The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases

The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases by Deborah Halber fascinated me, particularly after all of the Golden State Killer brouhaha. I was pleasantly surprised to find out while reading this that it wasn’t necessarily about solving murders, but much more about connecting I identified remains with missing persons cold cases.

All over America, tens of thousands — perhaps even hundreds of thousands — remains of unidentified human remains sit in morgue lockers or buried in Potter’s fields, unconnected to their identifies for a cmvarietu of reasons. It’s been only recently that the government has been able to grasp the magnitude of the problem; poor record keeping, lack of reporting, and coroner change over in smaller cities and towns has kept the information under wraps. It turns out that the problem is much bigger than anyone could imagine. So big, in fact, it’s almost impossible to find employees who can work these cases in addition to their jobs. Enter The Skeleton Crew. 

The dawn of the internet has seen thousands of couch sleuths come out of the woodwork, be it morbid curiosity or a love of puzzles, to solve these cold cases. Halber highlights several of these cases, both successful and not, in this book. I was pleasantly surprised at how taken I was by this story. Halber is a strong writer who weaves in a clear narrative into her larger work (featuring two cases: Tent Girl and Lady of the Dunes), and her writing style kept me hooked. I found myself wanting to get back to the book, not to finish it but rather to find out more about what she had to tell me. 

I did see parallels to MacNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, published three years after this. The websites devoted to solving cold cases, the people on the other end of those computers for reasons that are all their own. Some are trying to escape, some are trying to find themselves. Each is looking for someone — a perpetrator or a victim. I love true crime myself, and solving puzzles, and I could easily see myself getting sucked into this work. I’m amazed at the devotion of those not just in the higher ranks of these websites, but the gumshoes as well. 

I took some time to poke through one of the sites, the Doe Network, and before I knew it two hours had passed by. So yes, I can see how easily one who loves this stuff gets taken in. I’m also curious as to how, four years after this book was published, public DNA databases are changing the face of missing persons cases and the connection to unidentified remains. I would love to see Halber do a follow up on this connection. I loved this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed having my world opened to a new, not-so-dark corner. 

His Favorites: A Novel

I read a blurb about Kate Walbert's His Favorites on a "Best of 2018" list somewhere, so I picked up an e-book version from the library. 

The blurbs were right — this is a bewitching story that weaves two huge events together. The beauty of this book is not in a climactic punch, but rather in its intense prose and weaving together if the narrative. Jo is a young, carefree girl until the death of her best friend which will haunt her for years to come. She can’t go back to school — it’s too much to bear. She is lucky to be accepted to Hawthorne, a boarding school, so late after the start of the year. Her isolation, however, makes her a target of Master, the notorious teacher who gloms onto the beautiful young things he grooms through his modernist seminar. These two seemingly disparate events shape Jo into adulthood. 

This book was such a whirlwind that taking a step back to think on my thoughts about it knocks the wind out of me. It’s such a beautiful book that I felt like a lobster in a cool pot of water; it wasn’t until the book ended that I realized the water was boiling and I wouldn’t make it out alive. Jo was at times sympathetic and at others quite not so, as it’s hard to tell her that she shouldn’t blame herself for her best friend’s death. However, the most beautiful part of Jo is when she explains her confusion with the public reaction to Stephanie, her best friend, after she dies. Suddenly, in the newspaper articles and funerals notices, it’s a new girl. While everything these reports say is true, they capture an angel and not the true person Stephanie was on a Tuesday evening. This description was apt and quite affecting, as it’s something I’ve ruminated on for sometime, how we take people in death and make them into someone they weren’t in life. Or at a minimum a better version. Walbert wrote it better than I could. 

This book was just glorious, and it was quite a meditation on who we become when we live our lives. Every little event affects us, and shapes our souls. Walbert’s prose brings this through the paper and to the surface of our consciousness. And what a beautiful ride it is. 

Long Road to Mercy: An Atlee Pine Thriller

I think at some point I told you about my family's tradition (began last year) to give a book on Christmas Eve and then spend the day and night reading. This year my husband wanted to get me something that would surprise me, so he picked out David Baldacci's newest, Long Road to Mercy. 

Altee Pine is doing what she does best as an FBI field agent assigned to A small area in Arizona. It’s what she prefers to the stuffy, suited world of the East Coast. Her domain includes the Grand Canyon, so she is called out one morning when tour guides find a mule dead and a client missing. Little does Atlee know that this confusing case will lead to twists and turns, dips and peaks, leading her on a chase for people from the Southwest to the Northeast that don’t seem to exist yet are putting national security at risk. It’s literally a matter of life and death for Atlee and many residents of the United States. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Baldacci’s work overall. It shouldn’t surprise me — the man is a prolific crime writer with dozens of tomes to his name — but as this was my first foray into Baldacci-dom, I found myself quite pleased with the book overall. He weaves a tight narrative, keeps me on my toes, and builds suspense so that it keeps me plowing through the pages with a forcefulness that mimicks the protagonists’. This wasn’t a page-turner in the sense that I absolutely had to find out what happened next; rather, there was a forcefulness to the mission to support to Pine in discovering the truth that Baldacci made me feel was my responsibility. 

Pine was also a great character. She has her flaws and her weaknesses, but she is a hard-ass who has no shame in being exactly who she is. She loves her job and also doesn’t take shit from anyone, as attested by the hole she punched in her wall to get a suspect to talk. She slowly and skeptically let’s her secretary in to become her unexpected partner, and while she is hesitant, I came to see the deep humanity in this character. I loved how smart she was — and how she owned it — and how Baldacci used his character as the backbone of the story that drove it. I’m unsure that this particular mystery would have been solved without Pine. 

The best surprise? My husband’s name in the final pages. He didn’t know anything about this, but imagine how my jaw absolutely dropped when I read this. 

Gray Mountain: A Novel

This summer, during our family vacation to Myrtle Beach, I chose John Grisham's Gray Mountain as my Grisham reading because you know I can’t hit the sand and not do one. It’s in my bones. 

