Review: Case Histories

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. British detective Jackson Brodie is working on three old cases: the disappearance of a toddler; the slasher murder of a young woman, and the location of a teenage runaway. This book moves between Brodie’s detective work and retelling some of the stories of what happened all those years ago

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This is actually the second time I’ve read this book; it was chosen for our book group, so I reread it. All of the cases examine family relationships: parent to child, sibling to sibling. Brodie’s life comes in for some examination too as he struggles to redefine his life as a father after his wife leaves him for another man. These cases are interesting, and Atkinson weaves them together intriguingly, but I was a little unconvinced that all three cases could be so neatly solved after stumping the police for decades, and all within only a couple of hundred pages. The book is a mystery, yet it’s more than your average genre mystery, and people who aren’t big mystery buffs might still find it a worthwhile read. 3.5/5*

p.s. This detective series was made into a TV show a few years ago. 

Review: Still Life with Murder

Still Life with Murder by P.B. Ryan. Nell Sweeney takes a job as governess to baby Grace. Although Grace was born to a servant, the servant’s employer adopts the baby and asks Nell to come along as her governess. In Boston, her employer discovers that her son, who she thought was dead, has been arrested for murder. Since her husband refuses to defend their son, Regina Hewitt asks Nell to secretly investigate. The man Nell finds in prison is a Civil War doctor ruined by opium.

This book fed into my fondness for historical mysteries. Nell is an interesting character, observant, artistic, and trained in medicine, but her past is shadowy, and her origins lower class. As her relationship with Will Hewitt grows more complex, Nell comes to believe that he couldn’t have been the murderer. This book, which I downloaded free from kindle, is the first in a series, and I’ll definitely be seeking out the next in the series. 4/5*

Review: What Angels Fear

What Angels Fear by C.S. Harris (A Sebastian St. Cyr mystery). A while back I read a book that was in the

middle of this series, and I liked it well enough to want to read the rest of the books in the series. So this is the first book in the series (I’m actually planning to read from two ends—read on from the spot I started, and read in order from the beginning). In this book, an actress is horrifically murdered in a church, and the weapon at the scene implicates Sebastian St. Cyr. An accident when the police are arresting Sebastian implicates him even further and sends him into hiding. Staying out of the hands of the police and investigating the murder to find the real culprit keep Sebastian busy. 

I enjoyed this book a good deal, perhaps even more than the previous title I had read in the series, which I found a little far-fetched. Series regulars were introduced here, as were Sebastian’s near-supernatural senses. Harris excels at character development and historical detail, two of my real soft spots when reading historical mystery. The only drawback to this book was the graphic nature of the crime. 4/5*

Review: S.

S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

This is one of the toughest books to review that I’ve ever read. Start with a book entitled Ship of Theseus by V. M. Straka. This book looks like a library book from 1946, which is what it purports to be. This book is about an amnesiac named S. who seems to be fighting a shadowy and ominous organization. From the introduction, we learn that no one really knows who V. M. Straka is; several people who have a potential claim to the identity are introduced here. The book has been translated by “FXC,” who comments (and perhaps more) in the footnotes. THEN, there are notes written in the margins of the book by two people: Eric owns the book. He’s a (disgraced) graduate student obsessed with Straka. He’s made some notes as he’s read it. Then there’s Jen, who works in the library and found the book. She begins to write notes to Eric in the book, and he writes back. Eventually, they also leave artifacts (newspaper clippings, notes, postcards) in the book as well.

So at some point, I realized that I had no clue what was going on. This means that I’ll have to start it over again and take notes. I am prepared to do this.

