Review of "Behind Every Lie: A Thriller" by Christina McDonald

Eva Hanson, who lives in Whidbey Island, Washington, makes and sells beautiful decorative pottery.


Whidbey Island




However Eva is reluctant to exhibit her artwork in nearby Seattle, partly because of a terrible trauma she suffered a few years ago, which caused self-doubt and distrust. Eva now relies heavily on her fiancé Liam to take care of the bumps in her life, and Liam - a take charge kind of guy who works as property developer - is happy to do it.



Given her nervous disposition, Eva is REALLY disquieted when she wakes up in a hospital after being struck by lightning. Worse yet, Police Detective Kent Jackson tells Eva that her mother Kat was brutally murdered last night, and he makes it clear that Eva is a suspect.

Eva knows she was at her mom's house yesterday evening, but has no memory of what happened beyond flashes of a bloody scene and a knife in her hand, which she (smartly) doesn't mention to the cop.



Though Eva is woozy - and has amnesia, a lump on her head, and blistered feathery markings covering her arm (lightning-induced Lichtenberg figures) - she leaves the hospital and makes her way to her mother's house.


Lichtenberg figures

There Eva finds a letter that sends her haring off to London, where her mom Kat lived until she came to the United States.



Detective Jackson calls Eva in London, with threats to have her arrested by Interpol, but Eva refuses to return to Washington until she's completed her inquiries. And Eva makes some startling discoveries before she returns home, where she just might have to face a murder charge.

The story alternates back and forth between accounts of the past narrated by Kat, and sections about Eva's life now. It turns out that all the main protagonists in the book have big secrets, which are unveiled one by one as the story unfolds.

Other characters in the story include Eva's brother Andrew; Eva's fellow artist Melissa; Eva's childhood friend and neighbor Jacob; Kat's British employer Rose; and various men important to the tale.

The book is fast moving with plenty of action, but I do have a few quibbles.

First, I dislike stories that feature a female who puts up with a man like Liam, who expects her to defer to him about everything. Eva was too weak and submissive for a good part of the book - prattling on about how strong and reliable Liam was - and this irritated me.

Second, there are several occasions when characters make stunning discoveries, or make life-changing decisions.....and they don't have a dramatic response. It seems like they think, "Oh really," and calmly go on with their lives. This seems unrealistic.



That said, this is an enjoyable mystery/thriller. Recommended to fans of the genre.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Christina McDonald), and the publisher (Gallery Books) for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3 stars

Review of "On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down" by James Fell

 

Author James Fell

Canadian author James Fell has a master's degree in history, an MBA, and was a health and fitness writer for many years. The Covid pandemic led to Fell changing his priorities, and since history was Fell's first love, he started to write anecdotes on his Facebook page called 'On This Day in History, Shit Went Down.' The Facebook entries led to this book, which is absolutely hilarious, but also disturbing. That's because human history is full of f**king terrible behavior.

That said, Fell doesn't hold back with 'language', so if that bothers you, skip this book. Ditto if you're a fan of Nazis or Donald Trump, because Fell really hates those f**kers.

*****

For each day of the year, from January 1st to December 31st, Fell describes something that happened on that day in the past. These include all manner of entries, including things like: a horse shitting in the house; an elephant being abused and killed; torture of human beings; public executions; slavery; colonization by European countries; genocides; the development of vaccines; the discovery of antibiotics; the Christian crusades; assassinations to ascend various thrones; the stabbing of Julius Caesar; Hitler's atrocities; and much much more.

To give a feel for the book I'll randomly pick 12 dates, one for each month, and give a brief summary of the entry for that date.

👉 January 13, 1968

Country singer Johnny Cash had a bad-boy image and was often drunk and drugged up. Cash's career was tanking when he performed at California's Folsom Prison on January 13, 1968, and put out an album. The album was a hit and turned Cash's life around.


