Show don't tell

 

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

My respect for the Pulitzer Prize has dropped a notch, because this 1995 winner is one of the dullest, slowest books I have ever read. Theoretically it is the story of Daisy Goodwill, since it opens with her birth and closes with her death. But you get to the end and don't really know her at all.

The story opens with Daisy's mother-to-be cooking alone in the kitchen. She is overweight and apparently doesn't know she is pregnant when she starts having labor pains. The reader senses that tragedy is about to happen but instead the story detours outside to a neighbor hanging up laundry. This would be fine if the neighbor heard screams from the kitchen and quickly comes to the rescue. But no. the story dawdles with the neighbor's internal monologue for a few pages. By the time the story returns to the kitchen the woman has died and the neighbor presents a baby girl to the unsuspecting father as he returns home from work.

This same sleight of hand continues throughout the book: an action scene is set up and then abandoned for some internal monologue by some barely related character and by the time the story returns to Daisy's story the action is over and reported second hand.

I actually thought we might be getting to Daisy's story when as young widow she takes a train trip back to Canada where she spent her childhood. She is going to visit the son of the neighbor who raised her. There's a hint of romance coming and sparks fly as soon as she steps off the train. But no, we don't get to read their conversation or see them fall in love. The story fast forwards to a wedding announcement and then suddenly she is a mother of three living the 1950s perfect housewife myth.

We have only vague hints of her discontent before her husband dies and Daisy takes over his gardening column. Although we sense this is her true calling, her real satisfaction, we only get hints of this from letters others write, not from Daisy herself. The book avoids ever showing her actually at work. All action is at arms length. An unmarried pregnant niece moves in and we get to see the niece remodeling a room, and then we hear, via correspondence from Daisy's daughter at college, that Daisy wants the niece to keep the child. But we almost never hear from Daisy.

Finally, at the end of the book, when Daisy is an old woman, we get to read a real interaction. A minister confesses to her and she gives him good advice and for one brief moment we see this woman who has been the center of the whole book. Just a few sentences and oops, revealed too much, the window closes and Daisy feigns sleep so the minister will leave.

I detest internal monologues, I love action. Show, don't tell. But over and over again this book allows other characters to tell what happens instead of just letting the reader see for themselves.

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A place for everyone

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I met Britt-Marie in another Fredrik Backman novel. I didn't particularly like her in "My Grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry" because we mostly saw her fastidious busybody side, but there were a few hints of her big heart. It's the heart that wins in this sequel. Britt-Marie has left her cheating husband and taken a job as caretaker of a soon-to-be-closed rec center in a dying town. Everything is crumbling around her so badly that she makes friends with a rat as her dinner companion. There are real threats like drugs and unsupervised children, but somehow Britt-Marie straightens it out the same way she rearranges messy silverware drawers. Ya gotta love her.

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We would never elect a psycopath president, would we?

 

Blowback: A Thriller by James Patterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

James Patterson is the best and this is a lots-of-twists thriller with believable characters. An autocratic, rules-don't-apply-to-me president has decided the enemies of America must be punished so he sets up his own CIA operations, foreign and domestic, without messy approval of congress or cabinet. He's about to burst into World War III but since we all survive we know somebody, somehow stops this maniac. The details in his operations are amazing. The believability is part of what makes it so scary.

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Who? dunnit

 

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are moments -- comments from the retirement home heroes, or the interaction between the romantically attracted investigators -- when this book is spot on. Too funny for words. But as a puzzle mystery this tale fails all the tests. There are plenty of twists and turns, just when you think it's all resolved there's another turn and then another. The ultimate culprits are least suspected, which is always good, but the motives are related to secrets that are not revealed until way too late. It's as if the murders happened in another book and the reader only hears about it second hand. Mystery readers long for that ah ha moment when they realize the clue was right in front of them all along not when the writer pulls out back story in the final scene that was never hinted at before. And the humor is Sooo British like a confession during a chess match when both players are more interested in the game moves than reacting to life and death revelations.

