#RIPXI : 9, City of Death

Based on Jean's recent review, my enjoyment of Shada, and a need for something funny and light during this more and more depressing time in America, I picked up City of Death by James Goss, based on Douglas Adams' screenplay and David Fisher's original ideas. It's another Doctor Who episode from the Tom Baker era with the addition of some of Adams' original ideas that didn't make it into the episode. It has a super evil alien villain, a dude who is trying to build a device for time travel and, consequently, Earth annihilation. He's also an art collector and a husband and, well, he isn't quite as one-dimensional as you would expect. The story wasn't quite as funny or as light as I thought it would be but it was still a really fun read. The majority of the story takes place in Paris and it was a wonderful escape as well. I wouldn't actually mind hopping a plane there right now. If you would like some peril this season (RIP *or* election) that isn't too horrific or dark, this is a great choice!

Also, in related news, I really miss Douglas Adams. I really miss Terry Pratchett as well. I got an email from Amazon the other day announcing a new release of short stories of his (The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories - out on January 3rd) and I almost started crying because there's a good chance this is the last "new" book. Why are there so many crap people in this world who live nice, long lives when there are outstanding ones who don't? And yes, I'm feeling a bit awful about our world right now. How did you know? Maybe I should just go into hiding for the next couple of weeks. But then I would miss Readathon on Saturday and that would be a real tragedy.

Escaping to the City of Light,

K

New Release: Paris Was Ours

After the complexity of my last read, I decided that I wanted to pick up something that was the polar opposite and so I chose Paris Was Ours: Thirty-Two Writers Reflect on the City of Light, a non-fiction collection of essays gathered by Penelope Rowlands. These are essays from writers young and old, male and female, gay and straight, students and professionals, mothers and daughters.

I enjoyed some of the essays more than others but I think that it took all of them as a group to present the picture of Paris that they did. From the experiences of Americans, French expats, Iranians, Cubans and Brits, a universal vision of Paris from the point of view of a visitor is gathered -- one of love, loneliness, awe and fear. After reading this collection, I am now familiar with café culture, Parisian fashion, expensive but tiny maid's rooms, French parenting methods and architecture.

My favorite essay was from Zoé Valdés, a Cuban diplomat's wife and author who had to reconcile her upbringing and indoctrination in the communist nation with the beauty, freedom and consumerism that she experienced in Paris. I also really enjoyed the piece by Roxane Farmanfarmaian about her experience of being basically locked out of Iran while staying in Paris. Each unique point of view in this book is surprisingly similar and one can only finish this book in awe of those who choose to relocate to the City of Light.

Craving a fresh baguette and some chocolate,
K


Support our site and buy Paris Was Ours on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a copy from the publisher for review.

New Release: The Swan Thieves

After loving The Historian a few years back, I couldn't wait for Elizabeth Kostova's next novel. Though it is about quite a different subject (Dracula versus Impressionist painters), I enjoyed The Swan Thieves as well. This is a novel with multiple narratives, one in the past and one in the present. While some other recent novels that used this technique have suffered from one weaker story, I felt that there was more of a balance of quality in this novel.

Andrew Marlow is a psychiatrist and amateur painter who has taken on a new patient as a favor to a friend. The man, semi-renowned painter Robert Oliver, was caught right as he was attacking an Impressionist canvas at the National Gallery of Art. Though Marlow's talent lies in getting people to talk, Oliver's decision to not speak a word foils his treatment. Instead, Marlow has to figure out for himself what events led up to Oliver's art-defiling outburst. Through interviews, research and a bit of luck, he not only reveals the demons haunting Robert Oliver but also solves a mystery from the past.

Told mainly through letters and interviews, I enjoyed the flow of this novel. I thought the story in the past was strong and touching. I haven't mentioned it in the summary because I think it is best experienced without any spoilers. All I will say is that it is the story of a female artist in late nineteenth century Paris. I thought the language and actions seemed authentic. I also thought the writing in the modern story was strong although some elements of the plot were not. It was hard to believe that a professional psychiatrist would realize that his actions were unhealthy and most likely unethical and yet continue with his choices. There was nothing he did that was terrible but I just found myself annoyed in a few places. Overall, though, I thought this was a good read but not as strong as The Historian. I will definitely be looking forward to Kostova's next novel and hoping that the wait is less than five years long this time!

