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Reviews by Cloggie Downunder

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Something Rotten: A Thursday Next mystery
by Jasper Fforde

totally unpredictable (4/6/2012)

Something Rotten is the 4th of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. After 2 years as Bellman for Jurisfiction, Thursday has begun to miss the Real World, and decides to go back to Swindon with her two-year-old son, Friday, to see if she can get her husband Landen …more Parke-Laine, currently eradicated by the Chrono-Guard, un-eradicated. But life is never straight forward for Thursday: she is low on funds and needs her Spec-Ops job back; she wants to return a troublesome bookjumper, Yorick Kaine, back to the book he came from, before he succeeds in his campaign to leap from Chancellor and leader of the Whigs to Dictator of England; and she needs to organise Play Group and a speech therapist for Friday, whose first two years spent in the Fiction world have him talking Lorem Ipsum, the dummy text used by printers. Soon enough, Thursday also discovers she had an Officially-Sanctioned Stalker, Millon deFloss. On top of all this she has been saddled with Hamlet, on leave in the Outland to see if people really consider him a ditherer: rather untimely as Kaine is agitating for war against the Danish. Goliath Corporation, meanwhile, is attempting to switch to a faith-based operation management system. As always, Fforde peppers his narrative with wonderfully imaginative names for characters (Fawsten Gayle, Adam Gnusense, Commander Braxton Hicks, Brik Schitt-Hawse, Piarno Keyes, Tork Armada, Julie Aseizer, Alf Widdershaine, Ernst Stricknene), for bureaucratic entities (the Apologarium in Goliathopolis, St Septyk’s Hospital) and for TV game shows (Evade the Question Time, Celebrity Name That Fruit!, Toasters From Hell, You’ve Been Stapled!). The titles of the journals quoted in the chapter introductions are similarly clever (New Oppressor, The Toad, The Mole, Gadfly, Portsmouth Penny Dreadful, Swindon Eevening Blurb, Arboreal Times, Swindon Daily Eyestrain) and the context is hilariously inane. In this instalment we see more of Thursday’s family and learn more about the Chrono-Guard. Thursday survives several assassination attempts, smuggles banned books out of the country, plays World Championship Croquet, searches for cloned Shakespeares and makes a startling discovery about Granny Next. The Whigs, with their idiotic policies are way ahead in popularity, of the Commonsense Party, so in that aspect, Thursday’s world is not so different from ours, although re-engineered Dodos, Mammoths, Thylacines and Neanderthals are unlikely to ever abound here. As always, Fforde provides many laugh out loud moments in a plot that is original, thrilling and totally unpredictable. I look forward to First Among Sequels. (less)

Mockingjay: The final book of The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

thought provoking (4/6/2012)

Mockingjay is the final exciting instalment of the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Katniss Everdeen, having survived her first Hunger Games and been plucked out of the Quarter Quell by the rebels living in District t13, is now required to become the symbol of the …more

Luka and the Fire of Life: A Novel
by Salman Rushdie

a pleasure to read (3/25/2012)

Luka and the Fire of Life is the 11th novel by Salman Rushdie, his second children’s novel and the sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories. He dedicated this book to his second son, Milan, born 18 years after Zafar, to whom the first was dedicated. The story centres around …more

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel (8)
by Alexander Mccall Smith

McCall Smith never disappoints (3/12/2012)

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth is the 8th of the Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith. As always, Isabel’s life is full: she has articles to read for the Review if Applied Ethics, an instance of nepotism by Professor Lettuce to deal with, decisions to make …more

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett

a wonderful moving tale (3/12/2012)

The Help is the first novel by Kathryn Stockett. Set in the early sixties in Jackson, Mississippi, the story is narrated in three voices: two black maids (“help”) and a young white woman. Aibileen Clark is a wise Negro woman who has raised 17 white children, and lost a son …more of her own. She works for Elizabeth and Raleigh Leefolt and derives great joy from their Baby Girl, Mae Mobley, although she is under no illusion that this will last. Minny Jackson is a sassy young Negro with a talent for cooking who has trouble keeping her opinions to herself, a trait that has seen her fired from a great many positions. Her latest job is for newcomers, Celia and Johnny Foote, whom she hopes won’t hear of her reputation; Celia, though, is too busy keeping her own secrets. Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan has just graduated from college, where her Mama hoped she would find a husband, but Skeeter wants to be a writer much more than a wife. She misses her beloved Negro maid, Constantine, who has disappeared and no one will tell her where. When Skeeter’s writing ambition crystallises into a book about the experiences of black maids in white households, Aibileen and Minny decide to become involved despite the enormous risk.
This novel touches on many topics, including racial segregation and civil rights and the relationship between Negro employees and their white employers. The feel of the sixties is beautifully evoked with the inclusion of many icons like the Pill, Valium, space exploration, ring pull cans, the Vietnam war, the introduction of Zip codes and sex before marriage. The characters are multifaceted and the dialogue is pitch-perfect. There is humour and heartache, cruelty and kindness, romance and suspense. We learn that revenge is sweet, especially in the form of Minny’s Chocolate Pie. The prose is, on occasions, luminous: “If chocolate was a sound, it would’ve been Constantine’s voice singing.” The ultimate lesson is that the lines between black and white, between quality and trash, between employer and employee are not as definite as they might at first seem. And, as Aibileen says” Kindness don’t have no boundaries”. One of the dangers of reading a novel with so much hype is the very real possibility that the reader’s expectations will be too high, and disappointment follows; the exception is, of course, when the novel lives up to the hype, as this one assuredly does. I loved this wonderful, moving story. (less)