This book is more of a puzzle than a “normal” book. In other words, I don’t think it’s possible to read it through (like I did) and “get” it. I’ve seen some websites where people are trying to figure out puzzles in the book that I didn’t know were even there, and there are plenty that I do know about that aren’t solved easily for the reader as they might be in a different kind of book. I’ve made a note to go back through it this summer when I have some time and see what more I can get out of it. In terms of a reading experience, I really enjoyed the story of Jen and Eric. I didn’t like Ship of Theseus much—it wasn’t the kind of book I’d read without the extras. I can’t judge this experience in the same way I usually judge a book, because it’s really more than that. If you like solving mysteries or puzzles yourself, don’t miss this book. If you want the author to solve it for you, skip it. 

Review: The Charming Quirks of Others

The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith (Isabel Dalhousie)

Isabel’s latest puzzle concerns a boarding school searching for a new headmaster. An anonymous note has suggested that one of the three shortlist candidates, if hired, would bring great embarrassment to the school. Isabel’s investigation is complicated by the fact that one of the candidates is Cat’s new boyfriend, and with Isabel and Jamie (Cat’s ex-boyfriend) now engaged, Isabel still has some qualms about her relationship with her niece. Meanwhile, Jamie is acting a little out of character, causing Isabel to wonder if he’s seeing someone else.  Smith is one of my very favorite authors, and I save his books for when I need a real reading treat. Of his three series that I read (also Mma Ramotswe and 44 Scotland St.), this is my least favorite, but this entry in the series was strong. Smith’s strengths are his gentle sense of humor and his reminders that we share the common condition of humanity, so charity and seeing others in the best light possible may eventually come back around to our benefit. 5/5*

Review: Eyre Affair

Author: Jasper Fforde

Title: The Eyre Affair

Description: This is a steampunky mystery about literature, so if that doesn’t cover all your bases, you’re too hard to please. Thursday Next is a literary detective in a world where literature affects the “real” world, where time travel is pretty commonplace (in fact, her father only blips in from his time travels on rare occasions), and where the world’s most vicious criminal has just stolen the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit.  

Review source: This was my choice for our book group read.

Plot: I thought the plot was a bit busy, but that may be because the book is the first in a series. Either way, too many genres converging can get a little overwhelming.

Characters: Fforde is writing everything with his tongue in his cheek, so characters have silly (and sometimes scatological) names, and of course, people with silly names can’t be taken seriously, can they?

Writing style: More steampunky science fiction than mysterious, but the mystery conventions are there too. And humor spread over it all. Imagine Douglas Adams with more genres and a female protagonist.

Audience: As I said, if you’re not covered by one of the genres in this book, well, I guess you’ll pick it up because it’s literary fiction. (ha!)

Wrap-up: The book was probably a little too silly for my taste (i.e. I won’t be seeking out the next title in the series), but it was ok for something different. 3/5*

Review: Where Shadows Dance

Author: C.S. Harris

Title: Where Shadows Dance (Sebastian St. Cyr)

Description: Set in Regency era England, this book piles more murders on than most mysteries. Beginning with a young man who supposedly dies of a heart attack, people related to the case start dropping left and right in spite of Sebastian’s best efforts.  

Review source: Either ALA or RWA, I forget

Plot: The plot was more engaging early in the book when it was more plausible. As the deaths started to mount up, things seemed to get wildly out of hand. I lost count of all the dead bodies by the end of the book.

Characters: This was my first Sebastian St. Cyr and I really enjoyed the style and historical period. Sebastian was an engaging protagonist, as was his assistant Hero Jarvis.

Writing style: I really enjoyed Harris’ style. I love historical fiction when it shows evidence of thorough research and has lots of period details, and this book delivers. Harris has a Ph.D. in history and it shows.

Audience: The book appears to have been marketed as romantic suspense, but I’d call it more like straight mystery. There is not much romance involved here (though Sebastian and Hero did have a personal relationship).

Wrap-up: You’ll see more reviews from this series in the future. I highly recommend for those who enjoy historical mystery series. 4/5*

Review: Invisible

Author: Lorena McCourtney

Title: Invisible

Description: Widowed senior citizen Ivy Malone has a couple of problems: there’s vandalism going on at a country cemetery, and even worse, a young neighbor turns up murdered. Ivy can’t resist investigating both of these problems.

