Paganini’s GhostPaul Adam
A day after a heavily promoted violin recital in Cremona, Italy, at which prize-winning Russian prodigy Yevgeny Ivanov plays the priceless violin once owned by Paganini, a visiting French art dealer is found murdered in his hotel room. When a scrap of paper torn from a Paganini piece played by Ivanov seems key to opening an ornate gold box found in the victim's possession, violin maker Gianni Castiglione (introduced in The Rainaldi Quartet, 2006) is called into the case by his friend, police detective Antonio Guastafeste. Castiglione cracks the code to find that the now-empty box once housed a small violin, setting him-- with Guastafeste--on a cross-continental search, during which other murders are committed, and Castiglione must call on his knowledge of history, genealogy, and provenance to find long-missing treasures and solve the crimes. In this stylish mystery, widower Castiglione is further humanized by his developing romance with Margherita Severini and his relationship with young Ivanov. An intriguing puzzle combines with an enthralling mix of Italian ambience, history, and--most of all-- music.
Booklist Review; January 2010.
Rainwater Sandra Brown
Bestseller Brown (Smash Cut) brings Depression-era Texas to vivid life in this poignant short novel. At the recommendation of Dr. Murdy Kincaid, Ella Barron, a hardworking woman whose husband deserted her, accepts David Rainwater, a relative of the doctor's, as a lodger at the boarding house she runs in the small town of Gilead, Tex. As the local community contends with a government program to shoot livestock and the opposition of racist Conrad Ellis, a greedy meatpacker, to poor families butchering the meat, Ella grows closer to David. Meanwhile, David becomes a special guardian angel to Solly, Ella's nine-year-old autistic son. Dr. Kincaid has gently suggested Ella put Solly in an institution, but she refuses to do so. Brown skillfully charts the progress of Ella and David's quiet romance, while a contemporary frame adds a neat twist to this heartwarming but never cloying historical.
Publishers Weekly Review; October 2009.
The Frightened Man Kenneth Cameron
Cameron, who also writes military thrillers with his son under the name Gordon Kent, launches an impressive historical-mystery series. It's 1900, and London is a bustling, crowded metropolis--the perfect place for an American named Denton to lose himself. Seeking to escape his tragic past, Denton has moved to London after writing a series of dark, atmospheric novels that have been best-sellers in America. One evening, he receives a mysterious visitor. The man is stuttering with terror, swearing he's just seen the Ripper. Denton discounts the man's hysterical claims, but when he learns that a teenage prostitute has been brutally murdered not far away, he wonders if there's a connection. When Denton talks to the police, they give him short shrift and seem to want to wrap up the murder with minimum fuss. This only makes Denton more determined to seek the truth. Along the way, he encounters London's seedy underbelly and meets the brusque but oddly charismatic Janet Striker. Together, the pair begins to unravel a shocking and horrifying story. A gripping page-turner, Cameron's novel combines a devilishly clever plot, enigmatic characters, a foreboding atmosphere, and a shocking finale. A top pick for all crime collections.
Booklist Review; May 2009.
Erhart (Bully Creek) steers clear of the earnest obsessions that weighed heavily on her early books in her fifth outing, a quaint novel of the American West enlivened by a quirky mystery. En route from St. Louis to visit her in-laws in Flagstaff, Ariz., young Jane Merkle meets two women botanists on the train. Their paths cross again after Jane, having lost her luggage and traded her fancy dresses for dungarees and a butterfly net, becomes enthralled with her new surroundings and ranger Euell Wigglesworth. As it turns out, Elzada, one of the botanists, is in town to help investigate a 13-year-old murder, and as the mystery unfolds and dark secrets come to light, the canyon works its magic on Jane. Erhart, a river and hiking guide, teases her readers about the sweet silliness of human affairs in the face of the magnitude of nature, and the cleverly plotted mystery becomes a lark of a vehicle for Erhart's thoughtful prose. This novel is light and agreeable, touched with just the right amount of awe at the splendors of nature.
Publishers Weekly Review; September 2009.
