Still Life a work of art - Louise Penny paints with words

I'm coming up for air after nearly a month of obsessive listening to Ralph Cosham as he and author Louise Penny lured me into the mythical village of Three Pines, Quebec. I feel like I know Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Peter and Clara Morrow, eccentric poet Ruth Zardo, and other fictional characters better than I know some of my friends – most don't listen to audiobooks so I doubt they'll be reading this anyway.

Penny writes like a painter, and Cosham is the only possible reader who could translate her brush strokes into sound. I have listened under the covers when I know I have to get up early the next morning, in the car waiting to meet a friend to go cross country skiing when normally I would do a lap around Stake Lake while I waited.  I've gluttonously grabbed at five minutes here and two minutes there for just another taste of the story – they are just that good. I know there is another reader, Adam Sims, who read another version of Bury Your Dead, and no offense to him, but it's Cosham or nothing for me!

So far there are eight books to this series, beginning with Still Life and ending with The Beautiful Mystery, and they need to be listened to in order as the greater story builds through each book. Another book is due this summer and I'm trying to find enough things to distract me until it arrives. I may need to take a week's worth of holidays in solitude so I'm not interrupted when it comes out. The final scene of the most recent book, The Beautiful Mystery, was so shocking and heart wrenching that sleeping may be difficult until I know what happens next. These are not gory murder mysteries, they are more about the people than the blood, much like P.D. James, who I also admire. In fact, Chief Inspector Gamache and Adam Dalgleish would likely be very good friends if they knew each other.

Trust me, if you love a good mystery, a good story, and a passionate look at the humanity in the world around us, just go get the books.

I got some of the books from Library to Go (why they don't buy an entire series is beyond me), and some on disc at the library.

 

Since Audible and the publishers don't seem to be including embeddable links for sound bites, I have a different treat - a Youtube video of an audio excerpt (I know, weird) from the fifth book - Bury Your Dead.

 

Click here for a soundbite.

 

Listen Up!

 

Still Life, (9 hrs, 30 min), Blackstone Audio, 2006

A Fatal Grace (a.k.a Dead Cold), (10 hrs, 30 min), Blackstone Audio, 2007
The Cruelest Month, (12 hrs), Blackstone Audio, 2008
A Rule Against Murder (a.k.a. The Murder Stone), (11 hrs), Blackstone Audio, 2009
The Brutal Telling, (13 hrs), Blackstone Audio, 2009
Bury Your Dead, (13 hrs), MacMillan Audio, 2010
A Trick of the Light, (11 hrs, 43 min), MacMillan Audio, 2011
The Beautiful Mystery, (13 hrs), Blackstone Audio, 2012

The Rook – Indescribably fun!

I had The Rook by Daniel O'Malley downloaded for quite awhile and I'm not sure where or exactly when I acquired it – bit of a mystery. In a moment where I was between the audiobooks I had been waiting for I decided to give this a try. It was a shocking delight! I had heard nothing about this book, and had no idea what I was in for. It isn't very often I read or listen to a book where I can't anticipate what's going to happen next. In The Rook I was constantly surprised at where the story took me and its cast of slightly supernatural freakish characters who work and live within a cutthroat world of corporate operatives. Well over a month after I finished listening to it I'm still lying awake at night thinking about it.

"The body you are wearing used to be mine." As an opening line, this worked very well – I was more than a bit shocked. Susan Duerden, a reader I'd heard grace one of my favourite audiobooks of all time – The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, has this pleasing and captivating voice that instantly lured me in. She perfectly matches the ironic sense of humour that lead character Myfanwy Thomas (rhymes with Tiffany) carries throughout the book. She is the perfect voice to express the "What the fuck?" attitude that drives Myfanwy through the story.

Myfanwy awakes in a park in London, in the pouring rain, with a black eye and surrounded by dead bodies who are all wearing surgical gloves... and absolutely no memory of who she is. How could I not keep listening? She discovers a letter in her pocket, supposedly from her former self, and follows the instructions it lays out. Once she recovers her wits in a hotel under an alias prearranged by her former self, she continues reading the letter from her pocket. She discovers her previous self has left her two options. For option A she goes to a certain bank, opens a large safe deposit box and safely (presumably) escapes to a new life and new identity in a foreign country. Option B has her going to the same bank, opening a different safe deposit box, and finding out who the bloody hell did this to her.

It turns out Myfanwy is a high ranking official in a supersecret British organization called the Chequy (pronounced Shek-ay) that reminds me a bit of Men in Black, but less secret agent and more dull corporate. Instead of dealing with aliens from other planets, however, they deal supernatural freaks from right here on earth. Some of those freaks, who seem pretty normal in the Chequy world, even work as part of the organization. Did you know that a certain percentage of men who routinely wear hats are wearing them to cover horns? I had no idea! Myfanwy herself has some odd quirks (hence the latex gloves on the people who tried to kill her – and ended up dead).

