Book Reviews by vicki rock

Roman Carruthers is summoned home to Jefferson Run, Virginia after his father’s car accident. His younger brother, Dante, is in debt to dangerous criminals because of drugs and his sister, Neveah, is exhausted from holding the family and the family business together.

Neveah and their father, Keith, run the Carruthers Crematorium, so they see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident. Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger from the Black Baron Boys.

Roman, who has a wealth management firm in Atlanta, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, Bonita, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. He calls in a fixer, Khalil, for help to take on the gang.

This is very intense. One reveal towards the end is a shocking plot twist. The characters are realistic and the plotting is outstanding. Content warning: this book contains elements of extreme violence and multiple sexual scenes.

I rate it five out of five stars.

This is told in reverse from the end of Thom and Wendy Graves’ marriage in 2023 to 1982, when they met.

A seemingly perfect couple, Thom and Wendy live on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at New Essex State University. Their son, Jason, is an adult.

Wendy wants to kill Thom, but at first we don’t know why. Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together through their marriage.

Since the reader learns the effect before the cause, it lessens the impact. There is an overabundance of seemingly monotonous detail. The characters aren’t developed well. I usually like Peter Swanson’s books, but this is a miss for me.

I rate it three out of five stars.

When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black-sheep uncle, Jacob Russell. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years. She was 11 the last time she saw him.

Her parents and brother are long dead. She is now an adult and is married to Sherlock Holmes. They live in Sussex, England.

She’s assumed that Uncle Jake’s ways have brought him to a bad end somewhere. Years ago, Jake was involved in the infamous disappearance of the Jewels of the Order of St. Patrick from a secure safe in Dublin Castle.

The theft of the jewels, known as the Irish Crown Jewels, shook a government, enraged a King, threatened the English establishment—and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself.

Jake did keep watch over his niece from a distance. And saw Holmes’ illegitimate son, the artist Damian Adler, marry his wife, Aileen Henning, in a village near Paris. Adler is also the son of the late singer, Irene Adler.

The day after Russell and Holmes return home from the wedding, Sherlock leaves for London to meet his brother, Mycroft, who is a government official. After he leaves, Patrick Mason, their farm manager, arrives and he has Jake with him.

The book is split among three narrative points of view, with excellent characters and a fast-moving plot. The historical details are interesting, too. This is the 19th in the series.

I rate it five out of five stars.

The villagers of Fleetcombe like to think of it as one of the most picturesque spots on England’s coast. But then a man is found dead, tied to a chair in the middle of the road, a stag’s antlers on his head.

The gruesome scene stuns the town, especially when the victim is identified: Jim Tiernan, who ran the White Hart pub. Irina Bortnick is Tiernan’s partner. He also has an older sister, Patricia, who saw him earlier that night. The truth may hinge on a young girl who also saw something that night.

Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge grew up in Fleetcombe and has now returned, for the good of her family, from a life away in Liverpool. Major crimes rarely occur in Fleetcombe. Detective Constable Harry Ward is ten years younger and, despite his newcomer status, determined to earn Nicola’s trust as she intimidates him. Then police learn the murder is similar to several that happened in 1925.

There’s an interesting array of characters. While it is a good plot, as a television writer, Chris Chibnall is especially good at dialogue. He is the creator of the former TV series “Broadchurch” and was executive producer and writer of some of the episodes of the “Doctor Who” series.

I rate it four out of five stars.

Louisa, 10, has been asking her father to walk with her on the beach ever since they arrived in Japan. One night, he agrees. He is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Her mother uses a wheelchair.

Later, Louisa is found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone. Her father, Serk, an ethnic Korean born and raised in Japan, lost touch with his family when they moved to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her family.

But after her father’s disappearance, Anne and Louisa move in with her aunt in Los Angeles. Louise is seeing a child psychologist, Dr. Brickner. Louisa told the people who found her that her father was kidnapped.

Now she says she didn’t say he was kidnapped; her mother made that up. The school reports that she is defiant and has been stealing. The story then goes back in time to when her parents were young.

When the novel focuses on Louisa, I enjoyed it, but I lost interest in the sections about Serk and Anne. Anne blames her mother for virtually everything. She is a difficult adolescent and a difficult adult.

