Debut mysteries: Himself by Kidd and Dead Letters by Dolan-Leach

I am in the midst of reading HIMSELF by Jess Kidd and decided to post a review now because the writing is just so exquisite. With just simple phrase, Kidd expertly evokes an image of the small, County Mayo village:

• “All the boats bobbed gently in the harbor, dreaming of the high seas, and the bicycles slept leaning along the fences.”  or
• “Today the shop doors are propped open, welcoming sea breeze and custom.”  or
• “In the quiet room the night air steals in through the open window to whisper the soap dry in the dish.”

There’s more than a hint of magic and some darkness in the air, too. Charming and handsome Mahony heads to Mulderrig to try to understand what happened to his mother, Orla Sweeney, when he was abandoned 26 years ago.  Due to the prologue and some interspersed flashbacks, readers know that that she bore a child out of wedlock and met a violent death in 1950.  But, like Mahony and Mrs. Cauley (a villager who likes to "stir the pot" and may just want to see justice, too), we are uncertain as to the killer or motive. In an attempt to unveil secrets, Mrs. Cauley casts a play with Mahoney in the lead and involves several village characters with the mystery becoming even more complex and evil at times.

Did I mention there’s a supernatural element and sense of Irish folk tales because Mahony can see dead people? Kidd explains, “the dead are drawn to the confused and the unwritten, the damaged and the fractured, to those with big cracks and gaps in their tales…” HIMSELF, a debut novel, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and deserves a place on your “to be read” list.

Another debut mystery which you may want to investigate is DEAD LETTERS by Caite Dolan-Leach.   This thriller features identical twins, Ava and Zelda Antipova. Zelda, the wilder twin, supposedly dies in a barn fire in upstate New York and Ava returns from her studies in Paris to deal with the family vineyard and her mother’s dementia and alcoholism. Soon, Ava is receiving messages from Zelda, who loved mind games and appears to be sending her sister on a scavenger hunt to confront their dysfunctional past. The sisters were estranged due to Wyatt, a high school love, and he reappears in the story along with their father, Marlon, as Zelda’s manipulative messages continue to surface.

With starred reviews from Library Journal (“riveting”) and Publishers Weekly (“a smart, dazzling mystery”), DEAD LETTERS is especially recommended for fans of Gone Girl.

 

University Press and professional reading ….

I recently evaluated two new titles from Yale University Press and can see applications for both at school. First was Haunted by Leo Braudy which, per its subtitle, deals with “Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds.” Braudy, a Professor at the University of Southern California, is already recognized for his work on war, masculinity, and the nature of fame. In his new book, Braudy discusses monsters from nature, man-made, created monsters, the monster from within, and monsters from the past. Haunted is a perfect fit for the Monster Symposium we hold each year wherein our students explore the monster as “other,” as “evil,” and so forth.  Class discussions of texts like Shelley’s Frankenstein or Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray will also be enriched with Braudy’s insights. Recently reviewed in The Wall Street Journal (“The Monsters that Torment Us”), Haunted provides an enlightening read ("Fear is the pervasive topic of our times") in this Halloween (and election!) season.

The second title was The Battle for Syria by Christopher Phillips. This, too, is an excellent piece of scholarship and could be referenced by our Geography and Social Studies classes. A potential concern is the timeliness of this text given the constantly shifting news from the Middle East and Syria in particular. Phillips, however, provides a unique perspective and cogent analysis of underlying involvement of international forces:  US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran. The goals, subsequent actions and outcomes fro each are described. We will likely pair The Battle for Syria with Richard Engel’s And Then All Hell Broke Loose.  

New Short Story Collections

Several new short story collections with starred reviews appeal to a variety of interests and feature writing by award-winning authors:

The State We’re In by Ann Beattie presents interrelated stories about Maine and also about one’s mental/emotional state.  Unfortunately, I felt that these selections from an acknowledged master of the short story genre contained too much description, with little dialogue and would not be particularly compelling for students even though several of the linked pieces featured a teenager, Jocelyn.  Our students will be much more interested in the forthcoming Ghostly – which will be released in time for Halloween.  Compiled and illustrated by another well-known author, Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife), that collection will feature stories from Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe, A.S. Byatt and many more.  All of those stories will center on a theme of haunting and cover a range of times from the eighteenth century to modern day.

Press Start to Play will be released next Tuesday (8/18) and that, too, promises to be high interest and entertaining for students.  These 26 stories have to do with video games and the attraction for their participants. The editors (Daniel Wilson – Robopocalypse and Hugo winner John Joseph Adams) plus other contributors will be instantly recognizable to students and teachers, especially sci-fi fans.  Examples include: Andy Weir (The Martian), Holly Black (Tithe, Coldest Girl in Coldtown), Cory Doctorow (Little Brother), T.C. Boyle (Tortilla Curtain), Hugh Howey (Wool), plus writers from the gaming industry. And there is a foreword by Ernest Cline (Ready Player One and the recent Armada). I am looking forward to having teachers share some of these stories and discuss the idea of video games as narrative. This collection should be fun to explore and provide hours of entertainment.

Award-winning author Neil Gaiman whose work will be included in the forthcoming Ghostly also gave us Trigger Warning earlier this year. Subtitled “Short Fiction and Disturbances,” some of the stories and poems are rather bleak, dealing as Gaiman says, with “things that wait for us in the dark corridors of our lives.” Gaiman has such a huge, creative imagination and it is on full display in his recent collection.

If you are looking for more classic mystery stories, you may like Resorting to Murder.   Edited by Martin Edwards, this set contains fourteen stories from the golden age of British crime fiction, including ones by Chesterton and Conan Doyle. Several selections are relatively rare and Resorting to Murder joins numerous recent re-issues from Poisoned Pen Press.

Finally, be sure to look for a collection which has received almost universal praise this summer:  Music for Wartime.  Written by local author Rebecca Makkai (The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House), these stories show why her short fiction has appeared in four consecutive additions of The Best American Short Stories. Recommended on NPR, pbs and in local press, Makkai’s seventeen stories deal with family, with artists, and with the human condition both during WWII and today.

If you have other short story collections to suggest, please let us know.  I am already planning additional reviews for Sept/Oct titles including O. Henry Prize Stories and Anatomy of Curiosity.