by Ian Rankin
This is one of my favourite mystery writers and he did not disappoint with this one.
A body is discovered, with handcuffs around its ankles, in an area that has long been searched.
It turns out the dead person disappeared several years ago. As soon as John Rebus hears the news he is quite sure he knows who the person is. It was a case he worked on years ago. He is retired but keeps trying to insert himself into the investigation along with Siobhan Clarke and Malcom Fox (who is working on the edge of the case, reviewing what was done in the original investigation). Fox is finding out that the police were not necessarily doing everything by the book, they were covering for officers with drinking problems and others having affairs on work time. Some dirt could come out about Rebus.
Siobhan is having her own problems, she recently came under review and is still stinging from that.
And Siobhan is getting harassing phone calls.
As the story develops it turns out that two crooked cops who are trying to tarnish Rebus, Shioban and Fox, had some involvement with the circumstances leading up to this murder. Rebus makes it his mission to reveal their deeds and success
While he is trying to keep involved with this case Rebus is also trying to investigate the case of a young man who is in prison for murdering his girlfriend. The boy does not wish to admit the truth to protect his sister.
These books always have interesting characters, lots of tension and great plots.
Very interesting read.
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Monday, 19 August 2019
Big Sky
by Kate Atkinson
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
This book is part of her mystery series with Jackson Brodie, a former cop. I read another book of hers, Started Early, Took my Dog. I enjoyed it.
This is the fourth book in the series and I enjoyed it. She has a great knack for writing interesting characters and very creative plots. In this book Jackson Brodie has left the police force, under unsettling circumstances?? He is now working as a private investigator. In his current case he is tailing an adulterer. He is bored with the assignment but the wife of the man wants him to keep tracking her husband.
While Brodie is doing this job another story develops about four golf buddies, three of whom are human traffickers and one who is despondent because he has lost his job and his wife is divorcing him taking everything.
There is another minor part of the story in which Brodie witnesses what he thinks is a child luring.
There are numerous quirky characters in the book, a "trophy" wife who was herself a victim of trafficking. She does not know til the end that her husband is doing this. She has a stepson and a daughter who has a wardrobe of Disney heroine costumes. There is a drag queen, a washed up comedian and much more.
There are also two junior detectives who are trying to track information on an old case to do with a pair of criminals that were involved in a number of criminal activities.
One of the wives of the golfers is murdered. The two cops arrive on the scene when they are seeking the woman's husband. They are excited to be involved with a murder but are soon shuttled off to routine paperwork and questioning regarding the old case. They arrive at the home of the woman's husband (the one who is getting divorced) to question him as part of their investigation and are there when officers arrive to tell him his wife is dead... the detectives did not know he was the victims husband.
Brodie gets "involved" when he is walking his dog and stops the dead woman's husband from jumping off a cliff.
In the end the trafficking ring starts to fall apart because one girl commits suicide and one runs away and is found by the detectives as they are seeking another of the golfers.... they don't find the boy and girl (children of the trophy wife) who are also being held captive in the trailers they visit.
In the end one of the trafficked women shots one of the traffickers but Brodie convinces the women detectives... who have again bumbled into the action, to say that one of the traffickers shot one of his partners.
Brodie is willing to bend the truth in the interests of common sense justice. He also finds that the girl that he thought he was lured has indeed been held captive and her kidnapper is arrested.
A complicated but very interesting story. It seems strange to say it was funny but parts of it were quite comic or tragi-comic.
Thursday, 18 July 2019
The Sun is Also a Star
by Nicola Yoon
This YA book is about two teenagers in New York City and a day in their life. A young Korean man who is being pushed to be a doctor by his parents and who is bullied by his older brother who got kicked out of Harvard, meets a Jamaican girl who is scheduled to be deported that day because her father got caught for DUI and the police discovered he and his family are illegal aliens.
