Faces of the Gone by Brad Parks

Brad Parks is visiting our libraries today and tomorrow, along with Mystery authors Deborah Coonts and Nancy Martin.

Four people were shot dead execution style in a vacant lot in Newark, NJ and Carter Ross, an investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner, wants to know why. The local police say it’s a revenge killing for robbery gone wrong at the bar across the street. Carter’s sources are telling him that the police have got it all wrong, but who will believe a homeless guy or a go-go dancer? There has to be some other connection between the four victims, but what is it?

Wanda was a single mom with four kids who worked as also worked as a go-go dancer to pay the bills. Tyrone Scott, AKA ‘Hundred Year’, had recently been released from prison and may or may not have been in a gang. Shareef Thomas was the alleged robber of the tavern and the “reason” in the minds of the cops for the murders. Devin Whitehead, AKA Dee-Dub, was a young man also believed to be in a gang, but the Brick City Brown gang, who operated on the other side of town from the murder site. What could tie these four individuals together? Carter is determined to discover the truth about these four brutal murders, no matter what the cost.

Faces of the Gone is a fast paced mystery that reads like a thriller. The rapid fire story takes place both in the gritty streets of Newark as well the newsroom of the Newark Eagle-Examiner. It is the first in the Carter Ross mystery series – followed by Eyes of the Innocent – and is a perfect read for a lazy day at the beach or the pool.

Brad Parks will be appearing along with Deborah Coonts and Nancy Martin today: Friday May 31, 2013 at 2 p.m. at the North Regional Library in Raleigh, and Saturday June 1, 2013 at 2:30 p.m. at the West Regional Library in Cary.

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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I’m not a huge baseball fan. I mean, I like to have a beer and eat a hot dog as much as the next person (potentially a little more, even) but in terms of watching the game… eh. I realize this is a little un-American to say, but our nation’s pastime can get kind of boring. At least, that’s what I thought until I read Chad Harbach’s debut novel, The Art of Fielding.

Henry Skrimshander was heading nowhere. Literally, he wasn’t going anywhere – born and raised in a mid-sized town in South Dakota, it was looking like he’d be there for a while, until the day that his summer baseball team played against (and lost to) Mike Schwartz’s team. This was the summer after high school had ended for Henry, and he was thinking of settling in at the local community college for a few years, until… what? All he’d ever wanted to do with life was play baseball.

Mike Schwartz, rising sophomore and catcher for the Westish College Harpooners, knew raw talent when he saw it, and see it he did. Suddenly, Henry was on his way to play college ball for Westish, leaving behind a life of working in his father’s metalworking shop or taking classes in bookkeeping to cobble together a career.

Once at Westish, the Harpooners become Henry’s life. Between his jock-friendly classes, team practices, his bench warmer roommate Owen, and Mike’s training regimen, Henry is immersed in baseball, and he thrives in it. By junior year, the recruiters are already hanging on the fences at Harpooners games, waiting to see if Henry can break his hero Aparicio Rodriguez’s record of most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop. As the pressure begins to mount, Henry begins to fail.

It starts with a bad throw made worse by a little bit of wind, and goes downhill from there. Harbach follows Henry’s descent into depression as his confidence is broken and his playing deteriorates rapidly. As the life that Henry has been working towards starts slipping through his fingers, he pulls away from Mike and all that he has held important.

The story is told through a variety of characters, each filling in different holes of the story as it goes forward. Henry, Mike, Owen, Westish College’s President Guert Affenlight, and his estranged daughter Pella, all make up the narrative voice of the story. This was a delightful debut novel. If Harbach can make me care about baseball, I’d like to see more of what he can do.”

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The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

When Patrick Peoples leaves a neural health facility in Baltimore, he believes that he has spent a few months there. In reality, he has been in the psychiatric ward for four years.

But reality and Pat do not really get along. So now, he is living in the basement of his parent’s home, being part of a movie directed by none other than God. And God will – naturally – provide an awe-inspiring and uplifting ending. Pat is convinced that this will include the end of “apart time,” and his reunification with Nikki, the woman he married… some time ago.

Now, Pat may not be completely sane, but the world at large isn’t entirely rational either. Pat’s friends are convinced that he has cursed the beloved Philadelphia Eagles when he stops watching their games; Eagles fans taunt former Philadelphia player Terrell Owens who might be in the midst of a severe depression; his friend Danny – who for a long time didn’t talk at all – speaks to the dices when they play Parcheesi; his therapist seems to recommend adultery; his father goes through serious mood swings – sometimes because of the way Eagles play, sometimes, well, who knows why? – and then there is Tiffany, a strange bird who follows him whenever and wherever he is running. Is she scouting him, or what?

