The Best of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

October 15, 2019

The Best of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe

‘Tis the season for scary stories.  When you say the name “Edgar Allan Poe,” it immediately conjures thoughts of horror, darkness, and death.  Most people are familiar with a few of his works from middle or high school (The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado).  This collection includes some of his best known tales and also some lesser known stories.  Poe’s characters are motivated by the same passions and emotions that have moved people throughout history:  jealousy, revenge, unrequited love, greed, hate, fear, obsession, guilt.  I wouldn't classify these stories as horror compared with the horror fiction being written today (look up splatterpunk in your library's catalog for the really gory stuff).  Poe’s terrors tend to be psychological fears and phobias:  buried alive, darkness, rats, imprisonment or being trapped, madness.  Eleven of Poe’s short stories are included in this collection – like any collection, some are better than others.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

October 14, 2019

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

In 1942, Lale (Ludwig) Eisenberg is deported from Slovakia to the Auschwitz-Birgenau concentration camp.  He begins as a laborer, but when the camp authorities learn that he speaks several language, he is put to work as assistant tattooist, tattooing numbers on newly arrived prisoners.  Mostly he keeps his head down but it becomes more difficult when he is required to starting tattooing numbers on young women, especially when he meets a girl named Gita, also from Slovakia.  One day, his friend the tattooist Pepan disappears and Lale finds himself “promoted” to head tattooist, a position that comes with better living quarters and extra food rations.  Despite his resolution to keep his head down and survive, after observing the guards’ brutality to the prisoners, Lale resolves to do all he can to help and protect Gita, his assistant Leon, and other friends in the camp.

It took me a while to get around to reading this one.  There have been so many books recently about World War II, with a lot of them focusing on the concentration camps (Mischling by Affinity Konar and Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly, to name just two), and let's be honest, it's a depressing topic.  But it is an important topic.  Like so many novels about World War II, this novel is painful to read, but it is also full of hope.  Lale is determined to survive and doggedly plans a future for himself, inspiring others along the way to believe that they too will endure and come out of the camp alive.  I would have liked to know what happened to Leon, Cilka, Jakub, and others, but it fits with the story that there are loose ends.  So many were displaced in the war and lost in the camps that people just disappeared and their loved ones never found out what happened to them.  (Morris recently published a sequel, Cilka's Journey, which is almost pure fiction according to the real Cilka's family.)

There has been a certain amount of controversy about the historical basis of the story, including an error in the number assigned to Gita, the unavailability of penicillin in 1943, and the nature of the experiments that Mengele performed on prisoners.  As some of the Holocaust organizations and museums have pointed out, it is a novel based on one person's memories and recollections, and shouldn't be taken as historical fact.  That doesn't make it any less compelling to read.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

October 13, 2019

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley

After solving her first case, 11 year old Flavia de Luce is sure that her career as an amateur sleuth is over.  Then a well-known puppeteer is electrocuted in the middle of a performance at the church hall, and Flavia finds herself once again in the thick of it.  The death of a local child five years earlier and a patch of marijuana plants are also somehow involved in the investigation.  Meanwhile, Flavia’s widowed stamp-collecting father continues to have financial problems threatening the family home, and his sister Felicity comes from Hampstead to try to sort them out.

I wasn’t sure I liked Flavia in the first book in the series, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, but she grew on me.  As a kid, Flavia can go snoop in all kinds of places and ask questions that adults are too polite to ask.  Her knowledge of chemistry comes into play more than once in the story.

One of the things I dislike about the series is that it takes at least 1/3 of the book to get to the mystery - there is a lot of time spent on setting up the scene.  However, I do enjoy Flavia’s eccentric family and quirky neighbors.  Aunt Felicity in particular surprises Flavia in this book by telling her that she looks and acts exactly like her late mother Harriet, and to pursue her dreams (Flavia always thought Felicity was an old stick in the mud).

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

October 11, 2019

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

With her morbid interest in death and horror, Tuesday Mooney has always had a problem fitting in and making friends (except her home town is Salem, MA, so it's pretty hard to believe that she couldn't find a place there).  Her introverted nature makes her an excellent researcher for a philanthropic foundation.  When an extremely wealthy Bostonian named Vincent Pryce dies unexpectedly at a fundraiser, he leaves behind the clues for a treasure hunt that will reward the winner with a portion of Pryce’s vast fortune.  Another fabulously wealthy Bostonian named Archie approaches Tuesday and wants to team up to try to solve the riddle, promising her several million dollars for her help.  Tuesday isn’t sure about his true motives since he certainly doesn’t need the money, but there appears to be something that Archie wants from Pryce’s vast collections.  When her 13 year old neighbor Dorry figures out the first clue, the three of them decide to join forces.  But the clock is ticking and other teams have almost certainly figured out the clue as well, so time is of the essence.

I had a number of issues with this book – after a good beginning and plot set-up, it just sort of fizzled out.  The author became more concerned with having the main characters hook up with their love interests (which added nothing to the plot - note to authors:  unless you're writing a romance, there does not have to be a love interest for the main character(s)).  Part of the problem is that the author seemed to want to write something that was both The Westing Game and Ready Player One, and ended up with something that was neither.  The treasure hunt isn’t really a treasure hunt, since there are precious few clues and not much game playing.  Early in the game, Tuesday’s team has what could be a huge advantage, but they decide not to use it because “Vincent would have wanted us to play fair.”  Gag me.

(N.B., if you enjoy books about games, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a fabulous book about a treasure hunt set in a future time - read that instead.)

