Category: Stu’s Reviews

Genre:  Novel      

Grade:  A-

Notable People:  David Handler

Title:  Phantom Angel

Review:  Handler is a pretty funny mystery writer in the Elmore Leonard tradition. I’ve read a bunch of his work in a series he does set on Cape Cod (Trooper Des Mitri) , but this is a new one featuring boy-wonder PI  Benji Golden, heir to his late fathers’ detective agency (Golden Detectives!). Benji’ s mother, who now runs the agency, is a former Times Square pole dancer and he is surrounded  by equally luminous characters. Benji looks 16 and tries to affect his best Sam Spade as pursues murder and mayhem in the midst of the Broadway theater scene. Handler is actually quite q good writer and the stories are very intriguing –mixing in real known people along with his creations. This a quick and satisfying summer read.  

Genre:  Novel                                           

Grade:  A

Notable People:  Daniel Woodrell

Title:  Winter’s Bone

Review:  I finally got around to reading this ten year old novel, that created quite stir when it came out. A harsh and gripping tale of life in the hollows of the Ozark mountains……bleakly and beautifully told. The heroine, 16 year old Ree Dolly, is forced to try and find her disappeared father in the back woods and deep gorges of the mountains- either that or lose the home he has put up as bail collateral….the tiny mountain cabin that she presides over for her two teen age brothers and far gone mentally ill mother. Danger and heartache lurk around every bend, but the courageous young woman refuses to flinch or bend. Slight, mountain humor is sprinkled throughout, which reduces the tension a bit, and the use of colloquial language makes it bearable. Tough story, exceedingly well written and told throughout out. Had to read it slowly- as it haunts.

Genre:  Novel

Grade:  A-

Notable People:  Anne Tyler

Title:  Saint Maybe

Review:  set in Baltimore, during the 1960s at the start of the book, as are many of Tyler’s novels (“The Accidental Tourist”, and was a follow up to her Pulitzer Prize winning “Breathing Lessons”. This warm and beautiful book was recommended to me by one of my Blog followers and friends (Dan P.)…..a great recommendation. Tyler is a superb writer with a great sense for characters and their connections to one another. This is a story of a family that suffers multiple tragedies but finds its way forward in spite of the losses. Guilt, regret and remorse are fended off by hope, faith and family ties. Ian, the reluctant main character, is a burdened young (and then older) man, who somehow keeps going, finding ways to find shelter from the storm, while raising three orphaned nieces and nephews and caring for two shell shocked parents he feels responsible for. I had trouble at the start getting interested in this book, but very glad I persevered. I found it to be greatly uplifting at the end.

Genre:  Novel 

Grade:  B+

Notable People:   Pascal Mercier

Title: Night Train to Lisbon

Review:  after months of reading mysteries and femme fatale/noir novels- I felt guilty and that I needed something challenging and heady. Found this skimming through shelves at local library and…..mission for heady accomplished. Staid and hermetic middle aged man living in Bern, Switzerland and teaching esoteric languages at a small private school….has a chance encounter with a woman ready to jump of a bridge, who hands him a piece of unknown writing from a provocative Lisbon man. Our hero quits his job and goes off to Lisbon to investigate and re-create the life and times of the mysterious dead writer- Amadeus Prado. This book is DEEP…I found ten pages at a time were max for me (it’s a long 500 pager) . But I found myself more and more drawn  into this bizarre search for meaning that Gregorius undertakes…the totally immersed search to understand fully another person and connect with them beyond the grave. Very intricately written and very well translated from the German. You gotta have time to read this one.

Genre:  Novel  

Grade:  A-

Notable People:   Carl Hiaasen

Title: Skinny Dip

Review:  Been meaning to read Hiassen for years- as he is an icon in the Keys, where we go every late winter. A huge fan of John D. Macdonald (and his legendary Travis McGee), he has clearly styled his writings after the great master, and seems to get in a Macdonald kudo in every book (along with a Neil Young). A murder mystery, more or less, but extremely funny and biting resembling  MacDonald’s characteristic social commentary about the screwing of Florida. This one involves a woman tossed off a cruise ship by her scumbag husband , which is amazingly connected to a scheme to rip off, and ultimately destroy, the Everglades. Wonderful characters, great sense of the place, and good whodunit. I’m going to be on the chase for a lot more Hiassen.

Genre:  Novel   

Grade  A-

Notable People:   T. Coraghessan Boyle

Title: Talk Talk

Review:  Boyle’s books are dark and almost always verging on masterful. Psychologically daunting characters mixed up in fate clearly out of their control…and often not all that likeable…but seemingly real. Beautiful young deaf woman and her video game savant boyfriend have their identities stolen by a slick, black-belt con man aspiring to the high life…a true portrait of sociopathy. Police don’t do shit- so they chase this guy from one coast to the other. Pretty mesmerizing read…..short and hard to put  down…very quirky at the end. Not his best work…but awful good. If you don’t know Boyle- you should

Genre:  Novel       

Grade  A-

Notable People:   CJ Box

Title: Badlands

Review:  Frigid winter in North Dakota, a young autistic boy who witnesses a major drug killing and winds up with the booty, , the baddest drug gang in America, a young woman who is the Sheriff’s new Chief Investigator trying to fend off the hostility of the local law enforcement good ol’ boys club, dirty cops, meth heads…..and decapitations left and right….good formula for a new series from Box, who is the author of the wonderful Joe Pickett: Wyoming Game Warden series. Cassie Dewell is his first shot at a female lead character and he does it really well. Compelling story, good characters, gear portrait of the barren wasteland. Box is at the top of his game.