Book Chase: The December 2020 Reading Plan

 I only realized a few minutes ago that this is December 1, so I'll give a briefer than usual update on my reading plans/schedule for this last month of 2020: 

I've been looking forward to getting my hands on a library copy of this new Inspector Rebus novel for a while now. I was finally able to pick it up yesterday, and I've read the first couple of chapters already - and feel right at home being back in Rebus's world. I have to admit it was a bit of a shock to see that Rebus was in the process of moving from his longtime upstairs flat down to a ground-floor one in the same building because of the progression of his COPD. Why are all my favorite fictional detectives getting old at the same time? Don't answer that.

I am just over halfway through this 440-page Civil War novel now, and I'm enjoying the ride. I Jonathan is a recounting of the war through one man's eyes, a young man from Boston who found himself stranded in Charleston, South Carolina, when the war broke out. It has been interesting to watch the evolution in his thinking about the War and its causes. The story is being told by an elderly man to his great-nephew over a period of several visits by the nephew to a nursing home. 

A Share in Death was the very first Kincaid and James mystery, and it goes all the way back to 1993. I'm actually listening to the audiobook version of the novel right now, and it will probably be the first thing I finish in December. The novel is a good introduction to the Duncan Kincaid character, but I'm almost done with it and Kincaid and Gemma James have still not seen each other face-to-face despite her being one of his direct-report staff. The plot seems a bit old-fashioned both in its details and in its execution.

I'm a big fan of Robert Dugoni's writing, but I've never read one of of his Tracy Crosswhite books. Because this is already the eighth book in the series, I'm hoping that jumping in right here is not a mistake. Apparently Tracy is just returning to the Seattle Police Department where she is reassigned to the department's Cold Case unit. The problem she faces is having to investigate two cases at the same time: the kidnapping of a 5-year-old girl and the disappearance of a female jogger who never came home.

Strongheart is book number three in Jim Fergus's "One Thousand White Women" series. The books follow the lives of several hundred white women who went to live with the Indians as a gesture of goodwill and peace. The women all supposedly volunteered to move to the West and become Indian brides, but most all of them were found in prisons, insane asylums, and houses of prostitution. The women prove to be  surprisingly strong in body and spirit, however, and most of them thrived in their new lives. I've enjoyed the first two books.

Stillicide is a strange book I discovered in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review. It is a glimpse at one possible future for the world that we'd best avoid. After a worldwide draught, water has become a commodity, and countries are competing for their share of what's available. Whoever controls the world's water supply is in a position of power. As the novel begins, a huge iceberg is headed for London but terrorists are determined to damage or destroy the city's water pipeline. That can't be good.

I feel like I've seen about a dozen books with this cover-style in the last few months, but it's another one I just discovered on the NYT Book Review a couple of days ago. It's the memoir of an "indigenous" woman and it was a bestseller in Canada. The U.S. version has supposedly been updated to make it more applicable to readers here, and I'm curious to learn more about the lives of modern Native Americans and what kind of racism they have personally experienced. 

I didn't manage to get to Dark Passage in November, so I'm moving it to my December list. Part of my reading goal coming into 2020 was to read some of the novels published during the middle third of the 20th century, and this one fits nicely into that goal. Movie fans may remember this as a movie starring Humphrey Bogart - one I think I must have watched at some point in my life but, if so, I remember nothing about. David Goodis is described as someone whose style helped "transform American culture and writing," so I'm expecting a lot from this.

These are my first selections for December reading. It's not likely that all eight will get read, but it's a start. I have at least a dozen books on hold at the library, so anything that comes in with a shorter time fuse will bump some of these all the way into my 2021 reading.