Mystery Review: Burn, by Nevada Barr

 

Title: Burn

Author: Nevada Barr

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2010. 378 pages

Source: Library


Publisher's Summary:
Anna Pigeon, a Ranger with the National Park Service, is newly married but on administrative leave from her job as she recovers from the traumas of the past couple of months. While the physical wounds have healed, the emotional ones are still healing. With her new husband back at work, Anna decides to go and stay with an old friend from the Park Service, Geneva, who works as a singer at the New Orleans Jazz NHP. She isn't in town long before she crosses paths with a tenant of Geneva's, a creepy guy named Jordan. She discovers what seems to be an attempt to place a curse on her--a gruesomely killed pigeon marked with runic symbols; and begins to slowly find traces of very dark doings in the heart of post-Katrina New Orleans. Tied up in all of this is Jordan, who is not at all what he appears to be; a fugitive mother accused of killing her husband and daughters in a fire; and faint whispers of unpleasant goings-on in the heart of the slowly recovering city. Now it will take all of Anna's skills learned in the untamed outdoors to navigate the urban jungle in which she finds herself, to uncover the threads that connect these seemingly disparate people, and to rescue the most vulnerable of creatures from the most savage of animals.
 
My Review: 
I have been a fan of Nevada Barr and the Anna Pigeon mysteries for a long time, and there is no question that she is an excellent writer. I am, however, sorry that she has turned from the lighter touch of her early books to delve more and more into the darkest aspects of humanity. I get that murder is never a light-hearted thing. But I'm not sure that I want to see in my head the things that she has put there.

This makes my review a little hard, because part of me wishes I'd never read the book. At the same time, I do think that it is incredibly well-written, and that Barr has managed to weave a story that is compelling and rings true. Even the circumstances of Anna's presence in New Orleans feel right: I have long joked about Anna and a few other heroes of long-running series that I'm amazed that they can take such a beating in each book and keep bouncing back (in spite of what the blurb says, Anna isn't without physical reminders of her recent adventures, though the psychological scars are worse).

It does occur to me that this isn't really a mystery at all, in the classic sense (thus, no doubt, the "novel" designation on the cover). We know who has done the killing, though we don't know just how everything fits together, and in fact murder is not what drives Anna to risk her career and her recovery. It's something a lot worse, and therein lies the rub, since as I mention, I'm not sure I wanted to go there. But it's a testimony to Barr's writing that I couldn't put the book aside completely. Though I stopped two or three times in the first half, both because of other reading commitments and because I didn't want to go there, in the end, I went.




My Recommendation:
Fans of the series will probably be like me and want to keep going. But be aware that this isn't light, isn't the least bit cozy, and will take you places you may not want to go. Fans of the gritty thriller will be more at home.

FTC Disclosure: I checked Burn out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

YA Review: The Falcon's Malteser, by Anthony Horowitz

Title: The Falcon's Malteser: A Diamond Brothers Mystery
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Publisher: Philomel Books, 1986
Source: Library

Publisher's Summary:
When the vertically-challenged Johnny Naples entrusts Tim Diamond with a package worth over three million pounds, he’s making a big mistake. Tim Diamond is the worst detective in the world. Next day, Johnny’s dead, Tim feels the heat, and his smart younger brother, Nick, gets the package—and every crook in town on his back!

My Review:
This is a pretty good mystery/thriller, with one foot in comedy and one foot in mayhem. The body count is high, making it definitely YA, not children's, and if it weren't for the somewhat cartoonish nature of the whole thing it would have been too violent for my taste. It might be, anyway. What's awkward is that the writing level feels more like it's for 10- or 11-year-olds. Maybe today's kids are used to corpses from the video games?


Nick Diamond is a pretty sharp kid, unlike his brother. He's pretty convinced of his brilliance, too, which makes him an entertaining narrator, in a way. At least, it's sort of entertaining to see him discover that he's not as smart as he thinks he is. Horowitz's tongue-in-cheek version of the hard-boiled detective-story style is more fun, as is the play on names that starts with the title and doesn't stop. The story is fast-moving, the writing clever and smooth, and after the half-way point I just sat back and read to see where it would go.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with the book, and I almost stopped reading halfway through. I think that the style simply felt too adolescent to me, and the combination of the absurd with the corpse on every third page wasn't my thing. I really did feel torn--fun one minute, disturbing the next.

Recommendation:
I'm not sure what age the book is meant for (I notice that our library puts it in Young Adult, not juvvy, probably because of the body count). I'd say it's for somewhat older kids (high school) who want a fun, easy read that doesn't feel like a kiddie book but dodges the romance that seems to be a part of most YA novels. I wouldn't give it to little kids--to me, the cartoon violence is worse than the real violence that is in many kids' books (especially some of the historical fiction set in troubled times). Adults familiar with Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler will probably enjoy the parody.

