Chasing the Night by Iris Johansen

Chasing the Night is Iris Johansen’s latest Eve Duncan book. Eve Duncan is a forensic sculptor who can take pieces of a skull and flesh it out so that a recognizable face appears. Her particular expertise is children’s faces. She is called on when bones are found to help identify them and her work has led to many criminals being put behind bars. But the work is personal for Eve. She lost her own daughter to murder and the body has never been found. That sorrow and desire for justice for her daughter gives her a special connection with the children whose faces she is trying to recreate.

I’ve enjoyed many of Iris Johansen’s books over the years but I think this is her best one yet. A child has been taken from his mother when he was a baby and brought up by a murderous criminal. This criminal has been taunting the mother, an FBI agent for years and the mother has finally decided to launch an all-out effort to find her son. To do this she needs Eve Duncan’s help.

The themes in this novel are about family ties and love and how true evil distorts everything. Iris Johansen knows how to tell a good story. This book was hard to put down and the ending is truly satisfying. If you have never read a book by Johansen this is a good one to start with. If you have read her books then this one will be an entertaining addition to your collection. Chasing the Night is a 10 out of 10.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Read this book. In fact, go out and buy it, don’t even get it from the library. This is the type of book that you could read during a crappy day or week and feel better instantly. Sadly the author died just as the book was being published so I don’t think there will be a sequel although her niece (an author in her on right) did help with editing and finishing the book.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a book club filled wtih quirky, funny and endearing people. The setting is the Island of Guernsey just after the end of World War 2,

The main character is a writer, Julia who is finishing up a book tour. She receives a letter from a man on Guernsey who has come upon a secondhand book of hers with her name and address in the front. He writes asking for the name of the bookstore and address where she bought the book because he wants to read some more. With that a corresopndence begins and Julia’s life is changed forever.

The story is told in letter form. Notes back and forth between all the characters. It’s a charming way of telling a story and makes you feel a bit like you’re reading someone else’s diary. There is much about how the book club came into existence and how each of the characters endured the occupation of Guernsey by the Germans.

This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. The story is poignant and the characters are a delight to get to know. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from the book “Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad ones”. I highly recommend that you read and enjoy this book.

8 Days to Live by Iris Johansen

I’ve been asked to do a review on Iris Johansen’s new book Chasing the Night. While I was waiting for the book to arrive I thought I’d better catch up on her books as I haven’t read one in awhile. So I bought 8 days to Live.

This novel’s main character is Jane,. She is an artist who has run afoul of an evil cult loosely based on Judas Iscariot, Jesus’s betrayer. The cult has earmarked her for death on April 1.
The action involves her attempts to discover who is behind the cult, and who has been murdering those close to her.

This is a good thriller with definite themes of good vs evil and love vs hate. Johansen gets a bit more graphic in her descriptions of murder scenes than I would like but I appear to be one of the few people who doesn’t enjoy CSI-type investigations. If you like that sort of thing then you will enjoy this book.

This Body of Death by Elizabeth George

I've read all of Elizabeth George's novels and have mostly enjoyed them. The last couple she has been focusing on child abuse which is an area that I do not enjoy reading about. I'd forgotten that this book was about that before I started to read it. What I like about her books is that the characters are continued and they have mostly shown growth and depth as the books have progressed.

I had trouble with this one from the start mostly because of the style. She uses the flashback method to tell one of the story lines. But where the method was intriguing and engaging in Louise Penny's book,Bury your Dead, in this book it was intrusive and annoying, at least at first. This is because the flashbook story is being told in the form of a report. I suspect it's partly to lessen the horror of the story. And the story is horrific even told in the bland, reporting way of a psychologist's report.

The other story line is good. I'm not sure I like where she's going with a couple of the main characters. it will be interesting to see how they develop in later books.

If you are a staunch Elizabeth George fan then you will want to read this book if only to keep up with Detective Lynley and Barbara Havers. Otherwise I would recommend reading her earlier books as there is more story telling and less background stuff to wade through.

Bookaholism

Hello, my name is Shari, and I’m a book-aholic.

How do I know this? You might think it’s because I have a lot of books, and you’d be right. If you’re my mother you know this because you’ve packed umpteen books whenever I’ve moved.

How I know this though is because I have 3 books that I’m reading right now. And someone just gave me another that I’ve been wanting to read and I’m trying to figure out how I can fit that into my reading schedule without dropping any of other books I’m reading.

Hello, my name is Shari and I’m a bookaholic. Please tell me I’m not the only one. Maybe we can start a support group.

True Blue by David Baldacci

True Blue is a police crime thriller involving two sisters; one who is chief of police and one who has just gotten out of prison for a crime she was framed for.

This is a solid, action-packed novel. As you know by now if you've read my blog for very long, I prefer books with in depth character development. This is definitely not one of those but still entertaining in a shoot em up; good vs evil type of way. And there is plenty of bad guys to be had. Baldacci has some interesting theories on how far the US gov't will go to combat terrorism. This is a modern tale with modern bad guys and strong women who can hold their own against anything that comes their way. This one won't tax your brain very much but will get your heart pumping a few times as you follow the action.

Bury your Dead by Louise Penny

In most jobs you can make a mistake and nobody dies. But in some jobs; air traffic controllers, fire fighters, and police detectives mistakes can be deadly. These jobs have a built in terror factor; the terror that if you fail people may die.

It’s this terror that Louise Penny uses to create suspense and plot development in her latest book, Bury your Dead. Once again we meet Inspector Gamache. He’s in Quebec city recovering from a deadly mistake. While there he becomes involved in a murder mystery and a historical mystery. And if that wasn’t enough mystery, the fact that he may have made a mistake in the Three Pines case (The Brutal Telling) begins to haunt him.

While he is going about the city looking for clues to the murder, we are given access to his thoughts as he plays back his most recent mistake; the one that resulted in a leave of absence from his job. If this hadn’t been handled properly it could have become very confusing for the reader but instead the transitions between real time and his thoughts are smoothly done and the reader is caught up in the story playing in Gamache’s head as much as the one playing out around him. Gamache’s side-kick, Inspector Beauvior reopens the Three Pines case, giving us yet another narrative to follow in this complex but entertaining novel.

This is also a book about history, specifically Quebec’s history. In fact it’s possible to think of Quebec, it’s history, it’s present and it’s politics as another character in the novel. Penny’s love for the province she lives in is very evident throughout all her novels. But the descriptions of the places and people in this one made me want to book my next vacation there.

You could read this book as a stand alone; there’s enough information about the people of Three Pines and the previous murder case to go on. However, the real pleasure in reading Louise Penny’s books is getting to know the characters and their surroundings. She was a journalist before writing fiction and has the journalistic eye for detail and commentary.

Bury Your Dead is a compelling, complex book that examines history and portrays the present through excellent story telling and interesting characters. Buy the book, read the series, you will be glad you did.