Imitating Agatha: Gilbert Adair and the Entertaining Act of Roger Murgatroyd

Adair, Gilbert. The Act of Roger Murgatroyd: An Entertainment. London: Faber, 2007 (2006).

It was, I confess, a sad day in my childhood when I reached the end of the shelf in my local library upon which Agatha Christie's novels were housed. From Curtain: Poirot's Last Case: Hercule Poirot Investigates and the adventures of Tommy and Tuppence (for which I love Christie best) I moved on to Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, and P. D. James, all worthy contributors to the mystery genre. Yet aside from James, who still brings out new literary wonders with slow but steady regularity, most of these great authors have passed, leaving behind canons to be enjoyed and finished, and few living detective novelists (again, I exclude James) have managed to replicate such heights of excellence and mystery.

It was with great pleasure, then, that I stumbled across Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd in my local library. It was with greater pleasure, a few chapters into Adair's novel, that I discovered how excellently Adair has recreated the mood and elegance of a Christie novel. Shaped slightly in homage to Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Roger Murgatroyd offers nearly every feature a Christie fan might have some to expect: vibrant characters, each with a secret to hide, an older (retired) inspector, and some clever and unexpected sleuthing guaranteed to surprise even the most discerning reader with its cleverness. A fine imitation and a fine piece of work on its own merits, The Act of Roger Murgatroyd is a novel I'd be pleased to recommend to any lover of character-driven mysteries, and I'll certainly keep an eye out for further works by Gilbert Adair.

Writing by Rules, Living by Rules: Carrie Tiffany and Everyman's Rules

Tiffany, Carrie. Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living. Oxford: Picador, 2006 (2005).

Carrie Tiffany's Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living begins with a burst of motion as the Better Farming Train carrying protagonist Jean Finnegan across Australia rumbles in and out of small rural towns, where Jean and her train-based colleagues hope to instruct townsfolk in the art of living scientifically. Some of the train's inhabitants are skilled cattle breeders, others know just how to nurture soil into producing more grain, and Mr. Ohno is even a chicken sexer. Jean works in a car with two other women who help women in the rural towns they visit to cook, sew, and care for children more efficiently (and scientifically).

After a few months on the train, Jean's adventures as a traveller are cut short by a burst of romance, and she departs the train with her beloved to establish a farm of their own. Yet despite her young and enthusiastic love, marriage and farm life in rural Australia soon prove to be a bit more difficult than Jean expected. As she attempts to be a proper Scientific wife, and her husband sows grain in a proper Scientific experiment, their lives are complicated by weather, neighbours, and even the simple complications of living together.

In many ways, this is a fairly slow read, as the book progresses at a languorous pace, describing personalities and science more than events and incidents, but for individuals interested in rural Australian life, or the development of agricultural science, or even (more generally) the daily frustrations of farmers and their families, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living would be an excellent choice.

Colm Toibin is a Master as well.

Tóibín, Colm. The Master. London: Macmillan, 2005 (2004).

I'll begin this review by confessing that my knowledge of Henry James is severely lacking; my academic studies, for the most part, bring my knowledge of the world up to a mere 1790, and James and his contemporaries are clearly much more recent. So while I enjoyed this book immensely, I'm utterly unqualified to remark upon the authenticity of Tóibín's portrayal of 'The Master,' or upon the prodigious amount of research that indubitably lies beneath the witty banter and strong characterisations that made this book such a pleasure to read.

The Master contains good writing at its finest: a pleasure to read, the words and descriptions flow gently off the page and into the reader's mind, creating an atmosphere of antiquated literary elegance even as the characters are fresh, understandable, and almost modern. Tóibín offers his readers a window into a life: the reader is not a part of the book, but an invisible presence lurking in the background. The narrative is straightforward, the descriptions at times heartbreaking (but always believable), and the novel even offers, subtly, readings of some of James' greatest literary pieces. I finished the book and wanted to read Daisy Miller again, feeling, somehow, that I suddenly had become an acquaintance of its author.

Well done, Mr. Tóibín, and thanks for a delightful read.

