Instagram Facebook X-twitter Linkedin
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Resurrectionist

A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
Previous
Next

Sign Up

Get the latest ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

All Mystery Coverage

Filter by genre
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

A debut novel with deadly secrets

Review by bookpagedev

If ever the adage "things aren’t always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in the present day, when protagonist Jane Hudson returns to her alma mater, the Heart Lake School for Girls in the Adirondacks, to teach Latin. Newly divorced, Jane seems to have fled to Heart Lake to take refuge and re-evaluate her life. But the reader quickly discovers she has a past to reconcile when a page from her teenage journal reappears after more than two decades . . . and one of her students tries to kill herself.

Part two of the novel flashes back to Jane’s teenage years. Here the reader has a chance to get to know the younger Jane, a lonely girl who lives on the other side of the river ("in Corinth, it’s the river and not the train tracks that divide the haves from the have-nots"). Her mother encourages her to take Latin for the sole purpose of meeting, and hopefully befriending, the sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers. And it is in Latin class that Jane is befriended by siblings Matt and Lucy Toller two of the three teenagers who later commit suicide during Jane’s senior year at Heart Lake School.

The reader looks on as Jane steps through the veil of young adulthood when she loses her virginity and faces the death of a parent. But the trials of growing up are further complicated as the circumstances of the trio of tragic deaths are slowly unraveled. The reader begins to wonder if the student deaths were really suicide and comes to realize that Jane may be the only one who can answer that question.

While avid mystery readers may find they can figure out "whodunit" before the final page of most novels, The Lake of Dead Languages holds its secrets to the end. If it weren’t for Goodman’s keen ability to weave a mystery of multiple layers, each revealed with exquisite timing, her picturesque prose would be reason enough to keep the reader turning the pages.

Amy Rauch Neilson is a writer and editor in Belleville, Michigan.

 

If ever the adage "things aren't always what they seem" applied to a novel, it would be to The Lake of Dead Languages. In her debut novel, Carol Goodman spins a tale that keeps the reader guessing on multiple fronts. The novel begins in…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Real-life figures join WWII spy story

Review by bookpagedev

John Lawton’s striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America’s entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton’s Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper echelons of the Nazi SS and has spied first for Poland and then for the United States is now on the run. The narration rotates among several points of view those of the spy, his Nazi pursuers, his American handler, several British agents and the British policeman who ultimately must make sense of what has occurred. As the main action is playing out, Nazi officer Rudolph Hess lands a plane in Scotland on a mysterious true-life mission that has never been fully explained.

The author also brings other historical figures such as Reinhard Heydrich, a brutal SS chief, to life, and grants memorable cameos to a number of famous men and women who personified the times. One of the most chilling scenes involves Heydrich’s examination of the hands of a corpse that the fleeing spy has tried to pass off as his own. A surgeon has neatly removed the hands from the corpse and Heydrich’s assistant has a great deal of trouble deciding how to carry them into the room. He settles on a silver desert tray, and the fastidious Heydrich examines them very casually as if it were all part of a perfectly normal day. Another of the cameos is made by H.G. Wells, and in a comment that illustrates Lawton’s deftness in handling a broad range of tones, Wells is described as “having endured as much of his own silence as he could manage in the course of a single meal.” Freddie Troy is kept mostly on the sidelines in this novel, but all of the characters are vividly sketched. The exposition of their backgrounds is pointed and efficient, and their voices are differentiated enough for the reader to keep them straight but not so much that they seem caricatured. Overall, Bluffing Mr. Churchill is a historically fascinating story that is masterfully told. Martin Kich is an English professor at Wright State University.

John Lawton's striking new suspense novel, Bluffing Mr. Churchill, is set in the period between the height of the London Blitz and America's entry into World War II. In this prequel to Lawton's Inspector Troy series, an Austrian who has insinuated himself into the upper…
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

T.R. Pearson’s latest slice of small-town life

Review by bookpagedev

In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution best known for his preference for the porn channel. One mystery will be solved, while the other remains tantalizingly out of reach.

But these strong narrative engines are not what really drives Polar, T. R. Pearson’s latest novel. What Pearson seeks to do, instead, is capture the feel of small town life and the myriad personalities that give it texture, without resorting to the usual platitudes that pretend such towns have more than their share of unspoiled innocence. In other words, Pearson’s small-town Virginia is no Mayberry. Nor is it inhabited by the Cleavers.

