Tag: pop-fiction

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The Kite Runner

Did you ever finish a book in one day? My wife does it all the time but I rarely do. I know I’ve done it before, but I can’t recall the last book I did it with. It happened just the other day though. On Saturday, I got up, started reading The Kite Runner, and was done by the time I sat down for dinner. I was on vacation, so that made it easier. But even if it had been just a regular Saturday at home, this still might have happened. I just got sucked in and I couldn’t put it down.

It’s the story of a man named Amir, a man with demons – demons that weighed on him beginning at age 12. Amir grew up in a wealthy Kabul neighborhood in the late sixties and early seventies. His childhood was relatively normal except that his best friend was Hassan, the son of the family servant. It was uncommon for a rich kid in Afghanistan to become such close friends with the family servant, even more uncommon considering that each of them came from different Islamic denominations, Amir is a Sunni and Hassan is a Shi’a. This book is a first person narrative from the point of view Amir. It’s the story of his life.

That’s all I’m going to tell you. Often, with classic lit, I’ll reveal some plot killers for sake of discussion, but this isn’t classic lit. This book is current and you owe it to yourself to read it. I’m not messing around, you have to read it. You see people reading it in airports all the time. There’s a reason for that, it’s a great book. Stop wondering what the book is about and read it.

It’s written in plain, simple language and it’s a fast read. It will grab you from the beginning and you won’t be bored for a moment. I’m sure you know someone who’s read it, just borrow it. Or you can usually pick it up in the three-for-the-price-of-two rack at Borders. Just frickin’ read it, dude.

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The Enemy

I did some air travel earlier this month so I grabbed another Lee Child paperback on my way out the door. All of Child’s books have the same main character (Reacher) and I’m reading them in order. You can read about my last Child experience here.

As you may know, I like to travel with pop-fiction paperbacks like those written by Child, but I also grabbed this because I needed some release from the Barack Obama book that I started mid-June. The Obama book is good, but it’s like work, so I needed some trash fiction to offset it.

Man, it really ended up being a slow reading month. I got about half way through the Obama book and I barely finished this Reacher book before the self-imposed June 30 deadline (for the timestamp on this post). Reading books has taken a back seat to work and summer lately, each of which has diverted my attention from sitting down with a good book.

The Enemy was a departure for Child. It’s set back in time during the early 1990s when Reacher was still an MP. I was expecting just another modern-day thriller. Instead, I got a military thriller set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was also a relatively touching side story about Reacher’s dying mother and how Reacher and his brother dealt with it. If you don’t know, Reacher’s brother dies in the very first Reacher book, so this was another curveball.

Child may have some darn good artistic reasons for throwing this out-of-sequence novel at me and I feel bad that I didn’t embrace it. I’m not sure if it was my fault or his fault. I needed something mindless and I just wanted this book to be the “next” story in Reacher’s life. It wasn’t. I got bored. It took forever to read.

I remember when Hillerman broke from his normal genre and wrote Finding Moon. That turned out to be one of my favorites books of all time. Was Finding Moon more compelling than The Enemy? Or did I just read it during a particularly relaxed and focused time? I don’t know. But I do know that I should pay attention to things like this when assessing how much I like a book.

Well, in conclusion, I’m blaming Child for my lack of enjoyment of this book. It was my least favorite Reacher book yet. The evil-doer didn’t give me a particular feeling of trepidation, the mystery felt like a failed attempt at plausibility, and I got this story confused with a back-story from a previous book that featured Reacher recounting a past case. I only recommend this book if you are reading the whole series and are just as neurotic as me when it comes to sticking to the plan.

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The Neon Rain

This is the start of another crime/thriller series with one main character, a genre that is my most reliable source of pop fiction. I start at book one and follow the character through each novel in succession. It’s probably my number one outlet for non-organized, brainless, leisure time. If I have a break, and it’s not long enough to think about what I should I do next, I just crack open a book like this.

The main character in this series is a New Orleans homicide detective named Dave Robicheaux and so far he is the main character in 16 books. In this book, Robicheaux is investigating the murder of a prostitute and stumbles upon a shady network of arms dealers and drug traffickers. He gets embroiled in their world and has to end up kicking some ass to extract himself from it.

