Book Reviews February 2019

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith.  This is the fourth Cormoran Strike/Robin Ellacott mystery novel by J.K. Rowling, and I found it as delightful as the first three.  It is thick and meaty and slow-going in a good way – I was very excited to read a few chapters each night, and was sorry when it was over.  It begins more or less a year after where the third novel left off – Robin has married Michael, and is recovering from her serial killer attack.  She is back at work with Cormoran, and they get a new case figuring out who is blackmailing Jasper Chiswell, a member of parliament.  Robin goes undercover and works in Chiswell’s parliament office, while Strike chases down other leads.  Chiswell has many adult children and a wife and ex-wives, and all seem to be working at cross purposes.  Plus the Olympics are underway in London, and Michael is as displeased as ever with Robin’s job.  Like all in this series, it’s a very detailed, slow-paced and satisfying read.

Everything Under by Daisy Johnson.  I had heard good things about this book, which was nominated for a Booker, but it wasn’t the book for me.  I should begin with my pet peeve, which is when people write a novel with the events all out of sequence for no reason whatsoever.  Now when this is done well, I love it, but I feel it is too often used as a crutch to disguise a weak narrative.  This novel is basically a re-writing of the Oedipus story in present day time, and the narration is mostly that of Gretel, a woman who has just found her mother after a 16-year disappearance.  Her mother now is senile and doesn’t understand who she is or that Gretel is her adult daughter.  We get flashbacks to their life together on a houseboat, and Gretel tries to work out why her mother disappeared suddenly from her life ten years previously.  Then we also get chapters from the point of view of Margot, who transitions to Martin, and who ran away from home because a neighbor predicted he’d kill his father and sleep with his mother.  All of this could, possibly, have worked, but I didn’t like any of the characters, fitting together the back and forth timeline was annoying, and although most of it takes place on the river Avon in England, the locale of it all was strangely generic.  Plus Gretel steals a dog and then later on loses him, and is not at all bothered by this.  Sigh.

Watching You by Lisa Jewell. This was a really good read.  It takes place in a small town outside of London, and the chapters switch back and forth between Joey, a young woman newly married and recently returned from living abroad, and who is trying to get her life together and be a more responsible adult; Jenna, a high schooler who is living with a mother with mental illness that manifests itself in paranoia; and Freddie, a high schooler on the spectrum, and the son of the head superintendent of the local school.  When the novel begins, someone has been murdered, and it is someone connected to Tom, Freddie’s father, a charismatic and successful man.  Everyone is watching everyone else:  Freddie takes pictures of people in the town from his window, Tom seems to be watching two high school girls in particular, Jenna’s mom thinks the whole world is in on some spying conspiracy involving her, etc. etc.  There are layers and layers of watching, all skillfully done, and it is fun trying to figure out when the watching is nefarious and who is guilty of what.  It’s well written and very enjoyable.

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.  I didn’t like this one.  Apparently, it is the first of a series, but I won’t be reading the rest.  It’s about a young London policeman, who one day out on patrol sees a ghost hanging around the scene of a crime.  Because of this ability, he becomes an apprentice in a kind of hidden police version of the ministry of magic, and is taught about the magic underworld existing in tandem.  They also then are working to figure out why there are so many murders committed by non-criminals.  There’s this whole plot about all the murders acting out old Punch & Judy puppet shows, and then the young policeman is also meeting all the gods of London’s rivers, etc. etc.  It was clever, and the writing wasn’t bad, per se, it just came across to me as an exercise.  I was glad when I finished the book.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper.  I loved this book and highly recommend it.  She is such a good writer.  This is her third book, and whereas the first two had characters in common, this one is “stand alone.”  It’s about a ranching family in the way outback in Australia, where the sun is so hot that you can’t be outside without a water supply nearby.  It begins with Nathan learning that his younger brother Cameron has died from such a fate.  Cameron was an experienced rancher, though, and shouldn’t have been defeated by the elements.  Things get even stranger when they discover that his car, stocked with food and water and working air conditioner, was nearby.  The police expect it was a suicide, but something doesn’t add up.  Nathan has a farm nearby, but he goes to stay at the main homestead with his extended family, and they all try to piece together what happened.  Nathan is working through his own difficult path, so that often the title refers to him as much as to Cameron.  The writing is so wonderful!  Harper is so good at creating interesting characters and then shaping them subtly.  It’s well-paced and fascinating and I loved it from beginning to end.  Read this book!