Saturday, October 25, 2014

U is for Undertow


Sue Grafton - U is for Undertow
The first Alphabet Series mystery featuring Kinsely Milhone  (‘A is for Alibi’) was written 27 years prior to this book.  For obvious reasons, the main character ages a lot more slowly, so by the time we get to this book (the 21st), our hero has only aged about five years and is living in 1988.  The downside to this is that it must be awfully hard for Sue Grafton to find new things to write about when fleshing out the life of Kinsey.  It doesn’t help when the character is a bit of a loner and an introvert.
What Sue Grafton starting doing a few books ago, was to tell these stories a bit differently.  In addition to seeing the world through the eyes of Kinsey, we’re allowed to visit other scenes with other characters that were told in third person.  Some of scenes happen decades ago.  This can be confusing to some of the faithful, especially those who aren’t a big fan of change.  I find these diversions welcome, however, and as blasphemous as it may sound, I almost enjoy these third person scenes better than the familiar ones with Kinsey.  I guess I feel I already know Kinsey well enough to keep reading about Quarter Pounders and her black all-purpose dress over and over.
For this book, Kinsey is approached by a young man who is convinced that he witnessed a burial of a kidnapping victim by a couple of thugs.  Problem is, this alleged event happened about twenty years ago when this guy was only in Kindergarten.  It seems a bit of a stretch, but Kinsey does take on the case and she does start to slowly put some pieces together.  I wouldn’t think such as a task would be quite this easy in real life.  As mentioned, we’re allowed to go back in time to the 1960s when the kidnapping actually happened, and we witness, first hand, many of the main players.  I really enjoyed the book, but thought, in retrospect, that it did seem quite unbelievable.
Of course, Grafton (or maybe Kinsey?) still has a bad problem of being overly descriptive.  Many readers have complained (and I concur) that these stories simply have too much detail when describing the scenery, the food, the color of the person’s hair, the shape of the person’s lips, and on and on and on.  Grafton could easily cut about 25% of the book without all of these unnecessary details.  Then, we still read about Kinsey’s everyday activities, regardless of whether or not they have anything to do with the case being solved.  I get a little tired of the 95 year old landlord, the Hungarian owner of the restaurant, the ever present failed romances, etc. etc.
This book takes us on a side detour of Kinsey’s long lost relatives (who, not surprisingly, she doesn’t really want any contact with) that she has only recently discovered.  It seems as though Kinsey was raised by an Aunt after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was about five years old.  For years, her Aunt was her only relative that she knew still existed.  So a lot of unnecessary drama in this area as well is featured within the pages.  Cut all of this out, and you could shave another 25%.
I’m guessing book publishers operate under the assumption that “more is better” and they can get more revenue from a 400 page book as opposed to a 200 page book, so the stories do seem a bit long.  It’s still a very, quick, enjoyable read however, and I applaud Grafton for taking a few new steps to try to keep things fresh.

Even though the story is a bit silly, I found the overall experience very enjoying and would recommend this book to all lovers of Kinsey Milhone.  As I’m writing this, Sue Grafton has written two newer Kinsey Milhone books that I have not read yet, and I’m hoping she continues with her new found method of story telling.

Winter of the World


Ken Follett - Winter of the World
Ken Follett is one of my very favorite authors.  I haven’t read anything by him in quite a while because, well, I’ve already read everything he’s written.  This is Book 2 of the “Century Trilogy”.  The book has actually been out for a couple of years, but I have been refusing to buy it because of the ridiculous expense (even the Kindle version seems abnormally high).  I finally snagged the e-version on sale for about six bucks.  I had read Book 1 about three years ago and was very impressed with it.  The downside for me is that three years is a long time, and I had essentially forgotten everything that happened in volume 1 except for 1) the majority of the story took place during World War I -and- 2) The book had four main plot lines, each one taking place in a different country of the major players of the First World War.
Well, fortunately, a photographic memory really isn’t necessary for this, the second installation.  Essentially, most of the major players in Book 1 have been relegated to supporting roles, and the many offspring of those characters have now assumed center stage.  And there are a lot of characters.  Fortunately, Follett includes a “Cast of Character” section at the beginning of the book since it’s very easy to get a bit lost within the +800 pages.  The author also does an admirable job of throwing in little snippets within the story to remind you of who the character is, what their background is, who they’re romantically smitten with, etc. etc.
We have four main stories, or “sets” of characters.  One in Russia, Germany, England, and the United States respectively.  All of them are affected by the Second World War in different ways, and even though we have four different locations, all of these characters are somehow “connected” to each other in some bizarre way, so the plots do nicely fit in with each other.
Like the first book, Follett is also attempting to give his readers a bit of a history lesson as well.  Our characters find themselves right in the thick of many of the major events leading up to, and during and after, World War II.  We find many of our main characters literally in the same rooms with Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt.  So, yes, at times the book seems a bit “Forrest Gump-ish”, but I never found it too much of a distraction most of the time.  Still, though, in an instance where we read about a couple going to Hawaii for a vacation in late 1941, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s about to happen to the poor couple.
This book covers the years 1933-1949, and even though it’s over 800 pages, it seemed a bit as though Follett was rushing through too much (which is a sign of great book, if you think about it).  I almost wish he would have fleshed this series out into more books and tell the story a bit slower.  I’m reminded of John Jakes “The Kent Chronicles” that warranted eight books.  Maybe Ken Follett simply didn’t have it in him to write that much, but I would have enjoyed reading more about these characters and their stories.  I almost felt like I was reading an abridged version of the different stories.  Ironically, the years after the war (1946-1949) he zooms by entirely too fast, and he mainly uses these years for all of the couples to miraculous give birth to several babies so we can have some protagonists for the third (and final) volume.  Even more ironic is that when I went back and read my review that I wrote for Book 1, I made the exact same observations in that volume for the Post World War I years.
The only complaint I have with this book, is that Ken Follett doesn’t know when to “shut up” during the sex scenes.  With all of these young lovers running around courting one another, there’s an awful lot of romance, yet Mr. Follett feels obliged to tell us what is going on inside the bedroom in nauseating, pornographic detail.  Some of the scenes within these pages would make Hugh Hefner gag.  I mean, he can get really, really disgusting.  Then, we have a scene where we see two (clandestine) homosexual lovers (there is a lot of homosexuality in this book) that are fighting for their country in the U.S. Navy, and they’re on a ship getting ready to do battle.  For some reason, the author feels obliged to say something stupid like “In addition to fighting for their country, they also loved the fact that they could watch other naked sailors taking showers”.  Or something like that.  Mr. Follett, is this really necessary??

