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Reviews by Robert S. (Henderson, NV)

The Last Russian Doll
by Kristen Loesch

A Grand and Poignant Adventure (10/18/2022)

"The Last Russian Doll" is an extraordinary work of historical fiction-a three-dimensional maze noteworthy for its intricate plot, textured structure and realistic character development. Weaving the threads of multiple lives against the backdrop of the twentieth century …more

The Widow
by Fiona Barton

The Voices of Tragedy (1/14/2016)

Is it possible to bring a fresh approach to yet another story about the abduction of a young child and the search for the guilty? Fiona Barton provides a resounding "Yes" to that question in "The Widow". This thoughtful novel, which revolves around the horrific crime, is …more really an exploration of relationships. At the center is the relationship between the alleged perpetrator, Glen, and his wife, Jean who is the widow in the book's title. Page by page Jean's love and respect for her husband turns to suspicion, resentment and finally hatred. The author also examines relationships between Jean and the reporter, Jean and the detective and the detective and reporter. What a tangled web. Each of the relationships evolves until reaching some form of resolution in which the characters achieve a sense of peace from the affliction of the offense.

Of its many strengths the novel's greatest attribute is its compelling structure. Chapter by chapter the author alternates narrator and time. At various points the story is delivered by the widow, detective and reporter each with his own agenda, emotion and voice and each with his own perspective of the crime that binds them. To this technique the author adds a non-linear narrative with the effect that the primary story line and its context are creatively intertwined. The novel begins close to the end of the story's timeline, four years following the crime and shortly after Glen's death. In the pages that follow the story shifts back and forth from the period of the crime, the days and months thereafter and the period of Glen's passing.

The author skillfully employs these techniques, the use of multiple voices and movements in time, to layer the story so that as the book unfolds the past constantly informs the future and the future gives depth to the past. The author protects against confusion from this somewhat disjointed flow by introducing each chapter identifying the narrator and time frame for the pages that follow.

The prose creates a puzzle with each chapter being a piece. As each chapter concludes another piece is added to the puzzle, and the picture becomes clearer. But not until the last piece is added, being the large center piece, is the picture fully realized.

"The Widow" is engaging stimulating literary fiction of a high order. The characters are complete and well drawn, each with his own backstory that explains motivation, behavior and attitude. The plot has texture and suspense. The prose is interesting and thoughtful. All in all "The Widow" is a very good read. Highly recommended. (less)

Every Anxious Wave
by Mo Daviau

Time Travel Reflections (12/11/2015)

Every Anxious Wave is the story of slightly off kilter Karl, barkeeper and retired Indie band guitarist; Lena, punk astrophysicist; and Wayne, computer geek, and their pursuit of self-realization and emotional attachment using the vehicle of time travel. The vivid prose …more

Still Life Las Vegas
by James Sie

A Quirky Dark Tale (6/29/2015)

Still Life Las Vegas is the quirky dark story of Walter Stahl, a soon-to-be high school graduate living with his mentally ill father among the under class of Las Vegas, Walter's dysfunctional family and his relationship with his first love being a young Greek man, who in …more

Everybody Rise
by Stephanie Clifford

What Price For Acceptance (5/15/2015)

Everybody Rise is a very good read. Populated with familiar characters, creatively expressed with thoughtful and vibrant prose and presented through a narrative that is simultaneously dark and uproariously humorous this book deserves critical praise.

This is the almost …more contemporary (2006) story of Evelyn Beegan, a mid-twenties woman, bright and attractive, her painful search for acceptance from others and ultimately her discovery of self-acceptance. The daughter of first generation nouveau riche parents (successful plaintiff trial lawyer dad and housewife mom), Evelyn is overwhelmed by a sense of class inferiority for not being a part of the old money or business elite whose children formed her social network at her prestigious eastern prep school and later in Manhattan where she lived and worked. Ev is profoundly influenced by her mother, Barbara, who is consumed by social status and who, notwithstanding her husband's financial success, defines herself as second tier in her stratified world. Bab's constant haranging to Evelyn about expending every effort to secure class standing coupled with Evelyn's signifiicant flaws in character drive the protagonist to use lies, deceit and thievery to penetrate the social structure to which she aspires. Ev is resolute in this quest losing all sense of morality, committing acts of maddening cruelty, forgoing her friends and abandoning reality. This, then, is the tale of Evelyn's evolution toward self-realization, and the separate but interrelated journeys of her friends and parents.

