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First Impressions 5.25.12

I received nine books this week, and only two had interesting openers. The others began with descriptions of weather (blue sky, sunny day, rain, humidity), scenery (lake, houses), or people doing mundane things (walking, driving, eating). Some included two or all of these categories.

These were the two openers that wasted no time in getting my attention.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dutton, out August 21

PROLOGUE

Another shot echoed over the treetops.

The beaters’ calls had grown clearer. A throbbing pulse was thundering against my eardrums, the damp air forcing its way into my lungs so fast and hard that it hurt.

Run, run, don’t fall. I’ll never get up again if I do. Fuck, fuck. Why can’t I get my hands free? Oh, run, run…shhhh. Can’t let them hear me. Did they hear me? Is this it? Is this really how my life is going to end?

The Facility by Simon Lelic, Penguin, out August 28

Welcome. Come in, sit down. Would you like some coffee? Muffin? They’re yesterday’s but they’re fine. There’s blueberry and chocolate and a lemon one with some kind of seed. Sesame, he thinks but his friend cuts in. Poppy, the friend says. Lemon and poppyseed. His personal favourite. Low fat too, he adds and he winks. And Arthur is saying, no, no thank you, and for the second time since entering the room he says, who are you? What is this about? And that is when they ask. They give him coffee even though he said no and they say, so, Arthur: do you like cock?

Do these intrigue you? Wanna know more about what kind of interview Arthur is having?

Special thanks to my friend Lauren, who was so determined to see this post up today, she took dictation over the phone and typed this out for me because I’m still in traction.

Have a safe, wonderful holiday weekend!

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First Impressions 5.18.12

I had a hard time this week finding three really strong openers, even in the books I enjoyed. These were among the better ones (I haven’t read any of them).

Guilt by Degrees by Marcia Clark, Mulholland Books, available now

He listened as the car pulled out of the driveway. When the sound of the engine faded into the distance, Zack looked at his watch: 9:36 a.m. Perfect. Three solid hours of “me” time. He eagerly trotted down the thinly carpeted stairs to the basement, the heavy thud of his work boots echoing through the empty house. Clutched in his hand was the magazine photograph of the canopy he intended to make. It would probably cost a small fortune at one of those fancy designer stores, but the copy he’d make would be just as good, if not better—and for less than a tenth of the price. A smile curled on Zack’s lips as he enjoyed the mental image of Lilah’s naked body framed by gauzy curtains hanging from the canopy, wafting seductively around the bed. He inhaled, imagining her perfume as he savored the fantasy.

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton, Minotaur, out June 5

Prologue

Tuesday 22 January (a few minutes before midnight)

When a large object falls from a great height, the speed at which it travels accelerates until the upward force of air resistance becomes equal to the downward propulsion of gravity. At that point, whatever is falling reaches what is known as terminal velocity, a constant speed that will be maintained until it encounters a more powerful force, most commonly the ground.

Suzy’s Case by Andy Siegel, Scribner, out July 10

Little Suzy is lying in a Brooklyn hospital bed fevered and weakened. If her temperature were heating a pot you’d hear the high-pitched tone of a whistling teakettle. That’s why her six-year-old frame is on top of the dingy white sheets and not under them.

If her lungs were a train engine you’d hear puff, puff…chug, chug with the internal dialogue of her autonomic nervous system repeating, I think I can…I think I can.

Any of these grab you? Can the Suzy’s Case cover BE any creepier? It makes my skin crawl, but it’s also rather clever. In a creepy way.

Happy Friday!

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All Holmes, All the Time

As many of you know, I’m a bit of a Holmesian nut, so I thought I’d point out a few upcoming Sherlock Holmes-related things.

CBS announced last Sunday that it had picked up the pilot Elementary, about a modern-day Holmes and Watson in New York City. It stars Jonny Lee Miller as the famous detective and Lucy Liu as his partner, Joan Watson. Below is a first look at the show.

Miller is a decent actor (I enjoyed him on Eli Stone), but I can’t help hearing Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice (Cumberbatch plays Holmes in the current hit BBC version) spouting some of the lines in this clip. The difference is that Cumberbatch’s detective is much more gleeful when he gets to show others how brilliant he is. Solving crimes is entertainment to him and he loves having an audience. Miller’s version seems to be more serious, having just come out of rehab.

Over on Criminal Element, author Lyndsay Faye has a post about what CBS needs to do with this show to keep fans happy. She knows what she’s talking about because she’s not only an expert on the canon, she has seen the pilot.

