Books Set in Asia: Beijing, China

Kitchen Chinese, by Ann Mah (2010)

 

After aspiring writer Isabelle Lee lost her job as a fact-checker at a prestigious women’s magazine in New York, she decided to lick her wounds with a trip to China where her much older sister was living and working as an attorney.  Claire introduces Isabelle to Ed, who is the editor of Beijing NOW, a magazine aimed Expats.  Although her grasp of the language is limited to “kitchen Chinese”, Isabelle knows her Chinese food ~ it was what her emigrant mother prepared for her when she was growing up.  Isabelle lands a job as food writer for the magazine.  She soon learns, however, that live in China is quite different from live in New York.

 

Each chapter describes a different regional Chinese food.  The author’s descriptions of the dishes make one’s mouth water.  Recipes are found at the back of the book!

 

Read: July 30, 2023

4 Stars

Books Set in North America: Venice, California United States

Künstlers in Paradise, by Cathleen Schine (2023)

 

Twenty-four-year-old Julian has just lost his job, his roommate, and his New York apartment.  He runs back to his parents, expecting them to bail him out, but they don’t.  They are tired of his expectation of privilege.  So, he sets across the country to stay for a while with his 94-year-old grandmother, Salomea Künstler, who is recovering from a broken wrist.

 

Salomea Künstler was just 11-years-old when she fled with her parents and grandfather from Vienna at the start of World War II in 1939.  Although very young at the time, she was just old enough to know of the horrors of the Holocaust.  While not religious Jews, they were Jews none-the-less, and barely escaped with their lives. Much of her family perished.  She came from a family of musicians, and Los Angeles and Hollywood seemed a logical place for the family to land.

 

Salomea Künstler, known to friends as Mamie, still lives in the family bungalow along the beach in Venice, California.  Just as Julian arrives and begins interviewing for jobs, the world shuts down because of Covid-19.  Julian is now stuck with his grandmother and her aging housekeeper, Agatha.

 

With nothing much to do, Mamie begins to share with Julian the stories of her life.  Mamie has wonderful tales of life in Vienna and America with her beloved grandfather.  In America, her family also rubbed elbows with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars ~ Greta Garbo, Otto Preminger, Thomas Mann …

 

As Mamie is in the twilight of her life, Julian has yet to come into his own.  Being with Mamie and Agatha, however, jolt him into reevaluating what is important to him in the quiet world of the pandemic.

 

This was a delightful story.

 

Read: July 25, 2023

4 Stars

Books Set Somewhere in the World

If Cats Disappeared from the World, by Genki Kawamura (2012)

 

What if you learned that you had only days to live, but were offered an opportunity to extend your life?  That is the premise of this novel.  The narrator learns that he has only days to live.  Then, the devil arrives, dressed in a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, and offers him a deal.  The narrator will be granted an extra day of life for every item he eliminates from the world.  Since the narrator is in seemingly good health, despite the recent diagnosis of a brain tumor, he “sells his soul” to the devil.  He agrees and eliminates cell phones, movies, and clocks.  Then, when the devil suggests cats, the narrator stalls.  He is unable to imagine a world without his beloved cat, Cabbage.  (As a child, he had a cat named Lettuce, so when he acquired another cat as an adult, he named it after another leafy vegetable).  This little novel is a true delight, as it reflects on life and love.

 

Read: July 12, 2023

4 Stars

Books Set in Australia: Outback

The Dry, by Jane Harper (2026)

 

Australian Federal Agent Aaron Falk returned to his tiny hometown in rural outback Australia to attend the funeral of Luke Hadler, his closest childhood friend.  Aaron wasn’t eager to return to his hometown.  Aaron and his father had been run out of town twenty years earlier after Aaron had been accused of killing his girlfriend, Ellie Deacon.  Luke’s father implored him to return with a terse message stating that he knew Aaron had lied 20 years earlier about his alibi.

 

Luke had ostensibly committed suicide after murdering his wife and young son.  His farm was failing and he was facing financial ruin, thus suicide seemed a logical solution.  Luke’s parents, however, didn’t believed it was a murder-suicide.  Since Aaron is in law enforcement, albeit white-collar financial crimes, they implore him to investigate Luke’s death.

