for whom she works, as the three most reliable people in her life. Rik runs a rather low-budget legal practice focused on domestic cases, DUIs, and the like. Rik is a former police officer and the chief of police, Lucia Gomez, is his old friend from high school and colleague. Suddenly, she finds herself the subject in an investigation when three male officers accuse her of quid pro quo sexual harassment -- demanding sexual favors in exchange for promotion. She adamantly denies the charges and retains Rik to represent her in the high-profile case that could result in the end of her tenure. Yes, all three men got promoted, but the Chief insists that the promotions were based on legitimate considerations such as job performance and seniority. She's enjoyed a stellar career, rising in the ranks on merit in a profession that proves challenging for women. A single woman with a grown daughter, Lucia is tough, principled, and undeniably powerful. She is also a woman and a woman of color who is at ease with her sexuality. And in law enforcement, perhaps more than any other profession, those qualities make her a threat to the fragile egos of some male subordinates, especially those with a proclivity toward bending the rules for their own benefit. As Pinky explains to Rik, "Men still hate it when a female does what she wants with her body. These dudes' stories make no sense. Yeah, okay, men can get raped or assaulted, but not usually when they're carrying a .38. . . . So how'd she force them?"
Pinky is assigned to gather admissible evidence supporting Lucia's innocence and decimating the officers' claims. Simultaneously, she becomes intrigued with her new next-door neighbor, who seems to be engaged in clandestine activities. As she tells Rik, the neighbor doesn't go to work, have visitors, speak to anyone in the building, pick up his mail, or even own a car. There have been no sounds emanating from his apartment for weeks, but he leaves every day at noon carrying a gym bag and returns with takeout food for dinner. Pinky just can't imagine what he is up to and, despite Rik's warning, becomes determined to find out. So she starts following him, but when he catches her, she makes up a story on the fly about wanting to meet him. She ends up getting involved with him, although they agree not to discuss their respective careers and clients.
Pinky delves into the allegations against Chief Gomez, who emphasizes that two of her accusers -- Primo DeGrassi and Walter Cornish -- worked narcotics together until she reassigned them and both have connections to "The Ritz," Moritz Vojczek. He is a former officer who owns the largest real estate brokerage and construction company, and also manages most of the apartment buildings in the city. He is now worth 300 million dollars, but he left the police force just shy of the date on which he would have been eligible to retire -- he knew that if he did not resign, the Chief would ensure he was fired because he was a dirty cop.
Turow is a master at crafting taut thrillers replete with surprising plot revelations and twists like those included in Suspect. No detail is irrelevant, as Turow takes readers on Pinky's investigative journey to discover both whether the Chief is telling the truth and if she has, in fact, been set up by The Ritz, as well as also why three officers would facilitate the scheme by lying about their interactions with her. At the same time, she learns why her neighbor has come to town and how his business pursuits intersect with the case against the Chief. Because of Turow's own prowess as a litigator, the technical aspects of the tale are not only accurate, but also cohesively woven into a suspenseful and fast-paced mystery that keeps readers guessing right up to the dramatically nerve-wracking conclusion. In his signature style, Turow illustrates the relevant legal principles and investigative procedures through the kind of meticulously-constructed scenes set in the courtroom for which Turow is beloved by readers. He also depicts consultations between Rik, Pinky, and their client, and Pinky sometimes blunders her way into significant discoveries, all of which propel the story forward.
As always, Turow's cast of characters is intriguing and believable, and the dialogue is crisp and witty. Pinky is resourceful and clever --Turow describes her as intuitive with "lightning flashes of bold and correct intuition." She learned a great deal from her grandfather while she worked as a paralegal in his law office and still calls on him for support and advice, because he loves her unconditionally, even if her personal life exasperates him. She is relatable and empathetic -- a young woman establishing herself in a career she enjoys, who understands her own boundaries and limitations. She wants to love and be loved, but not if it requires her to compromise her identity. Pinky serves as a testament to Turow's ability to bring to life characters that are multi-faceted, flawed, and utterly endearing. The accomplishment is even more impressive, given that Turow flawlessly and convincingly voices a thirty-three-year-old bisexual woman. Turow did not initially plan to bring Pinky back, but his readers loved her and Turow found her funny because she is "brash and impolite frequently," so he came up with the idea to make her the main character. It is the first time Turow has published a book in which the protagonist is not a lawyer, which added to the challenge of writing a novel in the voice of someone forty years younger than he is. Interestingly, he did not find drafting the story from a female perspective nearly as daunting, but was surprised he found himself writing it in first person. "Sometimes there are little miracles when you are writing and the fact that Pinky came to me in the way she did goes on that list," he says.
Equally compelling, Chief Gomez is a woman who plays by the rules, requiring the same level of excellence that she brings to the job from her officers. The daughter of immigrants, she has succeeded as a result of her own work ethic and determination. After high school, she served in the military in order to fund her college education. Turow says he wants readers to be sympathetic to her plight "because she is a self-created person" and the stakes for her are so high. She faces not just the loss of her career, but the potential shame of failing spectacularly in her home town. But in law enforcement, not every expectation of employees is memorialized in a rule, regulation, or procedure. It falls to Rik, litigating the biggest case of his career, to convince a three-member police commission that the male complainants are lying, and the Chief must not only be exonerated but permitted to retain her position. Sometimes justice lies in the margins -- the gray areas not neatly outlined in legal treatises, a point Turow deftly explores. The "sextortion" storyline includes "a lot of meditation about power and sexuality," a theme Turow examines thoughtfully through his characters, successfully flipping the genders in the #MeToo plot, and presenting the evaluation of the forensic evidence supporting and contradicting the allegations in a fascinating and understandable manner.
Turow delivers a riveting mystery that is engrossing, believable, contemporary, and thought-provoking. With Suspect, he demonstrates yet again why he is the acknowledged master of the modern legal thriller.
Thanks to NetGalley for an electronic Advance Reader's Copy of the book, and to Grand Central Publishing and Novel Suspects for a physical copy.
Pinky describes her father, grandfather, and Rik Dudek, the attorney for whom she works, as the three most reliable people in her life. Rik runs a rather low-budget legal practice focused on domestic cases, DUIs, and the like. Rik is a former police officer and the chief of police, Lucia Gomez, is his old friend from high school and colleague. Suddenly, she finds herself the subject in an investigation when three male officers accuse her of quid pro quo sexual harassment -- demanding sexual favors in exchange for promotion. She adamantly denies the charges and retains Rik to represent her in the high-profile case that could result in the end of her tenure. Yes, all three men got promoted, but the Chief insists that the promotions were based on legitimate considerations such as job performance and seniority. She's enjoyed a stellar career, rising in the ranks on merit in a profession that proves challenging for women. A single woman with a grown daughter, Lucia is tough, principled, and undeniably powerful. She is also a woman and a woman of color who is at ease with her sexuality. And in law enforcement, perhaps more than any other profession, those qualities make her a threat to the fragile egos of some male subordinates, especially those with a proclivity toward bending the rules for their own benefit. As Pinky explains to Rik, "Men still hate it when a female does what she wants with her body. These dudes' stories make no sense. Yeah, okay, men can get raped or assaulted, but not usually when they're carrying a .38. . . . So how'd she force them?"
Pinky is assigned to gather admissible evidence supporting Lucia's innocence and decimating the officers' claims. Simultaneously, she becomes intrigued with her new next-door neighbor, who seems to be engaged in clandestine activities. As she tells Rik, the neighbor doesn't go to work, have visitors, speak to anyone in the building, pick up his mail, or even own a car. There have been no sounds emanating from his apartment for weeks, but he leaves every day at noon carrying a gym bag and returns with takeout food for dinner. Pinky just can't imagine what he is up to and, despite Rik's warning, becomes determined to find out. So she starts following him, but when he catches her, she makes up a story on the fly about wanting to meet him. She ends up getting involved with him, although they agree not to discuss their respective careers and clients.
Pinky delves into the allegations against Chief Gomez, who emphasizes that two of her accusers -- Primo DeGrassi and Walter Cornish -- worked narcotics together until she reassigned them and both have connections to "The Ritz," Moritz Vojczek. He is a former officer who owns the largest real estate brokerage and construction company, and also manages most of the apartment buildings in the city. He is now worth 300 million dollars, but he left the police force just shy of the date on which he would have been eligible to retire -- he knew that if he did not resign, the Chief would ensure he was fired because he was a dirty cop.
Turow is a master at crafting taut thrillers replete with surprising plot revelations and twists like those included in Suspect. No detail is irrelevant, as Turow takes readers on Pinky's investigative journey to discover both whether the Chief is telling the truth and if she has, in fact, been set up by The Ritz, as well as also why three officers would facilitate the scheme by lying about their interactions with her. At the same time, she learns why her neighbor has come to town and how his business pursuits intersect with the case against the Chief. Because of Turow's own prowess as a litigator, the technical aspects of the tale are not only accurate, but also cohesively woven into a suspenseful and fast-paced mystery that keeps readers guessing right up to the dramatically nerve-wracking conclusion. In his signature style, Turow illustrates the relevant legal principles and investigative procedures through the kind of meticulously-constructed scenes set in the courtroom for which Turow is beloved by readers. He also depicts consultations between Rik, Pinky, and their client, and Pinky sometimes blunders her way into significant discoveries, all of which propel the story forward.
As always, Turow's cast of characters is intriguing and believable, and the dialogue is crisp and witty. Pinky is resourceful and clever --Turow describes her as intuitive with "lightning flashes of bold and correct intuition." She learned a great deal from her grandfather while she worked as a paralegal in his law office and still calls on him for support and advice, because he loves her unconditionally, even if her personal life exasperates him. She is relatable and empathetic -- a young woman establishing herself in a career she enjoys, who understands her own boundaries and limitations. She wants to love and be loved, but not if it requires her to compromise her identity. Pinky serves as a testament to Turow's ability to bring to life characters that are multi-faceted, flawed, and utterly endearing. The accomplishment is even more impressive, given that Turow flawlessly and convincingly voices a thirty-three-year-old bisexual woman. Turow did not initially plan to bring Pinky back, but his readers loved her and Turow found her funny because she is "brash and impolite frequently," so he came up with the idea to make her the main character. It is the first time Turow has published a book in which the protagonist is not a lawyer, which added to the challenge of writing a novel in the voice of someone forty years younger than he is. Interestingly, he did not find drafting the story from a female perspective nearly as daunting, but was surprised he found himself writing it in first person. "Sometimes there are little miracles when you are writing and the fact that Pinky came to me in the way she did goes on that list," he says.
Equally compelling, Chief Gomez is a woman who plays by the rules, requiring the same level of excellence that she brings to the job from her officers. The daughter of immigrants, she has succeeded as a result of her own work ethic and determination. After high school, she served in the military in order to fund her college education. Turow says he wants readers to be sympathetic to her plight "because she is a self-created person" and the stakes for her are so high. She faces not just the loss of her career, but the potential shame of failing spectacularly in her home town. But in law enforcement, not every expectation of employees is memorialized in a rule, regulation, or procedure. It falls to Rik, litigating the biggest case of his career, to convince a three-member police commission that the male complainants are lying, and the Chief must not only be exonerated but permitted to retain her position. Sometimes justice lies in the margins -- the gray areas not neatly outlined in legal treatises, a point Turow deftly explores. The "sextortion" storyline includes "a lot of meditation about power and sexuality," a theme Turow examines thoughtfully through his characters, successfully flipping the genders in the #MeToo plot, and presenting the evaluation of the forensic evidence supporting and contradicting the allegations in a fascinating and understandable manner.
Turow delivers a riveting mystery that is engrossing, believable, contemporary, and thought-provoking. With Suspect, he demonstrates yet again why he is the acknowledged master of the modern legal thriller.
Thanks to NetGalley for an electronic Advance Reader's Copy of the book, and to Grand Central Publishing and Novel Suspects for a physical copy.
Take My Husband by Ellen Meister
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Author Ellen Meister set out to wanted to write a book about "a happily married woman who wants to kill her husband" and was assured by her agent that it would be "relatable to nearly anyone who lived through the pandemic in close quarters with a significant other." Indeed, it is. For decades to come, sociologists will be studying the various ways in which COVID-19 lockdowns impacted individuals and families. Some couples, accustomed to spending most of their waking hours apart, found, when forced to remain at home together for days and days, that they were fundamentally incompatible. Others discovered they no longer had shared goals or dreams. Meister spent the lockdown with her husband and their three twenty-something children who were suddenly home all the time and by writing the book, she "worked out some demons!"
There is no mention of the pandemic in Take My Husband. Rather, fifty-two-year-old Laurel Applebaum is working at the local Trader's Joe because two years ago the toy and novelty store that her husband, Doug, took over from his father, failed. Since then, Doug has been unemployed, insisting that he can only accept a management position, in part because his bad back precludes him from working, as Laurel does, as a cashier or salesperson. He took out a second mortgage on their home in an effort to save the failing business and, since Laurel's income is insufficient to pay all of their bills, they are gradually draining their savings each month in order to make ends meet. Even so, Doug is not motivated to engage in a focused job search. And, understandably, Laurel resents it.
Doug does have health problems, including hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. He also suffers from learned helplessness and complete dependence upon Laurel who, throughout their nearly thirty-year marriage, has babied and doted on him. Every morning, she retrieves the daily newspaper from the front porch and prepares Doug's breakfast before leaving for work. Doug lends no assistance with housekeeping or meal preparation, often calling or texting Laurel during the day requesting that she bring home his favorite junk foods. Laurel indulges him. She ensures that he remembers his medical appointments and even sorts all of his medications and supplements into the daily compartments of a weekly pill dispenser so that Doug can plop them into his mouth without even looking at them, much less taking any responsibility for his own well-being. Although they share a bed, they have not had an intimate relationship for several years. Laurel is an attractive woman, carrying just a few extra pounds, but she has ceased taking care of herself, deeming trips to the salon to camouflage the grey that now streaks her hair too expensive.
Their adult son, Evan, and his wife, Samara, are expecting their first child and there is nothing in the world Laurel wants more than to be present for the birth of her first grandchild. Samara is having a difficult pregnancy and may require a Caesarian section, so Laurel wants to spend time with them in their Los Angeles home, helping the new parents and getting to know her grandchild. Doug steadfastly insists they cannot afford to charge the cost of the flight on their credit card.
Laurel also cares for her mother, Joan, who suffers from anxiety and agoraphobia. Since Joan's marriage to Laurel's father dissolved in the 1980’s, she has been obsessed with collecting dolls. Her home is filled with them and she continues acquiring more. She only feels safe at home where she is surrounded by those midcentury, molded plastic figures, and depends on Laurel to deliver her groceries each week. Laurel longs to coax her mother out of the house for a nice lunch.
Laurel is frustrated, depressed, and inwardly seething about her circumstances, but she does not share her feelings with Doug or voice her own needs. Instead, she capitulates to his demands. Her best friend, Monica, has repeatedly encouraged her to "speak up," unable to appreciate why Laurel finds it so hard to do so. She once harshly called Laurel a cipher -- "one having no influence or value; a nonentity." But Laurel knows Monica is right.
And then with one phone call, something inside Laurel snaps. She is informed that Doug has been in a motor vehicle accident, but is provided no details about his condition. She immediately thinks the worst has happened and instantly blames herself for not realizing sooner how much she really loves her husband. En route to the hospital, she convinces herself that Doug is most certainly dead. And remembers that his life insurance policy has a value of $850,000 -- more than enough to solve all of their financial problems and permit her to buy a home of her own and decorate it in colors she loves. Without having to worry about Doug’s allergy, she can finally adopt the dog she has always wanted, quit her job at Trader Joe's, spend more time with her mother, go to Los Angeles for the birth of her grandchild and, most importantly, be free from all of the duties, obligations, and resentments that have weighed her down for too long. Laurel convinces herself that Doug's tragic death is the perfect solution to all of her problems.
But Laurel is disappointed when she arrives at the hospital to find Doug has a bruised forehead and minor concussion from which he will quickly recover. Still, the dream of transforming her life does not dissipate, especially when she is spurred on by her friend and coworker, Charlie Webb, a widower in his seventies who regales her with ridiculous knock-knock jokes. He correctly guesses that Laurel was dismayed to find Charlie did not perish in the accident, and assures her that she is definitely not a terrible person. She is, rather, “an unhappy person” who does not "have to take such good care of" Doug. He insists it is time for her to "stop martyring yourself. Doug is a grown man. If he values his life, let him take some responsibility for it. And if not, well . . . you'll get the freedom you've earned."
Laurel and Charlie begin conspiring to bring about Doug's death, considering various modalities including withholding his high blood pressure medication, plying him with all of the unhealthy foods he craves, and even releasing mice in the basement of their home so that Doug with contract the incurable hantavirus if she can convince him to clean out the space. Laurel even lets Doug believe she is in love with another man to spur his irrational jealousy and feelings of rejection and drive him to take his own life. They scuttle that plan when Charlie convinces Laurel that life insurance policies contain an exclusion for suicide which will prevent her from collecting the proceeds.
