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Reviews by Cloggie Downunder

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Blue Latitudes
by Tony Horwitz

interesting & informative (6/6/2012)

Blue Latitudes is the 4th book by Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist and writer, Tony Horwitz. It has been described as part-travelogue, part-history and in it, Horwitz follows, to some extent, the three Pacific voyages of British explorer, navigator and …more

The Sense of an Ending: A Novel
by Julian Barnes

a powerful read (5/21/2012)

The Sense of an Ending is the 11th novel by Julian Barnes. In his sixties, retired, Tony Webster sees his life as pretty ordinary: career, marriage, amicable divorce, one child, two grandchildren. So the letter from a lawyer, informing him of an unexpected bequest of money …more

March
by Geraldine Brooks

an outstanding read (5/21/2012)

March is the second novel by Australian author, Geraldine Brooks. It tells the story of Mr March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women. But as well as giving the reader an idea of his experience “at the war” (the noise, smell, blood, cold and …more

First Among Sequels: A Thursday Next Novel
by Jasper Fforde

excellent dose of Fforde (5/12/2012)

First Among Sequels is the fifth novel in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. The narration starts in 2002, some fourteen years after Something Rotten. Thursday, now 52 and feeling her age, is working at Acme Carpets, Spec Ops having been disbanded soon after the …more

Edge: A Novel
by Jeffery Deaver

page turner (5/5/2012)

Edge is the 12th stand-alone novel by Jeffrey Deaver. Set in Washington DC, this gripping tale starts with a prologue in which a lifter, Henry Loving, tortures and kills a government personal security officer, Abe Fallow, for information about locations of people in the …more

Chesapeake Blue
by Nora Roberts

entertaining read (5/5/2012)

Chesapeake Blue is the fourth of the Chesapeake Bay series by Nora Roberts. It is the story of Seth Quinn, who as a ten-year-old , was bought from his mother (Ray’s estranged daughter, Gloria deLauter) by Ray Quinn and raised by Ray’s adopted sons, Cam, Ethan and Phil. …more

The Lost Art of Gratitude: An Isabel Dalhousie Novel
by Alexander McCall Smith

Truly Delightful! (5/5/2012)

The Lost Art of Gratitude is the 6th novel in the Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith. In this installment, Isabel has to deal with an accusation by Christopher Dove of plagiarism in the Review of Applied Ethics, has to break the news of her engagement to …more

Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard
by Kiran Desai

pleasure to read (4/25/2012)

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is the first novel by Kiran Desai. In the town of Shahkot, in the shadow of the Himalayan foothills, lives Sampath Chawla, a bored, dreamy Post Office clerk distinguishing himself with lacklustre career ambitions. When he manages to lose his …more

Port Mortuary: A Scarpetta Novel
by Patricia Cornwell

disappointing (4/25/2012)

Port Mortuary is the 18th book in the Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell. As the chief of the new Cambridge Forensic Centre, Scarpetta has been away for 6 months at Dover Air Force Base training in CT-assisted virtual autopsy. She is rushed back to the CFC by Marino …more and Lucy to handle a bizarre case that could shut down her new facility, an apparent arrhythmia victim who may have been alive when he was locked in the centre’s cooler. While she has been absent, her second in command, Jack Fielding, has been behaving very strangely. Her husband, Benton, is involved in a case where a young man with Aspergers has made a patently false confession that he murdered a young boy with a nail gun. And a young footballer was shockingly tortured and dumped in the nearby harbour. It seems these events are all connected. After 6 novels narrated in the third person, Cornwell returns to first person narration by Kay Scarpetta for this book, which I found easier to read, although the constant analysis of Kay’s feelings and borderline paranoia did become tiresome. As with previous Scarpetta books, Marino is still doing and saying stupid things; Lucy is still acting willfully; Benton is still being evasive about what he tells Kay, and Jack is letting Kay down, once again. As with many James Patterson books, the text of the first chapters is littered with brand names, something that might have the reader wondering if Cornwell profits materially or financially from this. What was interesting information: the concept of CT scanning autopsy; blade wounds; MRI scanning and metals; posthumous sperm harvesting; nanotechnology applications for surveillance and drug delivery; GSR testing for different types of bullets; robotic vehicles and flybots. The plot was original and thought-provoking so it is a pity Cornwell chose to pad the text with technical details of things like helicopter flight procedures and CT scans, which might only be of interest to technophiles, as well as trivial minutiae of driving a car and walking on icy surfaces. Some of the information was delivered by one character to another lecture-style; some of the dialogue between Benton and Kay was so wooden, they could have been casual acquaintances instead of husband and wife. The story was very slow-moving and the book would have been much improved by having the padding edited out. (less)

Escape: A Novel
by Barbara Delinsky

original and unpredictable (4/25/2012)

Escape is the 41st stand-alone novel by popular author, Barbara Delinsky. One Friday morning, New York lawyer Emily Aulenbach takes stock of her life and realises it has strayed so far from her dream that she needs to escape. She takes off her watch, turns off her …more

Minding Frankie: A Novel
by Maeve Binchy

Maeve still magic (4/16/2012)

Minding Frankie is the 16th book by popular Irish author, Maeve Binchy. When Noel Lynch, an alcoholic in a dead end job, is told he is the father of Stella Dixon’s baby daughter, Frankie (Frances Stella), it turns out to be a major turning point in his lacklustre life. He …more

Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
by Daniel Tammet

a fascinating read (4/16/2012)

Born on a Blue Day is a memoir by Aspergeran, Daniel Tammet. Daniel’s Asperger’s is an extremely rare form, Savant Syndrome, which means he sees numbers as shapes and colours, and is able to perform extraordinary maths in his head, as well as being able to learn to speak …more

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)

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