It’s quite dramatic and over the top. A little too much so, that’s why I say the jury is still out on this series. Robicheaux encounters just about every possible bad guy in this book; a dirty cop that happens to be his partner, a retired general that still thinks he’s fighting a war, a Columbian drug lord, a Mafia kingpin, an ex-marine killer, an ex-CIA killer. You name it. At the same time, he falls in love with a woman he meets while escaping from two dirty cops (other than his partner), his brother gets shot in the head, and he revisits his alcoholism by going on a bender to end all benders. Wow.

It’s a good story though, but I didn’t read it under the best of circumstances. It took me a few weeks to read because I’ve been really busy lately. When this happens, I get confused and lost sometimes. I didn’t give the book much of a chance. But I will read the next few and decide if I’m going to press onward with the series.

The thing that will keep me in the series, in the short term at least, is that it has a lot of New Orleans character. This is important to me in the same way that Hillerman’s novels reflect the character of the Navajo reservation and Grafton’s novels capture the spirit of California’s central coast. I like the way Burke describes Robicheaux’s meals, all of which have a New Orleans flare. Descriptions of food always stick with me. Burke takes you to Cafe du Monde, out for oysters, and to a shack for a po’ boy sandwich, among other things. He paints New Orleans as a unique and beautiful place, albeit somewhat troubled and riddled with corruption. But it is Robicheaux’s home, and through his first person descriptions you get a feeling for the beauty and peace of the city.

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Deathwatch

I’m jamming through some serious fiction on this long weekend, so I was forced to reload in a book store in downtown Ventura, CA. It was a huge used book store called Bank of Books. Awesome. As I was wandering through the store I saw a book that brought back a flood of memories from my early reading days. It was this one, Deathwatch, by Robb White.

I read it so long ago that I didn’t have an ounce of recollection for even the major details. I think it might have been 5th or 6th grade when I read it. My memory was clear about one thing though; I loved it back then.

Today, even after the second reading, it did not disappoint. It’s a straightforward action thriller about a college-aged kid who’s trying to make enough money to pay for his next year in college. He does so by being a week-long, hired guide for a high-powered businessman who wants to kill a bighorn for his game room.

Well, the businessman, Madec, accidentally shoots an old prospector who he mistakes for a bighorn and tries to cover it up. Ben, the kid, won’t have anything to do with that so a disagreement ensues. So what does Madec do? He manufactures some evidence against Ben, strips him down, and sends him off into the dessert to die.

The rest is just vintage, somewhat brainless, action. Which goes down very easily for me next to the pool, but I understand that some aren’t ready for something this straightforward so I put the with reservations in. In a relative sense, I didn’t like this book today as much as I did back then. Back then, it was so different and so much more intense than what I was reading at the time. I was just a kid in awe and went on to read a few of his other books (Up Periscope was one that I definitely remember).

But, this book certainly stands the test of time. I wasn’t bored this time around at all. I think this book works well for adults or kids. All in all, a very cool experience for me personally.

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N is for Noose

I’m 7 books away from being caught up to Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. I wonder if she’s just going to stop at Z. Anyway, I grabbed this one on the way out the door for a vacation in Santa Barbara wine country, which just so happens to be the heart of Sue Grafton country.

Kinda cool huh? I’m going to Santa Barbara, CA for a long weekend, so how appropriate is it to start reading a book by an author that lives in Santa Barbara and uses the city as the backdrop for her bestselling crime series? Well, I think it’s pretty damn appropriate. Plus, it’s a mangled paperback that I got on eBay so I’ll just leave it for another reader when I’m done and lighten my load for the trip back. I rule.

Not much to say. And what could I say that could possibly be interesting to a non-reader of the series or thought provoking 10 or 20 years down the road when I look back at this blog to figure out what was going on in my life in 2007? Well, I’m going to stray from my normal take on fiction and disclose some plot killers.

WARNING: PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW

This book separates itself from the others for a couple of reasons. First, there are a few very intense assaults against the main character, Kinsey Milhone; more so than in the previous books. Second, I pretty much figured it out about mid way through the book; something I haven’t done yet in the series.

About the assaults; twice Kinsey is confronted by a mysterious man in a black ski mask. Even though neither occasion was an attempt on her life, they were still darker and more ominous than even the murderous attempts on her life in the past. Grafton’s descriptions of the events were right out of thrillerdom and made for good reading. And I might add, the perp in both cases gets his due when Kinsey goes on a PCP-induced rampage and kicks his ass, then drops the f-bomb. Out-of-character, but great stuff.