Laurel is a sympathetic character. She assumed a defined role within her marriage nearly three decades ago, and was content when Doug was a successful business owner and she worked part-time at the family store while raising Evan. But, as so often happens, when the couple’s life style changed as a result of financial and other stressors, Laurel’s increasing discontent with her marriage grew exponentially. Now it has reached the breaking point that launched her into fantasizing about extricating herself . . . by eliminating Doug from her life. Laurel is absolutely convinced that Doug is devoted to her and would never be unfaithful, much less leave her. And that is a big part of the problem. Lacking the power to voice her concerns, and advocate for her own happiness and desires, she has established a pattern of swallowing her feelings. Now they are manifesting in the form of perverse, dangerous, but hilariously outlandish schemes.
Could she actually bring about Doug's death? Although she is fifty-two years old, Laurel is, in some respects, naive and trusting, except when it comes to Doug's overbearing, meddling, and overly protective sister, Abby. She tells herself repeatedly that she lacks the capacity to be a murderer, yet she goes along with Charlie's suggestions, confiding in him and leaning on him for unconditional support and assistance. Both Monica and her mother warn her that Charlie's feelings for her go beyond friendship and camaraderie. But Laurel sees him only as a lonely older widower with a big heart. Who is right?
Meister wisely recognized that story would not work unless her readers failed to “relate to Laurel and understand exactly why she snapped.” And to understand the depth of and reasons for Laurel’s distress, readers must get to know Doug. He is spoiled, self-centered, and unfocused. But he is very much the “monster” that Laurel, and his sister, Abby, created. Meister cleverly portrays him as a man who has arrived at a juncture in his life he never anticipated and for which he is unprepared. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that he is also unhappy and depressed, for reasons that mostly differ from Laurel’s. And he lacks the skills requisite to managing his own life, in part because he has never had to do so. He has been cajoled and placated so long he does not know how to fight for what he really wants. But he plainly loves Laurel – in his own way – and his fear of losing her is actually one of the things that both attracts and repels her, trapping them in a dance of codependence that many readers will recognize.
Ironically, the various means Laurel employs to resolve her problems have unintended results. And that’s the real strength of Meister’s surprising and surprisingly moving tale. For all of their faults, readers will find themselves cheering for both Laurel and Doug, hoping they can find happiness – together or apart – and extricate themselves from the emotional tug-of-war in which they are enmeshed. Neither of them is a villain. Rather, they are simply flawed human beings and Laurel’s outrageous scheming is an attempt to escape from pain – much of which is self-inflicted due to a lack of confidence and self-worth – that has become utterly unbearable.
Take My Husband succeeds because it is engrossing and entertaining. The story is punctuated by extremely dark, gallows humor and crisp, witty dialogue, as well as a cast of eccentric supporting characters that includes Joan, Monica, and Eleanor and Bob, about whom the less revealed the better. Charlie injects a dash of mystery and intrigue as Meister deftly brings his motives into question, and Luke is the sweet customer with whom Laurel shares a flirtation that helps bring her back to a much-improved version of her real self.
Take My Husband is also a slyly thought-provoking meditation on marriage, expectations, and complacency. And the importance of communication in any relationship, but especially an intimate partnership. Meister hopes that readers appreciate, by getting to know Laurel and Doug, and examining their relationship, how important it is to, as Monica urges Laurel, "speak up." “Your needs and desires are just as important as your partner’s,” Meister observes. “A good relationship cannot be based on the subjugation of one person’s needs for another’s.” If Laurel and Doug can figure that out, will they live happily ever after? Reading Take My Husband to find out is a delightful and emotionally satisfying experience.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
There is no mention of the pandemic in Take My Husband. Rather, fifty-two-year-old Laurel Applebaum is working at the local Trader's Joe because two years ago the toy and novelty store that her husband, Doug, took over from his father, failed. Since then, Doug has been unemployed, insisting that he can only accept a management position, in part because his bad back precludes him from working, as Laurel does, as a cashier or salesperson. He took out a second mortgage on their home in an effort to save the failing business and, since Laurel's income is insufficient to pay all of their bills, they are gradually draining their savings each month in order to make ends meet. Even so, Doug is not motivated to engage in a focused job search. And, understandably, Laurel resents it.
Doug does have health problems, including hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity. He also suffers from learned helplessness and complete dependence upon Laurel who, throughout their nearly thirty-year marriage, has babied and doted on him. Every morning, she retrieves the daily newspaper from the front porch and prepares Doug's breakfast before leaving for work. Doug lends no assistance with housekeeping or meal preparation, often calling or texting Laurel during the day requesting that she bring home his favorite junk foods. Laurel indulges him. She ensures that he remembers his medical appointments and even sorts all of his medications and supplements into the daily compartments of a weekly pill dispenser so that Doug can plop them into his mouth without even looking at them, much less taking any responsibility for his own well-being. Although they share a bed, they have not had an intimate relationship for several years. Laurel is an attractive woman, carrying just a few extra pounds, but she has ceased taking care of herself, deeming trips to the salon to camouflage the grey that now streaks her hair too expensive.
Their adult son, Evan, and his wife, Samara, are expecting their first child and there is nothing in the world Laurel wants more than to be present for the birth of her first grandchild. Samara is having a difficult pregnancy and may require a Caesarian section, so Laurel wants to spend time with them in their Los Angeles home, helping the new parents and getting to know her grandchild. Doug steadfastly insists they cannot afford to charge the cost of the flight on their credit card.
Laurel also cares for her mother, Joan, who suffers from anxiety and agoraphobia. Since Joan's marriage to Laurel's father dissolved in the 1980’s, she has been obsessed with collecting dolls. Her home is filled with them and she continues acquiring more. She only feels safe at home where she is surrounded by those midcentury, molded plastic figures, and depends on Laurel to deliver her groceries each week. Laurel longs to coax her mother out of the house for a nice lunch.
Laurel is frustrated, depressed, and inwardly seething about her circumstances, but she does not share her feelings with Doug or voice her own needs. Instead, she capitulates to his demands. Her best friend, Monica, has repeatedly encouraged her to "speak up," unable to appreciate why Laurel finds it so hard to do so. She once harshly called Laurel a cipher -- "one having no influence or value; a nonentity." But Laurel knows Monica is right.
And then with one phone call, something inside Laurel snaps. She is informed that Doug has been in a motor vehicle accident, but is provided no details about his condition. She immediately thinks the worst has happened and instantly blames herself for not realizing sooner how much she really loves her husband. En route to the hospital, she convinces herself that Doug is most certainly dead. And remembers that his life insurance policy has a value of $850,000 -- more than enough to solve all of their financial problems and permit her to buy a home of her own and decorate it in colors she loves. Without having to worry about Doug’s allergy, she can finally adopt the dog she has always wanted, quit her job at Trader Joe's, spend more time with her mother, go to Los Angeles for the birth of her grandchild and, most importantly, be free from all of the duties, obligations, and resentments that have weighed her down for too long. Laurel convinces herself that Doug's tragic death is the perfect solution to all of her problems.
But Laurel is disappointed when she arrives at the hospital to find Doug has a bruised forehead and minor concussion from which he will quickly recover. Still, the dream of transforming her life does not dissipate, especially when she is spurred on by her friend and coworker, Charlie Webb, a widower in his seventies who regales her with ridiculous knock-knock jokes. He correctly guesses that Laurel was dismayed to find Charlie did not perish in the accident, and assures her that she is definitely not a terrible person. She is, rather, “an unhappy person” who does not "have to take such good care of" Doug. He insists it is time for her to "stop martyring yourself. Doug is a grown man. If he values his life, let him take some responsibility for it. And if not, well . . . you'll get the freedom you've earned."
Laurel and Charlie begin conspiring to bring about Doug's death, considering various modalities including withholding his high blood pressure medication, plying him with all of the unhealthy foods he craves, and even releasing mice in the basement of their home so that Doug with contract the incurable hantavirus if she can convince him to clean out the space. Laurel even lets Doug believe she is in love with another man to spur his irrational jealousy and feelings of rejection and drive him to take his own life. They scuttle that plan when Charlie convinces Laurel that life insurance policies contain an exclusion for suicide which will prevent her from collecting the proceeds.
Laurel is a sympathetic character. She assumed a defined role within her marriage nearly three decades ago, and was content when Doug was a successful business owner and she worked part-time at the family store while raising Evan. But, as so often happens, when the couple’s life style changed as a result of financial and other stressors, Laurel’s increasing discontent with her marriage grew exponentially. Now it has reached the breaking point that launched her into fantasizing about extricating herself . . . by eliminating Doug from her life. Laurel is absolutely convinced that Doug is devoted to her and would never be unfaithful, much less leave her. And that is a big part of the problem. Lacking the power to voice her concerns, and advocate for her own happiness and desires, she has established a pattern of swallowing her feelings. Now they are manifesting in the form of perverse, dangerous, but hilariously outlandish schemes.
Could she actually bring about Doug's death? Although she is fifty-two years old, Laurel is, in some respects, naive and trusting, except when it comes to Doug's overbearing, meddling, and overly protective sister, Abby. She tells herself repeatedly that she lacks the capacity to be a murderer, yet she goes along with Charlie's suggestions, confiding in him and leaning on him for unconditional support and assistance. Both Monica and her mother warn her that Charlie's feelings for her go beyond friendship and camaraderie. But Laurel sees him only as a lonely older widower with a big heart. Who is right?
Meister wisely recognized that story would not work unless her readers failed to “relate to Laurel and understand exactly why she snapped.” And to understand the depth of and reasons for Laurel’s distress, readers must get to know Doug. He is spoiled, self-centered, and unfocused. But he is very much the “monster” that Laurel, and his sister, Abby, created. Meister cleverly portrays him as a man who has arrived at a juncture in his life he never anticipated and for which he is unprepared. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that he is also unhappy and depressed, for reasons that mostly differ from Laurel’s. And he lacks the skills requisite to managing his own life, in part because he has never had to do so. He has been cajoled and placated so long he does not know how to fight for what he really wants. But he plainly loves Laurel – in his own way – and his fear of losing her is actually one of the things that both attracts and repels her, trapping them in a dance of codependence that many readers will recognize.
Ironically, the various means Laurel employs to resolve her problems have unintended results. And that’s the real strength of Meister’s surprising and surprisingly moving tale. For all of their faults, readers will find themselves cheering for both Laurel and Doug, hoping they can find happiness – together or apart – and extricate themselves from the emotional tug-of-war in which they are enmeshed. Neither of them is a villain. Rather, they are simply flawed human beings and Laurel’s outrageous scheming is an attempt to escape from pain – much of which is self-inflicted due to a lack of confidence and self-worth – that has become utterly unbearable.
Take My Husband succeeds because it is engrossing and entertaining. The story is punctuated by extremely dark, gallows humor and crisp, witty dialogue, as well as a cast of eccentric supporting characters that includes Joan, Monica, and Eleanor and Bob, about whom the less revealed the better. Charlie injects a dash of mystery and intrigue as Meister deftly brings his motives into question, and Luke is the sweet customer with whom Laurel shares a flirtation that helps bring her back to a much-improved version of her real self.
Take My Husband is also a slyly thought-provoking meditation on marriage, expectations, and complacency. And the importance of communication in any relationship, but especially an intimate partnership. Meister hopes that readers appreciate, by getting to know Laurel and Doug, and examining their relationship, how important it is to, as Monica urges Laurel, "speak up." “Your needs and desires are just as important as your partner’s,” Meister observes. “A good relationship cannot be based on the subjugation of one person’s needs for another’s.” If Laurel and Doug can figure that out, will they live happily ever after? Reading Take My Husband to find out is a delightful and emotionally satisfying experience.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
The Thread Collectors by Shaunna J. Edwards, Alyson Richman
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
In The Thread Collectors, the character of Jacob Kling is based on a musician who enlisted in the 31st Regiment of New York. Having left his wife, Lily, a harpist, behind in New York, Jacob is stationed at Camp Parapet near Jefferson, Louisiana, assisting the doctor who is examining the many Black men who have arrived to serve with the Louisiana Native Guards. Jacob's older brother has enlisted in the 29th Regiment of Mississippi. Samuel left New York and established a mercantile emporium in Satartia, Mississippi. Samuel was dispatched by their father to expand the family's trading business and, surprisingly, found a Jewish bride and settled there. The brothers' opposing stances create tension, especially when Lily is unable to hide her feelings during a visit. She is appalled that Samuel would join the effort to maintain slavery, but Samuel insists that he had no choice and is fighting not to protect slavery, but to hold onto the business and home he has worked hard to establish. He believes that if the Rebel forces lose, his family will be destitute. The brothers' affection for each other is never in question and both despair at the prospect that they could find themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield.
As the story opens, Stella and William are saying good-bye to each other, unsure if they will ever be reunited. William is running away from New Orleans and his master, risking his life to join the Union Army at the enlistment camp ten miles away. William and Stella love each other but are not permitted to marry or even make decisions about their own lives. They believe that once the Union Army wins the war, that will change.
There, he meets Jacob and the physician Jacob is assisting, who is astounded that William does not bear the kind of physical scars that so many other enslaved men do and his hands have no calluses. William has never performed hard labor. His musical talent was discovered when he was just six years old and he was sent to live in the main house where he was forced to play the flute to amuse and entertain his master's wife and their guests. He was required to dress in the hand-me-down suits of his master's son and perform on command, which was demeaning. Although singled out for his musical prowess, he was denied the opportunity to learn to read music because reading is forbidden . . . and a punishable offense. William can express his feelings through his music, but lacks the ability to commit his thoughts and emotions to paper.
Stella lives in a Creole cottage with her half-sister, Ammanee. Their mother, Janie, lives nearby in her own cottage on Rampart Street. Their homes are furnished with cast-off items, and their masters provide them with meager allowances to buy food. They are among the light-skinned women who enjoy elevated living conditions because they have been granted favor by the white men who control their lives. Janie was separated from Ammanee's father, the love of her life, and never saw him again, but given her "freedom papers" when Stella was fathered by her master. She is not free to leave, however. Mr. Percy permitted seven-year-old Ammanee to be her half-sister's nursemaid and promised Janie that she could select the man who would be Stella's master. Stella was "sent to market" when she was eighteen years old and it was there that she met William, playing his flute. Keeping his promise to Janie, Mr. Percy negotiated a deal with Mason Frye, William's master, for Stella. She would be provided four bolts of fabric, ten spools of threat, three cotton slips and bloomers, two cast-iron pots, a copper kettle, a wooden desk, a chair, and a mirror. And most importantly, Ammanee would also be purchased to serve as Stella's maid. The three women are fortunate to be together, but Stella is required to submit to her master's demands and whims, and when, after William escapes, she realizes she is pregnant, worries what will happen if the child's skin color is too dark to convince Frye that he is the father.
Stella is a skilled seamstress, of necessity, and after she embroiders a map to guide William, she is called upon by her neighbors to create maps for their sons and brothers who also plan to join the Union Army. She incorporates information gleaned by Ammanee from conversations she overhears while working in the nearby church. Because fabric and thread are precious commodities, quilts, purses, and petticoats must be repurposed, with thread being carefully extracted in order to be used again. Stella codes the maps in various colors signifying routes that are believed to be less fraught with danger than others.
As the war rages on, William is pressed into service, along with a young drummer boy who barely speaks, performing nightmarish tasks he could never have imagined. Teddy is just ten years old, and eventually reveals how he came to be completely alone in the world, his drum his only possession, and in a Union Army camp. William, in particular, is fond of and determined to protect him. Jacob wrote a beautiful song for Lily, "Girl of Fire," and many of the soldiers have learned it. In the evenings, along with other musicians, Jacob, William, and Teddy bring comfort to and boost the morale of the men who are fighting.
They develop a strong sense of camaraderie through their music, as well as their individual senses of being "other than." Jacob hides his background, painfully aware that many of the men he encounters have never before met a Jew and not all will accept him. William stands apart from many of the other men who have endured harsh physical conditions their entire lives. But William is no stranger to hardship and heartbreak, having watched his mother suffer.
A holiday cease-fire inspires William to enlist Jacob's assistance to make it special for young Teddy. But their trek into the nearby woods ends tragically and tests the bonds the men have formed. With no idea what is happening to William or even if he is still alive, Ammanee and Stella will do whatever is necessary in order to keep Stella's child safe. When weeks pass with no word from Jacob, Lily is overcome with worry and determined to find him. But journeying from New York into the South is extremely dangerous, especially for a woman traveling alone, and there are no registries in which the names of soldiers are logged, nor do the various military hospitals maintain records of their patients. Lily's father in unable to convince her to remain at home and wait for word about Jacob's whereabouts and condition, and she embarks on a treacherous trip to Samuel's home. She is shocked when she arrives and see what has become of Samuel and his family. She begins visiting hospitals in search of her husband. There, she witnesses and begins to appreciate the horrifying effects of war as she walks among the wounded and near-dead, hoping to find Jacob among them.