The power of the novel comes from its tiered plot, thoughtful and effective structure and extraordinary prose. The central plot line, as described, is the protagonist's drive for patrician-like social status, following the actions that Evelyn takes and the relationships that she makes to that end. There is, as well, a secondary story line about the fall from grace, professional and legal, of Evelyn's father. Finally, there are sub-stories about the other characters, being the people in Ev's circle, each of whom has his own role in the novel in addition to complimenting Evelyn's story. The author's careful combining of these threads creates the fullness of the narrative.

Generally the story is structured chronologically opening when Ev is eight years out of college having just been hired by a new social networking website targeted to the young elite and aptly named People Like Us (one of the book's many pleasingly satirical flourishes). Without losing the chronological anchor the author immediately delivers the back story of Ev's defining prep school years which introduces us to her friends and family. Throughout the book the author continues to seemlessly weave context and plot allowing for a full appreciation of the story line.

One additional structural element of note is the novel's pacing. Each story line builds to a crescendo and ends in resolution. Although addressing serious themes in a most literary way the author creates suspense worthy of quality crime fiction.

Of all of the novel's attributes, however, the most distinguishing is the author's brilliant use of words- in setting scenes, describing thoughts and feelings, writing dialogue and commenting on the human condition. The prose evokes laughter, sadness, anger and reflection which stay with the reader long after the last page is turned. The sarcasm is biting and forcefully hits the mark. The quality of the writing cannot be captured with limited examples, but this review demands at least a sample of the prose.

In speaking of a miscarriage that Barbara suffered the author writes that "each new cramp seemed to be mocking the inhospitableness of the mother's body". Contrasting her parents' new wealth with the old money of her patrician prep school classmates Evelyn observes that "you couldn't cover up the smell of new money,vinyl and plastic just like a shower curtain just out of the case. You could try layering old houses, old furniture and manners that mimicked those of people who had been living this life for centuries. But unless your fortune was generations old you would never count in the same way." Observing her father's appearance at his low point Evelyn observes that "he looks folded into himself like a Snoopy balloon after the Macy's parade".

There is one weakness of the novel that warrants mention. The secondary characters are one dimensional, appearing to have been pulled from central casting to conveniently represent the social types among the upper tier Manhattan twenty-somethings. We have the east coast patrician son who is struggling with his sexual identity, the east coast old money trust fund daughter who cannot see beyond the next society event, the work driven (in the financial sector, of course) ivy league educated daughter of a blue chip corporate senior executive who lived her youth attending the best international schools in major capitals of the world and finally the brilliant nerdy son of an Arizona working family also work driven (also in the financial sector) who is destined for success. This combination of players is just too predictable, too contrived and not worthy of this otherwise complex, nuanced book.
Everybody Rise is a compelling novel that addresses important themes including the continuing role of entitlement versus merit in determining success, the limits in the pursuit of acceptance and the rewards of self-awareness. Highly recommended. (less)

Whispering Shadows
by Jan-Philipp Sendker

More Than A Murder Mystery (2/16/2015)

Set in contemporary Hong Kong and the industrial zones of Southern China the narrative of Whispering Shadows is about the violent death of a young American businessman and the search for his killer. Beyond the narrative, though, is an exploration of the meanings of truth, …more friendship and trust, the ways in which we are molded by our past (whether that past is the death of a young child or service in the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution) and whether we are destined to be limited by our past or alternatively have the capacity to build on the past. Less personally the story questions whether modern China is really much different than Mao's China.

The novel has come compelling strengths. The descriptions of the settings are wonderfully crafted as the reader shares the smells and sounds of the crowded Hong Kong streets and appreciates the verdant beauty of Lamma Island off of Hong Kong where the protagonist lives. The descriptions of murder, destruction and family disintegration during the Cultural Revolution are so real as to invoke outrage and horror in the reader.

The author also effectively captures the feelings and emotions of the characters using realistic dialogue and penetrating descriptions of mental state to convey grief, sadness, anger, fear, remorse and love. The reader is able to identify with these conditions of the heart in a way that makes the characters seem very real.

