When I heard Kingsolver based her novel, chapter-for-chapter, on David Copperfield, I wanted to follow Dickens at the same time. I left this behind for the story of an Appalachian boy growing to manhood as a ward of the state.
The first quarter of the novel was rough, but pain is feeling, and through his pain, the writer involved me in Demon’s life story. At times, the book seemed like a collection of related stories, with the stopping and starting more common to a collection of short stories. But, like Dickens, the story goes on when the episode ends, and the book comes together as an expansive narrative that left me with the sense of having read something important and whole.
Like all Kingsolver novels, the story has an obvious social impact, but, finally, it’s a humane and powerful book about a character that gets knocked down but gets up again.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
I read this book because I enjoyed Bushnell’s two previous novels. What surprised me about this new book was the exploration of the passage of time and human aging through a supernatural crime spree.
The young woman, the main character, is driven by two motivations: how to become a detective and how to be a woman in a world in which she doesn’t exactly fit. Her friend, a young man developing his skills as a magician, accompanies her on an investigation of the mysteries of aging-gone-wild and police corruption.
It’s a good story that verges into territory held by young adult fiction. The true climax is vivid and exciting, the whole adventure ready-made for a cable series. The writer treats the improbable as probable with a very real gift for story-telling.
"A supernatural mystery—part Stranger Things, part Enola Homes, but very much itself... This book is way, way over the top—and is sure to delight its intended audience." -- firstCLUE
Stranger Things meets the Golden Age of Detective fiction in a rollicking supernatural detective thriller that introduces Artie Quick, a sales assistant at Filene’s in Boston, who moonlights as an amateur detective.
The year is 1909, and Artie Quick—an ambitious, unorthodox and inquisitive young Bostonian—wants to learn about crime. By day she holds down a job as a salesgirl in women’s accessories at Filene’s; by night she disguises herself as a…
I reread books I love, including this one, which I feel is the best of the mysteries of Anthony Horowitz. This mystery-within-a-mystery is narrated by the editor of a now-deceased crime writer who is presently working on the manuscript of his final book as she actively solves his murder.
Not just a mystery, this is an inspection, perhaps even a parody of cozy English mysteries; engaging, humorous, effective, and deeply clever, this is a favorite novel because it gives us not only what we seek in mystery but what we seek in any good book.
I will read this one again in a few years when I have once more forgotten the most telling details.
'Want to read a great whodunnit? Anthony Horowitz has one for you: MAGPIE MURDERS. It's as good as an Agatha Christie. Better, in some ways. Cleverer.' Stephen King
'The finest crime novel of the year' Daily Mail
*****
Seven for a mystery that needs to be solved . . . Editor Susan Ryland has worked with bestselling crime writer Alan Conway for years. Readers love his detective, Atticus Pund, a celebrated solver of crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. But Conway's latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems. Yes, there are…
My book is a collection of stories in pursuit of the mysteries of existence with no intention of dispelling those mysteries.
Some of these stories tip into supernatural or fantastic shadings, even into genre conventions, in the interest of the story because the questions we face as human beings challenge us with mortal and moral perplexities. Some might call this dark fiction, as questions of life and death, light and dark, are treated both as serious and humorous concerns.
These are the kinds of mysteries that ask questions about who we are, what we are, and why we are motivated to act as we do.