“Flashlight” was originally published as a short story in The New Yorker in 2020. I think I’d prefer it as a short story because the novel seems to drag out. It was difficult for me to get through it.

I rate it three out of five stars.

Buckeye Ohio City Police Lt. Lewis Warwick calls Detective Isabelle Jaynes to his office. He has received a letter from someone who says his name is Bill Wilson. He is threatening to kill 13 innocent people and one guilty one because of the needless death of an innocent man.

Izzy thinks the innocent man was Alan Duffrey, who was fatally stabbed in prison. Another man, Cary Tolliver, who has terminal cancer, now claims that he framed Duffrey with child pornography.

Izzy is friends with Holly Gibney, a private investigator, who was kidnapped by Rodney and Emily Harris. Izzy rescued Holly. Izzy and her partner, Tom Atta, go to the hospital to interview Tollivar.

Meanwhile, Kate McKay, a controversial women’s rights activist, is on a multi-state tour. Someone is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but then a stalker throws bleach on Corrie Anderson, Kate’s assistant. Corrie hires Holly as a bodyguard.

Police aren’t sure if they should take the Bill Wilson letter seriously. Then Annette McElroy, who is walking her dog, is fatally shot. After her, Dov Epstein and Frank Mitborough, who are outside of a laundromat, are killed. Each is left with a piece of paper with a name on it.

While the reader knows the killer’s nickname from early on, his full name and the motive aren’t revealed until near the end. And the story of the stalker is chilling.

“Never Flinch” is an excellent continuation of the character of Holly Gibney, who was originally in King’s Bill Hodges trilogy of novels and the 2023 novel “Holly.” This novel is expertly plotted with the two separate cases connecting. The tension really builds towards the end. “Never Flinch” is one of Stephen King’s best novels because it is believable.

I rate it five out of five stars.

Thomas Wolsey is born around 1475. He comes from an impoverished family, but he is a good student. His uncle Edmund agrees to pay for him to continue his education and he is ordained.

After serving as a priest, Wolsey becomes chaplain to the archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Henry Deane has many building projects. When he goes to court, the archbishop takes Wolsey along and presents him to King Henry VII. The king mentions that his oldest son, Prince Arthur, is ill. Prince Henry is next in line for the throne. In 1502, Prince Arthur dies.

Prince Henry, who is 10, is married to his brother’s widow, but when he reaches 14, he gets a dispensation to end the marriage. King Henry VII dies when Prince Henry is 17. By 1515 Wolsey, now a cardinal, has become the controlling figure in all matters of church and state. He and King Henry VIII are good friends and Wolsey is known as the other king.

Then King Henry VIII falls in love with Anne Boleyn and wants to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Wolsey is now in a bind. After he fails to negotiate an annulment of Henry's marriage, Wolsey falls out of favor and is stripped of his government titles.

While “The Cardinal” is meticulously researched, it is very dry. People who are interested in the Tudors may enjoy it more than I did.

I rate it three out of five stars.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been exiled to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. He is waiting for a boat. Judge Harrell is arriving.

Stilwell is investigating a report of poaching on a protected reserve. He suspects Oscar Terranova, who owns Island Mystery Tours. Then Tash Dano calls him. A body has been found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor— a woman identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. Then she is identified as Leigh-Anne Moss.

Detectives Rex Ahearn and Frank Sampedro are the homicide investigators. Stilwell and Ahearn don’t get along. Although the other detectives were sent to investigate, Stilwell keeps checking into the woman’s death. He thinks of angles of investigation that the others don’t consider.

While it gets off to a slow start, it soon builds. Michael Connelly is a master of plotting. The characters are good, but a personal quirk: I hate it when characters aren’t given first and last names.

I rate it four out of five stars.

Editor Susan Ryeland has left her Greek island, her hotel and her Greek boyfriend, Andreas, in search of a new life back in England. She lives in Crouch End, in the northern part of London.

Susan is freelancing for a London publisher, Causton Books. Michael Flynn, the publisher, calls her. He wants her to come in to talk about Atticus Pünd, a character created by the late author Alan Conway. Someone at the publishing house has come up with the idea of commissioning an Atticus Pünd continuation novel called “Pünd’s Last Case.”

