Owlcat’s CBR V Review #26 of Paradise City by Archer Mayor

Although this is, I believe, Archer Mayor’s 22nd novel, I confess to never having read any of his books prior to this, even though he is a semi-local author (out of Vermont) and has even had book signings here in Greenfield, Mass.  I decided, however, to read this book based entirely on the title, Paradise City, which is the “nickname” for Northampton, Mass., and I knew I’d likely be able to relate to the localities in the book.  That turned out to be both a good idea for me and not-so-good because I did, indeed recognize many of the sites within the book, including parts of Northampton, Brattleboro, Vermont, Boston, and even a brief description in Greenfield.  This was unfortunately a distraction for me as I read (my fault, not his) but nevertheless, I did continue reading and for the most part enjoyed the mystery and characters and plot despite the distractions.

Joe Gunther is the main character, a member of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, which gets invited to assist other local authorities when they are unable or unwilling to deal with crimes within their jurisdictions.  In this case, there are major burglaries throughout Vermont that have stymied local police departments and eventually seem connected to a major home burglary in Boston where an elderly woman’s antique jewelry is stolen and she is beaten so badly that she succumbs to her injuries.  Gunther begins working with the Boston police because of the suspected connection with the Vermont burglaries, and he and the Boston police try working with the old woman’s niece to piece together some of the possibilities for her being the target. The niece is not happy with their pursuit, however, believing they are minimizing her elderly aunt’s situation and begins her own attempt to uncover facts and follow them.

They all end up in Northampton, Mass., “Paradise City,” where they believe the jewelry is being fenced. She endangers her own life by being too obvious when she’s asking various jewelers and artisans questions, and Gunther and the Northampton Police attempt to rein her in.  Gunther has a history that’s alluded to of having lost the love of his life violently (several books back) and is uncomfortable with this woman putting her own life in jeopardy.  He wants to convince her to stop and she placates him but continues with her own research and pursuit nevertheless, which ultimately jeopardizes not only her own life but that of Gunther’s irascible partner who himself is just beginning to develop a new approach to life with a wife and child. This all comes to a climax at the end of the novel and though somewhat contrived, it nevertheless “works.”

My only complaint in the ending is that it’s almost too sudden;  whereas the bulk of the novel involves well-developed characters and a meandering plot that sometimes is a bit too convoluted but plausible, although also at times a little difficulty to follow, the ending is achieved in just a few pages and the tension does not develop the way the rest of the novel would have led the reader to believe it would.  There are a few too many “connect-the-dot” situations and coincidences that the characters’ dialogues reveal, rather than just letting the plot continue to meander slowly toward the end.

Within this novel, too, is the secondary storyline of smuggled immigrants, whom the fencers are using to redesign the stolen jewelry, and that storyline is interesting, albeit a bit of a distraction, too, as Mayor develops one of the immigrant characters a bit more, perhaps, than she needed to be.  It was an interesting aside to have her developed but not necessary to the story;  a more generalized description of the smugglers and their captives would have sufficed.

I did find most of the characters, especially Joe Gunther, as very believable, as well as the other law enforcement officials and the private investigator in Northampton who was skeptical about dealing with someone on her “turf.”  I did wonder as I read the story if some of the artisans and jewelers described were based on real people since the descriptions of Northampton locations were so clear! The interwoven plot made me think, too, that this is probably what “real” crime looks like, with misleading evidence and apparent luck as much as anything working against and/or in favor of the investigators.  One word here, one person there.  Mayor was quite masterful at developing those kinds of realities.

I guess I would recommend this book based on an entertaining mystery.  I might try another of his books that maybe would be less distracting for me;  it was too easy to get caught up in, where is that exactly? or, oh, I know that’s Bill’s Restaurant, etc. Next time, I would choose one of his very early ones – though this book did make me realize that although it’s a part of a series, like any good series, it does not really require that I have read any of the earlier ones.  Past references are alluded to enough so the reader gets the gist of why someone is the way they are but without distracting details, and that was very helpful.  I would be curious to see how a non-local person responds to this book.

ElCicco #CBR5 Review#10: Schroder by Amity Gaige

In the vein of Gone Girl and The Dinner, we have yet another novel with a narrator whose reliability is questionable. In Schroder, it’s not so much that the narrator is knowingly deceptive to the reader. It’s that most of the narrator’s life has been a lie, and as a result, the reader might be dubious about his reliability in explaining himself and the accusations against him. Erik’s is the only point of view presented here and while it might be tempting to peg him as a selfish, thoughtless scoundrel, the letter that he writes to his wife reveals a more complex, flawed person.