The Thread Collectors is a sprawling, engrossing story featuring compelling and fully developed characters. Authors Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman illustrate the various ways in which their Black characters enjoy better living conditions than many of their contemporaries. Yet, despite those advantages, they are not free. They are still enslaved. Even if they do not bear physical scars inflicted through mistreatment and back-breaking labor, they are emotionally scarred as a result of seeing loved ones abused and ripped away, and being confined and controlled, deprived autonomy even over their own bodies. But they are hopeful, believing that the Union Army will prevail and they will at last be free to live their lives on their own terms.
They are each, in their own ways, resilient and resourceful, resorting to drastic measures, if required, in order to survive. Jacob and Lily are earnest and endearing, but unprepared for the harsh realities of war. Edwards and Richman use the letters they write to each other not only to advance the story, but also provide insight into their feelings, especially concerning the ideological division that threatens the Kling brothers' relationship.
As the fast-paced and inventive story proceeds, Edwards and Richman cleverly pull together the various storyline threads. Lily, Stella, and Ammenee are tenacious and brave. Eventually, Lily and Stella come face to face and learn about the unlikely friendship between Jacob and William, men of quiet integrity and honor, that is convincingly depicted. Initially because of their mutual love of music, but ultimately because of the atrocities of war, Jacob and William find commonality, and mutual respect and admiration for each other.
The Thread Collectors is a tale of unbreakable bonds of family and love for those we choose to be our family members. It is also an illustrationg of the inherent strain in the mother-daughter relationship between Janie, a woman who has survived unspeakable heartbreak and views the world in a pragmatic, realistic manner, and Stella, who is initially idealistic and naive, but quickly matures when she becomes a mother who will do anything to protect her child.
The Thread Collectors is a unique and absorbing work of historical fiction about the most harrowing period in America history that is also timely and contemporary. Edwards and Richman penned the book in 2020, "as the world wrestled with growing awareness of racialized violence and inequality," in an effort to combine their creative "energy to find beauty in that darkness." They have indeed crafted a beautifully memorable story that continues to resonate long after reading the last page of the book.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
As the story opens, Stella and William are saying good-bye to each other, unsure if they will ever be reunited. William is running away from New Orleans and his master, risking his life to join the Union Army at the enlistment camp ten miles away. William and Stella love each other but are not permitted to marry or even make decisions about their own lives. They believe that once the Union Army wins the war, that will change.
There, he meets Jacob and the physician Jacob is assisting, who is astounded that William does not bear the kind of physical scars that so many other enslaved men do and his hands have no calluses. William has never performed hard labor. His musical talent was discovered when he was just six years old and he was sent to live in the main house where he was forced to play the flute to amuse and entertain his master's wife and their guests. He was required to dress in the hand-me-down suits of his master's son and perform on command, which was demeaning. Although singled out for his musical prowess, he was denied the opportunity to learn to read music because reading is forbidden . . . and a punishable offense. William can express his feelings through his music, but lacks the ability to commit his thoughts and emotions to paper.
Stella lives in a Creole cottage with her half-sister, Ammanee. Their mother, Janie, lives nearby in her own cottage on Rampart Street. Their homes are furnished with cast-off items, and their masters provide them with meager allowances to buy food. They are among the light-skinned women who enjoy elevated living conditions because they have been granted favor by the white men who control their lives. Janie was separated from Ammanee's father, the love of her life, and never saw him again, but given her "freedom papers" when Stella was fathered by her master. She is not free to leave, however. Mr. Percy permitted seven-year-old Ammanee to be her half-sister's nursemaid and promised Janie that she could select the man who would be Stella's master. Stella was "sent to market" when she was eighteen years old and it was there that she met William, playing his flute. Keeping his promise to Janie, Mr. Percy negotiated a deal with Mason Frye, William's master, for Stella. She would be provided four bolts of fabric, ten spools of threat, three cotton slips and bloomers, two cast-iron pots, a copper kettle, a wooden desk, a chair, and a mirror. And most importantly, Ammanee would also be purchased to serve as Stella's maid. The three women are fortunate to be together, but Stella is required to submit to her master's demands and whims, and when, after William escapes, she realizes she is pregnant, worries what will happen if the child's skin color is too dark to convince Frye that he is the father.
Stella is a skilled seamstress, of necessity, and after she embroiders a map to guide William, she is called upon by her neighbors to create maps for their sons and brothers who also plan to join the Union Army. She incorporates information gleaned by Ammanee from conversations she overhears while working in the nearby church. Because fabric and thread are precious commodities, quilts, purses, and petticoats must be repurposed, with thread being carefully extracted in order to be used again. Stella codes the maps in various colors signifying routes that are believed to be less fraught with danger than others.
As the war rages on, William is pressed into service, along with a young drummer boy who barely speaks, performing nightmarish tasks he could never have imagined. Teddy is just ten years old, and eventually reveals how he came to be completely alone in the world, his drum his only possession, and in a Union Army camp. William, in particular, is fond of and determined to protect him. Jacob wrote a beautiful song for Lily, "Girl of Fire," and many of the soldiers have learned it. In the evenings, along with other musicians, Jacob, William, and Teddy bring comfort to and boost the morale of the men who are fighting.
They develop a strong sense of camaraderie through their music, as well as their individual senses of being "other than." Jacob hides his background, painfully aware that many of the men he encounters have never before met a Jew and not all will accept him. William stands apart from many of the other men who have endured harsh physical conditions their entire lives. But William is no stranger to hardship and heartbreak, having watched his mother suffer.
A holiday cease-fire inspires William to enlist Jacob's assistance to make it special for young Teddy. But their trek into the nearby woods ends tragically and tests the bonds the men have formed. With no idea what is happening to William or even if he is still alive, Ammanee and Stella will do whatever is necessary in order to keep Stella's child safe. When weeks pass with no word from Jacob, Lily is overcome with worry and determined to find him. But journeying from New York into the South is extremely dangerous, especially for a woman traveling alone, and there are no registries in which the names of soldiers are logged, nor do the various military hospitals maintain records of their patients. Lily's father in unable to convince her to remain at home and wait for word about Jacob's whereabouts and condition, and she embarks on a treacherous trip to Samuel's home. She is shocked when she arrives and see what has become of Samuel and his family. She begins visiting hospitals in search of her husband. There, she witnesses and begins to appreciate the horrifying effects of war as she walks among the wounded and near-dead, hoping to find Jacob among them.
The Thread Collectors is a sprawling, engrossing story featuring compelling and fully developed characters. Authors Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman illustrate the various ways in which their Black characters enjoy better living conditions than many of their contemporaries. Yet, despite those advantages, they are not free. They are still enslaved. Even if they do not bear physical scars inflicted through mistreatment and back-breaking labor, they are emotionally scarred as a result of seeing loved ones abused and ripped away, and being confined and controlled, deprived autonomy even over their own bodies. But they are hopeful, believing that the Union Army will prevail and they will at last be free to live their lives on their own terms.
They are each, in their own ways, resilient and resourceful, resorting to drastic measures, if required, in order to survive. Jacob and Lily are earnest and endearing, but unprepared for the harsh realities of war. Edwards and Richman use the letters they write to each other not only to advance the story, but also provide insight into their feelings, especially concerning the ideological division that threatens the Kling brothers' relationship.
As the fast-paced and inventive story proceeds, Edwards and Richman cleverly pull together the various storyline threads. Lily, Stella, and Ammenee are tenacious and brave. Eventually, Lily and Stella come face to face and learn about the unlikely friendship between Jacob and William, men of quiet integrity and honor, that is convincingly depicted. Initially because of their mutual love of music, but ultimately because of the atrocities of war, Jacob and William find commonality, and mutual respect and admiration for each other.
The Thread Collectors is a tale of unbreakable bonds of family and love for those we choose to be our family members. It is also an illustrationg of the inherent strain in the mother-daughter relationship between Janie, a woman who has survived unspeakable heartbreak and views the world in a pragmatic, realistic manner, and Stella, who is initially idealistic and naive, but quickly matures when she becomes a mother who will do anything to protect her child.
The Thread Collectors is a unique and absorbing work of historical fiction about the most harrowing period in America history that is also timely and contemporary. Edwards and Richman penned the book in 2020, "as the world wrestled with growing awareness of racialized violence and inequality," in an effort to combine their creative "energy to find beauty in that darkness." They have indeed crafted a beautifully memorable story that continues to resonate long after reading the last page of the book.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Ice Out by Susan Speranza
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.0
Author Susan Speranza says her novel Ice Out was inspired by her experiences seeing "people’s lives turn on a dime. What was a perfect, happy, fulfilling life changed in an instant, and those people found themselves in circumstances they never dreamed of. They then acted in ways they never anticipated. I have always been interested in such events, how they change people, how people react." That's one of the things she wanted to explore in Ice Out, along with the themes of grief and forgiveness, in a metaphysical manner. Additionally, she was aware of an accident involving an underwater ferry in the English Channel some years ago. Because of the physical strength required to escape, many of the men made it to safety, but the women did not. "I wondered why many of these men, in their rush to the surface, didn’t help the others. Did they leave behind friends, partners, spouses?" she recalls. She thought about that incident as she was writing Ice Out, pondering if it would be possible to forgive "a significant other for leaving you behind in a life-or-death situation." She set the story in a familiar location -- Vermont, where she resides and, like her characters, enjoys snowmobiling.
Ice Out begins on a December afternoon with Francesca enveloped in murky, icy waters. "One moment, one unanticipated moment, and everything changed. Swept away. Gone. Forever." Readers are immediately informed that Francesca loved Ben deeply and fully. She trusted him and depended on him to be steadfast, dependable, generous, and caring. But now, in one "senseless moment" he has betrayed Francesca and Addie, their four-year-old daughter. "Abandoned them when they needed him most. Why?"
As Francesca tries to convince herself that she is merely trapped in a bad dream and struggles to push herself to the water's surface, Speranza's narrative careens back eight years. Francesca is a talented musician -- a professional flutist who also teaches. "Music itself is so intertwined with her being that the desire for it boils up from her soul . . . " On what will prove to be a fateful morning, she looks up to find two strangers standing in her classroom doorway -- the architects who will be working on the school's renovation. Dan Bodin introduces himself, and his son and partner, Ben.
The narrative advances from the day Francesca met Ben, detailing how they fell in love, their professional endeavors, and the reasons why Francesca agreed to move from New York City, where she enjoyed a satisfying and lucrative career as a musician, to Central Vermont. Her parents were vehemently opposed to Francesca moving to a place that is, ironically, coated all winter in the thing she hates and fears most: ice. During a long weekend there with Ben's family, she learns more about the area where Ben grew up, as well as his family's dynamics and history. Ben is a talented photographer whose twin sister, Lucy, died when they were seventeen years old. His family does not speak about her, and as the years pass, Francesca never even sees a photograph of the girl. It is not until Addie is born that Laura, Ben's mother, confesses that Lucy "was the glue which held us all together. . . . Since then, we've broken apart, we've become more scattered. More separate." But, happily, Addie seems to be the bright light reuniting the family. Still, Laura will only reveal that Lucy died in a "stupid accident. One meaningless moment, wrong place, wrong time." Speranza emphasizes that “the concept of time in Ice Out is very important,” so she adopted a nonlinear approach to telling it. She intersperses short interludes describing Francesca's horrific struggle in the icy water, effectively pulling readers back to the currently unfolding drama and reminding them that the love story playing out in the dualing narrative eventually leads to the young family's tragic descent into icy cold water.
Speranza incorporates into the story a deeply disturbing incident that foreshadows Ben's deep, untreated trauma. When he and Francesca happen upon a vehicle accident, Francesca quickly proceeds to help in whatever way she can, while Ben remains in the driver's seat of their car. As he clutches the steering wheel and stares ahead vacantly, Francesca confirms that one of the victims is indeed deceased, but they need to move quickly to get medical assistance for the survivor. She has to physically pull Ben out of the driver's seat and force him into the passenger side of their vehicle so that she can drive. For some time, Ben remains withdrawn, having retreated "to a dark place beyond anyone's grasp" into his memories of Lucy and losing her. The next day, he appears to have recovered and their happy life continues . . . until the day Ben convinces Francesca it is safe to take a ride on the new snowmobile he has purchased.
In a separate narrative, Speranza sets out Ben's story, again commencing with the aftermath of the snowmobile mishap. Having hauled himself out of the water, Ben lies face down in the snow and puts his hands to his ears to block out his wife's desperate screams, some dark force tethering him to the earth. He insists his wife and daughter are his world, but his world is now gone. "Just like Lucy." From there, Speranza employs the same technique to tell Ben's story, veering from a briefer account of how close Ben and Lucy were, and how she died, back to the ice and a man whose fear of death turns out to be greater than his love for his wife and child.
In a subsequent section of the book, Speranza utilizes allegory to depict Francesca's emotional journey from shock, disappointment, and intense pain to acceptance and forgiveness. Francesca manages to escape the water and wanders into the forest where she encounters a group of women led by a White Widow. At first, she does not remember the accident, and the Widow assures her it might be better to forget. "All of us at one time or another have wanted to drown ourselves in the river of forgetfulness. It's easier that way." She explains that she and the other women "are those who have been betrayed. We gather here nightly to mourn for what has so grievously been taken from us," and she and some of the others relate their stories of deception and betrayal. The Widow assures Francesca that Addie is alive, but Francesca's bitterness and sorrow are what have brought her to the forest, so she is no different from the other women. She is one of them, but Francesca considers whether she has wandered into hell. She runs away, attempting to escape from the group, but soon realizes she is just running in circles and again finds herself face to face with the White Widow. As the night drags on, Francesca struggles to free herself from the forest and the powerful women, even as the Widow attempts to convince her that she is there because her spirit is irredeemably poisoned. When morning comes, Francesca sees the White Widow and the other women as they really are, and understands that she has the power to choose how she will move forward. Will she choose an eternity of revenge . . . or forgiveness?
The success of Ice Out as a story of an unimaginable betrayal, acceptance of one's fate, and forgiveness lies in Speranza's compassionate depiction of her characters. Francesca is a pleasant young woman with whom readers can readily empathize. She loves and is close to her parents, and has worked hard and established herself in a career that fulfills her. But she is open to the love she believes she finds with Ben, a man who is also likable, but clearly damaged as a result of childhood trauma. Sadly, his parents never sought help for him, mired in their own grief, despair, and inability to communicate. They failed him by not recognizing the ways in which his grief and guilt paralyzed him. When Francesca observes Ben's shockingly troubled reaction to life events, she believes that if she just loves him enough and their happy life in Vermont continues unabated, he will be fine. Sadly, his inability to face and respond appropriately to exigent circumstances results in tragedy. Speranza's commentary about perception, and how, caught up by passion and haste, we fail to see and appreciate what is real, seeing instead what we want to see and recognizing only too late a beloved's flaws and shortcomings.
"Ice out" is a term used to describe a natural phenomenon. When spring arrives and temperatures begin to rise, sunshine penetrates the ice that has covered lakes during the winter. It begins to thin, crack, and melt, leaving open water behind. Spring rains contribute to the melting process, and as the ice begins to weaken, it becomes dangerous. It is transformed into "white ice" or "snow ice," and so degraded that it can no longer support much, if any, weight. Which explains, in part, why people who fall through white ice have an extremely difficult time pulling themselves out. Additionally, of course, the water below the melting ice is still frigid and the ice itself extremely slippery. To "ice out" a person can also refer, literaly, to a murder or the metaphoric killing of a relationship by removing oneself from it without taking into consideration the other person's feelings or communicating directly with them.
All definitions apply to Speranza's tragic, but ultimately hopeful, mediation on the tenuousness of relationships and the human tendency to ignore warning signs before plunging into them. She also explores the power of forgiveness, illustrating through Francesca’s fate that its purpose has nothing to do with the person to whom it is extended, but offers freedom and peace to the person who has the strength and resilience to forgive.
Thanks to BookSparks for a paperback copy of the book.
Ice Out begins on a December afternoon with Francesca enveloped in murky, icy waters. "One moment, one unanticipated moment, and everything changed. Swept away. Gone. Forever." Readers are immediately informed that Francesca loved Ben deeply and fully. She trusted him and depended on him to be steadfast, dependable, generous, and caring. But now, in one "senseless moment" he has betrayed Francesca and Addie, their four-year-old daughter. "Abandoned them when they needed him most. Why?"
As Francesca tries to convince herself that she is merely trapped in a bad dream and struggles to push herself to the water's surface, Speranza's narrative careens back eight years. Francesca is a talented musician -- a professional flutist who also teaches. "Music itself is so intertwined with her being that the desire for it boils up from her soul . . . " On what will prove to be a fateful morning, she looks up to find two strangers standing in her classroom doorway -- the architects who will be working on the school's renovation. Dan Bodin introduces himself, and his son and partner, Ben.