The novelist thinks nothing of interrupting the flow of his narrative to give the life story of a minor character who may never appear in the book again. This doesn’t constitute an aesthetic flaw. After all, the true, unvarnished motivations of man are what Polar is really all about.

It’s about characters like Ivy Vaughn, a woman who remains in such a high dudgeon she never pays attention to the road and leaves a trail of dead animals in her wake. It’s also about Mrs. Dunn, who turns the loss of her daughter and husband into profit, launching a career as a radio celebrity whose collective losses make her an authority on flagging American morals.

And, of course, there is Clayton, whose television satellite is arced over his garage at an angle that betrays, for all to observe, his addiction to televised erotica. Clayton seems an unlikely candidate to be blessed with the gift of second sight. But fate, which has a definite sense of humor in a T.R. Pearson novel, chooses Clayton to become a small-time, small-town prophet.

Only Deputy Tatum is able to turn Clayton’s obscure prognostications to good purpose in his search for Angela. Motivated by the haunting memory of his own dead child, Ray pursues Angela’s story long after the media, the FBI and even the girl’s parents have given her up for lost. Using the prism of Tatum’s grief, Pearson critiques small-town pretensions and, by extension, America’s chronic hypocrisies.

In Polar, Deputy Ray Tatum has two mysteries to solve: the disappearance of Angela Dunn, a wordless child who wanders into the woods, never to be seen again by her parents, and the sudden prophetic powers of the formerly worthless Clayton, a shiftless town institution…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Titillating clues ease the wait for ‘The Lost Symbol’

Review by Eliza Borné

The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic tweets” and Facebook messages.

Virtually no one knows the specifics of The Lost Symbol—the team at Random House’s Doubleday imprint is relying on Brown’s already-loyal following, rather than advance praise from reviewers, to create buzz for the new thriller. Thus, the books are on lockdown until September 15. With an initial print run of 5 million copies, the book will represent the largest first printing in the history of Random House—and the company hopes it will be a publishing sensation, especially after several years of delayed release dates. Considering that The Da Vinci Code has sold 81 million copies worldwide, and its movie counterpart made $750 million, the odds are good that The Lost Symbol will land a long-term spot at the top of bestseller lists.

A little guesswork à la symbologist Robert Langdon can give us some clues as to the plot of The Lost Symbol, promised by Sonny Mehta, Editor-in-Chief of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, to be “a brilliant and compelling thriller.”

From the publisher, we know that the novel will portray 12 hours of Langdon’s life in Washington, D.C., and the plot will revolve around the Freemasons, an organization that Brown has called the “oldest fraternity in history.”

We also know that Brown’s original title for the book was “The Solomon Key.” The Key of Solomon is an important symbol in Freemason rituals. For those who want to learn more before The Lost Symbol arrives in bookstores, check out Cracking the Freemason’s Code : The Truth about Solomon’s Key and the Brotherhood by Robert D.L. Cooper, a Scottish Freemason and historian who provides an inside look at this secretive organization.

The “cryptic tweets” from the Twitter page of The Lost Symbol are nothing if not  . . .  cryptic. These short messages include questions and puzzling clues. Examples include the query “How could a precious stone burn 20 years of Isaac’s research?” and a link to an article about Robert Hanssen, a double agent who spied on the FBI for the Soviet Union and Russia. One tweet promised to reveal Langdon’s next adversary once Dan Brown’s Facebook page reaches 100,000 fans. (At press time, there were just over 60,000.)

The Facebook page for The Lost Symbol offers equally baffling tidbits, such as a link to an article about ancient pyramids with the comment that “the pyramid is a highly celebrated symbol in Freemasonry.”

And then there is the novel’s cover. The American version features the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., lit up against the background of a large red wax seal. Embedded in the wax is an unidentifiable symbol. The U.K. and Australian cover differs slightly in that the Capitol appears below a Masonic key. There have been many theories tying the Freemasons to our nation’s capital—including speculation that the streets of Washington, D.C., were planned to physically mirror important Masonic symbols. It’s also interesting to note that one of the most famous Freemasons is none other than George Washington, for whom the capital city is named.

Stephen Rubin, a former president of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, has implied that there is special significance behind the publication date of The Lost Symbol: “Dan Brown has a very specific release date for the publication of his new book, and when the book is published, his readers will see why.”

The Key of Solomon, pyramids, important dates and an FBI spy—all in a 12-hour period of time? All in a 528-page novel? Until September 15, we can only guess whether these clues make direct references to events in the novel, or simply allude to greater themes. According to Jason Kaufman, Brown’s editor, the novel will show us “an unseen world of mysticism, secret societies and hidden locations, with a stunning twist that long predates America.”

