February Reviews
Title:
Brooklyn StoryClassification: Fiction
Author: Suzanne Corso
Publisher: Gallery Books
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: Samantha Bonti lives in Brooklyn and, at fifteen, dreams of becoming a writer and escaping across the Brooklyn Bridge into the “real world,” a fact she reminds us of on every other page, ad nauseam. Of course she becomes involved with a gangster wannabe who treats her just about as badly as all the other mob guys treat their women, but Sam is not deterred and takes the opportunity to tell us several more times about her dream of crossing the bridge.
Repetitive, inane, overblown, badly written. What a crummy book.
Title:
77 Shadow Street
Classification:
Fiction
Author:
Dean Koontz
Publisher:
Bantam
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating: 
Reviewer Comments:
First built as a private home, the
palace once called Belle Vista is now an elegant, exclusive condominium
building where its sixty-thousand square feet houses lavish apartments and a
variety of interesting people. Unfortunately, renaming the property the
Pendleton hasn’t changed the fact that every thirty-eight years horrendous
things happen there. Deaths, disappearances, madness--now it’s beginning
again and all of the residents of the Pendleton are threatened by something
only partly human but completely evil.
Not the best of the Koontz novels, but even at his worst (and this isn’t it), Koontz can out-write almost anybody.
Title:
angel fire
Classification:
Mystery
Author:
Lisa Unger
Publisher:
Broadway
Copyright: 2002
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
Still haunted by her mother’s brutal
rape and murder fifteen years ago, Lydia Strong has made a career out of
writing about that and other terrible crimes. Now on hiatus after finishing
a book, Lydia is looking for ideas for her next project when three seemingly
unrelated news stories pique her interest…a situation that becomes even more
intriguing when Lydia finds that everyone involved in the stories was
connected to the Church of the Holy Name where a blind man has a reputation
for healing the sick.
Fairly predictable, but worth reading.
Title:
Whisperer
Classification:
Mystery
Author:
Donato Carrisi
Publisher:
Little Brown
Copyright: 2009
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
Five little girls are missing when
Mila Vasquez is directed to help criminologist Gavila Goran in the search
for them. But when the left arms of six children are found buried the
mystery becomes more complicated. Could one girl still be alive?
There’s a little too much of the “But wait, there’s MORE” showmanship seen in TV commercials to be convincing. After all, everyone is guilty of something, but do they all have to show up in one book?
Title:
Mudbound
Classification:
Fiction
Author:
Hillary Jordan
Publisher:
Algonquin
Copyright: 2008
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
Two sons, one black, one white,
return to the rural South and form a forbidden, unlikely friendship in the
midst of poverty and hatred. Sensitive Jamie, whose dream of flying turns
ugly during the war, and smart, ambitious Ronsel, trying to fit in again
after learning equality in the military, both misfits now in post-World War
Two Mississippi, both learning too late that the war they can’t win is at
home.
Powerful and brutal, this stunning novel is a must-read.
Title:
Lunatics
Classification:
Fiction
Author:
Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel
Publisher:
Putnam
Copyright: 2012
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
Calm, passive pet-shop owner Philip
Horkman is refereeing a youth soccer game when he offends Forensic Plumber
Jeffrey Peckerman with an offside call. It could all have ended there,
except that Peckerman ends up kidnapping (primate-napping?) Horkman’s lemur
which leads, of course, to the two of them being pursued by the US
government as terrorists, being nearly eaten by black bears, bringing
democracy to China, and establishing themselves as heroes. Along the way is
an outlandish, offensive and side-splitting story by a couple of really
funny guys.
You’ll laugh out loud, although you may be embarrassed to admit it.
Title:
Flame Alphabet
Classification:
Fiction
Author:
Ben Marcus
Publisher:
Knopf
Copyright:
2012
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
In this dystopian novel, Sam and
Claire are the dying parents of Esther, their teenage daughter. In fact,
Esther is killing them—with her words, in the way all children are killing
their parents. First thought to be only a Jewish problem (the author has
made Sam and Claire members of a secretive and strange Jewish cult), it
becomes obvious that all language is the culprit, although children are
still quarantined and any form of communication is banned.
Although Marcus may be trying to create a parable here (For the Holocaust? For the noise of information overload? For the difficult and destructive dialogue between parents and children?), the book reads like the stream-of-consciousness rambling of a man who isn’t sure of his point. Very disappointing.