The story is also well structured. As each of the characters is introduced in the linear narrative the author effectively weaves the character's backstory into the prose in a way that provides depth to the character but does not interrupt the flow of the story.

The weakness of the novel is the plot. On a positive note the lives of two of the characters are creatively intertwined and the resulting relationship is interesting and thought provoking and drives the denouement. The problem with the plot lies in the lack of believability and in its predictability. Well before the conclusion the reader has some idea where the story is going which detracts from the suspense. Moreover, the building blocks of the plot are in part created by the unrealistic ignorance or naivete on the part of primary characters on matters of central importance to the plot and of an obliviousness to the predictable consequences of actions. For instance, an American's belief in the justice of the Chinese legal system is not believable, but it is just such a belief that the reader is asked to accept.

Whispering Shadows is an unusual book. As a murder mystery the novel is wanting, telegraphing as it does the direction of the story. This would be a fatal flaw in most books of this genre. But in this book it is not. The story is so well structured, the characters are so deep and the descriptions are so vibrant that Whispering Shadows succeeds as quality literary fiction. (less)

Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed
by John F. Ross

An Extrordinary Time, An Extrordinary Life (5/28/2014)

Author John Ross has written a compelling biography befitting of his heroic subject, Eddie Rickenbacker. Best known as the most celebrated World War I American flying ace, Rickenbacker was so much more, and Ross presents an engaging nuanced narrative of this most …more interesting and important life. As Ross relates, Rickenbacker was affected by and dramatically affected the times in which he lived. To that point Ross connects Rickenbacker's successes and achievements to the convergence of the opportunities created by the technological revolution in autos and flight during Eddie's early life, WW I and Eddie's constitution and character marked by drive, industriousness, leadership, inventiveness, courage and the indubitable will to survive.

Eddie's story begins in 1891 Columbus, Ohio. Born to Swiss immigrants recently arrived in America, Eddie's childhood was marked by abject poverty and paternal abuse. The death of Eddie's father when the child was thirteen was a transformative, and even liberating, event for Eddie. Eddie left school to support his family and worked in a succession of industrial jobs, mastering machines and building self-confidence. Still a teenager, Eddie earned managerial responsibility and distinguished himself for his leadership. Ross tracks Eddie's evolution as a craftsman and then engineer in Columbus' nascent auto manufacturing industry which led Eddie to the opportunity to race cars. Eddie became one of the premier early auto racers at the same time that he was succeeding as an automotive engineer and sales manager. Eddie's fascination with the new technology of speed led to an interest in planes ultimately leading Eddie to join the US Air Corps where he became the "ace of aces", registering more kills than any other American pilot, and the the commander of the most celebrated US air squadron. Between the wars Eddie was a pioneer in the early domestic civilian airline industry, serving as the first President of Eastern Airlines. Finally, during World War II Eddie took on special projects at the request of senior military leadership and the Roosevelt Administration, including rallying the air corps and public to the crisis at hand and even persuading General MacArthur to soften his public criticism of FDR's war strategy.

Ross describes Eddie's multi-faceted career as a series of steps, each building on and following from the one before it, and each creating the opportunities that Eddie seized to open the next chapter of his life.

Requisite for any worthwhile biography is informing the reader who the subject was, what the subject did and why the subject is worth reading about. Ross' book hits the mark. The author provides a full picture of Rickenbacker's life, his many challenges and his contributions. With effectively structured facts and analysis Ross persuades the reader that Rickenbacker holds an important, and possibly even unique, place in history and that the significance of his legacy will stand the test of time. Importantly, however, Ross achieves this end without glorifying his subject, and, in fact, on a number of points corrects errors in the historical record which Rickenbacker created. Ross explains that on occasion Rickenbacker would misstate certain facts of his life not for self-aggrandisement but rather from a "survivor's" need to define his story in the best possible light.

On a deeper level, though, Ross brings Rickenbacker to the reader as more than the sum of his trials and contributions. In this regard, Ross highlights the recurring themes in Eddie's life. As an example, Eddie was committed to the idea that the strength and survival of a group is predicated on unity- a dedication by each group member to each other member and a shared mutual respect. Ross first finds this precept in the Rickenbacker family's response to the father's death in the support that Eddie, his mother and his brother each provided to the other. Eddie's "family" when he raced was his pit crew, and when he flew it was the members of his squadron to whom he showed, and from whom he insisted upon, the same unity of purpose and dedication to survival as evidenced in his home.

