"Check Out" this Novel Mystery!

Sorry for the pun. It just couldn't be helped!! That's what you get when you have a mystery that deals with books!! Booked to Die by John Dunning (432 pgs, Simon & Schuster) is a book I decided to read for the Something About Me Challenge. Bonnie choose it as one of her selections.
And it's the first book in the Cliff Janeway Mystery series.

Denver police officer, Cliff Janeway, is a bit of an enigma. He's a good, hard-working cop that used to be a boxer. AND he's a collector of rare books. Strange combination, that's for sure. He's known all along Denver's "Book Row", and is always willing to stop and look for a great find. When he gets a call late one evening to investigate a homicide, his book expertise actually helps him out. The victim, Bobby Westfall, is one of Denver's Bookscouts. Bobby spent all his days searching for 1st editions and trying to find the "Big Score".

At first, the murder looks like a random killing, although in the back of Janeway's mind, he suspects it's related to books. His first suspect is Jackie Newton, his arch enemy. Jackie is a thug with lots of money and power. Janeway has been trying to put him away for the murder of several homeless people ever since he moved to Denver, but has never been able to get a conviction.

When Jackie steps over the line by tormenting a woman that might testify against him, Janeway takes the law into his own hands. He literally beats the pulp out of Jackie. With an investigation and a lawsuit pending, Janeway turns in his badge and decides to become what he's always known his future would hold: A Bookman. Bobby's murder gets written off as a random killing.....until murder strikes Book Row once again.

What's not to love about this book? It involves two of my favorite things: mystery and books! Cliff Janeway is a great character. He's smart, tough, and knows his 1st Editions! There are enough twists to keep the pages turning. All the way to the final sentence in the book. And there's tons of information about rare books, enough to keep my interest piqued. You can tell that Dunning is a collector himself, and it radiates through the entire book. Booked to Die is a great mystery, and one I would highly recommend to anyone! I can definitely see that I will be continuing this series!!

Thanks Bonnie!!

Bonnie's review of The Memory Keeper's Daughter

1. Title, author, and date of book?
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards, 2005

2. Genre: fiction

3. What made you want to read it? Did it live up to your expectations?
Because several people had recommended it, I put it on the lists for two of my challenges: Something About Me and Saturday Review of Books. Yes, it was as good as I had expected.

4. Summarize the book without giving away the ending.
On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy; his daughter has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the infant to an institution and never to reveal the secret, then tells his wife their daughter was stillborn. Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the baby at the institution and disappears into another city to raise the child herself. What happens when secrets are revealed? (Hmmm, I just realized that's TWO books about children with Down's I have reviewed here ... two out of two.)

5. What did you think of the main characters?
This book has three main characters. I cannot imagine lying to a spouse as David did. I do understand Norah's being more upset by her child's death than her husband had expected and Caroline's desire to raise the baby rather than consign her to a life in an institution.

6. Which character could you relate to best, and why?
Caroline, who raised the little girl and fought for her right to an education, even if she did have Down's.

7. Were there any other especially interesting characters?
I liked Albert (Al) Simpson, who helped Caroline when her car battery died during that night's blizzard, and Dorothy (Doro) March, who later became Caroline's friend. The twins were also interesting: Paul, who was smart and handsome, and Phoebe, who thrived in a loving household.

8. Did you think the characters and their problems were believable?
Most of the time, yes, but Dr. Henry's problems were self-inflicted and could have been solved if he had had the gumption to tell the truth. Of course, we wouldn't have had a story then, would we?

9. Share a quote from the book:
"He had tried to protect his son from the things he himself had suffered as a child: poverty and worry and grief. Yet his very efforts had created losses David had never anticipated" (p. 258).

10. Share a favorite scene from the book:
Paul, the son, sees himself as a "caretaker of the past" (p. 378). "His to choose, what to keep and what to discard. ... his deep sense of responsibility, how what he kept from this house of his childhood would become, in turn, what he passed down to his own children someday -- all they would ever know, in a tangible way, of what had shaped him" (p. 378).

11. What about the ending?
I could think of better ways for it to end, or at least as I would have wanted it to end. But the story works with the ending the author gave it.

12. What do you think will be your lasting impression of this book?
How secrets can tear a family apart or harm them in unexpected ways. Not everyone in my own family agrees with me, but I do believe in telling the truth and getting secrets out in the open so they don't poison relationships. I kept turning those pages, wanting to know what would happen, whether the wife would ever learn what really happened to her daughter.