Title:
Taken
Classification:
Mystery
Author:
Robert Crais
Publisher:
Putnam
Copyright: 2012
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments:
Private detective Elvis Cole is hired
by a successful businesswoman to find her daughter, Krista, who has gone
missing. Caught in a turf war between gangs who bring illegal immigrants
into the country and then hold them for ransom before killing them, Krista
and her boyfriend may live long enough to be rescued, as long as they can
keep the boyfriend’s identity secret.
January Reviews
Title:
Sun StormClassification: Mystery
Author: Asa Larsson
Publisher: Delta
Copyright: 2003
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: When religious cult leader Victor Strandgard is viciously killed in his church, attorney Rebecka Martinsson is drawn back to her childhood home to defend his sister who, like the rest of Victor’s congregation, refuses to say anything that might lead to the murderer. The more Rebecka digs, though, the more sordid the information she uncovers and the more she puts herself at risk. Regardless of who killed Victor, Rebecka may not be able to save herself.
Title:
Cemetery GirlClassification: Mystery
Author: David Bell
Publisher: New American Library
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: Caitlin Stuart is twelve years old when she disappears from a park while walking her dog and for four years her parents have lived not knowing if she’s dead or alive. So when she’s found alive, her father is overjoyed, even though Caitlin is definitely not the daughter she was when she left and even though Caitlin, blank-eyed and cold, won’t say a word about where she’s been.
A mediocre read, but with promise.
Title:
DropClassification: Mystery
Author: Michael Connelly
Publisher: Little, Brown
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: In this disappointing Harry Bosch novel, aging detective Bosch is thinking about retirement when an interesting case comes into the Open-Unsolved Unit in Los Angeles. A murder from 1989 has resurfaced after DNA results show that the blood on the body belongs to then eight-year-old Clayton Pell. Although Pell has been convicted and imprisoned for sex crimes as an adult, chances are slim that he was able as a child to have raped and killed this woman.
If Connelly had stuck to this idea he might have been able to pull off a decent read, but he drags in a political mishmash of crooked dealings for LA taxi routes and loses focus. Yawn…
Title:
Soft TargetClassification: Fiction
Author: Stephen Hunter
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: In Hunter’s best book by far since Point of Impact, we meet again the recently-discovered son of famed sniper Bob Lee Swagger. A brilliant Marine sniper himself, Ray Cruz has just left the Corps and is trying to adjust to civilian life when he finds himself, on Black Friday, shopping in the largest mall in America with his fiancée Molly. Shopping is a strange and disconcerting experience for Cruz but when the mall comes under attack by armed terrorists Ray may be the only one who can stop them.
Tight, tense and terrifying, this is one fantastic read!
Title:
Kill SwitchClassification: Fiction
Author: Neal Baer, Jonathan Greene
Publisher: Kensington
Copyright: 2011
Book Rating:
Reviewer Comments: Two television writers (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) have teamed up to create this silly, unrealistic book featuring newly-minted forensic psychiatrist Claire Waters and New York detective Nick Lawler, working together to solve a string of murders. Convinced that convicted felon Todd Quimby is responsible, the two set out to prove it, ignoring the obvious evidence showing he can’t be guilty.
These authors have managed to ridicule both the law and science in this choppy mess, but if you’re looking for a little comic relief trying to present itself as suspense, this is for you. Just be prepared for the scene in which Claire dresses up like the victims and confronts Quimby, hoping to unlock his repressed memories, a tactic I’m pretty sure is not endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association.
To read Nancy's past reviews, please visit The Back Shelves
Meet Nancy
After working in several word-related fields: copy writing, editing, freelance voice talent and theatre--followed by a long career as a stay-at-home mom I started working at the bookstore almost nineteen years ago, and was fortunate enough to be the manager for eighteen years. From my first day at work I had a sense of being home among the books and fellow book-junkies and that feeling only grew with the ensuing years.
I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such a terrific team of booksellers and customers, and I am especially indebted to my fantastic family who supported my choice of jobs despite work hours that were definitely not conducive to family and social activities. I'm just now learning what all the fuss about weekends is all about!
My thanks to all of you who supported the store, who mourned its closing, and who asked us to establish this forum so that we can continue our tradition of exchanging opinions and ideas about books.