Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

This one has been on my list to read for almost a year. What put it there was an incredible review by Cory Doctorow. I finally pulled it from my pile when my book club selected it to read in November, our indigenous fiction month.

It is set in an alternate 1920s where much of the western US was never completely subsumed by the United States. The central action takes place in the state of Cahokia covering parts of modern day Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The capital is also called Cahokia. The protagonist is an orphan giant of a man whose heritage is part black, part indigenous. He is a murder detective for the Cahokia Police Department. As the book opens, he and his partner have been called to the scene of a grizzly murder at the top of a skyscraper. The body has been mutilated in the style of an Aztec sacrifice. In a racially divided city, this sets the city on edge and puts pressure on the mayor and the police to solve the crime fast.

This novel has everything—politics, history, racial tension and conflict, mystery, plot twists, romance. I kind of feel like the grandfather in The Princess Bride. Seriously, this is one of my favorite books I’ve read. I most appreciate books that explore deep issues of what it means to be human, and I found it in this book at every turn. It deals with but gives no easy answers for questions like these:

What do I do when there seem to be no good choices to make?
Where is the boundary friendship and doing the right thing?
Where do I belong? Who am I?
Is it okay to break the law in service to a higher sense of law?

To top it off, the writing is evocative. I felt immersed in the noir detective world of prohibition politics in a Midwestern state governed by natives who never gave up governing their own land. This book has it all. Truly a masterwork.

My rating: 5/5

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon

I recently started listening to audiobooks while working on projects around the house. My first one was finishing a book I started listening to on a recent trip. Then I went looking for something new to listen to. At the beginning of this year I had briefly toyed with the idea of reading Hugo Award winning novels this year, so I searched for one of the those. This book was the first I came across that was immediately available to borrow from my library.

It is not science fiction in the traditional sense. There are no aliens or spaceships. It does not take place in the far future or on another planet. It is more of a detective story that takes place in a speculative alternate history. In this version of history, Israel was destroyed shortly after its founding and Jews found a temporary “home” in a district in Alaska that the US carved out from among Indian land in Alaska. Sixty years later, this district in Sitka is still intact but was never made permanent. Now it is looking like there will be a reversion back to the natives, leaving the Jews there with no place to go.

That’s the background. The story itself revolves around a murder (naturally) that takes place in the same fleabag hotel where the main character lives. He is a detective for the Sitka police, and he is a complete mess. He is divorced with no kids and no self-respect. His partner is his half-Indian, half-Jewish cousin who was more or less raised as his brother. Together they investigate this murder even after they are told to leave it alone. Of course, they begin to uncover things that others in powerful places want left alone.

The writing is absolutely brilliant. It is filled with down-to-earth but often odd metaphors that evoke feelings and imagery that could be achieved in no other way. The audiobook reader is incredible with the voices and accents, really bringing the story to life. There are subplots that touch on different aspects of the human condition and how everyday people struggle with them. It is an amazing work of fiction that deserves all the awards it received.

My rating: 4.5/5

Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

I came across an interview with the author of this novella in Locus, “the magazine of science fiction and fantasy field”. What really got me interested enough to read it was this passage from the interview. “… you can’t discuss what that book is about without spoiling it. It’s got a big twist, and even to summarize what the book is about is to take a step towards spoilers. It’s basically a Stepford Wives meets ‘Bluebeard’ thing – but it’s not either of those things.” I was intrigued.

Despite what the author says, I will make a short attempt to summarize the plot. This is a fantasy thriller. Each chapter is named after a variety of apple. It opens with the beginning of an agreement that residents of a neighborhood have to sign and live by. The next chapter opens with the protagonist saying, “I was made for him.” Right away that was creepy for me, making me feel something was wrong. From there the chapters alternate between continuing the resident agreement (which gets weirder and weirder) and the woman as she slowly starts to question her life and her world. As the author says, there is a big twist at the end that will have you looking back on what you read and seeing it in a very different light.