This Sunday is the final episode in season 2 of BBC’s Sherlock. It’s titled “The Reichenbach Fall,” which should give you an idea of what happens if you’re familiar with the stories. If not, the only thing you need to know is that this series is exceptional and possibly even makes you smarter after watching it. Check your local PBS listings.

On May 22, as my friend Debbie D. informed me (thanks, Deb!), the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is hosting an event called “Some Favorite Writers: An Evening with Sherlock Holmes and Friends,” featuring Holmes scholar Leslie Klinger, writer/director Nicholas Meyer, crime novelist Denise Hamilton, and real-life P.I. Sarah Alcorn. More information here if you’re in the area and would like to attend the free program.

What do you think of the Elementary clip? Will you watch? Are you excited, or slightly distrustful like Faye?

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Stalker Awards Nominations 2012

Since May is Mystery Month, it’s time for the second annual Stalker Awards! I created these last year so that crime fiction readers at large can nominate and vote for their favorite novels and authors without having to be on special panels or belong to certain organizations. They’re like People’s Choice Awards except none will be given to Robert Pattinson or Justin Bieber. (See last year’s winners here.)

The kind of rabid fandom those actors experience, though, is encouraged, because there can never be too much fainting around writers. The only requirement for you to nominate and vote is that you’re passionate about crime fiction. These are called Stalker Awards because they’ll be given to books you’re obsessed about and the authors who write them. They’re not called It-Was-Kinda-Interesting Awards.

How it’ll work: I’ll take nominations until 9 p.m. PST, Thursday, May 24, via the form below. Nominees must have been originally published in 2011. Please nominate THREE in each category, with #1 being your favorite, #2 your second favorite, and so on. This is to reduce the chances of a tie. If 50 respondents place 50 different titles in their #1 slot for favorite novel, for example, I’ll look to see which titles also show up as #2 and #3 on people’s lists to determine the highest vote getters.

You don’t have to fill out all categories but if some are tough for you, perhaps you can discuss ideas with fellow genre fans. I hope the process will help you revisit the outstanding crime fiction you read last year or discover books and authors you overlooked. Any questions, leave them in the comments.

I’ll announce the nominees on or around Tuesday, May 29, at which time you can vote on them and winners will be revealed first week in June. Spread the word, get your friends to participate, and let the stalking begin!

*Submissions are closed. See the nominees here.*

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First Impressions 5.11.12

Time for another sampling of opening passages from the books in my TBR pile, a regular Friday feature here at PCN. As some of you know, I go straight to the first page of the ARCs I receive before reading any accompanying press materials because the book itself needs to draw me in. If it’s a long description of weather or scenery, I’m usually done with it before I even start.

Here are this week’s openers for your perusal:

Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt, Minotaur, out now

Prologue

Detective John Novack knew something was wrong even before he stepped in the blood. Though he was a fourteen-year veteran of the force, in this instance his sense of foreboding did not come from an instinct finely honed by experience, nor was it a result of piecing clues together. The voice on the 911 call, as played back to him while he drove to the scene, had said it all.

“I killed Charlie Harrison.”

The Little Red Guard by Wenguang Huang, Riverhead, out now

At the age of nine, I slept next to a coffin that Father had made for Grandma’s seventy-third birthday. He forbade us from calling it a “coffin” and insisted that we refer to it as shou mu, which means something like “longevity wood.” To me, it seemed a strange name for the box in which we’d bury Grandma, but it served a practical purpose. It was less spooky to share my room with a “longevity wood” than with a big black coffin.

The 500 by Matthew Quirk, Reagan Arthur Books, out June 5

Prologue

Miroslav and Aleksandar filled the front seats of the Range Rover across the street. They wore their customary diplomatic uniforms—dark Brionis tailored close—but the two Serbs looked angrier than usual. Aleksandar lifted his right hand high enough to flash me a glint of his Sig Sauer. A master of subtlety, that Alex. I wasn’t particularly worried about the two bruisers sitting up front, however. The worst thing they could do was kill me, and right now that looked like one of my better options.

Which one(s) struck your fancy? Where do you think these books go from here?

Happy Friday and happy reading!

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First Impressions 4.20.12

Last week I got several votes to make this a regular feature, so I’ll once again feature the opening passages of three upcoming books to see a) which ones you would read based on the intro alone, and b) if you can guess what the books are about. I try to select openers with something dynamic going on, and these fit the bill.

