"Nearly three months had passed since Tangier and the death of Khalid bin Talal. The weather was cooler, the sky a little grayer. Robie had not killed anyone during that time. It was an unusually long period for him to be inactive, but he did not mind. He took walks, he read books, he ate out, he did some traveling that did not involve the death of someone. In other words, he acted normal."
-from the novel
I believe the only book I've read by this author was The Christmas Train, which I really enjoyed. This one was quite different and I have a feeling it is more typical of Baldacci. I would call it a political thriller but it qualifies as a murder mystery, as well.
Main character Will Robie is a hired assassin working for the U.S. government. (That was more than a little shocking to me. Am I just naïve?) Near the beginning of the novel he fails to complete an assigned hit and while on the lam, he meets up with a fourteen-year-old girl, Julie, who is also on the run. After both of them are nearly killed in a bus explosion, Robie takes on the role of Julie's protector. As her story unfolds and several people are found murdered, Robie, with the help of FBI agent Nicole Vance, tries to find a connection among the victims and the answer to why HE is being targeted. All this makes for a pretty exciting plot with a surprise ending. I did figure out one of the perpetrators before it was revealed but there were a couple of other twists and turns that made the novel a page turner for me. I'd give it a 4 and I'll definitely read another of Baldacci's books one of these days.
Monday, June 30, 2014
No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark
"Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one."
-from a skipping rope rhyme, author unknown
Known as the Queen of Suspense, Mary Higgins Clark is a prolific mystery writer. I have read several of her novels, finding all to be page turners. Many of her titles refer to popular songs. This one was no exception but the positive message of the song "There's No Place Like Home" is somewhat reversed in this plot. As you might guess from the quote, the book is a modernized version of the old Lizzie Borden story in which Lizzie is accused of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892.
In this version, we learn early on that Liza Barton had been acquitted of the shooting of her mother and stepfather when she was 10 years old. After the trial, she had been adopted by distant family members who changed her name to Celia. At the beginning of the novel Celia, now an adult, returns to her hometown where her new husband, Alex, buys a house for her 34th birthday. It just happens to be the house where her mother was killed. See what I mean about there's no place like home taking on a new connotation? Obviously Celia, nee Liza, suffers a great deal of angst over her past and whether the townsfolk will recognize her and, if that weren't enough, there is a series of murders and it looks to some as if Celia could be involved.
The author kept me guessing through most of the story before the final surprise was revealed. I would give the book a 4 since it was an entertaining read, if not a memorable one. It even made me curious to know more about Lizzie Borden as I knew only what I'd heard in the rhyme and had not been aware there was history behind the verse. If you enjoy a good murder mystery, I think you'll enjoy this one.
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one."
-from a skipping rope rhyme, author unknown
Known as the Queen of Suspense, Mary Higgins Clark is a prolific mystery writer. I have read several of her novels, finding all to be page turners. Many of her titles refer to popular songs. This one was no exception but the positive message of the song "There's No Place Like Home" is somewhat reversed in this plot. As you might guess from the quote, the book is a modernized version of the old Lizzie Borden story in which Lizzie is accused of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892.
In this version, we learn early on that Liza Barton had been acquitted of the shooting of her mother and stepfather when she was 10 years old. After the trial, she had been adopted by distant family members who changed her name to Celia. At the beginning of the novel Celia, now an adult, returns to her hometown where her new husband, Alex, buys a house for her 34th birthday. It just happens to be the house where her mother was killed. See what I mean about there's no place like home taking on a new connotation? Obviously Celia, nee Liza, suffers a great deal of angst over her past and whether the townsfolk will recognize her and, if that weren't enough, there is a series of murders and it looks to some as if Celia could be involved.
The author kept me guessing through most of the story before the final surprise was revealed. I would give the book a 4 since it was an entertaining read, if not a memorable one. It even made me curious to know more about Lizzie Borden as I knew only what I'd heard in the rhyme and had not been aware there was history behind the verse. If you enjoy a good murder mystery, I think you'll enjoy this one.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
"Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
-Robert Louis Stevenson
This is the second novel by Nancy Horan. I read her first, Loving Frank, last month. It's rather strange that the last three novels I have read have been biographical, each one about a woman who loved a famous man. It wasn't intentional to read them almost back to back. Frank Lloyd Wright was Mamah Cheney's lover in Loving Frank. Our Page Turners group read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain in May, about the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, Hadley. And this one, as you can tell from the quote, has Robert Louis Stevenson as the love interest and second husband of Fanny Van de Grift Osborne Stevenson.
I knew very little about Robert Louis Stevenson. I was familiar with Treasure Island and A Child's Garden of Verses but didn't even realize that he was a Scotsman, educated as a lawyer, or that he wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I remembered quite fondly one of his poems in a textbook I used years ago, called "The Block City." Stevenson was troubled by serious respiratory problems all his life and died quite young. He apparently gave Fanny a lot of credit for extending his life by being his health advocate in many ways, one of which was agreeing to live aboard ship for months at a time, even though she suffered terribly from seasickness while his illness was much improved by sea air. She gave up her aspirations to study art when she met Robert and found difficulty being accepted as the writer she felt she could be. They lived in many places, trying to find the perfect place for Robert to thrive and ended up in Samoa, a place he greatly loved.
I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it. I would give it a 3+ since I appreciate Ms. Horan's writing. Maybe by the time I got to this novel, I was just tired of reading about women in the shadows of great men! On to a mindless mystery, perhaps!
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
-Robert Louis Stevenson
This is the second novel by Nancy Horan. I read her first, Loving Frank, last month. It's rather strange that the last three novels I have read have been biographical, each one about a woman who loved a famous man. It wasn't intentional to read them almost back to back. Frank Lloyd Wright was Mamah Cheney's lover in Loving Frank. Our Page Turners group read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain in May, about the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, Hadley. And this one, as you can tell from the quote, has Robert Louis Stevenson as the love interest and second husband of Fanny Van de Grift Osborne Stevenson.
I knew very little about Robert Louis Stevenson. I was familiar with Treasure Island and A Child's Garden of Verses but didn't even realize that he was a Scotsman, educated as a lawyer, or that he wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I remembered quite fondly one of his poems in a textbook I used years ago, called "The Block City." Stevenson was troubled by serious respiratory problems all his life and died quite young. He apparently gave Fanny a lot of credit for extending his life by being his health advocate in many ways, one of which was agreeing to live aboard ship for months at a time, even though she suffered terribly from seasickness while his illness was much improved by sea air. She gave up her aspirations to study art when she met Robert and found difficulty being accepted as the writer she felt she could be. They lived in many places, trying to find the perfect place for Robert to thrive and ended up in Samoa, a place he greatly loved.
I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it. I would give it a 3+ since I appreciate Ms. Horan's writing. Maybe by the time I got to this novel, I was just tired of reading about women in the shadows of great men! On to a mindless mystery, perhaps!
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