While Pat is looking up at clouds, constantly finding silver linings, he is haunted by what he has lost and his archenemy, Kenny G, the musician, who has the ability to show up everywhere, and Pat’s road to recovery is filled with “episodes” and setbacks.  But when things go wrong, he insists that this is how movies work and just before the happy ending there will be complications.

Will Pat get to experience the end of “apart time” and then watch the credits of his movie roll after a feel-good ending? Read and find out.

The film version of this debut novel has just been nominated for several major Academy Awards.  Click here to find out which ones.

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Best New Books in 2012: Amy W.’s Picks

This year was a great year for books! I am pretty sure I say that every year. I read anything and sometimes everything. I don’t really have a favorite genre or type of book; however, there are a couple of qualities that make me a happy reader. I love a sassy character that can role with the punches. Many times these characters become my friends (ok, that is probably just a little sad) and I find myself reflecting on the fun times we had together. I also love books that are sparsely written in which every exacting word creates layers of meaning. These sentences are like tiny, savory poems read again and again until I am sated. My favorite books this year share at least one if not both of these qualities.
Drum roll please! Here are my favorite new books published in 2012:  – Amy W.

We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen  
We Sinners follows each member of the twelve member Rovaniemi family in the day to day struggles with a life as part of the Laestadian sect of Lutheran Church. When two siblings fall prey to the temptations of popular culture, everyone reacts, and the author gives us each family member’s perspective. Delicately written, We Sinners explores the need to be at peace with the world, with our community, with our family and with ourselves.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed
Tiny Beautiful Things is a collection of letters written to the online advice column Dear Sugar. Look, these letters aren’t pretty; they are depressing and this book is tough to read cover to cover. What is beautiful is the advice Sugar (Cheryl Strayed) gives them. It is not enough to say her advice is from the heart, rather from the often dark depths of her also difficult life, artfully crafted into a gift.

Tell the Wolves I Am Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
It is 1987 and fourteen year old June grieves for her Uncle Finn, the only member of her family with whom she truly connected,  who passed away after a mysterious illness. Everyone is privately grieving for Finn. Left to her own devices, June sets out to discover the real Finn. What she discovers changes everything and changes nothing in this wonderful debut novel.

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
Myfanwy Thomas (pronounced Miffany, according to the author) wakes up in the rain surrounded by dead bodies and she has amnesia. No longer tethered to her former personality, Myfanwy cracks wise and tries to solve the mystery of her existence while defending Britannia from supernatural threats. The Rook is a fun genre-bending page turner! Don’t just take my word for it, though, see what my colleague Dan wrote about this debut novel earlier this year.

Where’d You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple
Bernadette Fox , the mysterious wife of a Microsoft elite engineer and mother to insightful 15 year old Bee, is missing. Bernadette is no longer able to meet demands of that life, in fact, unless you want a mud slide crashing through your house or to live in decrepitude while your living space is consumed by the earth, you should probably stay out of her way. This book is hilarious as Bernadette expounds on the absurdity of happy homemaker. Told through emails, letters and faxes, this is book is fun to read or to listen to as an audio book.

By the way, my absolute favorite book of 2012 is The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. It seems my co-workers agree with me – Pam W. and added it to her top 5 of 2012, and Janet L. reviewed it earlier this year. Great minds think, and read, alike!

The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith

Geiger is a strange man with a special talent. The protagonist of Mark Allen Smith’s initial novel only goes by one name, Geiger. His special talent is that he is able to tell if a person is telling the truth. He is hired by alleged good guys and bad guys alike to extract information. Each customer is referred to as “the client”  and each victim is called “the Jones”. Geiger will use techniques that certainly would be defined as torture, but he doesn’t kill them. His rival in the information game is a man named Dalton who has no compunction if the victim ends up dead … as long as the necessary information has been obtained.

Geiger has no clear recollection of his youth or how he came to have this special talent. He is, however, working with a psychiatrist to see if he can unlock his past. Parts of his past come back to him in flashes after he suffers severe migraine headaches. He also has an assistant, Harry Boddicker, who brings “the Jones” to him. Now he is facing the biggest challenge of his career. The person to be interrogated has disappeared and he is asked to obtain information from the man’s 12-year-old son, Ezra.