Mehta insists that Brown’s novel is “well worth the wait.” In the meantime, we can download The Lost Symbol’s countdown widget online, re-read The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and brush up on Freemason conspiracy theories. And get lots of sleep. For millions of booklovers, the evening of Tuesday, September 15, is shaping up to be an all-nighter.  

RELATED CONTENT
All your questions answered in the review of The Lost Symbol.

The website of The Lost Symbol offers this teaser: “9.15.09: All Will Be Revealed.” Until that date, we can only rely on the publisher to keep us informed with hints about Dan Brown’s long-anticipated follow-up to The Da Vinci Code, in the form of “cryptic…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Sharp Objects

Review by Iris Blasi

Someone is killing little girls in Wind Gap, Missouri. Hoping to scoop the bigger newspapers, an editor at the Chicago Daily Post sends reporter Camille Preaker to the tiny town to cover the story. Wind Gap just happens to be Camille’s hometown, the very place she left the first chance she got and never looked back. After her return, Camille slowly comes to realize that the murders and her own hidden horrors are more closely tied than she could have imagined.

It’s hard to describe this bone-chilling debut by Gillian Flynn (lead TV critic for Entertainment Weekly) without resorting to language that could be found in a horror movie trailer: haunting, shocking and skin-crawlingly creepy are all apt terms. But the story and the characters inhabiting it are anything but clichéd. Camille’s hard-edged hypochondriac mother and her manipulative, beautiful much-younger stepsister occupy central roles, but just as intriguing are the Kansas City cop called in to assist on the case and John Keene, the brother of the most recent victim, whose open grieving makes many see him as a prime suspect. Camille herself is the most fascinating of the bunch. She has spent a lifetime trying to numb her pain by carving words into her body. Her left wrist bears the scar of “weary,” while her back reads “spiteful” and “tangle,” and her chest is branded with “blossom,” “dosage” and “bottle.” Camille literally ran out of room on her body before turning for help, and she now medicates her urge to cut with heavy doses of bourbon. Bringing the killer to light may be just the thing to liberate her own spirit.

Sharp Objects is incredibly disturbing, but Flynn’s powerful prose shines a light on the beauty that can rise out of dysfunction. With this novel’s perfectly picked, sinister details (the killer is plucking his victims’ baby teeth) and well-established pacing, readers will find themselves helplessly hurtling towards the haunting conclusion.

Iris Blasi is a writer in New York City.

Someone is killing little girls in Wind Gap, Missouri. Hoping to scoop the bigger newspapers, an editor at the Chicago Daily Post sends reporter Camille Preaker to the tiny town to cover the story. Wind Gap just happens to be Camille's hometown, the very place…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

What makes a hero?

Review by bookpagedev

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who’s appeared in several of Scott Turow’s legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he’d never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David’s wartime letters to his fiancŽe with a note referring to his court-martial. Stewart had always known his father served as an Army lawyer in World War II, meeting his mother in a concentration camp, but the fiancŽe and the court-martial weren’t part of that story. As Stewart investigates, he discovers that the lives his parents claimed to have lived were far less dramatic, and far less heroic, than the truth.

Still a working lawyer, Turow is known for intelligent, gripping thrillers that lead readers into the shadowy corners of life. In Ordinary Heroes, he dives into a different world: an Army lawyer’s search for a truant OSS officer during the darkest days of the war in Europe, and a son’s search for the truth about his parents.

David Dubin’s former lawyer, now an elderly retired judge, gives Stewart his father’s written account of his journey from loyal lieutenant to infantry captain to accused man. David is assigned to investigate and arrest Maj. Robert Martin, who pulled off a series of raids that helped turn the Allies’ luck. But Martin’s clash with authority brands him as insubordinate and worse. David participates in a raid with Martin’s crew including an intriguing Polish girl, Gita. Following Martin’s trail with his intrepid sergeant, David parachutes into ever-changing territory, then leads a weary band of survivors in the Battle of the Bulge. Still uncertain whether he’s chasing a traitor or a hero, David pursues Martin into Germany, to the camp where he once again meets Gita.

A masterful, passionate storyteller who handles his latest literary challenge with assurance, Turow pays homage in Ordinary Heroes to all who ever dared pursue love or justice amid the horrors of war. Leslie Budewitz practices law and writes in northwest Montana.

