It seems like lately I’ve been reading a lot of debut novels. I didn’t plan it, but on several occasions I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Such was the case when I picked up “Bad things happen” by first time novelist Harry Dolan.
The book was unsettling for many reasons. First and foremost because the reader doesn’t know who the protagonist is for the bulk of the book. He is referred to for the most part as ‘the man who calls himself David Loogan’. Who is he really? An ex-cop (therefore a good guy) — an ex-felon (therefore a bad guy)? The reader is made tense by the possibilities.
Set in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the novel follows the solitary Loogan who accidentally befriends a periodical publisher, Tom Kristoll. He eventually works for Tom as an editor for Tom’s mystery magazine “Grey Streets”. In due course, Loogan has an affair with Tom’s beautiful wife. But life imitates the stories in ‘Grey Streets’. Plans go wrong, bad things happen, people die…
The second protagonist in the novel is female homicide detective Elizabeth Waishkey. When Tom Kristoll dies, she meets David Loogan and is unsure whether he is a suspect or someone who can help her solve the case.
Written in a ‘noir’ style, “Bad things happen” is a very promising debut which held my attention and my interest until the last page. The characterizations were deftly rendered. Difficult when the reader doesn’t really even know who the protagonist is! Bravo Harry Dolan!
If bibliophilia is an illness, then Henry Sullivan is terminal! Books are his work, his life and his love. A book Hound, Henry is a former bookstore employee who now buys and then resells books over the Internet from his home.
A single man in his mid-thirties, Henry’s days are marked by estate sales, library book sales and other quests for saleable books. He enjoys a regular pint and a game of chess with his friend and confidant Albert. He makes the trek across the city of Boston to visit his father whom he seems never to have actually connected with. He shares a passing word with his landlady whom he respects and admires.
His heretofore predictable, mundane life is upturned when his landlady dies. He learns he will soon be losing his rent controlled apartment when her house is sold. This development, though troubling, absolutely pales to insignificance when Morgan Johnson, an old flame, calls him to value her husband’s books. One wonders if he is thinking of rekindling the flame when he learns of Morgan’s death the day after his visit with her. She was an important part of his life in the past and he is profoundly disturbed by her passing. Her collection was very valuable but would someone kill her for it?
In attempting to discover how Morgan died Henry becomes enmeshed in her family’s secrets. She was the second wife of a prominent publisher and traveled extensively. Her family and extended family hid troubles, resentments and deceptions beneath a thin veneer of respectability that their wealth and renown afforded them. Was murder kept in the family as well?
Somewhat reminiscent of John Dunning’s Bookman novels, this is a mystery novel that is more novel than mystery. Literary in both style and subject, Hound is a novel for those who enjoy a more sedately paced story. If you are looking for action you won’t find it here. Filled with anecdotes and asides on bookselling and the love of reading, Vincent McCaffrey’s love for books absolutely drips from the pages. If you share that obsession, then you will be touched and moved by his words.
Vincent McCaffrey is obviously a man so well read that he seems to have gleaned a deep understanding of human nature from his studies. His characters are appealing and sympathetic and his story well plotted.
I look forward to his next novel after what was a most enjoyable debut.
Whether a book makes you laugh or cry, it becomes indelibly a part of you. Once the words are read you can’t unread them.
Think of all the things that the words and phrases within books have made you think about. The things that without the book you would never have thought of before…
The memories the words sometimes conjure. How the author’s description of something or someone will make you reflect on your own experiences.
From the book “Hound” by Vincent McCaffrey.
“I lie in bed at night and read as though my life depended on it. And it does, even if it’s a mundane life.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
Reading makes us grow. It makes us more empathetic and broadens our knowledge of the world and the people in it. Reading provides us with a diversion from life’s stresses and provides endless topics for conversation. In fact, I can think of no negatives when it comes to reading.
So… why not go and open a book???
Linden MacIntyre is the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner!
MacIntyre earns $50,000 for winning the Giller Prize.
