Review of "The Beautiful and the Wild: A Thriller" by Peggy Townsend

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Liv grew up in Texas, with a loud, mean mother and a quiet, browbeaten father who paid little attention to his daughter. So when adult Liv, working as a waitress in California......



.....meets kind, handsome, attentive Mark Russo in a country-and-western bar, she goes home with him and stays.



Mark is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and the couple marry and live the high life, going to elaborate parties and rubbing shoulders with celebrities.



Then Liv and Mark have a son named Xander, whose genetic abnormality makes him a little awkward and slow to learn.



Xander's medical expenses, and the fact that Mark's filmmaking career takes a downturn, make things difficult. So Liv becomes a housecleaner and Mark takes odd jobs like stocking shelves, painting houses, and driving delivery trucks.



Then one day, San Francisco Police Inspector Louise Hardy shows up at Liv's door and tells her Mark committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.



Liv doesn't want to believe Mark is gone, but years go by with no word from him. Liv is broke and about to lose her house when she gets a hint that Mark is alive and living in Alaska. So Liv and seven-year-old Xander make the long hard trek to Alaska, finally reaching an isolated compound by driving on a dirt track with potholes so big they threaten to swallow the car.



Liv parks near a river and she and Xander cross a shaky walkway to get to a cabin with a patched metal roof and smoke rising from a stovepipe.



After a few minutes, Mark comes out, looking rangy, thin, and weather-roughened, but still handsome.



It turns out Mark is living with a woman named Angela, a 10-year-old boy called Rudy, and a dog named Shadow. Mark says he's following the precepts in a book called 'Mind, Self, Love' by Kai Huang, which advocates "freedom to quit bowing down to those who try to stop us from being happy by creating rules about money and sex and relationships." In other words, Mark no longer believes in employment or monogamy, and he plans to live off the land. Moreover, Mark wants Liv and Xander to join his new family in the wilderness.

Shocked, Liv will have none of it, and says she's leaving and getting a divorce. Mark then locks Liv in a rusty shipping container, and says he'll let her out when she accepts the precepts of Kai Huang and agrees to stay. It turns out Mark is on the run from drug dealers who want to kill him, and if Liv reveals Mark is alive, this will put the thugs on his trail.



From here the book is partly an Alaskan adventure story, and partly a tale of Liv's plan to escape with Xander. The Alaskan frontier is a dangerous place with deadly bears, steep inclines, dense forests, and harsh weather.






For sustenance, some staples can be purchased in town, but residents must largely live off the land by hunting, fishing, snaring game, growing vegetables, drying and canning comestibles, chopping wood, and so on. Moreover, a harsh winter is approaching, and preparations must be made.

While pretending to accept Mark's lifestyle, Liv searches for ways to flee, but Mark has hidden her car keys, phone, and credit card, and he's suspicious of her activities.



The story is narrated by Liv, whose description of her current life in Alaska alternates with flashbacks to the past, where Liv reveals startling incidents in her life. I would have liked Liv to be a more strong-willed character, but this is a good adventure story in a rugged setting.

Thanks to Netgalley, Peggy Townsend, and Berkley Publishing Group for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "Tom Lake: A Novel" by Ann Patchett

Lara Flynn began her acting career as a teenager in New Hampshire, when she starred as Emily Webb in a community theater production of Thornton Wilder's play 'Our Town.'



Lara went on to do a Hollywood movie and take other roles before she portrayed Emily Webb once again, in a summer stock production of 'Our Town' in Tom Lake, Michigan. That season, 24-year-old Lara had a torrid romance with her co-star, handsome charismatic Peter Duke, who went on to become an Oscar-winning, tinseltown superstar.



Jump ahead 30+ years to 2020, and 57-year-old Lara and her husband Joe Nelson own and run a cherry orchard in northern Michigan, not far from Tom Lake. The farm also grows apples and pears, and is a year-round enterprise.





Lara and Joe have three grown daughters, all of whom have come home, to stay together during the Covid pandemic quarantine.