Geiger has never harmed a child, and he is not going to start now! He carefully plans his escape, and though he is still interested in the information needed from the father, he plans to return the son to his mother. And now the game begins as Geiger must escape from the agents of “the client” ….. a man called Hall. Slowly Geiger comes to realize that this assignment feels like a government operation, and he must be able to stay one step ahead of Hall and his compatriots.

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Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Imagine heading out for a run, following the same route you’ve traveled for years. Yet you suddenly, inexplicably, realize you’re lost – none of the landmarks you’re passing look familiar. This is how Still Alice by Lisa Genova begins.

Alice, a renowned Harvard professor and researcher of cognitive psychology learns she has early-onset Alzheimer’s. The story unfolds from Alice’s perspective, chronicling her gradual decline. Life as she, her family, and her colleagues know it is unraveling, slowly but surely. Slowly, she loses the ability to perform her job, to navigate her way home, to carry on a conversation. As she struggles to understand the eventualities of her diagnoses, Alice also searches for ways to make her experience less difficult, not only for herself, but also for her family. Though the end of the novel is known from the beginning, it’s one which keeps the reader turning the pages, often with tears.

What makes Still Alice remarkable is the first person narrative. As the reader, you experience the gradual descent into a foreign place, one where you are lost and terrified. As Alice’s disease progresses, slowed by medication but ultimately not halted, you find yourself confused at times – both by the lapse in time, as well as the events that preceded a chapter. This is entirely intentional on Genova’s part, and just one of the ways in which this book in nothing short of brilliantly crafted. Genova is a masterful writer who also happens to be a Harvard neuroscientist who has studied Alzheimer’s exhaustively. She is also the author of Left Neglected, and her upcoming book Love, Anthony is due to be released shortly. Still Alice reads as if it’s the memoir of an individual with Alzheimer’s – it is a book that will change the way you look at this disease forever. It is a beautiful, heart-breaking, terrifying book all rolled into one.

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Looking for Alaska by John Green

I’m in love with John Green. Or at least his writing. This was an amazing novel, and to think it was a debut is astounding. It may have been written with young adults in mind, but it surely should not be limited to them.

The Alaska referred to in the title is a person rather than a place. Alaska is unlike anyone Miles “Pudge” Halter has ever known. She’s smart, sexy, funny, wild, a bit self-destructive, and she doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. Pudge can use a few friends. He’s new to Culver Creek Boarding School, and between Alaska and Pudge’s roomate, The Colonel, he quickly figures out that he’s got a lot to learn. The group has a fine old time, testing their limits, until tragedy strikes, and Pudge finds he doesn’t even know much about himself.

He’s helped along in this endeavor by his history teacher, who, through religion, is helping the students find an answer to Simon Bolivar’s query “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” Exploring what that labyrinth is and how to extricate yourself from it, or even IF you should, was great fun with these well-written teens. Green’s teen characters are smart, sharp, funny people, and even in the face of unspeakable grief you will recognize them as being just like someone you know. Their struggle to deal with the trauma is an emotional roller coaster, and watching them grow as they get through it adds to the realism.

Don’t mistake this book for something you’ll cry all the way through. Okay, you might, but you’ll be laughing at the same time.

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Albert of Adelaide by Howard Anderson

Every once in a while, it’s nice to read something different, the type of book that one doesn’t usually read. Albert of Adelaide is decidedly different, and probably not like anything that most people usually read, because it is such an unusual novel. This debut novel is fun, full of adventure, and is about a platypus named Albert who escapes from the zoo in Adelaide and heads into the Australian outback looking for a place called “Old Australia.” Yup, that certainly sounds like a different kind of novel, but despite being different, it’s definitely still worthwhile.

That also happens to be one of the main lessons in this story – that just because someone is different, it doesn’t mean that they are bad. Albert’s journey brings him to an odd world with creatures who judge and mistrust him because he’s different from them. His early life was traumatic. His mother was attacked by a wild dingo when he was very young and Albert was captured and put in the Adelaide zoo. This is where he first hears rumors of a mythic and strange place called “Old Australia” where the many different species of animals live in peace and harmony. He was able to escape and hops a ride on the South Australian Railroad traveling north of Alice Springs to the outback.

