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"Yet Strongbow did appear, entirely naked.
Or rather, naked of clothes."
~~Page 52
Title: Sinai Tapestry
Author: Edward Whittemore
ISBN: 9781882968220
Publisher: Old Earth Books/2002
Pages: 310
Sinai Tapestry, is the first book of Jerusalem Quartet. And speaks of a middle east which is not easy to understand at first glance. Pegged as fantasy reality, it totally works that way. Skanderbeg Wallenstein, a fanatical Trappist monk from Albania, comes across the oldest bible, which question every belief all have held. He knows it discovery would lead to chaos and hides it again. However, he writes a bible, forging the old one.
Many strange characters connect to each other and we have here is story which is fiction yet so real. In Sinai Tapestry, characters move from place to place; and also through time itself - and history - somewhat in improbable and implausible ways; but they are well conceived, and well rendered for us, even if as larger than life. If we take two of the characters, Plantagent Strongbow and Haj Harun, this is what we find:
Plantagenet Strongbow, is the twenty-ninth Duke of Dorset, and is a great swordsman, botanist, and explorer; he disappears in the Sinai in 1840, and reappears forty years later as an Arab holy man who has written a thirty-three volume study of Levantine sex, and who becomes the secret owner of the Ottoman Empire. He is seven-feet seven-inches tall.
And Haj Harun, a former antiquities dealer and stone carver of winged lions during the Assyrian occupation of the Holy Land, a proprietor of an all-night grocery store under the Greeks, a waiter under the Romans, a distributor of hashish and goats under the Turks, is a man who has been able to do all these things and to live in all these places because he is at least three thousand years old.
"When I want to daydream," he says to Strongbow, "I gaze at one of my antiquities and pretty soon I'm slipping back in time and seeing Romans and Babylonians in the streets of Jerusalem."
The novel is not an easy read and unless one trully concentrates it appears incomprehensible. But once one gets into it, the mysticism gets into the spirit of the reader. Islam, Christianity and Judaism, all three religions seem to merge and we get the best of the three. The description of the places and the people, the houses, all these engross us. Jerusalem comes so alive. It made me want to visit the place.
Xs by Louise Gaylord
X's has it all seX, eXcitement, eXcess, an eXecution, eXtreme situations and eXtraordinary twists. Allie Armington's back and she's gotten herself mixed up in a sex & drugs plot and a police investigation of the East coast money set.
I have had this novel for a while now. Yet to read it. I have read Anacacho: An Allie Armington Mystery by the same author which I had liked. Xs is the second one in the series. I thought I would highlight it for X.
Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia.
I received only one book:
The Cutting by James Haymen
I finished: 
Do you – or are you even able – to do other things while you read? Do you knit, hold a conversation, keep an eye on the TV? Anything?Homicide Detective Taylor Jackson thinks she's seen it all in Nashville—from the Southern Strangler to the Snow White Killer. But she's never seen anything as perverse as the Conductor. Once his victim is captured, he contains her in a glass coffin, slowly starving her to death. Only then does he give in to his attraction.
When he's finished, he creatively disposes of the body by reenacting scenes from famous paintings. And it seems similar macabre works are being displayed in Europe. Taylor teams up with her fiancé, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, and a New Scotland Yard detective named James "Memphis" Highsmythe, a haunted man who only has eyes for Taylor, to put an end to the Conductor's art collection.
Has the killer gone international with his craft? Or are there dueling artists, competing to create the ultimate masterpiece?
Do you take breaks while reading a book? Or read it straight through? (And, by breaks, I don’t mean sleeping, eating and going to work; I mean putting it aside for a time while you read something else.)
It depends on the book. Sometimes I can't put it down. At others, I need to let it go and read something else. Mostly I read poetry for those moments. Some books tend to be so heavy, one needs a break from it. There are instances when I have read a book at two stretches. But them I am always reading more than two books at any given point of time and that helps. Romance novels work good for those in between reads for a heavy book.
Title: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
ISBN: 978184724692
Publisher: Maclehose Press/2008
Pages: 554
I received this book from my secret Santa (Veens, I think!) in December 2009. It was in my wishlist. I got around reading it last week. Once I started, It was difficult for me to set it aside, even with work and all.
It is the first book in the Millenium triology. Stieg Larsson is not there to see his success. What does one say about a book, which is a huge success? To give it credit, it is not an over-rated book.
Three unlikely people's life gets entangled, Henrik Vangar, head of the Vangar corporation, Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist and Lisbeth Salnder, a somewhat weird security specialist. They get together to find out the missing child in the Vangar family. The girl had disappeared three decades ago with not a trace and Henrik still is pained by that fact.
When Blomkvist dwells deeper into the family secret, someone is determined that he ought not succeed. When the secrets do come out, they are so horrifying that everyone just wants to forget those. Lisbeth is brilliant computer hacker, who can't follow the society's norms. She is her own law and can go to any length to take care of herself.