The writing here is very engaging. I was enveloped by the story and the mystery. The use of the first person is very effective at bringing you into the protagonist’s world and viewpoint. At first I was turned off by the whole “I was made for my man” vibe. But as the protagonist grows to question things, the story become more and more feminist. in the end, it is a fantastic fresh look at an old familiar allegory.

My rating: 4/5

Wrong Place Wrong Time by William Morrow

I heard about this book on the podcast What Should I Read Next?. It intrigued me because of its unique time travel element as well as the emotional aspect of a mother trying to save her son from doing something terrible that would change his life in ways he could never undo.

As the book opens, a mother is waiting for her teenage son to return home. He is running late and she is nervously looking out the window looking for him. Soon, she sees him walking toward the house. He is joined by another person. They seem to talk briefly. Then her son takes out a knife and stabs the man. The rest of the night involves the police and her son going to jail. In the wee hours of the morning she finally gets home to get some sleep, intending to get him a lawyer and start sorting all this out the next day. But when she awakes, it is the day before the murder. And every time she wakes up, it is a day or more before the day she just relived.

I couldn’t put this book down. The mother is at the center of the story as she attempts to unravel what happened, why her son would stab someone, and how she can prevent it from ever happening in the first place. Through some help from other characters, she uncovers more and more that she didn’t know about her own life. The story is filled with surprising revelations artfully spun. The mother’s emotions are an underlying thread as she finds out things about her son and husband that she never knew. And the writing pulls at the heartstrings in a way that fits perfectly with the story without pulling you out of it. A well-written and evocative mystery that effectively uses time travel and makes it feel almost normal.

My rating: 4.5/5

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

The genre for the month of August in my book club was mystery/thriller. This is the book that we ended up reading. It is not one that I was familiar with or had heard of before. I found the story deeply interesting and engrossing while the writing left a bit to be desired.

The story begins in 1975 and revolves around a one-eyed preteen young man everyone calls Patch. Young girls about his age are disappearing. When he happens upon this happening in the woods and stops it, he is taken instead. This turns his world upside down. His best friend Saint never stops looking for him even after all of the rest of the town has given up on her friend.

This is a story about many things: love across the years, overcoming tragedy, and deep friendship. The plot has many twists and turns. The writing was a little off for me. For one thing, the author is British telling a story in the US, so some of the writing just feels out of place. Like when he mentions that something “came by post”. And the language at times tries to be so flowery and poetic that the meaning and storytelling become obscured. But overall, this is a beautiful, nuanced story of tragedy and how it can affect a young person for the rest of their life. Though it tries too hard in some places and fails to communicate, when it does communicate, it gets under you skin and hits you in the feels.

My rating: 4/5

Long Time Gone by Charlie Donlea

This was one of those books that I listened to in the car on a long road trip. We like to listen to thrillers that keep our attention and entertain us as the road goes by. This was a good choice.

A young woman is studying to become a medical examiner. As a forensic scientist, she must do a thesis on the topic of her advisor’s choosing. Her advisor chooses genetics as her area of focus. Diving in to get started, she submits her DNA to an online ancestry tool and learns that she is the baby that disappeared almost thirty years ago to national attention. As she tries to delay the inevitable national attention that will again be coming her way, she works to unravel what happened to her and her birth parents all those years ago.

This is a rip roaring adventure tale with many plot turns and twists. There is a bit of explicitly described gore, but largely the story is suspense driven. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The writing was nothing special for me, but it was excellent in the sense that I didn’t notice it, I was so absorbed in the story.

My rating: 4/5

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris

I am a big Cory Doctorow fan, of both his fiction and his technology and privacy advocacy. I follow and read his blog. On that blog, he will occasionally recommend a book to read. Recently, one of those books as My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two. It is the sequel, naturally, to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris. After reading Doctorow’s glowing review of Book Two, I immediately requested Book One from my library and took it with my on a recent vacation.

