10. O'Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor

I have a confession to make – I love cemeteries and gravestone art. I therefore was especially happy to find this author, who writes about a funerary art historian.

Sweeney St. George has had a turbulent life. Her father was a famous artist who killed himself and she is estranged from her alcoholic mother. Her boyfriend was killed the previous year in a London Underground bombing and her position at the college she teaches at is scorned upon as not being too serious. When her friend Toby DiMarco invites her to rural Byzantium, Vermont, where a famous art colony used to be, she seizes the chance – especially when she finds out the town has a famous distinctive gravestone. Mary Denholm died by drowning in 1890, and her gravestone is an elaborate monument featuring the girl in a boat, being watched by a death figure. Local resident Ruth Kimball, a descendant of Mary’s, thinks she has clues as to who made the sculpture, and agrees to help Sweeney, yet ends up being killed shortly before Sweeney arrives in town. When the town suffers a series of robberies and other deaths during her visit, Sweeney becomes a sleuth and tries to solve the mystery of Byzantium.

This is the first book of the series, which now has four titles in the series. The author clearly knows her 19th-century art facts, especially relating to funerary art, and the desolate winter rural setting is great for the mystery. Sweeney is a likeable character and although there is a lot going on with the plot and characters, Sweeney definitely draws readers into the hunt for the killer. I will definitely be reading more of this series.

9. Take Me, Take Me With You by Lauren Kelly

Lauren Kelly is the pseudonym of Joyce Carol Oates and this suspense novel involves murder, insanity, obsession, and ultimately incest. Lara Quade is a quiet, lonely research assistant at the Institute for Semiotics, Aesthetics, and Cultural Research at Princeton University. While a child in Lake Shaheen, New York, Lara (then known as Lorraine) and her brother, Ryan, were placed in a car by their mother, Hedy Quade, and driven into an oncoming freight train. Lara is left mentally and physically damaged and retreats into a life of solitude. She is therefore surprised when she receives an anonymous, free ticket to a classical music concert. While there, she finds herself seated next to Zedrick Dewe, who claims he also received a free ticket. Even though she senses danger, Lara invites the burly Zedrick back to her apartment with the night ending in violence. Who is Zedrick, and why is Lara at times repelled by his violence towards her, and at other times dangerously attracted to him?

This novel is set in 1993, yet also flashes back to Lake Shaheen during 1970 and 1971, when Lara’s childhood spirals out of control. During this time, her mother cannot handle the fact that her husband left the family and turns to alcohol. When the woman Duncan Quade was living with is found murdered, he ends up in Attica, where he is stabbed to death by another prison on the day Hedy attempts to kill their children in the train/car crash. But did Duncan really kill his lover, and where is their son that survived the attack? Readers slowly see where this story is headed, and yet the excellent writing and strangeness of the story draws readers in. This is definitely written like an Oates novel, especially when the novel focuses on the Western New York setting. While very dark, I enjoyed this strange tale.

8. Dead Simple by Peter James

Michael Harrison is a successful real estate developer who is planning to marry his secretary, Ashley Harper, in a few days. Four of his friends celebrate the impending marriage by going on a pub crawl in small Sussex villages – and then burying Michael alive. Michael has always been a prankster, and caused two of his friends to almost miss their weddings. Therefore, the group decides to pay Michael back and bury him in a coffin for a few hours with only a breathing tube, a two-way radio, a flashlight, a porn magazine, and a bottle of Scotch. The only problem is that after leaving him in the deserted countryside, the group gets in a horrible car crash, with three of the friends killed and the fourth in a coma. While the good news is that Michael’s two-way radio works, and he makes contact with someone named Davey, the bad news is that Davey is an encephalitis victim with the mentality of a six-year old. When Michael’s fiancé, Ashley, calls the police for help, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace gets the case and discovers all is not as it should be between Michael and Ashley. Grace also has difficulties with the case, as it brings up memories of his missing wife, Sandy, who vanished without a trace nine years ago.

I was unfamiliar with the author until I read a review of his newest book, Looking Good Dead, which comes out at the end of February. His newest book also has an intriguing catch to it – this time about a found CD featuring a snuff film and the race to find the girl starring in the film. If I read a series, I like to start at the beginning, so I decided to read Dead Simple first. Grace is a sympathetic detective and the premise is a good one. While the ending becomes a little too far fetched, I thought the majority of the book was suspenseful and a great, mindless fast read. For fans of Harlan Coben.

7. The Pickup: a Novel by Nadine Gordimer

Julie Summers comes from a fairly wealthy white South African family. She works a pretty meaningless job doing public relations work and hangs out with a multiracial group at the trendy LA. Café. One day her car breaks down and she meets an illegal Arab immigrant, “Abdu” (not his real name), who is working illegally as an auto mechanic. Julie begins an affair with him, and shortly into the relationship, Abdu is served with deportation papers back to his unnamed poor Arabic desert village. Shocking everyone around her, Julie decides to follow Abdu to his country, and even agrees to marry him. Once in his country, Julie seems to mature and becomes more grounded, while Abdu, now known by his original name, Ibrahim, continually tries to get a visa out of his homeland.

