THE BOYS FROM BILOXI by John Grisham

 

John Grisham needs no introduction. He has been churning out best-sellers for years and this 2022 offering is just another feather in his hat. Grisham is noted for his legal thrillers, but The Boys from Biloxi goes one step further by taking four generations of two invented families and inserting them into the history of the so-called “Dixie Mafia” that ran crime and vice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the mid-twentieth century. The result is a huge 450 page “legal historical” thriller. His reach is spectacular, but thereby hangs the tale. The slow-building plot covers over a hundred years of ever-increasing passion and violence and although the first 150 pages seems to move at a turtle’s pace, it does finally pick up as we move toward the end.  

A summary goes like this. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up as best buds in the turbulent sixties. Their grandparents were Croatian immigrants who settled along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and worked their fingers to the bone to make better lives for their children. The boys’ parents found success, albeit in different fields of endeavor. Hugh’s father, Lance, becomes the mob chieftain of bootleg alcohol, gambling, and prostitution along the Biloxi coast. His son, Hugh, eschews more education and moves directly into helping run his father’s criminal enterprises. Young Keith follows his dad, Rudy, into Law School and joins his dad’s passion for cleaning up the crime-ridden coastal strip and its long history of crime and political payoffs.   

I note again that you need some tenacity to get through the long years of buildup to the final legal battles that Grisham is so good at generating. One problem area early on is the amount of space devoted to the early high school athletic careers of the two grandsons and the too many  pages devoted to young Hugh’s boxing career. None of it seems to have much relevance to the later developments in the story.

I would like to have seen a few more developed female characters.   The family wives in the story exist only to have babies, keep house, and weep at the sad events. Most of the rest of the females are hookers. Also pretty much ignored is the impact of the South’s vast racial problem during that time.   

I cannot deny that the book, once you get into it, is compelling. The legal maneuvering is fascinating and the interplay of differing views of loyalty, justice, morality, and the impact of family ties is sure to foster plenty of discussion amongst readers.

I give it a 4 out of 5

 

THE DEFECTOR by Daniel Silva

 

Silva, Daniel  The Defector

I am a sucker for Daniel Silva’s espionage novels. Gabriel Allon is a fascinating character. He is a killer, no doubt, but has a backstory that includes faith, love, and even charity. There is also an artistic talent that seems as great as his assassination skills. Moving on, Silva has a skill in depicting locales. The streets, the buildings, the weather, the smells, the vehicles, the knowledge of tradecraft-- all are reproduced with such all-encompassing detail that he seems like a native of every place he writes about.

In this 2009 offering, Gabriel Allon is restoring art in Italy when a Russian defector, now living in London and who saved his life in the past, suddenly disappears. American, Russian, English, and Israeli intelligence all become involved as Allon vows to solve the mystery—the layers of deception stretch from London to Switzerland and finally to Russia itself.

When Allon’s wife, Chiara, becomes another kidnapping victim, the daring plan for her rescue generates a violent and deadly bloodbath. Although it long and a real page-turner, I did feel that Silva spent more pages stretching out the ending longer than necessary.    

Not his best, but still a solid 4 out of 5.

 

JIGSAW by Johathan Kellerman

 

Jonathan Kellerman has written an Alex Delaware novel each year for the last 40 years.  Jigsaw is his latest, and I’m sure his fans will be lining up to see the latest adventures of the two main characters. Detective Milo Sturgis, an overweight, gay man who has always been an outsider in his department, has survived in a profession that has never been keen on women or gay men, because his solve rate is higher than anyone else's on the force.  He gets a call on a run-of-the-mill murder case that at first glance seems a slam dunk. DNA on cigarette butts found at the scene point directly to the victim’s former boyfriend. Shortly, another murder occurs. This one turns out to be a retired detective who is now a recluse and major league hoarder. This victim was partially dismembered and stuffed into a deep freeze. The mental aberrations inherent in the case calls for deeper psychological consideration, and Milo’s good friend, child psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware is called into service. 