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who's appeared in several of Scott Turow's legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he'd never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David's wartime letters to his…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Getting the job done, Corey’s way

Review by Ian Schwartz

Former NYPD detective John Corey is back in Nelson DeMille's 14th novel, <b>Wild Fire</b>. If DeMille has become a bit of an alarmist, it's still worthwhile fun to follow Corey, the world's most irreverent terrorist hunter, as he runs down bad guys and dispenses definitive justice in an ambiguous world.

A member of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force and a formidable thorn in the side of wrongdoers and superiors alike, Corey has been the main man in four DeMille thrillers. He has been shot at, beaten and threatened with firing more times than he can count, but he measures success only in results. He also is loyal to his friends, so when a fellow agent turns up dead on a fishy surveillance mission, Corey and his partner Kate Mayfield head to upstate New York to investigate the curiously named Custer Hill Gun Club.

Mayfield is an FBI agent who is technically Corey's boss as well as his wife which Corey would surely flag as redundant. The two soon butt heads with Bain Madox, the ultra-rich owner and founder of the gun club. Madox is a rich Vietnam veteran who is righter than Rumsfeld. He also is either insane, brilliant or both, but that's for the individual reader to judge. Madox's diabolic plan is worthy of a Bond villain. Luckily, Corey has no problem playing the role of 007 as he and his wife try to stay alive while thwarting Madox's not entirely unimaginable nuclear solution to the chaos in the Middle East.

Corey, first introduced in Plum Island, keeps a stiff upper lip and cracks jokes in the face of danger. He is also grandstanding, irritating, puerile and at his best just plain obnoxious. So how is he popular enough for DeMille to have brought him back for a fourth turn? Because anyone who has ever had a boss, an enemy or a wife yes, Detective Corey, redundant again has wanted to be Corey for at least a moment. And, oh yeah, he also gets the job done.

 

Ian Schwartz writes from New York City.

Former NYPD detective John Corey is back in Nelson DeMille's 14th novel, <b>Wild Fire</b>. If DeMille has become a bit of an alarmist, it's still worthwhile fun to follow Corey, the world's most irreverent terrorist hunter, as he runs down bad guys and dispenses definitive…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Le Carr delivers another absolute winner

Review by bookpagedev

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy is a thistledown of a man, blown wherever fate and his own whims take him. His resume is endless: ex-’60s radical, failed writer, businessman, schoolteacher, spy. It is this last role that comes back to haunt him with the reappearance of his old friend and fellow traveler, Sasha, who offers financial security and a chance to fight the good fight once again. A mysterious benefactor wants to finance a school that will counter what he sees as propaganda supporting the war in Iraq. Mundy eventually realizes, however, that some things can look too good to be true. Absolute Friends is an absolute page-turner, yet in some ways, plot is superfluous to this novel. We are drawn into the plot because we care about the characters, from the simply drawn minor actors to the meticulously assembled protagonist. Absolute Friends is as much an examination of the human soul as it is an intriguing commentary on 21st century conflicts.

 

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

A tempting meal in the Havana Room

Review by bookpagedev

Colin Harrison, author of Afterburn and Manhattan Nocturne, is at it again in this provocative story about one man’s despair and his desire to maintain normalcy. The Havana Room, a delicious mystery that will keep you guessing, is perhaps Harrison’s most intriguing book yet.

The narrator is Bill Wyeth, a clever New York real estate attorney who finds his life upended after accidentally killing his son’s friend in a freak peanut oil accident. Wyeth’s life disintegrates before his eyes when he loses his job, his family and his sanity. Thrown into a pit of despair, Wyeth claws his way through Manhattan’s darkness, hoping for happiness but finding nothing. That is, until he visits an antique steak house managed by an emotionally complex young woman named Allison Sparks. Day after day, he soaks in his misery, eating at table 17 and idolizing the woman he knows nothing about. But that changes when he finds himself in the notorious Havana Room, a section of the restaurant known for its history and secrecy. Sparks asks Wyeth to provide late-night legal advice to her friend, business Jay Rainey. Stuck in a cruel world of what-ifs and social ironies, Wyeth reluctantly helps out. But before he knows what hit him, Wyeth is knee-deep in Rainey’s checkered past. Dodging Chilean businessmen and gun-toting goons, Wyeth removes himself from the situation before it costs him his life. The Havana Room is an obsessively detailed, tantalizing account of a man’s devotion to his family and his eagerness to both find, and hide, the truth. Harrison’s talent at creating quirky, well-structured characters is matched by his ability to interweave them into a plot riddled with fantastic twists and literary U-turns. All in all, The Havana Room is a gripping story about redemption and devotion that will have you rooting for the lonely underdog. Nicholas Addison Thomas is a writer in Fairfax, Virginia.

