Silence of the Grave

Arnaldur Indirdason’s second mystery, Silence of the Grave, is certain to please a broad range of mystery fans.   That the novel is an intricately structured police procedural focusing on a very cold case going all the way back to World War II is already enough to appeal to most readers; that its abundant backstory makes the main characters come to life, and that the novel is set in Iceland, adds icing to the cake.

Reykjavik, like large cities all over the world, seems to be always expanding, and what was remote countryside just a few decades earlier now offers suburban housing and shopping for city workers that can afford to move outside the city.  When one construction project exposes a skeleton that seems to have been buried for at least 50 years, Inspector Erlendur Sveinnson and his crew are brought in to sort things out.  Erlendur, unlike some assigned to the case, is determined to identify the murder victim despite the fact that the murderer, and anyone that might remember the victim, are themselves probably dead.

As a team of archaeologists methodically works to unearth the skeletal remains of the victim, Erlendur directs an investigation that progresses almost as slowly as the diggers.  In the tradition of the best police procedurals, it is one logical step at a time, sometimes even taking two steps forward before taking one step back.  But the luxury of time and patience eventually will pay off for both teams.

Sensitive readers should be warned that Indridason does not let his readers blink or turn their heads when it comes to detailing the horrible physical and mental abuse one man dishes out to his wife and children.  He tells it like it happens in the real world – often in enough detail to make one flinch while merely reading of the brutality.  These sections, however, are not there for shock value; they are at the heart of the mystery.

Almost as painful to read, is Erlendur’s backstory.  The man might be a good cop, but he is a flop as a father, having walked away from his marriage not long after the birth of his second child.  Now, he has to deal with his drug addict daughter, Eva Lind, who is in a coma after having lost the baby she insisted on delivering despite her inability to clean herself up.  Some of the book’s best moments come when Erlendur, having been advised to talk to his daughter despite her coma, but not knowing what to say, begins to tell her about his cold case – and about a heartrending incident from his own childhood that still haunts him.

Silence of the Grave is my second Erlendur novel, but it will most certainly not be my last.  I particularly enjoy mysteries that keep me speculating all the way to the end but still come to a logical conclusion.  I do not like trick endings or rabbits otherwise pulled from hats.  Solid police procedurals with the added depth of a revealing backstory are what I enjoy most in a mystery; this one did not disappoint.

Rated at: 4.5

Djibouti

Will the real Elmore Leonard please stand up?

Djibouti, Mr. Leonard’s latest offering, reads as if it has been written by two separate authors. The first 130 pages of the novel are some of the dullest I have read this year, bar none; the last 150 comprise one of the most interesting thrillers I have come across in 2010.

The premise of the book is a good one. Award-winning documentary maker Dara Barr has come to Djibouti with her trusted cameraman to film Somalian pirates in the act of hijacking western ships and holding them for ransom. Xavier, her 72-year-old cameraman, secures a boat and the two set out on the open sea in search of a few pirates they can call their own. Dara believes, rightly, as it turns out, that even Somalian pirates want to be in the movies, and she is confident that she and Xavier can talk their way out of any trouble they might find themselves in.

But here comes the problem. Rather than show all of this lead-in action in real time, Leonard chooses to have Dara and Xavier discuss it as they think about how they will edit all the raw film footage they have accumulated. The resulting pages make for some excruciatingly dull reading - surprisingly, even to the dialogue between the two main characters. I say “surprisingly” because, as he reminds the reader in the second half of the book, well written dialogue is consistently one of the best things about an Elmore Leonard novel.

When the pair of filmmakers stumbles onto an al-Qaeda plot to blow up a huge liquid natural gas tanker at an LNG terminal in the U.S., and Leonard finally shifts to a real-time narrative, the book takes off and becomes the thriller I expected it would be. As he so often does, Leonard surrounds his main characters with others that are so cleverly rendered that they begin to outshine the characters on which the book is centered (Dara and Xavier). Readers will definitely be entertained by this cast of characters: Billy Wynn, a rich Texan who seems to have some unusually close ties to American intelligence agencies; Helene, high fashion model and Billy’s girlfriend who is on an around-the-world cruise with Billy to see if she can qualify as marriage-material; James Russell, a black ex-con from America, and one of al-Qaeda’s finest bombers and assassins; and two rather ineptly comical pirate leaders just trying to make a dishonest buck for themselves before they get shot by someone.

The second half of Djibouti makes its first half worth the effort. I did come very close to missing it, but I am happy that I did not give up on the book too soon to get there.

