Category: Books

Genre: Book 

Grade: A

Notable People: Louise Penny

Title: All the Devils Are Here

Review: Well, if you have not yet chosen to take my advice from the many, many Penny reviews I have done on the Gamache series for the last couple of years……well…. you should. Aft two years, I am also caught up with her which I really don’t want to be. This is her 2020 offering and the first set principally outside the magical town of Three Pies in southern Quebec. This one is solely set in Paris, which Penny lovingly bestows in the same way she has been drawing our fancies to Quebec for the last 20 or so editions. Full of drama, intensity and beautiful character studies, all anchored by the portrait of Chief Inspector Gamache with his rosewater and sandalwood calmness. This one is one of the best yet. The tour of insider Paris is masterful, and she never misses a chance for bit of wittiness in the midst of chaos. From the most amazing acknowledgement sections of a book to the fully developed characters and dead-on dialog, Penny is a master.

Genre: Book  

Grade: A-

Notable People: Robert Galbraith

Title: Troubled Blood

Review: If you’ve read Harry Potter to your kids, you know how good a writer this woman is, but for reasons I can’t fathom, she writes this series under the Galbraith pseudonym. Regardless, it is a unique London based mystery series featuring one legged private detective, Cormoran (CB) Strike, a taciturn and complex crime solver and his sidekick, Robin. Their years long unresolved flirtation is intense and the mysteries to be solved extraordinarily convoluted. This one takes almost at 1000 ages to resolve, which may be a bit much, but the story in quite enthralling and the characters wonderfully developed. Bonus is the story meandering all over the Isles. This series is already a brilliant serial on HBO that has masterfully captured the books. Luv’ me some Strike.

Genre: Book   

Grade: A-

Notable People: CJ Box

Title: Shadows Reel

Review: The 22^nd edition in the fabulous Wyoming Game Warden, Joe Pickett, series is masterful barn-burner of a mystery with all the craziness one could want from a book. It’s got Nazi memorabilia, Antifa, crazed mercenaries, cross country hauls and the inimitable Nate Romanowski, extraordinary the outlaw falconer, in a principle roll. These books continue to evolve and get better. Box is at the absolute top of his game and winning prestigious mystery writer awards left and right. Take a trip out to the range-you won’t regret it.

Genre: Book

Grade: A-/B+

Notable People: Dawnie Walton

Title: The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

Review: Dawnie Walton’s very ambitious debut novel, is a sweeping and thought-provoking look at the meteoric rise and fall of a 1970s-era music duo told from the first person perspective of the first African -American woman editor of a major rock magazine. She also happens to be the daughter of a black drummer murdered at the 1972 Opal and Nev inaugural show by a racist-redneck mob. Confused? This challenging book is tricky to keep up with- the story is told through 30 plus years of interviews (fictitious) with all the key players, but mostly focused on Nev Charles, a prototype British soft rock star, and Opal Jewel, a performance artist/singer/fashion queen form Detroit. The book tackles both gender and race inequality head on- and hits you over the head with it at times. Pretty powerful stuff, though I thought the story drifted at times in the telling through the years of interviews. Another in a long line of books my daughter has gotten me to expand my cultural horizons, which I think is working.

Genre: Book   

Grade: A/B

Notable People: Chris Hillman

Title: Time Between

Review: So you want to be a rock and roll star?????? Hillman’s autobiography is a stunning history of the last 50 years of rock, country, bluegrass and all forms of Americana music. Hillman is the Forrest Gump of the music biz, having been around for many of the breakthrough explorations of late 20^th century popular music, as second fiddle to Roger McGuinn (Byrds), Gram Parsons (Burritos) and Stephen Stills (Manassas)…and then going on to be a star in his own right with the Desert Rose Band in the 80s-90s, and as a still active solo act. A consummate pro telling wonderful stories about the times they are a changin’. If you are a lover of these genres of American music, this is must read “A”. If not, well, Hillman is a fair to middling writer (kudos that he actually wrote it himself) and an Evangelical, which is a bit much for me…..and makes it a “B” read……. Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship. My senses have been stripped. My hands can’t feel to grip. My toes too numb to step. Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’.

Genre: Book 

Grade: A-

Notable People: Alice Hoffman

Title: The World That We Knew

Review: Hoffman’s 28^th standalone novel is a wonderfully written story of three separate woman escaping from Nazi occupied Berlin to France in 1939. Full of terror, heroism and mysticism, the book details their amazing quest to survive during those times of unspeakable atrocities, with the aid of many true underground heroes, amazing fortitude and faith and shared courage…..along with the assistance of the mythical protective Golem. Riveting book, as well it should be. Not always pleasant, but hard to ignore.

Genre: Book 

Grade: A-

Notable People: Archer Mayor

Title: Marked Man

Review: The extraordinary 33^rd consecutive annual installment in Archer’s long running series finds our hero, Joe Gunther, and his crew alternating between a hard to describe, eccentric and dangerous family in Brattleboro, Vermont, and, a host of low level mobster types in Providence Rhode Island (Little Rhody to the initiated). The long running cast of character is back (not aging, though Joe must be close to 110 by now given that he fought in the Korean War….…guess that is literary license), and Archer does his usual bang up job of exposing and initiating us all to the obscure nooks and crannies of Vermont life. The alternating between two seemingly disembodied storylines was a bit distracting for me in this one, but it all comes tighter eventually. Well written, great dialog, amazing sense of place. I hear number 34 is already written and getting ready for Fall release. You go, Archer!!!!

Genre: Book 

Grade: A-

Notable People: David Baldacci

Title: Walk the Wire’

Review: the sixth and most recent in the prolific Baldacci’s’ wonderful Amos Decker series will not disappoint. Weaving a bewildering and intense murder mystery with national security issues in remote North Dakota, the book weaves a compelling portrait of the mind of Decker, a man devastated by loss and head trauma, who becomes a relentless avenger for truth. The character development keeps getting better in this series, and it’s a hard to put down nail biter. Send more Decker!!!!

Genre: Film 

Grade: A+

Notable People:  Oakes Fegley, Ansel Elgort, Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Kidman, Directed by: John Crowley

Title: The Goldfinch

Review: Beautifully rendered interpretation of a masterpiece book by Donna Tartt which I reviewed many years ago. Fegley and Elgort are wonderful as the young and older Theo Decker- a young man who loses his mother in a terrorist attack inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in his shock and trauma makes off with three-hundred-year old art masterpiece. The cast is dead on for the book and the reflections of life as art take us on whirlwind story. I loved the book, and the film surprisingly does it justice.

Genre: Book

Grade: A

Notable People: Louise Penny

Title: A Better Man

Review: After two dozen novels in this series, I am trying to imagine what would make them any better? Frankly, if you like a- mysteries B- noir c- All Things French d- Canada e- top notch prose f- extraordinary character development over twenty years and g- a wonderful sense of humor………well if you don’t like any of that…are you actually still respirating? Penny never settles in these thoughtful and reflective books on the nature of life and loss and love and evil……plus she is wicked funny in a subtle way, and extraordinarily historically accurate. She has the best-ever acknowledgements sections – which themselves can make you weep……. she honors woman all the time without dismissing men……and she levitates dogs to godliness. Even with a very key character exiting in this book (which fans will pray is not final) this is a story that is hard not to love. And Gamache……. oh, Gamache…the father/mentor/brother/sage we wall wish to be around. Hot tip from Northern Michigan: amazon is hard at work filming a Gamache series starring Alfred Molina (good choice) Just cannot wait.