A second theme that Ross finds is Eddie's businesslike approach to managing risk which Rickenbacker displays in his every endeavor. For instance, when Eddie raced he was the first driver to use wide tires for greater stability and safety. During the war Eddie would mitigate the danger of the combat missions by choreographing with his pilots the role of each and reviewing with the pilots the various scenarios that could play out and the most effective response to each. Eddie clearly was not deterred by inherently dangerous pursuits but, as Ross observes, Eddie was not a daredevil and, with thoughtful preparation he would minimize risk, thereby becoming a pioneer of modern risk analysis.

One additional strength of the book is the extensive historical context for Rickenbacker's life and achievements that Ross provides. Ross describes the early automotive manufacturing industry and its alternative technologies. Ross describes the early evolution of the sport of auto racing and takes the reader inside the early racing cars allowing the reader to feel the terror on the dangerous tracks. Ross details the evolution in the use of air power in World War I and, with his vivid descriptions, puts the reader inside the cockpit of a "virtual flying pyre" during a dogfight. The author introduces the reader to the early members of the car racing fraternity and to the European pioneers of aerial combat. This detail contributes to the reader's understanding and appreciation of Rickenbacker and the world in which he lived.

This reader's only criticism of the book is that certain of the contextual information is excessive. Early in the book there is unnecessary detail relating to automotive technology, and in the chapters covering Rickenbacker's service in World War I there is considerable detail relating to specific battles in the air campaign that would be more appropriate for a military history. This text does not contribute to the narrative and diffuses the book's focus.

That said, however, Enduring Courage is a very well written book about a compelling American life during a transformative era. Highly recommended! (less)

Doing Harm
by Kelly Parsons

A Flawed Doctor (12/20/2013)

In "Doing Harm" author Kelly Parsons delivers a powerful, tight and compelling novel that is populated with believable and vibrant characters whose lives, during a six week period, are unalterably transformed by their actions and the actions of others. Set in a prominent …more teaching hospital and in the suburban neighborhoods in which the hospital residents and physicians reside, this is a story of physician ego, depravity and vulnerability which are played out at the expense of patients whose well being and even lives are compromised by the doctors who are entrusted with their care.

The book has many strengths. First, the story moves at an incredible pace with an electric energy and is conveyed with wonderfully descriptive prose that moves the reader's senses. In fact, the reader is torn between turning the pages as quickly as possible, devouring the plot's twists and turns, and more slowly absorbing the pictures and scenes that the author creates with his thoughtful words.

The author has also structured the story for maximum effect. Initially, the reader is lulled into a calmness as the author conveys the normalcy and promise of the protagonist's family and professional relationships and career. Suddenly, the character's comfortable life is shattered with magnified impact that is created by the juxtaposition between stability and chaos.

The final attribute of the book to be highlighted is the effective manner in which the author, who is a physician, provides depth and believability to the plot by weaving through the story information about the institutional and political workings of teaching hospitals, the hierarchical relationships among the hospital doctors of varying rank and status, operating room protocol and various medical conditions and procedures. So often when a novelist sets his story on a stage about which he has substantial first hand technical and professional knowledge, the writing clearly divides between the "background information" and the prose, interrupting the flow of the story. In this book, however, the technical information is an integral part of the writing and seamlessly adds to the story.

"Doing Harm" is not great literature, but it is a very good book that this reader highly recommends to general book clubs and mystery/ thriller book clubs. (less)

Jacob's Oath
by Martin Fletcher

The Ultimate Liberation (10/10/2013)

Martin Fletcher's Jacob's Oath is the moving and thought provoking story of two German Jewish Holocaust survivors, one who endured Bergen-Belsen and the other who, although avoiding the camps, experienced her own hell in underground Berlin. Set in Germany in the days …more

The Edge of Normal
by Carla Norton

Direct From Today's Headlines (8/12/2013)

Detailing the kidnapping, imprisonment and torture of young innocent girls and the search for the evil minds behind these heinous crimes "The Edge of Normal" is as current and frightening as today's headlines. Addressing a subject that, sadly, is so real, however, presents …more

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Reviews by Robert S. (Henderson, NV)

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