About me figuring it out, well, I didn’t necessarily have it wired in, but I can remember the exact moment where Grafton foreshadowed the perpetrator. During the second assault mentioned above, Kinsey said the the perpetrator “smelled of sweat.” I said to myself, “it’s got to be Brant because he goes to the gym all of the time.” Well, it was Brant, I was correct. Although I backed-off on my assessment so maybe I don’t deserve credit for figuring it out.

Was this a coincidence or did I really root out the killer? Not sure, but it didn’t impinge on my enjoyment of the book because my conviction was not that strong. I was left in doubt just about until the end.

I’m going to take a few months off from Grafton.

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Citizen Vince

This is a recommendation from the Nick Hornby book I read last month. Hornby is actually quoted on the back jacket and says about it:

This terrific book…is smart, funny, dark, and moving-and Jess Walter is clearly a writer to watch.

As you know, I’m a big fan of crime fiction. I’m always looking for something that is “smart” and “dark,” so I was powerless and bought it even though I forgot my 30% off coupon from Borders Rewards. Oh well, I agree with Hornby for the most part, so it was a good purchase.

It’s the story of Vince, a small-time crook who testified against some very bad people in New York City, and now spends his time making donuts and partaking in credit card fraud in Seattle while in the witness protection program. Everything is clipping along fine, until a hired killer from the old neighborhood finds him.

Vince is a cool guy. At first it seems like it’s a classic “I’m gonna get out of the game as soon as I make enough money” crime novel. But it’s a lot deeper than that. There’s this sensitive relationship between Vince and his hooker friend who wants to be a real estate agent. There’s Vince buying and borrowing books so he can have one in-hand every morning when the beautiful woman comes into the donut shop (he starts the books, but never finishes them). There’s the beautiful woman’s local politician friend that Vince peppers with questions about his platform. And there’s Vince’s ongoing internal and external debate about whether to vote for Reagan or Carter (yes, the book takes place in 1980). All provide comic relief, character depth, and thoughtful diversions from your concern about this nice criminal with destructive tendencies.

There are even a few cool back stories. One is about the Seattle cop tracking Vince to New York. It is really moving. Another is about the local politician that Vince befriends for a night. Each story takes some very intense turns. You are on the edge of your seat at times, laughing at times, and learning at times.

Great stuff, thanks Hornby for doing me up with a good rec.

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M is for Malice

One of the reasons I like Tony Hillerman and Sue Grafton so much is the continuity of the main characters. Almost all of their books have the same main characters and it’s fascinating to witness their development.

With Hillerman, I came along in the middle of the stories about Navajo tribal policemen Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. I read them out of order, so even though Hillerman is the top dog as far as I’m concerned, it would have even been better if I’d started them in chronological order and went from there (something I will do before I die).

My experience with Grafton has been ideal. I started at the beginning, with A is for Alibi, and have grown with Kinsey Millhone, the main character, over the last 13 books. This book, M is for Malice, is probably the most in-depth study thus far of Kinsey’s emotional state. Grafton really digs into Kinsey’s familial relationships and dredges up some past loves, and the mystery at hand hits especially close to home for this single, thirty-five year old, female private investigator who loves fast food. I’m not going to dig into the plot but to say that it was another solid effort and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I think that Grafton sometimes tries to hard to make Kinsey kind of quirky cool. Kinsey is cool enough without hearing more about how she doesn’t care about her hair or only has one dress-up outfit (unlike your average woman I guess). I’m not sure why I perceive this, but it could be because I read so few books by women. I just noticed it near end of this book; in the last 34 books, I’ve only read two female authors, Grafton and Casey. And there are none in the hopper, save for more of Grafton. It’s not intentional, but what does that make me? An idiot? A chauvinist? Or are there just more male writer’s than female so I don’t have any choice?

I think of my taste in books as flexible, wide-ranging, varied, open-minded, but am I fooling myself? I gotta dig into this issue…

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The Ambler Warning

The pool, the sun, the warmth…ahh, Florida vacations. That can only mean one thing, paperbacks and a lounge chair! How better to fill the paperback side of things than with Robert Ludlum? Well, there are better ways, but he filled the bill adequately.

Keep in mind that Robert Ludlum is dead. This book was published after his death. According to the info on the copyright page:

Since his death, the Estate of Robert Ludlum has worked with a carefully selected author and editor to prepare and edit this work for publication.

Makes sense I guess. It certainly felt and read like a Ludlum book. Huge conspiracy within a conspiracy and lots of action that spanned the globe. Great for reading next to the pool. I enjoyed it.

