TWO-CENT TUESDAY

Below are a few (somewhat) brief, $.02 opinions about several books I've read or listened to recently but will not review in full. Their appearance in this recurring piece generally has little to nothing to do with merit. Many I enjoyed as much or more than those that got the full court press. I hope you'll consider one or two for your own TBR stack if they strike your fancy whether they struck mine or not.

Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol, William Rosenau

The true story of M19, a domestic terrorist group made up of, and founded by, women. Holdovers from the 1970s, these six veteran extremists kept their mission going under the name The May 19th Communist Organization (May 19 the shared birthday of two of their idols - Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh). After fighting against Vietnam and for black and Native American Liberation, M19 took aim at American imperialism. I found the idea fascinating, but the execution was so dense and fact-driven it felt more like a dissertation than a story. I didn't make it through the written galley, but may try again if the book is available on audio after publication.


Bad Blood, John Carreyrou

Holy cats, what a wild ride. Another true story that played out a stone's throw away from where I live and grew up, this is a remarkable tale of narcissism (one of my favorite subjects). Carreyrou is a journalist who had an inside source regarding the rise and collapse of Theranos, a biotech company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. I'm not a tech or biotech person, but it doesn't matter, this story is intrigue on steroids. The audio performance was fantastic. I recommend a read/listen and then a viewing of the HBO documentary made on the subject, called The Inventor. The things people think they can get away with astound me. All the more so when people's lives health are at risk.  Nutty. I understand why many outlets named this as one of their books of the year.

If I Don't Make It, I Love You,  Amye Archer and Loren Kleinman

Subtitled Survivors in the Aftermath of School Shootings, this book is just that--interviews with various individuals impacted by school shootings in the U.S. going back to 1966 and the University of Texas at Austin. Parents grieving the loss of a child or trying to help a surviving one, friends and fellow students who witnessed and/or survived a shooting, teachers and others who survived and/or intervened. The pieces run the gamut, as do the emotions and reactions. Painful and horrific, this book that screams to be read as a "bear witness" work. One can only hope these words, none more so than the introduction written by Jaime Guttenberg's father Fred, are read by people who really need to hear them. My only "critical" thought is that the volume of voices means a great deal of repetition, and one fears the words lose their impact. Yet how do you choose who is to be heard and who is to be silenced? It seems we have already become immune to the loss of life. 

Red, White & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston

My editor raved about this book to me and because I respect him, I picked up the audio despite it being waaaay outside my wheelhouse. I do love the cover in an "I know this is not for me but I dig it" kind of way. But romance? Politicians? Ugh. Count me out. I now admit it turned out to be just what I needed in these times of strife--a little hopeful fun and romance at the upper levels of U.S. and British government. Billed with the question "What happens when America's First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?," I thought the narration was well done and I was full-in on the characters. It got a little too romancey at times, but when you're used to the violent grit I like to read, a friendly handshake can seem intimate. This was a fabulous "time out" from the real world. 

NEVER TELL :: Part Deux

When I was assigned to review Lisa Gardner's latest Detective D.D. Warren installment, Never Tell, I had only read one of the previous nine in the series. I'm not sure why I didn't continue (too many books to cram into too little time, we all know that story), but after reading Never Tell I was moved to go back and fill in the blanks. I really dug Never Tell on its own, but Gardner also introduced a new character, Flora Dane, who was quite intriguing and I wanted to see how she entered the fray. I'm doing most of the earlier books on audio and am on the sixth.

Never Tell comes out in paperback on August 6th. While I'm not usually a fan of cover changes (mostly because covers are the best way for me to remember if I've read something), this new paperback is super nifty.

The dark color palette really sells it. The hardcover was great, but I think this image is even better and suited to the plot. To make the paperback release more enticing, the publisher has included a teaser excerpt from Gardner's January 2020 release, When You See Me. It not only brings D.D. and Flora back, but a few other recurring characters and arcs I'm curious to see play out.

I read Never Tell pretty cold, and while it necessarily gave away some plot points from prior books in the series I was not confused or bothered at potential spoilers. While completeists are encouraged to go back and see how the characters originated, if you find that idea daunting, don't hesitate to start with Never Tell and read on in both directions. I know I'm going to be anxiously awaiting When You See Me.

If you want a bit more information to see if these might be for you, you can take a gander at my prior review with more details at Shelf Awareness or here at Malcolm Avenue Review, just hit one of the links.

Happy reading~!

NIAGARA MOTEL :: Ashley Little

"There's nothing fair about life. Not one single thing. You just have to get through it the best way you know how."