The Yard by Alex Grecian, Putnam, out May 29

London, 1889.

Nobody noticed when Inspector Christian Little of Scotland Yard disappeared, and nobody was looking for him when he was found. A black steamer trunk appeared at Euston Square Station sometime during the night and remained unnoticed until early afternoon of the following day. The porter discovered it after the one o’clock train had departed, and he opened the trunk when it proved too heavy for him to lift.

He immediately sent a boy to find the police.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Crown, June 5

NICK DUNNE

THE DAY OF

When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the heard I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angles of it. Like a shiny, hard corn kernel or a riverbed fossil. She had what the Victorians would call a finely shaped head. You could imagine the skull quite easily.

I’d know her head anywhere.

And what’s inside it. I think of that, too: her mind. Her brain, all those coils, and her thoughts shuttling through those coils like fast, frantic centipedes. Like a child, I picture opening her skull, unspooling her brain and sifting through it, trying to catch and pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking, Amy?

Cop to Corpse by Peter Lovesey, Soho Crime, June 12

Hero to zero.

Cop to corpse.

One minute PC Harry Tasker is strolling up Walcot Street, Bath, on foot patrol. The next he is shot through the head. No scream, no struggle, no last words. He is picked off, felled, dead.

The shooting activates an alarm over one of the shops nearby, an ear-splitting ring certain to wake everyone.

Which ones have your attention?

Happy Friday!

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Book Review: GETAWAY by Lisa Brackmann

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a little getaway to Morro Bay on the central California coast. I packed too many books as usual, but the one I decided to read was Lisa Brackmann‘s Getaway (Soho Press, May 1), since the title is apropos.

The story begins with Michelle Mason vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, after her husband dies suddenly. It’s the last fling she’ll enjoy before having to deal with the fiasco he had made of their financial affairs, something he had kept from her. She’s losing her home and will have to get a job—why not have some fun first?

She hooks up with an American named Daniel and takes him back to her hotel. Two men break into her room in the middle of the night and hurt Daniel badly enough for him to be hospitalized. From there, she becomes entangled with Mexican cops, drug dealers, and a creepy guy named Gary who coerces her to spy on Daniel without telling her who either of them is. She can’t leave the country until she does as Gary wants, but as her vacation quickly devolves into a nightmare, Michelle may not leave Mexico alive.

The novel is compulsively readable, with Brackmann keeping the pace tight and readers in the dark along with Michelle. The author also captures both the beauty of Puerto Vallarta—you can almost feel the sun and sand on your skin—and its sinister underbelly.

Michelle, however, is a frustrating heroine. She’s mostly a passive character, reacting to events more than being proactive about getting herself out of the bad situation. This is understandable to some extent because her hands are figuratively and literally tied at times, but even when she does have a modicum of control, she still makes unwise choices. A party girl she barely knows asks Michelle to meet her at a seedy club late at night and Michelle goes, then gets in trouble when she leaves the joint much later because there are no more taxis running. Yes, she was hoping the girl had some intel for her, but perhaps she could’ve tried to negotiate a meeting time during the day? She also drinks too much when she knows she needs to stay clearheaded because her life might depend on it. Overall, though, Getaway is like a vacation fling—it may not leave a deep impression, but it’s diverting enough while it lasts.

Nerd verdict: Diverting Getaway

Buy it from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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First Impressions 4.13.12

Last Friday I did a post on the opening passages of the books I was reading. I received positive feedback from readers who enjoyed those glimpses so I decided to do it again this week.

When I receive ARCs, I go straight to the first paragraphs or pages before reading any of the accompanying press materials. Any book that begins with long descriptions of the weather or scenery usually goes in the donation pile. These are three openers that didn’t mention trees or rain:

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton, Crown, out April 24

I couldn’t move, not even a little finger or a flicker of an eye. I couldn’t open my mouth to scream.

I struggled, as hard as I could, to move the huge hulk that my body had become, but I was trapped under the hull of a vast ship wrecked on the ocean floor and moving was impossible.

My eyelids were welded shut. My eardrums broken. My vocal cords snapped off.

Pitch-dark and silent and so heavy in there; a mile of dense water above me.

Only one thing for it, I said to myself, thinking of you, and I slipped out of the wrecked ship of my body into the black ocean.

I swam upwards towards the daylight with all my strength.

Alpha by Greg Rucka, Mulholland Books, May 22

Mario Vesques was sure he was going to make it, right up until he saw the knife in the dog’s hand.