The conceit is that Erik Kennedy is writing to his estranged wife to explain himself. He has kidnapped their daughter and been exposed as a fraud. He is not a Kennedy at all but a German emigre named Erik Schroder who fled East Berlin with his father in his childhood and then moved to Boston. Young Erik, in applying to summer camp, created a new persona for himself and then completely assimilated it. Things unravel after Erik marries and his marriage falls apart for reasons that he does not understand.

Erik is a translator/scholar whose personal research deals with silences. This makes perfect sense for someone who comes from life under an authoritarian regime and who then must hide his personal truth in order to maintain his preferred fictional life. Erik has no strong sense of self though, no context to share with others such as his wife and child. His desire to assimilate makes Erik too willing to change his identity. He writes that when he met his wife and fell in love, “How quickly I dropped all other commitments, all other friendships, clubs, and interests.” He also eventually put aside his research to work in real estate for his father-in-law.

Most of the narrative follows the week that Erik and daughter Meadow are on the run and the things they did — driving to upstate New York, swimming, eating junk food, taking up with another drifter named April. Erik seems to be slowly working toward his past and is perhaps going to share it with his 6-year-old daughter when present day reality starts to catch up to the pair. Erik seems to understand that he will eventually get caught, but he doesn’t understand what the ultimate repercussions will be. “Maybe this was just the imprinting of my childhood’s apparat, but it seemed to me that if you scratched anybody deep enough, you’d reveal some criminality…. And so I had believed — right up to the moment when I saw myself on TV — that I had not ‘kidnapped’ Meadow but that I was merely very, very late to return her from an agreed-upon visit.”

Erik comes across as a sympathetic and exasperating character. He doesn’t make his wife out to be a bad guy and clearly deeply loves both her and Meadow. He simply doesn’t understand why things have turned out so badly, why his perfect life is falling apart. He doesn’t understand his own role in it but sees that he is losing them all. Gaige mixes revelations about Erik’s past in with the present-day story, which makes Erik’s story sadder but certainly not excusable. All in all, an interesting story about memory, identity and sins of omission.

Valyruh’s #CBR5 Review #3: Live By Night by Dennis Lehane

A new book by Lehane with a different flavor. It starts in Lehane’s Boston during the Roaring 20s, where prohibition is in full swing, and Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a Boston police captain, has chosen the path of easy money, easy women and working for the mob to get where he wants to go. But the young romantic falls for the favorite girl of mobster Albert White, and he gets set up. A bank robbery “goes wrong,” a cop is killed, and 20-year-old Joe takes the fall, getting a multi-year sentence in one of the worst prisons around. As the son of a police captain, his days are numbered until he hooks up with old man Maso Pescatore, a vicious boss in the Italian mafia who recognizes Joe’s life as currency and offers mob protection for the son in exchange for the favors of the father. Maso plans to expand his turf into the rum-smuggling of the Florida coast, and recognizes that Joe’s smarts make him the perfect manager for his new enterprise, once he gets out of prison.

Joe heads down to Florida and the story at this point takes on a different coloration, with Joe having to learn fast how to survive the tropical political climes, the mob turf wars, the Ku Klux Klan, cross-cultural tensions, and organized corruption on a mass scale. He not only survives but rises to the top, dramatically expanding his influence and amassing huge fortunes, both for himself and for the mafia. But it’s too good to last, and Joe’s refusal to ultimately take a back seat in the empire he has helped create–and his resistance to the escalating violence that empire now demands of him–puts him back in the crosshairs of the mob.

Joe is a fascinating character, with a youthful exuberance coupled with tons of charm and occasional twinges of conscience to leaven the otherwise ruthless and amoral streak that runs a mile wide in the guy. His saving grace is Graciela, a lovely Cuban woman whom he eventually marries and fathers a child with. She helps him discover his better half, but the reader knows that sooner or later, Joe will have to pay for the life he has led.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find this book to have the subtly-drawn nuances of both plot and character that Lehane is so famous for. It was an exciting and fun read, to be sure, but I found myself often wondering why I was rooting so hard for a mobster just because he was less bloody-minded than the guys he worked for. Joe makes “soft” decisions in the management of his criminal empire, to be sure, but his redemption by Graciela never really rings true and the end, when it comes, is a sad but foregone conclusion.