The Curious Incident of Reading this Mark Haddon Novel

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Random House, 2004 (2003).

. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written by Mark Haddon in the first-person narrative voice of fifteen-year-old Christopher, who understands a great deal about tangible things, such as maths and candy shoelaces, and much less about the nuances of human behaviour and betrayal.

The book opens--intentionally, as Christopher tells us--with the excitement of a murdered neighbourhood dog. Although Christopher is at first suspected of having taken part in the slaughter, he is, in fact innocent, and soon resolves to solve the crime, in the style of the great Sherlock Holmes, whom Christopher very much admires. Haddon's skillful craftmanship allows the reader to understand the things that perplex Christopher the most, while the narrative voice flows on, uninterrupted and consistent. The story, of course, moves well beyond the initial plot points of the dog, lingering upon issues of education, trust, family, and love. All told, this is a remarkably crafted and thought-provoking book, and one I would highly recommend to others.

The Last Percy Jackson: Satisfactory yet not Quite Epic

Riordan, Rick. The Last Olympian. New York: Hyperion, 2009.

After the slight disappointment of The Battle of the Labyrinth, I was a little hesitant about Riordan's fifth and final Percy Jackson book. My fears, I confess, were unfounded. While not quite an epic of ancient Greek proportions, The Last Olympian builds clearly and cleverly upon characters, prophecies, dreams, and expectations established in The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, and the Titan's Curse. While a few of Riordan's quirky tricks seemed a little tired out by the middle books of the series, The Last Olympian moves so quickly that any frustrations one might have with the language and repetition are completely swept away by this book's relentless pursuit of a very exciting and captivating conclusion. The Last Olympian delivers on numerous promises made in previous foreshadowings, and kept me completely engaged from its first sentence through to the ending. I'm appreciative of this skill, and would recommend this series, almost, on the merits of The Last Olympian itself. However, although Riordan does use an occasionally irritating number of interjections to bring hypothetical new readers up to speed, I wouldn't recommend beginning the series at Book Five, although it certainly is the best, since doing so would defeat the point of Riordan's carefully planned foreshadowing.

Perhaps my greatest appreciation for this book arises from its elements of surprise: what is not foreshadowed (and there is a good bit) is unexpected and introduced elegantly and simply. Few readers, even the best students of ancient myths, are likely to identify the Last Olympian until the identity of that deity is revealed in a particularly well-crafted scene. On the other hand, this revelation, once made, seems the most natural thing in the world. The plot of this volume is deftly unfolded in Riordan's deftly crafted narrative, and The Last Olympian provides the perfect conclusion to this series as a whole.

I Battled My Way Through Riordan's Labyrinth

Riordan, Rick. The Battle of The Labyrinth. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Of the five books in the Percy Jackson Series, I confess that Book Four, The Battle of the Labyrinth, was by far my least favourite. At precisely the moment when the series should have been rushing headlong toward the climactic ending of Book Five, Riordan's narrative flow gets lost in a sea of reminiscence and some ambitious but sluggish foreshadowing.

Without giving away too much, Riordan's fourth book builds carefully upon the premises already established in the first, second, and third books in the Percy Jackson series. Many of the characters remain the same, although a handful of new ones (both present-day and from past myths) are introduced. Riordan brings in several of these myths most elegantly, and complicates protagonist Percy's life by drawing further parallels between him and some more famous heroes of old. Yet although his allusions are excellent and his references well-placed, Riordan's book struggles to maintain the fast-paced energy of its predecessors: The Battle of the Labyrinth is adequate but not exceptional, and left me somewhat dreading the culminating volume in the series.

You'll Need a Fifth to Finish Mr. Kennedy's Novel

Kennedy, Douglas. The Woman in the Fifth. London: Arrow, 2008 (2007).

