It’s been a rough week, hasn’t it? Last Thursday, everything was still normal. I don’t live in one of the areas hit by Hurricane Helene, but I’m still in shock. My family knows people or knows of people who were affected, several who lost everything. I hope you’re doing okay, although I suspect some of you have been emotionally hit as much as I have.
Of course, this all affected my ability to read or do much of anything except watch in horror. If my Library Journal editor hadn’t pushed me, I might not be reading yet. On Tuesday, after writing checks and sending donations, I felt emotionally tapped out. I went to a bookstore, and bought two picture books.
Marcie R. Rendon’s Where They Last Saw Her isn’t one of those picture books. I can’t believe this disturbing book is what I chose to read right now. #mmiw. That stands for “missing or murdered Indian women”. Rendon is a citizen of the White Earth Nation. She’s the award-winning author of the Cash Blackbear series, but this one is a standalone. Set on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota, it features Quill, a restless Ojibwe woman who becomes obsessed with finding several women who are missing. Since she and her friends were taunted and followed by white men from a “man-camp” where men are working on oil pipelines, she’s afraid the missing women might have been kidnapped by some of them. And, when she witnesses several men trying to take a drugged woman from the local casino, she has more worries. Quill has a loving husband and two children, and she could have left the issues to the police. But, as an Indian woman herself, with children, she knows no one is safe. It’s a wonderful book, but not easy to read.
What about you? Have you been lost this week, as I have? Or, did you find some books to take you away? What are you reading?
I’ve seen pictures of the horrific damage and read about so many poor souls affected by Hurricane Helene. Unbelievable, the sheer magnitude of it all. That, and all the news about the wars and fighting going on in the world. I will never understand how people can deliberately do such things to other people; or why any of these – or any number of other – awful things happen. Life is so precious.
Books this week:
THE VILLAGE LIBRARY DEMON-HUNTING SOCIETY by C.M. Waggoner
Sherry is the librarian in the small town of Winesap. She seems to have a talent for investigating, and has assisted the sheriff in solving several murders – a suspiciously high number of murders, considering the size of the town. It becomes more personal when someone close to her is murdered. On top of that her cat seems to be possessed by some sort of demon. Something strange is going on in Winesap, that’s for sure. Along with some of her friends as well as the town’s new priest, they form the society of the title and try to solve the murder and the problem of the demons.
I thought this would be a fun book – what with librarians, murders, and a bit of paranormal activity thrown in – but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. The writing was ‘basic’, the characters weren’t portrayed with any depth or even personality, nor was there much in the way of actual demon-hunting going on.
I didn’t want to give up on it so I finished the book, but overall it disappointed me. Reviews were mostly quite good though, so maybe it just wasn’t what I was meant to read this week.
Kim Hays’s PESTICIDE
I liked this book, and would not have come across it if it hadn’t been for Lesa’s Book Critiques.
I’ve read police procedurals in the past but Pesticide is far and away the best of them. You likely all know the synopsis already: a young man killed at an out-of-control riot, perhaps by a policeman; a passionate-about-organic farmer violently and disturbingly killed; detective Giuliana assigned to one of the cases, and her colleague Renzo to the other; how the two cases intertwine; the attraction between the two conscientious colleagues even though both are married; the dogged quest for the truth.
Kim Hays has created utterly believable characters, all with distinct personalities. She’s provided food for thought around what’s involved in farming organically. She has devised a gripping plot, complex nuanced characters and situations, and real suspense. I thought it was a great book.
This week it heated back up, with triple digit heat in October.
This week I read:
Trickster by James W. Hall; This reads like the final book in the Thorn series, as it goes meta. An obnoxious teenage girl comes to his house, and acts rudely. Turns out she’s the daughter of a lost love. Turns out the love’s husband has been bugging his house, and making his life harder, and forcing the love to write novels about it. It also made me think of how many people think some mysterious power is making their lives difficult, and how seductive that line of thought must be.
Word to the Wise by Jenn McKinlay; Librarian Lindsey Norris is finally getting married, but picks up a stalker. Of course, the stalker is soon enough found dead, and her fiancee is the prime suspect. It befuddles me how in so many cozies, everybody is so surprised when a character owns a firearm. This is America. Someone might or might not like guns, but millions of people own them. It’s like the authors live in some alternate universe where the United States is part of England or something.
The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald; First book in the Great Brain series, read for the kids book club. Hope it doesn’t give them any ideas.
Last Chance at Devil’s Canyon by Barry Cord; A western with a lot of set up. A prize fighter, pursuing the manager who absconded with his money gets his horse stolen while taking a bath in a river. The horse thief is shot by outlaws, and taking the body to town, the prize fighter is immediately made deputy sheriff. Then the plot starts to kickin.
Whispers in the Night by Bellamina Court; A woman starts seeing ghosts, one of which sends her after a cousin who is about to end her harsh foster care supervised life the hard way.
Deception by Laura Enright; Medical thriller about a kid with a lot wrong him. Hospital administrators hope to harvest his organs, but his family are in the way. Seems more plausible all the time.
The Heist by Clive Cussler; It’s 1913, and the Federal Reserve is about to release the first shipment of greenbacks across the country. The trouble with having a lot of money, is somebody always wants to steal it, hence the title. After solving a locked room mystery, Isaac Bell gets on the case. The action never stops, but it seems weird to read about The Federal Reserve as good guys.