BOOK 'EM

Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris

BOOK #43
Monday, 10/21/07 to Sunday, 10/28/07

ISBN-10: 0060559152
ISBN-13: 978-0060559151

Gentlemen & Players is a truly creepy story about the lengths people will go to for revenge.  Nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe award by the Mystery Writers of America, and  #6 in the BookSense Picks Autumn-Winter 2007/2008 Reading Group guide, this one is worth the read. 

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

For generations, privileged young men have attended St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric Classics teacher who has been a fixture there for more than thirty years. This year, however, the wind of unwelcome change is blowing, and Straitley is finally, reluctantly, contemplating retirement. As the new term gets under way, a number of incidents befall students and faculty alike, beginning as small annoyances but soon escalating in both number and consequence. St. Oswald's is unraveling, and only Straitley stands in the way of its ruin. But he faces a formidable opponent with a bitter grudge and a master strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final, deadly move.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Joanne Harris is the author of six other novels, Sleep, Pale Sister; Chocolat; Blackberry Wine; Five Quarters of the Orange; Coastliners; and Holy Fools; a short story collection, Jigs & Reels; and two cookbook-memoirs, My French Kitchen and The French Market. Half French and half British, she lives in England.

REVIEW FROM SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL:

Three voices are heard in this tale of a venerable English boys' school. One belongs to Roy Straitley, a veteran teacher of classics. Another is that of a teacher who has just arrived at St. Oswald's with the malicious intent of bringing it down through well-placed rumor and cunning innuendo. The third is that of a child from 14 years earlier who loves the school but does not belong to it. He even assumes an alter identity, Julian Pinchbeck, complete with uniform, in order to roam the school at will and as much as possible escape the painful reality of life with his loutish father, its porter. Then he makes a friend at St. Oswald's and at last has someone from his chosen world with whom to spend his time. But everything unravels with the death of Julian's adored friend. Now the teacher who was the child Julian returns. Harris shows what a master storyteller she is through the play and counterplay of current happenings twisting through the telling of what went on before. The story builds suspensefully and cleverly with surprises and turns to a satisfying denouement.–Judy Braham

True Evil by Greg Iles

BOOK #42
Monday, 10/14/07 to Sunday, 10/21/07

ISBN-10: 1416524533
ISBN-13: 978-1416524533

Bestselling author, Greg Iles, is known for writing "Deep South thrillers" that often mix suspense and spooky science.  True Evil fits the bill.  The Washington Post calls it, "Engrossing...[A] lush, full-tilt thriller."  True Evil made it's debut at #4 on the October 4th BookSense Bestsellers List.  I predict another hit for Iles.

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

True evil has a face you know and a voice you trust....

A Southern doctor is pulled into a terrifying ring of murderous secrets -- in this powerhouse thriller from New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles.

Dr. Chris Shepard has never seen his new patient before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face knows him all too well. An FBI agent working undercover, Alex Morse has come to Dr. Shepard's office in Natchez, Mississippi, to unmask a killer. A local divorce attorney has a cluster of clients whose spouses have all died under mysterious circumstances. Agent Morse's own brother-in-law was one of those clients, and now her beloved sister is dead. Then comes Morse's bombshell: Dr. Shepard's own beautiful wife consulted this lawyer one week ago, a visit Shepard knew nothing about.

Will he help Alex Morse catch a killer? Or is he the next one to fall victim to a deadly trap of sex, lies, and murder?

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY:

Smooth prose, psychological depth and crafty plotting lift bestseller Iles's latest suspense thriller, which puts a fresh twist on a familiar theme-the cat-and-mouse game between an FBI agent and a fiendishly-clever serial killer. One personal tragedy after another has struck Alexandra Morse, a rising star in the FBI who specializes in hostage negotiation: her father's shooting death in a robbery, her mother's diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer, and a misstep on the job that left her face scarred and a fellow agent dead. Now Alex's sister, Grace, lies dying in a Jackson, Mississippi, hospital after suffering a stroke. Alex arrives from Washington just in time to hear Grace say that her husband has murdered her. After Grace's death, Alex learns that Dr. Eldon Tarver, a brilliant scientist in need of funds for research into developing a biological superweapon, has teamed with a Mississippi divorce attorney who offers select clients the opportunity to avoid a protracted court fight by arranging for their spouses to die. When Alex identifies the next intended victim, Dr. Chris Shepard, she goes undercover as one of the idealistic doctor's patients and soon finds herself in a race against Tarver as well as her own superiors, who have not sanctioned her investigation.

Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup

BOOK #41
Monday, 10/07/07 to Sunday, 10/14/07

ISBN-10: 0316066303
ISBN-13: 978-0316066303

Here If You Need Me was an August BookSense Pick... and it is our October Book Club selection.  I'd describe it as a strong woman feel-good book.  My Mom loved it and can't wait to see how Book Club members respond.  Give it a read and see what you think...

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY:

It may take ingenuity to interest browsers in a memoir by a middle-aged mother who, 11 years ago, was suddenly widowed, then became a Unitarian-Universalist minister, and now works as chaplain to game wardens in Maine. But good memoir writing does not depend on celebrity or adventure—who'd have thought that a self-confessed recovering neurotic like Anne Lamott or a monastically inclined poet like Kathleen Norris would make it big?—and Braestrup's insightful essays are extraordinarily well written, mingling elements of police procedural and touching love story with trenchant observations about life and death. Alert to comic detail even in grisly circumstances (bears, for example, like to play ball with human skulls), she tells stories of lost children, a suicide, drunken accidents and a murder, always with compassion and a concern for the big questions inescapably provoked by tragic events. Why did Dad die? her children ask, and her response describes not only her theology but also her reason for being a chaplain: Nowhere in scripture does it say 'God is a car accident' or 'God is death.' God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always—always—love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love.

Spook Country by William Gibson

BOOK #40
Monday, 09/30/07 to Sunday, 10/07/07

ISBN-10: 0399154302
ISBN-13: 978-0399154300

Amazon.com calls William Gibson "the most influential science fiction writer of the past quarter century" and Publisher's Weekly calls Spook Country "one of Gibson's best."  Nevertheless, I didn't care much for this book.  I generally like science fiction - especially technology-based sci fi - but this one just didn't hook me.  To be fair, though, Spook Country made it's debut at #2 on the August 16th BookSense Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List and remained on the list for several weeks.

REVIEW FROM PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY:

Set in the same high-tech present day as Pattern Recognition, Gibson's fine ninth novel offers startling insights into our paranoid and often fragmented, postmodern world. When a mysterious, not yet actual magazine, Node, hires former indie rocker–turned–journalist Hollis Henry to do a story on a new art form that exists only in virtual reality, Hollis finds herself investigating something considerably more dangerous. An operative named Brown, who may or may not work for the U.S. government, is tracking a young, Russian-speaking Cuban-Chinese criminal named Tito. Brown's goal is to follow Tito to yet another operative known only as the old man. Meanwhile, a mysterious cargo container with CIA connections repeatedly appears and disappears on the worldwide Global Positioning network, never quite coming to port. At the heart of the dark goings-on is Bobby Chombo, a talented but unbalanced specialist in Global Positioning software who refuses to sleep in the same spot two nights running. Compelling characters and crisp action sequences, plus the author's trademark metaphoric language, help make this one of Gibson's best.