Officials in the Chequy take on the title of chess pieces. There are two Rooks, two Bishops, a King and Queen, and a whole lot of Pawns (you can guess what happens to a lot of them). Myfanwy is a Rook (referred to within the organization as Rook Thomas) with an incredible talent for organizing, budgeting, and sitting in an office doing paperwork.

I'm not going to tell you more because if you're not already hooked you never will be, and if you do read it I wouldn't want to spoil any of the delightful surprises that await you!

The Rook is author Daniel O'Malley's first, and hopefully not last, book. I desperately want a sequel! He has a web page and a blog that is too infrequently updated for my liking (I know, a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here!). As I mentioned before, Susan Duerden is an outstanding reader who makes you feel like she's sharing a great secret story with you – like you're inside the inner circle of the characters. I've loved her storytelling in two books now (The Rook and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society), and she rescued a third – a juvenile that I think was poorly written and I haven't covered in this blog.

I can't recommend this book enough. Although it comes in at a whopping 17 hours, it's the kind of audiobook I'd sneak five minutes here or there to listen to more of. Usually I listen when I'm on long drives to work or other places. It's also the first time I listened to an MP3 version on my new Samsung Galaxy SIII phone – not doing that again – too weird getting calls and trying to coordinate my hands free blue tooth, etc. From now on, my fabulous phone is not for audiobooks! Plus, they only play MP3s... what's with that??? The selection is too limited.

 

The Rook is not available on Library To Go but if you live in the TNRD I have ordered the audio and print versions for my library. If you're not in the TNRD - beg your own library to get it! or buy it from Audible - it's worth it!

 

You can listen to a sample here but it doesn't look like I can embed samples from Audible anymore - I'll keep pursuing it.

 

 

Listen Up!

The Rook, (17 hrs, 51 mins), Hachette Audio, 2012

Death Comes to Pemberley - A visit with the Darcys

One of my favourite authors of all time, P.D. James, left her long-suffering detective Adam Dalgleish behind on some grisly murder case and escaped to the lush world of Jane Austen and the Darcy's of Pemberley. When we last saw Mr. Darcy (played to perfection by Colin Firth in the BBC Miniseries of Pride and Prejudice) he and Elizabeth Bennett were just getting married and preparing to live happily ever after. Now, six years and two adorable children later, they are about to throw an annual ball at their home when a murder occurs on the estate. Of course, if there is the overdramatic and selfish Lydia and her scoundrel of a husband, Wickham, who is accused of the murder, making things difficult for the Darcy's. Sigh, why can't they just live happily ever after?

Others have tried to explore what could have happened to this timeless romantic couple, but I think James is the one who really succeeds. She captures the characters and their necessary restraint perfectly. Her writing style is as simultaneously restrained and passionate as Austen's. The flow is seamless between the two. And, of course, P.D. James is the grand dame of the British murder mystery and the story itself is as well plotted as those starring Commander Dalgleish. I loved it!

Rosalyn Landor, who I previously heard as part of the group who read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is amazingly well suited for the part. She has a broad variety of both male and female voices that match the era and the characters perfectly, instilling each with a great sense of depth that rises above merely narrating the text.

All in all Death Comes to Pemberly  is a lovely murder mystery for a cold winter's evening. I downloaded it from Library to Go and here (if the computer gods are willing) is a sample I pulled from Random House Audio:

                                                       
Listen Up!


Death Comes to Pemberley, (9 hrs 47 mins), Random House Audio, 2011

The Night Circus – unnerving magic

I listened to The Night Circus just after Christmas, but I've been holding off writing about it. Partly it's because I've been busy freelance writing, but also because I was still swimming through the currents of the book long after I'd finished listening to it. Author Erin Morgenstern, whose website is titled, "erin's emporium of discount dreams & well-worn wonders," and offers a free mystery with purchase, has managed to create something that, for those who are susceptible, is very alluring and seductive, yet hard to grab hold of. Reviewers seem split on the book, with some outright disliking it, and others liking it, but having a hard time explaining why. I'm firmly camped in the latter category but I have a very hard time describing what it's really about.

Released in September, 2011, The Night Circus is a quirky tale of a mysterious circus, Le Cirque des Rêves, that suddenly appears overnight, the illusionists who work there and create earthly illusions to mask the real magic that underlies each of the tents. The circus itself is an organic being and the people who work in it and the patrons who would follow it to the end of the earth are the blood and heart of it. The story is about a contest between two old magicians, who pit their very young apprentices, Celia and Marco, against each other in a dual to the death that will last for decades, and that they are unaware of until it is too late to get out. The competition becomes more complicated when Celia and Marco fall in love.

