The view from here

Watching the first two episodes of the new HBO series “Girls,” I chuckled, cringed and laughed out loud. That was when 24-year-old Hannah announced to her parents that she believed she was “the voice of her generation,” or at least “a voice,” and needed $1100 a month for the next two years to finish her [...]

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Spies, lies, crimes, capers

Trapped in waiting rooms, I turn to thrillers for escape. And doctors wonder why my blood pressure’s up. Like Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst, Mark Mills is adept at historical espionage. His atmospheric fourth novel The House of the Hunted (Random House, digital galley via NetGalley) is set in the seemingly idyllic South of France in [...]

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Reading as fast as I can

My recent appetite for books is bordering on the insatiable. No sooner do I check out a new book from the library or receive an ARC in the mail than I read about another title I that sounds great or someone mentions a book not yet on my radar. It reminds me of when I was a kid and [...]

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Forever England

Cecil Valance is a Rupert Brooke-alike. The handsome young poet breezes into the home of fellow Cambridge University student George Sawle in the late summer of 1913, capturing the hearts of both George and his younger sister, Daphne. Before he leaves, he pens a poem about his weekend visit, “Two Acres,” in Daphne’s autograph book. With its paen to [...]

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20something

Isabella, Mary and Lauren are the central 20something characters in Jennifer Close’s debut book of linked short stories, Girls in White Dresses. Despite the title lifted from the lyrics of “My Favorite Things”  — the theme of a bridal shower the friends are forced to attend — the book shouldn’t be confused with the raunchy summer flick Bridesmaids or [...]

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Wolfman Jake

Last summer, Justin Cronin’s The Passage had me warily looking up at trees lest one of his soul-sucking “virals” be lurking in the limbs all ready to rend me limb-to-limb. This summer, thanks to Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf, no more looking up at full moons while walking the dog. Granted, my chances of being [...]

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Burning the midnight oil

I really should stop reading mysteries before bedtime. But the days are long and light-filled into the evening, and I forget. I start a new novel, and the sun goes down, the stars come out, and I just keep on reading into the wee hours. The next day — like today — I’m sleepy and [...]

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Bye-bye, Spenser, good-bye

When writer Robert B. Parker died in January of 2010, I was still a couple of weeks from launching this blog. Otherwise, I’d have been one of the many remembering Parker, who created tough-but-tender Boston P.I. Spenser in 1971′sThe Godwulf Manuscript. It was the beginning of a long-running series that revived detective fiction, linking the [...]

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