August Killer Books from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, edited by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha's, Ann Arbor, Mich., www.auntagathas.com:
Megan Abbott, Bury Me Deep (Simon & Schuster, $14.00) recommended by Tom and Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue, Lyons, CO., www.ruemorguepress.com: In 1931 two trunks containing the dismembered bodies of two young women were found abandoned in the Southern Pacific Station in Los Angeles, and another young woman, Winnie Ruth Judd, was soon convicted of the crime. This famous murder case is the basis for Edgar-winner Abbott’s fourth book, but the story she tells is, like its predecessors (all similarly based on true crimes), a cunningly fictionalized one.
Innocent young Marion Seely is left alone in Phoenix by her morphine-addicted doctor husband, who has taken a job in Mexico and occasionally sends her money to supplement her meager income as a clerk at a tuberculosis clinic. There she meets two fun-loving nurses, Louise and Ginny, who entertain frequently at their modest duplex. Among the guests at their uninhibited parties are some of the city’s most powerful men, including Joe Lanigan, a corrupt but charming politician who soon has Marion under his spell.
From there, events escalate feverishly, fueled by drugs and alcohol and eventually culminating in the murders of Louise and Ginny. Much of the narrative sticks close to the facts of the case, but the author imagines a vastly different ending, just as plausible but certainly more satisfying than the actual one. It's an exquisite book, told in delicate, shimmering prose that highlights the nightmarish quality of the story. Megan Abbott is often compared to James Ellroy, whom she admires greatly, but her writing is far more economical and focused, and her sensibilities are feminie to the core. This is noir mystery writing at it’s very best.
Carolyn D. Wall, Sweeping Up Glass (Bantam, $14.00) recommended by Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen, www.poisonedpen.com: You’ve read this story before, but never in the truly astonishing voice of Olivia Harker.
I don’t know about you but I read novels for voice, that style, that personality that grips you by the throat and says, “Here I am, pay attention. Enjoy me.” I can hardly remember a more electrifying jolt than that delivered by narrator Olivia. It was enough to trump the Southern bigot/Rod Steiger/white lightening and lynchings/hardscrabble depression rural scenario. This isn’t a book where description of the plot actually has any meaning in terms of the impact of the book.
There have been some powerful reads in recent years about children who are ill-mothered. Children not neglected or abused but children caught in a household where the mother is truly crazy. Bizarrely crazy. And actively harmful. Yet crazy Ida Harker is a creation like none other that I have ever read. We’ve read about children abused by their father while their mother either weakly or willfully turned aside. Imagine how Olivia must cope when her beloved Pap reveals that Ida, mercifully sent away to the state asylum for the insane, is coming back to their small, cold-water home, to disrupt living and torpedo the store that supports the family. And then, bang, one day Pap disappears. He’s buried out back by the outhouse. Olivia eventually gains the strength to set Ida out to live in a tarpaper shack. But as an adult can she withstand a childhood betrayed by two parents?
Olivia isn’t the only fabulous character in this debut. There’s Olivia’s grandson Will’m. Her dear friend, Love Alice, wife at thirteen. Wing Harris, the trumpeter who owns the Kentuckian Hotel and once owned the heart of Olivia. Everyone is memorable. And finally, remarkably, a string of hope, braided with loyalty and love, is skillfully threaded throughout the narrative. So it’s not Southern noir. Actually I don’t know what Sweeping Up Glass is other than remarkable.
S.J. Bolton, Awakening (Minotaur hc, $25.95) recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s, Ann Arbor, Mich., www.auntagathas.com: Your tolerance for this book may depend on your tolerance level for snakes, which play a fairly large part in the story. The main character, Clara Benning, is a vet who works with injured wild animals (she’s hand feeding some barn owl chicks in her kitchen), and she’s also a bit of a recluse, thanks to a facial disfigurement. I loved Clara, and for someone who has a low tolerance level for snakes (like myself) she made the whole book completely worthwhile. Part ghost story, part English village mystery, and part a coming of age story (the “Awakening” of the title refers partly to Clara), I was gripped from start to finish. The book opens with a corker: Clara gets a panicked call from a new mother up the street - she’s found a snake in her infant’s crib.