 

Small town, long memories.  Luke’s father isn’t the only person who thinks Aaron lied about his alibi.  While joining up the young ambitious Police Sergeant Greg Raco, Aaron unofficially assists in looking into Luke’s death.

 

A lot of people in the tiny town of Kiewarra have secrets.  The story is told in flashbacks, which give the reader two mysteries – the present-day death of Luke and his family, and the death of Ellie Deacon, which occurred 20 years earlier, when Aaron and his friends were just teenagers.

 

The Australian outback is suffering a drought, which provides an added layer of intrigue.  The draught was causing farms to fail, which in turn caused shops in town to suffer.  The local bar is up and operating, alcoholism is endemic, and nerves are frayed.  Physical fights were common occurrences.

 

The local school was short on funds and local townfolk applied for grants to help support educational programs.  Luke’s wife was the financial officer for the school.  Had she uncovered a source of funding?  Why did she have Aaron’s name and phone number in her possession?

 

Aaron must carefully negotiate the present, while letting go of grudges from the past as he delves into his friend’s death.

 

The Dry is the first book in the series featuring (Australian) Federal Agent Aaron Falk.  

 

 

Read:  May 29, 2023

 

4 Stars

Books Set in Europe: United Kingdom, London, England

With No One As Witness, by Elizabeth George (2005)  //  Inspector Thomas Lynley # 13

 

This mystery novel is the thirteenth in the Inspector Thomas Lynley series.  It had been nearly a decade since I read the last Lynley novel.  While each novel is a stand-alone mystery, it seemed that there was a lot in this book that relied on considerable knowledge of the characters backstories.  That being said …

 

New Scotland Yard officers, Inspector Lynley (Acting Superintendent Lynley in this volume) and his sidekick Constable Barbara Havers (she had apparently been demoted from Sergeant in the previous novel), have stumbled upon a serial killer.  Three mixed race young boys were left for dead before Kimmo Thorne, a young white, gay female impersonator, turned up dead.  The prior three bodies had been assumed to be runaways and their deaths weren’t thoroughly investigated.  It isn’t until Kimmo’s body is found that the police compare notes and realize that all the deaths were committed in a similar fashion.  To curb accusations of institutional racism, Winston Nkata was hastily promoted to Sergeant to serve as the face for the press briefings.

 

Lynley and his team’s investigation led them to Colossus, a low-budget organization intended to help at-risk children.  The Colossus employees and volunteers all have checkered pasts.  Could they have a hand in the murders?  There also appears to be a link to shady organization called MABIL (Men And Boys In Love), a group of pedophiles who groom young boys for sex.  When a fifth body is found, there are some substantial differences, leading the investigators to believe there may be a copy-cat killing.

 

In between following where the evidence may lead, the reader also gets a peek into the private lives of Lynley and Havers.  Lynley’s wife is expecting their first child, while Havers lives her solitary life and tries to connect with her neighbor.  Their lives are not without their own personal drama and tragedy.  [Spoiler Alert:  Lynley’s wife, Helen, was shot on her doorstep in the wealthy neighborhood of Belgravia.  By the time she was transported to the hospital, too much time had elapsed, and she was brain dead.  Both she and her unborn baby were taken off life support.  Also, the book ends with Lynley appearing to turn in his badge.]

 

This book comes in at over 600 pages.  While it kept my attention, it could have been pared down to about half that size.  I also found one plot thread to have been resolved too quickly.  Still, I enjoy reading about the gentry Thomas Lynley and his working-class side-kick, Barbara Havers.

