Flavour Flavia

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
Alan Bradley
Anchor Canada

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag is actually the second novel that I've read in the Flavia de Luce mystery series.  What a joy this character is!  Almost eleven, Flavia has already developed what my mother would characterize as a "unique" personality.  Tortured by her older siblings (Daphne and Ophelia, aka Daffy and Feely), Flavia takes great pleasure in plotting their demise.   She's well versed in the art of poisons and when she's not engaged in distilling and concocting, Flavia can usually be found  flying about the English countryside with her best friend Gladys -- a shiny two-wheeler that was a hand-me-down from her deceased mother.  Did I mention that Flavia also likes to solve murders in her spare time?  As I said, she's quite a character.

There are so many great things to recommend this series that I hardly know where to start.  The characters that inhabit these novels are all fantastically drawn and offer almost as much as Flavia herself.  The mysteries are challenging and unlike other detective fiction I've been reading lately,  I've been unable to guess the Whodunit half through the book.  And finally, the writing itself is beautiful.  If words on a page can manage to transport me to another time and another place in such a way that I want to stay in that new world, then I think the author has succeeded in drawing me in.  I have tried to savour these novels because I like Flavia's world and I just don't want them to end. Four dastardly plots out of five.

Only the Shadow Knows ...

The Book of Air and Shadows

Michael Gruber

Harper Collins

A couple of weeks ago I was having a discussion with a work colleague about what makes a good read.   He and I have similar tastes in "Capital L " Literature and I totally trust his recommendations.  It also got me to thinking.  Maybe I've been watching too many Criminal Minds episodes lately, but I get the feeling that if one were to understand my preferences in books, one would be a few short steps from understanding my most inner self.   Scary thought that. 

So why the babble, you ask?  Well, on paper, The Book of Air and Shadows seems like something that I would normally inhale. I mean, it's got all the right pieces:

• It's highly intertextual (you know now I dig books about books)
• The narrative comprises multiple points of view.  It's not just one guy telling a story.
• The timeline shifts between 17th century England and 21st century New York without any crazy time travelling devices or dream sequences.
• It has gangsters and cryptology.  Really, what more could a girl want? 

Well, maybe just a little more.  Jake Mishkin, an IP lawyer based in New York, finds himself in temporary custody of a manuscript fragment that refers to a work by William Shakespeare that has never before been seen.  Aspiring film maker Albert Crosetti is in possession of an encrypted portion of that same manuscript which reveals the location of the new play.  The two eventually connect and mayhem ensues.  While this novel was just a little too smart in places for its own good, it would make a decent airplane read.  Three cramped secretary hands out of five.

Vampires, Lycanthropes and Things That Go Bump in the Night

Narcissus in Chains
Laurell K. Hamilton
Jove

Not that you'd know it from how infrequently I've been updating this blog, but I've actually been reading quite a bit lately.  You might even say that I've been on a bender.  In the last few weeks, I've managed to crank through nine Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels.  At an average of about 300 pages per read, well, that's a lot of blood.

I'm not so sure what it is about these novels that keep drawing me in.  In some ways, they are similar to the Kelley Armstrong books that I read over Christmas -- each series is classified as paranormal/horror and each deals with a world where vampires, werecreatures, witches, warlocks, faeries and other "magical" ilk live alongside you and me.  The writing certainly isn't fabulous -- she's repeats text verbatim across the series and the storylines really aren't all that inventive.  Part of my interest, I think, is the Scarecrow and Mrs. King effect.  Remember that show?  You so wanted the two main characters to hook up and they never quite got it right.  Anita has that kind of relationship with a few gentlemen, uh, creatures in the series, so maybe that's the draw.  In any event, I will probably keep reading for awhile yet.  Hamilton started the series in the mid-90s, so I've got at least ten more books to go.

Two sociopaths out of five.

Up, Up, and Away

Every Lost Country
Steven Heighton
Knopf Canada

It has been weeks since I finished this novel.  I really would have gotten to it sooner, but work has been very hectic and I was more-or-less obsessed with the Tour de France.  It's hard to write about a serious book when you're shouting crazily at the television.  Oh, for those of  you that have been following along, my guys came in 18th and 68th respectively.  Go team!

Every Lost Country is a fictional story (based on a real event that occured in 2006) about a doctor/humanitarian who has signed up to provide medical support for a Canadian climbing expedition along the Tibet-Nepal border.  One morning, while most of the climbers are making their way down from another camp, the doctor and his daugher are drawn into an international incident when they try to assist some Tibetans who are fleeing the Chinese authorities.  Filming the incidint as part of the backstory for her documentary about the climb, a Chinese-Canadian woman is captured along with the doctor, his daughter and the hopeful refugees.  Their treatment by the Chinese, their eventual escape, and their terrifying journey across the bone-chilling slopes of the Himalayas is gripping -- so much so that the book was impossible to put down until I had read the last page.

If an action-packed plot and elegant writing isn't enough to lure you in, the book is also compelling because it is a highly moral story that, at times, reminds me of  a modern Everyman where characters are neither purely good nor purely evit.  Think Conrad meets morality play -- same vivid characterizations and intellectually challenging situtions -- all woven into a beautiful narrative that catches the reader off guard.  I'm not kidding -- you really do want to pick this up.  Four and half prayer flags out of five.