Hardball

The good news is that Sara Paretsky is back. Even better news, though, is that she brought V.I. Warshawski with her this time around - and that longtime fans of Paretsky’s Warshawski novels will find reading Hardball to be a little like experiencing old home week. Not only will they be able to catch up on what V.I. has been up to since 2005’s Fire Sale, they will get to spend some time with other favorite characters like Vic’s elderly neighbor, Mr. Contreras, and her doctor friend, Lotty Herschel.

When, as a favor to a nursing home pastor, Vic agrees to do a cut-rate search for a young black man who disappeared in 1967, she opens up a can of worms with the potential to ruin the reputation of her deceased father, Tony, a longtime Chicago policeman. 1966 was not a pretty year in the history of Chicago race relations and, when Martin Luther King led a peaceful march through one of the city’s parks, white protesters erupted in a riot that claimed the life of a young black woman marching near Dr. King. Vic knows that the man she wants to find was part of that march but she knows nothing about what happened to him after.

Lamont Gadsden has not been seen since he entered a neighborhood club one night, and the deeper she digs into the circumstances of his disappearance, the more complicated Vic’s life becomes. Her investigation is somewhat complicated by the unexpected appearance of an exuberant young cousin of hers who has come to Chicago for a few weeks to work on a political campaign. Although the two had never met before, Vic finds herself spending almost as much time with her enthusiastic cousin on a tour of Warshawski family history as she does on the search for Lamont Gadsden.

It all may seem like ancient history to Vic, but her investigation has made some very important people willing to play hardball to stop her from uncovering the truth about the 1966 murder and its aftermath. When her young cousin disappears, possibly at the hand of kidnappers, Vic finds herself searching for two people instead of one - and running for her life.

Hardball is a frank look at a subject as much in the news today as it was in the sixties, the rampant political corruptness of America’s third largest city and the related problems within the city’s law enforcement agencies. V.I. Warshawski is a social activist, a true believer who has lived in Chicago her whole life, and she refuses to look the other way even if her father might have been involved in something shady more than four decades earlier. Let’s hope that there are equally determined people in real world Chicago today.

Rated at: 5.0

Selling Light

Peter Cooper is one of those rich young men who wake up every morning wondering what the world can do for him today. Self-centered to the degree that he truly believes he has been placed upon the Earth simply to enjoy himself, Cooper surrounds himself with people who acquiesce to his supposed superiority. That he will one day cross paths with George, the lighthouse keeper, and young research student, Briege, is unfortunate but not so surprising.

After all, when George decides to use the internet to sell his life, who is more likely to purchase it than someone like Peter Cooper? George, filled with personal despair, is ready to sell, and Peter, who will buy anything he thinks might amuse him, has the money to buy George’s life on a whim. And that is exactly what happens.

Meanwhile, Briege goes merrily along studying crabs and other assorted creatures offered up by the little seaside village. Briege, though, is no ordinary researcher. Rather, she comes to know the crabs she studies as individuals, even to drawing their personal portraits in her notebook, naming them, and recognizing them as individuals with personalities when she spots them again days later. Briege’s problem is that she relates better to the crabs than she does to people.

Effie Gray’s Selling Light offers a glimpse into the lives of people who are totally unprepared for what they find and feel when they stumble into each other. Gray often uses humor to make her point about the nature of modern relationships in a world in which so many find it impossible to form long term connections, but her message is both serious and sad.

Selling Light is another in the Roast Books series of Great Little Reads, books designed to be read in one or two sittings spread over a couple of hours. As usual, the back cover of the book contains its “List of Ingredients.” This time around those ingredients are: “Dilapidated Lighthouse, Obsessional Research Student, Identity Crisis.” Effie Gray brews up a complicated and entertaining little story from those ingredients.

Rated at: 4.0

Stranger than Fiction

I have never been much of a fan of sequels; just don’t trust them because nine times out of ten they disappoint me. But it is that one-in-ten chance that a sequel will prove to be the equal, or better, of an original book or movie that stops me from giving up on them completely. So, despite the fact that it has probably doomed me to nine disappointing sequels in-a-row, I am happy to report that Stranger than Fiction, Jim Murdoch’s follow-up to Living with the Truth, is a treat.

When I closed the pages of Living with the Truth, Jonathan Payne was a dead man. Jonathan, owner of a rather shabby little bookshop specializing in used books, had been visited by the personification of Truth and he had been made to take a long, hard look at the consequences of the choices made over his lifetime. Jonathan’s life was one of missed opportunities but, although he learned much about himself from Truth, he was left with little time to do much with his new understanding.

Well, it seems that Jonathan has not been the only one to fail at this thing called life. Not for the first time, God is unhappy with what he sees in the universe and He is just about ready to pull the plug on it again. He is losing patience with the whole project and is about ready to tackle something new. But, before he gives up, God has decided to perform a super-audit to determine why his universe has failed so miserably this time. Truth and his co-workers (Destiny, Reality, etc.) are assigned to interview every person who has ever lived in order to avoid their mistakes next time around.

Jonathan, with Truth by his side, gets to meet some important people from his past, including his mother, his father, and the only real girlfriend he ever had. Truth and Jonathan wander around in Jonathan’s past, both learning from the encounters what went wrong and what might have been done differently. The conclusion that Jonathan comes to, though it may have surprised Truth, is one the reader will admire him for reaching.