Like the father in Paris by the Book, this father had dreams which have been thwarted. He wants to be a successful actor but feels perhaps that having a family has hampered his success. The young woman, his daughter, wants to stay in the U.S. and go to University so while her family is packing she makes more attempt to get their removal order overturned.
The boy notices the girl as she is walking down the street. He is supposed to be taking a cash deposit to his father at the family's store, getting a haircut and preparing for an interview for admission to Yale. Instead he starts following the girl and falling head over heels in love with her. When he saves her from stepping off the curb and getting hit by a car they meet. He tries to convince her to love him by asking her various questions from a website. She says she only believes in science.
As the day goes on they become friendly and affectionate. The girl sees a lawyer who tells her that he thinks he can get a judge to overturn her removal order. Coincidentally it appears this lawyer was hit by the driver who almost hit the young girl. The shock the lawyer received has made him realize he is in love with his secretary. So instead of going to the judge he has sex with his secretary. He later lies and tells the girl that the judge would not agree to the change.
He had planned to fire the secretary. However when the Korean boy shows up at his office for his Yale interview and tells him how much he loves the girl and wants her to stay, the lawyer decides he must leave his wife for the secretary.
This means the two teens who have now fallen in love will not be able to stay together. The boy accompanies her to the airport. They keep in touch for a while but gradually drop contact. The author had done a great job of building up the passion between the two kids from a one sided infatuation to mutual affection. The girl kept trying to keep him away but he gradually won her over. The innocence of the boy was well presented and the hard-nosed realism of the girl too.
The author does have an alternate ending where a decade later the two of them are on an airplane (together??).
The book makes one think about all the people we encounter as we go about our day. We don't really notice them, pay attention to them and their stories.
The story was interesting. Each chapter was only two or three pages long, each written from the perspective of the boy or girl or other characters in the story. It was an interesting way to develop the story. Of course all the many coincidence in the book were contrived and one expected that things would work out so they could stay together.... but it didn't happen... that is life, nothing that easy ever really works out. It was a cute story. It is being made into a movie. It will be interesting to see how they translate the approach taken in the book into a movie script.
This YA book is about two teenagers in New York City and a day in their life. A young Korean man who is being pushed to be a doctor by his parents and who is bullied by his older brother who got kicked out of Harvard, meets a Jamaican girl who is scheduled to be deported that day because her father got caught for DUI and the police discovered he and his family are illegal aliens.
Like the father in Paris by the Book, this father had dreams which have been thwarted. He wants to be a successful actor but feels perhaps that having a family has hampered his success. The young woman, his daughter, wants to stay in the U.S. and go to University so while her family is packing she makes more attempt to get their removal order overturned.
The boy notices the girl as she is walking down the street. He is supposed to be taking a cash deposit to his father at the family's store, getting a haircut and preparing for an interview for admission to Yale. Instead he starts following the girl and falling head over heels in love with her. When he saves her from stepping off the curb and getting hit by a car they meet. He tries to convince her to love him by asking her various questions from a website. She says she only believes in science.
As the day goes on they become friendly and affectionate. The girl sees a lawyer who tells her that he thinks he can get a judge to overturn her removal order. Coincidentally it appears this lawyer was hit by the driver who almost hit the young girl. The shock the lawyer received has made him realize he is in love with his secretary. So instead of going to the judge he has sex with his secretary. He later lies and tells the girl that the judge would not agree to the change.
He had planned to fire the secretary. However when the Korean boy shows up at his office for his Yale interview and tells him how much he loves the girl and wants her to stay, the lawyer decides he must leave his wife for the secretary.
This means the two teens who have now fallen in love will not be able to stay together. The boy accompanies her to the airport. They keep in touch for a while but gradually drop contact. The author had done a great job of building up the passion between the two kids from a one sided infatuation to mutual affection. The girl kept trying to keep him away but he gradually won her over. The innocence of the boy was well presented and the hard-nosed realism of the girl too.
The author does have an alternate ending where a decade later the two of them are on an airplane (together??).
