Great author; not great reading; still worthwhile

The Nickel Boys
by Coleson Whitehead

My theory is that he did such a good job on his book Underground Railroad, a Times bestseller, that the editors didn't put much effort into this. No, I didn't find mispellings or bad grammar--that's not what I'm complaining about. But there are context switches that leave the reader bewildered, and there are things unexplained that should have been explained. I knew all about the Dozier Academy on which the book was based, so I understood everything that was happening. But would anyone else?

Most of the episodes--his beating, interactions with the other boys and the staff--were written through the eyes of the one participating. As such they are real, but understated. You don't fully get the horror if you don't step back to see. I know this sounds absurd--isn't the full horror of a bad experience best told by the experiencee? But it's not. Haven't you ever been in a scary situation where a certain numbness overtakes your brain and you simply react?  But it's only afterward that you get the shakes.

So it's the details that would have brought the story alive, and those details are missing. In a way I was grateful--I already knew them and didn't look forward to hearing them again. But I could have skipped over, and someone who didn't know, still wouldn't know. Possibly the problem was in telling the story from only one person's perspective.

Possibly better than the sequels

KIlling Trail
by Margaret Mizushima

This is the first book in the Timber Creek K-9 mysteries--I read them out of order because the library was closed for a few weeks and I could only checkout ebooks. I've been developing a theory that a mystery series gets better over time, as the author releases more books, synthesizes the feedback, correct her weak writing and improves her style.  (Her or him, whatever. Their)

But I found myself enjoying this first book of the series a whole lot more than the others. For one thing, there's not a lot of soppy self-reflection about her attraction to the handsome veterinarian. And very little self-reflection in all--which is not normally a good thing, but her writing of it is simplistic and it annoys me. Does self-reflection written in the third person always come off seeming forced? I don't think so.

This book had no flaws. It's tight, well-plotted, and had a great action scene toward the end. My only quibble is something I've complained about before--her matter-of-fact employment of this highly trained dog as a take-down weapon. I just don't think that's how K-9 officers normally utilize their dogs. A cursory research of the subject implies that the use of a dog to take down a subject without first warning him would often be considered "excessive force" in the courts. But not if the subject had a gun. Still, I wonder how good an (imaginary) officer she's supposed to be when she always seems to be letting her dog do all the risky work--if she's going to indulge in self-doubt and worry, why not worry about her dog?

History at its saddest

The Five:
The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
by Hallie Rubenhold

Here's the problem--how do you take five stories, each ending on the evening before the gruesome climax, and still make them suspenseful?

Danged if I know--but somehow she did it. This is the life story of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper before they met their end. She looked at the facts as a modern-day historian does, and related them so we could reach our own opinions as to the lifestyle and moral compass of the victims. Four of the five had histories that could be traced back through parents, upbringing, marriage and adulthood.

It would have been interesting if she'd submitted the research to a modern day psychological profiler to see what he'd make of the killer's selection of victims. Four of the five were in their forties or fifties; all were habitual drunkards; four (I think) had multiple children that they'd lost to disease or left behind for various reasons. I wouldn't make too much of the drunkenness--that seems to be normal for the era. But it may have made them easy victims.

As much as this book is great history writing, it has to make you sad. One thing you must agree on--even if their lives hadn't ended abruptly and sensationally, they would have simply ended with nothing to show for, nothing to remember.

Gardening in my Roots, Lettuce Season is Ending Soon but meanwhile

I'm eating lettuce every day and still can't get on top of it. It's nearing bolting time!

I planted these varieties: Speckled Bibb, Salad Bowl, 'gourmet blend', and Parris island cos (that's the romaine) on the right. So I really have no idea what is what. Except for the onion. I know what that is, but not where it came from. It just came up in the vicinity of where onions where growing last year.

According to "hobbyfarms.com", you can cut bolting lettuce back to the stem, and if it survives the summer, it will resprout and produce a second crop in the fall.  I added the words "if it survives the summer" because in North Texas, who knows? It also says that you can save the seeds--most lettuces are self-pollinated. So maybe I'll cut half of it back and let the rest go to seed.

Not perfect but plenty for a few evening's entertainment

Tracking Game
by Margaret Mizushima

I'm reading these Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries out of order because the library only has the most recent ones in ebook versions. But they're opening back up this week and I'll be picking up #1 in the series today.

The dog is pretty great. So great that I wonder if Ms. Mizushima is stretching the bounds of known dog abilities a little bit in the things he can do. But dogs can do all sorts of things you'd never believe, so I'll let it slide. I do, however, think her detective is a little to fast to fire the "dog gun" if you know what I mean.  She should use her dog as a weapon of last resort. But that's my opinion and I'll allow you to disagree.

I'm greatly enjoying my string of superdog detective novels, but what I'd really like to find is one written by a man. Just to see how he'd approach it. Idle curiosity--the devil finds work....  Possibly what I'm looking for is great action, great human anguish and dog-rescues-person stories, and NO weepy self pity in a heroine. Or hero, whatever.

And the reason I bring this up is that there are two things keeping me from adoring this series and screaming for the next one--one, the detective Mattie Cobb gets a surprising amount of respect from the bad guys, more than I suspect any woman cop would; and two, she keeps diverting her thoughts into maudlin self pity and longing for the handsome veterinarian she's dating. it's like, "Oh, will I ever be able to let myself open up to him?" and "Would he ever get over my tragic past?" and "oh, sob sob misery...."  It really gets on my nerves. Thank heavens I'm reading this, not listening to the audiobook. That would be supremely annoying.

Best Driscoll to date, and last, I think

No Man's Land
by Sara Driscoll

Urban exploration. I'd never heard of it.
Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof-and-tunnel hacking) is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the man-made environment.

In this challenging case, Meg and Hawk go along on a jaunt to check out an abandoned building, just for training purposes. But, of course, they find a recently deceased body. (Hawk is not a 'cadaver dog' but if someone has died recently enough, they still smell like a human being. And that's his forte--finding people)

And once again it's a race against time and death as Meg's team--sort of like the Avengers in their diversity and unique abilities--track down a killer who's not finished yet. And unlike the last book, Ms. Driscoll didn't take any annoying side trips into the killer's head. I loved this one even better than the last...and just be warned--

If you possess a healthy respect for heights, the scariest parts of this book may keep you awake at nights.

Travel and adventure and...darn

Northland
by Porter Fox

I'm not sure this lived up to the blurb on the cover, but at first, it was a very good travel narrative. A little natural history but not nearly as much as I desired. A good bit of human history mixed in with his day-to-day adventures.

Oddly, toward the end I felt unmotivated to continue. That might have been the result of his lengthy pause of the journey (not in time but in narrative) to write  in great detail (and with great feeling) about the current situation of the American Indians along the western border with Canada. Current events is fascinating and can make up a whole book by itself, but it wasn't what I signed up for and didn't flow well with what I'd been reading for the first half of the book.

Sometimes a writer has to follow his heart. I get that. But it disappointed.