While I originally thought this novel was slow to get into, I ended up liking it very much. My only complaint is that sometimes the narrative switches abruptly and you cannot tell immediately who the narrator is. Also, sparse language is sometimes more of a hindrance than being beautiful, and some of her prose is very dense. If readers are able to stick with her writing style, I think they will find a very rewarding read.

6. The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett

David Hunter moved to the small English village, Manham, to escape his life in London. He lost his wife and daughter to a car accident and gave up a promising forensic career to become a rural doctor in Manham. Three years after his arrival, David is still seen as an outsider – until a body of a local woman is found in the woods horribly mutilated and dead for weeks. When the local police find out David was once an expert in analyzing human remains to find time of death, he reluctantly joins their search efforts. When another body turns up mutilated, and another woman goes missing – this time the woman David has just started to date – David realizes that things are not what they seem in the small town.

I was slightly disappointed with this book. I had originally read about it in various journals we use to order our books for the library, and it had gotten very good reviews. The problem I had was David was just a not very likeable character and seemed not to be fully developed yet. Also, the animal mutilation (and there are numerous instances of it) bothered me. Beckett has another Dr. Hunter book coming out in September that sounds very good, and I will definitely give that one a try.

5. An Actual Life by Abigail Thomas

Virginia and Buddy are both college students in 1960. The first time they have sex in Buddy’s dorm room, Virginia becomes pregnant and is subsequently kicked out of college. They marry and have a daughter, Madeline, who is almost a year old when the bulk of the novel takes place. The book is set during the summer of 1960, when the young married couple moves in with Buddy’s Aunt Dot in New Jersey so Buddy can paint houses and take summer college courses. The only problem is that Buddy is never home, and appears to be still be close to his old girlfriend, Irene, who is also married to Buddy’s former best friend, Chick.

Virginia is a totally believable young, naïve, nineteen year old who is trying to raise her daughter while also realizing she really has no idea who her husband is. I absolutely love this book and wish more people knew about it and Abigail Thomas. Since I have been reading a lot of mysteries lately, I felt the need for something different, and found this in my bookcase. I originally read and loved this ten years ago and found myself still liking it again this time around. At times sad and painful, it is also funny and uplifting.

For more memorable family fiction reads check out this booklist:
http://www.tcpl.org/reading/familyfiction.html

4. No Night is Too Long by Barbara Vine

I had been thinking about this book since December, when I read The Minotaur by Vine. Ruth Rendell has been one of my favorite authors for many years and I especially like her psychological novels written under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. I kept remembering this book (I originally read it years ago) because unlike her previous books which are set in England, a large portion of this novel is set in Alaska.

Tim Cornish lives in a nameless town on the Suffolk coast. While in school studying creative writing, he meets paleontologist Ivo Steadman and falls in love with him. When Ivo must travel to Alaska to give a series of lectures on a tour ship, he makes the mistake of insisting Tim travel with him. However, Ivo miscalculates the cruise schedule, and leaves Tim alone in Juneau for two weeks. During this time, Tim falls in love with Isabel Winwood, and wants to break off his relationship with Ivo. When Ivo comes back to take Tim on their joint cruise, Ivo cannot accept the fact that Tim wants to end their relationship. During a heated argument on a desolate island, Tim knocks Ivo unconscious and leaves him for dead. So, how does that explain the letters from America sent mysteriously to Tim afterwards that are about people left alone on islands?

I did not remember much about this book, but enjoyed re-reading it. Although readers think they know how it will turn out, like most of Rendell’s books, she keeps you guessing until the end.

3. Averno by Louise Gluck

The tenth collection of poems by poet Gluck, this book refers to a small crater lake in Southern Italy, thought by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. Although this book only has seventeen poems included, many of the poems have many sections to them and are numerous pages in length. Dark themes are prevalent, including winter landscapes, memories of night, death, and the role of beauty in life and nature. Favorites included “Echoes”, “Telescope” and “A Myth of Devotion.”

Gluck is a former Poet Laureate of the United States and has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Aware. I try to read at least one or two poetry books per year and have read most of her previous material. Although my favorite of hers is still probably Vita Nova, I enjoyed this collection very much.

2. Frozen by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

The West Midlands police call in forensic psychologist/profiler Megan Rhys of Heartland University to help develop a profile of a serial killer or killers when two prostitutes of the Birmingham area are found dead. The problem is that two different blood types are found on the victims, meaning there could be two killers, one who may be a bad vice cop known to frequent area prostitutes. At the same time, a popular female newscaster, Delva Lobelo, has been getting a series of bizarre and obscene letters, including one with a picture of a shackled girl who later turns up dead. Is the letter sender a co-worker at the BTV station? Could that person be Megan’s brother-in-law, Neil, who works with Delva and has a history of not believing Megan (Megan was raped years ago by a friend of Neil, and Neil refused to believe he was guilty of the crime)?

As the two cases become connected, Megan must try to convince the Birmingham police of her thoughts on the cases. Although complicated and confusing at times, this is a very dark and gritty crime story. Ashford is a former journalist and the first woman to graduate from Queen’s College Cambridge with a master’s degree in criminology. Other Megan Rhys series books are available in the UK, where I will be looking for them during a trip over this spring.