During the great implosion of 2008, law firms were going belly up or, at a minimum, hemorrhaging employees. Poor Samantha — her hours of poring over commercial real estate contracts for wealthy magnates has come to an end. She has been offered a “furlough” with r in one year as long as she agrees to take an unpaid internship for that year. She ends up in rural Virginia, in the Appalachian mountains known for their coal. Land owners drool at the prospect of selling strip mining rights to big companies that wheel and deal and cheat and lie. At the legal aid clinic she comes to, Samantha soon discovers that she has the ability to help people who desperately need it, and some who don’t even want it. When a new friend is found dead after initiating the biggest lawsuit that side of Virginia has ever seen, Samantha must make a choice between the safety of New York City of the danger of pushing forward to keep her promises to her new friends. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book in the best vacation way. It was absolutely perfect for a beach read — a little thriller-esque, a little pulpy, and a lot of character. Samantha was interesting if sightly annoying in that NYC bullshit snobby way of young people who earn too much money and think they need to spend it all. I had no patience for their bullshit in 2008 and I have even less in 2018. There’s no reason you should have so much money that you can afford to pay rent on your TriBeCa or Village high-rose while you intern for free in another state. My eyes are rolling into the back of my head as I type this. 

Other than that, I actually quite liked Samantha. She wrestled with doing right by her indigent clients while still trying to hold on to a piece of herself. She avoids the temptations of one romance (for good reason) while indulging in another (for yet another good reason). She cares and grows to care even more during her time in Virginia while still clinging to her knowledge that she can’t settle there forever. She doesn’t give in to what I expected would be a do-holder trope, and that was great to read. 

I also appreciated the social justice angle that Grisham took in this novel. The strip mining of land in the Appalachian region has been egregious to say the least, and it’s nice to see him bringing light to the issue. He even provides a reference to donate money for aid if you feel so inclined. Unfortunately, so much of the land has been destroyed in that area in the decade since this book was published, and little has changed in the way businesses hold and wield power. It’s angering at best and heart attack-inducing at worst. Putting that on the page for readers to face head-on deserves applause. 

Dan Brown's Origin

I happen to quite enjoy Dan Brown's work from a relaxed reading perspective. The subject matter is terribly interesting and I like being challenged with learning new things. Origin is no exception.  

Edmond Kirsch has discovered a secret that will change the how humans believe in supernatural forces. He claims it will even turn the masses away from religion. The winderkind computer scientist, a former student of Robert Langston’s, is about to present his discovery to the world when he is shot down moments before hiring “play” on his presentation to the world. Langdon (as usual, frankly) is immediately suspected and must go on the run with the stunning Ambra Vidal, curator of the museum and fiancé of the future King of Spain, also suspected in the gruesome plot to kill her friend Edmond. What was Kirsch’s discovery, and what other secrets was he keeping that deeply affect the future of mankind — and what does his militant hatred of religion have to do with it all? 

How on this green earth does Langdon find himself in these ridiculous quagmires? Exactly how many times in the span of a decade must be run for his life while solving a great mystery that puts the fate of millions in his hands? While I quite enjoyed this book, I had to wonder as I was halfway through how much longer Brown can put Langdon in these odd positions without us starting to catch on. I mean, how am I supposed to trust Tom Hanks the next time I see him? I am definitely not getting on a plane with that guy. 

All that being said, I quite enjoyed this book. While I don’t think it’s necessarily one of Brown’s intellectual best thrillers (I leave that still to Angels and Demons), I was quite fascinated by his weaving together a tale around the origins of life, which were actually quite plausible. By the time we got to the heart of the matter, which was Kirsch’s discovery of the origins of life (I will say no more), I was ready to jump into the science of entropy. I appreciated Brown’s ability to come up with such an intricate and heady scientific concept, and I was digging it. (As one guy I only went on one date because, well, you see, he constantly said, “I Dog, I dig.” Like, always twice in a row. I’m giggling now as I write this.)

There were some eye-roll inducing parts, such as Brown’s constant reference to the discovery that would shake religious belief forever — see, this went on for the better part of the book and I wanted to just tell, “Tell is the fuck about it already.” It was quite overwrought and we could have dealt without the melodramatics by, I would guess, 40%. But hey, this is Brown’s book and not mine. 

Weaving together this detailed story, it was nice to see it all come together at the end into a semi-loose narrative. There were some things that I think were extra (like motivations of red herrings, and you will just have to accept my lack of spoilers here), but overall I enjoyed myself and that’s really why I come to Brown’s novels when it comes down to brass tacks. 

Florida: Stories

I loved Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies (which I have et to finish, years later!), which I'm not sure I ever blogged about, so I requested her new book of short stories, Florida, as soon as I could. 

I wasn’t entirely sold by the first story — that of a suburban mom who walks her anger off for hours every night, watching her neighborhood change and shift throughout the seasons. But the second story brought me in a bit — that of Jude and his life’s tale in 14 pages. This story was fascinating, in that Groff takes you from Jude’s childhood to the day he sends his daughter off to college. It’s a wild ride, one that manages to break your heart while also being somewhat bare bones. It speaks to Groff’s astounding storytelling, that she can speed through a life and you feel like you know him intimately.

“Dogs Go Wolf,” the third story, is what completely sold me. The tale of two young girls left to fend for themselves on an island, alone, was gripping and jaw-dropping. Groff has this ability to create fully formed characters within a single page, so that when you realize the tragedy of their existence you can’t turn back and in-know it. I was both intrigued and devastated by these two girls, hoping for them that their mother wouldn’t be the jerk that she was and that she would come back for them. It wasn’t meant to be, and we as the readers are better off for that. We leave with more than we came with. 

Through the story of the woman with a head injury camping with her two sons, we move into another one of Groff’s masterpieces, a story in which a woman opts to ride out a hurricane at home, only to be visited by the great dead loves of her past. This story was surprisingly moving and I found my throat catching in moments. It is a little life-flashing-before-your-eyes but with an honest twist, as there are no holds barred between her and her ghosts. 

