Sarah Weinman reviews an old and still compelling mystery novel, Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios: “Even though Ambler spends the bulk of “Coffin” poking fun at his protagonist’s idealized concepts of murder—and by extension the mystery genre’s still-strong desire to create entertainment out of bloodshed—ironies abound.”
Category Archives: Fiction
The Woods, by Harlan Coben
Paul Copeland, the hero of The Woods, is a county prosecutor in New Jersey. He is currently handling a case which looks very reminiscent of the Duke lacrosse team rape case a few years back (but which, he insists in his Afterword, is in no way connected. He came up with the idea before the Duke case happened. Such things do occur).
Paul has had a rough time in life. He’s the son of Russian immigrants who suffered greatly under Soviet rule. His father died recently. His wife died of cancer a few years ago. His mother disappeared years back, and never made contact again.
But worst of all was what happened one terrible night twenty years ago. He was a camp counselor, charged with security that night, but he went off with his girlfriend to make out instead. While they were having sex, four campers were murdered, though only two bodies were ever found in the deep woods. One of the missing was his own sister. Continue reading The Woods, by Harlan Coben
Vote for the Million Writers Award
The Sixth Million Writers Award is now open for voting on the top ten short stories published online. You can read the stories from the list and then vote for them on another page. If you participate, let us know what you think about it all.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
If you don’t talk about the trouble in your community, does the trouble still exist? That’s the question Miss Eugenia Phelan faces in 1963 when she begins asking the colored women of Jackson, Mississippi, what it’s like to work as maids for white families. Many things could be said, but the maids don’t want to talk and the white women wouldn’t know what to talk about if asked.
For them, racism is a lifestyle they cannot recognize. It isn’t only the unjust acceptance of a black boy being beaten for using the wrong bathroom. None of the main characters in this novel would do something horrible like that, but many of them do believe the maids are essentially unlike their employers. They probably carry Negro diseases. They are intellectually inferior. And if one of them act as if there is no difference between whites and blacks, they may as well be insulting the family. All of this is condoned by those who claim to disbelieve it, because it isn’t what they believe that counts in many cases. It’s what Mississippi believes.
Kathryn Stockett’s beautiful debut novel, The Help, is told masterfully by three narrators: Continue reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Odd Hours, by Dean Koontz
What could be better than a new Odd Thomas book in paperback?
I’ve said before that I consider Dean Koontz less than an ideal author in the technical sense. His word choices are sometimes poor, and he’s not always as funny as he thinks he is.
On the other hand, he continues to improve as he works. And as he’s found his voice and theme as an author, his books have become—taken as a whole—sources of joy; almost means of grace.
Technically, Koontz is a horror writer. But the average horror writer explores the mystery of evil. Koontz has taken on a much more difficult task, exploring the mystery of goodness. Anyone who’s ever tried to create a good character that is neither a prig nor a wuss understands how brilliant Koontz’s achievement has been, the creation of innumerable characters who are good without being insufferable.
Chief among these is Odd Thomas, almost his only continuing character.
Odd Hours is the fourth Odd Thomas novel, and is just as good as the others. Continue reading Odd Hours, by Dean Koontz
The Porkchoppers, by Ross Thomas
I went through a Ross Thomas phrase quite a few years ago, and once I’d gotten a little ways into The Porkchoppers, I realized I’d already read this one. But that was OK. I’d forgotten who did what—not that that was the chief delight of the book anyway.
Ross Thomas (he passed away, much regretted, in 1995) specialized in quirky, cynical crime novels featuring low-life characters who nevertheless were recognizably human and, to one degree or another, sympathetic. He could also be very funny. He wrote political novels too, and the way Thomas portrayed it, politics wasn’t much different from crime.
The world of labor union politics would seem custom made for Thomas’ method, and the master does not disappoint. The Porkchoppers (“porkchopper” is union slang for an officer primarily concerned with his own personal benefits), first published 1972, centers on Donald Cubbin, long-time head of a major union. Cubbin is almost the walking definition of an “empty suit”—he never really cared much about the job, and is mostly operating on autopilot nowadays, his alcoholism having become acute. His real dream in life was to be a Hollywood actor, and he nearly got the chance once—a missed opportunity that still haunts him. He has a personal handler who keeps his booze level topped up, and his much younger wife is sleeping with someone else.
