Towards Zero by Agatha Christie (audio)

Posted on June 19, 2011 by pagesofjulia

After my disappointment with going outside my known tastes, I have switched back to a tried-and-true. I’m sure somebody out there doesn’t like Agatha Christie, but they have yet to tell me to my face.

I had never heard of Towards Zero, and it involves neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple. But it did have one of the most important Christie trademarks: a twisty-turny puzzle-plot that begs for the reader to try solving the crime before the end of the book. I, at least, am generally incorrect several times over because the plots of her books tend to double back on themselves so often.

This novel opens with a meeting of lawyerly minds (which you can see, incidentally, here), in which the title is explained. Most murder stories (and criminal trials), we are told, begin with the murder, when in fact the relevant story begins much, much earlier, and culminates in the murder as the result of all the previous action. Then we switch to the story at hand. In which…

Nevile Strange and his new wife, Kay, decide to visit Nevile’s mother-figure, Lady Tressilian, not at their usual time of year, but at the same time that Nevile’s first wife Audrey will be visiting. This, predictably, results in a number of uncomfortable, awkward, embarrassing moments and some conflict. (I found it interesting to observe the manners of the day which required referring to both women as “Mrs. Strange.”) Kay is rather bleatingly jealous and unsympathetic; Audrey is long-suffering and stoic but seems forgiving; Nevile is wont to refer to Audrey as “his wife” and ignore Kay, which of course irritates her still more. They make an interesting household, along with Audrey’s longtime admirer, Thomas Royde, just returned from overseas to pursue her; Lady Tressilian’s companion Mary Aldin; and visitor Ted Latimer, Kay’s childhood friend and admirer (parallel to Audrey’s Thomas, although rather opposite in temperament). So. All these folks in a classy country home together trying to be polite and play nice and dance around the love quadrangles, and then a murder takes place, and it’s one of those that could only have been committed by someone from within the household. Very Agatha Christie.

Love Suchet's Poirot.

Missing was Hercule Poirot’s biting wit, though. [Aside. Here is where I admit that I’ve never read Miss Marple! Only Hercule Poirot! Also, I grew up with Poirot on television as played by David Suchet and can’t hear or see him in any other way, for better or for worse. But didn’t he make a wonderful Poirot?] There wasn’t really much humor in this story, which is a Christie-staple in my mind, so that was odd; but it was very, very enjoyable without it, so no foul.

Into this closed household comes the vacationing Superintendent Battle and his nephew, the local Inspector Leach, to solve the crime. There are red herrings by the bucketful, and false leads, and I thought I knew whodunit SO many times, but Christie is a tricky one. The final scenes involve the Superintendent talking through the crime with the lot of them and eliciting a confession – also Christie trademarks. Finally, a little surprise romance which I did not entirely see coming topped off this charming, delightful, delicious little tale.

I love Agatha Christie. There’s a reason she’s hailed as a master (and Wikipedia claims she’s the all-time bestselling writer of books). I haven’t read anywhere near a majority of her works, but what I’ve read is always entertaining and clever and usually funny, too. Recommend.

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book beginnings on Friday: The Hard Way by Lee Child

Posted on June 17, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

Welcome back to Jack Reacher’s hard-hitting, fast-paced, intelligent world of good-vs.-evil action. I’m psyched to step into this series again. My last audiobook was Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero which was wonderful, so I’m on a roll now. We begin:

Jack Reacher ordered espresso, double, no peel, no cube, foam cup, no china, and before it arrived at his table he saw a man’s life change forever. Not that the waiter was slow. Just that the move was slick.

Ah, Reacher. YOU’re the slick one.

What are you reading?

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Teaser Tuesdays: Shut Your Eyes Tight by John Verdon

Posted on June 14, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

He wanted to ask where she’d been, apart from the supermarket, but he had the feeling she might have mentioned the rest of her plan to him earlier, and his failure to remember it would not be a good thing. Madeleine equated forgetting, as she equated poor hearing, with lack of interest. Maybe she was right.

