L Reads Alex Cross #13: Double Cross

I had such hope for this series after reading and really liking Cross, the twelfth book in the series, but then I read Double Cross and I swear it has to be the worst Alex Cross book yet!

 

James Patterson, the master of reusing bad guys and never really wrapping up cases, brings back Cross’s old friend turned nemesis, Kyle Craig, who manages to escape from maximum security prison.  But while Craig is alluding capture, Cross has another foe to battle.  Some madman serial killer is wreaking havoc on the Washington DC area, and Cross, unable to leave police work behind for his new psychiatric practice, returns to the police force on part-time basis, teaming up with old buddy and partner Sampson, and latest girlfriend, who actually manages to retain her life by the novel’s close.  Though I have hopes she’ll be offed in the next installment, as she’s not one of my favourite of the Cross women. 

 

The novel is resplendent with the usual bizarre red herrings and go nowhere secondary plotlines, an incredibly boring villain and Cross’s usual, pulled out of his butt “ah ha” moments when all the clues magically come together for him at the eleventh hour.  Needless to say, I did not enjoy reading this book, though I live in perpetual hope the next one will be better.  I’m crazy optimistic like that.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

 

Windsor Book Club Reads: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Mariam is the bastard child of a well-off man and her servant mother.  She is raised in a little hut on the outskirts of town and sees her father weekly, when he promises her the moon but never quite delivers.  As a child, Mariam doesn’t understand the social stigma attached to her and her mother, and how her father’s wives want nothing to do with her, they don’t even wish to acknowledge her existence.  When her mother suddenly dies, Mariam has no choice but to move in with her father, his wives and their children.  Hen-pecked by the women he’s married, Mariam’s father quickly agrees to sell her into marriage to a much older man who takes her from the only childhood home she’s ever known to the large city of Kabul.  A child bride, Mariam does her best to please her new husband, but it is a marriage that quickly deteriorates into punishment, both verbal and physical.

 

Some years later, when Mariam has failed to produce children, her husband takes advantage of the unstable conditions in Kabul to marry the orphaned daughter of his next door neighbour.  Together the two women must bond and overthrow the shackles of their loveless marriage to a tyrannical old man and reach for freedom in a country torn apart by civil war.

 

A beautiful story, wrenching at times with its brutal detail of life for women under the Taliban, A Thousand Splendid Sons will have you falling in love with Kabul and its people, rooting for the heroines and their fight for freedom at any cost. 

 

What my fellow book clubbers had to say:

 

To a one, we all loved this book and were very happy for the opportunity to read it.  Many questions about the Islamic faith and Afghanistan were brought forth and patiently answered by F, who shared her knowledge of the faith and region with us.  I for one, love learning about new cultures, so it was a treat to not only read this book, but listen to F share her experiences with the group.  One of my favourite book club meetings to date!

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

TBR Bookcase Read: Summer and the City

I can’t resist a Sex and the City novel, even if it doesn’t always deliver as well as the TV show did.  Candace Bushnell’s second Carrie Diaries book, Summer and the City, takes us back to Carrie’s arrival in the Big Apple, the summer after high school, where she first meets “the girls”. Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. 

 

With a dream to become a writer, Carrie Bradshaw moves to New York City for the summer before heading off to college.  She has a spot in a prestigious writing program and hopes to make the most of it.  But the city is not all it’s cracked up to be.  The tiny boardinghouse she’s staying at has too many rules and too little privacy.  Thankfully she has an introduction to a classmates cousin, Samantha Jones, who lets Carrie crash at hers while Carrie explores what the city has on offer.

 

One of those “offers” is a much older playwright Carrie falls for and who inspires her to write plays too, only he’s so wrapped up in his own life and career, Carrie becomes little more than a convenient diversion.  The roots of 30-something Sex and the City Carrie with her questionable choice in men are well and truly sown.

 

While exploring the city, Carrie meets Miranda, a feisty social justice protestor, man-hater, and social misfit.  Not too far from the Miranda we come to know and love in the TV series.  Although the three women bump along together, their lives slowly but surely intersecting, they are far from the close-knit group of 30-something women they will later become, and here for me, lies the weaknesses of the Carrie Diaries series.

 

While I love the idea of reading about how these four women met and became friends, the young adult Carrie is super annoying, as she waffles around trying to figure out her life.  Man-hater Miranda has more rough edges than a brillo pad, and her doom and gloom outlook on love and life left me cold.  Successful Samantha, on the other hand, already climbing the PR corporate ladder, with designs on becoming the next Classic 6 housewife on the Upper East Side, was a surprisingly realistic portrayal of a woman I’d really like to get to know better.  She was unfortunately a minor character in the book, and her scenes left me wanting more … more Samantha and less Carrie and her angst.  With luck there will be another Carrie Diaries installment, one in which Samantha breathes new life into the other characters.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

TBR Bookcase Read: Big Trouble

Dave Barry is a humour columnist who was syndicated in newspapers internationally.  You may have read his column back in the ‘80s or ‘90s, or one of his many non-fiction books.  Big Trouble is his first fiction novel.