Review source: Free on Kindle

Plot: This is a pretty well-constructed mystery, though Ivy gets away with an awful lot of interfering in police investigations and does some pretty foolish things.

Characters: This is definitely a cozy. Ivy and her friends are senior aged. Since this is a Christian mystery, Ivy tries to live up to her faith, and this is portrayed pretty realistically.

Writing style: The book was well-written, with clues doled out regularly. 

Audience:  Elderly Christian ladies?

Wrap-up: This book is apparently part of a series, and while the mysteries in this book are wrapped up, Ivy is left with a death threat that presumably will come into play in a subsequent book in the series. 3/5*

Review: La Brava

Author: Elmore Leonard

Title: La Brava

Description: Joe La Brava, ex Secret service agent, is now a photographer who hangs out in Miami with his buddy Maurice who owns a hotel there. When Maury’s old friend, film noir actress Jean Shaw gets into trouble, Joe and Maury help her out. Still beautiful, Jean was Joe’s first crush, and he discovers that she’s gotten involved with someone who’s not especially good for her.  

Plot: I’m not a typical reader of South Florida crime fiction, but this was a pretty good intro to that type of novel, I think. I think Leonard was aiming for a film noir feel, to echo Jean’s movies. There’s a complicated scheme, but who’s conning who?

Characters: Leonard has a gift for fleshing out characters, though most of them seem to be on the shady side.

Writing style: This was on one of my lists that I’m reading through or I probably wouldn’t have picked it up. It was slow to get into, but the second half read really quickly. I’m not going to rush out for another Leonard title, though.

Audience: Hard-boiled crime, South Florida style.

Wrap-up: Cleverly plotted, vivid characterization—worth a read. 3/5*

Review: Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Author: Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Description: Because of my prodigious TBR pile, I’m always late to the party with extremely popular books (well, with any books, but no one has read the others). So I already knew a good bit about this one going in, and I realize that many will have already read it. Briefly, a disgraced journalist is hired to look into a decades old case of a missing girl.  

Plot: This is one of the rare books where plot was more important than character for me. I loved the tight plotting and the pacing with which Larsson revealed new clues and old secrets was just about perfect.

Characters: The two main characters were the journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, and Lizbeth Salander, an independent researcher. Lizbeth is, of course, the girl with the tattoo. The fact that the book is named for her gives some indication of her importance to Larsson, though she is definitely secondary to Blomkvist in this book. I did have some problems with Blomkvist, or maybe with Swedish morality (or lack thereof). It struck me as extremely odd that Blomkvist quickly entered into fairly intense relationships with women he hardly knew after they came on to him—he came across as passive and totally emotionally absent. The women, of course, all fell in love with him. 

Writing style: It’s intense. This isn’t one of them cozy mysteries.

Audience: Yep, it’s a mystery and it’s got that sexually fueled violence that turns my stomach faster than anything else. If you can handle that, though, it’s a rewarding read.

Wrap-up: I loved this book from start to finish, despite being reluctant to pick it back up during certain harrowing sections. Can’t wait to get my hands on book two. 5/5*

Review: In The Woods

Author: Tana French

Title: In the Woods

Description: When he was twelve, Adam Ryan and two friends went into the woods for an afternoon of adventure. All three disappeared, but Adam was later found, shoes covered in blood, and completely unable to remember anything that happened. After changing his name and leaving the area, Ryan is back some twenty years later as a homicide detective investigating another murder of a twelve year old in the same woods.  

Review source: Penguin

Plot: The parallel mystery convention works well here.

Characters: Adam/Rob is the narrator and main character. He tells us up front that he lies, so it’s up to the reader to out what is going on with Rob and his relationships. The center of the book is Rob’s relationship with his partner, Cassie, but his other past and present relationships affect the unfolding of events as well.