Dear, dear. Our protagonist is a retired detective having a hard time staying retired, and his wife resents it. I find these few sentences to be a poignant expression of their difficulties. I’m enjoying this one so far!

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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Eyes Wide Open by Andrew Gross

Posted on June 12, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Eyes Wide Open promises to be something of a psychological thriller, and there are definitely aspects of mental-illness-as-character (which I think of as one possible iteration of the psychological thriller, although not the only one). The story is narrated by Jay, a successful surgeon and family man, called from New York out to California to help his big brother out of trouble, again. Intermittently, we hear the voice of Charlie’s son, Evan, whose death by apparent suicide opens the book.

Charlie’s past as a troubled youth includes a brief stint living on a commune with a cult of sorts. Apparently the murders committed by this cult group several decades ago aren’t done haunting Charlie’s life, and now Jay’s, too.

I tried to be open-minded about this book. The plot was fairly mediocre; the cult group and the murders of housefuls of Hollywood beautifuls were so clearly rip-offs of the Charles Manson story that I kept waiting for the name-drop, but it never came. This left me confused; is Gross trying to pretend that this isn’t a rip-off of Manson? The suspense was there, at least. I kept turning pages; I did finish the book. Not having abandoned it is some small mark of favor, I guess. But the plot fell a little short for me. We open with a tender moment between Jay and his wife, intended (I think) to show us what a strong marriage he has and what a fine family man he is; but this isn’t really upheld by the rest of the story. Charlie and his wife, Gabby, are on the one hand mentally ill and down-trodden to the point of helplessness; but on the other hand, they’re awfully coherent and articulate on the subject of their helplessness, which rings a little false. Worst of all, the story peters out late, and the intended terrifying cliffhanger of an ending fell well short for me.

But my worst beef with this book was the writing. I’m trying not to be cruel, but I’m really not sure when I last saw writing this painfully bad. Now, I need to say, I read a galley copy, which comes with all the disclaimers about not quoting from it and it still being edited further before publication – and good thing, because this is the most poorly-edited galley I’ve ever come across. BUT! Unless they’re going to rewrite as well as edit, I’m afraid the published version will still draw criticisms.

Gross has trouble painting pictures with his words. He just states things, failing to follow the “show, don’t tell” maxim. Now, I understand there’s a place for brevity, for dismissing floweriness or long passages of description. I’m a fan of Hemingway and Connelly, neither of whom, I think, get accused of long-winded explication. But I still want an author to evoke settings and emotions with words, rather than take my emotional participation in the story for granted. For example… I have to paraphrase from memory, plus this is a galley, so take it with a grain of salt, but there was something like “…he cried. She cried too.” Are you kidding me? You couldn’t think of any more evocative verb, and you had two opportunities? Just “cried, and cried”? You’re trying to wrench my heart with this?

I realize I’m coming down a bit harshly against this book and I feel a little badly (especially having just written another negative review of Gone with a Handsomer Men). But this was my honest reaction. Sigh. Here’s hoping I pull something enjoyable on the next roll of the dice.

Suspense? Fine. Plot? Meh. Writing? Distractingly bad. Go ahead, pick it up to pass your time if you don’t expect much and just want a gritty story for a beach read. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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Gone with a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West

Posted on June 11, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Gone with a Handsomer Man was definitely outside of my normal range of reading tastes, but I was intrigued. The product description sounded cute:

Teeny Templeton believes that her life is finally on track. She’s getting married, she’s baking her own wedding cake, and she’s leaving her troubled past behind. And then? She finds her fiance playing naked badminton with a couple of gorgeous, skanky chicks.

Needless to say, the wedding is off. Adding insult to injury, her fiance slaps a restraining order on her. When he’s found dead a few days later, all fingers point to Teeny.

