I didn’t do very well with my BoB Reading Challenge this week because I was so caught up in the two books I was reading. The first was this one, which I had to read immediately upon finishing the first in the series. Just like in the first book there is tons of historical detail that really bring the setting to life. And while Molly is still strong and smart, poking her nose into a mystery determined to solve it, this installment finds her in some very different situations. She is still dealing with the family she helped bring over from Ireland, including their nasty trashy cousin, Nuala. And when the story starts she is even more smitten than ever with police captain Daniel Sullivan. And she is still seeking reputable work, though still sure that what she’d really like to do is help people back in the old country connect with lost loved ones here in America. Much of that changes fairly quickly when she finds out that Daniel’s affections have strings attached. She ends up forcing her way into working for a real private investigator, but not long after that the p.i., Paddy Riley, is murdered-not only that she actually sees the murderer. The police don’t seem very interested in solving the case, but Molly is determined to. Right there that’s a whole lot going on-but wait! there’s more! Through investigating and exploring Molly ends up getting to be a part of the Greenwich Village scene (which-who knew there was one that far back?), meeting and associating with bold bohemian types and homosexuals (though it takes her a really long time to figure that out.) Womens’ rights, women drinking, gay men, nude painter models, passionate artists, and anarchists-sheltered Irish Molly learns about it all! I also really enjoyed the final scenes, set at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. World’s Fairs and these exhibitions really sound so amazing and it’s difficult to imagine something quite like it today.
Anyway, I very much enjoyed this sequel and look forward to continuing the series (especially because I’d really like to see Molly take on some cases that do involve finding people.) And, I still have to get back to Her Royal Spyness series (I stopped when I lost my library book, but I found and returned it, so can continue on now.)
Archive for Adult Fiction
Death of Riley (Molly Murphy #2) by Rhys Bowen
Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen
I enjoyed the Royal Spyness books so much that I decided to try out another one of her series-the Molly Murphy mysteries. Just put down book one, and I loved it!
Just like the Royal Spyness books it had wonderful historical detail. In this case what impressed me so much was the (presumably) accurate and descriptive details of finding passage to New York City as an Irish immigrant, being processed through Ellis Island, and then finding lodging and a job on the Lower East Side. You know, I’m not sure if they ever say exactly what year it is, but I guess turn of the century. Tammany Hall and corruption play a big part in the story.
Molly is from a village in Ireland, but finds her way to America when she takes a dying woman’s place, so that the woman’s children might be reunited with their father. Posing as Kathleen O’Connor Molly stays with the children. They must spend the night on Ellis Island and it’s there that Molly is witness to (though doesn’t realize it at the time) a murderer. Her one friend from the ship is under suspicion, as is she, and she is determined to find out who the real killer is.
Man, NYC at the turn of the century, for a poor immigrant, sounds horrible. The descriptions were so vivid I could imagine how awful it would be to be living in a tiny room with several other people, sleeping on the floor, a straight chair, or boards, and washing up at a communal sink, several flights down. Dirty, crowded, noisy. I also kept thinking how amazing it was the amount of detective work they could do without the modern conveniences we have (although they did have telephones.)
Molly is funny and smart and resourceful and I look forward to reading more about her and the police captain, Daniel.
Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler
First I wanted to love this book, then I hated it, then I loved it.I read this at the recommendation of my friend Paula-the first selection of our “Go Bag Book Club.” If you don’t know what a go bag is, then you likely won’t survive an apocalyptic event, a pandemic, the downfall of civilization, whichever doomsday scenario you like. If you’ve followed my reviews here then you probably have heard me go on and on about how I like post apocalyptic books, but hated The Road. Basically I can’t stand it when the author presumes that when a catastrophic event or series of events happens, that man will revert to a primitive state of killing and random violence, including cannibalism. I just can’t believe that the majority of mankind is only a full grocery store or functioning government away from becoming a random killing machine. Paula says, “ I say if no one is gettin’ eaten, it ain’t worth readin.’” Which cracks me up. And I totally loved Dies the Fire, which did have a few crazies eating other people (and also recommended by Paula, so I should have known she wouldn’t steer me wrong.)