The book makes one think about all the people we encounter as we go about our day. We don't really notice them, pay attention to them and their stories.
The story was interesting. Each chapter was only two or three pages long, each written from the perspective of the boy or girl or other characters in the story. It was an interesting way to develop the story. Of course all the many coincidence in the book were contrived and one expected that things would work out so they could stay together.... but it didn't happen... that is life, nothing that easy ever really works out. It was a cute story. It is being made into a movie. It will be interesting to see how they translate the approach taken in the book into a movie script.
Paris by the Book
by Liam Callanan
This book is by the author of the popular book The Cloud Atlas.
Some of the reviews of this book describe it as a romance set in the romantic, evocative city of Paris. This is too simplistic a reading of the book. Some praise it as about a woman finding herself. Rather, I think it is a tribute to a woman trying to cope and a childish man who doesn't want to grow up.
The book is about a family, two parents and their daughters, but it is largely about the parents.
The parents meet when the mother steals a book from a bookstore. She is a film studies student fascinated by the film the Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse, which is set in Paris. The father is a fan of the Madeline books of Ludwig Bemelmans, also set in Paris. Both would like to get to Paris but finances don't permit.
The couple marry and the man continues to pursue his career as an author. The woman gives up her film aspirations and becomes a speechwriter for a local college. The husband is not as successful as he would like to be and is very moody. He often leaves to go off to do writing. His wife does her best to keep the family together. One day the husband disappears and does not return. His wife while searching the house finds a clue in a box of cereal. She discovers that her husband bought tickets to Paris. She thinks that must be where he has gone. She rents out their house and sets off to Paris.
While in Paris she gets a cheque, royalties for a story/book her husband wrote. She decides to stay in Paris, enrolls her girls in school and makes arrangement to purchase an English language bookstore in Paris with the money they received.
A family friend tells her that police believe her husband died when he took a boat out onto a lake and encourages her to take steps to get him declared legally dead. The woman and her daughter refuse to believe his is dead. Particularly since strange things happen, for e.g. she finds one of his books in the bookstore with the words "I'm sorry" written in it, and her daughters think they have seen him at times in Paris.
Near the end of the book the husband does show up. He tells her he didn't really intend to disappear, he was just in a bad state and didn't want to be hospitalized and drugged. He tells her he has been watching them in Paris and didn't reconnect because they all seemed happy. Little did he know how sad all of them were, missing him, not knowing what had happened to him.
I have to say I found the husband's behaviour frustrating and hard to understand. I can understand that he got depressed and needed to leave for a while. It seems he just wanted his wife to be as playful, adoring and unquestioning as she was when they first married. However, while he seems stuck in his fantasy to be an acclaimed author, she has been worn down by the burden and the reality of running the family and dealing with him and his moods. In an interview the man said he doesn't believe in writers block, but this is what appears to have happened to him.
While he claims to love his kids how could he just walk away and leave them in limbo? He says he watched them and they seemed happy without him... I think that is just and excuse for his self-absorption and irresponsibility. Just as many people fantasize about Paris and its romantic appeal, I think the man and his wife both have childish obsessions with the city, at least when they first meet.
When the husband shows up in Paris he admits he did go back to see his family after his disappearance but by then his wife had found the clue about the airplane tickets to Paris and set off to Paris to find him. He found the family home had been rented. He was shocked at this, but also not surprised. It appears he did follow them to Paris but decided to spy on them rather than make contact. What would have happened if his family had still been in Milwaukee? Would anything be different? Would he have stayed with his family or left again? I suspect he would have left again and the fact that his family was gone justified his continuing abandonment of them.
The husband has written a successful novel, a bit like the story of their life except in his book the wife is the author. He submits the book to a publisher in the wife's name and she gets all the royalties.
The woman does not tell her children that their father is still alive. It is probably easier for them that way than to try to understand why he has left them.