Johnny Cash performing at Folsom Prison

👉 February 22, 1983

A 'notoriously terrible' play called 'Moose Murders' earned that appellation by having its opening and closing on the same night, February 22, 1983. The play is about a family that buys the Wild Moose Lodge in the Adirondacks, plays a murder mystery game during a storm, and people die. There is a moose that eats people, and other terrible plot points. Fell writes, "Apparently, there is ableism in it too, because making fun of people with disabilities is f**king hilarious. Just ask Donald Trump."


Revival of Moose Murders

👉 March 9, 1959

On March 9, 1959, the first ever Barbie doll debuted at the American International Toy Fair in New York. Barbie had impossible proportions, and parents weren't thrilled with the doll, but over a billion have been sold. From being a sexy girl Barbie eventually morphed into a career woman, and she's been a veterinarian, doctor, marine biologist, park ranger, astronaut, judge, presidential candidate, and more.


Barbie Dolls

👉 April 17, 1945

Hannie Schaft, a member of the Dutch Resistance during WWII, would use her beauty to lure a Nazi soldier to a private place. Schaft would then shoot the "Nazi assbucket right in his f**king face." Schaft killed lots of Nazis before she was caught and executed on April 17, 1945.


Hannie Schaft

👉 May 21, 1932

Fell writes, "Today is the anniversary of when a dude with f**ked-up ideas about racial purity, who also cheated on his wife a whole bunch, first flew the Atlantic solo in 1927 " (Charles Lindbergh). The author goes on, "Five years later to the day, a much cooler person did it. Let's focus on her" (Amelia Earhart).


Amelia Earhart

👉 June 2, 1692

On June 2, 1692, Bridget Bishop was the first person condemned to death for practicing witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Five young women testified that Bishop's specter would appear and pinch, choke, or bite them. People examined Bishop's body and found a third nipple, "which is totally a witch thing." Then later the nipple disappeared, "which was even more proof of her guilt because she obviously used witchcraft as a form of seventeenth-century plastic surgery to remove it."


Bridget Bishop

👉 July 11, 1804

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were fierce political rivals, and they dueled on July 11, 1804. Burr's bullet damaged Hamilton's liver and spine, and Hamilton died the next day. After that, "Burr's political career was as dead as Alexander Hamilton."


Aaron Burr


Alexander Hamilton

👉 August 26, 1970

For most of American history, women had few career choices, and in 1970, "there were plenty of states where a woman couldn't have a credit card, make a will, or own property unless she had a husband." On August 26, 1970, 50,000 people, mostly women, gathered for a protest march in New York City.


Women's Protest March

👉 September 28, 1928

The first antibiotic was discovered on September 28, 1928. Scottish physician and microbiologist Alexander Fleming noticed that mold on a culture plate killed staphylococcus microbes. Fleming's subsequent experiments proved that "mold juice had the ability to kill a wide range of bacteria."


Alexander Fleming

👉 October 16, 1793

Austrian Marie Antoinette was married at 14 to Louie XVI of France. Fell writes, "Marie was a homesick girl who....spent lavishly on dresses and jewelry and parties....and she lived in a fake gated village built solely for her and her close friends." When the cost became known the French people were furious, and during the French Revolution, Marie was sent to the guillotine on October 16, 1793.


Marie Antoinette

👉 November 4, 2008

Fell writes, "I don't give a shit if you don't like the guy. Comparatively speaking, Barack Obama was f**king awesome, and his election filled many with hope that America wasn't irrevocably f**ked." Obama was elected on November 4, 2008, and Fell observes, "Of course, there was a substantial portion of the American population that was just f**king seething over the Obama victory." Fell goes on, "Republicans made every effort to block Obama's policies no matter what they were. For eight years, the racism festered like an infected wound, becoming a major contributor to the election of the blatantly racist and vocal Obama critic Donald Trump in 2016."