A third, even more egregious murder, goes down before the pair begins to suspect there are some connections between the crimes. As usual, plenty of red herrings swim into view before the real perpetrator is uncovered and the jigsaw of the title is explained. Whether you are a Kellerman fan or new to his books, you’ll find this is a quick and satisfying read. It’s a perfect bedside table or summer beach read. You won’t be disappointed as the two sleuths work their way toward the solution of another complicated murder puzzle.  

A solid 3.5

WHISTLER by Ann Patchett

 

I have never read a book by Ms. Patchett. I may read another after reading this one. It is, above all, a restful, meditative story peopled by nicely delineated characters. Throughout, you are hit with phrases that can be pulled out and thought about. Some carry a touch of twisted humor as in “You miss out on a lot of experiences if your parents stay married,” and some go deeper as in “by recognizing impermanence, you might have a happier life and an easier death.”

The story is simple on the surface. Daphne Fuller and her husband are walking through New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which by no coincidence houses a thorough history of human relations as depicted in art. By chance, Daphne’s former stepfather, Eddie Triplett, encounters them.  Daphne was only nine when her mother divorced Eddie and went on to remarry and have more children. The pair renew their brief time together and begin to confront an auto accident that they experienced together. Bits and pieces of the past are slowly recovered they begin to see how long-buried actions of love and courage influenced their lives and all of their families’ lives.   An aphorism is trotted out. “Everything is sentimental. All of it matters and none of it matters.” I identified with this when Daphne’s husband has to help his sister empty out and sell their mother’s house. We spend a life accumulating memories and things, and then we have to deal with the emptying out. Selling the family home for many of us has been a traumatic experience.  You won’t ever enter it again or sleep there again.  It’s a feeling “ like you’re going to fall into the past and it’s never going to let go of you.” You must come to grips with the fact that “Everything will end. Get used to that.  No one wants change, but it will.”

What more do you need in a good novel? Ms. Patchett creates substantive, believable characters. In stages they are both human and humorous while they demonstrate an affirmation that love and acceptance are the glue that holds human life together.  

I give it 4 out of 5.   

 

Review--Smiley, Jane. Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

 

Smiley, Jane. Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

This is a 2^nd novel covering the life of Lidie Newton. In pre-Civil War Illinois, she is a tall and kind of horse-faced woman from a poor family who is thrown into dependence upon her sisters after the violent death of her abolitionist husband in the Kansas Territory. The opening of this book moves slowly because it spends a good deal of time on the backstory of Book One, which covers information on her family life in Quincy, IL before the war and her tragic marriage.

 As we meet her, Lidie is still mourning the violence that took her husband, but is now ready for more of life. She is a woman who thrives on assisting others, and she now finds herself assisting her niece Annie in developing a career as an actress. This happens because a successful local production catches the eye of a touring British producer/actor. He is so convinced of Annie’s talent that he sends Annie and Lidie, now functioning as Annie’s protector and maid, across the Atlantic to his home in Liverpool. His stated intention is to develop Annie’s talents before launching her toward potential stardom in London.

 You must now accept that the producer has a remarkable nose for latent talent or just more money than sense. The two women want to change their lives so intently that they literally take new names for their overseas adventure. Annie becomes Anne Revere and Lidie becomes Helen Longbourn, a name built up out of a Jane Austen novel. After they arrive in England, they live as guests in the producer’s elegant home. Lydie (now Helen) not only assists Annie(now Anne) in her theatrical development but also becomes a sort of family dogsbody. She runs errands for everyone. She does the shopping for the cook, picks up purchases for the master of the house and his wife, and even stands in for the butler on occasion. This gives her time to walk Liverpool’s streets and soak up its general history, its beauty, its commerce, and its religious and ethnic diversity. This is presented in great detail and was for me interesting as a contrast to life in a small midwestern town in the mid-19th century.