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Southern Charmer

Wishful Sinful by Tracy Dunham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This murder mystery oozes Southern stereotypes faster than kudzu swallowing a white picket fence, but all the bourbon and honeysuckle have an addictive charm. The drunkard protagonist Tal Jefferson spends too much time overthinking everything. Her sassy assistant Jane makes up for it with punchy comebacks. The plot certainly has plenty of twists and turns. A Peyton Place of illicit relations is ratcheted up with boundless blackmail schemes, a big money real estate deal, and the shadow of a national military scandal from the past. The protagonist is a little slow figuring out the real killer, with her co-characters (and probably most readers) realizing she is misplacing her trust. But the story moves fast and is entertaining.

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The times, they are repeating

The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch by Miles Harvey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a writer myself, I admire the art of Miles Harvey as he tells the story of James Strang, Mormon prophet and self-proclaimed King of Heaven and Earth. A history professor, Harvey weaves Strang's strange tale into the history of the time, such as Strang's coronation on Michigan's Beaver Island following soon after the well reported coronation of Queen Victoria. Or Strang publishing a history of the island the same year P.T. Barnum published his biography and later how Barnum's bankruptcy seems to mirror Strang's downfall. Every life is a part of the times in which they lived and that is so clear in this well-documented telling which includes many newspaper reports of the day, even from the paper in the town where I live in Michigan. But just as a person's life reflects the times that they lived I couldn't help hearing echoes of current false prophets and true believers in the words of Strang. When he exaggerates the size of his congregation it sounds so much like the reports of the "largest ever" 2016 presidential inauguration. Strang's complaints about his mistreatment and the lies of his betrayers sounds awfully familiar too.

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Watching the world implode

The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party by Dana Milbank
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From Newt Gingrich to Donald Trump columnist Milbank follows a well documented trail of Republicans repeatedly choosing winning at all costs, abandoning truth, honor and the American Way.
Unfortunately it's not the party that has been destroyed, as the title implies. The party may well continue to win leaving the destruction of the country in its wake. I remember every event listed here, from the lies about Vince Foster's suicide to Trump calling newspapers the Enemy of the People. I never really thought how the Gingrich name calling strategy and all the other lies worked together to create a party that celebrates liars like Trump. As Milbank points out, Trump doesn't create the lies he simply tells people what they want to believe.

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Living the Fairy Tale

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved Backman's previous novel "A Man Called Ove" and this has a lot of similarities. Both books are about the interactions of a community of people. This story is from the point of view of 7-year-old Elsa whose seemingly crazy grandmother dies leaving the girl with a series of letters to deliver. The recipients are characters in the fairy tales Grandma has been telling the girl but it turns out all the characters in the fantasy are people in the building where they live in Sweden. I found the fantasy too convoluted so I kept skipping chunks when the girl would try to relay the fantasy so perhaps I missed a little of the foreshadowing but I read enough to get the gist. The pace really picks up at the end with a lot of real danger and an unfortunate demise. Elsa is a tough talking kid, wise beyond her years. It's impossible not to love her.

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Make my day Elmore Leonard

 

The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love Elmore Leonard. This is the first book in the Carl Webster series so I'll need to find the rest. FBI agent Webster is the ultimate good guy who doesn't want to take advantage of criminals. He always gives them a chance to surrender before he blows them away. Sort of a Dirty Harry of the Depression. And he has Sherlock Holmes power of observation and deduction. All the characters are so well drawn you can smell them and see the glint in their eyes.

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Home is where the hurt is

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The danger of listening to a really good book on audible while driving is that I almost ran out of gas. The trip went so fast! Ann Patchett is a great story teller and Tom Hanks did a fantastic job bringing the scenes to life. This story of a fabulous Pennsylvannia house and the people who lived there over about a century is told from the point of view of Danny Conroy whose mother leaves him and his older sister Maeve in the care of their real estate mogul father after he gives her a fantastic 1922 mansion that she despises. She'd rather help the poor and heads to India. An evil step mother soon enters the scene with daughters of her own. Before you know it Dad is dead and Danny and Maeve are kicked out with little more than a trust for Danny's education. The siblings develop a close bond, spending hours year after year sitting outside their former home and remembering better times. Although the tale generally follows a chronological timeline, it is being told by the grownup Danny hitting his memories so things get out of order sometimes or he jumps ahead and divulges his divorce from Celeste before he's even revealed their marriage. This bugs me a little but I suppose it adds to the realism of Danny telling the story. The house casts such a huge shadow over all these lives even extending into the next generation. You can see it in your mind and hear the voices and imagine the train rides. Very well done.