He had no idea where the blade came from; what he did have was just enough time to realize he was in trouble, and then the cartoon animal was lunging at him in a way that Vesques recognized, had seen before, but yet couldn’t immediately place. Only as he got his left forearm up for a cross-block, felt the tip of the knife nicking skin as it split his sleeve, did it click.

What Comes Next by John Katzenbach, Mysterious Press, June 5

As soon as the door opened, he knew he was dead.

He could see it in the quickly averted eyes, in the small slump of the shoulders, the nervous, hurried manner as the doctor moved rapidly across the room. The only questions that immediately leaped to his mind were: How much time do I have? How bad would it be?

Based only on these opening passages, which would compel you to read further? Would you be interested in my doing this as a regular feature?

Happy Friday the 13th!

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Book Review: THE EXPATS by Chris Pavone

In Chris Pavone’s debut novel, CIA spy Kate Moore quits her job so she can move with her husband, Dexter, and their two young children to Luxembourg and live a “normal” life. She soon meets another American couple, Julia and Bill, who seem a little too friendly and interested in Kate and her husband. Dexter does banking security, protecting financial institutions from any kind of attack or intrusion. He also doesn’t know about Kate’s past. Are Julia and Bill after Dexter or investigating Kate? Are they Feds or more dangerous characters? Kate uses her skills to investigate, though it might expose secrets she’d rather stay hidden forever.

I had two main issues with this book, the first being I didn’t care for any of the characters. To different degrees, they’re all manipulative people and it didn’t matter to me who won in the end. Kate is a cipher, keeping herself remote from her husband and the readers. For a former spy, her powers of observation seem compromised at times. She allows Julia to both use her computer and go into her car unsupervised, with Julia using lame excuses to do so. Regardless of what the reality is, Kate doesn’t even suspect the other woman might snoop. Aren’t spies suspicious of everyone? And this is after she already thinks something is a little off with her new best friend.

Pavone’s observational skills, on the other hand, are definitely sharp—he describes a lot of things in great detail. Sometimes this creates an enticing portrait of a European setting, but overall the habit is a hindrance. Many of the descriptions are not important to the story, and end up weighing down the narrative. Take this sentence, for example:

Kate turns the battered brass knob that’s set into the ornately molded plate that’s screwed to the gleaming creamy paint of the paneled closet door.

Except for the first word, that’s two modifiers per noun. Kate just needs to retrieve some luggage from the closet—why is all that excess information about the door necessary?

This overwriting is especially problematic when the action escalates. It’s hard for the suspense to be maintained when we have to stop and take note of what every passerby on the street is wearing and what they’re doing and how old they are. I had a Twitter discussion with Jenn aka The Picky Girl and she said this wasn’t a problem for her, because the details put her inside Kate’s shoes, showing how bored the former spy is, and how her restless mind would focus on all that minutiae. This gave me a logical perspective, but then perhaps Pavone did his job too well, because reading this novel made me bored and restless, too.

Nerd verdict: Bloated Expats

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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First Impressions

I receive a lot of books, and as each comes in, I read the first page or so to see if it grabs me right away. I don’t read the blurbs or dust jacket synopsis because the author doesn’t write those. The good stuff has to be on the page.

I’m currently reading three books because they’re in different genres and I alternate between them depending on my mood. But the books are similar in that their opening passages were interesting enough to keep me reading. Here’s what got my attention.

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess)—Putnam, April 17, nonfiction

This book is totally true, except for the parts that aren’t. It’s basically like Little House on the Prairie but with more cursing. And I know, you’re thinking, “But Little House on the Prairie was totally true!” and no, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t. Laura Ingalls was a compulsive liar with no fact-checker, and probably if she was still alive today her mom would be saying, “I don’t know how Laura came up with this whole ‘I’m-a-small-girl-on-the-prairie‘ story. We lived in New Jersey with her aunt Frieda and our dog, Mary, who was blinded when Laura tried to bleach a lightning bolt on her forehead. I have no idea where she got the ‘and we lived in a dugout‘ thing, although we did take her to Carlsbad Caverns once.”

How can you not want to read more?

The Lifeboatby Charlotte Rogan—Reagan Arthur Books, released this past Tuesday, fiction

Today I shocked the lawyers, and it surprised me, the effect I could have on them. A thunderstorm arose as we were leaving the court for lunch. They dashed for cover under the awning of a nearby shop to save their suits from getting wet while I stood in the street and opened my mouth to it, transported back and seeing again that other rain as it came at us in gray sheets. I had lived through that downpour, but the moment in the street was my first notion that I could live it again, that I could be immersed in it, that it could again be the tenth day in the lifeboat, when it began to rain.

