This is a superb thriller. In 1975, a teenager (Barbara) disappears from her Adirondack summer camp. Eerily, Barbara’s older brother vanished from the same camp in 1961. This is an extraordinary story of both investigations, and of course complicating secrets abound. The characters are richly described, both well-meaning (but flawed) people and some dastardly villains. Highly recommended – very entertaining.
Category: secrets
The Briar Club – Kate Quinn
Consistent with previous Quinn books (The Rose Code, The Alice Project), this is a book about women and their female relationships. The context: Washington DC from 1950-54, so the era of paranoid McCarthyism and racism. Women living Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house, are united by the Thursday night Briar Club for potluck food and conversation. This book about female friendships and secrets makes for compelling reading.
James – Percival Everett
In Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck helps Jim escape slavery. Everett’s book provides Jim’s story, and there is much to admire in his writing. First, it is an adventure story of survival. Second, there is some dark humor as Jim utilizes a “correct incorrect grammar” when speaking as a slave, And third, the brutal context of pre-Civil War slavery is shown graphically with ugly cruelty directed to “black property”. What compels people to behave inhumanely?
The Mighty Red – Louise Erdrich
My first book in 2025 is … great! The setting is the Red River Valley in North Dakota, with ordinary people coping as best they can with the impending financial collapse of 2008-09. There is a premature wedding, and an embezzlement with a masquerading bank robber. The people are flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. There are also dark secrets in the aftermath of a tragic accident. And finally, there is a brilliant understanding of human relationships with the environment. Ms. Erdrich’s writing reminds me of Lionel Shriver, high praise indeed.
The Covenant of Water – Abraham Verghese
Be advised that this is a long book, more than 700 pages, but the writing is exquisite. The setting is South India from 1900-1977, with a focus on three generations in a single family. The story begins with a 12-year-old bride meeting her much older widowed husband. Being India, some tragedy is inevitable ranging from an inherited propensity for drowning to leprosy. Verghese’s writing is exceptional; some examples are describing Madras evening breezes to rail journeys, plus medical information. Family secrets abound, of course, and historical India provides an indelible backdrop to lives full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss. A must read book – highly recommended.
Hang the Moon- Jeannette Walls
Previously, Ms. Walls has written autobiographical (The Glass Castle) and biographical (Half Broke Horses) books. This new book is a novel that follows the trials and tribulations of Sallie Kincaid in 1920s Virginia. At ages 17-20, Sallie has to deal with family secrets in rural areas dealing with the prohibition. There are conflicts between what is right and wrong, and legal and illegal. Sallie is both clever and quick, but how will she operate in a world that devalues women?
The Fraud – Zadie Smith
And now for something entirely different: Ms. Smith has written a fantastic novel of historical fiction. The central character, Mrs. Eliza Touchet, is an acid-tongued spinster with abolitionist views, who moves in with her cousin in the 1840s, the hapless writer William Ainsworth, and lives with him for the next 30 years. England is captivated by the Tichborne Affair, in which Arthur Orton, a lower-class butcher from Australia, claims to be Sir Roger Tichborne and thus heir to a sizable estate (ant title). His outrageous claim results in two lengthy trials where a Black Jamaican, Andre Bogle, supports the claim. What is truth in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception? Overall, the writing is rich and detailed, a joy to read.
The Mystery of Right and Wrong – Wayne Johnston
Mr. Johnston has written many fine books about Newfoundland (The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, The Custodian of Paradise), but none so graphic as this new novel. Wade is a young man from a Newfoundland outport, a true provincial in every sense of the word, who meets South African born Rachel in the MUN library. Rachel is a wounded soul, obsessed with reading and re-reading The Diary of Anne Frank; her three sisters are equally conflicted. Most of the book takes place in South Africa and Amsterdam in 1985. Be warned – this story contains some dark and disturbing secrets that are very intense.
The Cloisters – Katy Hays
Context is everything in this fine first novel. The Cloisters is a gothic museum of medieval, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Researchers search for 15th century tarot cards used for divination – telling the future had been the original purpose of these cards. There is a murder, of course, and academic obsession. What is fate and what is choice? Sinister secrets abound and the ending is especially seductive.
What David Read 