Writing in the voice of a child is a tricky and perilous thing. It's also a thing Ashley Little knocks clean out of the park in Niagara Motel; readers will fall madly in love with Tucker Malone. It's no surprise Tucker is wiser and more world-weary than any eleven-year-old should be when his mother, Gina, is a peripatetic, narcoleptic stripper. Yet Little brilliantly blends Tucker's street smarts with his innocence, and his voice never feels anything but authentic.

When Gina's narcolepsy leads to tragedy, Tucker is forced to leave their current residence, the Niagara Motel, to stay at Bright Light, a home for older, troubled kids. A boy forced to deal with a grown-up situation under less-than-stellar circumstances, all Tucker wants to do is find the man he believes to be his father--Sam Malone from the television sitcom Cheers.

Tucker is drawn to fellow housemate Meredith, sixteen and pregnant. "We were a strange match as far as friends go, but magnets don't need to understand how magnetism works; they just repel each other or stick together." 

Stick together this odd duo does, through life's dramas and one of the more oddly fascinating road trips ever. It is so wildly inventive it's almost distracting (in the best of ways; go in blind and have Google handy). 

It's a testament to the strength of Little's characters and dialogue that the story never loses its focus or heart--the inimitable Tucker Malone. Ashley Little, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner for Anatomy of a Girl Gang, has another winner in this tale of friendship and the hard lessons learned while making a life out of lemons. 

STREET SENSE: Tucker Malone is a young boy who can break your funny bone as quickly as he can stop your heart like arterial plaque. I'm a hard sell when it comes to first person narratives from a child's perspective, but I love every single minute I spent in Tucker's head. Funny and heartwarming through the hard spots, this will be one of my favorites of the year.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: At first I'd been nervous that maybe Dee was one of the weirdos that Gina had warned me about. But after about half an hour, I knew that Dee was not one of those weirdos. Even though she was different, she was just like everybody else. She wanted people to like her. She wanted people to see her for who she really was inside. I started to understand what Meredith meant about feelings she gets about people. But, I think for me, it wasn't the feeling I got about a person, it was how the person made me feel about myself. Dee made me feel kind of...fabulous.

Bonus passage!

Did people steal moms? I knew they stole kids. They probably stole moms, too. Moms would be more useful actually, come to think of it. If you were going to steal a person, you might as well steal a mom. Then she could make your dinner and do your laundry and help you fix your sweaters. A kid would just want to watch TV and eat chips all day.

COVER NERD SAYS:  The title and cover image don't give much away about the innards of this one, but still it intrigues. It gives you a little hint that the story might not take place in present day (it's set in the 90s), but other than that, all you've got it whatever a motel sign brings to your mind. For me, the image is a good one, but I can't say I would buy this one based on cover alone. I would certainly pick it up off a bookstore table, though, and the copy on the back would sell me instantly. The son of a narcoleptic touring stripper who thinks his father is Sam Malone? Sold. Happily so. 

COCKROACHES :: Scholastique Mukasonga

Scholastique Mukasonga has done something extraordinary with her autobiographical work Cockroaches. In straightforward prose over a mere 165 pages, in a binding approximately the size of a 5x7 family photograph, she harnesses four decades of devastating imagery and emotion emanating from the genocide of the Tutsi people in Rwanda. From the heartrending dedication to the last page, Mukasonga holds the reader's aghast but rapt attention through the hardships endured and resilience shown by her family and their fellow refugees.

Mukasonga was three when the pogroms began in 1959 and her family was expelled from their village, exiled to an unpopulated savanna overrun with tsetse flies and wild animals. Hutus relegated hundreds of thousands of Tutsis there, rendering them Inyenzi--cockroaches, something to be stomped on and eradicated.

Despite the daily regime of terror, the Tutsis sustained their proud culture as a means of bearing witness, believing they would die in their hellish exile. They worked, grew food and, perhaps most importantly, they read. Education was Mukasonga's way out and, thanks to books, she "sensed that the world was far bigger than we could imagine....Sometimes I dreamed of an impossible thing: having a book all to myself."

Mukasonga eventually graduated and moved to France, but kept abreast of the continued evisceration of her people, returning in 2004 to witness what remained of her village. Cockroaches is a haunting love letter to the lost, beautifully written and imbued with controlled emotion, a story to which we should all bear witness

STREET SENSE: A survivor of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda revisits her life, her family and her people in this compelling memoir. To say this is a difficult subject is a vast understatement, but these words should be read.