Colin Harrison, author of Afterburn and Manhattan Nocturne, is at it again in this provocative story about one man's despair and his desire to maintain normalcy. The Havana Room, a delicious mystery that will keep you guessing, is perhaps Harrison's most intriguing book yet.
Mystery & SuspenseFictionSuspense

A race against time for the Jackdaws

Review by bookpagedev

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a gripping page-turner in the same spirit as his classic Eye of the Needle.

The setting is World War II, days before the Allied invasion of Normandy. Our guide is Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the tough-talking, smart-as-a-whip secret agent who regularly drops into occupied France to rally the local resistance forces. She’s the most experienced agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and she’s come up with a rather improbable plan to cripple German communication lines. Described as a "pretty girl with a heart of stone," Flick watched as an earlier attempt to destroy the Germans’ central telephone exchange turned into a tragic fiasco, forcing her to return to England after a humiliating failure.

Hoping to salvage her pride and reputation, Flick comes up with an unorthodox plan that calls for an all-woman team, and she searches out six women fluent in French who might know something about engineering or explosives. Follett has a grand time producing one unlikely candidate after another as the reject "spy wannabe" pile is culled for possible recruits. Rescuing one woman from prison and lifting a drag queen from a nightclub, the Jackdaws team is a mix of "one flirt, one murderess, one safebreaker, one female impersonator, and one awkward aristocrat." It’s refreshing that the girls never really jell in their whirlwind three-day training session; in fact, there’s a lot of yelling and cursing as they learn how to land a parachute and, more importantly, how to kill.

Follett shows his gift for putting the reader right in the middle of the action with plenty of authentic details and narrowly thwarted disasters. Once the team lands in France it’s a race to see if the Jackdaws will make it to their target before they’re either killed or captured. The Germans are in hot pursuit, and one particularly evil dude on their tail has a talent for torture. The Jackdaws act both eerily prescient and endearingly stupid, but either way, you can’t help cheering them on.

Nobody works the spies and Nazis M.O. better than Follett, and this high-spirited adventure doesn’t disappoint. Intelligent thrillers are a rare find, and Follett delivers every time.

 

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a…

Mystery & SuspenseFictionSuspense

a race against time for the Jackdaws

Review by bookpagedev

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a gripping page-turner in the same spirit as his classic Eye of the Needle.

The setting is World War II, days before the Allied invasion of Normandy. Our guide is Felicity "Flick" Clariet, the tough-talking, smart-as-a-whip secret agent who regularly drops into occupied France to rally the local resistance forces. She’s the most experienced agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), and she’s come up with a rather improbable plan to cripple German communication lines. Described as a "pretty girl with a heart of stone," Flick watched as an earlier attempt to destroy the Germans’ central telephone exchange turned into a tragic fiasco, forcing her to return to England after a humiliating failure.

Hoping to salvage her pride and reputation, Flick comes up with an unorthodox plan that calls for an all-woman team, and she searches out six women fluent in French who might know something about engineering or explosives. Follett has a grand time producing one unlikely candidate after another as the reject "spy wannabe" pile is culled for possible recruits. Rescuing one woman from prison and lifting a drag queen from a nightclub, the Jackdaws team is a mix of "one flirt, one murderess, one safebreaker, one female impersonator, and one awkward aristocrat." It’s refreshing that the girls never really jell in their whirlwind three-day training session; in fact, there’s a lot of yelling and cursing as they learn how to land a parachute and, more importantly, how to kill.

Follett shows his gift for putting the reader right in the middle of the action with plenty of authentic details and narrowly thwarted disasters. Once the team lands in France it’s a race to see if the Jackdaws will make it to their target before they’re either killed or captured. The Germans are in hot pursuit, and one particularly evil dude on their tail has a talent for torture. The Jackdaws act both eerily prescient and endearingly stupid, but either way, you can’t help cheering them on.

Nobody works the spies and Nazis M.O. better than Follett, and this high-spirited adventure doesn’t disappoint. Intelligent thrillers are a rare find, and Follett delivers every time.