13. How would you rate the book?
Rated 9/10, excellent!

14. How does this book tell me something about 3M, who selected it?
When 3M chose this book for one of her five, she wrote: "The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards has several 'something about me' qualities. It is set in Lexington, Ky, and I live less than an hour from there. The author is a UK professor and mentions the school and the Wildcats, and my husband got his undergraduate degree there and is a UK fanatic. Like Paul (the boy twin), when I was an adult I found out I had a sister that I never knew about. Like David (the husband and father), I felt like an 'imposter' in my (brief) professional life. He is a doctor in the story; I was an engineer. This was probably due to his poorer family background, which I can also relate to. Like Norah, I suffered from postpartum depression."

So I learned something about the area where 3M now lives, though she says (in choosing another book) that she is originally from Nebraska; I learned that she has a sister she knew nothing about until they were adults, that she wasn't entirely comfortable being an engineer, that she was a teacher (from her introduction of another book), that she relates to the fictional character's poorer family background, and that she has experienced postpartum depression. I think I know you a little better, 3M, but I would really like to hear what it felt like to learn you had a sister.

Bonnie's review of Place Last Seen

1. Title, author, and date of book?
Place Last Seen by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman, 2000

2. Genre: fiction

3. What made you want to read it? Did it live up to your expectations?
Wendy at Caribousmom put it on her Something About Me Reading Challenge list, and I chose it as one I wanted to read. It is every bit as good as I expected.

4. Summarize the book without giving away the ending.
During an idyllic autumn-day hike in the Desolation Wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas, the Baker family is hurled into a nightmare when six-year-old Maggie, a child with Down Syndrome, runs away while playing hide-and-seek with her brother. As the Search and Rescue team combs the place where Maggie was last seen, all the family can do is wait and hope that a clue will lead them to her.

5. Share a quote from the book.
Here are the opening lines:

Maggie is lost.
Ann crouches in the trail, listening to this sentence loop over and over through her brain. Her daughter is six years old -- blond, brown eyes, Down syndrome, lost.

6. Did you think the characters and their problems were believable?
All except that mother, who seemed strange to the search and rescue team as well. We know the little lost girl through flashbacks; we see that her father, mother, and 8-year-old brother all feel guilty that she is got away from them; but the story is really (in my opinion) about the searchers. I was fascinated to learn about THEIR problems as they tried to find nearby dog teams to follow the scent before it was lost -- only to discover they were in Peru, helping there. The longer it took to get the trained dogs to the PLS, the place last seen, the more likely the scent would be washed away by rain or otherwise contaminated by helpful volunteer searchers. And then there was the new guy, learning to track, who stepped on the first good clue to be found. Oh, yes, their problems were very believable.

7. Was location important to the story?
Location was everything. The story is located in the Desolation Wilderness area of the Sierra Nevadas in the state of California. I know I'll have to read the book again, now that I have found a map of that area, but I was too engrossed to look for online information as I was reading the book. The need to know what's next kept me turning the pages. But look at this wonderful map I found since finishing the book! (Click on the map to make it larger.)



8. What do you think will be your lasting impression of this book?
What I got from Ed and Michelle, two of the search team members, about the whole point of tracking:

Ed believes, "Tracking's mostly learning to see" (p. 63).
Michelle says, "Tracking's all about learning to see" (p. 66).
Ed "knows that the only way to find something is, in some sense, to stop looking with your brain and start seeing" (p. 127).

I get it, I get it! But do I really? Jonathan, who is on his first search, has a hard time learning to really see the lay of the land (literally) and the little clues that seasoned trackers notice. What I may think I learned by reading this book wouldn't take me far in the wilderness, but what a challenge ... to really pay attention to everything that is in your line of sight. Is there a broken twig? Is the grass flattened? What's really right there in front of your nose?

9. How would you rate the book?
Rated: 9/10, excellent! Thanks, Wendy!

10. What I learned about Wendy:
Oh, yeah, one more thing: I can't forget to report what I learned about Wendy from reading this book. She said: "This book is a touching novel about a lost child and the search which ensues to find her. It represents me on a couple of levels. I have been involved in Search and Rescue for almost ten years now (the first 7 of those years was with my Search and Rescue dog - Caribou- and now I'm a certified Tracker I for my county team). In addition, the child in this novel has Down's Syndrome. As a licensed Physical Therapist, I work with children and adults with developmental disability. McGuinn Freeman does an outstanding job of portraying both the search teams and the family of this little girl."

