John Burdett's Bangkok Haunts the Reader

Wanting a respite from reading Jack Bauer type thriller heroes, I followed my son-in-law, Alex' suggestion to read John Burdett.  I am so glad I did. If you like mystery reads, you should try him, too.

We first meet Sonchai Jitpleecheep in Bangkok 8, the first in the mystery series. Our unusual and unlikely hero is tormented by his Buddhist ideals while surrounded by corruption and violence in his everyday work as detective of Bangkok District 8. He must solve the death of an American Marine stung by venomous cobras.  The cobras also kill Sonchai's partner and Buddhist soul brother, Pinchai, thus making the solution of the crime even more pressing, for now, he must kill the perp to avenge Pinchai's death.

Sonchai is not your ordinary detective.  Describing himself as the son of a whore, Sonchai is the son of a former prostitute (rented wife) and a farang(Westerner), a US military man whom he has never met but fantasizes about.  His mother's former occupation brings Sonchai in contact with farang men who teach him social graces, English, French, and high fashion which, he cannot, of course, afford. An earlier crime led him and his soul brother, Pinchai, to a Buddhist monastery and the protection of the Abbott, also the brother of Sonchai's superior, the corrupt but benevolent Colonel Vikorn.  The Abbot decides that Vikorn should employ and protect these soul brothers who turn out to be the only District 8 police officers immune to bribery. Sonchai's Buddhist training allows him to meditate anywhere and clear his mind to see how the puzzle pieces fit. Seeing clearly merely adds to the difficult decisions he must make.  Thus is set the adventures and angst of  Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

Burdett's Bangkok series is a juxtposition of opposites which often play in Sonchai's soul.  Just like his mixed genealogy, Sonchai must work with the American FBI in the persona of a feminist FBI agent, Kimberly Jones, pitting Thai sense of tradition with western logic and technology. The pull of Sonchai's Buddhist beliefs is countered by Vikorn, the not so subtle purveyor of large scale drug traffic and who, in every turn, tries to lure his protege into the ways of the world. Eventually, Sonchai finds himself part owner of a gentleman's club brothel owned by his mother and Vikorn.

Just as Walter Mosley brought us the Black experience of 1960's Los Angeles in his Easy Rawlins series and Dennis Lehane, life in Dorchester, Massachusets in the Patrick Kenzie/ Angela Genaro series, (Gone Baby Gone,) Burdett brings Bangkok with its culture and red light district as a main character in these books. We see prostitution in a different light as seen in the eyes of the different characters, often with admiration. East meets West in Bangkok where real and fake Gucci and Armani stores are side by side with Buddhist religious houses.

The Godfather of Kathmandu is the latest of the Sonchai Jitpleecheep series (released Jan 12,2010.) As in previous books, a crime so heinous, involving an American leads Sonchai to pit his wits with a cunning murderer. Sonchai is not himself.  He has just suffered the death of his son and he whacks his mind with pot to numb his heart. Complicating the investigations is his new found assignment as consiglieri to his superior, Vikorn (who has been studying The Godfather DVDs) and the competing military drug lord, General Senna.  The job brings Sonchai to Nepal where he meets  unconventional freedom loving Tibetan monk, Teitsin. Teitsin furthers Sonchai's meditative abilities and becomes his guru even as he masterminds a huge drug trade for the liberation of his people, another juxtaposition of opposites. The book is not as tightly woven and exciting as the previous ones but  still this mystery novel is full of cruel crime, twists, humor, and angst as the trials and growth of Sonchai Jiptleecheep continues to unfold. 

John Burdett gave up law practice for his love of writing.  He lives in France, Spain and Hongkong.