Much could be said about Douglas Kennedy's novel The Woman in the Fifth, but this book is not one that lends itself to extensive literary criticism. The Woman in the Fifth is written pretty well. I've never been to Paris, so I can't attest to the accuracy of his city descriptions, and I've never personally known illegal immigrants participating in unsavoury activities in the French underworld, so it's difficult to assess the technical skill with which Kennedy might have captured these scenes and characters. However, I struggled with this book. Kennedy's dialogue and characters seemed, at many times, forced and flat: a problem that makes better sense given the novel's bizarre conclusion, but which cannot be forgiven by his super(fluous)natural deus ex machina. The first three quarters of the novel seem to be a profound psychological experiment (will any reader plod through this book in search of a conclusion?) while the climax lacks all plausibility: while Kennedy's supernatural finish could be tolerated, perhaps, had he also proffered a rational explanation for events, the absence of the latter makes the former ludicrous.

In short, this is a novel about a man named Harry Ricks, who leaves his American family after causing a scandal at the small school at which he once taught. In Paris, a city he has always longed to visit, he meets the book's title character as well as a slew of questionable individuals. He has a great deal of sex and attempts to write a novel, only to find that his life is cruelly guarded by a rather jealous goddess of love and revenge.

An Exercise in Family: The Calligrapher's Daughter

Kim, Eugenia. The Calligrapher's Daughter. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.

Eugenia Kim's novel The Calligrapher's Daughter was not what I expected. Following the titular footsteps of The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Heretic's Daughter, andThe Hangman's Daughter (of which three the first is my favourite), Kim's novel offers a fresh perspective on the stereotypical unnamed female protagonist. In the first place, The Calligrapher's Daughter is set in Korea, but a Korea not very far removed from modern life. In the second place, Kim manages, in her novel, to show without judging, and to inspire contemplation without becoming heavy-handed in her portrayal of a male-dominated society and one woman, in particular, living and growing within those constraints.

In some ways, The Calligrapher's Daughter is a coming-of-age novel: the book begins when its protagonist is a very young girl and lingers at great length over the years in which she develops into a mature young woman. Yet in Kim's novel, the transition from childhood into adulthood never truly ends: in the thirty years that pass between the first and last chapters, there is no single turning point, or definitive moment of maturity. Instead, the book describes the ebb and flow of the human experience in a way that allows readers to experience and identify with the constant, endless development that is a life. While slow in spots, this is very much a book that can be lingered upon and enjoyed, and I would heartily recommend it to students of life and lovers of humanity.

Also, this was my favourite February read.

A Great Yorkshire Mystery

George, Elizabeth. A Great Deliverance. Chatter: Hodham, 2007 (1989).

George's novel, set partly in London and partly in a tiny Yorkshire village whose families and secrets are both complicated and intriguing, is at first glance an experiment in character diversity. Inspector Lynley, whom this book 'introduces,' according to the tag line on the title page, is an upper-class charmer who works as hard as he plays. Sergeant Barbara Havers, with whom he is partnered for the Yorkshire case central to the plot of George's novel, is a working-class girl who resents Lynley, his skill with women, and the elite culture in which the inspector was bred. The families in Yorkshire are a simple, sometimes superstitious, occasionally religious, and often secretive bunch, behind whose closed doors are practiced vices and abuses, sexual perversions, and devout faith--sometimes all at once. George's characters are rich and complicated, if occasionally slightly caricatured, and the society she portrays, which extends beyond the bounds of her northern village, into neighbouring cities, and as far afield as London, is an engaging one.

I enjoyed this book, and the careful manner in which past history and motives were incorporated into George's more modern narrative and introduction of Inspector Lynley, but the solution to the crime is far darker than the crime itself, and readers of delicate taste may wish to give this fine novel a pass.

'A Better Quality of Murder' is a pretty fair sort of book

Granger, Ann. A Better Quality of Murder. Bidford-on-Avon: Headline, 2010.

I gather that with this book selection I jumped headlong into the middle of a series of detective novels, but, as with earlier novels about the unforgettable Hercule Poirot, Tommy and Tuppence, or Lord Peter Wimsey, Granger's Ben Ross can be met mid-series without any noticeable lost context.

