Winter in Madrid

by C.J. Sansom

A look at pre WWII Madrid as the country is digging themselves out of their own civil war and Franco is entering into negotiations with Hitler about another bigger war. Into this Harry Brett is sent from Great Britain to spy on an old classmate who is in cahoots with the General. While there, Brett reconnects with another friend who is serving in the Red Cross and on her own mission to rescue a lover from the Spanish concentration camps. Sansom does a good job conveying the people, place, politics, culture and struggles of the period, but it's an overly long Winter in Madrid with a disappointing conclusion.

I've read a number of his books and while he may be wordy, he has a knack for picking interesting times and topics to write about. If you like historical fiction, WWII type stories you'll like this book.

Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

Lancelot (Lotto) [a spoiled rich boy and aspiring actor] and Mathilde [an art historian with a sketchy past] meet at a wild college party and are instantly attracted. This attraction leads to a quick marriage, against the wishes of Lotto's mother, who immediately discontinues his financial support and cuts him out of the will [and his sizable inheritance]. Their life is a continuous string of drinking and parties and plays and sex and play writing and deception [but only one of them knows about this aspect] and climbing up the ladder of success. You get to hear about all this fun from Lotto's perspective [Fates] and then Mathilde's [Furies] and see just how differently the two viewed and managed their married life.

I don't know anyone like these people. Perhaps they exist [I suspect only in the movies] but if they are real and you know some of them maybe you'll also gain some insight into marriages. The book is rife with Shakespearian references and very fantastical and quite popular. For me, the fates section dragged but I stuck with it because commenters said it picked up in the furies part, and there did come a moment when I got hooked! Briefly. And then it passed. [but I finished it anyway].

If you noticed my brackets ..... it's something I picked up from Fates and Furies and if you read it you'll see them. Lots. [One word sentences are another winning technique] And these must be winning techniques since it is Amazon's best book of 2015, an NYT bestseller, a National Book Award finalist, and NPR book club selection. I was trying to be a bit neutral in my review since this is such a wildly popular book, and I'd be willing to discuss it with someone who loved it so maybe I could catch the love. But I didn't like it, and then I thought I might, and then I didn't really. I'd recommend it to certain readers, but I'm not sure what type of reader would like Fates and Furies, so I leave it up to you to decide if you're it. [and let me know]

Big Trouble

by Dave Barry

After mentioning my hysteria over Dave Barry's history of America, a friend of mine suggested I try one of his suspense novels.... didn't know he'd written these. Bearing in mind it's Dave Barry, you can pretty much assume the book is short on suspense and big on humor. Even though Big Trouble isn't intended to be strictly humorous, the entire premise automatically shifts it in that direction.

The students at Coconut Grove High are engaged in an elimination game involving shooting people with squirt guns. Matt has chosen to "kill" Jenny, the daughter of a mobster type businessman, Arthur Herk. At the same time, some hit men have been hired to knock off Arthur. Both shooters appear at the Herk home at the same time and thus begins the chaos! Most of this book is Three Stooges type humor, but there are a couple of events that are so NOT funny they seem a bit out of place.

Either way, it's a fast and mostly fun read. 

In a Dark Dark Wood

by Ruth Ware

I'll just cut to the chase here and say, "don't waste your time." This book is not a psychological thriller except for the psychological imbalance of every single character within. And the mystery is limited to them as well, which is somewhat surprising since the main character, who is a crime fiction novelist, is completely blind to all the obvious clues pointing to the murderer.

Enough said about In a Dark Dark Wood.

Isaac's Storm

by Erik Larson

The full title of this book is Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, which is quite a mouthful, but really sums up the whole thing in a nutshell. Isaac is Isaac Cline, one of the earliest meteorologists in the fledgling US Weather Bureau who was sent to Galveston TX as their expert weatherman. The time is 1900 when Galveston was trying to win the battle with Houston over which city would be THE elite place to dwell. A good chunk of this book is devoted to such struggles over making a name and a place and an impact, which is exactly what the US Weather Bureau was trying to do at the time, with men such as Cline who wanted to establish themselves as an elite forecasting group.

The first portion of the book details a history of Galveston, the weather bureau and advances in forecasting. Midway through you finally get to the hurricane that put a damper on all of it. Due to some unfortunate but prevalent beliefs in 1900's America, Galveston went from glory to devastation in a matter of hours. It is the assertion of Larson that many lives could have been spared but for some egotism, however the destruction of the city would have been the same.

This book is very typical of Larson's others, so if you like those this would be a good read for you.

The Truth According to Us

by Annie Barrows

A story about a small town and the Federal Writer's Project, which the FDR administration put into place during the Great Depression in order to fund & support writers (you're welcome, I won't go there). Although this story had a lot going on, it was slow moving. The daughter of a US Senator, Layla Beck rebels against her father's wishes for her future, so he sends her off to live among the commoners in the hopes of teaching her a lesson. She is assigned to the town of Macedonia, WV where she dives right into the middle of the strange happenings of the founding family.

The bulk of The Truth According to Us is told from the perspective of the 12 year-old Willa Romeyn as she too is trying to uncover some of the mysteries surrounding her family. And that is where I think the book falls flat, because there are just too many of them to follow. Willa's father is mixed up in some bootlegging venture as well as having some shady past related to the family business. One aunt has two secret loves, two others have some convoluted marriages and living arrangements, there's an old arson mystery and some dead people who are haunting everyone. Oh, and there's more! For some reason, the entire town resents this family, there is some sibling rivalry between the two brothers, there's some sneaking and spying and flirtations and on and on it goes.

In general, Barrows does capture the feel of a small town but spreads her story too thin to capture interest in the people living there. It's just ok.

From the Corner of His Eye

by Dean Koontz

Within the first few pages of From the Corner of His Eye   a tragic event occurred that had me turning back the pages to see if I'd missed something! But no, Koontz presents a very unassuming character and then shows you how wrong a first impression can be. And he doesn't stop there, the book has twists aplenty many of which I didn't see coming. Corner of His Eye is a mixed bag of genre: suspense, thriller, supernatural and drama that meshes well and keeps the reader fully engaged.Without providing spoilers, let me tell you that for the first 3/4 of this story I was completely intrigued with the characters, their development and the suspense and thrill as the plot progressed to the final solution. Although there are a few things you'll need to overlook, like the 3-year old prodigies, their dialogue, the stereotypical perfectly perfect people and the noir PI. There are some interesting concepts, which always wins my favor and allows me to give leeway on other things. You should also just stop reading after the bad guy meets his demise because the story suffered from the attempt to tie a neat bow on a package that didn't need it. Overall fast-paced thrill read.