The next two stories were equally arresting — one of a pair of friends on holiday in France, where secrets peek around every corner, and the other a woman on annual holiday in Brazil in which her mettle is tested by a storm. As the stories progress, Groff’s writing continues to make its mark as she weaves the tales of these women who are three-dimensional and full of life and love and missteps and small triumphs. You may think you know what is going to happen, but Groff will surprise you with what you least expect, and boy, is that a feat. 

As I rinsed out the last of her stories, I put down this book better than when I came to it, and for me that is a mark of the beauty of this work. I need to turn back to Fates and Furies next, this time with a fresh appreciation for Groff and her storytelling. 

The Whistler: A Novel

I may have mentioned this on the blog before, but my husband is the greatest man alive. Not only do I love him for who he is, but he understands and encourages my book obsession. How does that relate to John Grisham's The Whistler? Well, it was one of two books he gifted me for Christmas a couple of years ago -- in hardback no less. Knowing full well that my TBR pile is actually a TBR bookcase that's overflowing. That's love. 

The investigators on Florida’s Board on Judicial Conduct rarely get fired up about their work. There is no shortage of corrupt judges and a big shortage on funding. They do their job, deal with what they can, and go on with their lives. That is, until the day that Lacy Stoltz, a seasoned investigator, gets a lead on one of the biggest cases of anyone’s career. It involves many moving parts — a corrupt judge in the pocket of a mysterious billionaire who no one has eyes on, an Indian reservation and casino, and an informant who changes his own identity too much to keep of track of. It seems like a complicated case but it soon becomes dangerous — no one guessed when they went to law school that they might also lose their life. 

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this novel. It was a slight departure from the Grisham formula while still holding true to the legalistic thriller that he does so well. I don’t remember in the past being drawn to Grisham’s female characters; it could possibly be because he doesn’t often have female protagonists that are strong and smart and the actual lead of the story. I could be wrong — I’m not going back to check right now — but it worked in this story. I quite liked Lacy and her firebrand attitude. I liked that she was a badass at her job but when tragedy strikes, she is still a fully-developed human who dead with things the way we all do — caution and putting walls up and wariness about other people’s motives. 

I also appreciated that this story had twists and turns that I didn’t see coming but even if I had, I would still be left guessing so many details. Those moving parts I mentioned. This was a complicated story that could have twisted out of control but Grisham kept the story centered and grounded in the one solid understanding that power corrupts and the love of money is the root of all evil. I passed this book on to a friend of mine to enjoy as much as I did. 

D.C. Trip: A Novel

D.C. Trip by Sara Benincasa is another one of those books that has been on my bookshelf for a couple of years and I decided it was about time that I picked it up this summer. Oh my god, you guys. Oh my god. I died. 

Alicia Deats is a novice teacher in her first year at a high school in New Jersey. She is madly in love with the awkward and square math teacher, Bryan, and she volunteers to co-chaperone the sophomore class trip to Washington, D.C. that spring. Sivan, Gertie, and Rachel have been best friends since nursery school and are excited about the trip -- Gertie especially once she finds out the boy she has been in love with her whole life will also be on his school trip then, too. They will, however, have to deal with their enemies, the "cuntriad," who are definitely out to get them: Peighton, Brooklynn, and Kaylee. In the meantime, they are expected to learn their history in our nation's capital.

I found this book to be laugh out loud funny. Without a doubt one of the most fun books I have read in a while (because murder and mayhem isn't exactly "fun," if you know what I mean), I found myself sitting outside on my front steps the other day finishing the last 10 pages because I wanted to just enjoy them rather than having to put the book down and come back to it. I walked into my apartment building with a smile on my face and a skip in my step. Benincasa has written a book that just has so much joy and lust for life. She takes her characters so seriously, and that's why they are funny. She is a clearly lighthearted person (I follow her on Twitter and I think she's hilarious), and she gives her characters a full body and soul and that's what makes her writing so on point.

Alicia is a wannabe-hippie and we have all known girls like her who found their "inner spirit" and fully believe in making their own deodorant. One of my favorite quick moments in the story is when the girls catch her removing her dreamcatcher earrings after a discussion of cultural appropriation at one of the D.C. museums. [Insert me giggling here.] She is a little bit of all of us -- a girl who doesn't quite know who she is and where the boundaries are, and at 23 years old she is discovering them. Bryan is a grumpy gus who is hiding his insecurities in his intelligence. On one hand I wanted Alicia to win him over and on the other, I couldn't figure out why she wanted him so badly.

The thing I loved most about this book was the story arc and Benincasa's ability to toggle between one main story line (the class trip) and the two sub-story lines (Alicia loves Bryan and the trio's exploits). It was seamless and easy to read while also being just plain brilliant. Benincasa has a quick wit, and it works in writing for high school characters and their cadences, speech patterns, and emotional needs. Never once did I doubt that she had experience as a high school girl because these characters were so on point. Hell, even Brock, the typical popular boy who is dumb as a rock, was completely on point and absolutely hilarious. When he gets around to reading an emotional book, you will sit on edge while he gets advice from the class punching bag and then reviews the book later on the bus. Just go read it for yourself.

This book was an outstanding summer read and I couldn't recommend it more highly. It was funny and sweet, and now I need to go find more of Benincasa's work so that I can fill my heart with happiness again. 

Vox: A Novel

Vox by Christina Dalcher was a hot "get" at Book Expo this year, and while I'm hot and cold on dystopia, I thought I would give it a shot. And whoooooaaa -- am I ever glad I did.

"Gripping" is the best word I can think to describe this book. Jean is a cognitive neurolinguist -- or, at least, she was before. Before the Pure Movement, which seeks to silence women and go back to the good ol' days of yore when women worked in the home caring for their families and the men made the money. In order to achieve full submission, women not only had to leave their jobs, but they must also wear counters on their wrists that count the number of alloted words they use per day, typically 100. After that, they are shocked at increasingly high rates a la Milgram. Go ahead and insert your shudder here.