This book, and Jim Dale's excellent narration, got under my skin. I may need to re-listen to it to see what else happens the second time around. I can't imagine it would be the same twice.

I downloaded The Night Circus from Library to Go. You can listen to an excerpt below.

 

Listen Up:

 

 

The Night Circus, Random House Audio (13 hrs, 40 mins), 2011

 



The Millennium Trilogy - Lisbeth Salander is like an addiction

Apparently I am at my blogging prime in the summer and at Christmas – when freelancing slows down. Catching up on audiobooks I've listened to in the past few months and I can't not post about a trilogy that I've listened to twice, an addiction that still has me wanting to listen again - and together all three books add up to a formidable 55.5 hours. I avoided the enormously successful Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) for a long time because sometimes I resist things when everyone is telling me I should do (or read) them. I can be a bit stubborn that way. I'm oh so glad I relented.

Written by the late Stieg Larsson, a writer who died too early of a heart attack without being able to enjoy the success of his books, these books are a compulsion for many lovers of mystery and suspense, or just plain good books. They are harsh - there is no way around that. There is a graphic rape scene in the first book that sets much of the tone for the series. I'm not usually one for graphic sexual violence, but I actually believe this was necessary for the story. I do warn my patrons who I already know may not be OK with reading it, however, but I also reassure them that it is told briefly, in a matter of fact way, and that it is important to the story – but it's by no means all of the story. It's really a series about very smart, strong-willed characters who each, in their own way, refuse to let wrong win over right. Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant, tortured, and socially dysfunctional hacker, and journalist Michael Blomkvist, are both intense characters, and both absolutely compelling.

Award-winning reader Simon Vance does an outstanding job bringing these stories to life for the reader. I have listened to a number of things he's read, and they are all excellent. His female characters do sound a bit breathless and more similar to each other than his male voices, but I can let him get away with it because his voice is like British honey and apparently that works for me.

As with my previous post (Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri Mysteries) about audiobooks being particularly pleasing when it comes to foreign place and character names, this series also lends itself to audio very well. My mom, who read the books, enjoyed listening to them with me (my second time) because her eyes had jumped around trying to figure out the Swedish pronunciations when she was reading. I've recommended the series to a number of my patrons, and they have all come back to the library thrilled with the stories and devastated that Larsson is no longer around.

I listened to these books on CD as they were not available from the library for download... grrrr! 55 hours means a lot of disc changing!

Simon Vance read the unabridged versions while Martin Wenner reads the abridged version. If you know me you know I NEVER choose the abridged version. That will be another blog post someday.

***I just discovered that Random House Audio is having some issues with their sound clips, and at Audible you get a completely different reader - why would they do this???? They have the perfect reader already!

If the sound sample gods are with me right now, you can listen to a sample of Simon Vance's reading here.

Listen Up!

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, (16.5 hrs), Random House Audio, 2008

The Girl Who Played With Fire, (18.5 hrs), Random House Audio, 2009

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, (20.5 hrs), Random House Audio, 2010

Dr. Siri Paiboun Finally on Audio!

As someone who is charged with the responsibility for finding books for my mystery-hungry mother, I came across Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri Paiboun mysteries a few years ago. She loves them, and I thought they looked interesting, but they weren't available on audio, so I let them go. I was totally shocked, therefore, when I saw a few of the books pop up on the new audiobooks list on Library to Go. Of course, the wizened selectors at Library to Go only purchased books 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8 of the series – I think exploring that logic may be a whole other blog post. I had to use less appropriate means to secure the rest of the audiobooks and have now purchased the CD sets for my library. Thankfully, it was worth it!

Dr. Siri, (pronounced 'Silly') is the National Coroner for the People's Democratic Republic of Laos in the early 1970's, shortly after the communist revolution. Siri, who is in his 70's and had been hoping for a peaceful retirement where he could tend a garden and read, is appointed coroner despite the fact that he's never done an autopsy and has spent much of his medical career as a field doctor in the war. To say that he is reluctant would be an understatement. Siri is insubordinate and mocking of his superiors, and he would love nothing more than for them to fire him and leave him alone.

In Laos, a country that has no money, and a new and inexperienced government, the fact that Siri has been a paid member of the communist party for over 40 years makes him the ideal candidate in the eyes of those in power. Siri inherits a morgue with no chemicals for testing, little equipment or reference materials, a nurse who he initially believes is a 'bubble head' and spends her time reading Thai fan magazines (he is later proved wrong in dramatic fashion), and a morgue technician with Down's Syndrome, who knows more than both the doctor and the nurse about performing autopsies. Together the three make a very happy and loyal team.