COVER NERD SAYS:  The story jumped out at me here before the cover did. In fact, the cover didn't catch my eye at all, I was only able to see a small image of it when I requested the book. It's a cover that became more beautiful after I finished reading, and now it's one of my favorites of the year. It's somewhat dark and yet hopeful, seeds being carried by the wind to better places (if I'm reading it right, but that's the visual I get here). Most of the people in this book did not end up in better places, but on these pages they live and breathe and are remembered.

A version of this review previously ran in Shelf Awareness.

COFFIN ROAD :: Peter May

Peter May returns to the Outer Hebrides, the setting of his mesmerizing Lewis Trilogy, with his new standalone novel Coffin Road. The Hebrides is rugged land that takes on a life of its own in May’s masterful hands, and one morning its churning ocean spits a man onto the beach after taking his memory. With few clues, he has to figure out who he is, what he's doing on the Isle of Harris, and who doesn't want him doing it.

Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, a troubled young girl digs into the cause of her father's suicide and a detective investigates a bludgeoned body found at a remote lighthouse station. Soon the amnesiac, the detective and the teenager are caught up in high stakes mysteries fraught with the potential for violence and a fascinating (and non-preaching) environmental issue at their core.

May is second to none when it comes to sense of place. He writes landscape so artfully even paragraphs-long descriptions don't detract from the pace of this thriller:

"And now I am aware of the wind. Tugging at my clothes, sending myriad grains of sand in a veil of whisper-thin gauze across the beach in currents and eddies, like water."

May's lyrical writing brings full color to the scenery and the narrative intrigues from start to finish as the three arcs begin to intertwine and race to a final showdown. Coffin Road is an atmospheric thriller that delves into issues of identity, sacrifice and the greater good.

STREET SENSE: With Coffin Road, May has gifted his readers with another engaging mystery infused with the personality of the Hebrides as only he can write it.  

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: With the rain running down my face, it would be hard to tell if I was crying. And if I were to cry, they would be tears of pure frustration. Along with the return, perhaps, of fear. For the rock of certainty on which I have built my hopes turns out to have been the same of self-deception.

COVER NERD SAYS: When a friend (hi, Shaina!) saw this book reviewed in Shelf Awareness she thought to herself, "Hmm, this looks like a book that Lauren would review." Which is both totally uncanny and cool and also tells me perhaps I'm a bit too easy to read. It's no secret I like the dark stuff, so it's not going to shock you to learn that I love this cover. All of May's covers, actually, since the publisher has started giving them all a similar look. I think this is a smart move, creating a cover theme that readers can look at and recognize as an author they enjoy. This one is as dark and brooding as its innards and I'm looking forward to the next time I can spot one like it in upcoming releases. (Disclosure: It feels like it's 8 million o'clock right now, so that is quite rambly and perhaps doesn't even make sense, but there you have it.)

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness.

LEADFOOT :: Eric Beetner

I am woefully behind on my personal reviews due to the state of the universe at the moment, but I didn't want to miss the release of Eric's new entry in the McGraw series, Leadfoot. You can peruse my love of the McGraw drama here, where I discuss the first book, Rumrunners. This series is high-octane family fun, and Leadfoot is out TODAY, so go get yourself a copy.

"Why do I feel like I'm a pilot on the Enola Gay?"

Leadfoot heads back to 1971 Southeast Iowa to share a bit of the lore about how the McGraws became THE MCGRAWS. Calvin has already established himself as a reliable transporter for the Stanley family criminal empire (by Iowan standards), but his nineteen-year-old son Webb is just getting his feet wet in the family business.

When a transport ends up with bullets flying and a Stanley employee taking a hit, the family hits back at their rivals, the Cantrells. Of course, poor Calvin, who just tries to do his job and stay out of the way ("Never open the package" is the McGraw motto) ends up in the crosshairs of a crime family war.

Although Calvin is tied up trying to stay alive while dealing with messes created by one or more of the Stanley brothers (I'm talking to you, Kirby), Hugh Stanley still has jobs to get done. The need for more McGraws means Webb is about to get his first transport job: go to St. Louis to pick up a girl and bring her back to Hugh.

Naturally, and thankfully, everything goes haywire, and the McGraws all have to rely on their skills and moxie to make sure they come out on top. Leadfoot is full of fast-driving, gun play, explosives and a little bit of torture thrown in for good measure. But it's the theme of family winding through Leadfoot from start to finish that gives it its heart. The Stanleys and the McGraws are very different kinds of families, but each a family that does what it has to do to survive.