Albert meets a wombat named Jack, who befriends him and teaches his some of the basics of survival in the desert. The two friends get into some trouble at a local pub and trading post when Albert gets very drunk and becomes very lucky at a game of chance. To escape Jack sets fire to the place and he and Albert are soon on the run with the kangaroo proprietor and other local animals posting wanted posters for Albert’s capture. Despite the fact that they’ve become good friends, Jack and Albert split up figuring it will be safer for each and Albert soon meets a new friend, TJ, a raccoon from California. Their friendship works well because they are both animals not native to the outback. Other creatures that Albert meets along his journey include two drunken bandicoots named Alvin and Roger, a mean and thieving pair consisting of a wallaby called Bertram and a possum named Theodore, assorted dingoes, and the Famous Muldoon, a Tasmanian devil. Muldoon and Jack were close friends and traveling companions once, but Jack’s pyromania led to their separation eight years ago.

Themes of friendship, revenge, survival, loss and self discovery are set against the backdrop of Albert’s journey across the outback desert. The story alternates between scenes of action (including many fight scenes and a huge shoot out at the end) and those of survival in the harsh environment and contemplation of life in a strange place among strange animals. In the end, Albert has come a very long way from where he started, both geographically and metaphysically.

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Greatest Hits: Jim the Boy by Tony Earley

This week we’re featuring some of our “greatest hits” – the most popular Book-a-Day blog posts since we started this almost three years ago. Today’s is Jim the Boy by Tony Earley, reviewed by Brandy H.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the “coming of age” theme in literature.  As readers we get to experience the thrill of a character doing something for the first time, often in a different time and place.  Jim Glass Jr. is one of those characters.  Tony Earley’s debut novel takes us back to rural North Carolina during the Great Depression. This is a period in American History that has always intrigued and haunted me. Back in college, as part of my museum studies class, I put together an exhibit of “New Deal” photographs. Those images strongly shaped my historical memory and to this day I often associate the 1930′s with dusty landscapes and hardscrabble children sitting in ramshackle houses.

Jim the Boy tells a different, gentler, story of that time, one in which families lived and worked together and happiness was often found in the small things. I found myself having a bit of nostalgia for a simpler time in America.  The central character Jim lives with his widowed mother and three bachelor uncles on a farm in rural Aliceville, North Carolina. It’s 1934 and times are tough, but the family gets by with hard work and much love.  Jim experiences all the basics of growing up – his first baseball mitt, his first best friend, and his first encounter with a bully. But he also starts to ask some important questions, like what kind of person was his dead father? Who are the boys from the mountain and why are they so different from the town boys? And finally, what is going on in the world outside his small town? As Jim slowly learns the answers to these questions his uncles are there, right by his side, to guide him and teach him right from wrong.  One could say that this is a book about nothing … except what it’s like being human.  But honestly– there are some major themes, such as the role of family relationships and the fact that change is necessary.

One thought about the cover and style of this book: at first glance it looks like a book for teens from the 1950′s with its retro illustration and the smallish size. Don’t be fooled by the minimalistic quality of this book. The author has the ability to weave a rich and timeless story with few words – it’s so pure it’s like literary honey.  Are you ready for your “warm fuzzy” today?

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The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller

When author Jennifer Miller contacted me through Goodreads to recommend that I read her book, she had clearly done her research. She’d seen how much I enjoyed Special Topics in Calamity Physics and figured that her debut novel, The Year of the Gadfly, would be right up my alley. Its part coming-of-age story set at a New England prep school, part mystery that spans 13 years and three perspectives, and all sinister secret societies, gothic architecture, and intrigue.

Iris’s recent loss of her best friend, not to mention being caught by her concerned parents while talking to her imaginary mentor, Edward R. Murrow, land her in a new school in a new town with a new start. Wanting to become a hard-nosed reporter, dedicated to discovering the truth and uncovering injustices in the world, Iris joins the school newspaper, The Oracle. Her pitches for stories are repeatedly rejected in favor of fluff pieces, and Iris begins to nose around into the reasons behind the cover ups and lies that seem so rampant at Mariana Academy.

The history of the school begins to unwind, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly. The story skips between Iris, her biology teacher Jonah Kaplan (a Mariana Academy alum), and Lily Morgan, a classmate of Jonah’s who grew up in the house that Iris’s family now rents. Jonah and Lily’s stories intertwine and skirt around the truth of what happened at Mariana 12 years before, leading to the death (or perhaps suicide?) of Jonah’s brother (and Lily’s boyfriend), Justin.

I don’t want to say much more and spoil anything for you, so pick this up and try it out for yourself. And if you enjoy this one, be sure to take a look at Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman and The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

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