Conway’s estate agreed to the option for three more books. Eliot Crace was chosen as the new author. He is the grandson of legendary children’s author Miriam Crace who died 20 years ago. Eliot is convinced she was poisoned.

To her surprise, Susan enjoys reading the manuscript which is set in the South of France and revolves around the mysterious death of Lady Margaret Chalfont. She lived with her second husband, Elmer Waysmith, and family. Lady Chalfont had asked Atticus Pünd to meet with her, but died before he arrived.

But when it is revealed that Lady Margaret was also poisoned, Susan becomes alarmed. The more she reads, the clearer it becomes that Eliot has deliberately concealed clues about his grandmother’s death inside the book. As Eliot’s behavior becomes more erratic, another murder follows. Suddenly, Susan becomes a suspect.

This series are books within books, meaning you have the fictional author’s book as part of the overall novel. “Marble Hall Murders” can be read as a stand-alone book, but it is the third in the series and it reveals the solution to the first novel.

The characters are good and the plotting is intricate with both clues and red herrings.
Mystery readers will certainly enjoy it, but I recommend reading the series in order. The first two are “Magpie Murders” and “Moonflower Murders.” Fans will hope for more to come.

I rate it five out of five stars.

Arizona is 17 and is neurodivergent. Her favorite things include cryptography, geocaching, the writings of Jules Verne and exploring the Sierra Nevadas on her Russian Ural motorcycle, her dog Mojo riding shotgun in his sidecar.

Her father has just died. She and her mother are spreading his ashes in his favorite places. When they arrive at Bodie State Historic Park, Arizona walks Mojo while her mother tours a stamp mill. They agree to meet up, but her mother doesn’t arrive. She has been kidnapped.

Arizona finds a cryptic test accompanying the ransom note. Solving puzzles and cracking codes are what Arizona does best. What she doesn’t yet realize is that she’s been enlisted in a treasure hunt because the kidnappers think her father knew how to find the treasure.

Young adult readers who like puzzles may enjoy this book more than I did as much of this story is focused on solving the puzzles. The villains come off as B-movie bad guys and overall it reads juvenile. On the whole, this had a lot of potential but it doesn’t make it for adult readers.

I rate it three out of five stars.

In the small town of East Gladness, Connecticut on September 15, 2019, Hai, 19, stands on King Philip’s Bridge in the rain. He climbs over the railing to jump, but sees an elderly woman across the river who is struggling with a clothesline.

She convinces him to get down. Her name is Grazina and she is a widow who was diagnosed with mid-stage dementia five years ago. She has been waiting months for a live-in nurse, and offers the job to Hai. He has some experience from helping his late grandmother. Over the months, the two of them bond.

While the writing is very poetic, as Vuong is known for poetry, the novel is slow-moving and meandering. It doesn’t have much of a plot and is very melancholy. The themes are isolation, aging, forgiveness and how family is not always who we are related to by blood.

I rate it four out of five stars.

Louisa breaks into an art auction, planning to vandalize a valuable painting. It is the day before her eighteenth birthday, when she will age out of foster care. She has carried a postcard of this painting with her for years.

The painting is “The One of the Sea” by an artist known as C. Jat. It was his first painting; done when he was 14. Louisa is thrown out of the building. She runs off and collides with a homeless man who sends the security guard chasing her off in the wrong direction.

Louisa thinks the painting isn’t really about the sea; it is a painting of a fishing pier. And there are three tiny figures at the end of the pier. She is determined to find out the story of the three figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, four 14-year-old friends are sitting on a pier. It is their last summer together. They all have difficult home lives. Joar, one of them, sees a newspaper ad for an art competition and tries to convince KimKim, his friend, to enter. But they can’t afford art supplies.

KimKim suffers from anxiety and depression. He has cuts on his wrists and pills in his backpack. Joar and KimKim became friends at preschool when they were five. They met Ted when they were 12. Ali was the last to join the group.

This is a deeply moving novel about art, friendship, found family, love and grief. As much as I enjoyed Fredrik Backman’s novel “Beartown,” I have to say “My Friends” is even better. His characters will stay with you long after you finish reading it. This book is equally funny and heartbreaking. The ending is outstanding.

I rate it five out of five stars.