Writing style: I was entranced by this book; French weaves a tapestry of clues and hints that left me eager to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Audience: It’s ostensibly a mystery, but French has been very well-received by critics and most readers of literary fiction would probably enjoy it as well.

Wrap-up: I was really frustrated with the ending of the book in several different ways. It was one of those reads that keeps you totally involved for 80%, then lets you down and stomps on your fingers. I was pretty mad after I turned that last page, but I’m still giving it 4/5* for the first 80%.

Review: He's Gone

Author: Deb Caletti

Title: He’s Gone

Description: Dani wakes up one morning to find her husband Ian missing from their bed. At first she makes excuses—he went in to work, he’s visiting one of his daughters. But no one knows where he is, he doesn’t come back, and Dani can’t quite remember what happened the night before. As time passes and the search intensifies, Dani spends the time remembering their relationship; begun in adultery, she wonders if the marriage wasn’t somehow stained from the beginning.  

Review source: Library Thing Early Reviewers

Plot: The plot is nothing remarkable—Ian has disappeared, and all the possibilities for where he might be are examined, one by one.

Characters: Dani is the first person narrator, and the other characters are those closest to her: Ian, her ex-husband, Mark, her daughter, Ian’s first family, and so on. Dani considers each of these people and their relationships in detail as she reviews the past few years of her life with Ian.

Writing style: Very interior. The book is more of a musing upon marriage than a mystery. Can a relationship that started in infidelity to two spouses ever rise above that level of deception and selfishness to become a true marriage? Or will the partners always wonder if previous infidelity will lead to future betrayal?

Audience: Women’s literature, sort of mystery, but mostly not.

Wrap-up: Unlike some other recently-read material, this book does actually end with a solution to the puzzle, and one that is actually believable. I did, however, wish for an end to the soul-searching a little bit sooner. 3/5*

Book Review: Blood Men

Author: Paul Cleave

Title: Blood Men

Description: The main thing you need to know about Edward Hunter is that his father is in jail for murdering prostitutes—lots of them. Edward has tried to move on from his father’s arrest and the subsequent destruction of his family, and has created a nice, normal life with a wife who he loves and a little girl. Then he and his wife accidentally end up in the middle of a bank robbery, and his wife becomes an innocent victim. Frustrated by the seeming indifference of the police, Edward initiates contact with his father to see what other options might be open to him as the son of a serial killer. From there, things just get wilder.

Plot: Unique and gripping. Even though he is driven by the quest for vengeance and he (and the reader) have no idea how much violence he is capable of, Edward is a sympathetic main character. A couple of twists at the end left me reeling.

Characters: The main characters are Edward, his father, and the detective who is assigned to the case.  Lots of nasty bad-guy types as fodder.

Writing style: It’s a thriller and fits the genre well—one of those books that actually affects you physically, so that you’re gripping the book a little harder and breathing a little more quickly as you read.

Audience: Probably should stick with the thriller crowd. There was some pretty graphic violence and overall, the book was really dark. Not my usual type of read, but worthwhile.

Wrap-up: Don’t pick it up unless you can handle some shocks to your system. 4/5*

Book Review: The Man Who Knew Too Much

Author: G.K. Chesterton

Title: The Man Who Knew too Much

Description: This is a collection of short detective stories.  It really reminded me of Sherlock Holmes—written around the same time, very much centered around deduction, etc. Not being much of a Holmes fan, I’m not sure why Holmes was so successful and Horne Fisher (Chesterton’s detective) not so much. Maybe Chesterton is too topical; the stories are very much late nineteenth century Britain.

Review source: As one of those hoary classics, this book was free on kindle.

Characters: Horne Fisher is the detective and he is the only character who is in all of the stories, although there is a Watson-type fellow who shows up now and again.

Writing style: Typical for the era… requires a bit of concentration, but rewarding if you stick with it.