President Barack Obama

👉 December 29, 1890

On December 29, 1890, the 7th Cavalry of the United States massacred the Lakota Indians during the Battle of Wounded Knee. "In previous years the government had seized Lakota lands in what is now South Dakota, and....promised to protect reservations from gold hunters and settlers, but of course, the f**kers reneged on that because they'd proven they were fine with genocide of America's Native populations again and again."


Battle of Wounded Knee

****

I didn't include the funniest laugh out loud passages, which tend to include a lot of cursing and insults (to people who deserve them). In any case, the book is very informative and entertaining. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, James Fell, and Random House for a copy of the book.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review of "The Unseen World: A Literary Novel" by Liz Moore

The story opens in the 1980s, when 12-year-old Ada Sibelius is living in Massachusetts with her father David Sibelius. David, head of the computer science lab at the Boston Institute of Technology, is developing an artificial intelligence program called ELIXIR.....and Ada is helping teach ELIXIR to have 'human conversations.'



Ada was born to a surrogate mother, and essentially grew up in David's laboratory, where the research team functions as her extended family.

The closest Ada comes to having a mother is David's long-time colleague Diana Liston. The other scientists in the lab - Frank, Hayato, and Charles-Robert - function something like Ada's uncles. Ada doesn't go to school, but is 'home schooled' by David, who provides a rigorous curriculum for his intelligent child.



Liston, who has a married daughter in Boston and three sons at home, has lived on Shawmut Way for decades. When David became a father, Liston arranged for him to buy a house down the block. Thus Ada can visit Liston at home, and Liston can help Ada with 'girl stuff' like training bras.

Ada and David are happy and doing well until an incident at a party foreshadows trouble. David always throws an annual dinner party for his staff and graduate students. Every year David prepares lobster, Ada passes out gin rickeys, and David presents the same tricky riddle - about one man who always lies and one man who always tells the truth - to the new students.





This time David has a mental blip and can't recall the solution to the puzzle.



Though Ada doesn't know it yet, this presages David's oncoming Alzheimer's Disease.

At about this time, David - who loves puzzles, codes, and encryptions - gives Ada a floppy disc in a plastic clamshell case. David tells his daughter the disc contains a puzzle for her to solve, and it might take a long time.



A couple of eventful years later David is confined to a nursing home and Ada is living with Liston and her three boys, William, Gregory, and Matty. Ada is in Catholic school now, but she's socially awkward with her peers and has no real friends. In fact Ada's closest companion is ELIXIR, who Ada still 'converses with' every day.



A year or so later, Ada learns that David has been harboring huge secrets about his past. Ada is desperate to know the truth, but David's dementia makes it impossible to question him.

From here on, the book jumps back and forth between Ada's teenage years and a time more than two decades later, when Ada is a computer programmer in San Francisco....working on a virtual reality game.



The book becomes rather bogged down at this point, going into great detail about Ada's experiences in middle school and in high school; her interactions with the Liston boys; her first crush; her search for information about David's past; her attempts to solve the puzzle on the floppy disc; her anger at her father's deception; etc.

As we learn about Ada we also learn about David, who had a difficult childhood and lived through harrowing times as an adult. Like Ada's story, David's tale is overly detailed, and - though fascinating - slows down the story too much (IMO).

I was surprised several times by twists in the book and it wraps up in a unique fashion that I didn't expect. All in all, this is a compelling novel that I'd recommend to fans of literary fiction.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Twas the Bite Before Christmas: An Andy Carpenter Mystery" by David Rosenfelt

In this 28th book in the 'Andy Carpenter' series, the Paterson, New Jersey defense attorney represents a man in the state's witness protection program.

*****

Ever since he inherited a large fortune, defense lawyer Andy Carpenter takes very few cases.



Instead, Andy likes to hang out with his wife, son, and dogs; watch sports; schmooze with his friends; help run a canine rescue operation called 'The Tara Foundation'; and so on.

