(1) {1962} Cover Her Face by P. D. James - 1 Jan 2010
The first of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries by P. D. James. England a few years after the Second World War -- the rich are still around living with the maids and everything else. A refuge for unmarried mothers. And a young woman - Sally Jupp - that lived in the latter and went to the first to work. This is how the story begins - or at least that's how it begins before Sally is found dead.
What follows is a standard mystery which reveals a lot not only for the dead but also for everyone in the house and in the village and unearths secrets that had been buried for ages. It's well written and it does make you feel the time but it is very obvious an early work - Dalgliesh sounds just as any other inspector and there is nothing special that makes him such a likable character later on. And something with the things that were happening off the pages was not exactly right - in a few places it sounded almost as if James could not find how to tie the things together without a revelation that should have been mentioned much earlier. But at the same time there are enough clues to lead you through the book.
Overall a good start for the series and I do not sorry for reading it - I had meant to read the series in order for ages and I had never read this one before.
3 and a half stars out of 5 and a good book for starting the year.
(2) {2005} Latte Trouble by Cleo Coyle - 1 Jan 2010
The third in the Coffeehouse mysteries series starts with Clare Cosi getting herself in the middle of another big crisis - this time one of her baristas (Tucker) is accused in poisoning his ex-boyfriend. Clare disagrees of course, Matteo is a better help than usually and Madame is around much more and is being a much better shown character than in the first book. Who is missing is Mike Quinn who is on some type of a leave (although he will show up before the end of the book and the chemistry between him and Clare will still be there. The book is about Fashion this time - an old celebrity designer is back with a line of coffee-inspired jewelery and not surprisingly she picks up the Village Blend coffeehouse for her party.
If you had not read the previous two books, some of the conversations may sound a bit strange but the important things are mentioned again when it is relevant.
In the book someone manages to take a bath in the Hudson river, someone else to reveal that they had been in prison once, two people to get in bed together and a lot of coffee recipes to be shared and explained. Add to this someone being caught with drugs and another character being kidnapped and a very old secret to be revealed after a long string of consequences. And of course there will be more than one corpse and enough red herrings to throw anyone in the wrong direction. And the end will be as surprising as an end can come even if something starts ticking at the back of your mind much earlier even if it makes no real sense.
I am not sure I would drink my coffee in a place where so many murders but I love coffee and the whole series is just delicious. And even if it is not great literature, it is amusing and fun to read. Which is more important than anything else.
3 and a half stars out of 5.
(3) {2009} Градче на име Мендосино by Деян Енев ("A small town named Mendocino" by Dejan Enev ) - 2 Jan 2010
The latest collection by Dejan Enev (published in 2009) contains 18 stories in a total of 87 pages. All of them a small tidbits from the life in nowadays Bulgaria - most of them sound memoir-ish (and definitely sound believable); a few set in the past which can also be memoirs; a few just could not be because the main character is not a male journalist.
I like Enev - he is one of the good new authors and he manages to open a window in the life to show some small pictures that show more about the world and Bulgaria than a full novel can. The stories cover a lot of topics and are very different from each other: a phone call from California which gives the name of the collection, parents getting the clothes of their son from the hospital, an O. Henry-style Christmas story that is very predictable but so sweet that it just works, a few nostalgic stories from the past, the story of an old nun and so on and so on. And as different as they are, they have something in common - they are real, not an attempt to say a story with a strange end or trying to find a way to surprise - just saying the story in the old fashioned way that never becomes obsolete. Maybe it won't work for everyone and maybe a lot of the stories won't even be understood properly if you had not lived here but it just touches something in me.
5 stars out of 5 for the book and another great collection from Enev.
* The translation of the title is a direct translation of the Bulgarian title. The book is not (yet) translated.
(4) {2006} Carnival by Elizabeth Bear - 3 Jan 2010
That's a book that just flew under my radar - I skipped it intentionally when it was published (did not sound interesting enough - no idea why) and I bought it at the last days of December 2008 while searching a 4th book for one of these 4 for 3 books deals in Amazon. And I am so happy that I got it. It's what Science Fiction should be - a lot of ideas, great execution and believable setting.