Her only hope is through an old boyfriend-turned-lawyer, the guy who broke her heart a decade ago. But dredging up the past brings more than skeletons out of the closet, and Teeny doesn’t know who she can trust. With evidence mounting and the heat turning up, Teeny must also figure out where to live, how to support herself, how to clear her name, and how to protect her heart.

So. Troubled young woman falsely accused of murder, plus hunky lawyer man, along with (you don’t really get this from the product description, but it’s full-on, I promise) a heavy Southern angle. Cozy mystery with romance, a Southern accent, and an emphasis on cooking and baking, too. Like I said, not my usual style of mystery – I go for the dark and gritty ones more than the cozies – but I was a bit tickled by the Southern thing and I thought, what the heck. Put a little diversity in my reading.

For most of the book I was entertained, if not engrossed. Teeny is, indeed, a cute character with a good dose of Southern charm to her. She’s native to Georgia (grew up on a peach farm), but relocated to Charleston, South Carolina to be with Bing, the murdered fiance. She loves to cook, and bake; dreaming up fanciful recipes, as well as actually cooking, is how she and her female family members have always dealt with stress or for that matter, emotion of any kind. She’s a guilt-wracked Baptist, too, which I guess adds flavor, although it felt a bit remote from my Southern experience. Coop, the lawyer/ex-boyfriend, is indeed hunky.

But for me, the attractions ended there. Teeny is a bit too wishy-washy, timid, and hand-wringing for my tastes; I was exasperated with a series of poor decisions she made, and she thus fell a bit short of being a sympathetic character, or even a complex or multi-faceted or very human one. Coop was worse: hunky does NOT compensate for one-dimensional and bumbling. But the worst part was a series of completely unexplained turn-arounds. Red hates Teeny! Now Red is giving Teeny brotherly pecks and good advice! Teeny hates the house! Teeny loves the house! And what’s up with her sudden and unprecedented sympathy and nostalgia for the odious Bing, late in the book? Any attempts at “plot” are thwarted by loose ends flopping about, and characters and events flip-flopping with no semblance of explanation or reason. I guess if you can’t find a plausible way to explain a change of heart you just… don’t? The heart just changes?

I wanted to like this book, and certain aspects of the Southern frame were sweet and gratifying. My frustrations didn’t really kick in til the final pages, I guess because I trusted West to tie up the aforementioned loose ends, and I didn’t realize until late in the game that she had no intention of doing so. (Yes, she. Michael Lee West is a woman. It took me a minute, too.) But when I finished the book, Husband can tell you I stalked off in a tiff that I’d wasted precious reading time on this unsatisfying cream puff of a book.

On the other hand, there are recipes included at the end, if you like that sort of thing.

Good job, product-description-writer. You got me. Perhaps you should have written the book, too.

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book beginnings on Friday: Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

Posted on June 10, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I am settling comfortably into an audiobook that I am fully confident in. I love Agatha Christie, and it’s been years since I’ve read any of her. I especially like Hercule Poirot, and have very fond memories of listening to Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None) on audiobook with my mother (both parents?) on a road trip somewhere when I was small. That’s about the only audiobook I can ever remember listening to until recently, in fact. Too much lead-in, sorry, let’s hear from the master. This book begins:

The group round the fireplace was nearly all composed of lawyers or those who had an interest in the law. There was Martindale the solicitor, Rufus Lord, KC, young Daniels who had made a name for himself in the Carstairs case, a sprinkling of other barristers, Mr. Justice Cleaver, Lewis of Lewis and Trench and old Mr. Treves. Mr. Treves was close on eighty, a very ripe and experienced eighty.

A relatively sedate opening, yes, but I can already feel Christie’s pull and I know a good mystery awaits! As a side note, I’m enjoying these British accents accompanying me to and from work (recall, the last audiobook I listened to was Thank You, Jeeves). Happy Friday!