 

Ken Follett has once again written a thriller that provides a steady dose of stomach-churning suspense, while throwing in enough dashes of humor to stave off the antacids. His latest, Jackdaws, immerses the reader in the dangerous, intrigue-filled life of a female spy, creating a…

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Masterful mystery from Llosa

Review by bookpagedev

Whenever a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the Andes) hits the stands, it is cause for celebration among critics and readers alike. It took the better part of a year for his latest novel, The Feast of the Goat, to be released in translation, and the many English-speaking fans of this Spanish-language master (this reviewer included) have been champing at the bit in anticipation. As the novel opens, we find that Urania Cabral has made quite a good life for herself. She lives in an expensive Manhattan high-rise and serves as a corporate lawyer for the World Bank. At 49, she is one of the major power brokers of the New York financial community. Her success has not been without its shortcomings, however: she has been estranged from her family for some time and has no significant other with whom to mark the passing of the years.

She decides on a whim to return to her childhood home of Santo Domingo, capital of the Caribbean island nation of the Dominican Republic. Her homecoming will be something of a self-imposed test, an experiment to see whether the city can still stir up the feelings of nostalgia, rage, bitterness and impotence she felt when she left. It will also offer her the opportunity to visit her ailing father, a high-ranking government official who fell out of favor in the aftermath of the murder of dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1961. (Trujillo’s government, though arbitrary and bloody, had been propped up by the U.S. government, largely because of his vehement anti-communist stance.)

Jump ahead a chapter, and you find yourself transported back to 1961. Trujillo is at the height of his power, and he rules the country with the proverbial iron fist. He routinely beds the wives of his generals and confidants and publicly brags about it in front of them, a modern-day Caligula in a tropical suit. Slowly the notion of assassination takes hold in the hearts and minds of a small group of patriots.

Deftly cutting back and forth from the assassination plot to the present day, Llosa weaves the story of a family and a country torn apart by the abuse of power. The Feast of the Goat succeeds on many levels. Llosa’s writing is, as always, rich and earthy, complex and elegant. The story is a classic, marking the downfall of a despot and the unforeseen consequences for his inner circle, his enemies and his country.

 

Whenever a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the Andes) hits the stands, it is cause for celebration among critics and readers alike. It took the better part of a year for his latest novel, The Feast of the…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Once upon a midnight dreary

Review by Sarah White

Like his hit debut novel The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl's second book, The Poe Shadow, deals with literary obsession, mystery and murder. This time, Pearl investigates the unexplained death of Edgar Allan Poe. Quentin Clark, a young Baltimore lawyer who admires Poe and had corresponded with him, takes it upon himself to discover what happened during the poet's last days. When he learns that the character C. Auguste Dupin, who solves puzzling crimes in several Poe stories, was based on a real person, Clark heads to France to find the real Dupin and bring him to America to solve the mystery. Poe's detective was gifted in ratiocination, which Clark defines as deliberate reasoning combined with imagination. It is not, he insists, interchangeable with logic. It has something to do with being able to see and understand things that other people cannot, and it is vital to the telling of this tale.

Though the novel gets off to a slow start, the pace picks up, and readers are soon taken on a wild ride through the streets of 19th-century Baltimore, as two Frenchmen who claim to be the inspiration for Dupin race each other to the truth. In the meantime, Clark has run-ins with royalty, international spies, slave traders and a female assassin, and imperils his law practice, his relationship with the woman he loves and his family home, not to mention his life. But like any good detective story, the novel eventually comes to a neat and rewarding conclusion in which all the strange loose ends are tied up.

No one truly knows what happened to Poe in the days before his death, but Pearl's fascinating theory (which draws liberally from both fact and fiction) provides a satisfying hypothesis. The Poe Shadow is an entertaining tale of ratiocination that would make Poe himself proud.

Sarah E. White is a freelance writer in Arkansas.

Like his hit debut novel The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl's second book, The Poe Shadow, deals with literary obsession, mystery and murder. This time, Pearl investigates the unexplained death of Edgar Allan Poe. Quentin Clark, a young Baltimore lawyer who admires Poe and had corresponded…

Trending Mystery & Suspense

FictionThriller

Paul Tremblay

There’s no going back in this apocalyptic home-invasion thriller

more info

Praised by horrormeister Stephen King, Paul Tremblay’s shocking new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, is an often graphic account of one family’s ordeal when their vacation is shattered in a cult-like home invasion. We asked Tremblay about the book’s origins, its dark path and his inner fears that helped forge the novel.

read more
All Mystery

Author Interviews

More Interviews

Recent Features

All Features