 

Read:  May 13, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

Other Books Read in the Series:

Well-Schooled in Murder (# 3)  //  Read June 29, 2003

For the Sake of Elana (#5)  //  Read February 21, 1994

Missing Joseph (# 6)  //  Read June 12, 1996 and January 25, 2003

Playing for the Ashes (# 7)  //  Read January 6, 1996

A Traitor to Memory (# 11)  //  Read January 3, 2004

A Banquet of Consequences (# 19)  //  Read July 4, 2018

 

 

Books Set in North America: New York City

The Hidden Palace, by Helene Wecker (2021)

 

The Hidden Palace picks up the characters from The Golem and the Jenni, but the reader need not have read the first book to enjoy this one.  This novel takes place eight years after the first novel has ended and begins around 1900.  There are several threads plots in this novel.  Chava, the Jewish golem, and Ahmad, the Arabian jinni, have gone their separate ways haven’t seen each other in years.  Sophia Winston, who became chilled following her affair with the jinni, has traveled to a desert Middle East to find a cure.  Anne is working as a laundress and raising her young son.  Interwoven into the lives of the characters, is a fair amount of history, as the world is on the brink of World War I.

 

Cheva realizes that as a golem, she never ages, while the people around her do.  She realized that she could no longer work in the bakery, so attends a nearby college and gets a degree in that allows her to teach cooking.  She reinvented herself as Charlotte Levy and landed a job at an orphanage academy.  After the jinni’s partner died, he holed up in the building and cut himself off from the rest of the community and spent his time constructing with steel.  Anne’s son landed a job as a Western Union messenger, which takes him around New York City.

 

While searching for a cure to her illness, Sophia encounteres a female jinni, whom she calls Dima.  Dima has been banished from her tribe and is searching for the jinni who can touch steel (Ahmad).  She promises Sophia a cure if she can bring her to Ahmad.  Meanwhile, back in New York, the reader meets Kreindel, a young girl who studies Hebrew with her rabbi and assists him in making Yessele, another golem to be her protector.

 

In addition to a beautiful story, the author also gives us a glimpse of life in the New York tenements at the turn of the last century.  I loved this book and look forward to other writings from this author.

 

Read:  May 3, 2023

 

4 Stars

 

 

Books Set in North America; United States

Deliberate Cruelty: Trumann Capote, The Millionaire's Wife and the Murder of the Century, by Roseanne Montillo (2022)

 

Deliberate Cruelty is about the rise and fall of Ann Woodward and Truman Capote, two prominent figures in New York society.  Their paths occasionally crossed, and Capote was “deliberately cruel” in his writings of Ann.

 

Ann Woodward (née Evangeline Lucille Crowell; 1915 – 1975) grew up in poverty in Kansas, but she had big dreams.  She changed her name and set off for New York, where she became a model, actress and nightclub dancer.  It was as a nightclub dancer that she met William Woodward, Sr.  They likely carried on an affair until the father introduced her to William Woodward, Jr.  The son was smitten, possibly as an act of rebellion against his tight-laced and monied family.

 

When Ann and William, Jr., married, Ann became the socialite she had dreamed of becoming.  Life was not all she expected, however.  Soon William, Jr., tired of her and the two began having very public fights.  One night in 1955, Ann shot and killed her husband, thinking that he was the prowler who had been breaking into homes in their posh neighborhood.  Although Ann was ultimately not convicted of her husband’s killing (a cover-up by her in-laws to avoid a worse scandal?), she was shunned from her former society life.

 

Truman Capote (1924 – 1984), was also born into poverty and came from a dysfunctional family.  He, too, had dreams of making it big.  With the publication of In Cold Blood, he became a household name and a fixture in New York society.  Capote became the confident of all the high society socialites, or swans as he called them. They spilled all their secrets to him.  Capote imagined his next book, which would be called Answered Prayers, to be a fictionalized account of all the tales that his swans had revealed.  The sordid scandal of the Woodward killing was red meat to Capote.  He took to calling Ann Woodward Mrs. Bang Bang.

 

Capote’s downfall came with the publication and article entitled La Côte Basque, 1965, which was published in Esquire magazine.  The story was a chapter from his incomplete novel Answered Prayers.  La Côte Basque, 1965, was a thinly veiled portrayal of his swans.  Once the story was published he was instantly cut off from high society, that had been so meaningful to him.

 

This was a fast and fun read.

 

Read: March 13, 2023

 

4 Stars