2025 #18 Red Sky Hill (James) - Jake Cashen #4

 

Red Sky Hill: Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series, Book 4 by Declan James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75 stars
Well, I guess I'm fairly invested in the citizens of Worthington County by now. Red Sky Hill gives us a better look at the Knoxes and the Bardos, the latter familiar from the previous book. The book opens with the grisliest murder yet in the series, and we soon learn that relativism looms large as we see a whole lot of "wrong place, wrong time" and "in over his head" sorts of explanations for bad behavior. There is a definite red herring, but it turns out to be a bit more interesting than usual, because it calls up some moral questions for our detective Cashen, as well as others. This one does not wallow in wrestling or hunting, so I'm impressed that James has managed to keep these things contained to their respective books (for the most part). There is some sloppy editing--for example, Jake says "We'll burn that bridge when we get there" instead of "We'll cross that bridge when we get there" -- which made me laugh, but I don't think it was meant to. As far as the audiobook goes, Cendese is still great, although I noticed an unevenness and some obvious retakes in the recording.
His voicing of Meg Landry is still my favorite part of the entire series (as is her character) and I'd welcome a Meg-centric installment (or spin-off series). Disappointing here is that we get a Meg-centric subplot that fizzles out, although we hope it will be continued in the next book (Her Last Moment). If you haven't read the synopsis of Her Last Moment yet, do yourself a favor and do NOT, until you've finished this book. That's all I'll say.

View all my reviews

2025 #17 The Last Town (Crouch) - Wayward Pines #3

 

The Last Town by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This really swings back and forth between 3.75 and 4 stars for me.
No real spoilers here unless you haven't read the other two books in the trilogy, in which case you really shouldn't be reading reviews (any reviews) of this one.

--------------------
Surprisingly, I liked the ending. I even liked the epilogue---I never like epilogues. But, I have questions.

What happened to the solitaire-playing lady and the abbie? Maybe I missed it. I really thought we were going to go somewhere with that--maybe connect it back to Margaret. That was a welcome respite to the relentless violence. I would have rather than have been developed than the saccharine conversation between Ethan and Ben about an idealized future where they'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

The first quarter of the book was rough --- much like the endless fugitive scene in the first book (or was it the second?) this one spent way too long with the gory details--and they are truly that, gory.

Teresa gets to join Mae Holland (Dave Eggers's The Circle) in my winner's circle of obnoxious protagonists. The only time I liked her in this book was when she found the chutzpah to tell Ethan the truth and then told him to shut it when he started going all entitled macho man on her. But absolutely cringeworthy was the discussion with Hassler in the jail cell with Ben sitting right there. Have some self-respect, people. I guess maybe some people find that language romantic (Teresa's note, that we learned of in the previous book), but I don't (it isn't that I find it offensive...just doesn't make me feel a strong bond of love between two people...not sure what I was supposed to feel). Also, big UGH on her reasons for staying with Ethan.

I rather loved Kate and Hassler meeting up on the cliff, even if it did feel a bit cliché. David Pilcher's god-complex wore me down a bit, but I have to say that Max Meyers created such a picture in my mind--fantastic voicing.

This was a fun series -- it doesn't have the depth and sophistication of Dark Matter, Recursion, or Upgrade (admittedly, I didn't love the latter)--but it has a pretty good sense of beginning, middle, and end and enough moving parts to hold interest when the story gets too wrapped up in being an action movie.

View all my reviews

2025 #16: Strangers on a Train (Highsmith)

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not having had the benefit of seeing the Hitchcock film, I had no idea what I was getting into, only that I had heard great things about Patricia Highsmith.

What an interesting ride. It is yet another example of the victim-villain paradigm I talk about with my students that we see in twentieth-century opera. I think there are places that are a bit heavy-handed with the philosophical musing, particularly as Guy Haines's own grip on reality starts to loosen, but the book manages to be satisfyingly creepy, even though we are privy to almost everything that happens, as it happens. That Hitchcock took an interest in the novel makes me think he had a thing about boys and their mothers ---I'm not just talking about Charles Bruno, either. Guy Haines also had sort of a weird relationship with his mother. Neither quite at the Norman Bates level, but there does seem to be a theme... Maybe it was just the 1950s/60s...