Also, the title is incorrect.  Tuesday does not talk to ghosts – she wants to talk to one particular ghost, her best friend Amy, and may actually have succeeded once, but even Tuesday admits that Amy’s voice in her head isn’t telling her anything she doesn’t already know – it’s just responding in the snarky way Amy would have when they were teens.   A better title would have been The Pryce Inheritance or Games with Friends or Girl Seeks Ghost.  Just a suggestion.  

(Amy went missing one night when they were 16.  Amy wanted to go hang out at the local lighthouse and Tuesday stayed home because it was a cold, rainy night.  Amy vanished without a trace, and Tuesday has spent her life wondering if Amy would still be around if she had gone with her, or if she would have disappeared, too.)

The text reads like it is intended for a young adult or juvenile audience rather than for adult readers - you could give this to a 14 year old or your grandma and not worry about offending their delicate sensibilities (wait a minute - I'm old enough to be a grandma - scratch that). There are a lot of implied morals like "play fair," "help others," "work together," "follow your dreams," etc.  There are also loads of stereotypes that are easy for a YA audience to recognize:  the brilliant goth girl who is too cool for words but secretly fears no one likes her, the gay guy who wants to be a singer, the rich guy who hates his family's money and wants to live a simple life, the evil brother who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, the schoolteacher who marries a very wealthy man and can't handle being rich, the super-quirky rich man, etc.  Nothing new here.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in return for a review. 

This House is Haunted by John Boyne

October 8, 2019

This House is Haunted by John Boyne

It’s October, so the time has come for scary things, like ghost stories.  After the death of her father, Eliza Caine applies for a position as a governess for two children at a country house, Gaudlin Hall in Norfolk.  But when she arrives, there are no adults present and the children are alone with no explanation for the missing adults.  Eliza soon learns that there is some creepy stuff going on in the house, and when she enquires about the family, the villagers give her strange looks.  Eliza eventually learns that she is the sixth governess to hold that position in a year.  The children refer to their mother frequently, how she expects them to dress and act, and Eliza begins to suspect that her ghost is haunting Gaudlin Hall.

Written in the style of Dickens, some readers have complained that the story isn’t scary enough (or at all scary), but this is a ghost story for those who enjoy literary fiction and pays homage to the classic ghost story The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, as well as Jane Eyre and the ghost stories of Edith Wharton.  Disquieting and atmospheric rather than horrifying, this is gothic fiction in the style of the Victorian era.  With none of the gore or violence that characterizes many modern ghost stories, this is a perfect book to curl up with on a chilly October night, with a fluffy throw, a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and a plate of shortbread cookies (and the dog or cat, of course).  I love just about anything that John Boyne writes, and while this novel isn’t quite as good as most of his other books (such as The Heart’s Invisible Furies), the writing is elegant and it’s still worth reading.

N.B., if you are interested in gory, violent, unlimited horror, search “splatterpunk” in your library’s online catalog. 

The Lager Queen of Minnestoa by J. Ryan Stradal

October 7, 2019

The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal

Three women from the Calder family (Edith, her sister Helen, and Edith’s granddaughter Diana) find unexpected satisfaction in brewing beer.  Edith Magnusson and her sister Helen Blotz haven’t spoken to each other in forty years, after Helen convinced their father to cut Edith out of his will and leave everything to her.  Helen never gave Edith a satisfactory explanation of why, and worse yet, convinced herself that it was up to Edith to reach out to her and offer forgiveness.  Edith’s granddaughter Diana is planning a life of crime, until she gets caught and is offered what turns out to be the chance of a lifetime.  It is also the story of how four grandmas end up running a brewery, making brews like Grandma Edith’s Rhubarb-Pie-in-a-Bottle, and having wonderful and unexpected adventures in their golden years.

This is a pleasant read, but I have to admit, I almost gave up during the first Diana section – I was so BORED with Diana’s life as a teenager and an amateur criminal.  I ended up skimming most of that section and then the story turned back to Helen, the least likable but most interesting narrator.  There is also a lot about the brewing process that could have been omitted without hindering the reader’s grasp of the story.  A good editor should have knocked out about 50 pages and made this a better book.  Like many writers, this second book didn't live up to the author's first book, Kitchens of the Great Midwest.

Tabula Rasa by Ruth Downie

October 4, 2019

Tabula Rasa by Ruth Downie

Army medicus Gaius Petreius Ruso and his British wife Tilla are back in the borderlands of Britannia with the 20^th Legion, where the army is protecting the men building the Roman wall.  Many of the local residents have been forcibly moved from their lands to make way for the wall, causing tension between the Britons and the army.  Three days after reporting for duty, Ruso’s new clerk Candidus has gone missing without a trace, and Ruso feels obligated to search for him since Candidus is his old friend Albanus’ nephew.  There is a persistent rumor that one of the locals saw someone hiding a body in the wall.  To make matters worse, the youngest son of a local chieftain also vanishes, ratcheting the tension even higher.

Wonderful characters, attention to detail, historical accuracy, flashes of humor, and excellent pacing all make this another great adventure in the Medicus series.  One of the things that I really like about this series is that the author introduces the crime almost immediately, without having to go hunting for the mystery somewhere in the middle of the book.  Also, Ruso and Tilla's contrasting world views show just how extremely different their cultures were.  Simon Vance does a bang-up job with the narration on the audiobook, getting the voices just right.  I look forward to meeting up again with Ruso and Tilla to see what they get up to in their next outing.