Remembering to stop and stare at the canvases,
K


Support our site and buy The Swan Thieves on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a review copy from the publisher.

New Release: Stone's Fall

I have read everything written by Iain Pears and so I feel qualified to say that Stone's Fall is some of his best work. This is a lengthy novel at 800 pages but is quick-reading, as evidenced by the fact that I got through it in five days!

The novel is written in three parts. The first is by Matthew Braddock, a journalist charged with trying to track down the illegitimate child mentioned in the will of recently-deceased financial genius John Stone, Lord Ravenscliff. This youngish man begins the probing of John Stone's past but runs up against secrets whose answers are hidden in the past. The second and third accounts are by Henry Cort, a British intelligence boss, and John Stone himself, respectively. These earlier reminiscences fill in the story and reveal many of the mysteries that Braddock was unable to solve.

The depth and layers of this novel were staggering. And yet somehow Pears manages to tie up dozens of loose ends in a mostly satisfying manner. The characters he creates in this story are complex and my opinions of the main players changed frequently throughout the different narratives. Some readers have said that they were confused or turned-off by some financial language used in the novel but I felt that it was really negligible and did not dominate the narrative. Overall, this is a complex page-turner that is worth revisiting at some point. I would love to read it again with the omnipotence that I gained by the end.

If you are in the Seattle area, Iain Pears will be at Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park) tonight at 7pm. I'm hoping to be there!

Building a strong distrust of businessmen,
K


Buy Stone's Fall: A Novel on Amazon or find it at your local library.

New Release: The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

One of the shortcomings of many a historical fiction is the taking of sides -- glorifying one side of a conflict and demonizing the other. C.M. Mayo's The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire takes the moral high ground and gives the story of Emperor Maximilian von Habsburg from all different perspectives, admitting that in this complex situation, there were probably good intentions on all sides as well as bad.

After America failed in their Mexican conquest attempt and became embroiled in its own Civil War, France decided to step in and send troops and a new Catholic leader to the country. The chosen regent was Maximilian, Archduke of Austria. He grudgingly went to Mexico and became Emperor, bringing along his wife Charlotte. As they hadn't produced an heir, they decide to name as their heir the two year old Agustín de Iturbide y Green -- the son of an American mother and a Mexican father. This story is told from the points of view of all the parties involved and also military and household personnel.

This novel is very even-handed and though it is somewhat difficult to follow at first with the movement between narratives and time periods, once you get used to the style it's a fascinating and engaging book. Mayo has done extensive research and this time period in Mexican history really comes alive through her writing. Sympathies change as different viewpoints are voiced and you come to realize the complexities of this political situation.

Mayo plans to write a second novel that continues the story of Agustín. I will definitely look for that one.

Quiero ver las montañas de Mexico,
K


Buy The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire on Amazon or find it at your local library.

New Release: The Crimes of Paris

I've been having problems getting started on my review of Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection. It's not because I didn't enjoy the book -- the opposite is true. I think that I'm having trouble writing this review because this book is just so chock full of information that I have no idea where to begin! This was a very interesting book full of fascinating anecdotes and stories about crime and crime detection in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Just a few of the fun topics that this book explores are:

--Crime writing ... who wrote about crime, who wrote about criminals and who created the first detective novel.
--Crime detection ... Bertillonage, Vidocq, detecting poisons and the advent of fingerprinting.
--Crime ... anarchists, the first getaway car and the theft of the Mona Lisa.
--Art ... Picasso and his contemporaries try to change the way they express their world views.

How these authors possibly fit this much information into a 300 page book is beyond me but I feel like I have gained incredible amounts of trivial information and some overall impressions of late 19th and early 20th century Paris. This book also tied perfectly into some of my recent reading: The Black Tower, a historical fiction featuring the police detective Vidocq, The Dark Lantern, with part of the plot turning on Bertillonage, and Murder on the Eiffel Tower, where we visit the 1889 World Expo in Paris.

This was an impressive book and I would love to check out some of the other fiction and non-fiction that this couple have written together.

Fascinated by the birth of detection,
K


Buy The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Book v. Movie: Madame Bovary

In the 1949 film version of Madame Bovary, the author, Gustave Flaubert, is on trial for creating an unsavory, un-ladylike and detestable character in Emma Bovary. This is of course based on the actual lawsuit brought against Flaubert and his publisher on charges of immorality. They were acquitted and the book was a success.

