Book reviews

In The Woods,

by Tana French

Penguin Books

464 pages, $10.78

I received this mystery/thriller for Christmas 2008. On the cover was a sticker acknowledging “An Edgar Award Winner.” I was intrigued.

The story is told by the admittedly unreliable narrator Adam “Rob” Ryan, a Dublin murder detective. Partnered with his best friend, Cassie, Ryan is assigned to investigate the murder of 12-year-old Katy in the same Dublin suburb where he grew up. Rob has not returned to his home town since being sent to boarding school at about Katy’s age, after a horrifying experience in the woods near his home that left him bloody yet unharmed, and his two best friends having vanished and presumed dead.

The unsolved mystery of his friends’ disappearance and Katy’s murder intertwine and influence Rob’s ability to be objective. Part psychological thriller, part police procedural, this mystery is cast with compelling and rich characters. I thought I had found a real page-turner for 75 pages or so, however as the momentum slows and Ryan spins in his childhood memories I became more disenchanted with this book.

Some significant issues are left unresolved, and while I don’t always have to have every loose end tied up, it seemed to me that the promise of resolution had been dangled pretty blatantly yet not fulfilled. Also, there were parts of the story that got unnecessarily long. If the mysteries you enjoy don’t encourage you to call in sick for work to stay home and read then I think you’d like this one. I’ve heard the sequel, narrated by Rob’s partner, Cassie, is even more compelling and definitely more satisfying.

— Lacy Nathan,

Second Look Books

Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

Random House

320 pages, $10.20

“Young Henry quit speaking to his parents at 12 years old. Not because of some silly childhood tantrum, but because they asked him to.”

In Jamie Ford’s debut novel, the story follows Henry Lee through his conflicted life of love for his family, his country and of Keiko Okabe, a Japanese-American girl.

“Hotel” is set in Seattle, in 1942 and 1986. The Seattle of 1942 is in social upheaval. Japanese-Americans are being evacuated by the government and relocated to internment camps. Henry is a young boy living with his parents of Chinese descent. His father still has strong political and cultural ties to China, yet he is determined to make his son an American. He forbids Henry to speak Chinese. Henry’s parents speak only Chinese. His father also forces Henry to wear a button that says, “I am Chinese,” a direct conflict to his father wanting him to be American. The button is to protect him from being mistaken as Japanese during “the war years.”

Henry has been enrolled in an elite white school under a “scholarshipping” program which has little to do with academics and everything to do with work. Henry meets Keiko Okabe, also enrolled under the “scholarshipping” program, and as they work side by side in the school cafeteria, their relationship grows.

Young Henry forms unlikely relationships with a street musician named Sheldon; a lunch lady named Ms. Beatty; and a concerned postal worker, and the bonds they build last throughout his life.

In Seattle 1986, after the death of his wife, Henry’s past crashes into his present, but with the help of his son he reconciles the two and strengthens their relationship.

You will be touched by the characters and saddened as you re-live this dark time in U.S. history. Ford draws on his own past and the stories of his great grandfather and his “I am Chinese” button. It will be a long time before you forget Henry Lee and his friends.

— Dianne Sevick,

The Book Shop, Green Valley Village

White Doves at Morning

by James Lee Burke

Simon & Schuster

$7.99

One of my 10 favorite books is White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke. Burke is a prolific writer of successful detective stories, one set in New Iberia Parish, Louisiana, and a second series set in Missoula, Montana. He stepped out of his genre to write White Doves at Morning, a look at the Civil War through the eyes of New Iberia residents whose lives are altered forever by the war. The cast includes Willie Burke, a gentle young man whose sharp mouth keeps him in trouble; Flower, a smart slave woman who learns to read and write (a crime in the pre-Civil War era); Abigail Downing, an abolitionist from the North; Robert Perry, the son of a slave owner; Jim Stupefied, a local town boy; and Ira Jamison, the white father of the slave Flower, and the largest slave owner in the area.

Willie, Jim and Robert join the Confederate Army in New Iberia and march to their first battle, at a place in Hardin County, Tennessee, known simply as Shiloh Hill.

The book is drawn from the true history of James Lee Burke’s family. Notice that Willie bears the same surname as the author. Burke’s writing is so beautiful and so descriptive you will likely find yourself ducking when the cannon balls and grapeshot rip through the hillsides of Hardin County, shearing off trees and atomizing horses and men into a red mist.

It is a stark account of the struggle of good evil on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and a hard book to put down.

— Ned Lord,

Sneakaboard Press

lcolord@runbox.com

The Appeal

by John Grisham

Doubleday

Grisham fans won’t be disappointed in the lawyer turned mega-best-selling author’s latest book, “The Appeal,” his first since “The Brokerâ” (fiction) published in 2005, and “The Innocent Man” (non-fiction) published in 2006.

“The Appeal” hones in mercilessly on dirty elections, corrupt politicians, manipulation of voters, big money and corporate greed and deceit, with a backdrop, as is usual in Grisham novels, of pressing moral and Constitutional issues, in this case, the subversion of the judicial system to fit a corporate agenda and that of its predatory billionaire CEO.

The message is all-too contemporary and, unfortunately, realistic — “politics has always been a dirty game, now justice is too.”

And if you can’t trust the judicial system what can you trust?

It is Grisham’s skill as a writer and his extensive knowledge of the legal system that infuses this book with its stark juxtaposition of extreme cynicism and laudable idealism, a conflict that rages throughout the 358-page novel.

“The Appeal” is available at the Pima-Green Valley Library and local bookstores. A paperback version was recently published.

— Kathy Engle