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Not exactly a Waltz in WWII

 

The Angel of Vienna by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I chose this book because I was headed to Vienna on vacation and I thought this might put me in the mood. Of course, we all know WWII was no vacation. Nevertheless the author creates a very real, complex tale of a nurse and a Catholic nun who try protect disabled children from being killed in the hospital where they work. I love the details she uses to flesh out the personality of Hannah Stern and her estranged half brother who pays for her training and gets her the job in Vienna, on the condition that she watch over his disabled son, Willi. She and the boy build a bond but hospital rules don't give them much time together. There is Karl, a love interest, but Hannah is hesitant. She discovers that children are being selected for elimination and joins a shady group sneaking them to safety. The action is fast paced, but there are a few pleasant side tracks when the characters are able to forget the war for few pages, go for a swim and let friendships develop. Even the final scene holds a surprise or two.

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Fast Four Months

 

The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A.J. Baime
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable, well-researched and yet fast-moving peek at an intriguing president. It certainly boosted my respect for a man who came from my home state and started serving before I was born. The author uses minute-by-minute records to draw out the drama of the day he took office when FDR died and his wife and daughter had to take a taxi to the white house for his oath of office. Right up to the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Truman was sailing across the Atlantic returning from the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin. I loved the quotes chosen as well such as Truman telling the other two he wanted "decisions not discussion." Good read.

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Hollywood Thriller

Dream Town by David Baldacci
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this author and this latest Archer thriller doesn't disappoint. I love the way he paints the period -- 1953-- with references to the day's entertainers like Frank Sinatra, current movies being made like "Rear Window" and the fashions. But like always he outdoes himself creating a convoluted tale where nothing is what it seems. Archer is in LA visiting friend Liberty Callahan when one of Liberty's Hollywood connections goes missing and a body is found at her home. Archer pieces it all together but not before almost getting killed, of course. Even though the story happens long ago the characters seem very today.

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Glow-in-the-dark Girls

 

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Long, and very detailed, but it is exactly those details -- like describing the polka dot dress one of the women is wearing -- that brings these girls alive almost a century after they died just doing their jobs. I used to live not far from Ottawa, Il., the setting for one of the factories where young women were hired to paint glow in the dark dials on clocks and watches. They were told to use their lips to keep the brushes pointy, even though the paint they were using was radioactive radium. Months or years later they became ill with assorted pains caused by the radium they injested. It deposited in their bones causing some to lose teeth, others to limp, another to have a growth on her shoulder. It was many years before the cause became known and still many more before the courts made the companies pay medical bills or maybe a little more. I had heard the general story before but Moore really makes this story more about the women and what they went through. She examined family photos of the women so she could describe them and their clothes, visited the houses where they lived, and even takes a few liberties to suggest that their tenacity in fighting for justice probably prevented future injuries on other radioactive endeavors such as The Manhattan Project. Well done.

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New hero for coffee addicts

The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't even drink coffee, but I love it when I can learn a lot and still be entertained. This book tells an interesting history of coffee and the many processing steps and the tasting process as complicated as wine. I also appreciated learning more about Yemen which I had previously only known from reports of war and famine. This is the semi true story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali, an immigrant from Yemen who grew up in the San Francisco area, sort of ditzi and lacking direction. Then he reads the history of coffee tracing back to Yemen and discovers that his grandfather was actually a coffee farmer back in Yemen. Suddenly Mokhtar has a quest. He infiltrates the coffee culture in San Francisco, returns to Yemen and gets to know the coffee farmers in the different parts of his country. War breaks out and he has to fight just to make it down the street. But he manages to take some samples out of the country and get the experts in San Francisco to agree his country's coffee is extra special. I was cheering for him in the end.

