SLADE HOUSE by David Mitchell

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, audio book

Description:  This is a haunted house story spanning five decades.  Every nine years, in an alley near a British working-class pub, a narrow iron door appears in a brick wall.  A stranger emerges through the door and invites a carefully selected passerby through the door and into Slade House.  Once inside, no one ever leaves.

Plot:  The book tells the story of five such nine-year appearances of the iron door, the five people who enter through the door and into Slade House, and what happens to them.  With each person, the reader learns more about the house, the occupants, and the reason for the appearance of the door.  By the fifth person, it was getting a little tedious, so I guess it ended right where it should have.

Characterization: The occupants of the house, and each of the five persons who subsequently enter the house through the iron door, are reasonably developed and distinct.  The occupants are anti-heroes, the reader doesn't necessarily like them too much, but does end up rooting for them [at least I did].  Near the end I wasn't sure whether I wanted them to succeed or fail.

Setting: British working-class neighborhood and pub.  Nicely described.  Very creepy.

Other:  This isn't a genre I usually read, but I found the book entertaining.  It's supposed to be a side excursion in the same world as this author's book The Bone Clocks.  I haven't read that book, but I was still able to enjoy this story.

Overall:  A very good story for those who enjoy supernatural and/or haunted house stories, and horror stories like Stephen King writes.  This book was read by Thomas Judd and Tania Rodrigues and I thought the voices were perfect.

Grade: B+

THE FINE ART OF MURDER by Emily Barnes [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, audio book

Description: Widowed police chief Katherine Sullivan turned in her badge and is now pursuing an interest in art in Taos New Mexico. She returns temporarily to her hometown in Minnesota to support her recently-divorced daughter and her two grandchildren. While there, she is drawn in to a murder investigation.

Plot: While back in Minnesota, Sullivan visits an art museum. The next day, the employee she spoke with at the museum is found murdered. Prior to retirement, she was the chief of police, and certain current officers ask her to help with the investigation. She teams up with another retired officer, butts heads with the current chief, and solves the mystery.

Characterization: Katherine Sullivan is well developed and very grandmotherly to her daughter and two grandchildren. However, she does NOT strike me as a very competent police officer. She shuns back-up and puts herself into potentially dangerous situations without much concern for her own safety. I don't see a real former police officer doing that. Her grandchildren were a teen boy with Asperger Syndrome [I have one of those, the characterization was well-done] and a girl who is portrayed as a typical cell-phone-dependent teen, although I don't think she protested nearly as much as she should have, when subjected to having her phone confiscated. The other retired officer was nicely characterized.

Setting: Minneapolis MN. Well described.

Other: The mystery was good, and I enjoyed reading a main character who is older than the norm, but it's hard to get past the notion that Sullivan acted so far outside what I would think a typical police officer would do, endangering her safety etc. Just because a person retires, I'm sure all the previous training is not forgotten or discarded.

Overall: This is a nice cozy mystery, if you can get past the character problem. The book is narrated by Carrington MacDuffie and she did a great job.

Grade: B-

THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, audio book
This review is of the book.  I have not seen the movie.

Description: Mark Watney, the junior member of a Mars mission, is injured in a severe dust storm.  The other astronauts believe he died, so they abandon the mission, retreat to their ship, and set out to return to Earth.  Except Watney didn't die.  He has to figure out how to survive until NASA can send another ship to rescue him.

Plot:  More than half of the book is how Watney survives on Mars.  The author is a real engineer/techno-geek and these descriptions were VERY detailed [with exact numbers] and sometimes tedious.  At first I tried to follow along with the details, but after a while I gave up and just listened to the story.  Some chapters are NASA folks figuring out what happened and how to retrieve him.  Other chapters are Watney's crew members learning he didn't die and what they do to retrieve him.

Characterization: Watney isn't as well developed as I would have liked.  He rarely, if ever, muses on memories from his past, friends he missed, things like that.  He only occasionally thinks about his parents, etc.  The story would have been that much better if there were instances of these memories.  He is, however, hysterically sarcastic and definitely someone I'd like to be stranded with somewhere, if I ever have that unfortunate circumstance.  Most of the secondary characters were at least somewhat developed, with their own distinct personalities.  I liked the fact the author included a lot of diversity in his character choices.

Setting: Mars.  Some scenes at NASA facilities and inside the ship containing Watney's crew members.  Descriptions were very good.

Other:  There were a few scenes, usually related to count-downs of rescue missions, where the author ramped up the suspense very well.  I also laughed quite a few times during this book, I would say at least once every half-hour.  Watney's sarcasm is really funny.