I confess that I'm not much of a Victorianist, but Granger's portrayal of Victorian London agreed with my mental picture thereof, and if the book is as well-researched as her settings suggest, I learned a great deal about behavioral expectations, prostitution, and the early temperance movement. The title of the book plays lightly on the distinctions between women of the middle and upper classes and those who plied their trade in dark street corners, but the descriptions in the book are tasteful and subtly made.

Amid the frequent introductions of Victorian culture (but Granger shows, rather than tells) of course comes the murder (and then another and another) upon which the plot is based. Granger manages to make all her cultural references relevant to the plot, which I appreciate, and packages the finished product neatly into a solution with some elegant Victorian flavour. While she's perhaps not at the very top of my list of favourite mystery authors, Ann Granger is certainly someone whose books I'll seek out again in the future.

Sleuthing Required: Is Jessica Mann 'The Mystery Writer'?

Mann, Jessica. The Mystery Writer. London: Allison & Busby, 2007 (2006).

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I struggled with this book. Jessica Mann is a good writer with a clear command of the English language, and--although a little overly detailed at times--her stories and dialogues are told in a modernised and everyday style far easier to read than the texts I slog through every day in the course of my work. Yet where Mann is readable, I found the format of her book difficult to navigate.

The Mystery Writer begins in 1940 (a setting clearly and helpfully delineated by a date affixed to the top of the page) where it follows the adventures of two small boys, one wealthy and one from the lower classes, who are able to leave Britain for new and safer lives in North America. When the boat is attacked and the occupants forced into lifeboats, only one of these lads survives (and, of course, any avid reader of mysteries will immediately know which finds that extra breath of life). Eleven years later, in the second chapter, that same young man (now, of course, older) returns to his childhood home an artist and an adventurer (who immediately captures the interest of two young sisters).

From this point, the story skips ahead to modern times, drops the helpful dates from chapter headers, and becomes a bit blurry. Mann seems to alternate between narrators, telling the story, at times, as herself (the omniscient narrator of The Mystery Writer) and at times as her mystery-writer character within the novel. The timeline of flashbacks is not always clearly delineated, and although the final chapter neatly draws together the many complex strands of her plot, the conclusion is too easy to anticipate and the path to that end very badly obscured by the vague temporal definitions and multiple narrators. However, a blurb on the back of the book informs me that this is her eighteenth novel, so I shall be quite interested to read another book by Ms. Mann in the future. The historical research and depiction of life in war-torn Britain have been very neatly done, however, so perhaps my next selection will be one of Ms. Mann's nonfiction books, which might prove a tremendous treat.

I quite liked 'The Pilot's Wife'

Shreve, Anita. the Pilot's Wife. London: Little, Brown, 1999 (1998).

The Pilot's Wife begins simply, with a simple announcement that changes the life of Kathryn Lyons, whose pilot husband Jack has just died in a plane crash. Intermingling the story of Kathryn's present-day grief with reflective chapters telling the story of their meeting, courtship, and early marriage, Shreve manages to write a remarkable novel that is both an intimate examination of what it means to be married and a fast-paced tale whose mystery rises to the surface as the circumstances of Jack's plane crash grow ever less definite.

Kathryn's story is one of memories and pain: even as she struggles to come to terms with her husband's death, she becomes increasingly perplexed by the complicated question of what it means to know another person intimately. How deeply did she know her husband, and how well can she know her daughter? The decade of memories surrounding her relationship with both of these, and the sudden closeness she feels to the man who first broke the news of her husband's passage help to make this a wonderful, complicated novel that is difficult to define with any of the typical genres. It is a story of adventure, mystery, and even danger and betrayal, but it is also an excellent and close examination of what it means to be a human being, living in community with others, and what it means to be a family, a parent, or a spouse. The thematic complexities blended with the excellent and engaging storytelling in this novel make it one of the most rewarding reads I've enjoyed this year.

In which I express some fondness for 'Mr. Rosenblum's List'

Solomons, Natasha. Mr. Rosenblum's List. London: Sceptre, 2010.