The novel takes place some 500 years in the future (it's mentioned almost in passing somewhere in the book as being 2500 years after Christ or something like this) but the world has nothing to do with the world that we know. A few waves of assessments had wiped out most of the races on Earth (not just people but whole races - it looks like anyone that is not from the African Diaspora had been wiped out) and the surviving ones keep getting assessed. Which is a nice term for being killed by the ruling machines. Somewhere between all the assessments, a lot of people managed to get off the planet and created colonies... which the coalition that formed on Earth now try to get back into its grasp. So far nothing special - a coalition/empire/foundation and a few states that try to remain independent. It's as old setting as you can imagine one but somehow the novel sounds fresh.
Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi-Jones and Vincent Katherinessen are two spies/diplomats for the coalition (and the history of those names is just one of the fascinating moments in the book). Additionally they are partners (both in work and romantically) and they had been separated for way too many years. In a way, the novel can be considered their love story. But it is much more than this. Because the world they are sent to this time is New Amazonia - a place where the women and men had switched roles in an attempt to make it a better place. Except that it had not worked - the roles are changed but that's about it. The world is the same - the men behave and are treated as the women in the old world and the women behave as men. It is as believable as possible - that's just the way the human race behave. Add to this some aliens and the picture starts getting complicated.
Most of the book deals with the complicated world they all live into - showing how New Amazonia works and revealing the truth about assessments, what had happened and why things happened. A grim future shown in sparse words and with masterful imagination. But it is also a character-driven story because all that happens can happen only with these people and at this time.
A story of love, future, aliens, AI and something more. One of the most beautiful stories I had read lately. And even though this future is as grim as possible, it also has a hope... through the whole novel, all the way to the last sentence. I just wish Bear had decided to write a prequel/sequel to it - I want more from this world.
A small warning though: if you have any issues with same sex relationship, you might not enjoy the book as much - it relies heavily on such and even has sex scenes between the main characters.
5 stars out of 5. And I suppose I am on the hunt for other novels by Bear. :)
(5) {2006} Cleanskin by Val McDermid - 4 Jan 2010
Cleanskin is written in 2006 as part of the Quick Reads program - short books from popular authors published in an attempt to get the non-reading part of the population in UK to read. I am not quite sure if the goal was achieved (never really checked) but the program created some very nice novellas such as this one.
The whole book is 128 pages but the text is down to 113 or thereabouts, with short chapters, big font and a lot of free space. It is a novella although I am not sure if it is not closer to a long novelette in size than to a short novella. But that's not really important. Because the book works.
A nine-year-old girl dies in a house fire. Her father - Jack Farrell - is one of the criminal bosses in town. And because of this, the DCI that get called to the scene is the resident expert in all things Farrell: Andy Martin. Except that Andy has no idea what happens - not only with the fire but he is left totally amazed of what follows. While the police race in an attempt to find out who killed a child in cold blood, a series of corpses start to appear - some expected, some being a total surprise. And all of them had died gruesome deaths. And in the middle of this nightmare, Andy needs to find some time to deal with his own private life.
The truth is as unexpected as one can come but it never sounds unbelievable or staged; we get the same blow that Andy gets. And McDermid goes on to dig the knife deeper, to remove any hope from the situation and to mark even the honest men with the sign of dishonesty. Because the world cannot be a good place if a child can die.
A couple of warnings here:
- the description on the back cover gives out what happens in the middle of the book... if it was a novel, an action on page 50-60 or thereabouts can be revealed but for a novella, it just shouldn't have been.
- if you cannot read about gruesome murders, you better skip it. The descriptions of all murders are there and even if they are somewhat toned down, the details are in the text.
4 stars out of 5 for the novella (and the missing star is for the oversimplifying of some things... especially in the latest chapters. At least McDermid manages to finish it satisfactorily if a bit rushed - Ian Rankin's novella in the same program almost falls flat at the end).