The story takes place during Christmas season, and The Tara Foundation is hosting a holiday party for dog adopters and their canine kids. Andy is there with his wife Laurie, their son Ricky, and their threes dogs: golden retriever Tara; basset hound Sebastian; and pug Hunter.





During the party, Andy gets a call from his friend, Homicide Captain Pete Stanton. To avoid disturbing the festivities, Pete asks Andy to bring out dog daddy Derek Moore, who's adopted golden retriever Jake and dalmatian Sasha. It seems Derek's real name is Robert Klaster, and he's being arrested for murder. Andy signs on to defend Klaster and to take in Klaster's dogs while the accused is in custody.



At the police precinct, Klaster - who wants to be called Bobby - tells Andy his story.



Bobby grew up in Camden, New Jersey and belonged to a gang called the Camden Cobras. The Cobras were involved in running numbers, prostitution, robbery, protection rackets, and other non-violent crimes.



Then Bobby saw two Cobra members, Johnny Luko and Donnie Briggs, shoot and kill a convenience store owner and one of the store's customers. This horrified Bobby, and he turned state's evidence against the killers.

To protect Bobby, New Jersey put him in the witness protection program and gave him the name Derek Moore. As Moore, Bobby started a business called 'Davis and Moore Flooring' with his partner Jalen Davis, and the enterprise has been very successful.



Now, a Camden Cobra member named Roland Banks has been murdered, and the police have evidence that points to Bobby as the perpetrator. Andy is convinced Bobby is being framed and sets out to prove it.

To do this, Andy employs a private detective agency called the K Team, whose investigators are Andy's wife Laurie - a former police officer;



Corey Douglas - a retired cop; Simon Garfunkel - a K-9 German shepherd who worked with Corey at the Paterson Police Department;



and Marcus Clark - the toughest, scariest guy on the planet.



Andy also calls in his law partner Eddie Dowd - a former football player who's especially good with paperwork;



and accountant Sam Willis, who can hack into any computer anywhere.



For Bobby's case, Sam collects phone records that are especially helpful in identifying alternate suspects. Sam usually likes to deliver his reports in person at Andy's house, where useful information earns him a big plate of Laurie's pancakes.



As Andy tries to clear Bobby of killing Roland Banks, he runs across a dangerous Cobra gang leader and his thugs; crime lords in Philadelphia and New Jersey; and a scheme involving shipping and explosives.

When confronting dangerous people, Andy - who admits he's not brave - is protected by Corey, Laurie, and ESPECIALLY Marcus. With Corey and Marcus as backup in a tricky situation, Andy observes, "I'm not scared anymore either...Marcus seems to have taken the lead in this; Corey stands a bit farther away. They've probably done it this way because Marcus is the scarier of the two. If Marcus and Godzilla were partners, Marcus would be the scarier of the two."



As always, Andy shines in the courtroom scenes, where he's up against prosecutor Stan Godfrey, "a talented attorney [whose] skills are only exceeded by his ambition;



and trying the case before Judge Gettner, "who's been in a bad mood for thirty years."



I always enjoy Andy's sarcastic quips and wisecracks, which add a touch of humor to the book. For instance, talking about not having to call his secretary/office manager Edna, Andy notes, "Edna got engaged two years ago to David Devine, a wealthy owner of fast food restaurants, and since then she has become a professional engag-ee. They are going to have a destination wedding, and to decide where it will be, they have apparently decided that they have to personally check out every place on earth. Right now they are in Slovakia, or maybe it's Slovenia....I always get the confused."

The plot gets a little over-convoluted, and Andy is a bit off his game in this book, because I figured out the bad guy long before Andy did. Still, it's all good fun.

There isn't a lot of Christmas vibe in the book, but Laurie does put up a huge Christmas tree, play Christmas music, and buy Christmas presents for the family - including one for herself from Andy.



This is an enjoyable cozy mystery, recommended to fans of the series.

Thanks to Netgalley, David Rosenfelt, and Minotaur Books for a copy of the manuscript.

Rating: 3.5 stars