The Expats: A Novel
by Chris Pavone

impressive debut novel (3/12/2012)

The Expats is the impressive debut novel by American author, Chris Pavone. Set mainly in Europe, the action switches between Paris in the present day and Washington DC and Luxembourg two years previously. Kate Moore quit her undercover job with the CIA, a job that was …more secret even from her husband, Dexter, to move to Luxembourg with him and their young sons, Jake and Ben. There, Dexter’s job as a systems security expert for banks could afford them a better income and an enviable lifestyle which included weekends in places like Paris and Amsterdam. As expats, they socialised mainly with other expats, and had soon formed a friendship with Julia and Bill Maclean. But Kate’s CIA training leads her to suspect that Julia and Bill are not what they first seem and she begins to wonder: are they are assassins? Are they investigating her for unlawful actions in her CIA career? Or are they after her husband? Which leads her to start wondering if Dexter has been completely truthful with her. As Kate makes certain discoveries in the present day narrative, she flashes back to two years ago, her exit from the CIA and their early months in Luxembourg, and certain events and conversations suddenly become startlingly clear.
This novel has a superbly clever plot full of twists and turns that has the reader guessing to the last line. Without giving away too much of the story, Pavone uses the present day narrative to sow enough seeds of intrigue to keep the reader engrossed in the action two years previous. Interestingly, Pavone writes from Kate’s point of view, something he does very competently. As the suspense built, I found myself more and more on the edge of my seat. Proof of Pavone’s excellent descriptive talent is that as I sat reading the window ledge scene, my legs were aching, my body’s usual involuntary reaction to being at unsafe heights. Occasional lighter moments are provided by the children and social interactions with other minor characters, but for most of the novel, the tension is high. Pavone’s first-hand experience as an expat is apparent from the way he effectively conveys the atmosphere of European cities and expat life: his characters are realistic and his dialogue, credible. The novel poses a few pertinent and topical questions: When is it OK to steal 25 (or 50) million euros? Are we deluded in thinking that our money can ever be safe? Who guards the guards? Is anybody ever what they seem to be? Does anyone ever tell the whole truth? This novel has been described as “Brilliant, insanely clever, and delectably readable.” I wholly concur. (less)

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel
by Lionel Shriver

skilfully crafted (2/26/2012)

We Need to Talk About Kevin is the 8th novel by Lionel Shriver. The format is a series of letters written by Eva Khatchadourian to her absent husband, Franklin, which are a sort of analytical reminiscence about their lives before the arrival of their son, Kevin, their …more

The Well of Lost Plots: A Thursday Next Novel
by Jasper Fforde

excellent Fforde (2/26/2012)

The Well of Lost Plots is the third of the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Having changed the ending of Jane Eyre, ended the Crimean war and had her husband, Landen Parke-Laine eradicated by the ChronoGuard, Thursday has joined Jurisfition and is currently taking a …more break, for the duration of her pregnancy, through the Character Exchange Program, inside a mediocre detective novel in the Well of Lost Plots. However, what she thinks will be a quiet sojourn is anything but, with Aornis Hades, sister of Acheron, out to take revenge for her brother’s death by altering Thursday’s memories, the detective novel under threat of demolition, the murder of a Jurisfiction agent, the escape of the Minotaur, Jurisfiction exams to take, the spread of the mispeling vyrus, a Rage Counselling session for the characters of Wuthering Heights, her fiction infraction trial coming up, the imminent launch of the new (and very Kindle-like) UltraWordTM and Nursery Rhyme characters on strike for better conditions. Miss Havisham continues to mentor her apprentice, and one-hundred-and-eight-year-old Granny Next comes to help Thursday out.
Fforde’s plot is highly original and imaginative. He shows us that politics, corruption and error as well as red tape and bureaucracy in their most irritating and frustrating forms thrive no matter which version of the world one inhabits. Junk mail and African money scams plague Fforde’s version of the world too. Parasites, pests, acronyms and lofty-sounding names in officialdom also abound: an ImaginoTransference Device is, of course, a word. Fforde endows his characters with some hilarious names, gives us some comical book titles and his dialogue will have the reader snickering and often laughing out loud. The prefaces at the start of each chapter include handy Fforde-type explanations of the rules under which fiction exists, how books are actually written, plot recycling and some history of storytelling, writing and printing. We also learn about Literary Mechanisms like Plot Devices, Echolocators, Chapter-Ending Emporiums, Backstories built-to-order, Generic Characters and the Text Sea. In this installment we finally discover what really happened in the Crimea with Thursday, Landen and Anton during the Charge of the Light Armoured Brigade in 1973. Fforde’s writing strikes me as a cross between that of Terry Pratchett and the late Douglas Adams, and, as these are two of my favourite authors, from me this is high praise indeed. Readers will look forward to the next installment, Something Rotten. (less)