So get past the pornography, and you really do have an excellent book here.  It’s not really even necessary to read Book 1, but I would recommend it.  Like this one, the first volume is outstanding as well.

Hell's Kitchen


Hell's Kitchen by Jeffery Deaver

This was the third, and final, installment of the “Location Scout” mysteries penned by Jeffery Deaver.  Actually, it was written under his pseudonym “William Jefferies” for whatever reason.  These books by Deaver aren’t as strong as most of his latter day thrillers, particularly the Lincoln Rhyme stories.  In these books, the protagonist is John Pellam, a veteran of many Hollywood productions, mostly as a stunt man.  Being a stunt man takes Pellam all over the country, so such settings for a mystery can always be fresh.
In this book, Pellam is venturing out on his own, so to speak, and is producing a documentary on the famed Hell’s Kitchen in West Manhattan.  Hell’s Kitchen, at least during the time this book was written, is not a happy place.  A lot of crime, drugs, crack mothers, and overworked social workers.  As the story opens, Pellam is on his way to continue a series of interviews with 70 year old Ettie Washington, a longtime resident of Hell’s Kitchen, when her building explodes in an inferno just as Pellam is walking up the stairs.  Both Pellam and Washington survive, and Pellam spends the book searching for the reason of the fire, trying to pinpoint the guilty party.
It won’t be easy.  Apparently the investigators think 70 year old Washington was responsible, so she’s quickly arrested and hauled away.  They don’t think she actually started the inferno, yet paid a professional whacked-out arsonist.  It seems the arsonist is continuing to strike all over Manhattan, so the authorities want Washington to confess, and talk about what she knows.   This way,  they can locate this loon before he can do too much more damage.  Of course, Pellam believes she’s innocent, so he spends this entire story being harassed by authorities since he’s “friends” with the woman, in addition to uncovering clues within this dangerous environment.
What I never figured out was: if this deranged arsonist/nut is running around picking random targets to incinerate, why do the authorities believe that he was paid by a 70 year old impoverished woman to start the first one?  Couldn’t the original fire been a random target as well?  And it seems a bit far fetched that a 70 year old woman whose lived here her entire life would be a person who could be considered a serious accomplice.  This was a big strike against this book for me.
So Pellam plows through the streets, talking to all sorts of undesirables and putting himself in harm’s way in many occasions.  These thugs don’t like strangers coming into their territory asking a lot of questions.  Since Pellam is a professional stunt man, he knows how to handle a weapon and defend himself pretty well, and he does have somewhat of a motivation.  He’s not exactly well off in the finance deparment, and he’s put a lot of his own money into this documentary, so if his star subject goes to prison, it doesn’t exactly make his product very marketable.
So we see him going from place to place within Hell’s Kitchen, and every environment that he’s visits is horribly dirty and disgusting.  This book almost makes you want to take a bath after reading.  As Deaver usually does, though, he introduces a lot of different characters, a lot of plot twists, and you’re never quite sure where he’s going.  He manages to fool and/or surprise the reader quite frequently so it does make the book a good read.  I just wish the location had been a bit more desirable - along with the main plot.  I’ll also say that Hell’s Kitchen is, in fact, a real place, but due to gentrification and the overall improvement of Midtown Manhattan, it’s not nearly the hell hole it once was.  Visitors to the Big Apple shouldn’t be too scared.   

This was my second of the three “Location Scout” books.  As much as I like Jeffery Deaver, I’m kind of hoping that we’ve seen the last of them.  They’re really not bad, it’s just that Deaver can, and has, done much better.