Audience: Chesterton fans, Holmes fans, those who like detective short stories.

Wrap-up: I read ‘em one at a time on the treadmill and they kept me going pretty well. 4/5*

Book Review: The Lincoln Conspiracy

Author: Timothy O’Brien

Title: The Lincoln Conspiracy

Description: Washington D.C. police detective Temple McFadden happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time; he sees a man murdered and ends up with a couple of documents that two powerful, clever, and possibly lethal men want really bad. Lincoln has just been assassinated, and Booth shot, but the Capitol is still buzzing with the aftermath of the crime and the challenges of reforming a nation after the Civil War. When the documents appear to have information about Lincoln’s assassination, McFadden decides to keep them and try to discover why people are so eager to get them.

Review source: Library Thing Early Reviewers

Plot: I love how O’Brien brought in actual historical characters; the research here seemed meticulous and the characters interact with “real people” in an entirely believable way (check out the story of Elizabeth Keckley).  There are plenty of plot twists; it took me awhile to figure out what was actually going on, but O’Brien ties it all together by the end.

Characters: The characters are probably the reason I enjoyed this book so much. I loved the main character and his wife and their friend Augustus; McFadden seems to have devoted friends all over Washington, and they all add color to the story.

Writing style: O’Brien keeps the plot moving but doesn’t neglect character or historical detail to do it.

Audience: Mystery fans, Lincoln buffs, those who like historical fiction.

Wrap-up: You can probably tell I like this book an awful lot. I would read any books in this series that O’Brien writes in the future.  5/5*

Book Review: The Bad Always Die Twice

Author: Cheryl Crane

Title: The Bad Always Die Twice

Description: Nikki Harper is a Hollywood real estate agent who is the daughter of Victoria Bourdeaux, a glamorous fifties movie star. Cheryl Crane is a real estate agent who is the daughter of Lana Turner. Make of this what you will. So Nikki is investigating the death of a rascal who supposedly died six months earlier in a plane crash, but ended up stabbed through the eye in her best friend’s bed.

Review source: I think I got this ARC at ALA last year.

Plot: When you take away all the Hollywood glamour, this is a fairly straightforward whodunit. I thought it was interesting; there were plenty of twists, and new information was handed out steadily throughout the book.

Characters: Nikki is level-headed and practical in spite of her Hollywood background. Her mother is likeable as well, though way past eccentric on the kooky scale.

Writing style: Fine. There is a lot of brand name dropping, which means nothing to me and I could do without.

Audience: Mystery readers. Despite its Hollywood setting, it’s not exactly noir, but there are some noir-ish touches.

Wrap-up: Mysteries aren’t my top choice in reading, although I always enjoy a well-crafted whodunit. So the fact that I wouldn’t go out looking for another book by Crane isn’t so much a judgment on her as just a reflection on my own choices in reading. 3.5/5*

Book Review: Harmless as Doves

Author: P. L. Gaus  

Title: Harmless as Doves

Description: An Amish convert turns up dead, and a young Amish man hurries to confess the murder to his Bishop. Questions remain, however: how did one punch (from a pacifist) kill an adult man? What happened between the time the confessed killer fled the scene and law enforcement’s arrival? And where is the dead man’s best friend?

Review source: netgalley

Plot: The plot grabbed me right away. I have to admit that I’m not a fan of those Amish romances that are all over the place these days, but I am interested in the Amish, so books about them in other genres do attract my interest. The plot keeps twisting: another murder, a disappearance, and a twenty-year old crime are added to the mix.

Characters: After I read the book, I did some quick internet research on the author and discovered that this is the eighth book in a series of Amish mysteries featuring three (!) detectives. The detectives are the English (i.e. non-Amish) sheriff, a college professor, and a pastor. This explains why this college professor was called to the scene about halfway through the book with no introduction. I think three detectives is a bit much. Point of view flipped around pretty crazily.