I had trouble understanding how whiny psycho Bruno could so get under Haines's skin -- this was perhaps exacerbated by Bronson Pinchot's performance. It was, on the whole excellent, but every time Bruno would go into whining mode, I had to turn down the volume. I do get the implication--that we all have this evil switch inside of us that just needs the right set of circumstances to trigger, but I think I'm far enough removed from the social nicety of sharing a train car that I didn't really understand how the ball got rolling in the first place.

Still, it is a really intriguing book where you read with a constant knot in your throat because you know what's coming next, but you aren't sure when or how. In some respects, this is a more artistic type of suspense than the walk down the hallway with dark corners and spooky music. The hallway in this case is our own potential psychotic path.

View all my reviews

2025 #15 Kindred (Butler)

 

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

NB: I read the Kindle Anniversary edition with the foreword by Janelle Monae

Kindred is a powerful novel in many ways, particularly in the understated pragmatism of its protagonist, Dana. It seems surprising initially that Dana should be so accepting of her temporal quandary, but Butler seems to know that the surprise is best left to the reader. This leaves Dana to her "travels" and foregrounds instead, the shifts of identity and multi-faceted and nuanced problems of race, in a narrative that exists both then and now (relatively speaking). The reader may find themselves probing clear-cut binaries and assumptions, and struggling to understand some of Dana's choices--this is what makes her very compelling.

In Butler's antebellum south the metric is constantly shifting for what is "kinder", and enslaved persons are given dimension beyond their enslavement. In the Reader's guide, Robert Crossley notes, "One of the protagonist's--and Butler's--achievements in traveling to the past is to see individual slaves as people rather than as encrusted literary or sociological types." And later, "In a Butler novel the black protagonist is there, like the mountain, because she is there." Crossley's point is well-taken --particularly in the more speculative aspects of the fiction.

The ending might seem abrupt, because it is, but it also seemed fitting. The narrative isn't really about the "when" and the plot, as much as it is about how connected things can be across time and space. We see enough to understand, in two temporal contexts, and are left with an unsettling notion that the past, present, and future may be far more intertwined than we admit. The epilogue does actually need to be there (for once), not to tie up loose ends, but instead to loosen up the ends as such, to weave them into our understanding of where our imaginations might lead and how they might serve us in living a present that is much more conscious of the past.

View all my reviews

FTL2025 4B challenge KindreD ------->DEI Deconstructed (Zheng)

2025 #14 Birnam Wood (Catton)

 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.75 stars
It wasn't until after I read the book that I noted the "A savagely satirical thriller" description provided by a reviewer. This book made me rethink my general strategy of not reading about a book before engaging, although I may have taken that to the extreme here, since the description says "A gripping psychological thriller" so I shouldn't have been in the dark.

And speaking of dark...this book is just that. And it is not *just* a "psychological" thriller, so I feel that isn't exactly a fair description. I enjoyed the book, but felt it lacked subtlety. The (truly) bad guy is so evil that he spells out his nefarious plans for us, while we have to watch as he dupes the other characters in the book. His hand is shown too early on -- I started to feel just a general sense of dread waiting for it all to come to a head. We also are treated to a lot of narration about his scheming (as a personality trait):

"His goal had been to become so ambidextrous when it came to action and reaction, move and countermove, that he would reach the point where half the games he played were won by white, and half by black; only then, he'd told himself, could he really call himself a master."

Overwrought chess analogies aside, the description says "it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival" -- that's fair, although there's quite a bit of flinching going on in some respects. There are some real chances for character and relationship development that are stymied by the ending. Mira, the main protagonist, is a fascinating character:

"Like all self-mythologizing rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo."

Catton reveals Mira's layers through passages like this and the complexity of her character pushed the book toward four stars for me. The pacing is frustrating -- slow and leisurely at the beginning and then accelerando at the end. The catalyst for the accelerando makes for a fun (?) plot point, however, and we do get quite some classic suspense moves, and a game of cat and mouse with several mice and several loops.

