Mercy Falls by William Kent Krueger

 

"He's done it again, Rose. It's that damned cowboy mentality of his. That's the part of him I hate."      

   -Jo, speaking of her husband, Cork O'Connor

"If you were to ask me, I'd say it's also part of what you love about him."   

   -Jo's sister Rose's response

Number five in the Cork O'Connor series but not my favorite. A page-turner, as they all have been, but I didn't love the ending. I will rate it a 3.

Early in the novel Deputy, Marsha Dross, is critically wounded by a gunshot and after some investigation, it seems the bullet was meant for Cork, the sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota. Soon after that shooting, a shady businessman, Eddie Jacoby, is found brutally murdered, and it takes a great deal of time for Cork and his team to figure out if the 2 crimes are related. In the meantime, the Jacoby father and brother, hire a special investigator, Dina Willner, who happens to be very attractive. It turns out Cork's wife Jo and Ben Jacoby were an item in law school. One might figure there would be some sexual tension in these last two situations. 

I can't say too much more without revealing some of the mystery. Suffice it to say, Cork's "cowboy mentality" helps to save the day! (See quote)

Toward the end of this novel, Cork tells his sister-in-law Rose he is going back to Aurora to resign. I don't see how that would be possible with at least 13 more books in the series! I guess I will find out when I read Copper River, #6.

The Girl with Seven Names Escape from North Korea by Hyeonseo Lee with David John

 

" I wanted to belong, like everyone else around me did, but there was no country I could say was mine. I had no one to tell me that many other people in the world have a fragmented identity; that it doesn't matter. That who we are as a person is what's important."

     -Hyeonseo Lee, from her memoir

This memoir was recommended by one of our Page Turners. It is an amazing survival story! And what an eye-opener! I knew North Korea was no friend of the U.S. and is seen as an international threat to many other countries, but I had no idea of the extreme propaganda and horrible conditions in which the common people live. Hyeonseo Lee describes her experience as a child and youth in North Korea quite vividly. She tells of how the people are watched by secret police and can be arrested for something as ridiculous as naming the rulers in the wrong way. Kim Il-sung, "the Great Leader," his son Kim Jong-il, "Dear Leader" are to be revered as God figures. People are encouraged to turn in neighbors for anything that might be anti-government. Even though Hyesonseo's stepfather served in the military for years he was arrested on a trumped-up charge and died before his release.

Hyeonseo decided to defect as a 17-year-old and when she gets to China, she discovers she can never go back without putting her mother and brother, as well as herself, in grave danger. The obstacles she faces as she tries to find safety, freedom and a place to belong (see quote) are incredibly difficult.  As she pursues her dreams, her name changes 7 times, thus the title. Sadly, she does not see her family for some 11 years.

The memoir is a page-turner with short chapters and frequent foreshadowing. Several pages of photos, both black and white and in color, make Hyesonseo's story even more personal. I have great admiration for this young woman---her determination, resilience and her courage to speak out against an evil regime in her home country---are exceptional! I will rate The Girl with Seven Names a 4. 

More after our group meets....

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Fifteen Page Turners met today to discuss the book. The group average rating was 4.1, heavily 4's and 5's. Some knew more about Asian cultures than others, but I believe we all felt we learned a great deal about what the citizens of North Korea must live through. We felt that Hyeonseo's intelligence and stubbornness served her well in surviving defection from her home country. Because of our own fond memories of the homes of our youths, we could understand a lasting affection for "home."  

I am attaching a video of a Ted Talk the author presented in 2015. Very compelling.

The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

 

"Why was man created alone? Is it not true that the creator could have created the whole of humanity? But man was created alone to teach you that whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

             -paraphrased from the Talmud and quoted in the novel

I chose to read this novel because I have read others by this author and because I will attend an event soon where she will be the speaker. Kristin Harmel wrote The Winemaker's Wife and The Book of Lost Names, both of which I rated 5. I am rating this one a 4---very good, but not quite measuring up to the other two. At the beginning I wondered if I would like it at all when a witch-like character, Jerusza, kidnapped a German child, whom she renamed Yona, from her crib and took her to raise in the forest. It just seemed weird to me. 

The plot became more compelling when Jerusza died some 20 years later and Yona meets Polish Jews in the forest. These people are frightened, running from the Nazis and something in Yona urges her to help them by teaching survival skills she knows so well. As she teaches these endangered people what they must know to stay alive, she learns many lessons from them about living with other people and even about love.

The author has much to say in her Author's Note about her research and the writing of this novel. She cites shocking statistics of how many Polish Jews were exterminated by the Nazis and how some survived by taking refuge in the Nalibocka Forest as do the characters that Yona meets. This was a part of the Holocaust I knew less about.

There were a few secondary characters I really liked, especially Sister Maria Andrzeja who had great wisdom to pass on to Yona, and Zus, who would become her soul-mate. 

There were many profound passages I could have quoted but I was touched by the one from the Talmud. I was reminded also of tikkum olam, a Hebrew phrase that means "repair the world." This is what heroes like Yona tried to do.

Murder at Teal's Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks by David Bushman and Mark T. Givens

 "We started out wondering who killed Hazel Drew; we wound up just as immersed in another, even more rudimentary mystery: Who was Hazel Drew?"

(Photo of Hazel Drew and Laura Palmer, fictional character from the television series "Twin Peaks.")