Writing style: There were some things I really liked and some things that really drove me crazy. On the crazy side: there’s a lot of repetition of some ideas. Amish don’t know much about the law? I got that after the first time; the fifth or sixth time I was told, I just got annoyed. Likewise, the saintly Bishop wonders if other men are as saintly as he is about twelve times more than he needs to. On the positive side, I did like the thoughtful presentation of ideas, especially regarding the Amish lifestyle and the Bible verse this book is titled for.

Audience: Obviously there could be some crossover from fans of other Amish fiction, but mystery readers would be the primary audience. And I’d definitely class this as Christian fiction, although it’s published by Plume.

Wrap-up: I wanted to know how the story ended right from the beginning, so the author did well at pulling me in. I was disappointed by the ending, though. While we have a villain by the end of the book, there are a lot of loose ends that weren’t dealt with to my satisfaction.  I would have also liked more details and insight into secondary characters (i.e. the perpetrators and victims) as opposed to the three (!) detectives. I’d read another book in the series, for sure. 4/5*

Book Review: A Paradise for Fools

Author: Nicholas Kilmer              

Title: A Paradise for Fools

Description (source): The young woman in the hair salon raises her shirt in a furtive gesture to show a friend the work in progress- a riot of stunning tattoos. From his accidental vantage point in the barber's chair, Fred Taylor knows that those weird insects, beasts and naked human figures could only come from something nice-a painting that, if he could only see it in the flesh, might prove to be rare, and of significant value. The girls don't have a clue.

Such a painting needs to be understood and identified. But before that can happen, it must be found. Fred's inquiries lead from the hairdresser to the illegal tattoo parlor of an unlicensed genius. Fred is met everywhere by ignorance and denial. Anyone who must have seen the painting denies that it exists, despite the vivid proof increasingly laid bare on the hairdresser's skin.

Fred's employer, the collector Clayton Reed, is out of the country. So Fred, left to his own devices, is free to follow the trail despite being distracted by his first meetings with the intriguing librarian Molly Riley. Not wanting to spook his unwilling witnesses, Fred must proceed with caution even after he encounters the first serious bump in the road - a suspiciously convenient hit and run that turns one potential informant into an abrupt dead end.  (Marketing copy)

Review source: netgalley

Plot: It took a while to figure out what was going on in this book—I haven’t read any in the series (this book is the 8^th). Once I got into it, though, I was hooked.

Characters: I really liked Fred, the detective. He’s curiously bereft of all the normal vices (greed, anger, lust), so he strikes me as a walking brain. The supporting characters are interesting as well, including the love interest, a fetching librarian (!)

Writing style: This is where the author shines. I loved his distinctive writing style, which includes dialogue that both sounds realistic and subtly hides clues. I do think that you would either love or hate his style; I just got lucky.

Audience: Mystery readers who tend to like hard-boiled detectives or cerebral mysteries. Generally I wouldn’t probably pick this up, but I’m really glad I did.

Wrap-up: If you haven’t, give Nicholas Kilmer a try. He has a distinctive voice and concocts a tight plot. 4.5/5*

Book Review: All Cry Chaos

Author: Leonard Rosen

Title: All Cry Chaos

Description (source): The action begins when mathematician James Fenster is assassinated on the eve of a long-scheduled speech at a World Trade Organization meeting. The hit is as elegant as it is bizarre. Fenster's Amsterdam hotel room is incinerated, yet the rest of the building remains intact. The murder trail leads veteran Interpol agent Henri Poincaré on a high-stakes, world-crossing quest for answers.

Together with his chain-smoking, bon vivant colleague Serge Laurent, Poincaré pursues a long list of suspects: the Peruvian leader of the Indigenous Liberation Front, Rapture-crazed militants, a hedge fund director, Fenster's elusive ex-fiancée, and a graduate student in mathematics. Poincaré begins to make progress in America, but there is a prodigious hatred trained on him --some unfinished business from a terrifying former genocide case-- and he is called back to Europe to face the unfathomable. Stripped down and in despair, tested like Job, he realizes the two cases might be connected and he might be the link.