Mr. Rosenblum's List is a treasure of modern fiction, and my favourite book read this month (January 2011). It moves at a gentle pace, but not a dull one; Solomons not only studies the character of her protagonist, but portrays common human expectations for friendship, family, and marriage (all the while examining, most closely, the ideas of citizenship, nationality, and belonging).

Mr. Rosenblum is a German Jew who immigrates to London with his wife Sadie during World War II. Upon arrival, he is given a list of 'Helpful Information and Guidance for Every Refugee,' which he supplements and annotates over the course of Solomons' novel. From almost the first moment of his arrival, Mr. Rosenblum (Jack) embraces his new life, striving with his entire might to become an English gentleman, while Sadie is lost in a world of memories and the past. These conflicting attitudes towards life, of course, contribute to the unique temporal explorations in the book: Jack is forever exuberant about the future, Sadie bemoans the forgotten past, and somehow, sadly, they are too often too busy with their disparate unrealities to dwell in the present, together.

Even as it explores some tremendous themes, Mr. Rosenblum's List also manages to be endearingly funny. Solomons' characters are likeable and sympathetic, and she manages to remind us that despite cultural differences and personal eccentricities, we are all, at heart, human. Mr. Rosenblum's desperate desire to become a genuine Englishman is, in many ways, reflective of the general human desire for community, and the specific determination with which he pursues his favoured community serves also as a reminder that community can often be found where we humans least expect it. Overall, this book is both deep and funny, the characters appropriately idiosyncratic and well-crafted, and the story well-written and fun and easy to read. So far, it's the best book I've read all year.

'Starter for Ten' (only) missed a few bonus questions

Your starter for ten: The following passage [um, one of my favourites I've read this year, I might add] comes from which British novel of 2003?

      '[. . .] and the only thing that could make life any better for me now would be if an attractive woman came and sat opposite me, and said something like . . .
     '"Excuse me, but I can't help noticing you're readingThe Faerie Queene. You're not by any chance on your way to read English at university, are you?"
     [ . . .]
     'And my conversation is so sophisticated and witty, and there's such tangible sexual electricity arcing between us, that by the time we pull into the station, Emily is leaning over the table, and coyly biting her plump bottom lip, and saying, "Look, Brian, I barely know you, and I've never said this to a man before, but do you think we could go to a hotel or something? It's just I don't think I can fight it any longer" and I acquiesce with a weary smile, as if to say "why must this happen every time I get on a train" and take her hand and lead her to the nearest hotel . . .
     'Hang on a minute though. For a start, what am I going to do with all my luggage? I can hardly turn up at the hotel with two black bin-liners, can I? And then there's the cost [. . .]
     'And by the time the train pulls into the station, I find myself actually relieved that Emily's only a figment of my imagination.' (25-6).

Between the Letters: Minxling: David Nicholls' novel Starter for Ten. [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2003. A remarkable novel, and one that had me fascinated well before the aforequoted passage, in which we are introduced to the creative imagination of ambitious and clueless Brian, who enters university to read English for the glory and the girls, unaware of the vast depths of his own naive pretentiousness and desperate to win hearts and friends in the new and supposedly elite world of university studies]

Correct! Your bonus questions, for five points. First, around which British game show, formerly watched by Brian and his father, is Starter for Ten structured?

Between the Letters: Minxling: University Challenge.

Correct. Second, Brian meets two girls: a controversial revolutionary studying law, and a supposed beauty queen practicing drama [onstage and off]. What are their names, and which does Brian attempt to date?

Between the Letters: Minxling: Rebecca and Alice. Although Brian goes to visit an art gallery with Rebecca, his first proper date is a guilt date with the lovely Alice.

Correct. Finally, and for the lead, name one of Brian's many social gaffes.

Between the Letters: Minxling: Well, there are many, and they are mostly quite funny, but a particular favourite of mine is Brian's inability to headbutt correctly.

