Disordered Minds by Minette Walters

Disordered Minds is a mystery novel told in the form of book excerpts, e-mails, interview transcripts, and narrative. It tells the story of two very dissimilar people who marshall their forces to battle a past injustice--even though the victims of the injustice are all dead.

George Gardiner (short for Georgina) and Jonathan Hughes are investigating a murder from the past. Howard Stamp, a 20-year-old with a cleft palate and a bad case of timidity was found guilty of murdering his grandmother--even though she was the only person he could rely on for kindness, and even though the evidence was less than convincing. Three years later, he hanged himself in prison.

Untangling the story of Howard's injustice brings to light some very nasty coverups that have carried on for 20 years. A week before Howard Stamp's grandmother was found murdered, a 13-year-old girl (Priscilla) went missing. The 13-year-old girls was never found, but there are 4 people still alive who were there the day she was gang-raped--only a couple of days before disappearing. One is Louise, Priscilla's friend at the time, another is Louise's brother, who was 10 years old and drunk at the time of the crime, and the other two are the remaining attackers (one of the three has since died.)

Once the chain of lies has begun to unravel, it's hard to say whether the real truth will ever be known, but and answer emerges by the final page.

Worth reading, but due to the historical nature of the crime, lacking the narrative tension of some of Walters' other books.

Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis

This was a hard book for me to continue reading. It starts out with a precis of Ellis's life and work, so far, but with fictional details. Then it moves into a fictional now, still with Bret Easton Ellis as the narrator and main character. Finally, it becomes elegiac in the last pages.

Ellis calls this book his Stephen King book, and there is much about the book that fits that description. In some ways, it's as if you shuffled a deck of cards, containing characters from Bret Easton Ellis books with cards containing Stephen King circumstances and plotting. So, we have a disaffected, drinking, drugging Bret and family (he has given himself a movie-star wife and two children in the book) confronted by monsters, slime, and hauntings.

I almost stopped reading about a hundred pages in--I just can't find that much to like about the persona of Bret Easton Ellis, but then I re-read the Meghan O'Rourke review in Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2124806/) that caused me to pick the book up to begin with. And I clicked around on the web, reading interviews and reviews, and then I decided to push on through. I guess the book was worth reading, but I think the best of the book is quoted in O'Rourke's review. Maybe I had to slog through the horror story to find the loveliness that resides in those final pages. Each reader will have to decide this one alone.

Fortunate Son by Walter Mosely

Fortunate Son is some sort of allegory, but I'm not sure what Mosely is trying to get across. The story begins in a hospital, where Bronwyn is spending time with her son in the neonatal unit. Bronwyn is a Black woman, and her baby's father left her when she elected to keep her baby rather than aborting him. Her baby, Thomas, is very sickly and spends half a year in the hospital after his birth. One evening, as she is leaving, a surgeon from the hospital offers her a ride home.

The doctor, Minas Fontenot, also has a baby son. His wife died giving birth to Eric, who is as unlike Thomas as any child could be. Eric is strong, vital, handsome, blonde, and forceful, while Thomas (nicknamed Lucky) is Black, sickly, small, and quiet.

Before long, Minas is driving Bronwyn home every evening--sometimes stopping for supper on the way. After a few weeks, their relationship grows into a romance and Minas asks Bronwyn to come live with him. Eric is immediately taken with Bronwyn, and when Bronwyn finally brings baby Thomas home, Eric takes to the baby, too. Everything is going well for the Bronwyn, Minas, Thomas, and Eric, until Bronwyn takes sick after nursing Eric through an illness and dies.

With Bronwyn dead, Thomas's father reclaims him. Thomas's father means well, but he's angry and poorly equipped to raise a child. Thomas's grandmother (Bronwyn's mother) also cares for Thomas/Lucky, but Lucky doesn't like staying with her, because there is no silence in her apartment home. Bronwyn's mother blames Minas for not marrying her daughter, but she doesn't know that Minas asked Bronwyn many times to marry and she always refused.

The story goes back and forth between Lucky and Eric, comparing Lucky's bad fortune to Eric's sunny life. Eventually the two are reunited, after many struggles and misfortunes.

I can't say whether or not I would recommend this book. It is a compelling story, but it left me feeling unsatisfied. Also, Mosely has a tendency in this outing to tell, rather than show. For instance, he says things like, "Maya Timor had gone to the Cape Hotel looking for a job....but she brought Raela along with her. Everybody liked the raven-haired Raela, and Maya felt that the child's presence was something like a blessing." Throughout the book, characters are introduced who have very little further to do in the book, usually with a brief description of their looks and life and a name, then they disappear from the foreground. Even some of the foreground characters are patchily presented. With more thoughtful (or maybe elegant) writing, the weaknesses of the story would probably have gone unnoticed. With a more meaningful or clever story, the weaknesses in the writing might go unnoticed. But, with both problems to overcome, there is not enough here for a ringing endorsement, much as I've enjoyed Mosely's Easy Rawlins books.