The 66-year-old MacIntyre is an award-winning writer and one of Canada’s foremost broadcast journalists, his novel “The Bishop’s Man” is a wise and moving novel that explores the guilty minds and spiritual evasions of Catholic priests.
The Bishop’s Man is published by Random House of Canada.
For three decades, MacIntyre has been involved in producing documentaries and stories from all over the world including the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and Central America.
“Born in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland and raised in Port Hastings, Cape Breton, his career began in 1964 with The Halifax Chronicle-Herald as a parliamentary bureau reporter. After a stint at political reporting and editing in Nova Scotia, he returned to Ottawa as a reporter for The Financial Times of Canada. Between 1970 and 1976, he lived in Cape Breton and wrote for The Chronicle-Herald. In 1976 MacIntyre joined CBC Television Halifax as a current affairs story editor/journalist for ‘Here Today’. He soon hosted his own program, The MacIntyre File’, which began in 1977 and ran for three seasons. His documentary, ‘Power and Profit’ won him ACTRA’s Gordon Sinclair Award for Outspoken Opinions and Integrity.”–LBANS website.
More and more people are jumping on the social network bandwagon.
Readers are no exception. Social networking has developed its own niche for book enthusiasts.
Similar to book discussion groups in that they give readers an opportunity to converse online with other readers of similar tastes, they also enable the reader to read reviews and view book lists etc.
Although Library Thing is probably the most well known, there are several other sites that serve the bibliophile’s need to socialize.
Library Thing
A community of 900,000 book lovers. LibraryThing connects you to people who read what you do. (you might also like to view the YouTube video entitled “Everything you wanted to know about Library Thing”)
Shelfari
Shelfari enables you to create a virtual shelf to show off your books, see what your friends are reading and discover new books – all for free!
Good Reads
Enables readers to get great book recommendations from people they know ; Keep track of what they’ve read and what they’d like to read ; Form a book club, answer book trivia, collect their favorite quotes.
Anobii
Enables readers to meet readers of similar tastes, organize ther books neatly on aNobii Shelf and keep track of what they’ve read, what they’re reading and what they plan to read.
Book Glutton
Enables readers to share their reading experience. Comes with a handy video introduction to its features.
Book Jetty
Enables reader to track books they have read, are currently reading or want to read ;Search Amazon catalog and at the same time check books availability in your local libraries (from over 300 libraries in 11 countries) ; Connect with your friends’ bookshelves, link up with Google Books preview, show your bookshelf on your blog, and more.
ReadWhale
Enables readers to organise their books, connect with fellow readers, create and join discussion groups, and connect and share the reading experience through Twitter.
Booksconnect
Connecting the book community.
ConnectViaBooks
Works on the premise that people who like the same books have other things in common…
Have you always felt that you have a book in you???
“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.”
What’s stopping you?
“Atlantic Canada’’s 100 Greatest Books” reviews the top one hundred Atlantic Canadian books-both fiction and nonfiction-ever published, as chosen by a panel of local readers and literary luminaries.
For fans of Canadian literature this is a great reminder of what wonderful local talent that surrounds us.
The #1 listed book is one of my personal favorites “No great mischief” by Alistair MacLeod. It is listed as the greatest Atlantic Canadian book of all time!
The novel explores the emotional bonds of family through flashbacks to a childhood in Cape Breton Island and young adulthood spent in the mines of Northern Ontario. It explores what it means to be a part of a family, the meaning of brotherhood, and the importance of love and forgiveness in human relationships.
Also included in the top ten are Alistair MacLeod’s “Lost salt gift of blood” and his anthology of sixteen exquisitely crafted short stories entitled “Island“. Set primarily in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, these stories depict the often hauntingly lonesome lives people lead even amid tight-knit families and small communities. One of my favorite selections from this anthology is a story called “The fall” which has such a poignant and vividly rendered ending that it is one I’ll never forget. The story explores the moral and emotional ties that exist between men and their animals, and the lengths to which poverty can override these ties. It describes the chasm that can develop between parent and child when children are faced with the consequences of what is perceived as betrayal.