As I'm sure you can imagine, this doesn't go over well with everyone (although you won't be surprised to hear that it works perfectly with many women who love the idea of a docile and obedient life -- unfortunately, I know some of those in real life). Jean is one of those. However, when she is approached by the leader of the movement to go back to work in order to find a cure for the president's brother whose issue falls squarely into Jean's research, she ends up using it to her advantage to fight back. It may cost her everything she holds dear, but what is the point of freedom if you can't taste it?

I ate this book in almost one sitting. I started reading it on a plane ride, and I couldn't put it down when we got to our destination. It's not dystopia really, because it takes place in present day, but it is dystopia in the strict definition. I was full-on captivated by everything, from the first-person narrator, Jean, and her Italian fire and her both love and hate for her docile husband and her asshole teenage son who is swept up in the movement. She was a gripping character and one that I absolutely adored. Her story was one that was frightening but realistic, and it reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale in it's sense of male governance over the female body. She was everything that I love in a female protagonist, and so my hat is off to Dalcher in her ability to craft truly incredible characters.

Now onto the story. Holy moly, this was something. I always hope that these things are far-fetched, but the underlying current of feelings towards women is alive and well. There is a moment where Jean is driving home from work and a man in the car next to her tries to get her attention. When she rolls down her window, he spits into her car. Something similar happened to me more than a decade ago. I was driving down the road when a man whipped out a turn in front of me from a shopping center. I hit the horn while I slammed on my brakes, and this caused the man to lose it. He worked his car until he was next to me and, even with my windows close, he called me cunt and a whore over and over and over again, saying he was going to kill me. Isn't it odd how nothing has really changed? That toxic masculinity has not gone away, and this novel exemplifies it.

I was blown away by this book and I cannot recommend it enough. It is well worth you devouring the story and ripping into it from beginning to end this summer. It will anger you, devastate you, and give you hope in the resistance. You never know who is fighting back within their means. 

Edgewater: A Novel

I have been a fan of Courtney Sheinmel's Stella Batz series for a few years, so I picked up her YA novel, Edgewater, at Book Expo a couple of years back and read it in my end-of-semester reading frenzy.

Lorrie and her sister were abandoned by their father when they were small kids, and their mother ran away with her boyfriend a few years later. Since then, they have been raised by their Aunt Gigi who suffers from mental instability. Their once grand estate on Long Island, Edgewater, is notoriously in shambles and they live as though an episode of Hoarders has come to visit. Lorrie has been able to put it all out of her mind while she is off at boarding school. Suddenly, though, her trust fund left by her mother has run out and she must return home to set things strait. While there, she runs in to Charlie, the wealthy son of a senator and presidential hopeful. If only she could know that their lives would become inextricably linked...

I was pleasantly surprised at how I drank this novel down, and quickly. I figured out the twist fairly early on -- Sheinmel foreshadows well -- but it didn't ruin anything for me. The gift in this book is the character development. Sheinmel has written some compelling women in this story, ones who are flawed and messy but so strong and willful. Those are my favorite kind of female characters. Lorrie is a force, and her determination to fix the mess that her family is in is admirable and beautiful to watch, because she bends until she breaks. Oh, what a bend it is though. Her first-person accounting of this moment in time shows the reader that she desperately wants to be more than what her family is portraying on the outside -- broken, decrepit, and hanging on by a thread. She uses the trust fund her mother left her when she ran off to Europe with her boyfriend to better her circumstances -- attending boarding school with her best friend, taking up riding, purchasing her beloved horse, and attending riding camp in the summer. When all of this falls apart, she must find the money in order to keep her standing. Watching her claw her way out of the mess that her aunt has gotten her in was amazing.

One of the things that struck me about this characterization was the character arc that Lorrie took from the beginning to the end of this story. She could have remained an absolute brat, but instead she became an empathetic, caring human being who could dig deep and accept the truth of her life circumstances as well as one could. The twists and turns of this story came naturally within its confines, and watching Lorrie develop as a character fit right into the story development like a missing puzzle piece. Charlie was also a defining character, and one that served to bolster the development of Lorrie as a character and a human being. This is not a lovey-dovey fairy tale, but rather the development of a relationship of two young people who are driven to their choices by sheer circumstance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I was glad that I pulled it out of my TBR pile when I did. It hit the spot for a summer day, and I felt as though I were living in the book as I was reading it. (SPOILER ALERT!) I was quite sad when I knew that Lorrie would sell Edgewater, because as it finally began to be cleaned out and up, I could see in my head the beauty of the estate and the manor it could become again. I wanted to buy it myself and take it on as a fixer upper. But alas -- fiction is, by definition, not real. 

Neverworld Wake: A Novel

I was simply ravished by Marisha Pessl's Nightfilm (in fact, I just recommended it again the other week), so I salivated when I found out that she had a YA novel coming out this summer. 

Beatrice’s friends had a nickname for her: Sister Bee. She was always the kind one, the innocent one of their group of six. Which is why no one blames her for ghosting after the death of their leader and her boyfriend, Jim. One year later, she decides to find out what really happened to him, so she joins the group for her former best friend’s, Whitley’s, birthday. It’s on the way home that things go off track — and the group ends up stuck in the Neverworld, where they must relive the same 11.2 hours over and over again until they, as a group of five, decide who gets to live while the rest must pass on into death. Only when they all have nothing left to lose do they truly get to the bottom of their friendship and what happened to Jim that awful night of senior year. 

I was quite taken by this book. Pessl is a hell of a writer and crafter of stories. I saw many parallels to Night Film and the themes that pull her to the words she puts on paper. Her crafting of this story was robust and fascinating, and she took this idea that has existed forever and a day — purgatory — and built off of it to create a sub-world that exists within a few seconds of wherenyou and I sit in the space-time continuum. It was mind-blowing at times, and I was in it to win it. Pessl has an incredible pull on me and it hurts so good. 

