The Alienist (Caleb Carr)

As a huge fan of historical fiction, especially that which takes place in the late 1800s/early 1900s, it's hard to believe it's taken me this long to discover Caleb Carr.  He was recommended to me by my friends at Goodreads, and I am so glad that he was!  While The Alienist is not a quick read and took me a long while to get through, it is well worth it for those who love this time period.

John Moore, the narrator and a police reporter with The New York Times, is asked by his psychologist friend, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, to join in on an investigation.  A mass murderer is on the loose in New York City, one who focuses on wayward children.  Back then, psychology was just coming into the mainstream and much frowned upon, with those who practiced it sometimes called "alienists".  With the assistance of NYC police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, Kreizler puts together a very hush-hush group to investigate the killings and try to get into the murderer's brain before he strikes again.

While some reviews have said The Alienist is too wordy with too much dialogue, I found these chapters fascinating.  As the group talks through each aspect of the case, hoping it'll provide clues, the reader is witnessing the very beginning of this science becoming known to the public.  There were a few points where I wish Carr would have sped up the action, but in the end, it all makes for a very satisfying completion to one big puzzle.  So I may be a little late (19 years to be exact), but I look forward to reading the sequel, The Angel of Darkness.

MY RATING - 4

American Ghost (Janis Owens)

I’m going to start with a warning that if you’re looking for a spooky novel, American Ghost, by Janis Owens, is not it.  Many people on other sites have posted that they were under the assumption that this was a ghost story.  However, the type of ghost Owens writes about is not traditional but historical.

American Ghost takes place in the American South, but I wasn’t entirely sure in what time period until after the first few chapters.  Sam Lense is a college student who has come to Hendrix, Florida under false pretenses.  He tells the people he meets that he is researching Native American tribes of the area when really he is investigating an ancestor’s murder at the hands of Henry Kite.  Kite was executed for his crime long ago, along with most of his family, in such a heinous way, that the modern-day people of Hendrix do not wish to speak of it.  Sam meets Jolie Hoyt, who comes from a family that is very well-known for all the wrong reasons.  Did the Hoyt family have something to do with this lynching?  Sam soon realizes that digging into the secrets of Hendrix could be extremely dangerous.

Some readers have compared this book to The Help, but in my eyes, there is no comparison.  To me, the present-day characters in American Ghost were not fully fleshed out enough to the point where I cared enough to continue reading about them.  However, the historical aspect of the novel makes it worth reading and remembering that it wasn’t so long ago that this actually happened in America. 

MY RATING - 3

The Uninvited (Liz Jensen)

Liz Jensen's The Uninvited is an extremely dark read that will have your heart palpitating at some points but will have you practically falling asleep at others.  What better way to begin a book than having a seven-year-old child putting a nail gun to her grandmother's neck?  Warm and fuzzy this novel is not.

Hesketh Lock is investigating cases of business sabotage followed by rash suicides.  Before going through their violent ends, the saboteurs insist that someone is inside them.  Children are also committing horrific acts to their parents and other adults.  Lock desperately tries to determine if there is some parallel here, even when things hit way too close to home.

At times, I couldn't stop reading The Uninvited, as Jensen lulls you into a state of contentment for awhile and then pulls the rug out from under you.  However, I wanted to like this book much more than I did.  After an unbelievably terrifying first page, the novel slows down drastically, and the ending is just too far-fetched for me.  However, if you're a fan of movies about creepy children (like Village of the Damned and Children of the Corn), this book might be right up your alley.

MY RATING - 3

Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)

I strongly suggest to author Gillian Flynn that she lock herself in a room with puppies, rainbows, apple pie, and other happy things.  The bestselling author of Sharp Objects and Dark Places has done it again with the enormously successful, grotesque (in a good way) Gone Girl.  When I say enormously successful, I was 895th on the library’s waiting list.  It’s the heartpounding account of a marriage gone bad, and like a train wreck, I couldn’t look away and always came racing back for more.

It's impossible to say much about Gone Girl without giving key parts of the plot away.  What I will say is that Flynn has created a mindboggling tale, which is dripping with suspense and twists you never see coming.  I felt a cloying sense of claustrophobia while reading Nick and Amy's story, but that didn't stop me from coming back to it night after night.  The key characters are realistic but over-the-top at the same time.