Mr. MacLeod was in Halifax recently and read before a crowd at the Keshen Goodman Library branch and at Saint Mary’s University.
Alistair MacLeod’s fiction stresses the importance of tradition and memory. Things we all need reminding of in this stressful modern world.
This is one ‘powerful’ debut! Written with such empathy and understanding that one can easily imagine the author experienced this first hand, though I hope for her sake she didn’t.
The title of the novel is explained in the book on page 100. “Let’s just say this is the last bridge. I’ve burned all of the others. I have nowhere else to go.”
The protagonist of the novel is Alexandra ‘Cat’ Rucker. Living in New York working as a waitress in an ‘adult’ bar she is a young women with a tragic past, no self-esteem, and a critical alcohol problem. When Cat receives a telephone call from an old neighbor telling her of her mother’s suicide, she returns home to rural Ohio for the first time in ten years. Her mother has left a cryptic suicide note which states “Cat, he isn’t who you think he is.” In an attempt to decipher what her mother meant, Cat must confront her past.
Reunited with her sister and brother who return home for the funeral, she experiences chaotic emotions. When she left home she intended never to return. Now, the past is returning bringing with it such a degree of pain, that she feels she can’t go on. Cat is also reunited with her first love, and his presence in her life once again brings her no solace.
Cat is a protagonist I won’t soon forget. For a young woman of twenty-eight she has suffered more than any one woman should have. Although severely emotionally damaged, she is still very likeable. As you read you want to know more and thus you follow her through her turmoil.
“The last bridge” does not fall within any genre. It is general fiction at its finest. Worthy of a recommendation from Oprah, this title by first time novelist Teri Coyne is outstanding!
“In Their Blood” tells the story of one son’s journey to maturity. Jeremy Stroeb is a typical young adult who shuns responsibility and doesn’t get along well with his father. In a pique of rebellion he drops out of college and backpacks his way around Europe. His idyll is abruptly shattered when he learns that both his parents were murdered in their Miami Beach home.
Back in Miami he tries to understand the seemingly senseless murder. He is devoted to his younger sister and wants to assume guardianship of her, though he feels unequal to the task and doubts his own abilities. She has been deeply traumatized by the murders of her parents and feels vulnerable. He enrolls in the university where his father taught, and gets a job at the accounting firm where his mother worked in the hopes that he might find out what motivated the crime against his parents.
He enlists the aid of his father’s attractive graduate assistant. Together they attempt to piece together some sort of scenario leading up to the murders. One thing leads to another and they begin a torrid affair. The vast amount of time Jeremy spends with Marina places his guardianship of his sister Elise in a precarious position. His unlikable uncle Dwight maintains that Jeremy is not responsible and tries to assume guardianship of Elise for reasons that are less than altruistic.
As Jeremy eventually discovers more and more about his parents’ lives, he comes to realize that he knew very little of their private affairs and their experiences when they were younger. Jeremy’s life and the lives of those he loves are placed in jeopardy when he comes close to discovering the identity of the murderer. The suspense is turned up to high with an exciting plot climax worthy of what Hollywood has to offer.
This first effort by Sharon Potts is not without it’s flaws. The reader’s imagination is stretched to the limit on several occasions with what I perceive to be plot weaknesses. Elise just happens to have a photographic memory? The U.S. customs let a young man into the country with a firearm? Also, the nefarious Uncle Dwight seemed just a tad too unfeeling and nasty.
Flaws aside, the novel delivered some sound entertainment. Overall, “In Their Blood” is a page-turning debut novel which delivers a quick, enjoyable read. When all is said and done, isn’t that why we read suspense fiction?
The best site for readers of suspense fiction is without a doubt “The Big Thrill” from the International Thriller Writers.
An online magazine with lots of reviews, authors commentary and a monthly book giveaway, this is a site not to be missed!