The premise engages with politics in New Zealand and environmental issues and I felt myself wanting to know a bit more (as a reader not wholly familiar with New Zealand), and not especially via bickering characters. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and overall gives a great sense of the delicate balance (imbalance, perhaps) in which we operate as a society.

View all my reviews

2025 #13 Last Night in Montreal (Mandel)

 

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Melancholy and poignant, Last Night in Montreal invites the reader into an exploration of "not all who wander are lost" by expanding the meaning of being lost, and the meaning of wandering. Lilia is a wanderer, lost in her own forgetting, but not moving without aim. Eli wanders aimlessly in his own life, until his journey takes him to Montreal in search of something he didn't know he was looking for. Abduction and rescue are blurred, as are concepts of lost and found. The book is centered around the development of the characters, and while the plot is slow (by traditional standards), that's not the focus of the book. That said, I found myself a bit frustrated at the predictability of some of the plot points, although the point is not about the happening, but the secrecy and the invisible hold these events have on different characters. The juxtaposition of the father-daughter duos: Lilia and her father, and Christopher and Michaela, is artful and the dipping in and out of the past lends a much needed diversity to the plot, which could otherwise be subsumed (in the second half) by a perceived stalemate between Eli and Michaela. The book is heavy, cast in a sense of longing and learning lessons the hard way, but also very beautiful in its language and the way it lays bare human frailty (and strength).

I quibble quietly with a few characterizations, e.g. Eli's incompetence in French --one does not get to the level of writing a dissertation on dead languages with absolutely NO familiarity with French (or at least its roots). It is a bit frustrating to have so little backstory as to Lilia's scars, only because the act of violence is offered almost as an afterthought. I wanted to know more about Simon, the quiet hero.

It might be called a mystery, but more a mystery of the soul, rather than of plot. The book does not resort to clichés in the end (thank you), but the end of the novel feels a bit like an epilogue that tries hard to "tidy up" some of the loose threads. Still, one is well-advised to read (or listen) without worrying about the destination, as it truly is about the journey (with apologies for my own cliché).

View all my reviews

2025 #12 Every Day I Write the Book: Notes on Style (Kumar)

 

Every Day I Write the Book: Notes on Style by Amitava Kumar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kumar captures the quirks as well as the slings and arrows of writing in academia through a mish-mosh of anecdotes, short essays, and what feels at times to be scrapbooking (in a good way). The book is divided into nine parts: I) Self-Help; II) Writing A Book: A Brief History; III) Credos; IV) Form; V) Academic Interest; VI) Style; VII) Exercises; VIII) The Groves of Academe and IX) Materials.

Those interested in a writing "guide" can just skip to Appendix A: "Ten Rules of Writing", but as the strikeout text on the book's cover implies, this is not a guide (in the traditional sense) nor a report on style. Instead, it is a memoir (in parts) of a writing life, interspersed with nuggets of widsom, dry humor. Fans of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird may recognize Kumar's small pencil and folded index card that he carries in his pocket, and indeed many of his recommendations align with Lamott's, albeit with a slightly less sardonic tone.

While one would expect Kumar to be "well-read," he shares his knowledge pragmatically, without pomp, and always with clarity of meaning. We don't just get a vast bibliography shared through an eclectic set of "notes", but actual motivation to read those essays and books. There's an earthiness and honesty in Kumar's voice, that manages to critique academia while still acknowledging his own role within. A few bits felt more self-indulgent than instructive, although sometimes the shortest offerings packed a punch, such as the final note of part III: "Credos remain meaningless abstractions unless put to use." (68). He reminds us that one can read endlessly about writing, but to be a writer, one must... write. And let's face it -- reading about writing provides comfort, as if filling our brains with what we ought to do is a substitute for actually doing it (and is a better alternative to binge-watching television).

Struggling academic writers would be well-advised to keep this book close at hand, as even picking one bit of it at random might help jolt you out of a slump. It can also be read in small doses, rather than cover to cover, and I might even suggest out of order, depending on your need at one moment (although there's a certain joy to the sections Kumar offers, and fun little surprises such as the wit about credos mentioned above).


View all my reviews

FTL2025 3B challenge Every Day I write the BooK-----> Kindred by Octavia Butler