July 2023's Burgoine Reviews & Pearl Rule Reviews

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea I took away from the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!

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THE BITTER PAST by BRUCE BORGOS

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos's The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck…

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation.

In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

CW: torture, misogyny
My Review: Lots of names to keep track of, a shifting timeline, point-of-view changes...there are things to work at in this read, as well as a graphic account of torture and aftermath. They are all necessary, not just stylistic choices.

What I liked the best about the read was the melding of police procedural in the present with espionage thriller in the past told with a good leavening of snark. This is a read that agreed with my desire to be involved in a story not just a passenger on a train to a known destination. The publisher's comparisons to C.J. Box and Craig Johnson are apt. I'm a sucker for a series set in a place I don't want to go, and that included all deserts...especially irradiated ones! I could *feel* the dryness as I read along.

I found the polygamous-Mormons subplot to be tacked-on and found it contributed nothing to my experience of the read.

Available in hardcover and ebook now from Minotaur Books.

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The Decagon House Murders (House Murders, #1) by Yukito Ayatsuji (tr. Ho-Ling Wong)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it’s haunted. One thing’s for sure: it’s the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club’s annual trip.

But when the first club member turns up dead, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive.

As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer’s fiendish plan before it’s too late?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: It's And Then There Were None with a Japanese accent. It works the same way, it has the same strengths (puzzles are fun!) and weaknesses (set-up is improbable in the extreme). This iteration is satisfying to me in that it doesn't ignore the conventions as does make use of its own vernacular. The translator chose, for example, not to switch family names and personal names around to suit western usage. I like that, others won't, so be aware of the fact.

The prose, as translated, is a bit flat. The world the tale takes place in is largely nuanceless, so it feels like it's a kabuki performance in front of scenery instead of an equally artificial film set where volumes flicker in front of our eyes fast enough to fool them into thinking they're real. That's not a flaw to me, but it does obtrude when I try to find an emotional resonance to the killings. Maybe that's a good thing? Whatever it is, good or bad, it's a choice that left me without a fourth-star's worth of involvement.

Satisfying read, though not in the ordinary ways of series mysteries. I will, however, read them as Pushkin Vertigo publishes them.

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The Mill House Murders (House Murders, #2) by Yukito Ayatsuji (tr. Ho-Ling Wong)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting and a series of baffling murders.

The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate. But will he uncover the truth, and will you be able to solve the mystery of the Mill House Murders before he does?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Another more-than-competent hommage à Dame Agatha. This one, though, is much, much more dependent on you to pay careful attention to the dramatis personae on page 11. And pay close attention to the times on chapter opening pages! Most Anglophone readers aren't going to parse the Japanse names with the ease of those culturally familiar to us, so bookmark that page and save yourself confusion.

Enjoying, or even solving, the puzzle set before us is very dependent on you keeping track of dual timelines, and since all the same characters appear in both, this can be a challenge. It was my mistake to read this book so soon after the first one, The Decagon House Murders...it reinforced my opinion of the prose as flat to my more western reading-ear as the stage-sets of Japanese theater. The ending of this entry in the ongoing series is, peculiar though it sounds in light of my comments about the prose, melodramatic. Delightfully so, I hasten to add. Made me smile and even lift my hand in a fond salute. After a gap, I will certainly read more of these Pushkin Vertigo-published pleasures.

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A Stranger Here Below (Gideon Stoltz #1) by Charles Fergus

Rating: 3.5 of five

The Publisher Says: For fans of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series, a fabulous historical mystery series set in early America.

“Deeply imagined and intricately plotted, A Stranger Here Below marries richly textured historical fiction with the urgency of a mystery novel. Fergus knows certain things, deep in the horses, hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves this wisdom into a stirring tale.” – Geraldine Brooks, author of March and People of the Book

Set in 1835 in the Pennsylvania town of Adamant, Fergus’s first novel in a new mystery series introduces Sheriff Gideon Stoltz, who, as a young deputy, is thrust into his position by the death of the previous sheriff. Gideon faces his first real challenge as death rocks the small town again when the respected judge Hiram Biddle commits suicide. No one is more distraught than Gideon, whom the old judge had befriended as a mentor and hunting partner. Gideon is regarded with suspicion as an he’s new to town, and Pennsylvania Dutch in the back-country Scotch-Irish settlement. And he found the judge’s body.

Making things even tougher is the way the judge’s death stirs up vivid memories of Gideon’s mother’s murder, the trauma that drove him west from his home in the settled Dutch country of eastern Pennsylvania. He had also discovered her body.

At first Gideon simply wants to learn why Judge Biddle killed himself. But as he finds out more about the judge’s past, he realizes that his friend's suicide was spurred by much more than the man’s despair. Gideon’s quest soon becomes more complex as it takes him down a dangerous path into the past.

A Stranger Here Below is so atmospheric, so compelling and convincing, that readers will taste the grit of the dirt roads, cringe at the unsanitary conditions and medical superstitions that inflame a flu epidemic, and marvel at the immensely arduous task of carrying out an investigation using the primitive tools of the early 1800s. Fergus leaves us breathlessly waiting for the next Gideon Stoltz mystery.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Sometimes someone dies who just needed killin'. As this very deliberately paced mystery unfolds, that's the victim. I wasn't sorry he was dead, and was a little peevish about Gideon caring so much as to keep pursuing the matter. Well, anyway, if you're in the mood for a really atmospheric historical read, here's a very good candidate.