I am still trying to figure if I was surprised by the ending revelations or not, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is Pessl’s specialty. On one hand, they were surprising and on the other, they were in front of me the whole time. The hints that were laid down on the narrative path were like Hansel’s breadcrumbs, leading me back to where we started in a story-circle. No one is above blame, but sometimes degrees of blame matter. I often tell my students that it’s not always about what mistake you made, but how you go about fixing it that makes you who you are.

The characters were all interesting, but I was most fascinated by the relationship between Bee and Martha. Cold, distant Martha. You don’t quite figure out what she is up to until the end, and it doesn’t entirely make sense except that it does to her. It begs the question of whether or not the means justify the end, but that’s not for us to decide. It’s Martha who gets to make that choice within the four walls of the story. It made for a compelling read, one that I found myself going back to for even just a few seconds if I could. What a journey it was. I’m still puzzling over some of the details, particularly the ones that come to light in the last chapter, but I also have to be accepting that I will never know the answer. 

Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder

Could this be the best Ann Rule book out there? Possibly. Every Breath You Take: A True Story of Obsession, Revenge, and Murder was hands-down mind-boggling.

Sheila Blackthorne Bellush lived though literal hell with her husband, Allen Blackthorne. Physical abuse coupled with emotional and verbal abuse, affecting not just Sheila but their two daughters, Stevie and Daryl. When Sheila finally is able to take her daughters and leave, Allen continuously hunts them down and makes their lives as miserable as possible. As he becomes a multimillionaire, he nickels and dimes his third ex-wife to keep her in poverty. When Sheila meets Jamie, they build a family together that involves not just her daughters but quadruplets. After enough threats from Allen, the Bellushes pack up their home and escape to Florida in the dead of night. No one knows where they are -- or do they? What Allen wants, Allen gets, even if is the murder of his ex-wife as a form of power.

This may rank up near the top on my list of Ann Rule full-length narrative non-fictions. Not only is the story absolutely bat-shit crazy, but Rule was able to follow the court case closely and put it all in this book. It's actually one of the pieces that I like least about this book -- the last whole half being the arrest of the killers and the trials of them all -- but the first half which tells the story of Allen, of Sheila, and of the events leading up to Sheila's brutal murder were some of the most riveting I have read out of Ann Rule. That's saying a lot, as you know I am a fan. I tried to search for where the Blackthorne/Bellushes are now, but it's surprisingly hard to find.

Sheila was Allen's third wife (although he told her that she was his second), and Blackthorne wasn't their last name when they married; it was Van Houte. Allen changed it after what is a long, winding road of hustling and cheating and moving and shaking. You see what is coming; Allen's treatment of his first two wives was a huge warning side to us readers, and it's a damned shame that Sheila didn't know about it beforehand. Although, I know well that when a woman is in love, very few will be able to get through to her about this kind of thing. Allen cheated and used Sheila's parents, pushing them into debt, and Sheila still stuck by her man. I wanted to scream at her across the miles and the years to run, but she wouldn't have heard me.

The details of the murder are gory and heartbreaking, especially because it was in front of her four babies. I wish for her that her relationship with her younger daughter from her first marriage, Daryl, had been better when she was killed, but Allen was to thank for that. No matter how much I understand about sociopaths, I am always still so surprised at the damage they can cause. Allen was clearly one; he didn't care who he hurt how badly or how often, as long as he kept his perceived power. It's not a surprise that he was eventually convicted, since we know that's how Rule's stories go, but it was still nutty. 

The Dark Lake: A Novel

I had this juicy thriller on my TBR bookshelf for a while, and I picked it up for some early summer reading by the pool. How indulgent it was, The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey. 

Gemma Woodstock grew up in Smithson and has settled there as an adult, becoming a police officer and having a son with her partner. One day, right before Christmas, she is called to the scene of a murder involving one of her high school classmates behind that very school following the school play. Gemma tells everyone that she barely knew Rosalind Ryan and that it won't affect her ability to investigate the murder. But just like Rosalind, Gemma is full of secrets that she can't reveal, including her affair with her work partner, Felix and the true cause of the suicide of her high school sweetheart in their final year of school. When the case gets personal and Gemma feels her sanity slipping, she begins to wonder if she will ever solve the case and move on with her life, in every way.

I quite enjoyed this story and found it to hit the sweet spot of murder and mayhem with a good story twist. Gemma was an interesting character whom I felt could have been been fleshed out more in terms of character arc. Rosalind came across as subhuman in the way that only the recently deceased can be -- perfect, angelic, beyond beautiful, mysterious. You know. I did find that the story arc was interesting and kept me wanting to find out exactly who killed the woman.

There was a lot going on in this story, and underneath the big story line of Rosalind's murder were several minor story lines, some of which had to do with the big one and some that didn't. If you don't like spoilers, stop here and pick up the book. Otherwise...

The story line that didn't have anything to do with the murder was Gemma's affair with Felix and the difficulty she is having at home with her partner and father of her child, Ben. It was a plot piece that I think was meant to humanize Gemma while also providing us with the characteristic of hardheartedness, but instead I felt that it took away from the task at hand, which was Gemma's relationship to Rosalind and her willingness to take on the murder investigation while there is a connection that is foreshadowed throughout the book. I am having a hard time reconciling this plot point with the main thrust of the book. The other story line that was only tangentially related to the murder was that Rosalind's father was not who she thought it was. We find out who it was, but it feels as though it was an unnecessary piece of the story that muddied up the point of the story.

The personal connection that Gemma has to Rosalind is her high school sweetheart, who broke up with her to date Rosalind. This is connected to the murder (and no, Gemma didn't do it), but it ends up being convoluted and the ending comes upon us quickly. It left me feeling like the story was quite incomplete, as in 50 pages the murder is quickly solved with a slight threat to Gemma, her affair ends abruptly because she pushes Felix too far, and Gemma comes to grips with her past. I would have been much happier with the story if it had chosen a path and stuck with it instead of trying to trail-jump all over the mountain. 