As the book ends the old woman who was the wife's partner in the bookstore tells the woman she has to leave the store. The woman goes back to school to study film making.
I found the book hard to take, all the intrigue and coincidences are a bit cheesy. I found the husband completely unsympathetic and frustrating. He should have gone to the family and explained his position without making them suffer so long not knowing what had happened to him. Beyond the story line itself I found the book not all that easy or interesting to read. Other reviews I have read also commented that it was disappointing, hard to get engaged with.
I think the characters disappointment that life didn't turn out to be entirely the way they wanted it to be was lame.... this happens to most people as they have children and their lives have to adjust to family life. Not everyone has to give up on their dreams but they do have to make accommodations for the changes that occur in their lives. Just as life doesn't always work out the way we thought it would, Paris probably doesn't live up to people's romantic notions about the city.
The way the book ends, with the wife saying she doesn't really read anymore, might be a hint that the author himself is suffering some of the angst, and writer's block of the woman's husband. I guess time will tell....
This book is by the author of the popular book The Cloud Atlas.
Some of the reviews of this book describe it as a romance set in the romantic, evocative city of Paris. This is too simplistic a reading of the book. Some praise it as about a woman finding herself. Rather, I think it is a tribute to a woman trying to cope and a childish man who doesn't want to grow up.
The book is about a family, two parents and their daughters, but it is largely about the parents.
The parents meet when the mother steals a book from a bookstore. She is a film studies student fascinated by the film the Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse, which is set in Paris. The father is a fan of the Madeline books of Ludwig Bemelmans, also set in Paris. Both would like to get to Paris but finances don't permit.
The couple marry and the man continues to pursue his career as an author. The woman gives up her film aspirations and becomes a speechwriter for a local college. The husband is not as successful as he would like to be and is very moody. He often leaves to go off to do writing. His wife does her best to keep the family together. One day the husband disappears and does not return. His wife while searching the house finds a clue in a box of cereal. She discovers that her husband bought tickets to Paris. She thinks that must be where he has gone. She rents out their house and sets off to Paris.
While in Paris she gets a cheque, royalties for a story/book her husband wrote. She decides to stay in Paris, enrolls her girls in school and makes arrangement to purchase an English language bookstore in Paris with the money they received.
A family friend tells her that police believe her husband died when he took a boat out onto a lake and encourages her to take steps to get him declared legally dead. The woman and her daughter refuse to believe his is dead. Particularly since strange things happen, for e.g. she finds one of his books in the bookstore with the words "I'm sorry" written in it, and her daughters think they have seen him at times in Paris.
Near the end of the book the husband does show up. He tells her he didn't really intend to disappear, he was just in a bad state and didn't want to be hospitalized and drugged. He tells her he has been watching them in Paris and didn't reconnect because they all seemed happy. Little did he know how sad all of them were, missing him, not knowing what had happened to him.
I have to say I found the husband's behaviour frustrating and hard to understand. I can understand that he got depressed and needed to leave for a while. It seems he just wanted his wife to be as playful, adoring and unquestioning as she was when they first married. However, while he seems stuck in his fantasy to be an acclaimed author, she has been worn down by the burden and the reality of running the family and dealing with him and his moods. In an interview the man said he doesn't believe in writers block, but this is what appears to have happened to him.
While he claims to love his kids how could he just walk away and leave them in limbo? He says he watched them and they seemed happy without him... I think that is just and excuse for his self-absorption and irresponsibility. Just as many people fantasize about Paris and its romantic appeal, I think the man and his wife both have childish obsessions with the city, at least when they first meet.
When the husband shows up in Paris he admits he did go back to see his family after his disappearance but by then his wife had found the clue about the airplane tickets to Paris and set off to Paris to find him. He found the family home had been rented. He was shocked at this, but also not surprised. It appears he did follow them to Paris but decided to spy on them rather than make contact. What would have happened if his family had still been in Milwaukee? Would anything be different? Would he have stayed with his family or left again? I suspect he would have left again and the fact that his family was gone justified his continuing abandonment of them.
