Books and Authors

MICHAEL CONNELLY review by Donna M

 

When I worked at the Library I was often asked to recommend an author for a good read. Depending upon the patron I usually suggested Michael Connelly's Harry (Hieronymus) Bosch series of books.

 

I found that those who took up the suggestion liked Connelly's stories, especially men.

 

Praise for Connelly comes from all sources, even the New Yorker, which claims "Michael Connelly is the most talented of crime writers."

 

The crime Connelly writes about takes place in Los Angeles, the ever fruitful source of startling wrong-doing and the site of the noir genre.

 

Detective Harry Bosch, who works for LAPD Homicide, is not exactly cynical or jaded but definitely unillusioned. He has had more than his share of Internal Affairs' reviews and has been victim of police politics.

 

But Harry remains driven by an obligation to the victims of homicide which keeps him relentlessly focussed on solving the murder.

 

A back-story for Bosch is maintained throughout the novels as is his relationship with various partners, occasional romances and ongoing conflicts with his supervisors.

 

Twists and turns in Connelly's plots are usual but are uncontrived, and the resolution of the stories is often surprising.

 

Give Michael Connelly a try and enjoy.

 

J.K ROWLING  review by Joan F

  THE CUCKOO'S CALLING
 by Robert Galbraith (pseud JK Rowling)

The protagonist is Cormoran Strike, ex Royal Military Police, injured in Afghanistan and now an impecunious self employed private detective. He is hired to investigate an apparent suicide. This takes him into the fashion industry and the plot explores the dark side of family life. I found the excessive use of expletives offensive but apparently this is how people speak to each other! I got interested enough to ignore this and the characters were so alive that I really had to read to the end.

By contrast I did not enjoy "The Casual Vacancy" written by JK Rowling  - I did not like anybody and only read a quarter of the book!

 

John Lescroart-review by Colin MacKenzie

It is very enjoyable to enter another part of the world and feel at home in another country, another culture.

I have travelled and worked in the USA, including San Francisco.

As we wonder about another side of life, namely the legal system and the crime that enters some people’s lives, it is great to find an author who writes freely of subjects he has knowledge about and has researched well.

His three main characters are believable and fascinating: an ex-cop and defence lawyer Dismas Hardy, a Chief Detective Abe Glitsky, and a private investigator Wyatt Hunt.

They all have quite normal private lives, and we can empathize with the situations they find themselves in- murder and mystery needing very strong detective work. The main characters have great personal friends and associates they need to support them as they grapple with crimes in and around San Francisco, mixing with the whole range of social classes.

Lescroart’s San Francisco world comes to life, and you feel you move along with his characters trying to solve crimes and defend innocent people, within the legal system.

It’s a good way to challenge the mind, yet it is really relaxing to do it from your armchair! Sometimes you have to wait til the very last pages for answers. It is also interesting to follow the lives and families of the main characters and their friends, and you form personal friendships amongst the pages.

Although each novel is complete in itself, it is most enjoyable to read them in chronological order.

His novels are thrilling, suspenseful, emotionally taut and believable- each page enjoyable and engaging- jolly good reads!

I would not want to be a criminal being sought by  Dismas Hardy, Abe Glitsky.

Some of the books I have read which are in the Friends’ bookstore:

“The Motive” where Glitsky and Hardy track evidence in an unpredictable plot;

“Guilt” where Glitsky shows his best detective talents-very suspenseful

“The First Law” is great crime fiction with Hardy and Glitsky showing outstanding teamwork

“The Second Chair” takes us into violent San Francisco’s halls of justice-very suspenseful

Lescroart’s broad life experience- bartender, mover, house painter, word processer with a law firm, to name a few, and most notably musician( he has released several albums) before he became a fulltime writer enables him to give depth to his characters.

Now 65 years old, he published his first Dismas Hardy novel ‘Dead Irish’ in 1989, and his  latest is 2013’s “Ophelia”- with about 22 in between. He has also written screen plays.

 Many of Lescroart’s books are available in The Friends of the Library Used Bookstore in Marysville-come see for yourself !

 
  Louise Penny
One of the authors most in demand at the bookstore is mystery writer Louise Penny. Set in the fictional small Quebec town of Three Pines, the stories involve a cast of unique, ordinary people whose lives become ensnarled in at least one murder.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec-kind, thoughtful and sensitive- and totally non-cynical -is the kind of person I would want in charge of any case I might become involved in. The characters and their lives evolve from book to book, so it’s best to read them in sequence if possible-Still Life, A Fatal Grace/Dead Cold (same book, different title), The Cruelest Month, A Rule Against Murder/The Murder Stone (same book, different title), The Brutal Telling, Bury Your Dead, A Trick of the Light, The Beautiful Mystery, How Light Gets In.

 Penny describes Gamache’s compassionate examination of the lives and motives of his suspects, friends and colleagues with unexpected turns of phrase and images-so that I often re read a phrase or paragraph just to savour it. One particularly poignant passage (Dead Cold) has Gamache reflecting on having put down his beloved dog Sonny. Penny says that Gamache has the impression that Sonny’s heart did not so much stop when he died, as that he had given it all away.

The Beautiful Mystery is my favourite, set mostly in a secluded, secret monastery in the Quebec wilderness where a thought-to-be-extinct order of monks creates exquisite music.

As well as telling a great story, Penny delicately probes the juxtaposition of good and evil, light and dark in her characters and situations, drawing the reader into pondering these tensions.

There are not always Louise Penny books available at the bookstore-it’s one of the authors that leaves as soon as she arrives-so you need to check often!