The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race

I picked up Sara Barron's The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race forever and a day ago, and I finally dove into it while nursing this past summer, and it fit the bill better than any other book I read during that time. I was up at all hours of the night and found that I could only read comedic work. Voila!

This collection of essays explores Barron's world all the way from her childhood and high school experience as a mall worker and hopeful lesbian-wannabe to a college student who cannot handle alcohol but still wants to be a druggie to an adult who desperately wants to adult but still ends up being asked to give business advice on being an escort to her dream man on what she thought was a date. Barron's crazy life is our essay-reading pleasure.

Laugh out loud, snortingly funny. That's how I felt about this book approximately halfway through. I found Barron's wry sense of humor to be absolutely amazing, and I was so grateful for these stories when they came into my world. Barron doesn't take herself too seriously (except for when she does, to our comedic reading pleasure), and her willingness to just simply be herself is a gold mine for us. The time that she strutted down a NYC street feeling like she was the shit while farting is amazing. Her desperate desire to be a lesbian for the cache is wonderfully hilarious. Her dating life sounded suspiciously like mine for the majority of my adulthood.

All of this to say, it felt like I had a spirit animal in Sara Barron. My stories are definitely not as good as hers, but I felt a kinship of epic proportions through her writing. As a younger version of herself she wanted to be something, even if she didn't know what that thing specifically was. She is so easy to relate to if you have ever been young, single, and making mistakes as you find yourself. She is also easy to relate to as someone who just wants to find herself and bases those searches on what she thinks she needs to be rather than who she is. I get that, and I got this book. It was hilarious, and I regret nothing. (Except maybe those fake glasses in fifth grade.)

Alternate Side: A Novel

Anna Quindlen's Alternate Side popped out at me because I both enjoy the author's work and the premise of a sinister event taking over a neighborhood block interested me.

Nora Nolan has lived on the same block for a decade and a half, and her children are now off to college. Her husband constantly wants to leave the city but she is a New Yorker down to her bones. They could sell their home for a pretty penny, but they have a hamlet in Manhattan that cushions them from the outside world while providing a sense of calm in the midst of the New York City storm. Everyone knows each other, even if they don't necessarily like each other, and life is good in stasis. That is, until an act of violence shatters their neighborhood milieu and pits neighbor against neighbor in a fight in who is right, who is wrong, and who can forget the actions of others.

Being a New Yorker while reading a book where New York is a character in the story is always an interesting phenomenon. On one hand, I can relate totally to all of the characters in different ways, while at the same time being completely jealous of fictional characters who had the good sense to purchase a home on a developing block early enough that they could have a brownstone. (Yeah -- I absolutely have property envy of fictional characters and I'm not ashamed to admit it.) I found that each of these characters portrayed in this book are people I have either known or run into in my decade plus here in the city -- the New Yorker down to her bones, the man who can't wait to move out of the city, the annoying neighbor who feels he owns the block, the older woman across the street who has more class in her pinkie than anyone else has in their whole bodies combined. I even knew Ricky, the handyman with a good heart and a life that no one cares to get to know. Quindlen has a knack for creating characters with full and intriguing arcs, and that was definitely a highlight in this novel.

I found this book to be quite a good read if a bit repetitive at times. By the middle of the book you get that Nora has always dreamed of living in NYC and nowhere else, and by the third or fourth time I read that missive, I wanted to yell, "I KNOW THAT NORA BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I AM TWO DECADES YOUNGER THAN YOU AND GOT OVER IT YOU CAN TOO." The build up to the violent act that rocks the neighborhood was a little overwrought; I was expecting something a bit bigger than what actually happened. I'm not discounting the events, because what happened has a lot of classist and racist undertones and is a hot topic in 2018, but I was expecting something more murder and mayhem-y in the way the blurbs were set up.

This was a lovely read that was thoughtful in so many ways. One thing I have been thinking on for days after finishing the book is marriage, love, and why we choose our partners. A marriage's demise is always due to many factors, and there is no explaining how one couple can stay together when they seem to be either one or two horrible people and another couple can fall apart when they seem so right for each other. The big theme that came out of this book is that marriages aren't always what they seem, and they serve different purposes for different people. It was an interesting and thoughtful theme, and well worth contemplating long after finishing this book. 

The Favorite Sister: A Novel

Just last month I posted about Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive, and I mentioned that I was looking forward to her new book. Well, here we are! It's The Favorite Sister, out this week.

Goal Diggers is a popular reality television show featuring five women who will fight their way to the top at all costs. People tune in for catfights and sure, also for the feminism. You get what you pay for, you know? Brett is the producer's darling, the lesbian do-gooder whose scrappy beginnings are ratings gold. It also doesn't hurt that her feud with cast mate Stephanie, an author of a series of bestselling books with a new memoir of her surviving an abusive relationship, will be ratings gold. When Brett's sister and business partner Kelly joins the cast, and secrets that the five women hoped to keep secret start coming out in the press, the season goes off the rails and not everyone will get out alive. Literally.

Knoll's books are incredibly entertaining, and I think that she is entering into my world as one of my favorite writers. Her work is a little off in a world that may not be entirely realistic, and I love it. She writes about worlds that I don't live in, and I love that she brings to the page such full-bodied characters in worlds that I would never want to live in. It's really fantastic, and it makes for an engaging and (dare I say?) riveting story. Her build up to climax in this book is amazing, and she did the same thing in Luckiest Girl, but these books are not alike in terms of content. They both tell compelling, full stories that don't have any content overlap. I'm crazy impressed.

We know at the beginning that Brett is dead and her sister, Kelly, is playing the grieving sister. We know the who and the what, but we don't know the when, the where, they why, and the how. As Knoll reveals the details of the plot throughout the book, I found myself gripping my Kindle harder and harder and ignoring people more and more as we got down to business. She has this way of storytelling that peels away layers like an onion and it's amazing. She always reveals just enough to keep you moving on to the next chapter even when you need to go the &^%$ to bed because you have to work in the morning. (Not that I'm speaking from personal experience...) She makes it hurt so good because she knows how to tell you just enough to keep you flipping the page but not enough that you can figure out what's going to happen next until it's too damned late.