Steig Larsson and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: A Fitting Conclusion to the Millenium Trilogy

Unable to contain my suspense after reading the first two books of the Millennium Trilogy, I ordered a UK edition of Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  The US publication is due to come out on May 5, 2010.  Stieg Larsson fans have to read this last book or they would forever be in suspense.  Those of you who have not read Stieg Larsson's books, I implore you, start with the first, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then move to the second, The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Each volume builds on the previous.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is Lisbeth Salander, an unlikely and uniquely strange heroine.  A math genius, Salander is a master hacker, the best in the business, and previously employed by a research and security firm in Stockholm.  We meet her in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo when she is employed by social activist writer, Mikael Blomkvist, part owner of Millenium Publishing who in turn is hired by the patriarch of wealthy Swedish Vanger family to research family secrets.  Salander and Blomkvist forge a strange but loyal friendship.  Having gone through a horrific childhood in the hands of her father and the Swedish mental health system, Salander has serious relationship problems. Salander is a loner. She chooses who she works for, works with deliberate accuracy and has no qualms about intruding into other people's privacy or operating outside the law.  Skinny as a young boy, she is capable of changing her identity and fading away if she does not want to be found.  Tenacious, resilient, cunning and extremely resourceful, Salander can exact revenge on those who have harmed her and fight to the end those who plan her demise.

The writing is fast paced and gripping and the reader is compelled to keep on reading to the last page  to learn what happens to this unlikely heroine.  As in the first two books, Hornet's Nest is entertaining and answers many questions from Tattoo and Fire.  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is long, meanders somewhat in the beginning but becomes more action packed in the last 200 pages as the reader wonders how Salander will get out of her predicament.  If she survives a head wound, will bad guys succeed in killing her? If she survives both, how will she evade her enemies in the Swedish government who are determined to return her to the modern dungeons of the mental health system.

While the Millenium Trilogy is a mystery series, the books actually decry violence to women and speak to the threats to the Swedish democratic system.  So few writers are able to weave social statements into a spell-binding novel and here, Larsson excels. Stieg Larsson was a social activist from a very young age.  He was a spokesperson against racism and right wing extremists who try to influence youth into white supremacy ideology.  He founded the Swedish Expo Foundation and became editor of its magazine, Expo.  His life was under constant threat.  He submitted manuscripts for the three Millenium books just before his death of a heart attack in 2004.  It is rumored that there was to have been a series of 10 books and that he had written the beginning and ending of a fourth book.  To the reader's misfortune, a future book is unlikely due to some estate problems which pit Larsson's father and brother against Larsson,s lifelong companion Eva Gabrielsson who had been a collaborator in the research of the novels.

Larsson was the second bestselling author in the world in 2008.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was adapted to the screen in Sweden and released under the title, Men Who Hate Women starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist.  Sony and producer Scott Rudin bought the rights to an English language remake and a US version is soon to come.   Besides leaving a wonderful trio of mystery novels, another Larsson legacy is that his success has brought the works of Swedish writers into the international scene such as earlier writer Hakan Nesser whose crime novels featuring Inspector Van Veeteren have been translated into English.

                                                       Stieg Larsson 1954-2004
                                          

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine Is Another Michael Lewis Must Read

As a senior citizen who watched helplessly as her 401K tanked down to an 001K, I read whatever could help me make heads and tails of the great 2008 economic tsunami.  In his new book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, published March 15, 2010, Michael Lewis helps ordinary people understand some of the elements of the perfect storm that brought on the problem.


The Big Short is fast paced and entertaining as the great economic fall is told in the narratives of a group of not very well known hedge fund managers who knew about the disastrous economic practices of big mortgage lenders, banks, and Wall Street firms and warned others of the impending doom.  Having been ignored, they bet against the tide and earned big money for themselves and their clients in the process. Thus, they profited from shorting the market, betting on its fall as they predicted.  Key to the storm is the greed and seduction of money of Wall Street firms matched by the seeming incompetence and denial of Wall Street to manage the snowballing tide of subprime mortgage.  Wall Street's failed risk management is discussed by the different hedge fund managers in the book.

Steve Eisman, one of the protagonists tried to describe the scenario," How do you explain to an innocent citizen of the free world the importance of a credit default swap on a double-A tranche of a subprime collateralized debt obligation?" How, indeed, would you explain that to this innocent citizen of the free world?

We, of course know it now.  We know that mortgage lenders and big brokerage houses found a way of packaging real estate units which were sold on Wall Street.  As these got gobbled up, brokers beat the bushes to find more home buyers by lowering lending standards, offering mortgage to unqualified borrowers so they could buy price-inflated homes.  When this was not enough, brokerage houses sliced and diced these mortgage packages and took out insurance in case the market went sour.  Motivated by greed and seduced by the ease with which money came, Wall Street firms operated in disregard of sound financial practice and failed to police their own.  And so on and so on. 