Rated at: 2.5
 
(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

iPad vs. Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader

All my life, I have been an early adopter when it comes to new electronic gadgets or technology.  But because the iPad seemed to offer mostly redundant services already being handled by my iMac, iPod and Sony Reader, I haven’t been all that intrigued by it.  That all changed last night when I visited my local Apple store and was helped by a young man who actually knew what he was talking about.  He answered all of my questions, addressed all my doubts, and I walked out of the place with my very own iPad…didn’t see that one coming because I was there only to pick up a new USB/Dock cord for my iPod.

My first impression of the iPad, what it does and how it does it, is very positive.

My only complaint is that transferring files from the Mac to the iPad is not all that intuitive of a process – despite what it says on the back of that tiny little information card that comes with the device.  Why do computer companies so adamantly refuse to provide written documentation these days?  I, for one, really miss the old fashioned user’s manual and wonder how many hours of my life I’ve wasted trying to find answers online when a hardcopy manual would have done the trick so much better and faster..

I’m pretty much done with the file transfer now, and I’m to the point of playing with my new toy.  I’ve downloaded applications for the Nook, the Kindle and Apple’s iBooks, and they all work well.  One of the coolest things about these readers is that Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Apple allow sample chapters to be downloaded at no charge – even for new books and bestsellers. 

As a result, I’ve done a good bit of reading today without making a dent in what I had planned to finish up this weekend.  I’ve read substantial sections of George W. Bush’s Decision Points, Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, Vince Flynn’s American Assassin and Bill O’Reilly’s Pinheads and Patriots.  I am unlikely to buy any of these four books, but now I have a good feel for their content and style, and that pleases me. 

How much do I like the iPad?  Let’s put it this way: I have an almost new Sony Reader that has a few dozen books downloaded to it.  It cost me almost $400 even without the books – and I’m willing to sell it, books included, for $200 (or the most reasonable offer I get).  If y’all know anyone in the market for an e-book reader, I’m your guy. 

By the way, I got the cheapest of the current crop of iPads, the one that has a 16-gig hard drive and connects to the web only via WiFi.  I expect it to be all I need for a good while – at least until the next big thing hits the market.  

Best of 2010, Update 28

Wow, just seven weeks left in the current reading year and my list is still evolving.  In fact, I seem to be making changes/additions to the list at a faster pace than I did earlier in the year...a good thing, because it means I've been finding some great books.  I offer eight new books for consideration this time around (six novels, one short story collection, and one memoir): Nashville Chrome (Rick Bass), City of Tranquil Light (Bo Caldwell), Shoeless Joe (W.P. Kinsella), Moonlight Mile (Dennis Lehane), Silence of the Grave (Arnaldur Indridason), Zen and the Art of Surfing (Greg Gutierrez), Djibouti (Elmore Leonard), and In Mania's Memory (Lisa Birnie).

So, with seven weeks to go and 79 fiction titles behind me, two new ones crack the list at numbers 8 and 9:

1. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese (novel)

2. Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes (Vietnam War novel)

3. The Calligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim (novel)

4. The White Garden - Stephanie Barron (literary alternate history)

5. Shadow of the Swords - Kamran Pasha (novel about the Third Crusade)

6. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)

7. Drood - Dan Simmons (historical fiction)

8. City of Tranquil Light - Bo Caldwell (historical fiction

9. Shoeless Joe - W.P. Kinsella (classic baseball novel)

10. Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel (novel with a kick to the gut)

The lone nonfiction book being considered this time manages to crack the very bottom of the list, a shaky perch, to be sure.  Of the 29 nonfiction titles read, these are my favorites:

1. George Washington: A Life - Ron Chernow (biography)

2. Lies My Mother Never Told Me - Kaylie Jones (memoir)

3. War - Sebastian Junger (about the daily lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan)

4. Man of Constant Sorrow - Ralph Stanley & Eddie Dean (biography)

5. At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson (Sociology)

6. Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen - Jimmy McDonough (biography)

7. Losing My Cool - Thomas Chatterton Williams (memoir)

8. Roger Maris: Baseball's Reluctant Hero (biography)

9. Jane's Fame - Claire Harman (on the evolution of Jane Austen's reputation)

10. In Mania's Memory - Lisa Birnie (memoir)

And there you have the best 20 books of the 108 I've read so far this year - with only another 15 or so likely to be read before the end of 2010.  Oddly enough, the eight books I considered this time around also included two of my biggest disappointments of the entire year: Elmore Leonard's Djibouti and Nashville Chrome by Rick Bass.