Another reason why Knoll is poking her way into my favorites list is her ability to create horrible, nasty female characters that I find myself loving in spite of myself. This is a true compliment, because it's hard to create horrible people that are so unlikable yet you can't stop thinking about. (I am reminded here of Amy in Gone Girl). It takes a sharp writing hand to be able to create characters like this, and that she can do this with women that are strong and principled (in their own, fucked up way) is just incredible. It reminds me of this:

Hats off to this lady who can write.

I don't want to give away too much, so I will end here and encourage you to pick up this book yourself. It's the beach read you are looking for.

Educated: A Memoir

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover stood out to me as it was an interesting premise: a young woman, raised in a survivalist family in Idaho with no formal education, fights her way to college and graduate school to become a historian. This memoir went way beyond that and became a beautiful story of love, loyalty, and self-discovery. 

Tara was the youngest of seven children, born to a fundamentalist Mormon family who did not believe in formal education. More than that, her father believed that the End of Days was coming, and he had his family preparing to outlast everyone on their mountain, isolated from neighbors, family, and friends. Their income came from the junkyard on their property, and her father spent hours on end rambling about the evils of the Government (capitalization intentional) and the gentiles, whom he defined as everyone but those who lived their faith according to his principles, including his fellow Mormons. When Tara follows in her brother's footsteps to BYU, she suffers from severe culture shock, and she must find her own place and her own way -- not just that of her father. 

This story is incredible, and not just for the sheltered-girl-makes-good story. At its heart, Tara's story is an achievement in self-study that follows her journey from an impressionable child who desperately believes her father's rantings against the evils of the world to an adult who has to find the answers to her questions herself. She has to face her past, which is her family, in the harshest light possible, and she has to make a decision between caring for herself and her own well-being or being a member of her family. It's heartbreaking, and in this story, you watch as her siblings all have to make this decision for themselves. The self-delusion that some family members live in is almost unbelievable, until you realize that we all have people who live in this state even if it is not nearly as extreme as a survivalist mentality. Tara tells of sitting in an undergraduate psychology class and hearing the symptoms for bipolar disorder and realizing that her father is a textbook case. It's not the first time that she begins questioning her upbringing, but it is a defining moment in her relationship with her parents. My heart hurt for her as she laid out her process of coming to grips with the differences between her and those who raised her. 

However, even if this story was just about Tara's work to overcome the odds stacked against her, that would have been amazing. Just her ability to be self-sufficient in terms of reviewing for the ACT on her own, and her seeking help with trigonometry from her brother, was amazing. It was enough to make me wonder if I could have that kind of drive. It's mind boggling that her father would give credit to their "home school," as there was next to no schooling that actually took place. Her family was not set up to succeed, from her father's rantings to her mother's capitulation, from their distrust of modern medicine to a fear of paperwork and schooling, Tara's success was just astounding, and the fact that she, along with two of her brothers, earned Ph.D.'s is amazing, and I applaud them. I know how hard this is. 

The most important part of Tara's story, to me, was her ability to come to grips with the abuse she suffered as a child and a young adult at the hands of her older brother. She calls him Shawn in this book, and he was incredibly violent to Tara, and later we discover many other girls, over a course of decades. I was expecting sexual abuse to come to light at some point, but that was not the case. He spent his time tormenting his sisters, girlfriends, and desired paramours. It's difficult to read, because you want to scream at the girls in the book to run as fast as they can. When one girl turns to Tara and tells her that God has provided Shawn with the ability to "fix" girls through violence, and that he is annointed, it's shocking. I was taken aback that someone could be so enmeshed in their faith that they would accept predicted violence to be God's will. I know it happens, but reading it so starkly was affecting.

Tara's writing is also lovely. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she writes that she studied short stories to figure out how to write for a general audience, and that she structured her chapters like short stories. The effect was beautiful, and the book was affecting and meaningful. I'm grateful that I was able to be a part of her journey as a reader of her story, and I look forward to hearing what the future offers her. 

You Think It, I'll Say It: Stories

Curtis Sittenfeld is a darling in my eyes (her writing, I mean...I haven't actually met her, although I have no doubt she is lovely). I requested a review copy of her new book of short stories, You Think It, I'll Say It, with high hopes. I was not disappointed.

A newly single woman attends an academic conference only to make a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time. A happily married woman decides to have an affair with a family friend. A college student chooses a new friend unwisely. A new mom experiences the superiority of the perfectly coiffed pregnant goddess in her yoga class. An emotionally distant man enjoys single life save for the one secret woman he electronically communicates with about their shared love of classical music. A former magazine writer takes her new baby across the country with her to interview a celebrity, only to realize that her old dreams don't fit with her new life. A married mother despises the celebrity chef who used to sleep with her at camp years ago, who knows a secret that she longs to share with the world.

Short stories are hit and miss with me. Sometimes they miss the mark; sometimes they are absolutely everything. I have found that I particularly prefer female short story writers, and Sittenfeld fits into this mold. I was completely taken with this lot of stories and Sittenfeld's ever changing literary voice. She has a knack for finding the exact tone for her characters regardless of their age or gender, and it took practically no time for me to completely buy in to the plots of the individual stories. Reading her work was like eating a lemon cake with buttercream frosting -- it was light enough that I could eat three pieces, but rich enough that I could savor every bite while wondering how on earth something could taste so good. (This is also one of my highest complements, as this dessert combination is my life.)