It is not the mystery that is takes us in. It is Lisbeth who baffles the reader. She is an oddity yet we take to her. We might not agree with her ways but there is some kind of justification of what she does. She and Blomkvist make a great team although both don't seem to be aware of it or if they do, they do not acknowledge it. Lisbeth is not someone one can forget. She is gonna stay there for a long time. I am definitely going to check out the other two books.
"What I remembered most about Mrs. Carmodie was she had a double-decker butt. While normal butts curve like the letter C, Mrs. Carmodie’s butt got halfway through the C, then extended several inches in a straight line like some sort of shelf before finishing the curve. The shelf on her butt was wide enough to hold two cans of soda."
Title: Lethal People
Author: John Locke
ISBN: 9783440151712
Publisher: iUniverse/2009
Pages: 242
It is the first in the Donovan Creed series, who is a weird detective. He is not above duping people for money. Mostly from other crooks.
The novel opens with a fire in a house, where three people die. Only Addie, a five tear old survives. She has scars both on her body and her psyche. She is a very endearing character. Donovan creed takes to her. He is attracted to Kathleen, who too loves Addie.
Investigating the fire, Creed finds something which points out that it was an act of arson. Cred comes in contact witrh DeMeo, who is out there duping innocent people's money by killing them. And he does it such a way that no one suspects him. Creed with more weird characters gets into the bottom of it.
It is one hell of a book. Despite the grimness, it is weird and funny. Fast paced and dialogues keep us hooked. Liked the various quirky characters. They kind of make the novel plausible and adventurous.
Not bad for an afternoon read. Thanks to the author for my copy!
Title: The Witness
Author: Sandra Brown
ISBN: 9780446191548
Publisher: Warner Books/2006
Pages: 438
I have read a few Sandra Brown books. Mostly romances. This one is not and I thought I would post it for W of Crime Fiction Alphabet. Thanks Kerrie for hosting it but I don't know what I am going to post for X, Y and Z.
The Witness is different from Sandra Brown's usual novels. It is about a laywer and her infant son. Kendell Deaton is the best public defender in Prosper, South Carolina. However, with no fault of hers, she gets enbroiled in ugly dealings in the town. She knows she has to get away from it to save herself and her son. She can go to any limits to do that. Even if it means to skip the law. She is trying to escape and her car has a nasty accident. She saves herself and her baby from the wreck along with the driver of the car, who loses his memory in the accident. She claims he is John, her husband and one night escapes from the hospital along with him and her baby. John is sceptical of her claim but he can't do a thing about it as he has lost his memory.
She is a consummate liar. She tells it with ease and at the drop of a hat. John does not believe her and also he is very scared of the infant. Still he is not ready to let her go out of her sight. He senses that she is in some sort of trouble. He is also aware that she is capable of looking ater herself.
This novel has all the ingredients for holding our interest-- guns, federal officers, mystery, secrets, and evil men chasing. The pace is good and that means I finished at one go after I started it. Not a heavy read but good for a change. I liked it.
Today it is my birthday (22nd March). I had looked forward of it being the best one of my life but that didn't happen. So what? I can still celebrate it, can't I? I will gift myself with some jewellery, I am hankering after. Another pair of Platinum studs and of course, books. What else should I buy? I wouldn't mind suggestions.
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Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia.
I received two books in the past two weeks:
1) Taste of Cherry by Kara Candito
In Kara Candito’s prize-winning debut collection a “garish/human theatre” comes to life against richly textured geographic and psychic landscapes. These poems are high-speed meditations on a world where Walter Benjamin meets the “glitzy chain-link of Chanel scarves” and Puccini’s Tosca meets the din of the Times Square subway station.
2) The Widows Season by Laura Brodie
Sarah is 39 years old with a history of miscarriages behind her. Her husband David is presumed dead while kayaking. His body was never found. When she sees him in that grocery store, she starts thinking about other times when she had seen him and now wonders that he might be alive.
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In the past week:I finished:
A Friend of the Family Lauren Grodstein
A Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Widow's Season by Laura Brodie
I am in midst of reading:
Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
Theft of the Master by Edwin Alexander
I plan to read:
anything that interests me
I posted reviews of:
A Friend of the Family Lauren Grodstein
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Graphic Novel)
Devil's Food Cake Josi S> Kilpack
Dead Floating Lovers by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli
Venon my Jane Brody
The Widow's Season by Laura Brodie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where do you keep the books on the top of the tbr pile? Not the bunk of the mountain, but just the tip of the peak – the ‘almost up to’ books?
I keep the tbr books on my computer table. I want those to be easily accessible. There are some on the side stool of my bed too. So much so that, they fall on the floor if I try moving it!
And still I end up buying books.