In the first book, The Coroner's Lunch, Dr. Siri discovers the source of a lifetime of dreams where he routinely encounters the souls of the recently departed. Much to his alarm, he discovers he is the embodiment of a 1,000-year-old shaman spirit. Learning to use, rather than fight the dreams, Dr. Siri makes up for his lack of resources in the real world by solving mysteries using logic, a little luck, and a bit of help from the spirits.

These books, which I listened to back to back while mourning the fact that there are only eight of them, are read by actor Clive Chafer. Chafer's reading style is dry and initially I was a bit worried I'd want to kill him before 5 minutes were up, but his character voices are outstanding and very consistent, and the dry narration makes the wry humour even funnier. I laughed out loud more than once and will likely listen to the series again because I missed parts because I was laughing.

One of the nice things about listening to a story that takes place in a non-English speaking country, in this case Laos, is that someone else has already worked out the pronunciations for the difficult Lao, Vietnamese, and Thai place and character names. If I was reading the books my eyes would stop and the flow of the story would be interrupted as I tried to figure out how to pronounce the word. That jerkiness when reading makes it harder for me to get into or enjoy a series. In audio, all the hard work has been done for me!

Another interesting thing about these books is that they open up a world that I have had not yet experienced. Life in Asian countries like Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia during the tumultuous 1970's is portrayed from the point of view of the people who live there, and their struggles for independence, and the struggles that arise from their success, are captivating.

You can listen to samples of Chafer's reading by clicking on the titles below and choosing the sample on the page.

Listen Up!

The Coroner’s Lunch, (6.8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2004)
Thirty-Three Teeth, (6.8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2005)
Disco For the Departed, (6.8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2006)
Anarchy and Old Dogs, (6.8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2007)
Curse of the Pogo Stick, (5.6 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2008)
The Merry Misogynist, (6.8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2009)
Love Songs from a Shallow Grave, (8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011, (book published in 2010)
Slash and Burn, (8 hrs), Blackstone Audio 2011 (book published in 2011)

The Agency: The Body at the Tower – A little Victorian indulgence

If everyone has a literary indulgence – a genre, author, or type of book that we are drawn to over and over again, I believe mine might be the Victorian mystery. Of course, I'm always good for some fantasy, ogres, witches, time travel, and adventure, but the Victorian era has been a weakness for as long as I can remember. Maybe there's something intriguing about the concept of hiding weapons or other clever devices in mounds and mounds of fruffy skirts?

The Body at the Tower, the second book in the Agency series by Y.S. Lee, was just the right kind of Victorian indulgence I needed a few weeks ago. The first book in the series, A Spy in the House, was a lovely treat that I listened to last summer. The series revolves around Mary Quinn, a woman in her late teens, now approaching 20, who lived on the London streets after her mother died and her father disappeared. Half white and half Chinese, the much younger Mary lived as a thief and often dressed as a boy in order to survive. She was smart, resourceful, and quick.... and sentenced to hang after she got caught breaking into a house.

After she was sentenced, she was spirited away before reaching the jail by a woman claiming to be a warden. In truth, this woman was one of the mistresses of an unusual school for girls. There, Mary received an excellent education and learned to be a lady. Then one day she was invited to work for the school, which she discovered was really a front for an agency of women spies. After her first job was an enormous success, she trained in other fields not necessarily associated with being a lady – martial arts, cryptology, and all the skills she would need to be a proper spy.

In this second book Mary is given a task that will test her physically, mentally, and emotionally as she goes undercover as a young boy on the site where they are building the new parliament and the tower that will eventually house Big Ben. A man has died in the tower, and there are rumours that the worksite is cursed or haunted. Mary's slight frame and experience pretending to be a boy make the job a bit easier, but the conditions make her confront her past and the wretched conditions she came from.

As expected, a little light romance ensues when James Easton, a young engineer who crossed paths with Mary in her first assignment, is contracted to provide an independent assessment of the worker's death and the problems on the site. Mary, or Mark as she is called in her disguise, is assigned to assist him.

Y.S. Lee brings Victorian England to light with original detail and description that comes from her education in Victorian studies. She captures the period perfectly and avoids the stereotypes we often see in favour of period details that few of us have encountered before.

This was a great book and a great listen. The style of the book is one that lends itself well to the audio format, making it easy and enjoyable to sit through. Reader Justine Eyre does an excellent job with this series. She refrains from emotional extremes, lacing her voice instead with a restrained urgency, which perfectly mirrors Mary's desire for control over her situation and the world around her.

I listened to The Body at the Tower on MP3 disc as it wasn't available from Library to Go. You can listen to a sample at Brilliance Audio here. The third book, The Traitor in the Tunnel, is due to be released this spring.

The Details:

The Agency: The Body at the Tower, (7 hrs, 39 min), Brilliance Audio, (2010)