There is so much I want to talk to you about each individual story, but I don't want to give you any spoilers because it's such a lovely book that you need to read it yourself. I found myself laughing out loud because Sittenfeld knows people at their basest human needs and desires, and she writes her characters and her stories to evoke this understanding. I think that's what makes her writing so accessible while still being something that you feel pleased to be given. There is a twist at the end of "The Prairie Wife," the story of the celebrity chef, that is so subtle that it was solidly brilliant. Not just good -- seamless. I found myself enraptured by "Off the Record," and the journalist who goes to interview a now-famous actress for a second time only to find herself with leaking boobs and losing the scoop. In "Volunteers Are Shining Stars," I loved the narrator although she was a terribly unlikable person. It was astounding, really, that I pulled for her even as she is jealously trying to ruin another person.

I often can't decide whether or not I like having an end to my short stories, because I love the ambiguity of a lack of ending but at the same time I want to punch someone for not knowing what happens to the characters. The most incredible part of Sittenfeld's stories was that I never got an official ending to anyone's story, but ultimately it doesn't matter because it was clear to me that I was just taking a small peek into these characters' lives for a small snippet of time. Even though I felt that I knew them deeply and intimately by the time I was halfway through their snippets, it didn't matter that I would never know what came before and what would come next. It reminds me of the question we ask in so many ways for so many reasons -- what makes today different than any other day? Sittenfeld takes just a moment from these lives and gives it to us to tell us why today is different than any other day in their lives, and their lives only. So when the stories end, they just end. I didn't feel like I needed more -- I finished very satisfied -- but by no means were ends wrapped up. Their lives would move on, and I will meet them again someday. (Right? RIGHT, CURTIS?)

Sittenfeld is one hell of a short story writer, and I would love to see more of this out of her. I love the rest of her work as well, and I may actually pull Prep now to read it earlier than I had planned, but I think this may very well be my favorite piece of her work. I'm completely blown away and in love with this collection. 

Bleachers: A Novel

This is a departure from my usual John Grisham fare. I'm keeping a list of his books, or a bookology if you will, and I'm coming down to the wire of things I haven't read yet. This is his heartwarming coming of age novel, Bleachers.

Neely Crenshaw was not just the star quarterback of his high school football team; he was a town legend -- an All-American who went on to play college ball before ending his career with an injury. However, something happened his senior year that alienated him from his beloved coach and town celebrity, Coach Rake. When we'd gets out that Rake is dying, his former Spartans converge on their home terf to hold vigil and remember their glory days. 

This was a sweet book that was a quick read. It is a different genre than most of us are familiar with when it comes to Grisham, and it was an enjoyable one. The story was part coming of age, part reminiscent novel, and it told a story that was relatable and felt quite classic. For those who grew up in small towns, or in areas where football reigned king (I'm looking at you, Southerners!), the nostalgia will ring heavy and true to you. 

The last quarter of the book is very technical; it consists of the past players reliving one final game, play by play, and I will be upfront in saying that I glossed over these passages. I love college football like any good SEC school graduate, but it wasn't up my alley in a relaxing novel. Other than these sections, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as it's a lovely summer/beach read for those in the mood for some light, sweet fare. 

The Family Next Door: A Novel

I requested a copy of Sally Hepworth's The Family Next Door because I was intrigued by the premise of a series of lies all coming together to a blow up finale. Call me a Liane Moriarity junkie, and I will agree. (Don't fret everyone, for reference, this book was compared to her work in the promo.)

Pleasant Court in Melbourne is a sleepy street where not much happens except the occasional child injury. Except what happens behind closed doors is always more salacious than anyone will let on. Fran and her husband have dealt with their fair share of ups and downs in the recent births of their two children. Ange spends an ungodly amount of time trying to portray the perfect life on social media with her husband and two boys. Essie and her family are trying to forget about her episode of post-partum depression after her first child and secretly guarding against it happening with their second. Thank goodness her mother lives just next door. When Isabelle moves in to a rental on the street, her urban glamour intrigues everyone, not the least of which features Essie. As the heat builds, both literally and figuratively, everyone's lives will come to a head as secrets come to light and families are changed.

This review takes two positions: the first is that the book itself is a little outlandish, and the second is that it was a fun read. I was reminded repeatedly of Big Little Lies, which, as I mentioned earlier in the post, shouldn't surprise anyone since the promotion for this book compared this book to her work. I'll start with the first statement so we can hurry up and get to why this book was a fun read.

I was into this book for a good long while, because Hepworth does a great job of creating interesting characters. Ange was insufferable in that way that you enjoy reading her and hating her all at the same time. We all know people like this in our lives, women who go out of their way to portray a perfect life on social media when you know your kid blows out his diaper just like mine. It's completely insufferable, and you can easily spot an Ange a mile away. Like, really, we aren't stupid. I dropped most of these people on social media during the Great Unfriending of 2016, but I still have a couple on my feed. I really felt for Fran and the difficulties in her marriage, as that was so easy to relate to. Essie fascinated me, and I wanted to get to the bottom of her issues. Isabelle was intriguing. So it's fair to say I was captivated by the characters, and their husbands too.

The story just went a little off the rails when we get to the crux of why Isabelle moved to Pleasant Court. It absolutely was not what I was expecting, I'll give the author that. It was a surprise, because it looks like Hepworth is leaning left and then she spins right. I liked that. However, once the motives are revealed, the story took a turn for the unrealistic in an eye-rolling way. I don't want to give anything away, because I think the book is definitely worth a read for the fun of it, but it's fair to say that the explosiveness of the revelation was downplayed by the melodramatic plot bits.

Back to the good parts of this book. I mentioned the characters earlier, and I think that the strong and intriguing character development is Hepworth's strength. I also loved the suspense that Hepworth was able to bring to the story, as it kept me intrigued enough to grab my Kindle and read that instead of the hard copy books I keep at my bedside. (I use my Kindle for commuting and don't often read it at home, so it's a testament to the intrigue that I wanted to read this book instead of one just an arm's reach away.) The intrigue is what kept me coming back and pushed me through to the end, and that's why I would recommend this book. It was exactly what I needed in the middle of an edit for my (very emotionally heavy) dissertation -- a bit of intrigue, a dash of character love, and a whole lot of page turning.