[Endearing, funny, and sometimes a bit depressing, Nicholls' novel begins as a mixture of character study and authorial wit, and although Nicholls' protagonist is perhaps a bit too-well-written to be fully believable, the general humor of the book, and the believability of Nicholls' eighteen-year-old wannabe-scholar know-it-all is remarkable (I may have met a Brian or two in my day). What is perhaps even more impressive is Nicholls' careful buildup of the novel into a mock coming-of-age epic, offering Brian everything he would need to succeed before appending one of the most infuriating conclusions I've ever read. Read this book, for sure: Nicholls' writing style is superb and his characterisations stunning, but beware the maddening ending].

'Stranded' Goes Round and Round in Circles

McDermid, V. L. Stranded. Hexham: Flambard, 2005.

Stranded is a collection of short stories by Val McDermid, who I previously knew better for her Scottish crime fiction than for her slightly twisted depictions of romance, which appear in at least a dozen stories in this volume. As a whole, I found this collection rather unusual: it contains the playful 'The Girl who Killed Santa Claus' and the lighthearted 'Guilt Trip,' as well as a few other tales in similarly relaxed vein. Yet what draws this collection together most clearly is McDermid's recurring use of what I might term the O. Henry conclusion. Nearly every story relies heavily upon a 'twist' at the end to upturn our earlier expectations (and, in many cases, to add a layer of gore). In some stories, this twist is predictable, as with 'Sneeze for Danger,' in which the twist would be nearly impossible to avoid. In others, such as 'The Writing on the Wall,' a story which takes place in two media: a the door of a bathroom stall and a newspaper, the concluding twist offers little satisfaction but a large dose of reality. Yet despite its occasional effectiveness, in the overall collection as presented, the repeated use of the final plot twist becomes redundant and frustrating. I would prefer to see many of these stories on their own, and ended up reading the volume in intermittent bursts. As standalone texts, 'The Consolation Blonde' is possibly my favourite short story of this collection, although (as an added caveat) this and many other pieces in Stranded rely heavily on intimate sexual descriptions (less provocative in this story than in 'Metamorphosis,' near the end of the collection) to further titillate or force emotion in the readers. As short stories, I found many of the pieces engaging, a few overly descriptive, and a few disturbing. As a collection, however, I would have preferred either greater thematic unity or a more varied approach to the plots of various stories. In particular, I would have loved more character studies such as 'A Wife in a Million,' which broke up the monotony of McDermid's general formula by lingering more carefully over character development. The ending of 'Wife,' as well, is the least drastic plot twist and the most finely wrought conclusion of any story in this collection.

I'd recommend this book only to a few friends, and that with some hesitation: most of these stories would have far more impact if read in isolation from the other contents of the volume, and McDermid's scenes of lust and longing are a trifle on the heavy-handed side.

Another Jury, Another Juror (the Last?), Another Grisham

Grisham, John. The Last Juror. London: Doubleday, 2004.

Among the reasons I read Grisham is his generally spot-on depiction of the American South, a place I know somewhat (having lived there for four years) and miss a little. The South of The Last Juror is actually a place I've never visited, for the book is set in the 1970s, in a world where (at the beginning of the novel) schools are still segregated, only a handful of blacks are able to vote, and a family such as that of character Miss Callie--who has seven children with PhDs--was a remarkable anomaly.

Into this world of prejudice and debate comes young Willie Traynor, who first joins staff of the local newspaper and then purchases the newspaper as his own. It is Willie who covers the murder trial of Danny Padgitt, whose crimes against single mother Rhoda Kasselaw are described in chapter two. The remainder of the novel is as much a character study as it is a crime novel, and--in a wonderful turn of focus--the character study is less entranced by the criminal mind of the murderer than by the responses of others to his crime. Traynor's response is that of an average twenty-something eager to make money from his first paper; Miss Callie's is a little more restrained. Throughout the book, Grisham constantly returns to the same question of character, and one that is asked of every juror at the Padgitt trial: "If you're on the jury, and the jury finds Mr Padgitt guilty of these crimes, can you vote and put him to death? . . . Can you?" (175, mass market ed).

