August 29, 2014

“The Club Dumas” by Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Musketeers Revisited

The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte (Book cover)
With The Club Dumas Arturo Perez-Reverte dishes out yet another page-turner, following the long and twisted journey of Lucas Corso, a middle-aged book hunter whose job is to seek out the rarest of works for private collectors.

The death of a known bibliophile and the manuscript he left behind, that of the original The Three Musketeer, lead Corso to be brought in as an authenticator.

August 26, 2014

“Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell – Breaking Free of Herself

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (Book cover)
For many people, heading off to college is a defining experience, and perhaps the first time some are thrust into a completely alien setting on their own.

Needless to say, there are countless novels out there detailing this rather common experience, but frankly-speaking, most of them feel like copies of each other and rather coarse attempts at sensationalizing the experience and portraying it in nothing but its extremes.

August 25, 2014

“Lord of the Flies” by William Golding – The Evil in the Hearts of Men

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Book cover)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is perhaps one of the best-known works of literature on an international scale; so many spin-offs, recountings and even parodies of it occurred that it would be hard to live life without encountering it in one form or another.

The infinitely famous book has a rather simple premise: a group of English schoolboys are washed up on a deserted island following a plane wreck, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere with none but themselves to rely on.

August 23, 2014

“Wayfaring Stranger” by James Lee Burke – Preservation of a Self

Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke (Book cover)
There is no denying that from our perspective, life is a rather lengthy journey, one that transforms us many times over.

And so, it shouldn't come as a surprise that countless questions surrounding our identity tend to be explored from time to time, with perhaps one of the more well-known ones being whether or not we remain ourselves when our morals and values change, or if we become someone else.

August 22, 2014

“Midnight in Peking” by Paul French – Crimson Foxes

Midnight in Peking by Paul French (Book cover)
While the world was recovering from the First World War and, unbeknownst to all but the most perceptive ones, preparing for the second one, the Orient had its fair share of troubles.

For one, China was dealing with an internal conflict as well as a Japanese invasion, with the inhabitants of Peking steeling themselves for the seemingly inevitable during the final days of the city's colonial period.

August 17, 2014

“War of the Whales” by Joshua Horwitz – The Giants of the Deep

War of the Whales by Joshua Horwitz (Book cover)
The ocean is in itself a vast mystery of which we have done nothing but scratch the surface so far, and though it covers so much of our planet, we often tend to forget about all of its innumerable inhabitants.

Whether we realize it or not, our noisy ways have already affected marine life tremendously, and in War of the Whales Joshua Horwitz explores this issue from a very realistic and interesting way.

August 13, 2014

“The Skeleton Crew” by Deborah Halber - A Macabre Blessing

The Skeleton Crew by Deborah Halber (Book cover)
As advanced and progressive as modern investigative techniques may be, the fact of the matter remains that every year countless deaths go unsolved, and what's more, countless victims remain unidentified.

Indeed, in the United States somewhere around forty thousand people die every year, leaving nothing but a mystery, their identities being completely unknown.

August 12, 2014

“Landline” by Rainbow Rowell – A Redemption from the Past

Landline by Rainbow Rowell (book cover)
Landline by Rainbow Rowell tells the story of Georgie McCool and her dissolving marriage, one that seems to be falling apart like a house of cards, regardless of what she, her husband Neal, or the children want.

Right around Christmas time, after having planned a trip to Omaha for the Holidays, Georgie gets the opportunity of a lifetime; writing the script for several episodes for a new hit television show, which would require her to stay put for the vacation.

August 9, 2014

“The Hundred-Year House” by Rebecca Makkai – The Rotten Depths of History

The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai (book cover)
Family history is a rather fascinating thing; though most of us may know general details about our genealogical tree's occupants for the last hundred years, few of us really have a concrete idea about what they were truly like.

In The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai, we are presented with two researchers, Doug, a down-on-his-luck academic, and Zee Devohr, a Marxist literary scholar who fervently defends the various records (files, not music records, naturally) kept at her house from the former, whose research leads him to be in dire need of them.

August 8, 2014

“Classified Woman” by Sibel D. Edmonds – The Powers that Be

Classified Woman by Sibel D. Edmonds (Book cover)
We are all aware to one extent or another that the government is, at least to a certain extent, open to corruption, and things aren't always done as the rules state they should.

In other words, governmental organizations and agencies, especially ones relating to national security, have taken the habit of operating in secret, which in turn gives them more power than they arguably ought to have over the population.

August 4, 2014

“The Skin Collector” by Jeffrey Deaver – An Artist in the Flesh

The Skin Collector by Jeffrey Deaver (Book cover)
It has been around ten years since Lincoln Rhyme made all the headlines as the NYPD's hero to have caught the notorious Bone Collector.

Just when it seems that Rhyme may live out his days as a genius forensic detective in relative ease and peace (at least as much as the job allows that), a fresh scourge takes hold of New York City, prowling its seedy underbelly in search of more and more victims.

August 3, 2014

“The Heist” by Daniel Silva – The Worth of Truth

The Heist by Daniel Silva (Book cover)
In The Heist by Daniel Silva we are once again treated to the exciting adventures of Gabriel Allon, super Israeli spy and, somewhat incomprehensibly, an art restorer (I guess everyone needs a hobby).

As it happens, Allon's talents in the world of art serve him time and time again, stumbling into one case after the next, with each one seeming to be made specifically for his skills.

August 2, 2014

“The Cairo Affair” by Olen Steinhauer – A Dead Man's Story

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer (Book cover)
The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer is certainly not your typical thriller, being more of a postmortem investigation led by multiple people in different countries, each with their own reasons for doing so.

The real “protagonist” of this whole affair is Emmett Kohl, an American diplomat who was suddenly murdered while dining in a restaurant in Hungary. As the investigation around this tragic event starts to unfold, it becomes clear that there was no shortage of people out there who would have preferred to see Emmett with the dead rather than the living.

August 1, 2014

“Act of War” by Brad Thor – Battles Unseen

Act of War by Brad Thor (Book cover)
There is seldom one specific event which launches a country into war; generally, a treacherous succession of events leads to an eventual boiling point, at which the catastrophe erupts.

 In Act of War by Brad Thor, the United States are, unbeknownst to most of course, being subjected to such a chain of events, with an attack on them seeming rather imminent.