Overall:  An excellent story.  This author really knows his science, altho it did get tedious at times.  I actually tried to read this in book form, but put the book aside after about 50 pages because I couldn't get through the details.  Then I tried the audio book.  Listening on audio was much better.

Grade: A-

HOLES by Louis Sachar [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library e-book

Description: Stanley Yelnats [palindrome name], a boy from a family with more than its share of bad luck, is accused unjustly of stealing some shoes.  He's sent to a boy's detention center out in the desert where the warden's idea of building the boys' character is having them dig holes all day, every day.

Plot:  As Stanley and the other boys dig holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep, Stanley realizes the warden is actually looking for something buried out there in the desert.  He works on figuring it out, in the process building his character and finally ridding his family of its bad luck curse.

Characterization: Stanley is well developed.  Two of the other boys are sufficiently differentiated, but I lost track of who was who with the others.

Setting: Fictional Camp Green Lake, which is located in the desert of western Texas.  Good descriptions.

Other:  This is a middle grade book that kept my interest, even tho I'm not that demographic.  I liked how the multiple story lines, spanning three different time periods, eventually wound together.

Overall: An interesting story.

Grade: B+

BLOOD ON SNOW by Jo Nesbo [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, Audio book

Description: Olav is a man who “fixes” problems for his boss as a contract killer in Oslo [Norway].

Plot:  Olav is asked by his boss to “fix” his boss's wife.  If he fixes her, he'll be next because he knows too much.  If he refuses, he'll be next because he refused.  To complicate matters, while he's watching her to decide what to do, he falls in love with her.  There are some rather violent scenes, but also several surprising plot twists.

Characterization: Olav is very well developed.  He's a sensitive guy in all areas except for the people he “fixes”.  He's dyslexic, not very good at much except being a contract killer, and longs to learn what it means to love and be loved.  The other characters are not as well developed as Olav.

Setting: Oslo, Norway.  This is the first book I've ever read that's set in that country.  The descriptions were good, I was able to picture every scene without it being over-described.

Other:  This is a rather short [225 pages] stand-alone book by this author, who is more well-known for his Harry Hole series.  The book is translated from Norwegian.  The audio book is read by Patti Smith, who reads this book in a monotone, which adds to the characterization, possibly unintentionally.  I wouldn't care for this style of narration if it didn't match the personality of the main character.

Overall: A very introspective, literary crime novel.

Grade: B

THE JOB by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, Audio book

Description: Kate O'Hare is an FBI agent.  Nick Fox is a con man and #7 on the FBI's most wanted list.  They team up to capture criminals who are beyond capture by legal means.  This is the third book in the series.

Plot: In this book, Nick and Kate go after a drug lord with a taste for fine chocolate and a love of art and other treasures.  They concoct an elaborate con using a ridiculous amount of money, which does strain credibility at times, but if you can get past that, it does makes sense and there's a lot of humor.

Characterization: The characters are reasonably well developed and had their own personalities.  Some of the secondary characters are wild and crazy [an actor who takes his roles much too seriously, a lady who loves driving/racing anything with a motor, a Somali pirate, Kate's father who loves explosives a little too much, etc], adding much color and humor to the story.

Setting: Nashville, Portugal, Istanbul, France, England. The descriptions were good, I was able to picture every scene without it being over-described.

Other:  The con does strain credibility.

Overall: A good, light mystery/thriller. Funny.  The audio book is read by Scott Brick and he's awesome, a unique and appropriate voice for each character, including foreign accents.

Grade: B

BURIED IN A BOG by Sheila Connolly [Book recommendation]

Book obtained from: Library New Books shelf, Audio book 

Description: Maura Donovan, a 20-something from Boston, was raised by her grandmother.  She visits Ireland after her grandmother's death to fulfill a promise and to learn more about her family. While there, her life is threatened as she searches for answers for first one, then another, murder.

Plot: Maura promised her grandmother she would visit the small town of Leap, in County Cork, Ireland.  She travels there after her grandmother's death, meets the locals, talks to friends of her grandmother, learns about Irish history and her family, and stumbles upon two murders.  When she is the subject of several seemingly-random attacks, she sets about to solve the murders before she is next.

Characterization: The characters are reasonably well developed and had their own personalities.  I did like Maura altho she was sometimes a bit whiny.

Setting: Small towns in Ireland. The descriptions were very good, I was able to vividly picture every scene without it being over-described.  The book also gives some history of Ireland, presented in an interesting way and keeping within the story, which I enjoyed.

Other:  This book was slow in places, but still interesting.

Overall: A good, light mystery, with some history.  Very good, vivid descriptions.  The audio book is read by Amy Rubinate, who read it well with different voices for the different characters altho some voices did sound similar.

Grade: A-