The narrative advances from the day Francesca met Ben, detailing how they fell in love, their professional endeavors, and the reasons why Francesca agreed to move from New York City, where she enjoyed a satisfying and lucrative career as a musician, to Central Vermont. Her parents were vehemently opposed to Francesca moving to a place that is, ironically, coated all winter in the thing she hates and fears most: ice. During a long weekend there with Ben's family, she learns more about the area where Ben grew up, as well as his family's dynamics and history. Ben is a talented photographer whose twin sister, Lucy, died when they were seventeen years old. His family does not speak about her, and as the years pass, Francesca never even sees a photograph of the girl. It is not until Addie is born that Laura, Ben's mother, confesses that Lucy "was the glue which held us all together. . . . Since then, we've broken apart, we've become more scattered. More separate." But, happily, Addie seems to be the bright light reuniting the family. Still, Laura will only reveal that Lucy died in a "stupid accident. One meaningless moment, wrong place, wrong time." Speranza emphasizes that “the concept of time in Ice Out is very important,” so she adopted a nonlinear approach to telling it. She intersperses short interludes describing Francesca's horrific struggle in the icy water, effectively pulling readers back to the currently unfolding drama and reminding them that the love story playing out in the dualing narrative eventually leads to the young family's tragic descent into icy cold water.
Speranza incorporates into the story a deeply disturbing incident that foreshadows Ben's deep, untreated trauma. When he and Francesca happen upon a vehicle accident, Francesca quickly proceeds to help in whatever way she can, while Ben remains in the driver's seat of their car. As he clutches the steering wheel and stares ahead vacantly, Francesca confirms that one of the victims is indeed deceased, but they need to move quickly to get medical assistance for the survivor. She has to physically pull Ben out of the driver's seat and force him into the passenger side of their vehicle so that she can drive. For some time, Ben remains withdrawn, having retreated "to a dark place beyond anyone's grasp" into his memories of Lucy and losing her. The next day, he appears to have recovered and their happy life continues . . . until the day Ben convinces Francesca it is safe to take a ride on the new snowmobile he has purchased.
In a separate narrative, Speranza sets out Ben's story, again commencing with the aftermath of the snowmobile mishap. Having hauled himself out of the water, Ben lies face down in the snow and puts his hands to his ears to block out his wife's desperate screams, some dark force tethering him to the earth. He insists his wife and daughter are his world, but his world is now gone. "Just like Lucy." From there, Speranza employs the same technique to tell Ben's story, veering from a briefer account of how close Ben and Lucy were, and how she died, back to the ice and a man whose fear of death turns out to be greater than his love for his wife and child.
In a subsequent section of the book, Speranza utilizes allegory to depict Francesca's emotional journey from shock, disappointment, and intense pain to acceptance and forgiveness. Francesca manages to escape the water and wanders into the forest where she encounters a group of women led by a White Widow. At first, she does not remember the accident, and the Widow assures her it might be better to forget. "All of us at one time or another have wanted to drown ourselves in the river of forgetfulness. It's easier that way." She explains that she and the other women "are those who have been betrayed. We gather here nightly to mourn for what has so grievously been taken from us," and she and some of the others relate their stories of deception and betrayal. The Widow assures Francesca that Addie is alive, but Francesca's bitterness and sorrow are what have brought her to the forest, so she is no different from the other women. She is one of them, but Francesca considers whether she has wandered into hell. She runs away, attempting to escape from the group, but soon realizes she is just running in circles and again finds herself face to face with the White Widow. As the night drags on, Francesca struggles to free herself from the forest and the powerful women, even as the Widow attempts to convince her that she is there because her spirit is irredeemably poisoned. When morning comes, Francesca sees the White Widow and the other women as they really are, and understands that she has the power to choose how she will move forward. Will she choose an eternity of revenge . . . or forgiveness?
The success of Ice Out as a story of an unimaginable betrayal, acceptance of one's fate, and forgiveness lies in Speranza's compassionate depiction of her characters. Francesca is a pleasant young woman with whom readers can readily empathize. She loves and is close to her parents, and has worked hard and established herself in a career that fulfills her. But she is open to the love she believes she finds with Ben, a man who is also likable, but clearly damaged as a result of childhood trauma. Sadly, his parents never sought help for him, mired in their own grief, despair, and inability to communicate. They failed him by not recognizing the ways in which his grief and guilt paralyzed him. When Francesca observes Ben's shockingly troubled reaction to life events, she believes that if she just loves him enough and their happy life in Vermont continues unabated, he will be fine. Sadly, his inability to face and respond appropriately to exigent circumstances results in tragedy. Speranza's commentary about perception, and how, caught up by passion and haste, we fail to see and appreciate what is real, seeing instead what we want to see and recognizing only too late a beloved's flaws and shortcomings.
"Ice out" is a term used to describe a natural phenomenon. When spring arrives and temperatures begin to rise, sunshine penetrates the ice that has covered lakes during the winter. It begins to thin, crack, and melt, leaving open water behind. Spring rains contribute to the melting process, and as the ice begins to weaken, it becomes dangerous. It is transformed into "white ice" or "snow ice," and so degraded that it can no longer support much, if any, weight. Which explains, in part, why people who fall through white ice have an extremely difficult time pulling themselves out. Additionally, of course, the water below the melting ice is still frigid and the ice itself extremely slippery. To "ice out" a person can also refer, literaly, to a murder or the metaphoric killing of a relationship by removing oneself from it without taking into consideration the other person's feelings or communicating directly with them.
All definitions apply to Speranza's tragic, but ultimately hopeful, mediation on the tenuousness of relationships and the human tendency to ignore warning signs before plunging into them. She also explores the power of forgiveness, illustrating through Francesca’s fate that its purpose has nothing to do with the person to whom it is extended, but offers freedom and peace to the person who has the strength and resilience to forgive.
Thanks to BookSparks for a paperback copy of the book.
Fatal Witness by Robert Bryndza
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Author Robert Bryndza's popular fictional detective, Erika Foster, must solve another mystifying case and put a murderer behind bars. As Fatal Witness opens, she has just purchased and moved into a sprawling, dilapidated Victorian house in the Blackheath area of London. A heath is a patch of semi-wild ground, she explains to her sister, Lenka, and the area was used as a burial pit during the Black Death plague. Hence the name. But now it's an up-and-coming, walkable neighborhood and the house has a view that will never be obstructed, thanks to the area’s sad history. Neither the furnace nor most of the home's multiple fireplaces work, and Erika hasn't gotten around to purchasing needed furniture -- including a bed -- so she winds up sleeping in the bedroom with the single working fireplace on an air mattress (that quickly pops) with the cat who immediately adopts her that she christens “George.” Erika is beginning to create a future for herself after mourning her husband, Mark, for the four long years since he died during a botched drug raid, along with five other colleagues. After having some dinner, Erika is walking home when she hears a woman scream and immediately responds to the apartment building from which the sound originated.
She discovers Tess Clarke, who has happened upon the body of her sister, Vicky. Tess and her husband operate a restaurant, Goose, in a tonier section of London known as "the village." When Vicky did not show up for work there, Tess went looking for her sister. Erika finds a disturbingly gruesome murder scene showing evidence of a fierce struggle in an apartment building populated by eclectic tenants, including the two Bulgarian sisters, Maria and Sophie Ivanova, who are studying medicine, and Charles Wakefield, the brother of Julian Wakefield, Assistant Commissioner of Police. Wakefield is a decidedly odd chap whose apartment appears to be stuck in a time warp with no indication that its occupant leads a twenty-first century life. In fact, his brother owns the apartment in which he lives and all associated bills are in Julian's name. Charles does not have a driver's license, telephone, computer, or television, and his passport expired in 2012. It is as though, from a bureaucratic viewpoint, he disappeared a decade ago. When additional officers and the forensic team descend upon the crime scene, Wakefield's bizarre behavior escalates to his assault upon a paramedic . . . and good cause to arrest him.
Erika considers Wakefield a suspect, especially after learning that Vicky confided in Tess about his "creepy" persona and habits, which included listening outside her apartment door. But aside from his brother, Wakefield has another protector. The owner of the apartment building, Henrietta Boulderstone, insists that he joins her in her penthouse apartment each evening for a drink, thereby providing him an alibi and establishing that he could not have killed Vicky within the time parameters the evidence establishes. Erika is not convinced, especially when detectives find a threatening note hidden in a drawer, and is intent upon finding out who sent that note to Wakefield and why in order to determine if it links him to Vicky’s murder.
Vicky was an aspiring actress who had recently converted her bedroom into a recording studio. She was hoping to narrate audiobooks and had recently launched a podcast, calling herself "V.A. Clarke, True Crime Detective." Oddly, no notebooks or other documentation pertaining to her research is found in her apartment. Also, Vicky failed to upload the latest episode of the podcast. But where is that recording? Was Vicky's killing motivated by something she revealed -- or was about to reveal -- in the podcast?
Bryndza introduces Cilla Stone, a flamboyant, retired drama teacher in her sixties, residing in Scotland. She, along with Colin McCabe, was one of Vicky's teachers at Goldsmith's Drama Academy, and the two women remained close. Charles was the school's caretaker from 2007 to 2012. Over the years, several female students have reported being assaulted by intruders in their on-campus housing, but no arrest has been made. And college officials attempt to stonewall efforts to obtain information about those crimes, including details about the university’s investigations – if any – completed after the students’ complaints were tendered. Is there a connection to the murder Erika is investigating back in London?
Of course there is, and Bryndza's story is clever, intricately-constructed, and contemporary. Once again, he focuses on Erika's fierce commitment to her career and ensuring that justice is meted out. She is assisted by her loyal colleagues, Detective Inspectors Peterson (with whom she is no longer romantically involved) and Moss, and Isaac Strong, the Forensic Pathologist who calls himself her GBFc9Gay Best Friend0. Erika deftly navigates bureaucratic and politic roadblocks erected by Wakefield, Commander Paul Marsh, and Superintendent Melanie Hudson that threaten to impede her investigation, sometimes risking her career in the name of solving crime. Her personal life always takes a backseat to her professional endeavors, as demonstrated by her unwillingness to take time away from her search for the killer to shop for a bed and be at her new home to take delivery of it. And although she still misses Mark, she views her purchase of a new home, "for all its faults," as a "fresh start. I finally feel like I'm moving on . . ." she tells Lenka. When she finally manages to be at home when her new furniture arrives, it is delivered by Igor Mak, her first boyfriend with whom she lost touch after she moved from Slovakia to the United Kingdom when she was just eighteen years old. Bryndza delivers a sweet, hopeful reunion that causes Erika to feel "a little flutter of excitement" strong enough to make her forget all about the case she is working on.
Bryndza never disappoints, again weaving an enthralling tale about an educational institution that turned a deaf ear to female students' complaints about safety concerns in campus residences. He also explores familial duties, responsibilities, and expectations, and the sometimes-steep price of pursuing and revealing truth. He is a master at employing misdirection, and injects shocking plot twists and stunning revelations -- as well as a few red herrings -- at expertly-timed junctures that propel the story forward. The pace never lags, gradually accelerating as Bryndza places Erika in extreme danger from a crazed and menacing criminal who will use any means necessary to prevent his or her crimes being expose and evade apprehension. Will Erika survive to continue renovating her new home, possibly exploring a renewed relationship with an old flame as she does so, and solve future crimes? Finding out is, as always, highly absorbing and entertaining.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
She discovers Tess Clarke, who has happened upon the body of her sister, Vicky. Tess and her husband operate a restaurant, Goose, in a tonier section of London known as "the village." When Vicky did not show up for work there, Tess went looking for her sister. Erika finds a disturbingly gruesome murder scene showing evidence of a fierce struggle in an apartment building populated by eclectic tenants, including the two Bulgarian sisters, Maria and Sophie Ivanova, who are studying medicine, and Charles Wakefield, the brother of Julian Wakefield, Assistant Commissioner of Police. Wakefield is a decidedly odd chap whose apartment appears to be stuck in a time warp with no indication that its occupant leads a twenty-first century life. In fact, his brother owns the apartment in which he lives and all associated bills are in Julian's name. Charles does not have a driver's license, telephone, computer, or television, and his passport expired in 2012. It is as though, from a bureaucratic viewpoint, he disappeared a decade ago. When additional officers and the forensic team descend upon the crime scene, Wakefield's bizarre behavior escalates to his assault upon a paramedic . . . and good cause to arrest him.
Erika considers Wakefield a suspect, especially after learning that Vicky confided in Tess about his "creepy" persona and habits, which included listening outside her apartment door. But aside from his brother, Wakefield has another protector. The owner of the apartment building, Henrietta Boulderstone, insists that he joins her in her penthouse apartment each evening for a drink, thereby providing him an alibi and establishing that he could not have killed Vicky within the time parameters the evidence establishes. Erika is not convinced, especially when detectives find a threatening note hidden in a drawer, and is intent upon finding out who sent that note to Wakefield and why in order to determine if it links him to Vicky’s murder.
Vicky was an aspiring actress who had recently converted her bedroom into a recording studio. She was hoping to narrate audiobooks and had recently launched a podcast, calling herself "V.A. Clarke, True Crime Detective." Oddly, no notebooks or other documentation pertaining to her research is found in her apartment. Also, Vicky failed to upload the latest episode of the podcast. But where is that recording? Was Vicky's killing motivated by something she revealed -- or was about to reveal -- in the podcast?
Bryndza introduces Cilla Stone, a flamboyant, retired drama teacher in her sixties, residing in Scotland. She, along with Colin McCabe, was one of Vicky's teachers at Goldsmith's Drama Academy, and the two women remained close. Charles was the school's caretaker from 2007 to 2012. Over the years, several female students have reported being assaulted by intruders in their on-campus housing, but no arrest has been made. And college officials attempt to stonewall efforts to obtain information about those crimes, including details about the university’s investigations – if any – completed after the students’ complaints were tendered. Is there a connection to the murder Erika is investigating back in London?
Of course there is, and Bryndza's story is clever, intricately-constructed, and contemporary. Once again, he focuses on Erika's fierce commitment to her career and ensuring that justice is meted out. She is assisted by her loyal colleagues, Detective Inspectors Peterson (with whom she is no longer romantically involved) and Moss, and Isaac Strong, the Forensic Pathologist who calls himself her GBFc9Gay Best Friend0. Erika deftly navigates bureaucratic and politic roadblocks erected by Wakefield, Commander Paul Marsh, and Superintendent Melanie Hudson that threaten to impede her investigation, sometimes risking her career in the name of solving crime. Her personal life always takes a backseat to her professional endeavors, as demonstrated by her unwillingness to take time away from her search for the killer to shop for a bed and be at her new home to take delivery of it. And although she still misses Mark, she views her purchase of a new home, "for all its faults," as a "fresh start. I finally feel like I'm moving on . . ." she tells Lenka. When she finally manages to be at home when her new furniture arrives, it is delivered by Igor Mak, her first boyfriend with whom she lost touch after she moved from Slovakia to the United Kingdom when she was just eighteen years old. Bryndza delivers a sweet, hopeful reunion that causes Erika to feel "a little flutter of excitement" strong enough to make her forget all about the case she is working on.
Bryndza never disappoints, again weaving an enthralling tale about an educational institution that turned a deaf ear to female students' complaints about safety concerns in campus residences. He also explores familial duties, responsibilities, and expectations, and the sometimes-steep price of pursuing and revealing truth. He is a master at employing misdirection, and injects shocking plot twists and stunning revelations -- as well as a few red herrings -- at expertly-timed junctures that propel the story forward. The pace never lags, gradually accelerating as Bryndza places Erika in extreme danger from a crazed and menacing criminal who will use any means necessary to prevent his or her crimes being expose and evade apprehension. Will Erika survive to continue renovating her new home, possibly exploring a renewed relationship with an old flame as she does so, and solve future crimes? Finding out is, as always, highly absorbing and entertaining.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
The Wedding Plot by Paula Munier
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Author Paula Munier says she named the heroine of her acclaimed Mercy Carr series "Mercy" because she loves "the so-called virtue names favored by the Quakers and I wanted her name to reflect her empathetic and compassionate nature." She is a twenty-nine-year-old former soldier who served as a military police officer with the U.S. Army. She was wounded during her final deployment to Afghanistan. Martinez, her fiancé, who was also deployed, did not make it back. “Take care of my partner” were Martinez's last words to her. So, Mercy came home to Vermont with Elvis, so named because he is, according to Munier, "the king of dogs," and her research revealed that "many military working dogs are named after rock/country stars—Garth, Cash, Willie, etc." He is a beautiful, highly intelligent, bomb-sniffing Malinois afflicted with PTSD. Together, they hike the remote Vermont wilderness, and perform freelance security and investigative work, often answering calls for help alongside U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland, Susie Bear. Elvis never really goes off-duty, while Susie Bear is often playful and mischievous. Mercy has recently enrolled in a low-residency program through the University of New Hampshire to earn a degree in environmental science, although, in Munier's capable hands, she will have no time to devote for her studies during the few days in June over which the story unfolds. "June is wedding season in Vermont, and weddings can be murder . . . " Munier observes.