Arcadia Falls Carol Goodman
Goodman (The Night Villa) delivers the goods her fans expect in this atmospheric and fast-moving gothic story: buried secrets, supernatural elements, and a creepy setting. Following the death of her husband, Meg Rosenthal accepts a job teaching at an upstate New York boarding school and moves there with her teenage daughter, Sally. The school, Arcadia Falls, also happens to be central to her thesis, which focuses on the two female coauthors of fairy tales: Vera Beecher, who founded the school, and her friend Lily Eberhardt, who died mysteriously in 1947. While the campus is bucolic, school life proves anything but--Meg thinks she sees ghosts and Arcadia's brightest and most ambitious student, Isabel Cheney, is found dead in a ravine. Feeling Sally drifting further from her each day, Meg finds refuge in Lily's preserved diary and begins to unravel the secrets behind Isabel's death. Goodman doesn't do anything new, but her storytelling is as solid as ever, and the book is reliably entertaining.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2009.
Darkness Visible J M Gregson
Gregson's Lambert and Hook series keeps getting better. The trademark meticulous descriptions of police investigative techniques are still there, but Gregson is fleshing out his characters more, making them feel absolutely real and adding warmth and humanity to his stories. Lambert and Hook's latest case concerns the death of one Darren Chivers, a despicable character if ever there was one. Chivers wasn't content with pushing drugs; he'd also launched a lucrative sideline in blackmailing. So when he is found shot dead in a remote country lane, it's up to Lambert and Hook to figure out whether it was drug related or whether one of Chivers' blackmail victims murdered him. As the two go about checking motives and alibis, they find themselves wrestling with too many leads: all of their suspects have a motive, none of them has an airtight alibi, and all of them have plenty to gain and little to lose from Chivers' death. But nearly two weeks after the murder, despite their long years of experience and their finely honed coppers' intuition, Lambert and Hook still haven't solved the case. A cracking good read for fans of British police procedurals.
Booklist Review; September 2009.
NocturnesKazuo Ishiguro
A once-famous crooner believes he must destroy the very core of his life to achieve a comeback. A young songwriter excels at selfishness rather than creativity. A gifted yet unheralded saxophone player is persuaded to undergo plastic surgery to enhance his visual appeal in a world that values image over talent. As a recipient of the Booker Prize and the Order of the British Empire, Ishiguro is no stranger to the vagaries of fame, nor, as a Japanese British writer, is he unfamiliar with the misapprehensions one's appearance can arouse. Questions of identity, artistic integrity, and success shape each of the five meshed stories in this droll and enrapturing collection. Each tale of musicians, muses, and users is funny and incisive; each is a fable about the dream of mastery and the nightmare of pragmatism; and each dramatic story line delivers arresting psychological transformations. Encompassing a palatial hotel in the insomniac dead of night and sun-kissed hills, an immigrant journeyman guitar player weathering prejudice in Venice and a young cellist enthralled by an unlikely mentor, dissonant marriages and shattering recognitions, Ishiguro's stories are at once exquisite and ravaging. Much like the haunting music of down-and-out jazz great Chet Baker, whom Ishiguro names to strike just the right crepuscular note.
Booklist Review; August 2009.
The Vintage Caper Peter Mayle
Mayle uncorks a winning wine caper in the tradition of To Catch a Thief. When a hot-shot Hollywood lawyer's most treasured and expensive wines are stolen, his insurance company calls in Sam Levitt, a gourmand and lawyer-of-all-trades with a varied background, to investigate. The investigation takes Sam to Paris and Bordeaux, where he hooks up with the elegant insurance agent Sophie Costes, a fellow wine and food snob. The trail finally leads them to a man named Francis Reboul in Marseille, and soon, with the help of Sophie's journalist cousin, Phillipe, they get an in with Reboul and close in on closing the caper. While the plot may be predictable, the pleasures of this very French adventure--and there are many--aren't in the resolution, of course, but in the pleasant stroll through the provinces and in the glasses of wine downed and decadent meals consumed.
Publishers Weekly Review; June 2009.
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