The husband has written a successful novel, a bit like the story of their life except in his book the wife is the author. He submits the book to a publisher in the wife's name and she gets all the royalties.
The woman does not tell her children that their father is still alive. It is probably easier for them that way than to try to understand why he has left them.
As the book ends the old woman who was the wife's partner in the bookstore tells the woman she has to leave the store. The woman goes back to school to study film making.
I found the book hard to take, all the intrigue and coincidences are a bit cheesy. I found the husband completely unsympathetic and frustrating. He should have gone to the family and explained his position without making them suffer so long not knowing what had happened to him. Beyond the story line itself I found the book not all that easy or interesting to read. Other reviews I have read also commented that it was disappointing, hard to get engaged with.
I think the characters disappointment that life didn't turn out to be entirely the way they wanted it to be was lame.... this happens to most people as they have children and their lives have to adjust to family life. Not everyone has to give up on their dreams but they do have to make accommodations for the changes that occur in their lives. Just as life doesn't always work out the way we thought it would, Paris probably doesn't live up to people's romantic notions about the city.
The way the book ends, with the wife saying she doesn't really read anymore, might be a hint that the author himself is suffering some of the angst, and writer's block of the woman's husband. I guess time will tell....
Thursday, 30 May 2019
Library of Lost and Found
by Phaedra Patrick
This is the story of an older woman, Martha, who is a volunteer at her local library. Martha is very stressed and sad. Her house is cluttered with things she needs to sort through and work she has volunteered to do for others. She feels frustrated because she keeps applying for a permanent job at the library but is never successful despite how hard she works as a volunteer.
She feels she has wasted her life. She gave up a man she loved to come and look after her aged parents. Her sister did little to help out because she has a husband and children. Martha did not get along with her parents. She felt her father was too strict and wouldn't let them have any fun. He did not like her associating with her grandmother, he felt the grandmother was a bad influence on her. She resents her mother because she felt her mother never stood up to her husband.
One day a parcel arrives on her doorstep. When she opens it she finds it is a published book of stories she and her grandmother had made up when she was a child. She is even more shocked when she sees the book is dedicated to her by her grandmother, three years after her grandmother supposedly died.
With the help of a bookseller she is able to track down another copy of the book and also, eventually is reunited with her grandmother who is ill but still alive.
As the book goes on Martha finally blows up at all the demands on her. She eventually learns why her grandmother disappeared so many years ago... her father had told her to disappear as she had revealed some embarrassing info at an anniversary celebration. Martha was sick and never learned that the man she thought of as her father was not her biological father, but a fisherman who died in a storm. She can now understand why her father may not have been as close to her.
Eventually Martha reunites with her grandmother and the remaining family is reunited. She may even develop a romantic relationship with the bookstore owner.
The book shows that we cannot change our past but we can change how it impacts us and we can overcome our feelings of inadequacy.
I thought it was a very interesting story. It kept my interest from beginning to end. The author did a great job of presenting the sad little librarian/perfectionist.
This is the story of an older woman, Martha, who is a volunteer at her local library. Martha is very stressed and sad. Her house is cluttered with things she needs to sort through and work she has volunteered to do for others. She feels frustrated because she keeps applying for a permanent job at the library but is never successful despite how hard she works as a volunteer.
She feels she has wasted her life. She gave up a man she loved to come and look after her aged parents. Her sister did little to help out because she has a husband and children. Martha did not get along with her parents. She felt her father was too strict and wouldn't let them have any fun. He did not like her associating with her grandmother, he felt the grandmother was a bad influence on her. She resents her mother because she felt her mother never stood up to her husband.
One day a parcel arrives on her doorstep. When she opens it she finds it is a published book of stories she and her grandmother had made up when she was a child. She is even more shocked when she sees the book is dedicated to her by her grandmother, three years after her grandmother supposedly died.