As The Wedding Plot opens, Mercy's mother, Grace, has taken charge of the preparations for the lavish wedding of Mercy's grandmother, Patience, a veterinarian. After the honeymoon, Claude, also a veterinarian with whom Patience has maintained a long-distance relationship for years, will finally relocate from Québec. The glamorous, multi-day event will be held at the tony Lady's Slipper Inn, a three-hundred-acre luxury estate originally erected in 1794 and renovated by billionaire Daniel Feinberg, for whom Mercy works from time to time. The Inn is managed by Patience's younger sister, Prudence, "the most sophisticated one in the family," who previously managed a château in the South of France. But the Inn's spa and well-being director, Bodhi St. George, has suddenly gone missing, jeopardizing the spa package Grace has arranged for the guests. Grace implores Mercy to travel to the Inn earlier than planned and lead yoga classes in Bodhi's place.
But readers already know that Bodhi fled the Meeting House Creamery, where he rented a modest cottage from owner and proprietor, Annie Amidon. He encouraged Annie to install a security system, and even set up a goat cam for her that draws a large number of viewers, but at 3:00 a.m. he was awakened by the agitated bleating of Annie's Alpine goats and knew it was time to leave. He took with him remnants of his old life, including a Glock and ammunition. But first, he called 911 to ensure the safety of Annie and her goats, and tossed his cell phone in the pasture, hoping it would not be discovered by "the guys gunning for him."
Concluding that finding Bodhi might be easier than teaching yoga in his place, Mercy commences the search at the Creamery. Elvis alerts to the lockbox Bodhi left behind in which his gun was stored – which seems out of character for "a Dalai Lama guy," as Annie describes him. Unclipping the lead from Elvis's collar and commanding him to "search," Mercy follows him to the barn where she finds his nose pointing to the rubber tip of a black-soled sneaker protruding from a pile of hay. In the stall, they discover a dead man with a pitchfork thrust into his chest. All it took was "one decisive plunge with considerable force behind it. A terrible way to die -- but relatively quick."
Thus begins a race to locate Bodhi St. George, immediately deemed a murder suspect by the local police, ascertain the dead man's identity, and learn why he was murdered on Annie's peaceful goat farm and creamery. The search unfolds against the backdrop of the upcoming nuptials and the expectations of Mercy's family members, especially high-strung perfectionist Grace, who is determined that the glamorous and meticulously-planned celebration proceed without a blip. Mercy is scheduled to be a bridesmaid and her mother is also intent on transforming Mercy into a stylish one, complete with a hair makeover. Mercy could not possibly be less interested in her appearance when there is a murderer on the loose and a mystery to be solved.
Predictably, the yoga instructor's name was not "Bodhi," even though he "identified as a bodhisattva." He makes his way to a storage unit where he retrieves his Harley-Davidson, burner phone, one of multiple passports bearing different names, and cash before proceeding on to a cheap motel and altering his appearance. He also sends a text message -- to Kinney and Adler -- as agreed. "102586" likely only has meaning for Red Sox fans like Bodhi and his buddies. He emerges from the motel room as Frank Hahn, having warned his pals that "the game was in play," determined to find out who killed the man in the barn and why.
Mercy and Elvis are joined by Troy, whose divorce has just been finalized, and Susie Bear in a frantic search for a killer that needs to be wrapped up in time for Mercy to slip into that her bridesmaid dress with every hair in place to witness Patience and Claude pledge their love for each other. Of course, nothing goes smoothly. For one thing, the bumbling and arrogant local police attempt to thwart Mercy's efforts, but she remains undaunted. Dead bodies begin piling up, and Mercy and Troy become the hunted, as well as the hunters. Munier plunges them into a harrowing vehicle chase through the Vermont hills in Troy's beloved pickup. When Munier moves the action to the swanky Inn, danger follows and Elvis unearths old bones in the nearby woods. Given the Inn's location and history, it becomes imperative to determine their age and whether they bear any connection to the current string of events that Munier skillfully reveals to be extremely complex and intertwined in very surprising ways.
Munier deftly incorporates family drama into the compelling mystery. Mercy's pediatric oncologist brother, Nick, along with Duncan, her father, and Patience's free-spirited youngest sister, Verity, all converge on the Inn. Claude's brother, a Catholic priest known as Father Bernard, also arrives, as does Mercy's great-uncle, Hugh, a retired colonel who helms a security agency and has been Bernard's friend for more than forty years. Claude's two sons, Florian and Marcel, are also in attendance, along with his nephew, Philippe. Family intrigue ensues, ranging from Grace's consternation about Verity's refusal to adhere to conventions about attire and decorum, to the corporate intrigue that plays out surrounding Toussaint, Inc., one of the largest dairy companies in North America, which happens to be owned by Claude's family and operated by Philippe. He is repugnant and rumored to have ties to organized crime. Munier ingeniously intersperses several supporting characters and story threads in the plot that lead right back to the quaint Meeting House Creamery and Annie who, it turns out, produces world-class chevre cheese for which there is a huge black market.
Munier melds her surprisingly complex and creative mysteries with charming and often hilarious domestic complications, placing Mercy and Elvis at the center of all of it. Mercy is resilient, empowered, and dedicated, as well as exceedingly stubborn. She knows herself well and traverses her own path, but loves her family and her refusal to permit them or their concerns about the wedding from interfering in her mission is affectionate, even-handed, and often infused with compromises that make her cringe with annoyance. What begins as a search for a missing spa director quickly evolves into dangerous, sprawling mysteries involving numerous ancillary characters. Troy remains at her side throughout it all, supporting her efforts, yet intent upon ensuring her safety, as does the ever-faithful and always vigilant Elvis. It all plays out at a steadily accelerating pace as surprising developments and revelations take the tale in unexpected directions while the appointed time of the wedding draws closer. Grace grows more and more panicky as the prospect of the smoothly elegant ceremony she has meticulously planned dims, in part due to an impending storm. As the story careens toward a dramatic and shocking climax, Munier showcases her beloved Vermont. She transports readers from the state's gently rolling hills to the Creamery and its cheese cellars, the Inn and its unique treehouse cottage, and the picturesque forty-acre Eshqua Bog, a nature preserve known for the wild orchids (lady's slippers) for which the Inn was named that Patience so dearly loves.
Will there be a wedding? Finding out is an entertaining, engrossing, and delightful experience. Seemingly effortlessly, Munier combines charm and intrigue, family conflict and life-or-death decision-making, humorously genuine relationships, and murder into an absorbing story set in gorgeous locations that play an intricate role. She compassionately highlights the value of the work performed by dogs like Elvis and Susie Bear, as well as the real struggles of veterans like Mercy who, after serving with honor and integrity, find it difficult to assimilate back into their old lives because, for them, nothing will ever truly be the same again. She portrays a family whose quirky members get on each other's nerves, but love each other unconditionally, and does it all in a credible, believable manner. It's no wonder the Mercy Carr series has received so many accolades.
Munier says her goal for "every book is that readers reach 'The End' and feel good about the time they’ve spent with Mercy and Elvis, and look forward to spending more time with them in the future." She has achieved her goal. After enjoying The Wedding Plot, readers who have not read the first three volumes will want to do so while they eagerly await publication of the next installment.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
As The Wedding Plot opens, Mercy's mother, Grace, has taken charge of the preparations for the lavish wedding of Mercy's grandmother, Patience, a veterinarian. After the honeymoon, Claude, also a veterinarian with whom Patience has maintained a long-distance relationship for years, will finally relocate from Québec. The glamorous, multi-day event will be held at the tony Lady's Slipper Inn, a three-hundred-acre luxury estate originally erected in 1794 and renovated by billionaire Daniel Feinberg, for whom Mercy works from time to time. The Inn is managed by Patience's younger sister, Prudence, "the most sophisticated one in the family," who previously managed a château in the South of France. But the Inn's spa and well-being director, Bodhi St. George, has suddenly gone missing, jeopardizing the spa package Grace has arranged for the guests. Grace implores Mercy to travel to the Inn earlier than planned and lead yoga classes in Bodhi's place.
But readers already know that Bodhi fled the Meeting House Creamery, where he rented a modest cottage from owner and proprietor, Annie Amidon. He encouraged Annie to install a security system, and even set up a goat cam for her that draws a large number of viewers, but at 3:00 a.m. he was awakened by the agitated bleating of Annie's Alpine goats and knew it was time to leave. He took with him remnants of his old life, including a Glock and ammunition. But first, he called 911 to ensure the safety of Annie and her goats, and tossed his cell phone in the pasture, hoping it would not be discovered by "the guys gunning for him."
Concluding that finding Bodhi might be easier than teaching yoga in his place, Mercy commences the search at the Creamery. Elvis alerts to the lockbox Bodhi left behind in which his gun was stored – which seems out of character for "a Dalai Lama guy," as Annie describes him. Unclipping the lead from Elvis's collar and commanding him to "search," Mercy follows him to the barn where she finds his nose pointing to the rubber tip of a black-soled sneaker protruding from a pile of hay. In the stall, they discover a dead man with a pitchfork thrust into his chest. All it took was "one decisive plunge with considerable force behind it. A terrible way to die -- but relatively quick."
Thus begins a race to locate Bodhi St. George, immediately deemed a murder suspect by the local police, ascertain the dead man's identity, and learn why he was murdered on Annie's peaceful goat farm and creamery. The search unfolds against the backdrop of the upcoming nuptials and the expectations of Mercy's family members, especially high-strung perfectionist Grace, who is determined that the glamorous and meticulously-planned celebration proceed without a blip. Mercy is scheduled to be a bridesmaid and her mother is also intent on transforming Mercy into a stylish one, complete with a hair makeover. Mercy could not possibly be less interested in her appearance when there is a murderer on the loose and a mystery to be solved.
Predictably, the yoga instructor's name was not "Bodhi," even though he "identified as a bodhisattva." He makes his way to a storage unit where he retrieves his Harley-Davidson, burner phone, one of multiple passports bearing different names, and cash before proceeding on to a cheap motel and altering his appearance. He also sends a text message -- to Kinney and Adler -- as agreed. "102586" likely only has meaning for Red Sox fans like Bodhi and his buddies. He emerges from the motel room as Frank Hahn, having warned his pals that "the game was in play," determined to find out who killed the man in the barn and why.
Mercy and Elvis are joined by Troy, whose divorce has just been finalized, and Susie Bear in a frantic search for a killer that needs to be wrapped up in time for Mercy to slip into that her bridesmaid dress with every hair in place to witness Patience and Claude pledge their love for each other. Of course, nothing goes smoothly. For one thing, the bumbling and arrogant local police attempt to thwart Mercy's efforts, but she remains undaunted. Dead bodies begin piling up, and Mercy and Troy become the hunted, as well as the hunters. Munier plunges them into a harrowing vehicle chase through the Vermont hills in Troy's beloved pickup. When Munier moves the action to the swanky Inn, danger follows and Elvis unearths old bones in the nearby woods. Given the Inn's location and history, it becomes imperative to determine their age and whether they bear any connection to the current string of events that Munier skillfully reveals to be extremely complex and intertwined in very surprising ways.
Munier deftly incorporates family drama into the compelling mystery. Mercy's pediatric oncologist brother, Nick, along with Duncan, her father, and Patience's free-spirited youngest sister, Verity, all converge on the Inn. Claude's brother, a Catholic priest known as Father Bernard, also arrives, as does Mercy's great-uncle, Hugh, a retired colonel who helms a security agency and has been Bernard's friend for more than forty years. Claude's two sons, Florian and Marcel, are also in attendance, along with his nephew, Philippe. Family intrigue ensues, ranging from Grace's consternation about Verity's refusal to adhere to conventions about attire and decorum, to the corporate intrigue that plays out surrounding Toussaint, Inc., one of the largest dairy companies in North America, which happens to be owned by Claude's family and operated by Philippe. He is repugnant and rumored to have ties to organized crime. Munier ingeniously intersperses several supporting characters and story threads in the plot that lead right back to the quaint Meeting House Creamery and Annie who, it turns out, produces world-class chevre cheese for which there is a huge black market.
Munier melds her surprisingly complex and creative mysteries with charming and often hilarious domestic complications, placing Mercy and Elvis at the center of all of it. Mercy is resilient, empowered, and dedicated, as well as exceedingly stubborn. She knows herself well and traverses her own path, but loves her family and her refusal to permit them or their concerns about the wedding from interfering in her mission is affectionate, even-handed, and often infused with compromises that make her cringe with annoyance. What begins as a search for a missing spa director quickly evolves into dangerous, sprawling mysteries involving numerous ancillary characters. Troy remains at her side throughout it all, supporting her efforts, yet intent upon ensuring her safety, as does the ever-faithful and always vigilant Elvis. It all plays out at a steadily accelerating pace as surprising developments and revelations take the tale in unexpected directions while the appointed time of the wedding draws closer. Grace grows more and more panicky as the prospect of the smoothly elegant ceremony she has meticulously planned dims, in part due to an impending storm. As the story careens toward a dramatic and shocking climax, Munier showcases her beloved Vermont. She transports readers from the state's gently rolling hills to the Creamery and its cheese cellars, the Inn and its unique treehouse cottage, and the picturesque forty-acre Eshqua Bog, a nature preserve known for the wild orchids (lady's slippers) for which the Inn was named that Patience so dearly loves.
Will there be a wedding? Finding out is an entertaining, engrossing, and delightful experience. Seemingly effortlessly, Munier combines charm and intrigue, family conflict and life-or-death decision-making, humorously genuine relationships, and murder into an absorbing story set in gorgeous locations that play an intricate role. She compassionately highlights the value of the work performed by dogs like Elvis and Susie Bear, as well as the real struggles of veterans like Mercy who, after serving with honor and integrity, find it difficult to assimilate back into their old lives because, for them, nothing will ever truly be the same again. She portrays a family whose quirky members get on each other's nerves, but love each other unconditionally, and does it all in a credible, believable manner. It's no wonder the Mercy Carr series has received so many accolades.
Munier says her goal for "every book is that readers reach 'The End' and feel good about the time they’ve spent with Mercy and Elvis, and look forward to spending more time with them in the future." She has achieved her goal. After enjoying The Wedding Plot, readers who have not read the first three volumes will want to do so while they eagerly await publication of the next installment.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Outside by Ragnar Jónasson
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Four old friends meet for a reunion. Ármann, a former guide who now owns and operates his own tour company, has organized the gathering, suggesting at the last minute that the group embark on a ptarmigan hunt in the remote Iceland highlands across the country from Reykjavik. The plan is to go to an isolated location and disconnect from everything -- except each other -- for a bit. Daniel grew up in Iceland, but has spent some years living in England, studying acting and then trying to establish himself in the theater. Unfortunately, although he believes his friends think he has hit "the big time," he survives by waiting tables. But he's definitely not fooling all of them. He does not know how to shoot, but agrees to participate in the hunt and let Ármann teach him. Helena is an engineer working for a start-up company and Gunnlaugur is a lawyer.
They set out in the morning with only provisions for the day, not even taking sleeping bags with them. The weather quickly grows ominous. Soon they find themselves attempting to navigate a full-fledged blizzard, walking single file through the "whirling whiteness" that leaves them in darkness. Because of his expertise as a guide, the others find themselves with no option but to trust Ármann to lead them to safety. They must keep moving to avoid freezing to death. Ármann claims he knows of an old hut, one of the emergency refuges that are scattered on the highlands, where they can take shelter and wait out the storm, so they trudge along single-file. Daniel brings up the rear, behind Helena, cold and struggling to keep up with the others. It does not help that he is severely hung over because whenever the friends meet up there seems to be an exorbitant amount of alcohol involved. And the prior night was no exception.
At last, they reach the hut, but the door is locked, they are miles from the nearest house, and their cell phones are useless because there is no signal. Ármann manages to break open the key box with his gun, extract the key, and gain access to the hut. Daniel senses "an indefinable smell of danger in the air, among the thickly falling flakes, but he can't work out where it had come from." As soon as they open the door, Daniel's fear is confirmed. There is a man sitting in the corner of the hut, holding a shotgun. He remains seated, staring at the group, his eyes wide open and unspeaking. He does not react or respond to the group's arrival. "Perhaps the eeriest aspect of it all was the stranger's stillness. He was almost like a living corpse, only his open eyes revealing that he was fully conscious and watching them." He is a terrifying presence.
As the storm continues to rage outside, the four friends begin quietly discussing how best to approach the situation. Who is the man in the hut? Why is he just sitting there staring at them? Is he in a state of shock as a result of some sort of trauma? Is he dangerous? Do they dare occupy the hut along with him? Do they really have a choice, considering the severity of the storm?