He’s largely a sympathetic character.
His election opponent is Sammy Hanks, a hard-driving, ugly little scrapper who seems like a better candidate in many ways—except that he’s slightly psychotic, and occasionally goes into uncontrollable, spitting tantrums.
Very powerful, very wealthy men are highly interested in the results of this election. The very opening of the novel informs us that a murder contract has been taken out on Cubbin.
But it’s not as simple as that.
The most sympathetic character in the book is Cubbin’s son Kelly, a failed policeman. He’s kind and honest, and (thus far) untouched by the corruption all around him, though he also takes it for granted. He supplies his dad with drinks without qualms.
Thomas has the rare gift of empathizing with his characters without sentimentality. He shows his reader the wheels within wheels of power, and it’s a fascinating tour.
If there’s a lesson or a moral, I have no idea what it is. But I enjoyed the trip.
West Oversea WOOT!
I just bought two copies of Lars’ latest on the Nordskog Publishing page. Order your copies there too and take a look at those reader blurb to see some names we’ve seen here.
Next stop, a campaign to get West Oversea chosen for many city-wide reading programs throughout the country. (I’m kidding actually, but I wonder how something like that could be done.)
On the Best and Worst of Culture
Richard Doster has a novel coming this June, Crossing the Lines, about a sports writer who explores the reasons southern culture can produce beautiful artwork and entertainment while also rejecting the black people around them. Segregation and oppression appears to have inspired great music and literature.
I watched the Mississippi pass, wondering what would matter in a thousand years. And who, when my great grandchildren ran the business, would have had the more profound effect on the world: W. A. Gayle, the mayor of Montgomery, or Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records? Who, fifty years from now, would have had the greater impact: Marvin Griffin, the governor of Georgia—a man who had power, influence, and more friends than a movie star? Or Martin Luther King, a Negro pastor who couldn’t get a seat in most of Atlanta’s restaurants?
B.B. King once played on street corners to pay his power bill. Howling Wolf had played in overalls and cut up shoes. I’d listened to Willie Kizart make a miracle through a cracked amplifier he couldn’t afford to fix. And I wondered, there on the east bank of the Mississippi, who’d done more to make the world better: them, or the Arkansas state legislator Jim Johnson?
Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben
Hold Tight is a mystery. It’s also a thriller and a family drama. It’s not at all like the kind of mystery/thriller I usually read, but it grabbed me almost painfully.
I read and reviewed one Coben novel a while back, and felt ambivalent about it. I decided to try another because I’d read an interesting thing about Coben. He’s made it a point to write his most recent books without using major obscenities. No “f” words. No “sh” words. I can’t find anything that says he has any particular religious devotion; he just seems to be concerned about raising the level of discourse. Which earned my respect, and prompted me to give him another try.
Hold Tight is about families in a suburban community—how they love each other and irritate each other, and (most importantly) mistrust each other and keep secrets. Continue reading Hold Tight, by Harlan Coben
JRR Tolkien’s New Book
The great J.R.R. Tolkien (may he live forever) has yet another work coming out this week, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. The Tolkien Library has an FAQ on the book, saying the legend will be released as Tolkien wrote it, not in a heavily edited version. This material was written before The Hobbit and after his translation of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” while the professor was teaching Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. Of note is the introduction, also written by Tolkien. “Introducing the work is one of Tolkien’s lectures on Norse literature, so you get to ‘hear’ the voice of the author as he would have spoken when introducing the legends to students.”
One U.K. newspaper reports The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun was already one of the country’s most pre-ordered titles back in February. The reviewer said, “As in all good sagas, there is a lot of betrayal, love, slaughter, and in the Norse tradition: dragons, dwarves, wolves, kings, queens, golden hoards and a lot of drinking.”