I’m warning you though, it’s somewhat formulaic. In fact, it felt a lot like The Bourne Identity because the main character was out of commission for a few years in a psych hospital and lost his identity. And much like Jason Bourne, he has a special woman, unfamiliar with spy-craft, who helps him get through this identity crisis emotionally and tactically.

Now, onto some Sue Grafton…the ultimate pool-side paperback queen…

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By Order of the President

Boy oh boy, I’m fired up. I’ve never read any W.E.B. Griffin, but the guy can spin a yarn. It fires me up because it’s a new discovery for me in the genre of military fiction, which is something I’ve gotten away from the past few years. I read the first five or six Tom Clancy novels as soon as they came out, but I just tired of them. I think it was because I felt the characters were kind of hollow and there were too many military and intelligence technicalities.

Not so with Griffin. He has created a pretty deep and complicated character in Charley Castillo. This is the first one of what is called the Presidential Agent Novels. Castillo is a decorated army officer working for the director of Homeland Security and the President asks him personally to follow up on the disappearance of a plane from an airport in Angola. This sets off a huge, inter-agency, global search for this plane. Terrorists, shady Russian arms dealers, the FBI, the Philadelphia police, the CIA, the NSA, Delta Force, and Castillo’s ultra-cool half-brother are involved. It’s an excellent story.

Besides the story, I love Griffin’s methods. First of all, there’s a ton, I mean a ton, of dialogue. The story rages along with conversations on cell phones, radios, and fact-to-face. He often will only let you hear one side of the phone conversation because it’s usually interrupting another conversation happening at the same time.

Second, there is a lot of first-person thinking going on. The reader knows it’s one of the characters thinking because he just italicizes it. It’s often a conversation within a conversation but very easy to follow. I really liked the technique a lot.

And finally, he just peppers this thing with interesting, humorous, and often touching military stories. They are not necessarily part of the plot line, but added to expand on a certain issue. I have to believe they are based on the truth. For instance, he tells the story of an ex-military guy that becomes a millionaire after starting a hi-tech communications company and eventually donates some serious communications equipment to Delta Force because he feels duty bound to do so. It was really a cool short story that I did not see coming.

I can’t wait to read the other books in this series. In fact, I may grab another Clancy or Ludlum along the way. I am not sure why I have forsaken the spy/international intrigue/military intelligence novel. But I think they’re back in.

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For One More Day

I grew up 90 miles south of Detroit and if you wanted real sports news in my town, you went to the local magazine store and picked up the Detroit Free Press. So my first experience with Mitch Albom was reading his regular column in the Free Press. Around the same time, I was also an avid reader of the Sporting News, which was a much different beast than its current form. Heck, Larry King and Furman Bisher had weekly columns in the Sporting News. These journalists have taken different routes to fame and the only one that stayed true to his sports writing roots was Furman Bisher I think. Albom still dabbles in sports, but I am betting that most of his cash flow comes from book deals.

This is Albom’s third non-sports book. I read Tuesdays with Morrie but did not read The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I liked Tuesdays with Morrie. I liked this book.

It’s the story of Chick Benetto, a guy who’s having a really bad day. You see, he just found out that his daughter got married and didn’t invite him to the wedding. This, after a long spell of family problems that started about eight years previous when his mother died. And man, he really mistreated his mother while she was alive. He was kind of an ass actually. So, he tries to kill himself by getting drunk and driving like a crazy man back to the home he grew up in. He runs off the road and rolls the car a couple of times, then walks the last few miles. When he gets to his home, his dead mother is there, just acting likes it’s a regular day. He gets to spend the day with her and sort things out. It’s touching.

This is a worthy theme. The point is, you should be thinking about how you’ve treated your loved ones and if you need to make amends, DO IT NOW! That’s part of the role of art, to get a certain point across that does not slap you in the face as you go about your day. Sometimes it takes a work of fiction to get some clarity. Or maybe a good movie. Or maybe a painting or a play.

If this theme of “return” interests you, I have another option for you. Go check out the movie Volver, with Penelope Cruz. My wife and I just saw it the other day. Very good. The similarities to Albom’s book are eerie, but Volver goes about getting the point across much differently. Pedro Almodóvar wrote and directed it and he adds a lot more peaks and valleys to the story. Also, Albom’s book has a somber tone throughout but Almodóvar throws in more humor and a much darker twist than Albom’s. In the end, notwithstanding that one’s a book and one’s a movie, I think Volver digs a little deeper into the mother/child relationship and leaves more of a lasting impression.