Teaser Tuesdays: The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

"All of them? Even the children?" The fireplace stuttered and cackled and swallowed his gasp. Slaughtered?"

"Worse."

Title: The Brutal Telling
Author: Louise Penny
ISBN: 9780312377038
Publisher: Minotaur Books/2009
Pages: 372

The opening lines set the mood and tone of this novel. How can one wish not to know more? In the village of Three Pines near Montreal, with no crime ratings, a murder is committed. The body is found in a bistro and antique store. The victim is a total stranger and the motive of the murder is almost impossible to find out. And Chief Inspector Gamache arrives with his team to investigate. Even he is flabbergasted.

The villagers are rather closely knit. The Bistro is owned by Oliver and his gay partner Gabri along with B & B next door. Gamache's investigations lead him to a small hut in the deep woods. Now this hut contains priceless antiques. Who owns it and how has he come about the antiques? When Gamache gets into the bottom of it along with his team, Jean Guy Beauvoir and Isabelle Lacoste, he finds the identity of the victim, , the motive, the weapon and the original place of murder. However, the mystery of the murderer doesn't get to be resolved any time soon.

When Gamache gets into the bottom of it, layer by layer, he is just as astounded as as to find the identity of the killer. Although this is not the nail-biting, seating on the edge of the chair kind of mystery, yet it has that cozy feel to it. We do wish to know more. Chief Inspector Gamache is a likeable character, maybe genial at times but has a keen sense of observation and is a force to reckon with for those who are on the wrong side of the law.

What appealed to me most was the eccentric poet, Ruth. She speaks in riddles, yet she has great understanding and depth. Her presence in the book makes it mystical.

Louise Penny is worth checking out. Thanks to Staci of Life in the thumb, for the ARC. She was kind enough to send it all the way to Delhi!

Also reviewed by:

rhapsodyinbooks
Michelle's Masterful Musings
Kittling Books
Ms. Bookish
Jen's Book Thoughts

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Fault Line by Barry Eisler

The Last thing Richard Hilzoy thought before the bullet entered his brain was, Things are really looking up.

Title: Fault Line
Author: Barry Eisler
ISBN: 9780345505088
Publisher: Ballantine Books/March 2009
Pages: 302

Alex Treven, a top shot laywer is scared to wits when two of his associates are murdered and his house is burgled. All of them are in one way or other, involved in the invention of encryption application and patent for it is pending. Alex has no family, as they are all dead, except for an enstranged older brother Ben, who has not been in the vicinity for the last seven years, not since their mother died.

Alex, after much thought turns to Ben, who is an undercover agent, who is currently in Istanbul, having the dirty job of eliminating terrorists. Or find, fix and finish, as he calls it. Although Ben resents Alex contacting him, he nevertheless arrives to save Alex. Another lawyer Sarah Hosseini, who too knows all about the encryption, has to be taken into confidence. Although Alex trusts her, Ben does not. And he has reasons not too. All the while the resentment the brothers have for each other, boils over and almost escalates into one killing the other.

It has lots of actions, twists and turns of events, the bonding between the brothers, although both don't know it nor show it. Both are likeable in their own quirky ways. One can't write more without revealing the plot and that is not done for crime fiction.

As with most thrillers, it too is unputdownable. One really likes the unhurried, detailed way Ben goes about his work. He knows he has to clean the world and he goes about it in a clinical manner. Barry Eisler is a writer worth checking out.

Monday: Musing/Mailbox/Whereabouts

Does your house have a communal bookshelf? If not, is your bookshelf centrally located so everyone has access to it?

My bookshelves are centrally located. Anyone can access those and pick out any book they want. My nephews and nieces do it all the time. I don't mind that at all. Today my younger brother too picked up my copy of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which he needs for a project. I was mighty glad to give it to him.

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Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia, In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren and New Crayons is hosted by Color Online. Check all three, which are related to books you receive in the past week.

I had a mailbox slump. I did not receive a single book this past week.

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I finished:

Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg


I still am in the midst of reading:

Theft of Time by Terry Pratchett
Cult Insanity by Irene Spencer

I plan to read:

whatever takes my fancy

I posted review of:

Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg
Hoodoo Sea by Rolf Hitzer
Receive Me Falling by Erica Robuck

Sunday Salon: Receive Me Falling by Erica Robuck

Nevis Island.
February 1831

The slave woman fell over the cliff's edge toward the black swirl of water that churned over the boulders reaching from the sea.

Title: Receive Me Falling
Author: Erica Robuck
ISBN: 9780982229804
Publisher: Elysian Field Press/2009
Page: 266

Meghan Owen is engaged to be married. When her parents die in an accident on the night of her engage party, she calls of her wedding. Going through her father's papers, she finds, she has inherited land in Nevis. She leaves her job to travel there. When she reaches the old plantation House, Eden, she finds letter and papers and an ominous presence of dark secrets. She has to get into the bottom of it and also find out how she is involved in all this.

She learns about the Dall family who had leaved there in the 19th century. Just at that moment the British abolitionists had arrived to free the slaves. The daughter of the plantation owner Catherine Dall, is tormented between her sense of fairness and her family. She loves and cares for the slaves in her plantation. However, she can't escape her destiny. When Catherine discovers some unpleasant truth about her slave, leah, she gets maddeningly angry and tragic strikes in the form of Leah's death. Was it suicide, or was it murder?

