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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