This was a book that I avoided reading for a very long time based on a lack of knowledge of the plot. When I finally picked it up a couple of years ago, I was surprised by how engaging and heartbreaking this story was. Emma Rouault is a young woman who dreams of romance and chivalry while living the life of a farmer's daughter. When she has the opportunity to leave her life for one she believes to be more compelling, that of a doctor's wife, she finds reality to be far from what she desires. In an attempt to remedy this, she recklessly overspends to have a home above her station and has extramarital affairs in a search for those things she craves. She neglects her child and embarasses M. Bovary, her husband.

The film is a very accurate telling of the story and almost perfectly captures the pathos of Madame Bovary's situation. Jennifer Jones is Emma and Van Heflin is her tragic husband. My only complaint is the standard one I have with films of this time period -- the use of British actors in a French film who don't even attempt an accent. Some side characters are slightly French but not many!

Verdict: Read the novel and then watch the movie. You won't be disappointed with either.

Understanding a bit of Emma's angst,
K


Buy Madame Bovary (the novel) and Madame Bovary (the film) on Amazon or find them at at your local library.

"...Never let your name be found in a dead man's trousers."

There are few stories more heartbreaking than those of children punished for the crimes of their parents. For the children of deposed royalty, there may not even be a specific crime but just a need to destroy the line of inheritance. The Black Tower by Louis Bayard is based on the "lost dauphin", the young son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who supposedly died in the Black Tower at the age of ten after his parents were captured during the Revolution. There were hundreds of impostors later who claimed to be the now grown Louis XVII, actually spirited away before his reported death.

The Black Tower tells the story of a doctor, Hector Carpentier, who attended young Louis-Charles (Louis XVII) in the tower. Some of the story is told through the medical journal of Carpentier that details some of the actual purported mistreatments of the young boy. Carpentier's son, also Hector, is approached by a detective, Vidocq, when his name is found in a dead man's possession. It is of course actually his father that the man was looking for but the young doctor-in-training is intrigued and is pulled in to the investigation which leads to the discovery of the possible dauphin. This is a fantastic historical mystery with compelling characters and a real sense of loss. There is a heart-breaking scene between the would-be king and his older sister, the Duchess d'Angouleme.

I would love to know if Bayard plans on featuring Vidocq in another novel. He is a fantastic criminalist because he was once a criminal -- which is a very fascinating idea.

Steering clear of Madame Guillotine,
K

Sidenote: Yay! My 200th post and I'm having a lot of fun with this blog. Thanks to all my readers and I hope that I'm at least mildly entertaining sometimes. :)


Buy The Black Tower on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"Storm clouds raced over the barren plain between the fortifications and the goods station... where the scrubby grass smelled unpleasantly of sewers."

I really wanted to like Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner, the pen-name for two Parisian sisters. I wanted to wait for more books in the series to be translated. I wanted to find a new detective. But Victor Legris is no detective and honestly is barely tolerable as a man.

The story begins with a seemingly random murder in a trainyard and continues to a murder on the Eiffel Tower during the 1889 World Exposition. Victor Legris is a peripheral character, a bookseller, who becomes entangled in the murders when he sees links between them and his new love interest, Tasha, and his mentor and father-figure, Kenji Mori. Victor doesn't know who to trust and alternates between trying to rule out his friends as suspects and believing that they are cold-blooded murders.

Legris is a rude, arrogant, self-centered twenty-nine year old man. He treats his friends badly when it suits him and he frequently walks away during the middle of conversations. He never really looks for answers -- he is too busy chasing skirt. The only reason he has any success in finding clues is that he happens upon them. He never once logically thinks things out and never takes a moment to evaluate what he already knows. It was hard to get through this book as I did not find myself sympathetic with any of the characters -- except maybe for the Senegalese man Samba, a worker at the Expo.

I don't know if I would pick up the next book in the series. There is a chance that I would read it based on curiosity as to how Victor can become the lead in a "detective" series. But part of me is afraid of reading more of what I did in this book.

Detecting a stinker,
K


Buy Murder on the Eiffel Tower: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries) on Amazon or find it at your local library.