With the help of a bookseller she is able to track down another copy of the book and also, eventually is reunited with her grandmother who is ill but still alive.
As the book goes on Martha finally blows up at all the demands on her. She eventually learns why her grandmother disappeared so many years ago... her father had told her to disappear as she had revealed some embarrassing info at an anniversary celebration. Martha was sick and never learned that the man she thought of as her father was not her biological father, but a fisherman who died in a storm. She can now understand why her father may not have been as close to her.
Eventually Martha reunites with her grandmother and the remaining family is reunited. She may even develop a romantic relationship with the bookstore owner.
The book shows that we cannot change our past but we can change how it impacts us and we can overcome our feelings of inadequacy.
I thought it was a very interesting story. It kept my interest from beginning to end. The author did a great job of presenting the sad little librarian/perfectionist.
Friday, 10 May 2019
Spring
by Ali Smith
This is the third book, in a series, that I have read by this author. I just read my comments on the previous book, Winter. I commented that I hoped "Spring" would not be as depressing as "Winter".
Well, it wasn't really.....
The book has a few references to new life and growth in spring but... it doesn't really seem to be regenerative or hopeful. One of the book reviews I read calls this the darkest book.
The story makes references to climate change, Brexit and Trump
The first chapter is like a stream of consciousness rant. The second chapter "I'm the child who's been buried in leaves, the leaves rot down, here I am". No idea who this is, she doesn't seem to appear else where in the book.
Then we meet Richard Lease, TV and Film Director, who is struggling with a script he doesn't want to work on. He is distraught after the death of a female friend and Mentor. He leaves his home, throws away his phone and heads out of London on a train going he knows not where.
Then we meet Brit who is working as a guard at an Immigrant detention centre. It sounds like a horrid place and a horrid job. Rumours start circulating that a young girl entered the facility, no one knows how she got in our got through security. She apparently met with the Head of the Centre and after that cleaning crews cleaned all the bathrooms in the place.
One day Brit is on her way to work and at a train station she is approached by a young girl in a school uniform. The girl says she wants to get a a location on a post card she has and heads to the train. Surprisingly no one asks her for a ticket . She gets on a train and Brit follows her.
They head north and eventually get to a train station where Richard has decided to commit suicide by lying down on the train tracks. The little girl spots him and he is rescued.
Then the three of them head off to the girls desired destination driven by a woman in a coffee wagon that doesn't really sell coffee or anything else. It turns out that the driver is one of a group of volunteers who try to help immigrants. It seems that the young girl hopes to find her mother.
When they arrive at the destination, a battlefield, Brit calls in to her agency and there is a raid. The driver is arrested and Richard and the young girl are taken away.
We never learn what has happened to the girl or the driver but at the end of the book Richard is doing a documentary about the volunteers who work to help the immigrants.
This was a powerful book but disturbing too. I am afraid the last book Summer won't have much Sunshine when it comes out. She is an amazing author.
This is the third book, in a series, that I have read by this author. I just read my comments on the previous book, Winter. I commented that I hoped "Spring" would not be as depressing as "Winter".
Well, it wasn't really.....
The book has a few references to new life and growth in spring but... it doesn't really seem to be regenerative or hopeful. One of the book reviews I read calls this the darkest book.
The story makes references to climate change, Brexit and Trump
The first chapter is like a stream of consciousness rant. The second chapter "I'm the child who's been buried in leaves, the leaves rot down, here I am". No idea who this is, she doesn't seem to appear else where in the book.
Then we meet Richard Lease, TV and Film Director, who is struggling with a script he doesn't want to work on. He is distraught after the death of a female friend and Mentor. He leaves his home, throws away his phone and heads out of London on a train going he knows not where.
Then we meet Brit who is working as a guard at an Immigrant detention centre. It sounds like a horrid place and a horrid job. Rumours start circulating that a young girl entered the facility, no one knows how she got in our got through security. She apparently met with the Head of the Centre and after that cleaning crews cleaned all the bathrooms in the place.