To tell the tale, author Ragnar Jónasson employs third-person narratives set forth in short, crisply drafted rotating chapters, each of which is focused on one of his four characters. He presents their backstories and explains the characters' relationships, revealing the ways in which their lives have been intertwined for years. Notably, Daniel was surprised to learn that Gunnlauger would be joining them for the reunion because in recent years, he, Helena, and Ármann have tacitly agreed not to invite him due to his "darker, more difficult side" that has been revealed with time.
Gunnlauger, however, considers the other three his best friends. He works for a medium-sized law firm in Reykjavik and has given up on the hope of keeping pace with his colleagues. He failed his medical exams twice so his father insisted that he attend law school, but he has no passion or flair for the law. He also has been unable to maintain a relationship with a woman for more than a few weeks, and has long "had a thing for" Helena. He is well aware that she does not feel the same way about him and, in fact, mercilessly teases him about his love life. The night before they head out on the hunt, he has his first drink in two years, which takes Helena aback because his troubles with alcohol are well-known. Gunnlauger has been receiving ominous letters from an anonymous sender and suspects they may be coming from one of his three friends.
The night before they head out, Helena has "a feeling of disquiet" and dreams of Vikingur, their friend who died "cold, exhausted, abandoned and alone" five years ago. She still misses him terribly, and is haunted by her belief that he suffered before he died of hypothermia under suspicious circumstances.
Ármann boasts about his success, which Daniel chalks up to an inferiority complex and Gunnlauger resents, secretly hoping that Ármann's business will fail and they will find themselves on more equal footing. Ármann was not a good student, and after graduation got involved in selling drugs but he got himself sorted out and now operates a thriving business. Helena has always looked out for and taken care of him. These days, he seems to be married to his job after a long relationship ended.
Eventually, they decide that Ármann and Gunnlauger will remain in the hut while Daniel and Helena head south to another hut that is equipped with a radio they can use to summon help. Ármann estimates that, given the weather conditions, they should be able to hike there and back in about an hour. Ármann tells them to leave their guns, and Daniel has "a horrible premonition that there is something out there in the darkness . . . more dangerous than anything his imagination could conjure up . . . " He is convinced he is "heading to his certain death." Nonetheless, he and Helena strike out on their own, leaving Ármann and Gunnlauger with the mysterious man.
Outside is an entertaining and imaginatively-conceived story about betrayal and retribution. He places his characters in an extremely dangerous geographic location and proceeds to reveal numerous reasons why they neither believe the stories they tell or trust each other. And with good reason. Over the course of their long friendship, they have learned a great deal about each other and various incidents have caused them to develop resentments and hold grudges. They still try to impress each other by appearing to be successful and popular when, in fact, each of them has experienced some form of failure and committed heinous, unforgivable acts. They are all harboring dark, explosive secrets and within the group there are concealed alliances that evolve and shift as the story proceeds. Eventually, Jónasson reveals that the invitation to get together for the weekend was issued with more ominous intent than some of the group realize. But they will figure it out.
While entertaining, there are two aspects of Outside that keep it from being a truly first-rate thriller. The characters' histories and relationships are interesting, but none of the characters are likable or have any immediately apparent redeeming qualities. They are all manipulative, phony, and self-involved, and they only interact with the others in service to their ulterior motives and need to feel better about themselves and their own lives. There is not a single character that readers can take into their hearts and cheer on. They are all pathetic and reprehensible. Perhaps that is the point Jónasson wanted to make.
And the book ends abruptly without bringing the story to a satisfying resolution. It may be that Jónasson plans a sequel, which would explain why the story suddenly falls right off a literary Icelandic cliff. Regardless, the conclusion is jarring and unsettling. Again, that may have been a deliberate choice made by Jónasson.
Despite those shortcomings, Outside is engrossing and fast-paced. It is also richly atmospheric which heightens the dramatic tension, and amplifies the paranoia and palpable fear his characters experience as they confront with their past mistakes and mortality on the Icelandic highland. And, as noted, the story is populated by interesting, if irredeemable, characters, some of whom meet fates they clearly deserve, providing some satisfaction to readers.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
They set out in the morning with only provisions for the day, not even taking sleeping bags with them. The weather quickly grows ominous. Soon they find themselves attempting to navigate a full-fledged blizzard, walking single file through the "whirling whiteness" that leaves them in darkness. Because of his expertise as a guide, the others find themselves with no option but to trust Ármann to lead them to safety. They must keep moving to avoid freezing to death. Ármann claims he knows of an old hut, one of the emergency refuges that are scattered on the highlands, where they can take shelter and wait out the storm, so they trudge along single-file. Daniel brings up the rear, behind Helena, cold and struggling to keep up with the others. It does not help that he is severely hung over because whenever the friends meet up there seems to be an exorbitant amount of alcohol involved. And the prior night was no exception.
At last, they reach the hut, but the door is locked, they are miles from the nearest house, and their cell phones are useless because there is no signal. Ármann manages to break open the key box with his gun, extract the key, and gain access to the hut. Daniel senses "an indefinable smell of danger in the air, among the thickly falling flakes, but he can't work out where it had come from." As soon as they open the door, Daniel's fear is confirmed. There is a man sitting in the corner of the hut, holding a shotgun. He remains seated, staring at the group, his eyes wide open and unspeaking. He does not react or respond to the group's arrival. "Perhaps the eeriest aspect of it all was the stranger's stillness. He was almost like a living corpse, only his open eyes revealing that he was fully conscious and watching them." He is a terrifying presence.
As the storm continues to rage outside, the four friends begin quietly discussing how best to approach the situation. Who is the man in the hut? Why is he just sitting there staring at them? Is he in a state of shock as a result of some sort of trauma? Is he dangerous? Do they dare occupy the hut along with him? Do they really have a choice, considering the severity of the storm?
To tell the tale, author Ragnar Jónasson employs third-person narratives set forth in short, crisply drafted rotating chapters, each of which is focused on one of his four characters. He presents their backstories and explains the characters' relationships, revealing the ways in which their lives have been intertwined for years. Notably, Daniel was surprised to learn that Gunnlauger would be joining them for the reunion because in recent years, he, Helena, and Ármann have tacitly agreed not to invite him due to his "darker, more difficult side" that has been revealed with time.
Gunnlauger, however, considers the other three his best friends. He works for a medium-sized law firm in Reykjavik and has given up on the hope of keeping pace with his colleagues. He failed his medical exams twice so his father insisted that he attend law school, but he has no passion or flair for the law. He also has been unable to maintain a relationship with a woman for more than a few weeks, and has long "had a thing for" Helena. He is well aware that she does not feel the same way about him and, in fact, mercilessly teases him about his love life. The night before they head out on the hunt, he has his first drink in two years, which takes Helena aback because his troubles with alcohol are well-known. Gunnlauger has been receiving ominous letters from an anonymous sender and suspects they may be coming from one of his three friends.
The night before they head out, Helena has "a feeling of disquiet" and dreams of Vikingur, their friend who died "cold, exhausted, abandoned and alone" five years ago. She still misses him terribly, and is haunted by her belief that he suffered before he died of hypothermia under suspicious circumstances.
Ármann boasts about his success, which Daniel chalks up to an inferiority complex and Gunnlauger resents, secretly hoping that Ármann's business will fail and they will find themselves on more equal footing. Ármann was not a good student, and after graduation got involved in selling drugs but he got himself sorted out and now operates a thriving business. Helena has always looked out for and taken care of him. These days, he seems to be married to his job after a long relationship ended.
Eventually, they decide that Ármann and Gunnlauger will remain in the hut while Daniel and Helena head south to another hut that is equipped with a radio they can use to summon help. Ármann estimates that, given the weather conditions, they should be able to hike there and back in about an hour. Ármann tells them to leave their guns, and Daniel has "a horrible premonition that there is something out there in the darkness . . . more dangerous than anything his imagination could conjure up . . . " He is convinced he is "heading to his certain death." Nonetheless, he and Helena strike out on their own, leaving Ármann and Gunnlauger with the mysterious man.
Outside is an entertaining and imaginatively-conceived story about betrayal and retribution. He places his characters in an extremely dangerous geographic location and proceeds to reveal numerous reasons why they neither believe the stories they tell or trust each other. And with good reason. Over the course of their long friendship, they have learned a great deal about each other and various incidents have caused them to develop resentments and hold grudges. They still try to impress each other by appearing to be successful and popular when, in fact, each of them has experienced some form of failure and committed heinous, unforgivable acts. They are all harboring dark, explosive secrets and within the group there are concealed alliances that evolve and shift as the story proceeds. Eventually, Jónasson reveals that the invitation to get together for the weekend was issued with more ominous intent than some of the group realize. But they will figure it out.
While entertaining, there are two aspects of Outside that keep it from being a truly first-rate thriller. The characters' histories and relationships are interesting, but none of the characters are likable or have any immediately apparent redeeming qualities. They are all manipulative, phony, and self-involved, and they only interact with the others in service to their ulterior motives and need to feel better about themselves and their own lives. There is not a single character that readers can take into their hearts and cheer on. They are all pathetic and reprehensible. Perhaps that is the point Jónasson wanted to make.
And the book ends abruptly without bringing the story to a satisfying resolution. It may be that Jónasson plans a sequel, which would explain why the story suddenly falls right off a literary Icelandic cliff. Regardless, the conclusion is jarring and unsettling. Again, that may have been a deliberate choice made by Jónasson.
Despite those shortcomings, Outside is engrossing and fast-paced. It is also richly atmospheric which heightens the dramatic tension, and amplifies the paranoia and palpable fear his characters experience as they confront with their past mistakes and mortality on the Icelandic highland. And, as noted, the story is populated by interesting, if irredeemable, characters, some of whom meet fates they clearly deserve, providing some satisfaction to readers.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Murder Rule, author Dervla McTiernan's first stand-alone novel, was inspired by a newspaper article she read several years ago about a young Irish law student who came to the United States to volunteer with the Innocence Project for one summer. The Innocence Project was founded by law professors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who, in 1988, began studying and litigating issues surrounding the use of forensic DNA testing. Their groundbreaking work provided the foundation for state and federal legislation establishing standards governing the use of DNA testing in legal cases, and changed the way in which criminal investigations and prosecutions are handled. Returning to Ireland, that young student could not forget about one of the cases she worked on, and continued searching for answers. Eventually, with the assistance of a retired police officer, she uncovered the evidence that proved the convicted man's innocence.
Digging deeper into the story, McTiernan learned that the exoneration took more than five years, and the man served twenty-six years of a twenty-nine-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. Those revelations caused her to ponder the public relations considerations of an organization like the Innocence Project. She wondered why that dark and very important aspect of the story was not emphasized in the original reporting of the story. Acknowledging that it could be because the media chose to play up the inspirational component of the tale, McTiernan began imagining what might happen if the information supplied to the press was carefully curated and controlled by organizational spokespersons. And if so, she asked herself, "Would I blame them?" That gave McTiernan the idea to "invert" the story. A young, enthusiastic law student worked diligently to help the organization fulfill its mission, but McTiernan found herself contemplating what could happen "if the opposite were true? What if the law student deliberately set out to sabotage the organization's efforts?"
The Murder Rule is the story of Hannah Rokeby, a third-year law student in Maine. McTiernan says that Hannah, "at first glance, appears to be exactly what you'd expect -- bright-eyed, eager to impress her professors, and wanting to change the world." Indeed, from the outset, McTiernan establishes that Hannah is confident, bright, self-reliant, and tenacious. But the book opens with a series of emails Hannah exchanges with Robert Parekh, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. Just two weeks earlier, Hannah stumbled upon an article in Vanity Fair "and found out exactly what was happening at the University of Virginia." She quickly formulated a plan and sets it in motion. Hannah acknowledges that the window to apply to volunteer at the clinic has closed, but presses Parekh to give her a position by mentioning the "personal mentoring" Parekh allegedly provided her friend. A few days later, Hannah sneaks out of the home she shares with Laura, her alcoholic mother, taking with her "a small, battered notebook with a faded red cover" -- her mother's diary -- and makes her way to the modest apartment she sublet at the last minute in Virginia. Hannah first read her mother's journal when she was just fourteen years old. The entries date back to 1994 when Laura was nineteen years old. Confessing that she read it brought Hannah and Laura closer, and Hannah believes that the diary truthfully recounts what happened to Laura and who was responsible.
Hannah concocts a story about her mother's participation in a three-month clinical trial at a Charlottesville hospital which necessitated her transfer from the University of Maine School of Law. Parekh is not rattled by Hannah's attempted blackmail, but is intrigued by her drive, so he offers her the chance to join a group of three or four other students working a minimum of fifteen hours per week. She is not immediately assigned to the Michael Dandridge death row case -- the impetus for her move to Virginia. Rather, she is assigned to review and evaluate applications for assistance received from inmates. But not for long.
In April 2008, Dandridge was convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Fitzhugh in June 2007, and sentenced to death. All of his appeals were procedurally barred or rejected on the merits. In November 2018, he applied for assistance from the Innocence Project. Parekh believed Dandridge's claim that the sheriff beat him up and threatened him until, under duress, he confessed to the crime. Dandridge also insisted that he informed both his trial and appellate attorneys, neither of whom raised the issue in court. An investigation revealed that exculpatory evidence was wrongfully withheld from Dandridge's trial attorney by the prosecutor. Thus, after eleven years on death row, his conviction was overturned and he is about to stand trial again. A preliminary hearing is set for the following week. Hannah knows she has to move quickly and use any means available to get herself assigned to the Dandridge defense team. And she does.
McTiernan alternates chapters moving Hannah's story forward with Laura's diary entries. In the first one, Laura explains that she is working as a housekeeper at a hotel near Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, because she wanted to get away from Boston for the summer. She picked up a side job cleaning a house which turned out to be a frightening experience. There were two guys there and while cleaning, she discovered cocaine, as well as a semiautomatic pistol. And overheard one of the guys -- Mike -- having a heated argument with his mother on the telephone. She also witnessed Mike trying to convince the other guy, Tom Spencer, to take a trip with him to Canada. She unequivocally declares that she has no intention of getting caught up in whatever drama was playing out in that home. Subsequent journal entries detail that she did not stay true to her conviction, along with events surrounding Tom's death.
Gradually, Hannah's real motivation for moving to Virginia and worming her way onto Dandridge's defense team is revealed, and it is anything but altruistic. In reality, she is determined to see that Dandridge remains in prison. Based on her mother's diary entries, Hannah believes that Dandridge raped Laura and brought about her father's death. She has always been led to believe that her father came from a rich family who paid her mother off because they did not want her to have anything to do with him, and he died before Hannah was born. "Under the surface, she's actually pretty ruthless, and working for her own agenda," McTiernan explains. Indeed, McTiernan illustrates how shrewd and calculating, and wiling to cross legal, moral, and ethic boundaries Hannah is. But Hannah believes strongly in what she is doing and that her actions are in pursuit of a greater good. McTiernan manages to make Hannah surprisingly likable and empathetic, even as it is clear that she is being dishonest and seeking to infiltrate the Innocence Project in order to derail its efforts to see Dandridge exonerated. She comes close to being an anti-hero until readers recognize that if she possesses evidence of Dandridge's guilt -- irrespective of whether his confession was coerced -- she has an ethical and moral responsibility to disclose it to her colleagues. McTiernan describes her as "quite uncompromising" and notes that her unwavering commitment to her goal is "where she goes wrong." Indeed, as the story proceeds, Hannah and readers learn that she has taken action and set things in motion in reliance upon faulty perceptions and conclusions. Eventually, she is forced to recognize and accept the truth, and deal with the consequences of her actions, which are not what she envisioned or desired. That is extremely unsettling and difficult for her.
The book's title is derived from the felony murder rule. Criminal laws generally require that a defendant possess the specific intent to commit the crime with which he/she is charged. The felony murder rule is an exception, holding that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder despite having no plan or intent to bring about the death. Thus, the felony murder rule flies in the face of the idea that a criminal defendant can be held responsible only for the outcome he/she foresaw when deciding to engage in criminal conduct. McTiernan felt the title fit the book because she explores whether "Hannah is responsible for all of the outcomes of her actions. How about if she didn't foresee something happening? What if she should have foreseen it had she done the work?"
The Murder Rule examines each character's motivations for his/her choices and actions, and questions their justifications. McTiernan's characters are fully developed and intriguing. As noted, Hannah is young and quixotic, her machinations fueled by years of ruminating on erroneous beliefs. Laura is an alcoholic and, unsurprisingly, manipulative. McTiernan's use of the dual narratives is highly effective because readers get to know Laura, through her old journal entries, along with Hannah who documents her present-day activities and interactions. Readers also learn the truth, along with Hannah, and are privy to her emotional journey as she realizes that the indisputable evidence does not square with her mother's account of events. The tale is a compelling examination of the mother-daughter relationship between Laura and Hannah -- two women with divergent goals. Laura wants to keep the past hidden and put it behind her while Hannah is on a quest for truth and a specific brand of justice. What will Hannah due when the truth is fully revealed?