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Return to Mackinac

The Dockporter: A Mackinac Island Novel by Dave McVeigh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For those of us who know and love Mackinac Island, revisiting through this book brings all those memories to life again. The fudge shops. The porch of the Grand Hotel. The rock formations. The booming cannon. And, of course, the poor guy shoveling up the inevitable horse droppings. And for those who have never been to Mackinac, the tale revives those days of young abandon, of friends and foes, pranks and hangovers and warm, sweet love. The book is written as a story within a story. Big city photographer Jack McGuinn is returning to the island after a 10-year absence, for a reunion with his dockporter buddies who, as young men, met the ferries to the island and ported baggage to the hotels on their bikes. On the slow freight ferry to the reunion Jack tells a fellow passenger the tale of his final summer on the island, which becomes the bulk of the book. It is an awkward arrangement sometimes when the passenger interrupts the storyteller to remind the reader of the story-within-a-story format but it pays off in the end when the exciting finale of Jack's last summer on the island melds into a surprising denouement at the reunion.

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Patterson and Parton

Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Combine the talents of one of my favorite country singers with those of the best mystery/thriller author and you're bound to get something wonderful. I listened to Run Rose Run on a car trip and was thoroughly entertained for two days. Dolly narrates the Ruthanne character on the audio version so it's easy to picture her. But the story is really about a scrappy wannabe singer, AnnieLee, who rises to fame with the help of a retired star (Ruthanne). Annielee is full of surprises, pulling a gun out of her backpack, walking out on Ruthanne and turning down fancy clothes. Although her choices are not always the best her spunk is endearing. Though her career gets a big boost from Ruthanne, the cloud of her unrevealed past keeps interrupting with thugs attacking her repeatedly and following her. When the past is finally revealed it doesn't really seem worthy of so many thugs chasing her but it wouldn't be a thriller without all those encounters. The title is disappointing since the name Rose isn't mentioned until the past is revealed near the end of the book. But now I need to get the Dolly Parton album that goes along with the book so I can hear the songs that are mentioned in the story.

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Don't bother with this one

The Poisoned Rose by Daniel Judson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Page after page of pointless violence. Finally about page 255 the author starts tying the apparently random violence together and you get hints of who the characters are and the motivations and corruption that lead to all the rest. But it is too little too late. I scanned scene after scene it was just too boring to read. Even the supposedly good folks are terrible: a protagonist who is constantly in a drunken stupor, a sweet innocent 15-year-old who is depicted as purposely trying to lure the protagonist astray. I finished the book hoping for something to make it worthwhile, but I never found it.

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Mystery in style

If Looks Could Kill by Kate White
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I LOVE it! The real trick in a mystery is to give the reader enough hints so that they think they are smarter than the detective. Then as the climax approaches, the detective comes to the conclusion the reader already figured out. While the reader is basking in I-told-you-so, suddenly that conclusion falls apart and a totally different, but ultimately logical, perpetrator is revealed, ideally in the midst of trying to kill the protagonist. Kate White does exactly that in this tale of magazine true crime writer Bailey Weggins who puts on her detective hat when her editor's nanny is poisoned. All the glamour--and politics -- of the magazine biz is drawn perfectly since White was editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan from 1998-2012. White also has an uncanny skill at describing the oddities in facial features: a head too small, eyes too far apart, eyes so dark the pupil disappears. My only regret is that I waited so long to read this 2002 gem.