The first of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries by P. D. James. England a few years after the Second World War -- the rich are still around living with the maids and everything else. A refuge for unmarried mothers. And a young woman - Sally Jupp - that lived in the latter and went to the first to work. This is how the story begins - or at least that's how it begins before Sally is found dead.
What follows is a standard mystery which reveals a lot not only for the dead but also for everyone in the house and in the village and unearths secrets that had been buried for ages. It's well written and it does make you feel the time but it is very obvious an early work - Dalgliesh sounds just as any other inspector and there is nothing special that makes him such a likable character later on. And something with the things that were happening off the pages was not exactly right - in a few places it sounded almost as if James could not find how to tie the things together without a revelation that should have been mentioned much earlier. But at the same time there are enough clues to lead you through the book.
Overall a good start for the series and I do not sorry for reading it - I had meant to read the series in order for ages and I had never read this one before.
3 and a half stars out of 5 and a good book for starting the year.
(2) {2005} Latte Trouble by Cleo Coyle - 1 Jan 2010
The third in the Coffeehouse mysteries series starts with Clare Cosi getting herself in the middle of another big crisis - this time one of her baristas (Tucker) is accused in poisoning his ex-boyfriend. Clare disagrees of course, Matteo is a better help than usually and Madame is around much more and is being a much better shown character than in the first book. Who is missing is Mike Quinn who is on some type of a leave (although he will show up before the end of the book and the chemistry between him and Clare will still be there. The book is about Fashion this time - an old celebrity designer is back with a line of coffee-inspired jewelery and not surprisingly she picks up the Village Blend coffeehouse for her party.
If you had not read the previous two books, some of the conversations may sound a bit strange but the important things are mentioned again when it is relevant.
In the book someone manages to take a bath in the Hudson river, someone else to reveal that they had been in prison once, two people to get in bed together and a lot of coffee recipes to be shared and explained. Add to this someone being caught with drugs and another character being kidnapped and a very old secret to be revealed after a long string of consequences. And of course there will be more than one corpse and enough red herrings to throw anyone in the wrong direction. And the end will be as surprising as an end can come even if something starts ticking at the back of your mind much earlier even if it makes no real sense.
I am not sure I would drink my coffee in a place where so many murders but I love coffee and the whole series is just delicious. And even if it is not great literature, it is amusing and fun to read. Which is more important than anything else.
3 and a half stars out of 5.
(3) {2009} Градче на име Мендосино by Деян Енев ("A small town named Mendocino" by Dejan Enev ) - 2 Jan 2010
The latest collection by Dejan Enev (published in 2009) contains 18 stories in a total of 87 pages. All of them a small tidbits from the life in nowadays Bulgaria - most of them sound memoir-ish (and definitely sound believable); a few set in the past which can also be memoirs; a few just could not be because the main character is not a male journalist.
I like Enev - he is one of the good new authors and he manages to open a window in the life to show some small pictures that show more about the world and Bulgaria than a full novel can. The stories cover a lot of topics and are very different from each other: a phone call from California which gives the name of the collection, parents getting the clothes of their son from the hospital, an O. Henry-style Christmas story that is very predictable but so sweet that it just works, a few nostalgic stories from the past, the story of an old nun and so on and so on. And as different as they are, they have something in common - they are real, not an attempt to say a story with a strange end or trying to find a way to surprise - just saying the story in the old fashioned way that never becomes obsolete. Maybe it won't work for everyone and maybe a lot of the stories won't even be understood properly if you had not lived here but it just touches something in me.
5 stars out of 5 for the book and another great collection from Enev.
* The translation of the title is a direct translation of the Bulgarian title. The book is not (yet) translated.
(4) {2006} Carnival by Elizabeth Bear - 3 Jan 2010
That's a book that just flew under my radar - I skipped it intentionally when it was published (did not sound interesting enough - no idea why) and I bought it at the last days of December 2008 while searching a 4th book for one of these 4 for 3 books deals in Amazon. And I am so happy that I got it. It's what Science Fiction should be - a lot of ideas, great execution and believable setting.