The book is a graphic novel about and told by a young girl who wants to be a monster. She is picked on at school and feels like an outsider. Her logic is that if she was undead, she could get back at those who pick on her or her family. One day, a neighbor woman who was always kind to the author is found dead in her bed. She was apparently shot in her living room but found in her bed. And the apartment was locked from the inside. The police call it a suicide and close the case. But the author isn’t so sure and begins to try to figure out what happened.

The art in this book is beautiful. Each “chapter” opens with the cover of an old horror magazine. In fact the whole book has that feel of something dark and ominous that the art communicates masterfully. The murdered woman was a holocaust survivor and much of the book is learning of her experience. Another focal point is the author’s relationship with her brother who is much older that she is. They were close once but he has become more distant recently. The book ends on a cliff hanger that leaves the reader reaching for the sequel. I am so lucky that it is available now from my local library. This book was originally published in 2017 but the sequel didn’t come out until this year. I can’t image having to wait so long to find out what happens next!

My rating: 4/5

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

I listened to Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters on audiobook on a recent road trip. It takes place in an alternate modern-day USA where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on his way to his inauguration in 1861. That same year a series of Constitutional amendments were ratified that enshrined slavery forever. A network of modern-day abolitionists called the Underground Airlines works to help escaped slaves find safety in Canada.

The main character is a former runaway slave working for the US Marshal’s office returning runaway slaves. He is in the process of infiltrating a cell of the Underground Airlines to return his latest runaway assignment. But something is a little off with this assignment.

As the mystery unravels, this world of modern, regulated slavery is laid out in all its horror for individuals and society. The story is compelling and realistic, never descending to polemics or speechifying. It all blends well into a sophisticated story of human complexity dealing with systemic racism enshrined in the Constitution. A fantastic “what if” historical thriller.

My rating: 4/5

Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow

The silhouette of a running man seen through a keyhole on a blue background.

Cory Doctorow’s latest novel is a mystery/thriller about a forensic accountant. Doesn’t exactly sound like the makings of a thriller, does it? I found it engaging and really liked the main character Marty Hench, the accountant. He is an usual character with a perspective that is both practical and technical. But I have to say that I enjoyed him more than the novel itself.

The book starts with a bang, one that involves cryptocurrency. Marty helps an old friend who gets himself into trouble and yields a giant payday. Just when he thinks he is retiring on his newfound wealth, things go sideways, and Marty finds himself on the run. Maybe I was just expecting too much, but this is where the story fell a little flat for me. Much of his “on the run” time, he isn’t doing much more than laying low.

Marty himself is very interesting. A sixty-seven-year-old accountant is an unusual protagonist. Somehow, Doctorow pulls it off. I found myself continuing to turn the pages even during the slow places. Doctorow has much to say about technology and society in this novel at the level of everyday people. It engaged me. But it felt like a setup for the book to follow. In that way, it totally worked. I am looking forward to the next book in the trilogy.

My rating: 4/5

A Story Within a Story Within a Story

The second audiobook we listened to on our Thanksgiving trip was The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. This one falls into my special category of “books about books” in more than one way. First, the pivotal scene in the book takes place in the Boston Public Library. And the book is also about a writer who is writing a mystery that starts in that location. On top of that, the author writing about that writer is corresponding with someone who is helping her as a first reader as she prepares and shares each chapter. This may sound a bit confusing, but Gentill makes everything clear to the point it almost seems natural.

The bulk of the book is about the book the author is writing. We read each chapter of this book right before we read the letter from the helper to the author with his thoughts. The story is told in the first person by the author and starts with her sitting in the reading room of the Boston Public Library trying to write her book. She notices three others close by who grab her attention as possible characters in her story. Then they all hear a woman scream. This causes the four to start a conversation that leads to a friendship. After they learn later than evening that a woman was murdered in the library, their friendship deepens as they all try to figure out what happened.

It is hard to say much more without spoiling it. The relationships grow and twist and change in ways that feel somewhat natural despite the odd circumstances. And the multiple layers add to the mystery and kept me interested right to the end.