Stranger than Fiction might be served up with humor and filled with bizarre situations but, at its core, it is a moral tale and Murdoch’s deceptively simple prose is perfect for the story he tells. One of my favorite passages comes early on in the book and describes Jonathan’s love of books (after all, he is a bookseller):

“It was one of the few things you could say that he did love with any degree of certainty but you certainly couldn’t say he loved all books. Books were like women, some had wonderful covers with nothing inside, others had their dust jackets hanging off in shreds yet held such riches; there were thick tomes, slim volumes, hardbacks, paperbacks, first editions. He gave way to the unique pleasure of holding each one in his hands but only special ones were actually read; the rest were for looking at. And there was nothing like a well stacked bookcase. Apart from a well stacked woman.”

How perfect a way to describe a man’s love of books is that?

I was happy to find that Stranger than Fiction ends in a way that leaves the door wide open for a sequel to the sequel. I don’t know what the odds are about the success of such efforts because my sample is too small to make a judgment. I’m willing to take a chance on this one, though.

More, please.

Rated at: 5.0

Google and On Demand Books Partner to Make Hard-to-Find Books Readily Available

I am certainly no expert on the whole controversy involving Google's efforts seemingly to digitize every book that has ever been in print. Publishers and Google competitors have been screaming about copyright issues and unfair business practices for months and even the U.S. Department of Justice has gotten involved in the situation.

But I have to admit that the new venture between Google and On Demand Books sounds plenty cool to me. PC World offers the details:

On Demand's deal with Google puts approximately two million public domain books from Google's digitized book collection--Google Books--into Espresso Book Machines, which you could then print off at your local library, bookstore, or coffee shop.

There's no official word on how much a single book will cost, but the Associated Press is reporting the average price will be about $8. Google and On Demand Books will each take a dollar from every transaction, and donate the rest of the proceeds to charity, the AP says.

[...]

Thursday's Google and On Demand Books deal is a perfect example of how technology can revive content that would be impossible to reproduce through traditional publishing channels. The only problem is that Espresso Book Machines are even harder to find than some of the titles Google has made available.

There are about 14 EBMs in permanent locations around the world, only five of which are in the United States.

This is the YouTube video that Google prepared to explain the new project:



I sure wish one of those machines would show up in Houston...

Bed Bugs Invade Denver Public Library

Just when you think you've heard it all, something like this story comes along. It seems that a patron has been checking out old, historic books and returning more than the books. I'm not kidding.

According to Denver's Channel 7:

"Some of the bed bugs fell out of those materials that had been returned," said Denver Public Library spokeswoman Celeste Jackson.

The infected books came from 69-year-old Denver resident Roger Goffeney. He checks out historic books, some 200 years old, and helps archive them online in an effort called the Gutenberg Project.

When he brought a few of the rare books back, bed bugs from his downtown apartment hitched a ride.

[...]

The library said the items with bedbugs were immediately quarantined and prevented from being released into circulation so they didn't affect the public.

The library banned Goffeney three weeks ago and asked him to return the rest of the books to a secure drop.

Instead, the library said Goffeney returned the books a week later to the main book drop and reinfected the library.

The library said it had to destroy 31 books that Goffeney checked out. Now, it wants him to pay as much as $12,000 for the rare books and $6,000 for fumigation costs.

"I have no intention of paying a dime," the retired minister said.

Unbelievable. How do you deal with idiots like Mr. Goffeney?

The Shimmer

Dan Page is having a bad day. Flying the small airplane he inherited from his father usually provides him with an escape from the pressures of being a Santa Fe policeman, but today Page finds himself involved in one of those high speed chases the news people so much love to follow while pretending they are not hoping for a chase-ending crash of some sort. This one does end in a crash and, despite having done everything correctly, Page cannot help but feel a bit guilty about his role in the chase as he heads home to his wife.

The problem is that his wife, Tori, is nowhere to be found, and she has left behind only a short note telling Page that she has gone to see her mother. Page’s confusion becomes genuine concern when a phone call to his mother-in-law reveals that Tori has chosen to drive the 800 miles to San Antonio rather than fly there. After she fails to arrive in San Antonio as scheduled, Page, who has alerted authorities to be on the lookout for Tori’s car, is more confused than ever to learn that his wife has stopped in the little West Texas town of Rostov.

Rostov, Texas, is no ordinary small town. The mysterious lights that have appeared just outside town most nights for more than 100 years have turned Rostov into a tourist attraction, and Tori Page is just one of many who have become mesmerized by their existence. Tori is so taken with the lights, in fact, that she finds it hard to wait for darkness and is oblivious to everything around her when her husband finds her in the viewing area provided for those in town to see the lights. What happens later that night is just the beginning of a nightmare that Dan and Tori Page will be lucky to survive.

Fans of David Morrell’s thrillers are not likely to be disappointed by The Shimmer, a novel involving elements of the supernatural, government plots to produce new super-weapons, religious fanatics, mass murder, miracles, and a handful of dedicated lawmen who never give up despite the overwhelming odds stacked against them.

The Shimmer is an action-packed thriller but it only works as well as it does because Morrell has peopled his plot with characters about whom the reader will care. It all begins with Tori and Dan Page, two ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances that make them realize how much they still love one another. Working with the Pages to solve the mystery of the lights, and to contain the nightly violence the lights cause, are some of Rostov’s finest citizens, including the local police chief, a deputy, and an antique dealer who knows as much about the lights and their history as anyone alive. Morrell’s use of flashbacks to the experiences previous generations had with the Rostov lights gives the book a realistic feel that makes its fantastic plot all the more thrilling.

This one will be a page-turner for thriller and sci-fi fans, alike.

Rated at: 3.5