Michael Lewis blew into the writing world in his debut book, The Liar's Poker an entertaining and humorous account of his life as a finance analyst trainee at Salomon Brothers during the financial folly of the 1980's.  His subsequent book, The Money Ball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, about the effect of statistical analysis on baseball was a best seller. His other best seller,The Blind Side,( about football player, Michael Oher who was rescued from poverty by foster mother Leigh Anne Touhy and prodded into football stardom) was adapted into the big screen, became a blockbuster movie and earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar.  Lewis is an engaging story teller  whether he writes about himself, a inspiring biography or, in this case, an economic disaster.  He lures the reader within the first few pages to read on and soon the reader is hooked. He writes with dark humor and sarcasm helping to make the terrible outcome more palatable.

Lewis revisits his cautionary tale in the Liar's Poker in the foreword to The The Big Short as he writes of his hopes that the finance industry would have learned from the 1980's " when a great nation lost its financial mind." Alas, it did not find its mind and the American economy tumbled into a recession taking the rest of the world with it.  Sadder still, harbingers of doom appear as we continue to get into debt like borrowers of the last decade and print money like the toxic mortgage units and credit default insurance of the 2008 fiasco, the government and the finance industry seemingly impotent to stem the tide or oblivious of the need to manage the risk. As the book characters caution, there may not be an adult in charge. Meanwhile already devastated innocent citizens of the world look on helplessly.

For other scholarly information, I suggest "The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind the Scenes Story of How John Paulsen Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History." by Gregory Zuckerman, November 2009

Twilight Series Valentine Theme at 1800Flowers

With February 14 a few days away, florists and gift shops are abuzz with Valentine's Day orders.  This year, 1800Flowers, which by the way ranked a yellow rose compliment from MSNBC for transparent pricing and ease of website transaction, is offering Twilight flowers poster bundle for the Edwards and Bellas out there.  The basic bundle contains a dozen long stem red roses in a silver vase and a Hallmark Twilight card and poster for $49.95.  For $99.90, send your love two dozen long stem red roses, in a silver vase, Hallmark Twilight card and poster and a preorder of New Moon DVD.  By the way, shipping is free so hurry.  Valentine's day is around the corner.

Edward and Bella lovers, watch for the graphic novel version of the Twilight saga from Yen Press. Korean artist Young Kim is rendering the graphics of Twilight, The Graphic Novel Vol 1 slated to be released on March 16, 2010. Volume II is soon to follow.  In her website, Stephenie Meyer expresses her enthusiasm for the artist's interpretation. "Young has done an incredible job transforming the words that I have written into beautiful images. The characters and settings are very close to what I was imagining while writing the series." She says. 

The Catcher in the Rye: The Legacy of J.D. Salinger

J.D. Salinger, author of the best selling novel, The Catcher in the Rye, died yesterday at the age of 91.  An instant bestseller upon its release in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye has been translated into several languages and sells about 250,000 copies a year.  It was also highly contested in the earlier years after its release for the language and theme.

A popular book for both adults and adolescents, The Catcher in the Rye is a slice in the life of Holden Caulfield, a teenager expelled from Pency Prep, a college preparatory school in Pennsylvania.  Holden is alienated from his parents and peers.  He returns to his hometown, New York City, for three days, checks into a hotel instead of going home, watches and observes life in the city as he drinks away his loneliness.  He finally goes to his parents' apartment when they are away, to see his sister, Phoebe, the one person he feels close to.  He tells her of his fantasy of being the guardian of  children playing in a huge rye field at the edge of a cliff.  He would catch children before they unwittingly run off the cliff, possibly saving them from the abyss of adulthood. The book is filled with metaphors about growing up.

Told in the voice of its main character, Holden, the book resonates with teenagers and young adults alike as it gives the reader insight into the angst of adolescents, the uncertainties of adulthood, Holden's pervading loneliness and pining for the loss of innocence.  It leaves the reader to speculate and make his own conclusions. Some suggest that reading the book at different times in life produce different insights into Holden's plight.