Kill Alex Cross: Alex Cross Series #18
by James Patterson

a mistitled disappointment (2/11/2012)

Kill Alex Cross is the 18th in James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. The action starts immediately with the kidnapping from the Branaff School of Zoe and Ethan Coyle, the children of President Edward Coyle and First Lady Regina. This is followed very quickly by a cyanide …more

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella
by Alan Bennett

uncommonly funny! (1/26/2012)

The Uncommon Reader is a novella by novelist and playwright, Alan Bennett. The story starts with the Queen coming across the mobile library van parked near Buckingham Palace, where Norman, a young man from the kitchens, is choosing a book. After making small talk with the …more

Dexter Is Delicious
by Jeff Lindsay

Delicious (1/25/2012)

Dexter is Delicious is the fifth of the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter, new father of Lily Anne, is dazed to find he no longer interested in indulging his Dark Passenger’s needs: a bit of a dilemma as Astor and Cody still need mentoring for their own needs. This new …more

The Double Comfort Safari Club: The New No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Novel
by Alexander Mccall Smith

a pleasure to read (1/8/2012)

The Double Comfort Safari Club is the 11th in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of the best detective agency in Botswana, is kept busy with fraudulent fiancées, adulterous (or not) part-time reverends, jealous …more

Dexter by Design
by Jeff Lindsay

murder as art (1/8/2012)

Dexter by Design is the 4th of the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay. After his honeymoon in Paris, where a bizarre limb-mutilating art installation had Rita awed and Dexter intrigued, Dexter is back at work in Miami. As Sergeant Debbie drags him along to investigate the …more

Dexter in the Dark: A Novel
by Jeff Lindsay

Plenty of fun (1/8/2012)

Dexter in the Dark is the third in Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series. Dexter Morgan, our favourite serial killer of serial killers, is about to get married. His intended, Rita, is in the throes of wedding and honeymoon plans; Astor and Cody are demanding some mentoring of the …more

The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd

heartwarming (1/8/2012)

The Secret Life of Bees is the first novel by Sue Monk Kidd. Set in 1964, this is the story of Lily Melissa Owens, who lives on a peach farm in South Carolina. At four years of age, Lily accidentally killed her mother. Her father is a harsh and cruel man, and Lily craves …more

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
by Barbara Kingsolver

a very interesting read (12/26/2011)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the 7th non-fiction book by Barbara Kingsolver. Co-written with her husband, Stephen L. Hopp, and her daughter, Camille Kingsolver, this book details her family’s experiences during the year they decided to become locavores, trying to obtain …more

Flash and Bones: A Temperance Brennan Novel
by Kathy Reichs

filleted Tempe Brennan (12/12/2011)

Flash and Bones is the 14th in the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs. Just back from Hawaii, Tempe is called to a landfill site in Charlotte adjacent to the NASCAR circuit, where a body is encased in asphalt in a rusting metal drum. It’s almost race week, so the …more

The Sign of The Book: A Cliff Janeway Bookman Novel
by John Dunning

great climax (12/5/2011)

The Sign of the Book is the 4th book in the Cliff Janeway series by John Dunning. Cliff agrees to help Erin determine if her estranged childhood friend, Laura Marshall, really killed her husband, or confessed to protect her troubled son. The tempter for Cliff is the …more

The Bookwoman's Last Fling
by John Dunning

Janeway's last fling too (12/5/2011)

The Bookwoman’s Last Fling is the 5th (and, so far, last) in John Dunning’s Cliff Janeway series. Cliff travels to Idaho, ostensibly to appraise Candice Geiger’s book collection, after the death of her thoroughbred trainer husband, H.R. Geiger, and to ascertain which books …more

Lost In A Good Book: A Thursday Next Novel
by Jasper Fforde

hilarious (11/27/2011)

Lost in a Good Book is the 2nd book in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Fresh from her adventures in The Eyre Affair, Thursday Next is enjoying married life until she is informed that her husband, Landen Parke-Laine, died 38 years ago: suddenly, he only exists in …more

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