FTC Disclosure: I checked The Falcon's Malteser out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  

YA Revew: All Fall Down, by Ally Carter

Title: All Fall Down (Embassy Row #1)
Author: Ally Carter; narrated by Eileen Stevens
Publisher: Scholastic Audio, 2015.  (Original Scholastic Press, 2015, 310 pages)

Publisher's Summary:
Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:
   1. She is not crazy. 
   2. Her mother was murdered. 
   3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.
As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her -- so there's no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can't control Grace -- no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.


My Review: 
I picked up this book because it was discussed in the Goodreads Great Middle Grade Reads group, as an example of a book that a Jr. High-aged kid (as I recall) thought was one of the best (as in, books he/she most enjoyed reading). I can certainly see the appeal, and I rather wish I'd gotten it in print, not as an audio, because I think the over-dramatic reading style kind of put me off. As a result, I ended up thinking about what the writing books say about pacing: if you are at breathless full speed all the time, it's too much.

In this case, the pace was both too much and a little unconvincing. The narrator's breathless stress got wearisome, and as a result much of the urgency got lost through the middle of the book. Which is fine. I think the mistake was trying to keep Grace at full panic for the whole thing, and I can't be sure if that was in the writing or the reading.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book, and I can certainly see the appeal for teens, especially younger teens. The book stays out of "does he love me?" territory (which is bad from the perspective of some kids, but good for me and for others), and  focuses on the mystery that Grace is struggling to unravel. The ending isn't a total surprise, but it does surprise Grace, and forces some reassessment of things she's been taking for granted the whole time.

Recommendation:
Despite the lack of romance (Grace does do a very small amount of mooning, but that's about it), this has a YA feel to me. Maybe it's because of the age of the main character (16) or because she's dealing with some very real and adult threats (assassination), but I felt like it should be for kids about 12 or 13 and up--junior high, here in the States. And, as noted, I think the narration does the story no favors. I'll be reading the next in the series, and I'll do it on paper to get a better sense of the author's technique.

Full Disclosure: I checked All Fall Down out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

C: Carl Hiassen

Book Review: Scat, by Carl Hiaasen, 240 pp.  Upper-middle grade fiction

Scat is sort of a comic thriller for kids.  Hiaasen is up to his usual, with just slightly absurd characters and situations overlying a serious message about ecology and conservation.  Except "message" isn't the right word, because he's not preaching.  He's just presenting interesting and sometimes likeable characters who care about Florida's wilderness and wildlife (I haven't encountered any of his books that aren't about Florida).

Nick Waters and his best buddy Marta Gonzales are not-too-enthusiastic students at Truman School, where they are tormented by the science teacher, Mrs. Starch, and go in fear of Duane Scrod, Jr.   Known around school as "Smoke," Duane is 16 and rides a motorcycle though only in the 7th grade.  Nick and Marta consider Mrs. Starch a witch and Duane a psychopath.

A field trip to Black Vine Swamp results in changes to a lot of their perceptions.  A fire cuts short the trip, Mrs. Starch disappears, and Smoke undergoes an apparent personality transplant before being accused of setting the fire and going on the lam.  Threats to both the swamp and an adorable (though sharp-clawed baby panther escalate.

A pair of bumblingly evil oil execs and their hapless employee Martin make up the main cast of villains.  They are unsuccessful at just about everything, as evidenced by Jimmy Lee Bayliss popping Tums one after another, and Drake McBride getting clobbered by the horse he's trying to learn to ride in an effort to look like a real Texan (because all oilmen are Texans, right?).  So we are never in any real doubt that the villains will get theirs, no one will end up dead, and everything will be okay in the end.  It's how we get there that creates just the right amount of tension for a kid's book.

A second thread running through the book is that of Nick's National Guard father, who has been sent to Iraq, where all is not going well (I'll keep it vague to avoid spoilers).  My first reaction was that this was a little too dark a thread for a story like Hiaasen's.  On reflection, however, I realized that (though the connection is never made explicit), the threat to both Black Vine Swamp and Mr. Waters is the same: our unquenchable thirst for oil.  Hiaasen leaves the reader to figure that one out herself, thus preserving his book as a great humorous thriller, not a sermon on the evils of an oil-based economy.  He never preaches: we are left to see for ourselves that a swamp and a panther are more to be cherished--and are a lot more loveable--than an oil company.

Took me something from 30-50 pages to get truly grabbed, something that I've noticed with Hiaasen's other books.  I'm not sure if this is something to do with the books, with the level of attention I'm bringing to my reading when I first start a book, or with the fact that I'm not really a Florida person so I'm a little slow to warm up.  Certainly by the end I'm more than willing to sacrifice some of my sleep to see how it all comes out.  And maybe Hiaasen would be happy to know that while I'll never give up my preference for desert and alpine environments, he's gradually eroding my distaste for bugs and humidity and making me kinda want to see the Everglades.

Five stars.