I apologize for this being short and sweet, but the less I say about this book the better, lest I give too much away.  But Gillian Flynn, seriously...puppies.

MY RATING - 5

The Aviator's Wife (Melanie Benjamin)

One of the most famous historical figures of all time has to be Charles Lindbergh.  Lucky Lindy is not just known for his amazing solo plane trip but also for the tragic kidnapping and death of his firstborn son.  The debate also continues on whether or not he was a a Nazi sympathizer.  In Melanie Benjamin's The Aviator's Wife, he is certainly not made out to be very likable, and Benjamin obviously sides with his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a noted author and aviator in her own right.

In this work of historical fiction, Benjamin digs deep into the unlikely marriage of Anne and Charles, from their first meeting to their first flight together to their often dysfunctional life.  She starts The Aviator's Wife from the time after Lindbergh's flight, when he was an iconic celebrity and one of the most known people in the world.  After Charles's and Anne's marriage and subsequent arrival of their son, the reader is taken through the heartbreaking time of the kidnapping, after which neither one would ever be the same.

Even though Benjamin always does her research, this novel is a hard sell.  She definitely does not make Charles out to be the greatest guy in the world, but I found myself not liking Anne very much as well.  By the end of the novel, they've both done things that make it hard for a reader to sympathize with them and therefore, want to go on their journey with them.  I strongly recommend one of Benjamin's other novels, Alice I Have Been, about the true Alice in Wonderland, for a much stronger work.

MY RATING - 3

A Curtain Falls (Stefanie Pintoff)

A Curtain Falls by Stefanie Pintoff is the sequel to the Edgar Award finalist In the Shadow of Gotham.  My book club picked the sequel to read so I needed to tackle this one before the first.  I was a little apprehensive, because I thought I would have needed some background, but I needn’t have worried.  A Curtain Falls is a true mystery in its own right and a darn good one at that.

Set in New York City in one of my favorite time periods, the early 1900s, Detective Simon Zeile has been asked to help on another case.  A serial killer is on the loose, murdering chorus girls in their theater houses, and arranging them in macabre positions.  Zeile is asked to keep details very hush-hush, as all relevant theaters belong to Charles Frohman, a very wealthy and powerful owner.  With his gang of motley assistants, Zeile rushes to solve the case before the next killing.

This is definitely a quick page turner, and I must admit I was not able to predict the ending.  While obviously not on the same level as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe, Pintoff succeeds in keeping the reader guessing and building suspense.  I look forward to reading In the Shadow of Gotham to get to know the history of Simon Zeile.

MY RATING - 4

The Presidents Club (Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy)

The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy is a comprehensive read into the lives of ex-Presidents upon their departure from the Presidency and into "private" life, from Herbert Hoover through to George W. Bush. Stories are interwoven through the narrative of "the club", ranging from the work that Hoover provided to Harry Truman in providing food to Western Europe to the partnerships between Bill Clinton and both Bush presidencies in dealing with natural disasters abroad and at home.

The writers approach each former President without bias, pulling in details from people who were in the inner circles of various administrations to people impacted by the work these men did in public service. Each story wove into the connections, rivalries, and friendships that these men developed, as well as their willingness to protect office over party in many instances. Their wisdom in various arenas (Nixon with foreign policy, Hoover with commerce and facilitating action, Carter in negotiation) aided...and sometimes hindered administrations, but the wisdom provided helped shape each successive administration and build new legacies from prior administrations. In some cases, unlikely friendships developed and in others, friendly rivalries intensified.

The work is not brief -- coming in at 530 pages -- but the book serves as a great story and thorough read for the history buff and for the political junkie. Largely true to chronological order, The Presidents Club is a solid, thorough historical account that had me laughing at some points, shaking my head in others, and kept me intrigued to know more about the people that held the office and how they lived their lives once they left the Presidency.  Gibbs and Duffy have taken care to ensure that stories are well-cited, resourced, and lacking the bias that sometimes can cloud a good political book.

MY RATING - 4