So anyway, I loved the first chapter of this book, in which Mortimer Tate comes out of his cave on a mountain, where he’s been hiding for 9 years, and descends the mountain to find out what has happened to civilization and what has become of the wife (separated) he left behind. What he finds is pretty dreadful and by the end of chapter 2 he’s witnessed some brutal raping, been drunkenly beat, and had a finger cut off. That’s when I said, “UGH!” and put it down. But when I picked it up a mere page later I was finding myself getting more interested and invested in Mortimer’s survival.
Bill saves Mortimer’s life, and thus becomes his friend and ally in this strange new world. Bill introduces him to Joey Armageddon’s Sassy a Go Go, a “chain” of places that are hotel, saloon, and general store all in one. Armageddon dollars are the only thing accepted and it’s pretty much the only way to get anything. Oh, and naked chicks dance in cages and are available as whores, too. Mortimer finds out that his ex-wife, Anne, was a Joey girl, but has moved on to another location. Determined to find her, and now a “Platinum” member of Joey Armageddon’s, Mortimer and Bill get aboard a hand cranked train to find her. Cannibals, crazy people, violence, it’s all there. But so is an absolute ton of humor and adventure. I know, it doesn’t sound like it could be funny, but it is! Mortimer is a great character and it’s unbelievable how kick-ass he is. Bill and Mortimer are caught up in not just their own survival, but also a plan to possibly remake civilization.
The chase scene final battle ending is awesome, and then, to make it even better for me, an epilogue!! I really liked this a lot, so thank you Paula! And, should society ever collapse like it does in this book, I think we can all agree that I won’t survive long.
Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin
Here’s #2 in the challenge! First, in the world of books and movies and tv shows it seems like there are tons of houses out there with interesting heating ducts that allow people to listen in on conversations on other floors of thie house. I have yet to ever be in a house where such a thing is true, but it’s awfully convenient in stories. There are a couple of interesting things going on in this story. The first is that Judy is a dwarf and stands 3’9” tall at age almost 17. The second is that she’s telling us her story from a dingy motel where she’s run away to after some sort of horrific, humiliating, scandal has broken, involving her. She hints about the scandal and you have a pretty good idea what it is about by halfway through, but don’t find out for sure until a good ¾ of the way through. I guess if I had any complaint about the book it would be that it seemed a tad too long. I wish we had gotten to that reveal a bit sooner. Judy is the sort of character that you are reading about and she seems to have it pretty good, so you just cringe whenever she makes a bad choice. Sure, she’s a dwarf, but she’s well adjusted, is such a talented singer that she’s gotten into a Fame-like performing arts school in her junior year, she has two brothers she likes and gets along with, and two parents who love and support her, and she likes hanging out with them too. So when you see Judy do things like blow off the perfectly lovely new friends she is making you just want to smack her and say, “Stop it! Don’t go with the rich prepsters who are obviously using you! Go be with the nice friends who like you for who you are!!” But, alas, Judy did not heed my advice. This is an adult novel, but I can see why it made the Alex Awards-there’s no reason a teen wouldn’t want to read this book about a teenager in such tough situations. Despite the fact that Judy didn’t listen to me and messed things up, I did like her. I may have loved her friends Molly and Goth Sarah even more, though! I also really liked the wonderful idealized teachers at her high school, and how the students respond to them.
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris
We saw David Sedaris live the other night and he was a hoot. The only book of his we don’t have is Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, so we picked it up after the reading to have it autographed. Alas, the line was too long and we had a babysitter waiting at home, so we took our book and left.
This book is very different from his others-all the stories are featuring animal characters (with very human lives).
The stories are pretty sick and disturbed, with a dark humor to them, imbuing the animal characters with human traits, which are seamlessly combined with their animal traits and instincts.
For example, in the Judicious Brown Chicken, a hen sees her sister killed after the sister has revealed lesbian tendencies. She assumes that there is a cause and effect there and continues to assume when any animal dies that it is because of a characteristic they exhibited. So she’s like a person, but all the animals are dying in the way of the farmyard-hawk, snake, etc.
In another story a mouse steals baby animals to feed to a snake, and then is confronted by those animals’ mothers, seeking their lost children.
In the Parrot and the Potbellied Pig, though, the animals are more like animal characters in a people world (the parrot is a journalist.)