Property by Valerie Martin

Property is Valerie Martin's Orange Prize winning novel about slavery in the American South. The story involves a young woman, Manon Gaudet, who is the wife of a planter. As the novel opens, Manon is observing her husband as he plays at tormenting three young male slaves. Manon hates her husband, but has little choice in remaining with him. Among the things she hates about her husband is his lust for Sarah, a slave woman brought by Manon into the marriage. Sarah has borne two children to Manon's husband: a light-skinned, deaf boy called Walter and a dark-skinned baby girl. Manon has managed to deny her husband her bed for some time, so she cannot be too bothered by his attentions to Sarah.

A few weeks into the narrative, Manon's mother sickens with cholera, and Manon returns to New Orleans to care for her. Within a few days, Manon's mother has died, and Manon inherits her house and income. Still, Manon isn't free of her marriage, since everything she has inherited belongs to her husband. After her mother's affairs are wrapped up, Manon returns to her husband's plantation.

A slave insurrection follows shortly on Manon's return, and the events that take place change her life in some surprising ways.

Throughout the novel, it is not just the events that are of interest, but Manon's feelings about the events and people. The title Property seems to refer not only to the slaves, who are the property of Manon and her husband, but also to Manon, who is the property of her husband, and to the property that could give Manon a life she could enjoy.

Amoz Oz, The Story Begins

Israeli novelist Amos Oz presents a series of essays on the beginnings of a variety of literary works. Most of the literary works discussed are not widely familiar, though Oz does discuss works by Kafka, Chekhov, and Raymond Carver. His insights are of interest to writers and readers of literary novels and short stories.

Literary works discussed:
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
In the Prime of Her Life by S. Y. Agnon
"The Nose" by Gogol
A Country Doctor by Kafka
"Rothschild's Fiddle" by Chekhov
Mikdamot by S. Yizhar
History: A Novel by Elsa Moronte
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Nobody Said Anything" by Raymond Carver
"A Private and Very Awesome Leopard" by Yaakov Shabtai

Everyman by Philip Roth

Everyman is the faux memoir of an un-named man who shares many of the signifiers of previous Roth antagonists. He is Jewish, aging, and has been married 3 times. He grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey with admirable parents--especially his hard-working father--and a much-loved older brother.

This time out, the beloved father is the owner/proprietor of a small jewelry store, called Everyman's. The much-loved older brother is a wealthy broker/trader named Howie. The antagonist is an artist, who spent his working life as an art director for an advertising agency, then began painting as a retirement gift to himself.

The memoir is told from the antagonist's graveside and takes form as a kind of medical outline of his life. Each time he is hospitalized (beginning with a childhood hernia operation), the antagonist describes his experience, digressing to talk about the people he knew at the time of the hospitalization. We also get glimpses of the antagonist's life through the eulogies delivered by his brother, daughter, and two sons at his graveside.

In outline, it doesn't sound like much, but Roth's voice, as ever, is compelling enough to make this brief novel one to be read in a gulp.

Hard Rain by Barry Eisler

Hard Rain is the second book in the John Rain, hitman, mystery series. In this outing, Rain has gone underground, but he is found by one of his old employers, who wants him to take on a Yakuza killer. Soon, Rain is involved in a chase that brings him into contact with an old love, a new love, and requires all of his skills to survive--and take a little revenge.

John Rain is a hybrid Japanese/American, living in Japan. Rain's descriptions of his hangouts in Tokyo and the neighborhoods he trawls are a big part of the fun in this series.

Cold Streets by P.N. Elrod

Cold Streets is the 2004 addition to the Jack Fleming/vampire series written by P.N. Elrod. Jack is happily managing his nightclub, Lady Crymsyn in Chicago, when he gets called on to sort out a couple of problems.

First, Jack has a kidnapping case to solve, as a favor to his friend and partner Escott. The mentally-challenged, teenaged daughter of a society matron has been kidnapped, and Escott has been hired to investigate. Jack uses his vampyric powers to help nab the knappers, but that's just the beginning of the trouble.

Second, a New York gangster is in town, trying to take over the territory of Jack's friend Gordy Weems. Jack tries to help out Gordy, and once again, runs into complications.

This outing lands Jack in some hot water in some very cold places. If you've read earlier Jack Fleming books, you'll probably like this one. If not, it's not a good place to start.

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The Every Boy by Dana Adam Shapiro

The blurbs on The Every Boy call this first novel Salingeresque, and come from the likes of Tom Perrotta, Amy Sedaris, and J.T. Leroy. I'm not sure I read the same book. The Every Boy is the story of Henry Every, who, we are told, has died at 15. The story is told through the device of his father's reading of Henry's "ledgers".

Henry's father is a retired dermatologist who raises jellyfish. His mother is an absent Scandinavian who loves ant farms. His grandmother, who Henry visits during the course of the ledger reading, is a wacky oldster with money.

Henry also writes about his friend Jorden, a girl with a quirky homelife to match his, and Benna, the "could be dream love" of his short lifetime.

Mostly, The Every Boy is a coming of age novel with strange and estranged parents. I lost steam about 3/4 of the way through, and only finished it to find out how Henry died.