While I admit to finding this entire plot angle a stretch, Anne Revere’s theatrical talent does seem to be real. Lidie, however, develops in a wholly different track. She finds intellectual enlightenment in Britain, where slavery has already been abolished. She also finds some male contacts in town that add relational uncertainty. Barnsby, the family butler, John, the pastor of a small church, and Regie, a gardener from another household all start to see her in more intimate terms. This puts her life in more flux than Annie’s, although both women are still pursuing a more independent life than most women in the 19^th century.   

Lidie’s story presents an unsuspected finish that may be as big a stretch as the finding of a drama queen in a tiny Illinois town in the 1860’s. Is it giving too much away, to say that it all seems to be a setup for a third book featuring the further further adventures of the same characters.

I give it a three out of five.  

Bertie's Theory of Ice Cream by Andrew McCall Smith

 

Welcome once again to the gossamer world of Andrew McCall Smith. The 2025 addition to his 44 Scotland Series is titled Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream, and all the familiar characters have new adventures that connect them to life’s notoriously crooked and uncertain paths. McCall Smith sets the tone when he has Bertie maintain that ice cream is better when shared. And so, since uncertainty is certain, it is best to get on with the eating of it before it melts.

 Irene Pollack, Bertie’s mother, has taken up with a Scottish fisherman and is now splitting her time between a small north-east coast village and Edinburgh. Bertie has remained in the city with his father Stuart, and Stuart’s mother Nicola. He continues to have problems at school with classmates Olive and Pansy, who have forced him to join their Jane Austen book club.  There is more hilarity when Angus discovers that Sister Maria-Fiore has hidden a piece of the famous Stone of Scone in the Scotland Street Garden. We also get updates on lightning-struck Bruce, who has recovered and is back to his old self-centered ways.  His latest real estate venture comes to a halt when his proposed modifications run afoul of listed building requirements. Another recurring theme is the inner psychological makeup of dogs.  At one point, we learn that Angus’s dog Cyril is really just a “sophisticated sausage.” You will also meet,  Ralph, a “vegan dog” who has deserted Mathew and Elsbeth’s new neighbors for the more meat-loving household of Mathew and Elsbeth’s. They seem to have an endless supply of sausages.  

We could go on with plot details, but I must admit that the adventures of Bertie and his sidekick Ranald are more delightful than the more erudite adult characters like Angus, Domenica, Mathew, and Elsbeth. No matter. As we near the end, when things grow more reflective, all the participants gather to share a meal that concludes with Angus’ poem about love and human community.

“To the land I love so much it hurts,” he says. There is always Scotland.

                                   

I love these books and the characters that McCall Smith populates them with.  I give it a 4.75 out of five.

Suspect by Scott Turow

 

This “legal thriller” from 2022 by established author Scott Turow supplies courtroom, bedroom, and investigative action in roughly equal doses. It is told from the viewpoint of Clarice “Pinky” Granum, who is an investigator for a lawyer named Rik Dudek. Dudek has been hired to defend Lucia Gomez a high flying long-time successful police chief who has been accused of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions.

Pinky has had a checkered career and is now a tattooed bisexual who is still looking to find the right lover and the right fit into today’s society. When a mysterious man, who has just moved into her apartment building, attracts her, she finds her work for lawyer Rik now merging with her obsession. The guy, who has now become her lover, turns out to be a security expert in the employ of the Ritz--a former cop and old enemy of the Chief.

The Ritz is the head of an extensive criminal network that runs to real estate fraud, sex, and drug peddling in the city. The police chief’s trial is barely underway when one of the trial witnesses is murdered, possibly by the Ritz. Pinky and her guy are now center stage and each positioned to either help solve the case or crash and burn.      

Most of the characters in this book, even the supposed good people, are just too sleazy for me.  I simply could not like Pinky or the Chief. Rik Dudek, the lawyer, never rises to the fore and the arch villain, the Ritz, was so shadowy that he never came alive in my mind either. 

Definitely not Turow’s best work.

I give it a 2.5