I hadn't read a true-crime mystery in quite a while and chose it from among the Amazon First Reads selections. I got through it but didn't really enjoy it. For one thing, I had to endure pages of "Dramatis Personae," as the authors introduce all the people involved in this icy-cold case, over 100 years old---the victim, Hazel Drew, the detectives, doctors, family, employers, friends, townsfolk, the press. As the story is told, they end up repeating many of these descriptions. There are SO many characters it is difficult to remember who's who.

I must admit the authors did an amazing amount of research, apparently 5 years' worth. It started when David Bushman heard an interview with Mark Frost, cocreator of the TV series, "Twin Peaks."  After hearing about the inspiration for the series, Bushman became compelled to delve into the 100-year-old unsolved mystery of the murder of Hazel Drew. Frost has even written the Foreword for the book. Unfortunately, I was completely unfamiliar with "Twin Peaks" so many comparisons of Hazel's death to the fictional one of Laura Palmer were lost on me. Perhaps, if I had seen the show I would have gotten more out of the book. 

The reader is forced to make it almost to the end of the book to find out WHO murdered Hazel Drew, in the opinion of Bushman and Givens. Obviously, the book held my interest since I finished it; there were parts I found interesting, but many were tiresome. I am rating it a 2.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

"At first, passing seemed so simple, she couldn't understand why her parents hadn't done it. But she was young then. She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you."

          -Stella's thoughts, from the novel

This Page Turners' January selection was highly recommended by at least 2 members, and it did not disappoint. It was a family drama unfolding over about 20 years (1968-1988) and told from different perspectives. 

In a small black community in the South, we meet Desiree and Stella Vignes, twin daughters of Adele, all of whom are light skinned enough to pass for white. When the sisters run away at age 16, Stella decided to "pass over" while Desiree does not. Stella ends up marrying a wealthy white man and having a blonde, blue-eyed daughter, Kennedy. Meanwhile Desiree had wed a black man with very dark skin and has given birth to Jude, a daughter with her father's coloring. The twin sisters lose touch for almost 20 years, but their daughters fatefully connect in some interesting ways. (Almost incredibly so.) The chapters alternate in telling Desiree's, Stella's, Jude's and Kennedy's stories, making for a real page turner.

I finished this novel in the same week I saw 2 plays involving race issues. "Sweetwater Taste" was about a black man facing mortality who wants to be buried in the family cemetery which is segregated although the family tree has both black and white branches. "The Mountaintop" involves an intriguing (fictional) look at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s last night before his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. I can only hope I am a bit more enlightened about the black experience.

I am rating The Vanishing Half a 5. It should provide a rousing discussion for our book club when we meet this week. More then....

There is a good chance I'll eventually read The Mothers by this author.

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I was forced to miss the meeting to discuss The Vanishing Half due to a COVID exposure. That was not easy! May have been only the second I have missed in 13 years.

I had 3 awesome helpers filling in the facilitator duties. Here is what was reported: 

The discussion centered on the characters in the book, their gender and racial fluidity and the all-consuming task of trying to be someone or something you are not.  The group had lively conversations related to some of the questions provided. 

The novel was well-received with an average rating of 4.3, mostly 5's and 4's. I'm so appreciative of folks carrying on without me! Hope that doesn't happen again for a longgggg time!

Deep Sleep by Steven Konkoly

My Kindle says I read 54% of this book. That is all I could stand. I am a little surprised I made it that far! I will rate this spy thriller (far from thrilling to me!) a 2. I didn't feel there was a worthy quote to start with and I had no desire to make the effort to add a cover image.

This was a free Amazon First Read that was admittedly ill-chosen. Good Reads had it rated 4.06 and Amazon, a 4. Those folks giving high ratings must be a lot smarter than me because I was confused the whole half of the novel as to who was chasing who and why. I almost never give up on a book I have started but this time I had to make an exception. Life is too short to struggle through a novel when there are so many great ones out there!

If you decide to tackle this one, good luck!

Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger

 "It would be easy if we all had visions, or if we all believed in those who did. My own feeling is that faith was never meant to be easy."

                            -Father Mal Thorne, from the novel

This is my fourth in the Cork O'Connor mystery series---another winner! It is "creme de la crime" to borrow a term from the author's acknowledgments. I have no doubt I will eventually read every novel in this series. Cork and his family are like good friends now.

Charlotte Kane, a lovely teenage girl is found dead, her body frozen near Cork's town of Aurora, Minnesota (a place I know well by now). Solemn Winter Moon, a young Ojibwe who has a reputation as a wild and reckless teenager, is charged with her murder. Cork had been a close friend of Solemn's father, now deceased, and fervently believes in his innocence. He persuades his wife, Jo O'Connor, a lawyer who often gives legal assistance to the Ojibwe people, to defend Solemn. She, in turn, enlists her husband, the former sheriff, to investigate and hopefully find other suspects. And boy, does he ever find some! Just when you think Cork's found the murderer, the plot jerks you back into turning more pages.

Not only does Krueger develop characters you care about (and some you can hate!), but he also weaves a compelling mystery and paints vivid pictures of the natural environment of Northern Minnesota.

This book deserves my 5 rating, but I am bidding farewell to Cork for a while to go back to some of my favorite genre, historical fiction. I will return soon to Mercy Falls, book 5.