The Nelson siblings have very different aspirations: Emily studied horticulture in college, and plans to take over the management of the cherry orchard when her parents retire;



Maisie is in veterinary school, and helps the neighbors with their animals while she's in Covid lockdown;



and Nell is an aspiring actress, yearning to get a start in the profession.



As a teenager, Emily was the firebrand of the group, a difficult adolescent who had the entire family walking on eggshells. When Emily learned her mother had dated Peter Duke, Emily insisted Duke was her real father, and railed against being kept from the famous celebrity.

As an adult Emily backed away from this notion, but she's still an expert on Peter Duke, having read every word written about him, watched every interview, seen every movie, and so on.



Due to the pandemic, most of the usual migrant workers can't come harvest the fruit, and - because the cherries are ripe - Lara, Joe, and their daughters must do most of the work themselves. (These scenes of picking and sorting different kinds of cherries are interesting and informative.)



During rest intervals between picking cherries, Emily, Maisie, and Nell insist that Lara tell them the story of her affair with Peter Duke, who recently passed away. Lara agrees to tell the tale, but she begins when she was in high school, with her first acting role. Thus the story encompasses Lara's total professional career, including the people she met, the experiences she had, the highs and lows along the way, etc. The exposition is spread over several days, but as the reader learns, the tale is not complete, because Lara keeps some secrets to herself.

Lara's husband Joe, who knew many of the same people as Lara, throws in the occasional comment, but he's mostly concerned with keeping the farm - with its cherries, apples, and pears - solvent during these difficult times.



This is a quiet novel about ambition, family, love, betrayal, friendship, loyalty, egoism, and more. I found the story moved a bit too slowly for my taste, but author Ann Patchett is a master at character development, and the main protagonists, as well as the side characters, are well-crafted and believable.

Covid pandemic novels are coming out at a fast and furious rate, and this one centers on family togetherness rather than the horrors of the disease. Thus it's a less harrowing treatment of the Covid crisis.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "The Boys From Biloxi: A Legal Thriller" by John Grisham

In 1960, Biloxi, Mississippi - which has a large seafood industry - is populated largely with immigrants from Croatia, where residents had fished the Adriatic Sea for centuries.

Biloxi, Mississippi


Biloxi Seafood Festival

Biloxi also has its share of more controversial businesses, and casinos and bars that promote drinking, gambling, and prostitution are prevalent and protected by police and politicians, who take their cut of the profits.


Casino in Biloxi

Regardless of what their parents do, most 12-year-old boys in Biloxi play youth baseball, and two all-stars, Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco, are third generation grandsons of Croatian immigrants. As baseball bigshots, Hugh and Keith are close friends, though their families are very different. Hugh's father, Lance Malco, is a gangster who owns bars, casinos and brothels; and Keith's father Jesse is an attorney on the right side of the law.


Youth Baseball

In the course of this multigenerational novel we follow the lives and careers of the Malco family, especially Lance and his son Hugh; and of the Rudy family, especially Jesse and his son Keith.

Lance Malco is a member of a criminal cohort nicknamed 'The Dixie Mafia', and Lance and his thugs have to deal with rivals in the vice industry who set up their own establishments in Biloxi.



This inevitably leads to violence, beatings, shootings, and the like. It's rare for anyone to be arrested, however, because Sheriff Fats Bowman is in the pocket of the felons. When young Hugh Malco grows up, he becomes a criminal like his dad.



Jesse Rudy is a low profile lawyer until Hurricane Camille demolishes the coast of Mississippi in 1969. The insurance companies twist themselves into knots to avoid paying out on policies, and Jesse's clients, devastated homeowners, have nowhere to turn.....until Jesse takes up their cause. Jesse spends years in court fighting the insurance companies, and the exposure makes Jesse a household name in Mississippi. This inevitably helps Jesse's career, which he dedicates to wiping out the vice industry in his backyard.