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Just another kid in the newsroom

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom by Carl Bernstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chasing History with Carl Bernstein is a remarkable journey back to the early 60s--the election and assassination of JFK, the civil rights movement and the optimistic beginnings of the Vietnam War -- a time when newspapers were the trusted tellers of the tale. Long before Bernstein and his Washington Post co-worker Bob Woodward became famous for exposing the Watergate scandal, Carl was a cheeky teenage copy boy at the Washington Star, with phenomenal powers of observation, a note-taking obsession, and determination to be one of the last of the era to rise from copy boy to page one bylines without the benefit of a college degree.
I have to admit I am biased toward this story. Carl is just four years older than me and much of the business he describes is the world I remember in my early newspaper career. Smelly jars of rubber cement to slather on torn chunks of cheap copy paper when making additions or insertions in pre-computer editing. Linotype machines stamping out pieces of lead type, teletype machines chattering in the corner and dinging with news alerts. And a caring family of devoted reporters and editors working all hours for the stories, most of them idealistic to a fault.
Bernstein's talent as a storyteller is unmatched. His telling of the assassination of JFK from the point of view of the reporters covering events swept me up so I could imagine being there instead of hearing the report in my high school choir class. He had me crying as if I were hearing about the tragedy for the first time.
Bernstein grew up in DC so he describes the city more as a hometown of friends and relatives instead of a bureaucratic, impersonal political capital. His perspective adds a dimension of soul to every event.
The main part of the book covers the years from 1960-1966 when Bernstein was working at the Washington Star while going to high school and college. It closes as he sells his car and heads off to a new job in New Jersey. In the postscript he tells about working in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, for a couple years before returning to D.C. to join the staff of Washington Post. He also updates the reader on the careers of several Washington Star co-workers who form the family of characters during his six years at The Star. The postscript gets a little tedious but it does answer a lot of potential I-wonder-what-happened-to questions.

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The mystery of the road not taken

 

The Other Me by Sarah Zachrich Jeng
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like a book with messages and this one delivers many. Everyone has wondered about the road not taken, what would life be like if you had married so-and-so or selected a different college, so the basic premise of Chicago artist Kelly who suddenly finds herself in a different life as small town Michigan wife with a wanna-be graphic design career, spotlights a lot of the what ifs. A man from her past who she could have loved. A better relationship with her parents. But it also gets into real life questions of how we manipulate each other. How mothers may steer daughters toward husbands and homes instead of careers, how men use dinner and gifts to bribe affection and then rely on that affection to build their own self-worth. Is it fair to change someone else's life to improve your own? Do we actually know what is best for someone else? And as Kelly says she learned in art school: a failure isn't the end it is the beginning, a lesson, the start of something new.
Technically this book is science fiction because it deals with time travel. I am not usually into science fiction but this one plays out more like a mystery because Kelly is trying to solve the mystery of how she has suddenly been pulled out of one life and into another. But as a mystery thriller fan I expect a lot of action. For me the first 90 percent of this book plods along, as Kelly goes along with her new life not making waves in case someone will say she is crazy, slowly unraveling rumors of some new AI ap at the local tech company, Gnii; overheard phone conversations, a mysterious thumb drive.
The climax is plenty exciting and fast-paced. When you think about it, however, a story about time travel is guaranteed to be happily ever after because if you don't like the ending you just go back in time to fix it.

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Ban my books, please

     

     Every now and then society goes on a book-banning binge. 

      From Virginia to Washington State, Covid-weary conservatives are suddenly noticing books that have been on the school's library shelves and required reading lists for years. They are offended by language, racial issues, LGBTQ characters and anything else that might upset their kids (who are too busy with violent video games and explicit television shows to notice.) 

       The effect of all this book-banning is the same as always: sales are skyrocketing. 

        Consider "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic novel about the Holocaust in which Jews are drawn as mice and the Nazis as cats. The work earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, but in 30 years its popularity has dimmed a little. No edition of the books was in Amazon's top 1,000 a week ago. But after the book was banned by a Seattle-area school board, two editions jumped into the top 20 and one edition is sold out. 

        Demand is also up for Tony Morrison's 1970 "The Bluest Eye" after a St. Louis area school banned it because of the racism and sexual abuse the main character endures. Even the 1960 classic "To Kill a Mockingbird" is once again facing protests that the racism depicted is just too hard for today's kids. 

       There's nothing new or unusual about protests being the best form of promotion. I remember a few years back when I was covering the play "Corpus Christi" in Grand Rapids. The show had to move to a larger venue and add performances after protestors complained Christ was being depicted as homosexual. 

