DCL Book Chat

The Paris Wife is Hadley Richardson, a twenty-eight year old spinster who falls in love with a handsome, magnetic, passionate young man full of dreams named Ernest Hemingway. The Paris Wife is a fictional account of their short, turbulent marriage spent mostly in 1920s Paris. Through Hadley’s eyes we see Jazz Age Paris and the many larger than life artists who frequent their cafes. We also see her brilliant, self-absorbed, egocentric husband through her eyes, the woman who loved him before he was famous.

Dedra

This is the third book in French’s Dublin Murder Squad series and I think it is the best. The others were In the Woods and The Likeness.

I listened to the audio version which was read by Tim Gerard Reynolds. He did a wonderful job with different voices, all with Irish accents speaking French’s dialogue full of Irish black humor and idiom.

The main character in this book is Frank Makey, an undercover cop, who is called back to his boyhood home on Faithful Place when the suitcase of his girlfriend, Rosie Daly is found behind the chimney in a derelict house 22 years after they were supposed to have runaway together. Frank waited for her on that long ago winter’s night, but she never showed. He thought she went to London without him and he soon learns she never left at all.

Allison

I’m a big C.J. Box fan and while I didn’t like this one as much as I liked his last book, Nowhere to Run, this is a good read and strong addition to the Joe Pickett series. Box is great at combining political and social issues with his mystery plots. He also gives his readers a great sense of Wyoming’s wide open and windswept plains and wind plays a key role in the plot of this story. All of his characters are real people with moral strengths as well as failings, which adds to the depth of his stories.

Allison

The Sentry is the third in Robert Crais’ series featuring Joe Pike, a former Marine and cop, sometime mercenary and friend of P.I. Elvis Cole, the main character in Crais’ other series. Pike comes to the aid of a sandwich shop owner as he is being beaten by gang thugs. He finds himself attracted to the woman who claims to be the owner’s niece, so he goes out of his way to protect her when the shop is vandalized in what Pike thinks is gang retaliation. Pike, with the help of his friend Elvis Cole, soon finds out that the shop owner and his niece aren’t who they seem. They are on the run from some very violent people; violent people who are now after Pike as well. This is a fast-paced thriller that will appeal to readers who like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series or to those who enjoy Harlen Coben.

Allison

Most of the world has never heard of Henrietta Lacks but her contribution to medical science is immeasurable. Without her knowledge, while she was dying, her doctors took samples of her tumor that have lived on since the 1950s and aided in medical discoveries from polio to AIDS research. At the same time her cells were launching a multimillion dollar industry, her family was living in poverty with no health insurance. Rebecca Skloot spent ten years researching the story of Henrietta Lacks and the result is a gripping and fascinating true story.

Dedra

As with her previous novels including Luncheon of the Boating Party and Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland gives the reader a well-researched glimpse into a personal facet of art history in Clara and Mr. Tiffany. Louis Comfort Tiffany employed unmarried women in his New York glass studio supposedly because of their dexterity in working with small pieces of glass, but also to protect the company from strikes by the all-male unions during the 1890s. Clara Driscoll, a young widow, was the artist in charge of the women’s cutting department. She is also the one who is thought to have come up with the idea for the leaded stained-glass lampshades that won Tiffany awards at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and the Paris Exhibition Universelle of 1899.

Vreeland does an excellent job describing Clara’s pent up desire for recognition of her work and as an artist in a man’s world along with the many sacrifices she and the other “Tiffany Girls” make in their personal lives to stay employed and make a living. The reader also gets an understanding of the many changes happening in New York and the world at the turn of the nineteenth century. The book offers many topics for discussion and would be a good choice for book groups.

Allison

Thirty years in the making, Matterhorn is a graphic, vivid Vietnam War novel that really gets into the heads and hearts of its many characters as they try to understand the imponderables of war.

The story centers on the character of Marine Lieutenant Mellas, one day a fresh-faced Ivy League grad and the next the commander of a rifle combat platoon who comes to learn the true meaning of camaraderie. But the real story encompasses a vast array of characters who all interpret their role in the war in their own way. Matterhorn itself is the fictional name of one of the story’s Alp-named mountains that are occupied, abandoned and reclaimed during the novel’s relatively brief time span. As with many other war stories, Marlantes captures not only the horror of war and the beauty of heroics, but the annoying every day inconveniences jungle fighting presents. The story is rife with leeches, immersion foot, boot-sucking mud, and relentless fog that inhibits even the most skilled helicopter pilots. Given that the year is 1969, Marlantes adds to the mix some petty in-fighting among the ranks, exacerbated by the burgeoning Black Power movement back home. The strong characterizations, the thoughts in the heads of these boys, the vividly described juxtaposition of mind-numbing boredom and muscle-numbing terror, and the decisions made by commanders from remote locations that devastate the foot soldiers, all make for a very emotional story.

Marlantes, a decorated Vietnam Marine, brings real authenticity to the story. The author has said he didn’t set out to write either a pro- or anti-war story, but rather wanted to tell the everyman story of what it’s like to be an average person thrust into a difficult, often-times unimaginable situation. With his sincere, direct approach to his storytelling, Marlantes has definitely succeeded.

The audio version is excellent, but you might also want to check out the hard copy, as it includes a comprehensive glossary, a map, and a chart that helps to clarify the character hierarchy. Note: This gripping, historically accurate story might not be suitable for those sensitive to strong language.

Laura

This is the first novel by freelance journalist Paul Grossman and is a taut thriller set in the gritty yet enticing Berlin of 1932 just as Hilter is coming into power. The main character, Detective Willi Kraus, is an honored war veteran and is known throughout Berlin for capturing a notorious serial killer. He is also a Jew. Now he is investigating the suspicious, possibly drowning, death of a young woman with terribly deformed legs and the case of a missing Bulgarian princess who walked away from her hotel as if in a trance. His investigation leads him to believe that the cases are tied together and point to involvement by the Nazis. Kraus soon finds himself being the pursued and not the pursuer.

This book is full of period atmosphere and dramatic characters both real and imagined. Historical figures making appearances include Marlene Dietrich, Josef Mengele, Alfred Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and of course Adolph Hitler. I listened to the audio version which was read by Christian Contreras and he did a wonderful job performing many different voices with German accents.

Allison