A rousing study of humanity set against a situation of controversy and unrest make this a fine book, and--as with most of Grisham's novels--an excellent quick read.

A Mind of Wonder: P. D. James Strikes Again

James, P. D. A Mind to Murder. London: Faber, 1963.

Since I discovered the adventures of Sherlock Holmes while ill one day during my prepubescent years, I've devoured murder mysteries at a rather rapid rate. They are my stress relief, providing a chance to relax amidst the complications of everyday life and the challenges of academic work. And in the sea of writers I've sampled, three in particular stand out alongside the unforgettable Conan Doyle: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and P. D. James. They are my old favourites, and they rarely fail to please.

A Mind to Murder, one of James' earlier novels, is set in a psychiatric clinic in London. In the early pages of the book, debates rage--appropriately, for the sixties--over varying methods of treatment, and the owners of widely divergent opinions about matters of health and methodology are soon revealed to be also the owners of widely differing opinions about the psychology of the murderer. James does an admirable job of showcasing opinion, belief, and prejudice, and the setting is perfect for a book of such focused character study: each of James' characters is depicted not only by their author's general descriptions, but by his or her own assessments of other employees (and occasionally patients) at the clinic. All in all, this is a splendidly-wrought book and one that I enjoyed wholeheartedly.

'Husbands and Lies' lies down without much fight

McPhee, Susy. Husbands and Lies. [Reading?]: Ebury, 2009.

McPhee's novel has a promising beginning: protagonist Fran visits her cancer-stricken friend Alison in the hospital, and promises to help Alison find a new wife for Alison's soon-to-be-widowed husband Adam. The problem arises when Fran, researching the world of online dating, stumbles across a photo that is unmistakably her husband Max--and determines to catch him in his deception. Over the ensuing pages, Fran, Alison, Adam, Max, and Fran's colleague Greg find themselves in an ever-complicating tangled web of deceit and confusion. By halfway through the book it is obvious to the reader (if not to Fran) that Fran has made several mistakes and incorrect assumptions, and the ending comes as little surprise. This book lies halfway between a novel of mystery and intrigue and halfway between a comedy of manners (if not errors), and perhaps its greatest flaw is its inability to choose between these two genres. Pitched towards either extreme, it could have been a rollicking success, but perched on the nebulous fence of womens' generic literature, it makes only a mild impression.

I Swear the 'Titan's Curse' was Fun

Riordan, Rick. The Titan's Curse. New York: Hyperion, 2007.

As with many other series of young adult books, Riordan's Percy Jackson books grow darker as Percy and his friends grow older. The Titan's Curse is at once ominous and (like the previous two books in the series) very fast-paced. Building upon the ambitious premises set forth in The Lightning Thief (Book One), The Titan's Curse sends Percy and his friends ever further into the midst of an apparently ominous plot arc. A few plot twists keep readers on their toes, and information from the earlier books of the series is conveyed in ways that are not too repetitious. Characterisations explored in Book Two (The Sea of Monsters) are carefully expanded with the addition of two new characters whose stories, subsequently interwoven into the existing narratives, serve to raise expectations for the final volume most magnificently. This book is thrilling and exciting, and my only hesitation strives from a slight fear that Riordan may not be able to tie up all the wonderful strands of narrative with only two more books. However, I've not been disappointed by any of his books thus far, and each book thus far serves only to improve upon the previous. Well done, Mr. Riordan!

'Sea of Monsters'? Monstrous Fun Read

Riordan, Rick. The Sea of Monsters. New York: Hyperion, 2006.

Following on from The Lightning Thief is the second book in the Percy Jackson series, this one titled The Sea of Monsters. As the title might suggest, the events chronicled in this particular modern-day narrative of the gods are located on or near the sea and relate, in many cases, to battles with monsters.

With his world established, his home base efficiently described, and his principal characters set forth in the first volume of the series, Riordan is able, in this second book of his series, to spend more time on the plot, classical references, and carefully-described quests. Failure and friendship are key themes in this volume, and the story is advanced quickly and with apparent ease. This book, like its predecessor, was a delight to read.