       Maybe Jordan Daily News Mysteries could benefit from negative publicity. After all, my books have much of what these book banners detest. The collection of characters is diverse which naturally leads to some racial issues. One book has a gay character who actually kisses someone of the same sex on the lips. Oh, my. 

      The language might be considered offensive since one of the main characters has a habit of making up his own curse words. Sex is implied, though the dirty details are left to the imagination. And dealing with serious subjects such as a serial killer or a nuclear threat can be pretty stressful for readers. 

        So go ahead and ban my books. I can use the sales. 

Teen sleuth learns quickly

The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second book in this classic mystery series kicks up the action and the stakes considerably over the first book. Nancy actually rescues her father and saves his life. She pieces away at the mystery in baby steps, always reporting every finding to the proper authorities and receiving their praise, so when she needs to ask for help from the authorities they are quick to respond. Nancy is investigating "ghostly" happenings at the home of a friend's grandmother while her father is off in Chicago seeking a man believed to be involved in a land swindle. Mr. Drew is on his way to visit his daughter when he is kidnapped and Nancy soon figures out that the "ghost" is related to the land swindle. Secret passages, tunnels and trap doors give this story plenty of surprises, not to mention the usual hazards involved in an aging mansion. I am still surprised how good everyone is...the wary cooperate, the bad guys confess, and happily ever after is pretty much assured. On to book 3.

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How I Became a Mystery Writer

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I discovered Nancy Drew in the school library when I was in 6th grade. Before the year was out I had read every book my library had in the series. It inspired me to want to be a mystery writer, which I accomplished after a career in journalism. Recently I decided I wanted to reread the stories that started it all. About the only thing I remembered about Nancy Drew was that she had neat little sports car and her father was an attorney. Turns out that information is revealed on the first page of the first book so it didn't take long for the stories to grab me. Rereading after all these years I am struck by how kind and gracious people are. Looking for information about a missing will Nancy calls on a woman in her 80s. Turns out the lady is recovering from a fall down the stairs. Although Nancy has just met her she quickly pitches in to bandage her up and make a grocery run and fix her some lunch. I wasn't surprised that a protagonist would behave so nicely but what surprised me is when she left she went next door and informed the neighbor, who was a stranger as well, and that neighbor drops everything to take care of her injured neighbor including doing her laundry. There is just an underlying assumption that people will take care of each other that I don't think today's characters have. So I am on to Book 2 next.

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Making Stolen Manuscripts Interesting

 

Camino Island by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Let's be honest. The theft of original manuscripts, even those written by a famous author like F. Scott Fitzgerald, has the potential to be deadly dull. I mean the faded, barely legible handwritten pages are only of interest to academics and collectors; they are kept out of sight in a vault and if they burned up the world wouldn't know or care that they were gone. But somehow Grisham manages to keep this tale interesting. Much of the credit goes to the setting, the titular island off the coast of Florida. It's beautiful, with small town charm and lots of beautiful people leading exotic lives. Heading the pack is Bruce Cable, owner of the local bookstore, and his wife Noelle, who sells French antiques. They have an open marriage with lots of uncommitted "flings," unlimited wealth of mysterious origin, and a beautiful Victorian mansion. Now throw in Mercer Mann who spent her childhood visiting her grandmother on the island and owns part interest in the deceased grandmother's cottage there. Mercer is a promising author who can't write the second book, supports herself teaching English and faces insurmountable student debt. She is recruited by an investigative team with all the gadgets of an international spy ring to return to the island and spy on Bruce, who the investigative team believes is in possession of 5 manuscripts which were stolen from Princeton a year earlier. It's a convoluted tale but Grisham keeps it moving by stepping back outside the characters -- omniscient voice they used to call it before that was banned -- and simply summarizing the action. The book opens with the theft which has all the necessary detail but slam, bam it's done and we are introduced to Bruce, given a quick summary of his life, how he ended up with the bookstore and his wife and the house. Then bam, we meet Mercer and the unbelievable investigative team and an island full of writers who know how to party. Oh yeah, the missing manuscripts get returned to Princeton in another slam bam just the details finale, but that is soooo not what the book is about.

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