Because McTiernan practiced law, she injects credible details about the legal aspects of the story, including a tensely climatic courtroom scene, while requiring some suspension of disbelief from her readers. Putting those flaws in the tale aside, it is a fast-paced, otherwise tautly-crafted, and entertaining thriller replete with shocking revelations and surprising developments. McTiernan's overarching story is clever, as the eventual unveiling of the connection between Tom's death and Dandridge's case demonstrates. It is also an absorbing exploration of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship and its impact on Hannah.
The Murder Rule is an engrossing meditation on under what circumstances, if any, questionable means can ever justify the achievement of a desired end. McTiernan says she wanted to explore a highly provocative question: "What if you're a good person trying to do good things in a world that doesn't seem to care? And the world we live in right now doesn't seem to care. Would you take a little step off the ethical path in order to be effective?" And if one does that, what about another little step. And another. And another . . . "How far would you go? Where does that line sit? Because it's very hard to be effective in the world today if you follow the rules strictly." It's up to readers to decide if they accept McTiernan's core premise, whether Hannah is that good person McTiernan references, and if wrongful actions by police, prosecutors, or others can justify the means employed to write those wrongs. And what they might do if forced to confront similar circumstances.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scene of the Crime for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Digging deeper into the story, McTiernan learned that the exoneration took more than five years, and the man served twenty-six years of a twenty-nine-year sentence for a crime he did not commit. Those revelations caused her to ponder the public relations considerations of an organization like the Innocence Project. She wondered why that dark and very important aspect of the story was not emphasized in the original reporting of the story. Acknowledging that it could be because the media chose to play up the inspirational component of the tale, McTiernan began imagining what might happen if the information supplied to the press was carefully curated and controlled by organizational spokespersons. And if so, she asked herself, "Would I blame them?" That gave McTiernan the idea to "invert" the story. A young, enthusiastic law student worked diligently to help the organization fulfill its mission, but McTiernan found herself contemplating what could happen "if the opposite were true? What if the law student deliberately set out to sabotage the organization's efforts?"
The Murder Rule is the story of Hannah Rokeby, a third-year law student in Maine. McTiernan says that Hannah, "at first glance, appears to be exactly what you'd expect -- bright-eyed, eager to impress her professors, and wanting to change the world." Indeed, from the outset, McTiernan establishes that Hannah is confident, bright, self-reliant, and tenacious. But the book opens with a series of emails Hannah exchanges with Robert Parekh, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and Director of the Innocence Project Clinic. Just two weeks earlier, Hannah stumbled upon an article in Vanity Fair "and found out exactly what was happening at the University of Virginia." She quickly formulated a plan and sets it in motion. Hannah acknowledges that the window to apply to volunteer at the clinic has closed, but presses Parekh to give her a position by mentioning the "personal mentoring" Parekh allegedly provided her friend. A few days later, Hannah sneaks out of the home she shares with Laura, her alcoholic mother, taking with her "a small, battered notebook with a faded red cover" -- her mother's diary -- and makes her way to the modest apartment she sublet at the last minute in Virginia. Hannah first read her mother's journal when she was just fourteen years old. The entries date back to 1994 when Laura was nineteen years old. Confessing that she read it brought Hannah and Laura closer, and Hannah believes that the diary truthfully recounts what happened to Laura and who was responsible.
Hannah concocts a story about her mother's participation in a three-month clinical trial at a Charlottesville hospital which necessitated her transfer from the University of Maine School of Law. Parekh is not rattled by Hannah's attempted blackmail, but is intrigued by her drive, so he offers her the chance to join a group of three or four other students working a minimum of fifteen hours per week. She is not immediately assigned to the Michael Dandridge death row case -- the impetus for her move to Virginia. Rather, she is assigned to review and evaluate applications for assistance received from inmates. But not for long.
In April 2008, Dandridge was convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Fitzhugh in June 2007, and sentenced to death. All of his appeals were procedurally barred or rejected on the merits. In November 2018, he applied for assistance from the Innocence Project. Parekh believed Dandridge's claim that the sheriff beat him up and threatened him until, under duress, he confessed to the crime. Dandridge also insisted that he informed both his trial and appellate attorneys, neither of whom raised the issue in court. An investigation revealed that exculpatory evidence was wrongfully withheld from Dandridge's trial attorney by the prosecutor. Thus, after eleven years on death row, his conviction was overturned and he is about to stand trial again. A preliminary hearing is set for the following week. Hannah knows she has to move quickly and use any means available to get herself assigned to the Dandridge defense team. And she does.
McTiernan alternates chapters moving Hannah's story forward with Laura's diary entries. In the first one, Laura explains that she is working as a housekeeper at a hotel near Seal Harbor on Mount Desert Island, Maine, because she wanted to get away from Boston for the summer. She picked up a side job cleaning a house which turned out to be a frightening experience. There were two guys there and while cleaning, she discovered cocaine, as well as a semiautomatic pistol. And overheard one of the guys -- Mike -- having a heated argument with his mother on the telephone. She also witnessed Mike trying to convince the other guy, Tom Spencer, to take a trip with him to Canada. She unequivocally declares that she has no intention of getting caught up in whatever drama was playing out in that home. Subsequent journal entries detail that she did not stay true to her conviction, along with events surrounding Tom's death.
Gradually, Hannah's real motivation for moving to Virginia and worming her way onto Dandridge's defense team is revealed, and it is anything but altruistic. In reality, she is determined to see that Dandridge remains in prison. Based on her mother's diary entries, Hannah believes that Dandridge raped Laura and brought about her father's death. She has always been led to believe that her father came from a rich family who paid her mother off because they did not want her to have anything to do with him, and he died before Hannah was born. "Under the surface, she's actually pretty ruthless, and working for her own agenda," McTiernan explains. Indeed, McTiernan illustrates how shrewd and calculating, and wiling to cross legal, moral, and ethic boundaries Hannah is. But Hannah believes strongly in what she is doing and that her actions are in pursuit of a greater good. McTiernan manages to make Hannah surprisingly likable and empathetic, even as it is clear that she is being dishonest and seeking to infiltrate the Innocence Project in order to derail its efforts to see Dandridge exonerated. She comes close to being an anti-hero until readers recognize that if she possesses evidence of Dandridge's guilt -- irrespective of whether his confession was coerced -- she has an ethical and moral responsibility to disclose it to her colleagues. McTiernan describes her as "quite uncompromising" and notes that her unwavering commitment to her goal is "where she goes wrong." Indeed, as the story proceeds, Hannah and readers learn that she has taken action and set things in motion in reliance upon faulty perceptions and conclusions. Eventually, she is forced to recognize and accept the truth, and deal with the consequences of her actions, which are not what she envisioned or desired. That is extremely unsettling and difficult for her.
The book's title is derived from the felony murder rule. Criminal laws generally require that a defendant possess the specific intent to commit the crime with which he/she is charged. The felony murder rule is an exception, holding that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the defendant can be convicted of murder despite having no plan or intent to bring about the death. Thus, the felony murder rule flies in the face of the idea that a criminal defendant can be held responsible only for the outcome he/she foresaw when deciding to engage in criminal conduct. McTiernan felt the title fit the book because she explores whether "Hannah is responsible for all of the outcomes of her actions. How about if she didn't foresee something happening? What if she should have foreseen it had she done the work?"
The Murder Rule examines each character's motivations for his/her choices and actions, and questions their justifications. McTiernan's characters are fully developed and intriguing. As noted, Hannah is young and quixotic, her machinations fueled by years of ruminating on erroneous beliefs. Laura is an alcoholic and, unsurprisingly, manipulative. McTiernan's use of the dual narratives is highly effective because readers get to know Laura, through her old journal entries, along with Hannah who documents her present-day activities and interactions. Readers also learn the truth, along with Hannah, and are privy to her emotional journey as she realizes that the indisputable evidence does not square with her mother's account of events. The tale is a compelling examination of the mother-daughter relationship between Laura and Hannah -- two women with divergent goals. Laura wants to keep the past hidden and put it behind her while Hannah is on a quest for truth and a specific brand of justice. What will Hannah due when the truth is fully revealed?
Because McTiernan practiced law, she injects credible details about the legal aspects of the story, including a tensely climatic courtroom scene, while requiring some suspension of disbelief from her readers. Putting those flaws in the tale aside, it is a fast-paced, otherwise tautly-crafted, and entertaining thriller replete with shocking revelations and surprising developments. McTiernan's overarching story is clever, as the eventual unveiling of the connection between Tom's death and Dandridge's case demonstrates. It is also an absorbing exploration of a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship and its impact on Hannah.
The Murder Rule is an engrossing meditation on under what circumstances, if any, questionable means can ever justify the achievement of a desired end. McTiernan says she wanted to explore a highly provocative question: "What if you're a good person trying to do good things in a world that doesn't seem to care? And the world we live in right now doesn't seem to care. Would you take a little step off the ethical path in order to be effective?" And if one does that, what about another little step. And another. And another . . . "How far would you go? Where does that line sit? Because it's very hard to be effective in the world today if you follow the rules strictly." It's up to readers to decide if they accept McTiernan's core premise, whether Hannah is that good person McTiernan references, and if wrongful actions by police, prosecutors, or others can justify the means employed to write those wrongs. And what they might do if forced to confront similar circumstances.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scene of the Crime for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
The Codebreaker's Secret by Sara Ackerman
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
It was while drafting her second published novel, The Lieuteant's Nurse, that author Sara Ackerman, a native of Hawai'i, found inspiration for The Codebreaker's Secret. One character in that book was a linguist and through her research, Ackerman learned about the Dungeon, also known as Station Hypo, situated at Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i. There, as well as at other secure locations including Washington, D.C. and the Philippines, secret messages were decrypted which proved instrumental to the Allies' World War II victory. Work performed in the Dungeon -- so nicknamed because it was located underground -- contributed to success in the battle of Midway. Ackerman learned that it was primarily women -- more than ten thousand of them -- who cracked German and Japanese ciphers and codes, although none of them were assigned to the Dungeon so far as Ackerman was able to discern. She describes those women as America's "secret superpower, and they did everything from breaking major codes to translating messages to traffic analysis."
Ackerman conducted extensive research to learn about codebreaking -- an extremely technical, complicated, and often laborious and frustrating effort, as depicted in Ackerman's story, that often required years of work by teams. "Trying to understand the codes and how one would even go about breaking them was really mind-boggling," Ackerman admits. During the war, the codes and ciphers employed were sophisticated, which demonstrates how bright the women enlisted to break them had to be. Sadly, Ackerman was unable to locate any living codebreakers to interview about the process. But she discovered that it is a tedious process that involves a search for patterns and commonly used characters. Codes replace original messages with arbitrary symbols (numbers or letters). The code is usually memorialized in a codebook. "For example, code for Sara could be 7272, or as in the famous Japanese Wind codes during the war, East Wind Rain, broadcasted over the radio meant that war was imminent with the U.S." But ciphers alter original messages using algorithms (a series of instructions contained within a key). "For example, it could be to shift each letter by four. So A would be D, M would be O." In Hawai'i, codebreakers worked on a Japanese cipher machine called Purple (dubbed Magenta in The Codebreaker's Secret), as well as the Japanee naval code, JN-25, which figures in the story. Because they employed over thirty thousand five-numeral groups, along with additives (ciphers containing false arithmetic), the Japanese believed the code could not be cracked. But by doing just that, the U.S. defeated Japan. "Countless women had a hand in this," Ackerman relates. She describes the Allies' success as a collaboration of "brilliant minds," noting it is said that war in the Pacific Theater "was won in the Dungeon."
Isabel Cooper, Ackerman's protagonist in The Codebreaker's Secret, is her fictional compilation of the intelligent and dedicated women who, Ackerman laments, "were barely recognized for all of their contributions. That’s the thing about top secret work -- no one knows that you’re doing it, but often times, it’s the most important work of all." The story opens in September 1942. Isabel is a cryptanalyst stationed in Washington, D.C. and having trouble concentrating on her work on what would have been her brother's twenty-fifth birthday. Isabel wants nothing more desperately than to be transferred to Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor so that she can see the place where Walt's plane plunged into the Pacific Ocean on December 7, 1941. "Walt was out there somewhere, in the vast blue Pacific. He was part of the ocean now." She also wants to meet his buddies and hear the story from them. "I feel like I'll never be settled, never be able to move on, until I get over there and see for myself," she tells her friend and colleague, Nora. Walt loved Isabel more than anyone else and the two of them were extremely close. It was Walt who helped her navigate their mother's death, their father's subsequent "unraveling," and the lean years during which they struggled to survive and endured pounding dust storms on their Indiana farm before Isabel was fortunate enough to study math and physics at Goucher College. But her primary motivation for becoming a cryptanalyst was her desire for retribution for those responsible for the death of her big brother and dearest friend. She knows that her chances of being sent to Hawai'i are slim, but as the months wear on, Isabel's work results in much-needed progress toward deciphering critical codes. Surprisingly, her work is acknowledged and rewarded with the chance to work within the Combat Intelligence Unit at Station Hypo.
But Isabel was diagnosed with a phobia -- irrational fear or something real or perceived -- so after she arrives in Honolulu and meets her new roommate, Gloria, she has to talk herself into navigating the stairs down to the claustrophobic, smoke-filled Dungeon. "She debated turning around at least eleven more times, but in the end, the pull of the Dungeon was stronger than her fear," and the next chapter of her challenging career begins. She meets her male coworkers -- linguists (who translate decoded messages), combat intelligence specialists, traffic analysts (who crack extraneous portions of messages such as origination points and recipients), and her fellow "crippies." They are a decidedly eclectic group and the ensuing days are difficult. Each day she has to convince herself that she can traverse the stairs and walk through the steel door to her desk, endure hours in a room lacking natural light or ventilation and filled with her colleagues' cigarette smoke, and immerse herself in the JN-24 code and frequently changing additive books. During her scarce free time, she studies Japanese in order to enhance her effectiveness.
On her first Sunday off, Isabel and Glora set out in search of Second Lieutenant Matteo Russi, Walt's best friend and fellow pilot, who wrote to Isabel after Walt's death. Walt told Isabel all about the P-40 pursuit pilot who flew higher and faster than any of the other pilots, hated having his picture taken, and wore a dog tag bearing his dog's name during every flight. (Ackerma works at least one animal or reference to an animal into every one of her novels.) Russi is surprised to meet Isabel on O'ahu, but already knows a great deal about her because Walt talked to him about his sister all the time. The two decide that Russi will show Isabel all the beautiful places he went with Walt, who instantly fell in love with Hawai'i and planned to be a coffee farmer there after the war.
Russi is a handsome, charming, amateur photographer who only wants his camera focused on his subjects instead of himself who is resolved to not surviving the war. He has a reputation as a ladies' man, but Isabel has no consternation about spending time with him because she has never been in love and is not interested in romance. She wants only to succeed as a cryptanalyst to contribute to a U.S. victory, thereby avenging Walt's death, and hear all about Walt's experiences and death. But tragedy strikes when Gloria embarks on a date with her boyfriend, Dickie, from which she never returns. She is presumed drowned and her body is not recovered. Isabel, who has struggled in her new assignment and is threatened with transfer back to the mainland if she fails to produce results soon, is devastated. "Hadn't she already reached her quota of loss for a lifetime?" She is also highly suspicious about the circumstances leading up to and surrounding Gloria's death, but lacks solid evidence to provide the police. Her feelings for Russi become more complicated with each passing day and she is sure that he is attracted to her, as well. Russi is not sure what Isabel's role in the war effort is, but suspects that she is in possession of more information about the top-secret mission he has been called to undertake than she is permitted to share. Right before he leaves, he finally reveals the secret he has been keeping from Isabel, warning her to do herself a favor "and forget about me."
A parallel narrative opens in July 1965 on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Luana Freitas is coming home in her capacity as a journalist embarking on her first big assignment for Sunset magazine. She will cover the gala opening of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. Ackerman wanted to write about the opening of the hotel, an event her grandparents attended, for some time before she landed on the idea for a mystery set there. Laurance Rockefeller (1910 - 2004) was a visionary dedicated to wilderness preservation and protection, and so committed to ecology that he was named America's leading conservationist by Lady Bird Johnson. He built the hotel in an area that was considered a "wasteland," according to Ackerman, where no one believed it possible to situate a resort. The golf course was built first, and Rockefeller enlisted nine different architectural firms to complete the hotel's design. Hawai'ians were not happy about the hotel being erected, but Rockefeller also helped build the road, and hired a lot of women and, primarily, local residents to staff the first hotel built on the island and win over naysayers.