J D Salinger wrote several short stories before and after The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger first introduced Holden Caulfield in the short story, Slight Rebellion Off Madison.  He also wrote novellas but none quite reached the stature of The Catcher.  Salinger became an eccentric recluse, living in a cabin in Cornish, New Hampshire.  He was married a few times and has two children.  Salinger received and vehemently refused many offers for the film rights for Catcher, which is still highly sought by many producers.  It is not clear how many other Salinger manuscripts exist or what will become of them.  Salinger was a very private person who loved writing for its sake.  In his own words, " I like to write, I love to write.  But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

                                                                             Jerome David "JD" Salinger

                                                      January 1, 1919- January 27, 2010

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a Past Due Tribute

"Rebellion was on my mind that day. All during February we’d been talking about people who had taken stands. We had been studying the Constitution in Miss Nesbitt’s class. I knew I had rights. I had paid my fare the same as white passengers. I knew the rule—that you didn’t have to get up for a white person if there were  no empty seats left on the bus—and there weren’t. But it wasn’t about that. I was thinking, Why should I have to get up just because a driver tells me to, or just because I’m black? Right then, I decided I wasn’t gonna take it anymore. I hadn’t planned it out, but my decision was built on a lifetime of nasty experiences." Excerpt from Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice.


One day in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, Black fifteen year old Claudette Colvin refused to yield her seat to a white man in a Capitol Heights bus.  She was thinking of a school assignment and ignored the bus driver's order to give up her seat.  Police officers forcibly removed her from the bus and hauled her off to jail. This happened nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man.  Colvin's long due place in history is narrated in the book, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip M. Hoose (released January 2009.) 

Hoose' very informative narrative about this forgotten incident also chronicles the plight of Black people of the era.  Black men and women sat in the back of the bus.  They could not try on shoes and instead had to draw their feet on paper to approximate the size.  The book also narrates the climate of 1955 Alabama.  Black activists initially backed Colvin, hoping to have a test case but dropped it apparently because Colvin was from the lower class and shortly after the incident, got pregnant. The NAACP did not think Colvin provided a reputable face for the civil rights movement.   A few months later, the organization backed Rosa Parks when she, too, refused to yield her seat to a white man.  This catalyzed a mass boycott of the public transportation system. Colvin later became one of four plaintiffs to challenge segregation laws in Browder v Gayle.  This was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court which, in December 1956, ruled segregation to be unconstitutional.

Hoose was awarded the 2009 National Book Award for this work. An award winning writer of young people's books, Hoose captured the segregationist climate of the times, Colvin's own narrative and the events unfolding at the time.  There are some narration of violence and rape which may be disturbing to preteens.  This book is written for adolescents and young adults. It is riveting as it is educational.  It especially captures a most important lesson for young people- the power of one in bringing about change.
                                                    

Robert Parker, A Master of the Detective Story

Robert B. Parker died on January 18, 2010.  He was 77 years old.  He leaves behind a legacy of some 70 novels, mainly of the mystery genre, the most popular of which are the Spenser and  Jesse Stone series.

Parker's writing was influenced by Raymond Chandler whom he admired.  Parker completed Poodle Springs one of Chandler's unfinished manuscripts.  Parker, in turn, has inspired contemporary detective writers.  The reader, for instance, can see some similarity between Spenser (first name unknown), a Boston private investigator and Chandler's Philip Marlowe. (Spenser was adapted into the  popular TV series: Spenser: For Hire starring Robert Urich as Spenser.)  Spenser's friendship with Hawk, his best friend and side kick, in turn, is mirrored in mystery writer Robert Crais' detective buddies, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Boston is the locale for the Spenser series just as Dennis Lehane's mystery stories (Gone, Baby, Gone) is set in Boston suburb, Dorchester, portraying a city not just as a setting but a major character in the plot.  Parker also wrote the Jesse Stone series which has been adapted into television starring Tom Selleck. Jesse Stone is a flawed sheriff battling his own demons while solving nefarious goings on in the town of Paradise. 

Robert Parker novels are entertaining to read although some are better than others, not surprising considering the sheer number of books he has written. His stories were also commentaries on relationships- father-son, love and marriage, and friendships. Sadly we say good-bye to such a prolific writer of the mystery genre and realize that soon, there will no longer be Spenser or Jesse Stone stories. Just as Raymond Chandler inspired Parker, we hope his style will continue to live on in younger mystery writers' craft.

