IYCRMM Book Reviews
The three novels today are either a sequel of an established fan favorite, or come from popular authors now treading fresh ground. Enjoy!
Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune
Klune previously wrote The House in the Cerulean Sea, which earned him a Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQIA representation. It was an emotional story of resistance told with love, about fighting for the life you want and promoting tolerance within a found family of unusual beings. In this sequel, all the favorite characters are back, and one major theme is fighting bureaucracy and resistance to representation and inclusivity. Arthur Parnassus is still headmaster at his orphanage for gifted children, with Linus Baker assisting, and the six orphans we took to heart are similarly back. And an important new element is a new child, David, who’s a yeti. How he’s accepted by the six, how he adjusts and finds a way into your heart, is all part of the Klune magic that’s once again on display in this sequel.
What’s interesting is how David, the new orphan, finds power in calling himself a monster - a word Arthur has worked so hard to banish. With the powers that be ready to shut down the orphanage and treat these unusual, ‘gifted’ kids as social outcasts that should be feared and controlled, it’s up to Arthur to defend his stand and keep the promise he made to the children. The idea of found family, embracing the strange and unusual, and redefining what makes us human, all form part of this new narrative. Contextualized within the standing up to bureaucracy and obstinacy, one can’t help but reflect on how Klune has purposely released this during an election year in the US. Plus, he continues to be a leading voice against the likes of Rowling and those who resist change and acceptance.
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
After four installments of his The Thursday Murder Club (currently in production for the film adaptation), and being one of the leading lights of the current popularity of the cozy mystery, Osman embarks on a new detective series with this first book about retired PI Steve Wheeler, and his daughter-in-law, Amy. When we meet widower Steve, he resides in a small English town near Southampton, his life consists of joining a quiz team at his local pub and going for long surveillance walks of the village. Amy works for a global security firm, and is assigned to bestselling author Rosie D’Antonio, who’s being threatened by a Russian chemicals billionaire for thinly disguising him in her last novel. The company Amy works for is in deep trouble though, as they’ve been taking on rich criminals as clients and getting enmeshed in their business.
The dead body of a social influencer and an untouched bag of money found on a boat off the Carolina coast put Amy in the crosshairs of people who prefer her dead and silent. She’s in the vicinity of three seemingly unrelayed deaths of influencers, and we slowly get an inkling of what’s been happening as they’ve been used by criminals much in the same manner that we had "mules" when illegal drugs had to be transported. What Osman is brilliant at is his plotting, his keeping his cards close to his chest, and creating memorable characters that we care about. If we had the four senior citizens of the Thursday Murder Club, here we have Steve, Amy, and Rosie. Given that Steve’s village isn’t all that far on the motorway from the retirement home of the Thursday Four, who knows if Osman will one day make their worlds intersect?
What A Way to Go by Bella Mackie
Hot on the heels of her How to Kill Your Family success, Mackie is back with an inheritance/Succession tale. Billionaire Anthony Wistern is dead, death occurring during his fabulous 60th birthday party, held at his Cotswold manor grounds. The narrative device Mackie employs here is to have three narrators; one is the recently deceased Anthony, emanating from limbo. Then there’s Olivia, the widow - who silently suffered throughout the marriage; and a third voice from a true crime fanatic who lives near the Western mansion and decides she has territorial rights on the story. Along the way, we get a naughty tale about what makes the rich and titled so different, and how the four children of a morally bankrupt super-rich family will act, when the pater familias passes away under mysterious circumstances.
The true crime sleuth had been sexually harassed by Anthony when she was working at the local pub, then fired. And we have the four children obsessed with possessing the family fortune. What Mackie does well is keep us invested in the spiraling fortunes of the family, as one revelation after another of Anthony’s shady business dealings come to light. The attitude of his entitled children is something we read with guilty delight, and Mackie gets the tone right in keeping us enthralled by the narrative. As to whether a murder is behind Anthony’s death, we are deftly kept on a string on that one; and pulling the string (or so she thinks) is the aforementioned true crime fanatic. There are enough surprises to make this a successful second novel from Mackie, avoiding the second novel syndrome.