Why is she in court? What is she accused of? What happened in the lifeboat? It sounds ominous to me.

The Expatsby Chris Pavone—Crown, out now, international spy thriller

“Kate?”

Kate is staring through a plate-glass window filled with pillows and tablecloths and curtains, all in taupes and chocolates and moss greens, a palette that replaced the pastels of last week. The season changed, just like that.

She turns from the window, to this woman standing beside her on the narrow sliver of sidewalk in the rue Jacob. Who is this woman?

“Oh my God, Kate? Is that you?” The voice is familiar. But the voice is not enough.

Though I don’t know much about the plot, I do know that Kate is a former spy living abroad with her family, trying to leave The Life behind. This woman, though, seems like bad news for Kate. Cue suspenseful movie music.

Do any of these appeal to you? Which one would you keep reading?

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Book Review: THE PROFESSIONALS by Owen Laukkanen

After graduating from college without promising job prospects in the troubled economy, four friends decide to kidnap an anonymous, rich businessman for a modest ransom. Their reasoning:

“You get a junior VP at a Fortune 500 company, tell his wife to hand over a hundred grand in the next twenty-four hours, and she’ll do it without thinking. It’s an inconvenience at those stakes, not a crime.”

The first kidnapping goes so well, they do it again, moving from city to city, staying under the radar by only asking for mid-five-figure sums, saving up for when they can retire to the Maldives. But then they snatch the wrong guy, someone whose family would rather retaliate than pay up. The kidnappers panic, things go horribly wrong, and thus begins their nightmare that keeps going from oh, sh*t to we are so screwed.

Laukkanen kidnapped me on a Saturday afternoon, keeping me tied to the couch and making me eat saltines and cheese for dinner because I couldn’t stop reading to prepare a proper meal. His prose is propulsive, and his chapters end in a cliffhangery way that kept me flipping them pages. Arthur, Marie, Sawyer, and Mouse are kids who do foolish things, but they’re surprisingly sympathetic in Laukkanen’s hands. They’re loyal to each other and are good people at heart who just don’t know how else to attain The Dream. I couldn’t help wanting to see them get it—as long as no innocents got hurt.

And that’s why the novel also became problematic for me: I half-wanted the criminals to win. They’re more interesting and complex than the law enforcement officers chasing them. Agent Kirk Stevens of the Minnesota Bureau of Crime Apprehension gets the job done but doesn’t leave much of an impression. His partner, FBI Agent Carla Windermere, is young, beautiful, good at what she does; she looks great on the surface but we don’t see much of her inner life. Perhaps they’ll gain dimensions in the next Stevens and Windermere installment, as this is only the first in the series. For now, however, the outlaws steal the show.

Nerd verdict: Propulsive Professionals, with complex criminals

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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Book Review: CLAWBACK by Mike Cooper

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers, and is reprinted here with permission.

When Wall Street’s worst-performing financiers start dying in suspicious ways, financial “consultant” Silas Cade—who happens to be a black ops vet—is hired by an investment banker to investigate. Are angry investors who lost their life savings targeting money managers? Clara Dawson, a fledgling financial blogger looking for a big scoop, wangles her way into Cade’s investigation and soon gets caught up in the violence. Cade’s role expands to protect her, as he discovers that greed has no boundaries, not even murder.

“Clawback” is a term used in the financial industry to describe cases in which a firm reclaims payouts that it’s already made—or money managers agree to return dividends they’ve already received—to cover subsequent losses. Cade demonstrates the concept on one of his clients’ investment bankers early in the proceedings. (Mike Cooper is a pseudonym for a former financial executive, who’s also been published as a thriller writer under a different name.) Even with Cooper’s explanations, some of the intricacies involved in investment strategies went right over my head, but the action was tight enough to keep me turning the pages. And there’s humor in the scenario of nervous bankers packing heat to defend themselves, which doesn’t bode well when they all get together for a fancy event.

Cade is a likable character with a wry worldview, though he’s a little slow in figuring out some of Clara’s motives and those of the people doing the—and making a—killing. Perhaps, though, this makes him more accessible than an infallible hero. The ending suggests he might have something in common with Jack Reacher and, like that character, Cade may not be such a loner when readers follow him to his next adventure.

Nerd verdict: An easy sell even for financial laymen

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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