The blurb from Geraldine Brooks should tell her fans what they need to know: It's very immersive and has three-dimensional characters. I don't rate it higher because it was slow to get moving and occasionally wandered off down interesting but unnecessary tangents. I will, however, read the next one when Skyhorse Publishing brings it out.

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This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each month's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.

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PEARL RULED @ 13%

An Improbable Pairing by Gary Dickson

I gave up when, a the end of chapter ten, I read this:

Was there room enough in Scott's life for Geneva's pleasues and scholarly pursuits? Though it might tale a while, he was confident he'd find the right balance between his newfound friends, social diversions, and schoolwork.

His editor needs to be sent back to school. That is a wodge of stodge that couldn't possibly be a worse way to end a chapter...it kills any sense of momentum, debilitates any emotional investment in the character, and, if it's absolutely crucial to the plot later, would've been better phrased as a letter home. It's believable as a twentysomething naïf's epistle to his worried Mama but dear GAWD not as a third-person omniscient narrator's voice!

As the book's now out of print, I guess I am not the only one who thought so.

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PEARL RULED @ 49%

Offerings: A Novel by Michael ByungJu Kim

Rating: A very generous, probably unwarranted 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The national bestseller that Gary Shteyngart has called, "A potent combination of a financial thriller and a coming-of-age immigrant tale. . . . Offerings is a great book."

With the rapidly cascading Asian Financial Crisis threatening to go global and Korea in imminent meltdown, investment banker Dae Joon finds himself back in his native Seoul as part of an international team brought in to rescue the country from sovereign default. For Dae Joon—also known by his American name of Shane, after the cowboy movie his father so loved—the stakes are personal.

Raised in the US and Harvard Business School–educated, Dae Joon is a jangnam, a firstborn son, bound by tradition to follow in the footsteps of his forebears. But rather than pursue the path his scholar-father wanted, he has sought a career on Wall Street, at the epicenter of power in the American empire. Now, as he and his fellow bankers work feverishly with Korean officials to execute a sovereign bond offering to raise badly needed capital, he knows that his own father is living on borrowed time, in the last stages of a disease that is the family curse. A young woman he has met is quietly showing the way to a different future. And when his closest friend from business school, a scion of one of Korea's biggest chaebol, asks his help in a sale that may save the conglomerate but also salvage a legacy of corruption, he finds himself in personal crisis, torn by dueling loyalties, his identity tested.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: When, oh when! will I learn from my own oft-repeated lessons?! IF SOMEONE WHOSE WRITING YOU HATE BLURBS A BOOK, AVOID IT.

At the end of chapter 15, almost halfway through the book, I encountered what was for me the last straw...an extended metaphor of submission to authority in order always to be protected from the hideous dangers of your baser nature, and simultaneously a warning that the most comfortable illusions mask a genuinely threatening reality, in the form of a Korean folktale about a fox-spirit mother guarding her son.

It might work better for you than it did me, because the writing is...competent-plus...and has descriptive passages of some charm; Arcade Publishing is offering it and doing okay with it. I wasn't sufficiently invested to keep going after that smack upside my li'l punkin haid.

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PEARL RULED @ 42%

Sucker Punch: Getting Killed Can Be The Least of Your Problems by Jim Carroll

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Johnny Mack wanted to be an airline pilot who flew all over the world, made great money and met lots of girls. At 18 that seemed like a fair trade for a few years in the Army.

Johnny found out too late that in 1971 the Army only needed helicopter pilots. And they only needed them in Vietnam.

After an unfortunate incident involving a General’s daughter, Johnny ‘volunteers’ to go undercover on a Medevac crew suspected of selling Army medicines to the enemy.

Johnny’s control officer’s incompetence is deadlier than any enemy. Johnny’s crew are psychopathic pirates.

Then there is the regular job. Coming into hot landing zones. Loading the dead and wounded. Ignoring the screaming and thrashing about in the back. Holding the helicopter steady as bullets rip through the bird. Cleaning out the blood and gore as part of the regular post flight.

There is no one to trust. Death is coming from every direction.

As life spirals out of his control, Johnny realizes that getting killed may be the least of his problems. His sanity, his soul and everything that he believes himself to be, are in as much danger as his life.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A double-agent black-market-busting thriller in Vietnam by the author of The Basketball Diaries? Sign me up!, said my twentysomething avatar within.

I'm sixty-three, and the outer me trudged through horny-straight-boy stuff until he was ready to scream; then, at the end of chapter 23, the final blow to my youthful avatar was struck: "We'd never been called by the Ghost 4 call sign either. Everybody else just called for a Dustoff."

Absent a lot more typing, I can't give you the whole context for that, but it was too much of the same kind of Army-speak in too little space for my tolerance. Which, I think I mentioned was already over-stretched by horny-straight-boy boob-obsessed boringness.

I had the thought, as I read along, that Waino Mellas of six-stars-of-five must-read Matterhorn fame, never once gave me this kind of eyerolling impatience. It seems not to be the subject matter, then, but the execution I'm not responding well to.