In Mania's Memory

What are the odds?  Whatever they are, Mania Fishel Kroll seems to have beaten them more than once in her life. 

As a little girl, she barely survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp long enough to be moved to a slightly less brutal Nazi slave labor camp a few dozen miles away.  And she became the only member of her family to survive the war.  By her own account, Mania should not have made it, and she did so only because of sheer chance and the intervention of perfect strangers at precisely the moment she needed to be rescued from certain death.  One of those strangers, an SS guard by the name of Johanne, took a special liking to the little girl and risked her own life and reputation to slip her extra food and warm clothing.  Mania came to believe that the woman even wanted to adopt her at the end of the war – but in the chaos associated with those final days, the two were separated before they even had a chance to say goodbye.

But perhaps even more astounding, is what happened to Mania in 1976, decades after she relocated to Canada to start a new life for herself.  Mania, in need of someone to do housecleaning, hired a German woman who wanted to earn extra money before she moved back to Germany when her Canadian work visa expired.  Mania is stunned to recognize that the woman is none other than Johanne, the guard who saved her life when she seemed certain to die at the hands of Hitler’s exterminators.  Despite Mania’s efforts to reconnect with Johanne, the woman adamantly denied she was ever an SS guard and, when Johanne returned to Germany, the two lost touch for what turned out to be another 25 years.

When, in 2001, a Canadian documentary filmmaker became interested in Mania’s story, Lisa Birnie was invited to join the project.  The result of her involvement is In Mania’s Memory, a memoir combining the memories and stories of two women, one a Jewish woman who lost her entire family to the Nazi rampage, the other a woman who might very well be the SS guard who saved the first woman’s life.

Beginning with Mania, Birnie allows the women to tell their stories in their own words, aptly capturing the personalities of both women in their choices of words and manners of expression.  At appropriate times, as Mania and Johanne tell their stories, the author interjects her own thoughts about what she is being told and what she observes for herself while conducting the interviews.  The book reaches its climax when Mania and the author accompany a film crew to Poland so that Mania can share her thoughts and emotions while visiting the sites of the camps she survived. 

During the filming, the two women will come face-to-face for the first time since 1976.  Will the German woman finally admit that she is the former SS guard that saved Mania from certain death?  Or will Mania decide that her own wishful thinking sparked a case of mistaken identity?  And what will happen to the two women next?

In Mania’s Memory is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” stories that have to be read to be believed.  What are the odds?

Rated at: 4.0

 
(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Christopher Hitchens on Cancer Etiquette

I've mentioned before that I have long admired Christopher Hitchens, both as a gifted writer/debater and simply as a man. Hitchens has made me think, laugh, and question my beliefs on multiple occasions. He backs down from no man in a debate and, from my distant vantage point, he seems to be a man who practices what he preaches.

Now, having seen the way that Hitchens is handling himself since learning that he suffers from stage 4 esophagus cancer, I admire the man more than ever.  Hitchens was an avowed atheist before he had cancer, and he is an avowed atheist today.  I have always believed the classic saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes" to be a true one, and I figured it would probably be pretty much the same story with deathbeds - that those given half the chance would hedge their bets on the way out the door.  Somehow, though, I don't think God will be hearing from Christopher Hitchens.  Some will say what a terrible mistake Hitchens is making; others, like me, will say bravo, Mr. Hitchens.  You, sir, are an inspiration.

The latest from Hitchens is a December Vanity Fair piece in which he discusses the etiquette of cancer:

It’s normally agreed that the question “How are you?” doesn’t put you on your oath to give a full or honest answer. So when asked these days, I tend to say something cryptic like “A bit early to say.” (If it’s the wonderful staff at my oncology clinic who inquire, I sometimes go so far as to respond, “I seem to have cancer today.”) Nobody wants to be told about the countless minor horrors and humiliations that become facts of “life” when your body turns from being a friend to being a foe...

[...]

But it’s not really possible to adopt a stance of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” either. Like its original, this is a prescription for hypocrisy and double standards. Friends and relatives, obviously, don’t really have the option of not making kind inquiries. One way of trying to put them at their ease is to be as candid as possible and not to adopt any sort of euphemism or denial. So I get straight to the point and say what the odds are. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five.

What some people, one motherly type in particular, say to Hitchens is hard to read without grinding one's teeth at the sheer stupidity of the human race.

That Hitchens still calls them as he sees them is obvious.  If you don't believe me, take a look at the end of the Vanity Fair article to see what he thinks of the book and video of The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch's farewell to the world.

You are still the man, Mr. Hitchens.