This recent novel by Cornwell is fairly light weight compared to her Scarpetta crime scene investigation novels. She uses the same characters as those in "At Risk," D. A. Monique Lamont, and her assistant, Win Garano.
On first meeting, I can't say that I find these two as compelling as Kay Scarpetta and her staff. Lamont is the bright, but extremely self-serving D.A. of Middlesex County, headquartered in Cambridge, MA. Win Garano is an up-and-coming investigator who's heart is often in the right place, but his head tells him that he needs to stick close to his boss to prosper. This dual nature makes Win a fairly complex character, but weak in some respects. It cuts down on the respect he commands from others, and from the readers of his story.
In this story Win is shipped off to Watertown, a smaller community in the county to work on a case. He has to work with the crime lab set up by a coalition of the smaller communities in order to rely less on the over-booked state crime lab, and the CSI in that lab, named Stump. In the process they solve a 40 year old mystery and also help to clean up some of the current wave of crime in the small community of Watertown.
This is a fast read, and, hey, it's Cornwell, so it is certainly very well written. Just wish I liked the characters better. Maybe they'll grow on me over later books.
Liz Nichols
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
"Thanksgiving" by Janet Evanovich
As we move into a holiday season that is filled with a lot of gloom and doom on the economic front, it is refreshing to read something that is just light and happy fun, the romance by Janet Evanovich, "Thanksgiving."
The setting is beautiful and historic Williamsburg where a young pediatrician, Patrick Hunter, has come to set up his practice. He meets a potter and part-time Williamsburg tour ticket-taker, Megan Murphy, who is house sitting at a relative's farmhouse near Williamsburg. They suddenly are given charge of an infant named, Timmy, who is left by one of the doctor's patients for a couple of weeks. The romance evolves over the unlikely activity of mutually taking care of this infant, an activity that most parents recognize as a romance killer.
To make matters even more precarious for the romance, both sets of parents and his siblings show up for Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, both sides give their blessing to the couple, and, after a few ups and downs, fights and angst, the two make their final plans to get married at Christmas.
It's a fun read and I recommend the book to those who like Evanovich's breezy style, lovers of the Williamsburg setting, and romance readers.
Liz Nichols
The setting is beautiful and historic Williamsburg where a young pediatrician, Patrick Hunter, has come to set up his practice. He meets a potter and part-time Williamsburg tour ticket-taker, Megan Murphy, who is house sitting at a relative's farmhouse near Williamsburg. They suddenly are given charge of an infant named, Timmy, who is left by one of the doctor's patients for a couple of weeks. The romance evolves over the unlikely activity of mutually taking care of this infant, an activity that most parents recognize as a romance killer.
To make matters even more precarious for the romance, both sets of parents and his siblings show up for Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, both sides give their blessing to the couple, and, after a few ups and downs, fights and angst, the two make their final plans to get married at Christmas.
It's a fun read and I recommend the book to those who like Evanovich's breezy style, lovers of the Williamsburg setting, and romance readers.
Liz Nichols
Friday, October 17, 2008
"A Long Way Gone," by Ishmael Beah
Beah's book is a memoir of this young African's years as a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. It is a brutal, sad tale of how children are exploited and dehumanized in order to become canon fodder for adults who have political or greed-related ambitions in so many third world countries today. It is also an inspiring tale of redemption for a fraction of the more fortunate children who are able to be rehabilitated.
Beah's tale starts out in the gold mining region of Sierra Leone where he and his brother grew up living with his father. At the age of 12 rebel forces attacked his town, burned down all the homes and attacked the people. Many were killed, while a few boys were pressed into service. Ishmael, his brother and several friends managed to escape and started a very long journey walking towards the coast and away from the fighting.
Everywhere they went they were treated with suspicion, since so many boys had been recruited to be rebels. They were just stray refugees trying to get away from the fighting. A couple of times they were brought before tribal chiefs and were very nearly executed as spies.
After months of travel by foot and occasional stops in friendly villages, they reached what they hoped was a peaceful community when they were captured by army forces and pressed into service. The process of brutalizing the boys, plying them with drugs so they would act in robotic fashion, and the unspeakable acts of violence that they were forced to commit make this book a difficult, but very powerful read.
Eventually, Ishmael and several other boys are mustered out of the military by a UNICEF inspector, and given a second chance to be children at a school for rehabilitated war orphans in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Eventually, Ishmael is repatriated with his uncle's family on the outskirts of the city. Ishmael is chosen to go to New York City to attend a conference on child soldiers and meets the woman who will eventually bring him to the U.S. permanently and adopt him.
