Three Seconds by Anders Roslund & Börge Hellström

An undercover agent is sent to jail to burn a crime ring from the inside, only to find that he is suspected by both the regular police and the crime ring he has gone to infiltrate. Devilishly clever, this novel showcases a truly unique plan by an inmate to elude his pursuers. This was my first time to realize a connection between tulips and drug-smuggling, which had the result of completely unfettering my imagination.


Stockholm has a group of mystery writers that clearly exploit some real or imagined public mistrust of public security. The cover copy on this title claims Anders Roslund,and Börge Hellström are heirs-apparent to Steig Larsson: because all three take on public corruption, one might place the thrillers in the same category. Certainly Roslund and Hellstrom have created a unique and unusual character in Piet Hoffman, just as Larsson did with Lisbeth Salander. But while one admires what Piet Hoffman does to prepare for his stint in the clink, one stands at a remove while evaluating his situation. In contrast, Lizbeth Salander inspires loyalty, perhaps even fealty, in those who meet her. Clearly wronged by a justice system gone amok, both protagonists fight their way to freedom, though not without damage.


This novel took place in a matter of weeks, though there were times when time slowed so completely that every second was recorded. This collapse of time was effective in highlighting the keen attention to detail that was required for the escape plan to succeed in the final, nail-biting seconds. Roslund and Hellstrom have a successful thriller here, though I listened to the audiobook and was not enamored of the reading by Christopher Lane. I found myself wondering more than once if I would like the main investigator, Detective Inspector Ewert Grens, more if I had read the book myself. As it was, none of the characters was particularly sympathetic, and as a result, one scarcely cares whether or not they succeed. I believe the voice inflection could have been responsible for this spin on the material.



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The Bucolic Plague by Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I had this book in my library and, without reading it myself, lent it to a family member to help her through a difficult surgery. She never returned it, but when I read Dawn Rennert’s review of her pilgrimage to Sharon Springs on her blog called She is Too Fond of Books, I went to get it back that very day. I'm so glad I did. It would have been perfect for the sick family member, had she read it, but she didn't and I did. It was perfect for me, too. What a wonderful, funny, painful, knowing memoir of a pair of busy city executives finding a “weekend retreat” in upstate New York (Sharon Springs) that turns into a full-time job and lifestyle change. Not ordinary executives, not an ordinary town…and not an ordinary house.

By now, many of you will have heard already of the Beekman Boys on Planet Green’s Reality TV show, but I hadn’t until now. The truth is that this memoir is so hilarious and yet so real, in a you-and-me-and-a-drag-queen sort of way, that I couldn’t put the darn thing down. It is a lovely fairy tale about the wonders of country living. I’ve been guilty of dreams of domestic bliss and the homemade life more than once myself, but these guys do it bigger and better than I would or could. It’s no wonder the town embraced them and their 88 goats.

Without a doubt, highlights of the story include a Martha Stewart Peony Party at her homestead near New York City, the fare reduction ad campaign that was created in less than five minutes, and the first time a crew went to the Beekman house to shoot a reality show. Now there really is a TV show, but it was not at all obvious that this would be the case when the idea was first explored:

"At some point during the morning, I realized that the most exciting moment of our potential reality show would be the copyright notice in the credits. To compensate, I came to the conclusion that if I ran everywhere—physically moved my body faster—the film might seem more engaging. I galloped out the end of the drive to get the mail. I trotted to the garage to grab a trowel…For even more” sizzle,” instead of simply leading the goats out to graze as we usually did, I raced out in front of them, hollering an improvisational goat call that made me sound like a yodeling hillbilly. I turned back toward the barn and saw that the goats had stayed back, huddled together in fear in the barn doorway. They obviously preferred to skip dinner rather than get too close to the retarded scarecrow suffering a grand mal seizure.”

Do yourselves a favor and don’t wait for major surgery to take the chance to read this book. It’s funny, heartwarming, recognizable, and real. You’ll be glad there are folks like this around, and you’ll wish they lived nearby. And check out their website.



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A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Jacqueline Winspear has emphatically mastered the art of a mystery series with this latest addition to her list. Not only does her main character have a wealth of personality traits that are admirable, laudable, even enviable, she is attractive, wealthy (this is critical), and clever. She is as busy as we are, so we don’t feel as though time is passing slowly, or that we are wasting time reading of her adventures. Meetings, letters, investigations, reading, meditation all take time, and she schedules herself very closely. She is the woman we would strive to be. It is interesting to see how she responds to queries, doubts, challenges, though I have to admit it is frustrating to see her push those lovely suitors away one by one, again and again.

But not only do we have Maisie Dobbs herself to consider, we have her constellation of family and friends, who by this time in the series have become our own friends: employees, mentors, her father, her fiancé all have lives and backstories we revel in following. This time I am struck by the success of the formula: with many threads and much driving about, the pace leaves readers breathless. But the comforting commonsense calm of reason brings Alexander McCall Smith to mind, despite the difference in the subject matters of the series produced by each author. It is the tone that is reminiscent, one of the other. And that is high praise indeed.

This latest in the series introduces Maisie to the Secret Service in the years before WWII. She takes on an assignment which requires the utmost secrecy, and I amused to read how many times she told friends and colleagues what she was doing was “hush-hush” for the government. How hush-hush is that? I guess they didn’t really mean it.



