City in Ruins by Don Winslow

June 1, 2025

City in Ruins by Don Winslow

After leaving Hollywood, Danny Ryan has landed in Las Vegas. He is now a multi-millionaire, a legitimate businessman developing luxury hotels. But his past is never far behind, and it finally catches up with him.

Winslow concludes his saga of Danny Ryan with its combination of Greek tragedy and the Godfather. Not my favorite book in the trilogy, but Winslow wrote a conclusion to the series that wound in all the various threads and characters. Themes include moral ambiguity, revenge, crime and punishment, fathers and sons, honor, and the importance of family, whether they are your biological family or your chosen family. Although Winslow does some recapping, you really need to read the first two books to appreciate this one. The audio version is excellent. Winslow has announced that this will be his final novel. We'll see. Recommended for readers who enjoy the crime fiction of Michael Connelly, John Sandford, and Lee Child.

The Riviera, one of the oldest hotels in Las Vegas

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman

January 4, 2025

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman

A holiday (sort of) short story by the author of A Man Called Ove. A bit more melancholy than most of Backman's writing. But that doesn't really matter since I read everything he writes.

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

July 28, 2020

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

In an unspecified City in a racist American South, set in a slightly futuristic time, the unnamed narrator works as a lawyer at a prestigious law firm.  As an African American man, he has been hired mainly to help the firm improve their multi-cultural image.  The narrator and his Caucasian wife Penny have a son, Nigel, who is born with light skin that gradually begins to darken.  Neither Nigel nor his mother are bothered by this, but the father see the darkening (which he refers to as “birthmarks”) as a racial defect.  He becomes convinced that Nigel must have a new extremely expensive (and painful) demelanization procedure which will turn his skin white permanently.  To increase his income, the father agrees to become the new multi-cultural face of the law firm, forcing him into increasingly hypocritical behavior and increasing his need for illegal drugs.

Although classified as a satire, there is nothing amusing about the book.  At what point does trying to protect your child through extreme measures cross over into doing harm?  There are some interesting plot twists, but overall, the story felt disjointed to me.  There were definitely aspects of the absurd and a number of surreal episodes.  The library nominated this title for the 2020 IMPAC awards, which was why I read it, but I’m not sure I would have picked it up otherwise.  It does have a rather cool cover.

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin

February 19, 2020

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin

Maurice Hannigan, an 84 years old widower, has sold his huge property holdings, packed up all his worldly goods, and found a new home for his dog Gearshift.  He hasn’t told anyone about his plans except his solicitor, telling the solicitor he is going to a senior citizen home.  He sits in a hotel bar, reminiscing about the five people who have meant the most to him and drinks a toast to each one, addressing his memories to his absent son. 

I usually love books set in Ireland, but this wasn’t as enjoyable as I expected it to be.  Maurice is a curmudgeon, but he’s not as appealing a protagonist as Ove in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove (which I’m kind of glad about since I loved Backman’s book).  Much of Maurice’s story centers around a gold coin that he stole as a boy.  He is angry, stubborn, and depressed his whole life, seeking revenge on the local family he believes to be responsible for all of his misery.  Although he claims to adore his wife, he was a domineering husband who never took her to a restaurant that she really wanted to eat at, or let her order a cup of tea in a restaurant (in Maurice’s opinion, they had perfectly good tea at home).  He was a wealthy man but never gave her any gifts except her wedding ring – instead, he would just hand her cash on her birthday or Christmas.  Ultimately, Maurice never tells those five people how important they were to him.

Great writing, depressing story. 

If you want a really good story about a curmudgeon, read Backman’s A Man Called Ove.  If you want a really good story set in Ireland, read John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies instead.