Before the happy ending, though, is more fighting, this time, within Freetown, which sets the boy to fleeing again several months after he returns to Sierra Leone. A harrowing journey to Guinea leads eventually to a chance to contact his benefactress in New York City and a new life.
The memoir is a remarkable piece of writing for someone who spoke primarily Krio, an old slave version of English brought to Sierra Leone by the black colonists from America who settled the land in the late 1700s. Ishmael was able to complete his high school education in New York once he emigrated, and then attended Oberlin College in Ohio.
He is still a very young man, in his late 20s, and is working in the field of humanitarian relief.
This book was chosen as the One Community, One Book selection for this year in Iowa City, and it has been a very inspirational, and thought-provoking choice.
Liz Nichols
Beah's tale starts out in the gold mining region of Sierra Leone where he and his brother grew up living with his father. At the age of 12 rebel forces attacked his town, burned down all the homes and attacked the people. Many were killed, while a few boys were pressed into service. Ishmael, his brother and several friends managed to escape and started a very long journey walking towards the coast and away from the fighting.
Everywhere they went they were treated with suspicion, since so many boys had been recruited to be rebels. They were just stray refugees trying to get away from the fighting. A couple of times they were brought before tribal chiefs and were very nearly executed as spies.
After months of travel by foot and occasional stops in friendly villages, they reached what they hoped was a peaceful community when they were captured by army forces and pressed into service. The process of brutalizing the boys, plying them with drugs so they would act in robotic fashion, and the unspeakable acts of violence that they were forced to commit make this book a difficult, but very powerful read.
Eventually, Ishmael and several other boys are mustered out of the military by a UNICEF inspector, and given a second chance to be children at a school for rehabilitated war orphans in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Eventually, Ishmael is repatriated with his uncle's family on the outskirts of the city. Ishmael is chosen to go to New York City to attend a conference on child soldiers and meets the woman who will eventually bring him to the U.S. permanently and adopt him.
Before the happy ending, though, is more fighting, this time, within Freetown, which sets the boy to fleeing again several months after he returns to Sierra Leone. A harrowing journey to Guinea leads eventually to a chance to contact his benefactress in New York City and a new life.
The memoir is a remarkable piece of writing for someone who spoke primarily Krio, an old slave version of English brought to Sierra Leone by the black colonists from America who settled the land in the late 1700s. Ishmael was able to complete his high school education in New York once he emigrated, and then attended Oberlin College in Ohio.
He is still a very young man, in his late 20s, and is working in the field of humanitarian relief.
This book was chosen as the One Community, One Book selection for this year in Iowa City, and it has been a very inspirational, and thought-provoking choice.
Liz Nichols
Friday, October 3, 2008
"The Black Dove" by Steve Hockensmith
For those who like mysteries with an American wild west twist, "The Black Dove" may be just your read. The author incorporates some important historical insights about the Asian slave trade in the United States and the way young Chinese girls were sold by their families or tricked into coming to the U.S. and then made to work in Chinatown brothels or sold into marriage in San Francisco and other big cities.
The story takes place in San Francisco in the 1890s where cowpokes turned PIs, Otto and Gustav Amlingmeyer, team up with former Union Pacific PI, Diana Corvus, to figure out who killed Gee Woo Chan and where the brothel slave, Hok Gup (the Black Dove) has gone.
At times the plot feels like a Keystone Cops chase. At times it reminds me of a Chinese version of the movie "The Streets of New York." At times it feels like a melodrama. That is probably intentional, since the narrator, Otto Amlingmeyer is a budding dime novelist and gets good news about the publication of one of his stories toward the end of the book.
I look forward to reading more about the Amlingmeyer brothers and hope they team up again with the intrepid Diana.
Liz Nichols
The story takes place in San Francisco in the 1890s where cowpokes turned PIs, Otto and Gustav Amlingmeyer, team up with former Union Pacific PI, Diana Corvus, to figure out who killed Gee Woo Chan and where the brothel slave, Hok Gup (the Black Dove) has gone.
At times the plot feels like a Keystone Cops chase. At times it reminds me of a Chinese version of the movie "The Streets of New York." At times it feels like a melodrama. That is probably intentional, since the narrator, Otto Amlingmeyer is a budding dime novelist and gets good news about the publication of one of his stories toward the end of the book.
I look forward to reading more about the Amlingmeyer brothers and hope they team up again with the intrepid Diana.
Liz Nichols
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