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Guilt by Association by Marcia Clark

Marcia Clark is going to be a big hit in the world of crime novelists. This blazing fast debut novel has the polish and pace one might expect from a seasoned ranconteur crossed with brilliant editor, but it has the layered depth and suprise only an experienced criminal lawyer can provide. Guilt is destined to be an out-of-the-box bestseller.

That fact shouldn’t surprise anyone who is familiar with Marcia Clark and her work: former district attorney and lead prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson murder case, author of Without a Doubt, and contributor to TV and The Daily Beast. Clark, described in her earlier life as "extremely able and hardworking," applied that same attention here, and didn’t rest until she’d nailed the formula for a fast-paced crime novel featuring a body-conscious, justice-driven District Attorney in the L.A. Special Trials Division.

As in all good mysteries, Guilt follows the trail of at least two seemingly divergent cases, but also follows the love interests of friendly, sharing, and chatty folks in the major divisions of city crime detection. D.A. Rachel Knight is the central character and first-person narrator who keeps the wise-cracks coming. It is the realistic details of evidentiary proofs, prosecution and defense that ring so true in Guilt, but it is the food choices and clothing descriptions that make it L.A. In this mystery we are treated to gangs, both Latino and Aryan Brotherhood, pornography and prostitution, rape and murder. If it sounds like a lot, you may not be suited to actually work in the D.A.’s office, but you can still enjoy reading about it. This is a very good one for an indulgent weekend on the couch.

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The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer

Even the name Himmer reminds one of a sound one might hear in a bee-loud glen. Himmer the author leads us into a world we vaguely recognize (perhaps we are blind, too) as modern-day America: outside a large city sits a mansion on a hill. Just as in days of yore, when wealthy landowners changed the landscape to suit their tastes, a wealthy capitalist has modified his land holdings to create a lovely locale but bemoans the fact he has no time to enjoy it. So he hires a disaffected young man to live the life of a happy hermit in the environment he has created. Things go remarkably smoothly for a time.

**SPOILERS and Reading Group questions Ahead**

Our hermit describes his daily life in a way that parallels in important ways the life of an author. When one chooses to join the writing life, the author seems to say, one signs off to major portions of the ordinary days lived by the majority. One spends lots of time alone, observing, trying to achieve some level of proficiency in arts (not just writing, but other expressive arts) one has never practiced before. One must become wholly focused and may even waste a lot of time in trying to find a way through the lonely existence of learning to see. But eventually, when our hermit is offered an opportunity to leave his cave and live the life of a wealthy man, he turns it down. By this time he is used to scrabbling in the dirt for his food, and finds the wondrous taste of his own production payment enough.

The fact that our hermit actually became sightless as time wore on made me curious. Could this be the selfishness of authors who abandon other familial or residential duties to focus on their one interest, leaving the heavy-lifting (wage-earning, cooking, cleaning, child-raising) to loved ones? But since our hermit decides to stay where he is despite his blindness, I begin to think that perhaps he has found his inner life more rewarding, in the end, than living in the world. And perhaps in his sightlessness, he can actually see motive and remember beauty more clearly. Though he strains to see, the outlines his vision allows gives him what he needs to go on. Is Old Man River an editor? Is Mr. Crane (the name can't be irrelevant) a large publisher? Is Mrs. Crane the distractions of the flesh? Who, then, are the hikers? Fellow artists that gather to perfect their craft, stealing occasionally, the fruits of another?

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The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson

Ah, the Midwest. One has notions of the Midwest that the characters in this novel try to disabuse one of all the way through, but in fact, it's pretty much the way I imagined it: overgrown family farms gone to ruin; empty, neglected storefronts on main streets; young kids dying to get out. This novel follows an extended family through the 1960s to the new millenium, and isn't lavish with descriptions of beauty or of success or even of happiness. But the author does treat us to moments of transcendence: Norman and Martha dancing at a wedding, and Martha again, dying, stopping her niece from leaving her side. One gets the sense, as the characters age, that this is pretty much the way it is, for all of us, wherever we are: tension, struggle, outcome. Some outcomes are good; some not so good.

Moments of revelation and consequence are scattered through the novel like a hilly drive. One feels a ratcheting of tension and a concentration in focus, requiring a held breath to get us through. A headstrong young girl, determined to pain her parents, drives carelessly away from a funeral; a graduate student teaching a course invites a student to his house for dinner; a wife attends an AA meeting and brings another co-dependent home; a trip to Italy turns surreal. After, we turn our eyes and our thoughts to another character's life to catch our breath. These hills and valleys seem familiar, and when the book winds down we feel we could have been looking through the album of our lives: "Have you heard from so-and-so lately? I heard (s)he'd..."

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Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson outdoes herself in this new novel featuring Jackson Brodie, private detective. He's back in England, doing some desultory checking on the parentage of a woman living overseas who had been orphaned in the 1970s. The story is braided with several threads, i.e., an aging actress suffering from dementia, a young child heavy "as a small planet," and several other retired police. Atkinson handles it masterfully, bringing it all to a neat knot in a train station. This is bad news for Brodie, as he has a nasty history with trains.

The trenchant sense of humor for which Atkinson is known is on display and she describes with clear-eyed compassion and humor our ridiculous, and sometimes hideous human condition. Motives and choices, the bobs and weaves of persons doing wrong, all have the ring of truth, as do the intentions and interventions of well-meaning, over-worked coppers on the beat. Set in Leeds, the story gives one a distinct sense of cold, cruel, rough, and distrusting. One wonders how anyone gets out of there with their psyche intact. Perhaps they don't, the author seems to say.