Lu arrives at the hotel hoping that her family will make the journey from Kona to visit with her there. Her father, who refused to help finance her college education, is too proud to admit that he was wrong to protest Lu's move to the mainland to launch her career. Lu grew up on a macadamia nut farm managed by her father, while his girlfriend, Donna, who moved in with them after the sudden death of Lu's mother, picked the nuts and cooked for the crew. But Lu struggled in school, and neither her father nor Donna was equipped to help her with her lessons. Her beloved Auntie H, a neighbor, intervened and tutored Lu. Now Lu is interacting with the dignitaries, politicians, and celebrities, including singer Joni Diaz, invited to the multi-day opening festivities. In the meantime, "fascinated by people and their motivations," she searches for an angle for the stories she will write for the magazine that is more provocative than a description of the resort's decor and scenery. She is quickly outgrowing her first job in journalism. "There were only so many backyard barbecues and wine tastings she could attend."
Lu is intimidated to learn that among the guests personally invited by Rockefeller is Matteo Russi. "Legend. Icon. He had been working for Life magazine almost as long as she's been alive. Maybe longer." He has recently left Life to do freelance work and their introduction is less than pleasant, which leaves Lu dismayed because she has wanted to meet him for as long as she can remember. He is still strikingly handsome, but gruff, prickly and stand-offish. Their paths continue crossing, however, and he begins calling her "kid" and giving her advice. Lu catches glimpses into Russi's past, which includes serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II and a mysteriously strong aversion to swimming in the ocean, but he divulges only vague snippets about himself. Even so, "it was plain to see that beneath the tough-guy facade lived a fear as wide a the ocean."
One morning, Joni fails to meet Lu for their morning swim and a desperate search for her is commenced. Russi and Lu join forces to investigate her disappearance and, hopefully, find her alive. With Lu's knowledge of the island and Russi's experience as a photojournalist, they make a formidable team and get to know each other better as they work to solve an increasingly disturbing mystery. As they unravel the truth about Joni's fate, startling discoveries move Russi closer to his admitted "unfinished business" and the regrets about his actions and choices with which he has been burdened for more than twenty years. Perhaps on the beautiful island of Hawai'i, he will find the answers he has sought and the peace for which he longs, as Lu establishes herself in the career for which she has prepared and reunites with her family, including the woman who made such a difference in her life, Auntie H.
Ackerman weaves the dual storylines, told via alternating chapters, into a cohesive, compelling story about survival, bravery, the lingering effects of war and grief, and second chances. Readers would never guess that Ackerman considers The Codebreaker's Secret the book she found most difficult to pen to date becaue of its dual timelines. She shares that she wrote the entire 1943 storyline first, then compiled the story set in 1965 and, finally, wove the two together, making revisions as needed in order to meld them. The two stories advance and merge seamlessly, and the mysteries she incorporates are both engrossing and cleverly imagined.
Ackerman's characters are fully developed and sympathetic. Isabel has sustained great losses in her life and is determined that the most painful, Walt's tragic death, will not be in vain. She is focused, extremely bright and capable, and resilient, as evidenced by the scene in which she has to force herself to enter the Dungeon in order to carry on her work as a cryptanalyst in the very location to which she wanted so badly to be transferred. She quickly develops a genuine affection for and deep friendship with Gloria, and feels herself pulled to Russi, at first because he is her only remaining connection to Walt. But as they get to know each other, she recognizes in him characteristics that she finds irresistible. He claims to have an inexplicable death pact with God, and it is not until he is about to undertake a dangerous and secretive mission that Isabel finally understands what motivates him: honor, grief, and misplaced guilt. Lu is, as Isabel was two decades earlier, young, determined, and ambitious. She wanted to create a life for herself beyond the confines of Hawai'i, even though she loves her home and its people. The Russi she encounters has changed over the years because of his varied experiences in the military and as a photojournalist, but some aspects of his personality have not changed at all. He still has an inate integrity and curiosity, which has served him well in his profession, but Lu recognizes that he is haunted by personal demons. Because of her immense respect and growing affection for him she wants very much to help him. What she does not realize at the beginning of the story is that by helping Russi and working with him to resolve the mystery surrounding Joni's disappearance, she will also discover her own path to a fulfilling future because "sometimes we have to leave a place before we understand how much it means to us."
In The Codebreaker's Secret, as with her other novels, Ackerman pays homage to her beautiful home, following the old adage that writers should write what they know. She employs her knowledge of the islands' history and geography to craft evocative prose, transporting readers to both O'ahu and Hawai'i. Russi takes Isabel up steep, narrow roads to O'ahu's Pali lookout, and they visit Goat Island. Ackerman is familiar with the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and the area surrounding it, and her descriptions of the resort and its beaches are luscious and affectionately crafted. Readers who have never visited the Hawai'ian islands will understand why Ackerman's characters fall in love with the fiftieth state and, like Walt, want to remain there.
Hawai'i is more than beautiful. It also has a rich history related to World War II, and not solely because it was the site of the attack that pulled the U.S. into World War II. Ackerman says she enjoys shining a light on little-known stories about the islands and their people, and seeks to write uplifting tales about love. Her stories often incorporate heartbreak, and The Codebreaker's Secret is no exception, but her goal is to "bring inspiring stories to life."
As to the smart, courageous, and devoted women codebreakers who played a vital role in the Allies' victory, Ackerman says, "I hope I have done them justice." She decidedly has. With her latest dazzling work of historical fiction, she has immortalized those women by bringing their never-before-told story to a new, deeply grateful audience.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
Ackerman conducted extensive research to learn about codebreaking -- an extremely technical, complicated, and often laborious and frustrating effort, as depicted in Ackerman's story, that often required years of work by teams. "Trying to understand the codes and how one would even go about breaking them was really mind-boggling," Ackerman admits. During the war, the codes and ciphers employed were sophisticated, which demonstrates how bright the women enlisted to break them had to be. Sadly, Ackerman was unable to locate any living codebreakers to interview about the process. But she discovered that it is a tedious process that involves a search for patterns and commonly used characters. Codes replace original messages with arbitrary symbols (numbers or letters). The code is usually memorialized in a codebook. "For example, code for Sara could be 7272, or as in the famous Japanese Wind codes during the war, East Wind Rain, broadcasted over the radio meant that war was imminent with the U.S." But ciphers alter original messages using algorithms (a series of instructions contained within a key). "For example, it could be to shift each letter by four. So A would be D, M would be O." In Hawai'i, codebreakers worked on a Japanese cipher machine called Purple (dubbed Magenta in The Codebreaker's Secret), as well as the Japanee naval code, JN-25, which figures in the story. Because they employed over thirty thousand five-numeral groups, along with additives (ciphers containing false arithmetic), the Japanese believed the code could not be cracked. But by doing just that, the U.S. defeated Japan. "Countless women had a hand in this," Ackerman relates. She describes the Allies' success as a collaboration of "brilliant minds," noting it is said that war in the Pacific Theater "was won in the Dungeon."
Isabel Cooper, Ackerman's protagonist in The Codebreaker's Secret, is her fictional compilation of the intelligent and dedicated women who, Ackerman laments, "were barely recognized for all of their contributions. That’s the thing about top secret work -- no one knows that you’re doing it, but often times, it’s the most important work of all." The story opens in September 1942. Isabel is a cryptanalyst stationed in Washington, D.C. and having trouble concentrating on her work on what would have been her brother's twenty-fifth birthday. Isabel wants nothing more desperately than to be transferred to Station Hypo at Pearl Harbor so that she can see the place where Walt's plane plunged into the Pacific Ocean on December 7, 1941. "Walt was out there somewhere, in the vast blue Pacific. He was part of the ocean now." She also wants to meet his buddies and hear the story from them. "I feel like I'll never be settled, never be able to move on, until I get over there and see for myself," she tells her friend and colleague, Nora. Walt loved Isabel more than anyone else and the two of them were extremely close. It was Walt who helped her navigate their mother's death, their father's subsequent "unraveling," and the lean years during which they struggled to survive and endured pounding dust storms on their Indiana farm before Isabel was fortunate enough to study math and physics at Goucher College. But her primary motivation for becoming a cryptanalyst was her desire for retribution for those responsible for the death of her big brother and dearest friend. She knows that her chances of being sent to Hawai'i are slim, but as the months wear on, Isabel's work results in much-needed progress toward deciphering critical codes. Surprisingly, her work is acknowledged and rewarded with the chance to work within the Combat Intelligence Unit at Station Hypo.
But Isabel was diagnosed with a phobia -- irrational fear or something real or perceived -- so after she arrives in Honolulu and meets her new roommate, Gloria, she has to talk herself into navigating the stairs down to the claustrophobic, smoke-filled Dungeon. "She debated turning around at least eleven more times, but in the end, the pull of the Dungeon was stronger than her fear," and the next chapter of her challenging career begins. She meets her male coworkers -- linguists (who translate decoded messages), combat intelligence specialists, traffic analysts (who crack extraneous portions of messages such as origination points and recipients), and her fellow "crippies." They are a decidedly eclectic group and the ensuing days are difficult. Each day she has to convince herself that she can traverse the stairs and walk through the steel door to her desk, endure hours in a room lacking natural light or ventilation and filled with her colleagues' cigarette smoke, and immerse herself in the JN-24 code and frequently changing additive books. During her scarce free time, she studies Japanese in order to enhance her effectiveness.
On her first Sunday off, Isabel and Glora set out in search of Second Lieutenant Matteo Russi, Walt's best friend and fellow pilot, who wrote to Isabel after Walt's death. Walt told Isabel all about the P-40 pursuit pilot who flew higher and faster than any of the other pilots, hated having his picture taken, and wore a dog tag bearing his dog's name during every flight. (Ackerma works at least one animal or reference to an animal into every one of her novels.) Russi is surprised to meet Isabel on O'ahu, but already knows a great deal about her because Walt talked to him about his sister all the time. The two decide that Russi will show Isabel all the beautiful places he went with Walt, who instantly fell in love with Hawai'i and planned to be a coffee farmer there after the war.
Russi is a handsome, charming, amateur photographer who only wants his camera focused on his subjects instead of himself who is resolved to not surviving the war. He has a reputation as a ladies' man, but Isabel has no consternation about spending time with him because she has never been in love and is not interested in romance. She wants only to succeed as a cryptanalyst to contribute to a U.S. victory, thereby avenging Walt's death, and hear all about Walt's experiences and death. But tragedy strikes when Gloria embarks on a date with her boyfriend, Dickie, from which she never returns. She is presumed drowned and her body is not recovered. Isabel, who has struggled in her new assignment and is threatened with transfer back to the mainland if she fails to produce results soon, is devastated. "Hadn't she already reached her quota of loss for a lifetime?" She is also highly suspicious about the circumstances leading up to and surrounding Gloria's death, but lacks solid evidence to provide the police. Her feelings for Russi become more complicated with each passing day and she is sure that he is attracted to her, as well. Russi is not sure what Isabel's role in the war effort is, but suspects that she is in possession of more information about the top-secret mission he has been called to undertake than she is permitted to share. Right before he leaves, he finally reveals the secret he has been keeping from Isabel, warning her to do herself a favor "and forget about me."
A parallel narrative opens in July 1965 on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Luana Freitas is coming home in her capacity as a journalist embarking on her first big assignment for Sunset magazine. She will cover the gala opening of the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. Ackerman wanted to write about the opening of the hotel, an event her grandparents attended, for some time before she landed on the idea for a mystery set there. Laurance Rockefeller (1910 - 2004) was a visionary dedicated to wilderness preservation and protection, and so committed to ecology that he was named America's leading conservationist by Lady Bird Johnson. He built the hotel in an area that was considered a "wasteland," according to Ackerman, where no one believed it possible to situate a resort. The golf course was built first, and Rockefeller enlisted nine different architectural firms to complete the hotel's design. Hawai'ians were not happy about the hotel being erected, but Rockefeller also helped build the road, and hired a lot of women and, primarily, local residents to staff the first hotel built on the island and win over naysayers.
Lu arrives at the hotel hoping that her family will make the journey from Kona to visit with her there. Her father, who refused to help finance her college education, is too proud to admit that he was wrong to protest Lu's move to the mainland to launch her career. Lu grew up on a macadamia nut farm managed by her father, while his girlfriend, Donna, who moved in with them after the sudden death of Lu's mother, picked the nuts and cooked for the crew. But Lu struggled in school, and neither her father nor Donna was equipped to help her with her lessons. Her beloved Auntie H, a neighbor, intervened and tutored Lu. Now Lu is interacting with the dignitaries, politicians, and celebrities, including singer Joni Diaz, invited to the multi-day opening festivities. In the meantime, "fascinated by people and their motivations," she searches for an angle for the stories she will write for the magazine that is more provocative than a description of the resort's decor and scenery. She is quickly outgrowing her first job in journalism. "There were only so many backyard barbecues and wine tastings she could attend."
Lu is intimidated to learn that among the guests personally invited by Rockefeller is Matteo Russi. "Legend. Icon. He had been working for Life magazine almost as long as she's been alive. Maybe longer." He has recently left Life to do freelance work and their introduction is less than pleasant, which leaves Lu dismayed because she has wanted to meet him for as long as she can remember. He is still strikingly handsome, but gruff, prickly and stand-offish. Their paths continue crossing, however, and he begins calling her "kid" and giving her advice. Lu catches glimpses into Russi's past, which includes serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II and a mysteriously strong aversion to swimming in the ocean, but he divulges only vague snippets about himself. Even so, "it was plain to see that beneath the tough-guy facade lived a fear as wide a the ocean."
One morning, Joni fails to meet Lu for their morning swim and a desperate search for her is commenced. Russi and Lu join forces to investigate her disappearance and, hopefully, find her alive. With Lu's knowledge of the island and Russi's experience as a photojournalist, they make a formidable team and get to know each other better as they work to solve an increasingly disturbing mystery. As they unravel the truth about Joni's fate, startling discoveries move Russi closer to his admitted "unfinished business" and the regrets about his actions and choices with which he has been burdened for more than twenty years. Perhaps on the beautiful island of Hawai'i, he will find the answers he has sought and the peace for which he longs, as Lu establishes herself in the career for which she has prepared and reunites with her family, including the woman who made such a difference in her life, Auntie H.
Ackerman weaves the dual storylines, told via alternating chapters, into a cohesive, compelling story about survival, bravery, the lingering effects of war and grief, and second chances. Readers would never guess that Ackerman considers The Codebreaker's Secret the book she found most difficult to pen to date becaue of its dual timelines. She shares that she wrote the entire 1943 storyline first, then compiled the story set in 1965 and, finally, wove the two together, making revisions as needed in order to meld them. The two stories advance and merge seamlessly, and the mysteries she incorporates are both engrossing and cleverly imagined.
Ackerman's characters are fully developed and sympathetic. Isabel has sustained great losses in her life and is determined that the most painful, Walt's tragic death, will not be in vain. She is focused, extremely bright and capable, and resilient, as evidenced by the scene in which she has to force herself to enter the Dungeon in order to carry on her work as a cryptanalyst in the very location to which she wanted so badly to be transferred. She quickly develops a genuine affection for and deep friendship with Gloria, and feels herself pulled to Russi, at first because he is her only remaining connection to Walt. But as they get to know each other, she recognizes in him characteristics that she finds irresistible. He claims to have an inexplicable death pact with God, and it is not until he is about to undertake a dangerous and secretive mission that Isabel finally understands what motivates him: honor, grief, and misplaced guilt. Lu is, as Isabel was two decades earlier, young, determined, and ambitious. She wanted to create a life for herself beyond the confines of Hawai'i, even though she loves her home and its people. The Russi she encounters has changed over the years because of his varied experiences in the military and as a photojournalist, but some aspects of his personality have not changed at all. He still has an inate integrity and curiosity, which has served him well in his profession, but Lu recognizes that he is haunted by personal demons. Because of her immense respect and growing affection for him she wants very much to help him. What she does not realize at the beginning of the story is that by helping Russi and working with him to resolve the mystery surrounding Joni's disappearance, she will also discover her own path to a fulfilling future because "sometimes we have to leave a place before we understand how much it means to us."
In The Codebreaker's Secret, as with her other novels, Ackerman pays homage to her beautiful home, following the old adage that writers should write what they know. She employs her knowledge of the islands' history and geography to craft evocative prose, transporting readers to both O'ahu and Hawai'i. Russi takes Isabel up steep, narrow roads to O'ahu's Pali lookout, and they visit Goat Island. Ackerman is familiar with the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and the area surrounding it, and her descriptions of the resort and its beaches are luscious and affectionately crafted. Readers who have never visited the Hawai'ian islands will understand why Ackerman's characters fall in love with the fiftieth state and, like Walt, want to remain there.
Hawai'i is more than beautiful. It also has a rich history related to World War II, and not solely because it was the site of the attack that pulled the U.S. into World War II. Ackerman says she enjoys shining a light on little-known stories about the islands and their people, and seeks to write uplifting tales about love. Her stories often incorporate heartbreak, and The Codebreaker's Secret is no exception, but her goal is to "bring inspiring stories to life."
As to the smart, courageous, and devoted women codebreakers who played a vital role in the Allies' victory, Ackerman says, "I hope I have done them justice." She decidedly has. With her latest dazzling work of historical fiction, she has immortalized those women by bringing their never-before-told story to a new, deeply grateful audience.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.