In time, young Keith Rudy also becomes an attorney, and joins his father's law practice.



As adults, childhood baseball stars Hugh Malco and Keith Rudy are on opposite sides of the law, and the ramifications are important to the story.

This is a very long book with large cast of characters and a lot going on. John Grisham's books tend to be up and down for me, but I'd deem this one a solid success. I even liked the beginning, where Grisham takes his time describing Prohibition and its ramifications; the history of Croatians in Biloxi; the background of the Malco and Rudy families, going back to the great-grandparents; and more.


Croatians

I also enjoyed the other elements of the novel, including the killings (you know what I mean), disposal of bodies, robberies, FBI sting operations, confidential informants, attorney maneuvering, courtroom scenes, marriages, birth of children, and the like.

Grisham, an attorney and politician, uses his knowledge to good effect in this novel. Highly recommended.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "Mrs. Pargeter's Patio: A Mrs. Pargeter Mystery" by Simon Brett

The Mrs. Pargeter books are humorous cozy mysteries about a widow of a certain age who likes to help people and solve crimes.



When Mrs. Pargeter needs assistance, she consults her deceased husband's 'little black book', which has contacts with skills like safecracking, forging documents, disguising people, getaway driving, etc.



Mrs. Pargeter professes to believe her husband was a saintly businessman who helped crooks go straight, and the aforementioned crooks are careful not to disabuse Mrs. Pargeter of that notion. This is a running joke through the novels.

In this 9th book in the series, Mrs. Pargeter (and her helpers) investigate a murder and look for a missing person.

*****

Mrs. Pargeter lives in a mansion commissioned by her husband, Mr. Lionel Pargeter, before he passed away. The house, called 'Lionel's Den' was built by Concrete Jacket, who did excellent work between stints in the slammer.



One morning Mrs. Pargeter takes her third cup of coffee out to the patio when one of the paving slabs gives way. Peering into the void revealed by the broken slab, Mrs. Pargeter sees a human skull.



Mrs. Pargeter realizes that a body was buried during patio construction, and she decides to investigate herself before contacting the police. The widow learns that the builder, Concrete Jacket, was unavoidably detained when the terrace was constructed, and he farmed out the job to a Polish contractor named Marek Grabowski.

To find Grabowski - and identify the body and track down the killer - Mrs. Pargeter phones people in the little black book. These include Truffler Mason - a former felon who's now a private detective;



Fixin' Nixon - whose credo is 'there is always a way';



Gary - a professional chauffeur;



Hedgeclipper Clinton - a hotel manager that 'knows people';



Tina the Transformer - who's a whiz with disguises;



Melting Maurice - a plastic surgeon who provides new faces; and more.



Meanwhile, Mrs. Pargeter also embarks on a second mission. The widow's gardener, 20-year-old Kirstie Rollins, mentions that she hasn't seen her father since her 9th birthday.



On that occasion Kirstie's dad, reggae singer Red Rollins, gave Kristie a necklace......and then vanished. Mrs. Pargeter makes it her business to try to locate Red, dead or alive.

As things play out, it appears that the body under Mrs. Pargeter's patio has a connection with Red Rollins.

Meanwhile, gardener Kirstie Rollins applies to be a contestant on a reality TV show called 'Dirt Under the Fingernails', a floriculture competition where contestants spar to grow the best plants.



The show is hosted by comic Brenton Sykes, whose modus operandi is to make crude jokes and insult the gardeners. The studio audience seems to find this hilarious, and the program is very popular. (In today's 'anything goes' reality show culture, this is probably a realistic scenario.)



In the course of the story, Mrs. Pargeter has occasion to dine at the luxurious Greene's Hotel, and to visit an eatery that used to be called 'Hot Honey's', famous for its Caribbean goat curry and beef patties.


Goat Curry


Beef Patties

This is an entertaining cozy mystery, perfect for a fun read between more serious books.

Thanks to Netgalley, Simon Brett, and Severn House for a copy of the book.

Rating: 3.5 stars