The animals don’t wear human clothes, but they talk. And they talk a lot and say crazy human type things. They have neuroses, are alcoholics, come from dysfunctional families, and more.
I liked The Grieving Owl the best-this is one of the stories where the animal-human world is just like it really is, except the animals talk and have very human conversations. This owl’s mate has died and he can’t stand his lazy and stupid family. He has taken to getting information from potential prey (I won’t kill if you can tell me something interesting) because he delights in knowledge and learning about the world. When a rat tells him that there is a kind of leech that lives only in the anus of a hippopotamus he takes off to the zoo to meet Lois (that’s my slave name), the hippo. By the way, all these stories have little illustrations by Ian Falconer, of the Olivia picture books fame. Beware, Olivia fans! These illustrations have the charm of Olivia mixed with the grotesque details of the story. So imagine how this particular story is illustrated!
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
Mr and Mrs Fang are performance artists. They like to make things happen and then watch the world react. Film it and it’s art. Their children are also required to participate in the performances and referred to in the completed works of “art” as Child A and Child B (Annie and Buster, conveniently.) The performances are basically things like staging a big fight, making the children pretend to be orphans playing music for coins on the street and then loudly saying how awful they are.
Now A and B are all grown up and, let’s face it, kind of messed up. They end up back at their parents’ house. One day their parents disappear. There has been a string of highway murders recently and their case fits the pattern. But Buster and Annie know their parents and are convinced that it’s another performance. Either their parents are totally nuts and messed up and inappropriate, or they’ve totally messed up their kids so that they cannot even accept a death when presented with sufficient evidence. It’s all so messed up!!! I thought this would be darkly funny and there was some humor in it, but I ended up disliking all the characters and being appalled by everything.
Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites by Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson
I read this for our Hub post Outside Our COmfort Zones. Definitely outside my comfort zone-I found the gory bits really unsettling, especially because they involved animals. That said, I liked the stories and found it all very Buffy-like.
Loose Lips by Claire Berlinski
Man, this book just did not turn out as good as I wanted it to. The idea of a following a woman through her top secret CIA training to become an agent was fascinating (see: my love of behind the scenes stuff), but then she turned out to be kind of unlikable, it seemed like the book wasn’t as funny as it thought it was going to be (or was marketed as?), and I didn’t care for the double crossing that was going on. Or was it?? Too much weird secrecy and I struggled to finish this. It just didn’t seem to know if it was going to be a light, funny, woman in bizarre circumstances book, or a serious spy training book.
Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy
I love Maeve Binchy and was delighted to have a new-to-me one to read this past summer. That’s right, I read it that long ago. Oh well. What was I saying about it when I talked about it with friends?
Reading her books has me convinced that present day Ireland is a backwater.
Hmm….I seem to remember talking about this book a lot, but that’s the only proof I have of it. So, what I remember is that this one is about a young man who had a one night stand approximately 8 months ago and thought no more of it. Well now the woman is preparing to have her baby as well as to die from cancer. That’s right. She is in the hospital and knows that she will not be coming out, but her baby will. Will the help of a kindly priest she finds the young man, Noel, and says she wants him to care for the baby. And thus begins a whole long story of caring for the baby, figuring out his life, finding romance, and a whole bunch of busybodies who seem to want to take the baby away. I don’t know what Ireland’s laws are like, but it felt so weird and old fashioned to me. More so than her other books. I had trouble getting past the fact that he was the baby’s father, legally and biologically, and in his right mind, and solvent, and yet a social worker is constantly coming by to count how many diapers he has in supply and continuously threaten him that if it’s not up to her standards the baby will just be taken away?? But if you can get past that giant flaw, the human stories part of the book are wonderful. And that’s the lovely Binchy touch.
Level Up by Gene Luen Yang
Man, this was another great graphic novel by Gene Yang. Dennis is an Asian American whose parents have very high doctor expectations for him. He would prefer to be a master video gamer, and is in fact, awesome at video games. (By the way, this is yet another graphic novel that Paul and I enjoyed reading together. Here’s his much more thorough and timely and well remembered review.) As he struggles with expectations and his sense of self four angels appear to help him out.
The art complements the story and together with the words this is a beautiful story dealing with some very serious themes. This is my favorite type of graphic novel, and I’d pair it with Same Difference in terms of my favorites.