I loved Leadfoot's peek into the McGraw homefront. It brought a lot of depth and sweetness (sorry, Eric) to the fray and Calvin's relationship with his wife Dorothy was a great way to shine further light on the McGraw innards. The McGraw men may be the outlaws, but it's Dorothy - "early forties, housewife, General Hospital fan" - who is the most kickass of the McGraws.

STREET SENSE:  Leadfoot is a fast and fun second chapter in what this reader hopes is a long book of McGraw stories from all eras.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Near the river, in a flat industrial square made of brick, a half dozen men were about to die. They made the mistake of taking a job as criminals and as such they followed orders and set up shop in a state not their own. Calvin crossed a small bridge, saw the cluster of abandoned storage facilities and one-time factories, and wished these kids had just stayed home in Nebraska.

COVER NERD SAYS:  280 Steps does a fantastic job with their cover work. I loved the cover of Rumrunners and love the cover of Leadfoot, which carries the theme through in great measure. These are great pulpy covers that provide a perfect feel for what's inside. They are artworks that evoke a bit of a movie poster and and I would happily hang them on my wall.

HELL FIRE :: Karin Fossum

"It was always the small things, the links between people and where they could lead."

Karin Fossum is one of crime fiction's gems, and Hell Fire continues the stellar Inspector Konrad Sejer series set in her native Norway. By all accounts, Bonnie Hayden is simply a single mother eking out a living as a caretaker, beloved by her elderly clientele. But someone was enraged enough to butcher Bonnie and her young son in an abandoned camper, and Inspector Sejer must apprehend the monster with little in the way of evidence.

Alternating between the investigation and the months before the murders, Sejer's perspective is deftly woven with those of Bonnie and the Malthes, Mass and her co-dependent twenty-one-year-old son Eddie. Eddie, though not formally diagnosed, is troubled and obsessed with death. He searches the internet for execution methods, dreams of frying newborn chicks and tries desperately to find his father's grave. A connection between the families may begin to seem ominously obvious, but Fossum is crafty enough to create doubt.

Fossum doesn't normalize violence, and while Sejer takes a secondary role in the plot, he is used effectively to show the impact of brutality on those in its wake. Hell Fire is more a compelling study of character and hardscrabble living than a strict procedural, and even the most dismal scenes and mundane tasks are absorbing. The plot is a tight, slow burn that details the hardships of two mothers and their sons, putting them through the wringer as the date of the murders approaches and their lives intersect.

STREET SENSE: Hell Fire reads like a documentary view of life on society's fringes. I appreciated Fossum's real-world view. There are no superheroes here, no fantastical discovery or event that makes this story sensational. It's gritty reality, from both ends of the murder. This is the first of Fossum's Inspector Sejer series that I've read, but it certainly won't be the last.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: Bonnie looked at his large white ear, and thought suddenly that it reminded her of a beautiful conch shell. She wondered, if she put her ear to his, whether she would hear the sound of his long life. Which was over now.

COVER NERD SAYS:  Hell Fire's cover is somewhat plain and basic, yet the fire image remains provocative. I think Fossum's name might be the biggest draw here, so couldn't argue with a larger font on that front, even though I really like the way her name sits on this cover. The fiery image alone would probably get me to pick this one up, but wouldn't be enough to get me to purchase it without knowing more.

A version of this review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission.

BLOOD WEDDING :: Pierre Lemaitre

"I am afraid. The dead are surfacing. In the darkness. I can count them one by one. In the darkness, I see them sitting at a table, side by side. In the darkness."

Pierre Lemaitre has one of the most wonderfully twisted minds of crime fiction and the psychological thriller. On the heels of his award-winning Commandant Verhoeven trilogy (Alex, Irene and Camille, two of which won the prestigious CWA International Dagger Award), Lemaitre has written a tremendous standalone novel in Blood Wedding.

Sophie Duguet is losing her mind. She's forgetting things (where she parked her car, the date she and her husband have theater tickets, items she put in her purse while shopping), becoming uncharacteristically unreliable, and spiraling into depression and paranoia. Worse, the visions she has of hurting people start playing out in real life.

When the bodies connected to Sophie start adding up, she goes on the run, changing her name and location repeatedly to stay ahead of the authorities. Safety is hard to come by when she doesn't understand what she's running from, but as Sophie looks back she begins to figure out she’s up against more than her own mind. Unsettling and smart, Blood Wedding is intricately plotted along parallel timelines, and the screws tighten skillfully as Lemaitre winds through Sophie’s nightmare and toward the ultimate reveal.