This first installment in the Henri Poincaré series marries a sharp, smart mystery to deep religious themes that will keep both agnostics and believers turning pages until the shattering, revelatory end. Anyone who enjoys the work of John Le Carré, Scott Turow, Dan Brown, and Stieg Larsson will relish Rosen's storytelling and his resourceful, haunted protagonist. Others will appreciate his dazzling prose. Still others, the way he bends the thriller form in unconventional ways toward a higher cause, in the vein of Henning Mankell in The Man From Beijing. In short, All Cry Chaos promises to become a critical success that garners a broad readership throughout the nation and across the globe. (Amazon product description)

ARC source: Library Thing early reviewers

I loved this book, plain and simple. Reasons that I loved it: the plot catches your attention and drags you in, right off the bat. No waiting until 50 pages in to see what’s going on. The detective is one of the most sympathetic and riveting characters I’ve encountered in a long while. He is completely believable, and when his heart broke, mine did too. The author weaves math, specifically fractals, into the mystery in a way that is both integral (no pun intended) and educational—but without making the reader actually DO any math. The supporting characters are all well-drawn as well; there are several of them that I would be happy to see featured in their own books. The ultimate solution to the mystery is both believable and surprising. Finally, the author uses the mystery to open up a discussion of questions of import: why are we here? Can good triumph? Can we make a difference?

This book made my life happier for the days that I was reading it. I will for sure look for more books in the series, and I’ll give All Cry Chaos a 5/5*.

Book Review: The New York Trilogy

Here’s something I love: You have a book that you did not buy. You know nothing about it but its title and the picture on the cover. These lead you to certain expectations about the book, but when you begin to read, you realize your expectations were totally wrong, and the actual book you are reading is way better than you expected. This is what happened when I read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. The book’s cover led me to believe that I would be reading three noir novellas. In a way, that’s what the book is, but additionally, it’s much, much more.

In the first book, “City of Glass,” a detective (who is not a detective) is hired to follow a man who may be contemplating his son’s murder. In “Ghosts,” another detective (who is a detective this time) is hired to follow a man who may or may not be aware that he is being followed. In “The Locked Room,” a man is summoned by his friend’s wife to become executor after the friend’s disappearance.

Each of the “books” is related to, and speaks to, the others. Characters from one book may pop up in another; perhaps the author himself will appear. Exactly who is who can be the most confusing question the reader encounters. Auster deals with questions of representation, of meaning, and of agency. How can we make meaning in a world in which no one notices us? Do we even exist? Does it take language to fully represent another human to us, and if so, what is the role of the language as it interposes itself between the speaker and the audience? Does it focus or distort? In each book, a detective figure searches for information on someone who is at first completely other, but becomes more and more like the detective, until in the end the doppelganger is an unspoken figure in each story, haunting the narrative with his ominous presence.

In the end, the protagonists of the books spend a lot of time, write a lot of words, and perform a lot of actions, only to be left wondering why their lives have turned out as they have. As Fanshawe remarks, “You can’t possibly know what’s true or not true. You’ll never know.” The words on the page are all that remains of the bewildered detectives and their antagonist/doppelgangers; what if they too are destroyed? Auster answers his own question: “He had answered the question by asking another question, and therefore everything remained open, unfinished, to be started again. I lost my way after the first word, and from then on I could only grope ahead, faltering in the darkness, blinded by the book that had been written for me.” This is exactly how I felt after finishing the book.

I loved this book. It was one of those books that you never want to finish, so you put it away for a day or so in order to draw out the reading. Yet it destabilized me just as it destabilized the protagonists who were called out of their small meaningless lives in order to be the heroes of lives that are still perhaps without meaning, but on an even grander scale.

Article first published as Book Review: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster on Blogcritics.