 

The plot is fairly simplistic and is mostly about being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  A couple of high schoolers playing a harmless game of killer inadvertently get mixed up with arms dealers, petty thieves and contract killers in a goofy romp that will have you laughing and groaning alternatively.  My absolutely favourite parts of the novel involve the family pooch.  Barry has an uncanny knack at getting into the mind and heart of a dog and portraying it with eerie realism.  To write too much of the plot is to give it all away.  Suffice it to say, you’ll spend an enjoyable afternoon with Barry’s capers and won’t regret the time wasted.  It’s a book that requires not a whole lot of thought, which is sometimes just what you want in a lazy day’s read.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

TBR Bookcase Read: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman Series

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An Assembly Such as This

I am mad for all things Jane Austen.  I have all her novels, and only have Mansfield Park and Lady Susan left to read (I’m trying to savour them, since she only wrote and published a handful of them).  I own all the BBC adaptations on DVD and watch them regularly, never getting tired of the trials and tribulations of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, Catherine’s silly childish, gothic imaginings, and Eleanor’s quiet yearning for Edward.  Then for a special treat, I pop in the 6-DVD set of Pride and Prejudice, waiting with breathless anticipation for Colin Firth’s wet-shirt scene.  Yum!

 

My fervor for all things Austen often leads me down the path of fan fiction, oftentimes much to my peril.  Among the gems, I have unfortunately read some ghastly books which promised to modernize my most beloved author’s characters and plotlines, to which I proclaim: “why mess with perfection?”  To date, I have thankfully been successful in avoiding the zombie war on Miss Austen’s work (sacrilege!), and hope to continue to do so!  But as I mentioned there are some gems among the fan fiction onslaught, I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce you to one of them: the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series by Pamela Aiden. 

 

In the first installment of the series, An Assembly Such as This, Aiden takes us through the first bits of Pride and Prejudice, the moment Darcy and Elizabeth meet at the ill-fated assembly, forward to the first marriage proposal and Elizabeth’s utter refusal of Darcy’s hand.  What makes this series so unique for me, is that it chooses to tell the beloved Austen tale from Darcy’s point of view.  And Aiden does an incredibly good job of getting into Darcy’s head and being true to the character as created by Austen.

 

Where the work is lacking, is that Darcy is a bit of an Austen cardboard character as most of her men are.  The true delight in reading Austen is in her female characters and their gambols through society.  So unfortunately much of Aiden’s rather slow-paced tale is Darcy pointing out to himself how unsuitable Elizabeth is to his world and station, information that Austen sums up much more succinctly and with greater skill, but then she is “the” Jane Austen!

Duty or Desire

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The second book in the series, Duty or Desire, was actually a library read for me, as I only owned book one and three of the trilogy, so this isn’t technically a TBR read.  It also was the worst book in the series as it diverts completely from Austen’s novel and follows Darcy’s movements after the failed proposal to Miss Elizabeth Bennett.  Not only do we have more of the waffling between his “duty” to the Darcy name and estate and how unsuitable Elizabeth and her relations are to those constructs, and his “desire” for the enchanting Miss Bennett, but we see Darcy enter a world that is completely foreign to him, and frankly I would have thought the man more sense!  Determined to forget Elizabeth and to find a suitable bride, Darcy accepts an invitation to a house party at the country estate of a former school chum.  Needless to say, those making up the party are all reprobates and Darcy finds his reputation at serious risk!  Poor decision making indeed!

 

The slow-pace of this novel and the deviation from Austen’s work nearly turned me off the rest of Aiden’s series, but I persevered and happily closed the back cover on this book with some anticipation of getting back to the Pride and Prejudice story I know and love in the final book of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman.

 

These Three Remain

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The third and final (thank God) book in the series sees Darcy once more thrown into the company of Miss Elizabeth Bennett, and the beloved details of Pride and Prejudice once more reassert themselves, making the series once more enjoyable.  Again, the story is told from Darcy’s point of view, so I quite enjoyed reading about his anticipation that Elizabeth may be coming around to liking him, only to be foiled by the elopement of her sister and his archenemy, Mr. Wickham!  In Austen’s novel, we have to wait for word to reach Elizabeth at Longbourn about the outcome of the elopement, whereas Aiden takes us to London with Darcy in his attempt to track down the lovers and make them wed.  As far more political intrigue occurred in the male sphere, there is also an interesting subplot involving Darcy’s best friend turned spy, routing out Irish conspiracies to attack the throne, etc. etc.  Yeah, give me Austen and the gentle sipping of tea and gossipy chat of society matrons any day.  Political I am not!

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L :)

 

 

 

 

TBR Bookcase Read: By Nightfall

Michael Cunningham is probably best known to readers for his novel The Hours, which was turned into a pretty decent movie starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman.  I enjoyed the movie so much, I made sure to read the book, which was pretty decent.  So when I stumbled across a copy of By Nightfall by the same author, I couldn’t resist picking it up.  It was also a pretty decent read.

 

Peter Harris is a SoHo art dealer in his mid-forties, married to Rebecca and going through a mid-life crisis.  While on the outside his life is seemingly perfect – good job, lovely wife, beautiful home, etc. – Peter finds himself beginning to question his judgment in art and whether the artists he’s been making his living showcasing are really worth anyone’s while.  Then there is Rebecca’s 20-something younger brother Mizzy who comes to stay with them.  A striking resemblance to his wife combined with drug problems, Mizzy represents Peter’s lost youth and all the possibilities that could have been, culminating in a bizarre attraction that threatens to unravel Peter’s marriage as he battles the self-doubt inherent in his mid-life crisis. 

 

Examining the way we live now and the value of art and love in our lives, By Nightfall is well worth a read. 

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

 

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

~ Phillip Pullman