There’s hardly a more horrible scenario, and yet Clara, with her gentleness and love of snakes (she’s actually an expert on lizards), manages to get the snake (which turns out to be an adder) out of the baby’s crib with no harm to either party. Bolton makes the horrible not only real, but she also manages to diffuse it. The rest of the book builds in complexity upon this one incident, though all of the mysterious incidents seem to involve snakes.
The next shoe to drop is almost more horrible - Clara is called in to help when an entire house is found to be infested with snakes. Most of the snakes are harmless grass snakes (but still - yuck - Clara goes through the house loading her pillowcase with reptiles), but in one room she discovers an adder, and in another, an even more poisonous snake, one that’s not native to Britain. In this incident, the author deftly introduces Clara to one of the other main characters, Mark (who helps her divest the house of snakes), introduces even more firmly Clara’s animal expertise, and makes clear the fact that Clara is fairly unused to human contact. She simply doesn’t like people looking at her. Bolton is an incredibly gifted narrative storyteller, and the setting, a tiny English village which seems to have more than it’s share of creepy old people (and snakes), is completely memorable. The wildly original story is the work of a master, and you probably won’t be able to put the book down as you get towards the end, creepy as it may be.
Clara has an irritating tendency to go into dark houses and onto the edges of cliffs alone, but the reason she’s trying so hard to find who’s behind the various village deaths is that the police suspect her. As a reader, we never suspect Clara for a minute, so it’s as if Nancy Drew, accused of a capital crime and oddly scarred, was on the case. I can’t remember a book that’s lingered in my memory after finishing it for so long in quite awhile; the evocative prose of S.J. Bolton will probably stay with you too, as will the character of Clara Benning.
Rhys Bowen, Royal Flush (Berkley Prime Crime, $24.95) recommended by Tom and Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue, Lyons, CO, www.ruemorguepress.com: Penniless young Lady Georgiana, thirty-fourth in line to the throne and always looking for ways to support herself as she lives on her own in London, hits upon the idea of hiring herself out as a well bred dinner and dancing companion to visiting businessmen. Unfortunately her scheme is wildly misinterpreted by both her first client and Scotland Yard, and she is forced to retreat in disgrace to her brother Binky’s dreary castle in the Scottish Highlands.
There she finds a full complement of houseguests, including the odious Wallis Simpson, who finds Castle Rannoch conveniently close to Balmoral, where the Prince of Wales is summering. There are various distant relatives as well and some other minor royals, including a pompous German prince whom everyone expects Georgie to marry. And not so far away is Darcy, her enigmatic sometime beau, who’s come to her rescue on more than one occasion. There is mischief afoot as well; indeed, Georgie is unofficially working on behalf of Scotland Yard, who suspect a threat against the Royal Family is about to be carried out.
As usual, Georgie’s high spirits and the author’s frothy prose are utterly captivating, and a rumored royal scandal involving the Duke of Clarence helps shape the plot. The author’s useful afterword fills the reader in on that subject.
Virginia Brown, Dixie Divas (Bell Bridge Books, $14.95) recommended by Maggie Mason, Lookin’ for Books, San Diego, CA, [email protected]: When Eureka “Trinket” Truevine returns to Holly Springs, Mississippi to help her parents she had no idea what’s in store for her. Though born in the south, she’s not really a true southern belle. Her cousin, Bitty Hollendale, is the epitome of a belle, and she’s got the ex-husbands to prove it. Bitty has been married often, but her last husband is the one that could really get her into trouble. When her ex – a senator – is found gruesomely murdered, Bitty calls on a group of her women friends, the Dixie Divas, to help her move the body. Sadly, their efforts are ultimately useless as the senator is eventually discovered in Bitty’s wine cellar. Trinket steps into action when she gets a break from “parent-sitting” her randy mom and dad. She’s calls on the Divas, Bitty’s attorney, and a hunky new veterinarian for help. The situation becomes serious when Bitty goes missing; the Divas come through, however, and relative peace is restored. This was a dandy read. I enjoyed all the characters, especially the Divas. The South seems to lend itself to appealing characters and situations. Charm just flows through this book, and I’m hoping for a sequel.
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