I posted this on Wendy's blog: "I have finished reading Place Last Seen and feel I know you a lot better now. What I want to know is, which dog in the team photo is Caribou?

Wendy replied: "Caribou and I are not on the Shasta County dog team...we worked for an state-wide organization called CARDA. I retired Caribou two years ago due to her developing arthritis ... and now I serve as a tracker for my county team (which is the link I provided in my 'explanation' of the book). You can see a photo of Caribou here on my blog."

Caribou is a beautiful dog! Go see for yourself. This is exactly what I was hoping to learn about some of you when I joined this challenge. Wendy has been out there searching for people like the characters in this book, on search and rescue teams and with her trained dog. This has been great, learning something new to me and at the same time learning about my new friend Wendy.

I reviewed this on my blog, Bonnie's Books as well.

Bonnie's reading choices

I haven't seen anyone post their reading choices here, but it seems like a good idea, so I'll start. Here are my picks, naming the person in parentheses who said it's "something about me."

My choices:
1. The Seven Daughters of Eve ~ by Bryan Sykes (Chris)
2. Place Last Seen ~ by Charlotte McGuinn Freeman (Wendy)
3. Einstein's Dreams ~ by Alan Lightman (Raidergirl3)
4. The Memory Keeper's Daughter ~ by Kim Edwards (3M)
5. The Tortilla Curtain ~ by T.C. Boyle (Dewey)
6. Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books ~ by Paul Collins (in memory of Nattie)

Alternates:
7. Luncheon of the Boating Party ~ by Susan Vreeland (3M)
8. A Thousand Splendid Suns ~ by Khaled Hosseini (Diane)
9. The Happy Room ~ by Catherine Palmer (Twiga)
10. The Time Traveler's Wife ~ by Audrey Niffenegger (Dewey)
11. The End of Faith ~ by Sam Harris (Judith)
12. Demon Haunted World ~ by Carl Sagan (Kookiejar)

This challenge lasts five months, August through December, so I chose five books. The sixth book on my list is for Nattie, one she chose to tell us something about herself; but Nattie died young, leaving behind two small children. Cancer took her before the challenge got underway, but some of us are reading books she chose, doing it in memory of Nattie.

If you have read any of these books, please tell me what you thought of them. Thumbs up? Or thumbs down?

A death in our group

I just learned from Stephanie's blog that Natalie from Nattie Writes lost her battle with cancer yesterday. As Stephanie said, "She will be sorely missed. Please take a moment and pray for her son and daughter" (thanks for the correction).

Nattie's list of books is on our sidebar, but she won't be reading any of our books now. To learn something about [Nattie]: (1) re-read her book post describing her five choices, (2) read one of those five, (3) look at her blog, with her final posts dictated to her daddy, and (4) keep her in our thoughts and prayers today, as we lose one of our own. Nattie was only 33 years old.

Blogging for *P*E*A*C*E* on June 6

Bonnie's Five Books

Here are five good books that say "something about me":

1. Evensong ~ by Gail Godwin ~ This novel's main character is the church's first woman pastor. She's Episcopalian and I'm not, but some of her experiences are like mine when I was ordained and went into a field where I was often the first woman churches had ever had in their pulpits.

2. On Tap ~ by J. Frances Alexander ~ Chattanooga, my hometown, is the setting for this novel about the vulnerability of America's supply of safe drinking water to the attack of terrorists. Can you tell I'm also interested in environmental issues?

3. Booked to Die ~ by John Dunning ~ A mystery involving bookstores that deal with rare and out-of-print books, this book was a learning experience for me when, after retirement, I worked for such a store. Later I was bookstore manager at a store in a small town south of Chattanooga, before opening my own bookstore. In none of these situations was there a bookstore murder to solve as in this book of fiction!

4. Go Out in Joy! ~ by Nina Hermann Donnelley ~ The author shares what it's like to work as a hospital chaplain. I first read this book while in seminary, when I too was struggling to learn how to deal with patients and their relatives, especially when parents were fearful for the health of their small children. My group of intern chaplains was assigned to a large hospital in Atlanta, and I prayed I would not get the pediatric ward. You did notice the word "children" above, right?

5. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter ~ by Sue Monk Kidd ~ This nonfiction book chronicles Kidd's religious awakening and transformation. Although we have arrived at somewhat different places, we both had to work through the patriarchy in our religious traditions. "Awakening" is a great word for what I felt when I reached a point in my life when I could articulate what I believed and why.

Lisa, I can't figure out how to put this list in the sidebar. I don't have that option. You control the template, while we are able to control only our own posts.