One day Brit is on her way to work and at a train station she is approached by a young girl in a school uniform. The girl says she wants to get a a location on a post card she has and heads to the train. Surprisingly no one asks her for a ticket . She gets on a train and Brit follows her.
They head north and eventually get to a train station where Richard has decided to commit suicide by lying down on the train tracks. The little girl spots him and he is rescued.
Then the three of them head off to the girls desired destination driven by a woman in a coffee wagon that doesn't really sell coffee or anything else. It turns out that the driver is one of a group of volunteers who try to help immigrants. It seems that the young girl hopes to find her mother.
When they arrive at the destination, a battlefield, Brit calls in to her agency and there is a raid. The driver is arrested and Richard and the young girl are taken away.
We never learn what has happened to the girl or the driver but at the end of the book Richard is doing a documentary about the volunteers who work to help the immigrants.
This was a powerful book but disturbing too. I am afraid the last book Summer won't have much Sunshine when it comes out. She is an amazing author.
Mr. Flood's Last Resort
by Jess Kidd
This is an interesting, but a bit bizarre book.
It is the story of a care giver who is assigned to give care to a cantankerous old man. He is a hoarder and hard to get along with. He has been warned this is his last chance to behave or he will be put in a care home. The care worker learns that the previous caregiver had a breakdown from working with the man.
The caregiver, Maud, has a ghost in her past, her older sister disappeared one day and no one knows what happened to her. Maud's mother blames her for her sister's disappearance.
When Maud arrives at Mr. Flood's house it is a mess, cluttered, dirty, with lots of cats. She dives in trying to get some order in the kitchen. Mr Flood is annoyed that she is there. She keeps calm and puts up with his outbursts, eventually he stops being so grumpy. Mr. Flood has piles of National Geographic magazine blocking the way to most of the house including the upstairs but Maud squeezes through the magazines and prowls around the house. She sees a lot of bizarre specimens and a picture of Mr. Flood's wife.
One day a picture is stuck to the window in the kitchen. As Maud is cleaning the kitchen she finds a glass bottle with a paper rolled up in it. Maud looks at it she sees it is a picture of two children, a boy and a girl. The girl's face is burned out of the photo. Maud is curious about this. When she asks Mr. Flood he says he only has a son, whom he despises and doesn't trust. Maud also learns that Mr. Flood's wife died after falling down the stairs at the house. Was she killed or was it an accident?
Maud was raised Catholic and one of her favourite books was about Saints. In the story she now has various saints including St. Valentine who hover around her at times reacting to what is going on and sometimes even talking to her. No one else can see them.
Maud's landlord is an agrophobic transvestite named Renata. Renata is a mystery fanatic and when Maud tells her about her job with Mr. Flood Renata gets excited about solving the mysteries.
As the story progresses Maud meets a person who claims to be the man's son, Gabriel. Mr. Flood denies he is is son. She also meets another man who claims to be the former care worker.
As Maud and Renata seek to learn the truth Maud finds a number of newspaper clippings about a missing girl. She eventually finds out that the floods had a daughter Marguerite who attempted to kill Gabriel. She was put in an institution but kept escaping.
At one point Renata's house is ransacked and she is roughed up too. They get worried as to who would be trying to warn them off.
Eventually Maud discovers that Marguerite and the missing girl are the same person, Marguerite had started to use a different name. She also learns, with the help of a psychic that there is a body at the bottom of the well on the Flood property.
In the end we learn that Gabriel, and his cousin Stephen had killed Marguerite when she returned to the house and it is she who is at the bottom of the well. While it appeared that Mr Flood was grief stricken at the loss of his wife we learn that his wife was initially married to Mr. Flood's brother and when the brother died Mr. Flood married her. It probably was not a happy marriage.