                                                                   Robert B. Parker
                                                                        1932-2010

Janet Evanovich Brings Laughter to the Page

Janet Evanovich, every woman's favorite mystery writer, is the creator of Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, and the zany cast of characters that populate the Plum novels. If you have not heard of Stephanie Plum, here is what you're missing.

Stephanie Plum lives in the burg of Trenton, New Jersey where she works as a fugitive apprehension officer for her cousin, bail bonds owner, Vinnie. Besides Vinnie, there is Connie who is the office manager, and Lula, bounty hunter wanna be. In a previous life Lula was a "ho" now gone straight. She vacillates between dieting and feeding her large frame which is usually encased in spandex and Lycra three sizes smaller. Trouble seems to follow Stephanie. The fugitives just refuse to be apprehended and the cavalry has to come to her rescue. There is grandma Mazur who likes to ride shotgun from time to time. Grandma is a fun loving widow whose main leisure activity is going to funeral viewings. Stephanie's mother worries and cooks and feeds the brood while Stephanie's father suffers the craziness of his family in silence. Then there are the men in Stephanie's life. Childhood sweetheart, police officer, Morelli with whom Stephanie has an on again off again love affair. He is frustrated with the life threatening situations our heroine gets into. And there is mysterious, dark, handsome, Ranger, fellow bounty hunter, protector and dangerously seductive. He can be counted upon to ride to the rescue and then vanish into the sunset. Oh, and did I mention that Stephanie has a knack for getting her cars crashed, fire bombed, and blown up?

Evanovich' easy fun loving style brings the characters alive on the pages. Once a romance writer, she says she ran out of words to describe love making and decided to move to the romantic adventure genre. We are all the happier that she did as she is does capture comedic mystery better. The Plum books are titled by the numbers starting from One for the Money published in 1994 to Finger Lickin Fifteen(2009) There are short Plum novels of the "Between the Numbers" series the latest of which is Plum Spooky (January 2009.)

So drive, don't run to your nearest bookstore and get yourself a Stephanie Plum book. Or better yet, buy online at: http://www.newandgentlyreadbooks.com/

Bibliophiles in Mystery Books: Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr

Lawrence Block, author of the Matthew Scudder mystery series, is a very prolific mystery writer.  In the Burglar series, he utilizes his comedic genius to make the reader fall in love with the main character, larcenous Bernie Rhodenbarr.

"Burglary is, I should point out, not a career I would recommend for anyone.  The fact that I evidently can't give it up doesn't mean I'm not well aware of the disagreeably sordid nature of what I do." Says Bernie Rhodenbarr in Burglar on the Prowl.

Introduced in 1977 in Burglars Can't Be Choosers, Bernie Rhodenbarr is a gentleman burglar who lives and works in New York City.   He is owner/ proprietor of  Barnegat Books, selling used books by day and on some nights, he is an uninvited guest in a home where he intends to steal item or items of great value.  Bernie meticulously researches the object he plans to purloin, his target and his entry and escape routes. Incarcerated once before in his youth, he does not wish to repeat the experience.Unfortunately, where he expects no one to be home, he often encounters a dead body or two, often in the heels of law enforcement.  Bernie is, of course, the prime suspect and he must investigate the crime in order to clear his name. Thus, the plot thickens.

Bernie's cat Raffles, named after the gentleman burglar, lives in the bookstore.  Bernie is often joined for lunch or an after work drink by his dearest friend, Carolyn Kaiser, proprietor of the neighboring dog grooming salon, The Poodle Factory.  They could have been lovers but for the fact that Carolyn is lesbian and Bernie has many girlfriends.  Instead, they talk about their love life and Bernie's breaking and entering projects of which Carolyn is sometimes an accomplice.  Ray Kirschmann is a detective in New York's finest who somehow gets to investigate the crime scenes.  He is not above a little bribe here and there and he eventually gets credit for solving the crime.  Wally Hemphill is Bernie's lawyer who has to frequently bail him out of jail. Marty Gilmartin, a wealthy businessman, once one of Bernie's burgling victims, sometimes provides Bernie names and addresses of wealthy homeowners wanting to cash in on property insurance.

Lawrence Block fans will enjoy this character. As in the Hit Man series, the character is an ambivalent criminal who is confronted with the error of his ways yet is hard pressed to quit. The Burglar series is full of larceny and foibles and is an easy entertaining read. Block's most recent book is Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir.