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Kyle Byrne is that guy. That guy you hope your daughter doesn’t go out with. That guy you feel sorry for and hire, even though you know he’ll bring you nothing but grief. That guy you sleep with even though he gets your name wrong and won’t ask for your number. That guy you stay friends with because you know he comes by his screwed up psyche honestly, but still let his calls go to voicemail. And Kyle knows he’s That Guy. Like many, even takes a certain amount of misplaced pride in it. He traces the problem back to not having a father. First an absent father, then a dead father. Now, suddenly, a ghost-father that keeps appearing at the most inconvenient times. Like his days weren’t screwed up enough. This is William Lasher’s Blood and Bone.

Kyle is just the sort of guy that I might have been friends with for the past twenty years. And there is a lot more to the story than his unresolved daddy issues–mobsters, cops and robbers, and layers more family secrets–but ultimately I found the book unsatisfying somehow. Too much or too little; hard to say. Not a bad read, but not a great read.

I just finished An advance of Val McDermid’s A Darker Domain. I really enjoyed it, but in my review for Amazon, which I may or may not be too lazy to edit, I made a wrong assumption and missed a piece of information that I am now quite excited about (remembering it doesn’t take much–at least where books are concerned). I assumed, due to the witty banter and easy rapport between D.I. Pirie and D.S. Phil Parhatka–rapport being something of an understatement, it feels–that this was the latest in a series of detective novels. It isn’t. Although McDermid writes series (back to that in a minute), this is a stand-alone–at least so far. It’s a multi-layered, if unsettlingly coincidental story of a disappearing mineworker, a murdered heiress and her kidnaped son, and the mess that politics, power, and press can make of things when the poor police in Scotland are just trying to do their job. Mostly. Great atmospheric stuff. Begs to be adapted for PBS. Which brings me to my revelation: Val McDermid writes the series of books that became the BBC series “Wire in the Blood,” Doctor Tony Hill, and all that. How did I never look that up?? So if I didn’t have a non-existent book budget and a stack of ten unread tomes at home, I’d be off to buy up a stack of McDermid to bury myself in. She has a great Web site, if you’re inclined: valmcdermid.com

The Delivery Room, by Sylvia Brownrigg is the most literary novel I’ve read in quite some time, and I’m a bit relieved to find that I still have a taste for them. I can get lazy, lapsing, quite enjoyably and easily into escapist thrillers and paperbacks, and then, when I read something more elevated, if I don’t like it, wonder if it’s really not good or I’m just growing braindead. The Delivery Room is pretty cerebral, and, although I struggled a little with the Serbian politics, I was completely engaged from cover to cover.

It’s a look inside the life of a therapist, Mira, native of Serbia, living outside London, long married to a Brit, during the time of the bombings in the 90s. We see glimpses of Mira’s husband, his adult son and wife, family back home, and even bits and pieces of the patients she is treating. It’s a very rich and complicated weave of lives that intertwine at various levels, intermingled with things English and political.
This passage describes Mira’s lack of ease, even as she ostensibly relaxes and awaits the arrival of a client:

“She sat, mute, and unmoving, for an unmeasured time. Perhaps she slept; perhaps she imagined. Eventually the clock arrived at one of her allotted times and her body, used to its rhythms, tensed and wakened. More stories. Other people. Be ready for new material. Protect yourself, cover over, lose your own griefs in another’s.”

The story is mundane, yet unpredictible and full, the characters believable and likeable, even in their eccentricities. It also speaks, in unexpected ways, about motherhood.

Brownrigg is also the author of Morality Tale, and divides her time between Berkeley and London.

It isn’t just Big Brother that’s watching–and let’s not think about how far the possibilities there have expanded since Orwell’s initial vision–but your neighbor might be, too. Just what happens if your neighbor, a guy with a lot of time and a lot of friends in high places, decides you aren’t a good fit for the cul-de-sac he calls home? Nothing good.That’s the premise of Sean Doolittle’s new novel, Safer, a sort of 1984-meets-Stepford-esque thriller that may have you distributing your trash to multiple dumpsters on your way to work.

For me, this book took off and maintained its momentum from the very first page. Its not a thriller in the action/adventure sense, but I had a tough time putting it down–in fact, I read the whole thing in a day. If you are looking for quick escape, this is a definite recommendation.

I was excited. I very seldom spend my hard-earned money on books for myself anymore, books I’ve identified as ones I really want to read. This was one of those books. I was shopping for Christmas gifts and figured I could slip it in there, just to meet the free shipping minimum, or maybe the free shipping minimum was already met, and I figured, What would be the harm? Had I shopped the malls I would have plunked down that much at Starbucks already, right?

This is where things get fuzzy. How, exactly, did this book find its way onto my Wish List in the first place? And when? There are books that have been on my Wish List for over two years (when I order, as when I read, I have to be in a certain mood). This book, as I look at it now, was copyrighted in 2006, but for some reason, I don’t think it hit the list that long ago. This version–the Reading group guide edition–was printed in 2007, whatever that’s worth. But the real confusion stems from the following statement–or, in my estimation, what should have been considered a disclamer–”Author of Amy and Isabelle.” I hated Amy and Isabelle.

Amy and Isabelle, by Elizabeth Strout, was, as I recall, an “Oprah book,” at the beginning of Oprah’s reign as Book Club Queen, when her recommendations were still, for me, something highly anticipated. It came out around the same time as White Oleander, I think, which may be another reason I remember it less than fondly, as most books I read around then paled in comparison. Perhaps I didn’t hate the book, but I remember it as pointless and drab, and generally disappointing, at a time when there were lots of of other great selections floating around. The same could, I think, be said about Abide with Me, Strout’s second novel. Again, given my feelings about the first work, I can’t understand how I allowed it to sneak onto my list–perhaps I confused her with another author, or was swayed by stellar reviews–but my response to this book is remarkably similar, despite wildly different characters and setting.

Briefly, the story focuses on the Reverend Tyler Caskey, who leads a small church in a small New England town in the 1950s. Reverend Caskey is struggling–with just about everything. His unpopular and probably bipolar wife is dead of cancer, his mother is pressuring him to remarry. He is unnaturally fond of his odd housekeeper, who has secrets of her own, and his five year old daughter is raising eyebrows everywhere she goes. Caskey is also somewhat obsessed with theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which I found ultimately distracting.

Certainly Strout can turn a phrase, and there is some elegance in her portrayal of ordinary people in simple circumstance. But at the end of the day–and those days seem to stretch endlessly at times–I just found the story dull. I did not care much about these people and their monotonous lives. I did not look forward to returning to their small, intimate town on my lunch breaks or at bedtime. It took me over a week to read a book of less than 300 pages. Abide with them, I simply prefer not to.

I think it’s pretty clear that I keep a Wish List all year long, but it’s only at this time of year that I can hope other people might actually buy stuff from it–the one advantage of being tough to shop for. If you are shopping for a reader or are a reader dropping hints, an Amazon Wish List is one handy tool.

Another place to go for book ideas is the New York Times Web site. The Times has published lists of the top selling books, as well as the critics’ picks for the year, and great holiday gift ideas (coffee table books, biographies and such) and there are probably books there that you might not have heard of, but will be intrigued by.

Shipping may be an issue at this date, but a perfect catalog/Web site for readers and writers is Signals, the Public Television gift catalog (signals.com). T-shirts and sweatshirts like “Lead me not into temptation–especially bookstores” “I (heart) Mr. Darcy” and “Don’t make me use my librarian voice,” as well as the “I read banned books” bracelets are some of the choices there.

Another fun site to shop–and not just for readers–is Cafe Press (cafepress.com). Cafe Press is a site where independent sellers can put forth their designs on a basic choice of shirts, caps, mouse pads, and stuff. The possibilities are endless and somewhat overwhelming, but if you have some time and patience, search your topic (”books” or “reading” or “writers”) and scroll through the options.

Happy hunting!

“I think it was Alfred Hitchcock who best summed up the difference between shock and suspense.Shock, he said, is quick, a jolt to the senses that lasts but a second, whereas suspense is more of a slow tease…He always preferred suspense to shock, the payoff being greater, ultimately more fulfilling. I’m with him on this, although, like Hitch, I’m not adverse to the occasional shock along the way. You have to keep things interesting.

As this girl will soon find out.”

Joy Fielding writes pocket thrillers, but like the killer in Heartstopper, an excerpt from whose diary appears above, she is accomplishes both substance and style.

People are going missing in tiny Torrance, Florida, but only Sheriff John Weber has begun to wonder if the disappearances are related. Smalltown politics and high school internet chatter, and everyones love of gossip seem a higher priority to many than the possibility that a serial killer may be lurking. Ugliness takes many forms among these cliques and climbers. Fielding creates a suspenseful, page-turner without blood and gore, gratuitous kink, or stretching credibility more than necessary. I had a hard time putting it down.

Joy Fielding’s latest offering is Charley’s Web, available now in hardcover.

“This is the kind of book I wish I’d read when I was a teen,” Oscar Hijuelos is quoted as saying on the back jacket flap of Dark Dude, his young adult novel set in the unlikely dual landscapes of Harlem and rural Wisconsin. It’s the story of Rico, a Cuban American teen who is struggling to find a place in his family, his neighborhood, and in his own skin. His fair hair and skin keeps him from fitting with the latino crowd, and his sensitive demeanor makes it tough for him to negotiate the halls of the tough urban high school he avoids attending. Rico decides to run away to Wisconsin to join a surrogate older brother who escaped there with lottery winnings to go to college, and tries to unravel his feelings about family and the future, while adjusting to life in a setting about as far from Harlem as a city kid could get.

Dark Dude is actually the kind of book I read when I was a teenager, just the sort of thing I sought out in authors like Paul Zindel, Norma Klein, S.E. Hinton, and others. I always gravitated toward realistic portrayals of teens who I imagined were “just like me”–but not. Same stuff I like now. I actually went back and read a number of those books not too long ago, and they’re still pretty good, albeit somewhat dated. I don’t know who the contemporary equivalents to those authors are, but certainly teens are fortunate to have Pulitzer Prize winner Oscar Hijuelos among them.

Jack Burn served his country honorably and wanted nothing more than to run a business and raise a family in sunny California, but when his business began to buckle, he balked. He earned a little money on the side, gambled a little, and, when his luck ran out, found out that payback was a bitch. Burn went on the run with his pregnant wife and son, disappearing into a wealthy Cape Town neighborhood, where he probably could have remained forever, except for, well, karma. A completely random visit from a couple of smalltime gangbangers turns Burns well planned exile inside out, and starts a domino effect of local crime.

Mixed Blood author Roger Smith is a screenwriter, which one would assume gives him an understanding of forward momentum in a story–which he does well–but might also risk empty characters; not so here. Smith’s debut novel is full of enjoyably scuzzy characters, with enough dialect to give it color, but not so much that it’s annoying or difficult to follow.

Mark your Amazon Wish List, Mixed Blood will be released in February 2009.

The Red Room Writers Society began as a so-called brick and mortar operation in the San Francisco Bay Area.

From the Web site:

“Founded in June 2002 by Ivory Madison, the Red Room Writers Society began providing its innovative, signature Writers Studios to procrastinating professional and aspiring writers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It was an immediate success. Founded on just $150, and a lot of volunteer support, it provided numerous scholarships for writers who could not otherwise afford the program…”

In January 2008, Madison launched redroom.com, as a way to reach an even greater community of readers and writers. The site features interviews, videos, blogs, tips and all kinds of great stuff, including content from members who are well-respected and, in some cases, renowned, authors. (Some of the more recognizable members are Amy Tan, Clive Barker, Evan Handler, Susan Orlean) Membership is free, and they are still in the BETA stage, so the more feedback they receive, the better.