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Teaser Tuesdays: Gone with a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West

Posted on June 7, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

This is a diversion from my usual reading choices, because while it is a mystery, it is a decidedly cozy one, with a Southern accent and an emphasis on food (Georgia peaches and fluffy pastry! etc.). It’s cute and charming. Here, let’s set the stage. From page 5:

“Why are you naked?” I called down.

Sir ran to the tree and barked. I pulled off my engagement ring and threw it at Bing. He jumped back, like I’d hurled a watermelon. That gave me an idea. I grabbed a peach.

Again, this is not my usual choice, but I’m enjoying it. I’ll let you know the final verdict in a bit. Thanks for stopping by!

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Nothing to Lose by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on June 5, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Lee Child is one of my favorites, as you will know if you’ve been following my blog. His serial character, Jack Reacher, is a tough guy with a good heart who travels the country with nothing but his ATM card, an expired passport, and a folding toothbrush to slow him down. He’s a retired military policeman, just trying to enjoy the scenery, but he keeps getting pulled into hairy situations in which he decides to right the wrongs of the world and protect the little people.

In Nothing to Lose, we observe yet another of those episodes. Reacher is trying to travel diagonally across the country, from Maine down to San Diego. While moving west across Colorado, he stalls in a town called Hope, unable to hitch a ride into the neighboring town of Despair. (Yes, these names have meaning. You’re so sharp!) So he walks instead, but only to discover that the inhabitants of Despair don’t want him around.

Reacher eventually teams up with the sometimes-reluctant Officer Vaughan of the Hope PD. The town of Despair seems to have a lot to hide. At first glance, it’s an unpleasant little company town, owned entirely by the self-satisfied owner of the metal recycling plant, Mr. Thurman, who is also the mayor and the lay preacher. But there’s oh so much beneath the surface, including ties to international military concerns; and Mr. Thurman and his thugs are willing to go to great lengths to get Reacher, and any other stranger, far away.

This, along with the last Reacher I read (or rather, listened to), Gone Tomorrow, tackles issues of politics, the military and US foreign relations. Reacher is surprisingly anti-war, for being military – that is, not anti-war exactly, but against stupid wars of racism and oil-sucking that get American kids killed. He’s a very rational, thinking man. I like this about him. Don’t worry, the politics are way, way background.

Like all the Jack Reacher novels, this one is fast-paced, suspenseful, exciting, and has sympathetic, likeable, complex characters. You’ll be on the edge of your seat; you’ll care very much about what happens. You’ll be outraged along with Reacher, you’ll cheer him on, and you’ll be first impressed and then feel vindicated by his prowess.

I definitely enjoy the Reacher series on audio. Dick Hill is great at Reacher; he’s started to be Reacher inside my head. These get me to and from work very happily every day. 🙂 Thanks Lee Child and thanks Dick Hill, and keep ’em coming! (Unabridged, please.)

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book beginnings on Friday: Very Bad Men by Harry Dolan

Posted on June 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

I have been really thoroughly enjoying this thriller from the author of Bad Things Happen. It begins:

There’s a necklace in my office, a string of glass beads. It hangs over the arm of my desk lamp, and any little movement can set it swaying. The beads are a middle shade of blue, the color of an evening sky, and when the light plays over them they look cool and bright and alive.

So far I have nothing but good things to say about this book; but I can’t say too many of them until my review comes out over at Shelf Awareness, so stay tuned.

This quotation comes from an uncorrected advance proof and is subject to change.

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book beginnings on Friday: Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Posted on May 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

Never Knowing is by the author of Still Missing which I read a few months ago. The book begins,

I thought I could handle it, Nadine. After all those years of seeing you, all those times I talked about whether I should look for my birth mother, I finally did it.

The format appears to follow that of Still Missing, in that it has not chapters but “sessions,” apparently with a therapist.

I like the set-up in these first two sentences. We already know several things: that the narrator does not know her birth mother, that a search for her has been begun, and that the narrator has not “handled it” as she thought she could. Roll: suspense. I’m ready!

(Note: this quotation comes from an Advanced Reader Copy and is subject to change.)

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