His wife was the one who had all the money and Flood tried to take control of it but gradually she was able to get back her fortune and in her will she was supposed to have directed that after flood's death all money from the assets should go to the institution her daughter was in. We learn that the Mother knew what her son and the cousin had done but she loved the son so much she never reported this to the police. We also learn that for some reason (never explained) the son was pretending to be the care giver and the cousin was pretending to be the son.
At the end of the book Maud, Renata and a retired policeman go back to Renata's childhood village to face the past. The saints are no longer around.
It was a very interesting, somewhat bizarre story. It is not often that you have a story where so many characters are bad, or all have done bad things. It seems like all the Flood family were bad.
Stephen
This is an interesting, but a bit bizarre book.
It is the story of a care giver who is assigned to give care to a cantankerous old man. He is a hoarder and hard to get along with. He has been warned this is his last chance to behave or he will be put in a care home. The care worker learns that the previous caregiver had a breakdown from working with the man.
The caregiver, Maud, has a ghost in her past, her older sister disappeared one day and no one knows what happened to her. Maud's mother blames her for her sister's disappearance.
When Maud arrives at Mr. Flood's house it is a mess, cluttered, dirty, with lots of cats. She dives in trying to get some order in the kitchen. Mr Flood is annoyed that she is there. She keeps calm and puts up with his outbursts, eventually he stops being so grumpy. Mr. Flood has piles of National Geographic magazine blocking the way to most of the house including the upstairs but Maud squeezes through the magazines and prowls around the house. She sees a lot of bizarre specimens and a picture of Mr. Flood's wife.
One day a picture is stuck to the window in the kitchen. As Maud is cleaning the kitchen she finds a glass bottle with a paper rolled up in it. Maud looks at it she sees it is a picture of two children, a boy and a girl. The girl's face is burned out of the photo. Maud is curious about this. When she asks Mr. Flood he says he only has a son, whom he despises and doesn't trust. Maud also learns that Mr. Flood's wife died after falling down the stairs at the house. Was she killed or was it an accident?
Maud was raised Catholic and one of her favourite books was about Saints. In the story she now has various saints including St. Valentine who hover around her at times reacting to what is going on and sometimes even talking to her. No one else can see them.
Maud's landlord is an agrophobic transvestite named Renata. Renata is a mystery fanatic and when Maud tells her about her job with Mr. Flood Renata gets excited about solving the mysteries.
As the story progresses Maud meets a person who claims to be the man's son, Gabriel. Mr. Flood denies he is is son. She also meets another man who claims to be the former care worker.
As Maud and Renata seek to learn the truth Maud finds a number of newspaper clippings about a missing girl. She eventually finds out that the floods had a daughter Marguerite who attempted to kill Gabriel. She was put in an institution but kept escaping.
At one point Renata's house is ransacked and she is roughed up too. They get worried as to who would be trying to warn them off.
Eventually Maud discovers that Marguerite and the missing girl are the same person, Marguerite had started to use a different name. She also learns, with the help of a psychic that there is a body at the bottom of the well on the Flood property.
In the end we learn that Gabriel, and his cousin Stephen had killed Marguerite when she returned to the house and it is she who is at the bottom of the well. While it appeared that Mr Flood was grief stricken at the loss of his wife we learn that his wife was initially married to Mr. Flood's brother and when the brother died Mr. Flood married her. It probably was not a happy marriage.
His wife was the one who had all the money and Flood tried to take control of it but gradually she was able to get back her fortune and in her will she was supposed to have directed that after flood's death all money from the assets should go to the institution her daughter was in. We learn that the Mother knew what her son and the cousin had done but she loved the son so much she never reported this to the police. We also learn that for some reason (never explained) the son was pretending to be the care giver and the cousin was pretending to be the son.
At the end of the book Maud, Renata and a retired policeman go back to Renata's childhood village to face the past. The saints are no longer around.
It was a very interesting, somewhat bizarre story. It is not often that you have a story where so many characters are bad, or all have done bad things. It seems like all the Flood family were bad.
Stephen
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