Meg too finds that the land that she owns is tainted with the stigma of slavery and stolen money. It falls on Meg to find the secrets and let the ghosts rest forever. She has to balance her present with the historic events that took place so much before her time.

With alternate chapters, the present and past somehow merge and Meg has the big task of bringing justice to the ghosts of the past. With simplistic writing about the complex issue of slavery, Robuck has written a good readable nobel. The secondary characters too are very well etched out. Yes, there is so much sadness. No slave stoy can ever be happy. And every slave story needs to be told. Maybe that way we might be able to learn something from the past.

Do check out the following reviews too:

Bookjourney
Framed
Booklogged
Marcia
Historically Obssessed
booktumbling
Alipet
Musings of a Book Addict
Anna's Book Blog
Andi's Book Reviews
The Book Inn
Two Kids & Tired Book Blogger
Book Nook Club
Dan's Journal

Short Story Review Links

I have put up all the review links of the short stories I have read. Those include the short story collections too. I will keep updating it. Do click on the title to reach my reviews.

Short Stories

Short Story: Yvette by Guy de Maupassant

Short Story: Landscape With Flatiron by Haruki Murakami

Short Story: The Ugly Duckling by Hans Anderson

Short Story: Let Him Dangle by Richard Dickson

Short Story: A Private Experience by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short Story: Year of the Dog by Casey Kait

Short story: The Parade of You by Barth Anderson

Short Story: The Wide Net by Eudora Welty

Short story: The Missing Statues by Simon Van Booy

Short Story: Tunnels and Walls and Other Ways of Getting There by Sharon Sheehe Stark

Short Story: The Tattoo Woman by Mark Richardson

Short Story: Don't Stop Now by Al Riske

Short Story: The Dead Man by Fritz Leiber

Short Story: It by Theodore Sturgeon

Short Story: My Mother, the Crazy African by Chimamanda N Adichie

Short Story: Eliyahu ha-Navi by Mark Sparber

Short Story: Time, Again by Tim Maly

Short Story: Leaving the Yellow House by Saul Bellow

Short Story: Weddings and Beheadings by Hanif Kureishi

Short Story:The ruin of Grant Lowery by Audrey Niffenegger

Short Story: Hair by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short story: Narcissa by by Hilary Mantle

Short Story: Gwen's Grief by Jennifer Cande

Short Story: Disappointed by Al Riske

Short Story: Tomorrow is too Far by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short Story: Gina by Alex Burford

Short Story: The Reading Room by Jen Michaelski

Short Story: Say Yes by Tobias Wolffe

Short Story: The Ethical Dilemma of a Sandwich Down the Pants by Kelly Shriver

Short Story: Gargoyle by Joyce Carol Oates

Short Story: A Perfect Day for Banana fish by JD Salinger

Short Story: You in America by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short Story: Honeymoon by Ivan Kilma

Short Story: Dating A Dead Girl by Sara Powers

Short Story: Ghosts by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Short Story: How to Bring Someone Back from Dead by Veronica Schanoes

Short Story: Clara by Roberto Bolano

Short Story: A Man Like Him by Yiyun Li

Short Story: Shorty’s Paradise by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Short Story: Florette by Ward Just

Short Story: Leaving Memphis by Lauren Birden

Short Story: The Headstrong Historian by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie

Short Story: The Flints of Memory Lane by Neil Gaiman

Short Story: Natasha by Vladimir Nabokov

Short Story: Awake by Tobias Wolffe


Short Story Collections

Kiss Me Again, Stranger by Daphne du Maurier

A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence

Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein

Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese

Collected Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Innocent Erendera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Just Beyond by Anjan Ray

Friday Find: Racing the Dark by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Racing the Dark by Alaya Dawn Johnson

From Publishers Weekly

In Johnson's bold debut, a young woman faces sweeping changes to the ancient traditions and culture of her tiny island home. When 13-year-old Lana recovers a rare sacred jewel from a dying mandagah fish on her first solo dive, she hides it rather than accept the responsibility of becoming a mystic. Within six months, the mandagah are dying due to changing water conditions, destabilizing the island's economy, which depends on the fish and their jewels. To pay for her family's passage to the city-island of Essel, Lana becomes an apprentice to the sorceress Akua. When Lana learns Akua gets her powers from blood sacrifice, she's appalled, but soon she must strike her own terrible bargain to save her mother's life.

Booking through Biographies/Autobiographies

Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?

Frankly I prefer autobiographies. A person can convey everything about himself if he writes it and speaks of his perspectives, feelings and thoughts. Only he can tell us about his compulsions and his innermost emotions. This appeals to the reader as it conveys everything about that person. No biography can compare with that. No one can understand another person. Or what drives him. A writer of any biography depends on old letters, documents and other people's perspectives. He draws his conclusions from third party and and somehow it does not appeal as the way an autobiography does.

Yes, one can read biographies of people who are long gone but I prefer autobiographies of people of my own century. Also the fact that an ordinary person's memoir fascinates me more than the memoir of any well-known person.