The novel takes place some 500 years in the future (it's mentioned almost in passing somewhere in the book as being 2500 years after Christ or something like this) but the world has nothing to do with the world that we know. A few waves of assessments had wiped out most of the races on Earth (not just people but whole races - it looks like anyone that is not from the African Diaspora had been wiped out) and the surviving ones keep getting assessed. Which is a nice term for being killed by the ruling machines. Somewhere between all the assessments, a lot of people managed to get off the planet and created colonies... which the coalition that formed on Earth now try to get back into its grasp. So far nothing special - a coalition/empire/foundation and a few states that try to remain independent. It's as old setting as you can imagine one but somehow the novel sounds fresh.
Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi-Jones and Vincent Katherinessen are two spies/diplomats for the coalition (and the history of those names is just one of the fascinating moments in the book). Additionally they are partners (both in work and romantically) and they had been separated for way too many years. In a way, the novel can be considered their love story. But it is much more than this. Because the world they are sent to this time is New Amazonia - a place where the women and men had switched roles in an attempt to make it a better place. Except that it had not worked - the roles are changed but that's about it. The world is the same - the men behave and are treated as the women in the old world and the women behave as men. It is as believable as possible - that's just the way the human race behave. Add to this some aliens and the picture starts getting complicated.
Most of the book deals with the complicated world they all live into - showing how New Amazonia works and revealing the truth about assessments, what had happened and why things happened. A grim future shown in sparse words and with masterful imagination. But it is also a character-driven story because all that happens can happen only with these people and at this time.
A story of love, future, aliens, AI and something more. One of the most beautiful stories I had read lately. And even though this future is as grim as possible, it also has a hope... through the whole novel, all the way to the last sentence. I just wish Bear had decided to write a prequel/sequel to it - I want more from this world.
A small warning though: if you have any issues with same sex relationship, you might not enjoy the book as much - it relies heavily on such and even has sex scenes between the main characters.
5 stars out of 5. And I suppose I am on the hunt for other novels by Bear. :)
(5) {2006} Cleanskin by Val McDermid - 4 Jan 2010
Cleanskin is written in 2006 as part of the Quick Reads program - short books from popular authors published in an attempt to get the non-reading part of the population in UK to read. I am not quite sure if the goal was achieved (never really checked) but the program created some very nice novellas such as this one.
The whole book is 128 pages but the text is down to 113 or thereabouts, with short chapters, big font and a lot of free space. It is a novella although I am not sure if it is not closer to a long novelette in size than to a short novella. But that's not really important. Because the book works.
A nine-year-old girl dies in a house fire. Her father - Jack Farrell - is one of the criminal bosses in town. And because of this, the DCI that get called to the scene is the resident expert in all things Farrell: Andy Martin. Except that Andy has no idea what happens - not only with the fire but he is left totally amazed of what follows. While the police race in an attempt to find out who killed a child in cold blood, a series of corpses start to appear - some expected, some being a total surprise. And all of them had died gruesome deaths. And in the middle of this nightmare, Andy needs to find some time to deal with his own private life.
The truth is as unexpected as one can come but it never sounds unbelievable or staged; we get the same blow that Andy gets. And McDermid goes on to dig the knife deeper, to remove any hope from the situation and to mark even the honest men with the sign of dishonesty. Because the world cannot be a good place if a child can die.
A couple of warnings here:
- the description on the back cover gives out what happens in the middle of the book... if it was a novel, an action on page 50-60 or thereabouts can be revealed but for a novella, it just shouldn't have been.
- if you cannot read about gruesome murders, you better skip it. The descriptions of all murders are there and even if they are somewhat toned down, the details are in the text.
4 stars out of 5 for the novella (and the missing star is for the oversimplifying of some things... especially in the latest chapters. At least McDermid manages to finish it satisfactorily if a bit rushed - Ian Rankin's novella in the same program almost falls flat at the end).
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