Lemaitre's work is inspired and disturbing and can't be trusted. With precise yet elegant prose, he manipulates and unnerves. Like Sophie, the only thing the reader can be sure of is that things aren’t what they seem. Although Lemaitre’s work is not normally for the faint of heart, Blood Wedding is more about psychology than violence and thus relatively safe for the squeamish.

STREET SENSE: If you are a fan of the psychological thriller, of being held in suspense along with your protagonist and not knowing what's happening under the surface, grab this one. If you like a bit of twisted with your thriller, grab this one. Lemaitre is a master. If you're into crime fiction, read the trilogy. Read any Lemaitre, an author this good should be more well-known here in the U.S.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Sophie never measures the years since she first went mad. It goes back too far. Perhaps because of the anguish involved, she feels the years count double. It began as a gradual descent, but as the months passed she be an to feel she was on a toboggan, hurtling downhill. Sophie was married then. It was a time before...all this...A therapist suggested a spell in the hospital. She refused, until death arrived, uninvited, to join her madness.

COVER NERD SAYS:  Lemaitre's covers are usually quite simple, a single image against a dark background. I'm not a huge fan of the single flower covers, which seem to have flooded the cover market as of late. However, I do like the fact that this dark red rose is tinged with black, and I love what they've done with Lemaitre's name. Overall I think the cover is ominously effective, I just wish the image was something other than a flower.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission.

THE RED BANDANNA :: Tom Rinaldi

Tom Rinaldi's The Red Bandanna is ample evidence that compelling stories remain to be told fifteen years after September 11, 2001. Following the attacks, survivors mentioned a man wearing a red bandanna who repeatedly led others to safety only to go back up into the inferno. They didn't know who he was, only that he saved their lives. One woman read about that man and knew she had found her son.

This remarkable story of selflessness is that of 24-year-old Welles Crowther, who dreamed of being a firefighter and carried that bandanna every day since he was 7. It is a story about what defines September 11--acts of compassion, sacrifice and heroism. It is the story of an extraordinary young man, those he left behind and the lives he saved, now forever bound by the man in the red bandanna.

During President Obama's speech at the 2014 memorial museum dedication, he shared a story of heroism and mentioned one name. That name was Welles Crowther. Reading Welles' story reminds us to bear witness, that in times of tragedy, heroes are among us, and perhaps even inside us.

Rinaldi, a reporter for ESPN, writes in a straightforward manner which feels rather staid for the first portion of the book. But as the story shifts to 9/11 and beyond, that tone is perfect, allowing the facts to communicate the drama without becoming overwrought. Grab a blanket, you're going to suffer more than one case of the chills as you work through this one.

STREET SENSE:  It's the emotion Rinaldi evokes that makes this a recommended read. And while one could argue any story of 9/11 would be evocative, a great story still needs a great teller with the right tone. Stick through the first half of background, the payoff is well worth it.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Young sat for what she believed was ten minutes, perhaps longer, paralyzed by fear. Then she heard a voice calling out, clear and strong. Instantly she turned toward the sound. "I found the stairs," the voice said. "Follow me. Only help the ones that you can help. And follow me."

COVER NERD SAYS:  I've never been a huge fan of the bandanna. If I hadn't known what this book was about, hadn't seen the subtitle (A life. A choice. A legacy.) I might have passed it by altogether. Perhaps if I was really perusing the bookstore shelves or tables the title might have intrigued me, but it wouldn't have been in the first group of books I went for. Now that I've read it, of course, the cover couldn't be anything else. I'm glad I didn't pass this one by.

A version of this review previously ran in Shelf Awareness and appears here with permission.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Dustin M. Hoffman

Earlier this week, I posted my review of Dustin M. Hoffman's One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, one of my favorite reads of the year thus far. I loved it so much I tracked down poor Dustin like the weakest wildebeest on the Serengeti to tell him so. He could not have been nicer or more appreciative, and the more we got to chatting I realized I wanted all of you to get to know him as well. So here are a few insights into the mind that wrote the sixteen fantastic stories in One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist.

This is hard cheese right out of the box, but I ask because I'm going to steal your answer. What is your one-sentence elevator speech (it's a short ride) for One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist? 

Only one sentence!? That’s such a tough one, especially for a story collection when so many strands are at play and…Oh crap, the elevator door is already closing! Here we go: One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist is a story collection about people who work with their hands, people struggling to survive the toughest and weirdest jobs.

Although the stories vary in style, format, voice, and about every way I can think of, they all have tradespeople in common. You worked in the trades for ten years. What was it about that experience that influenced you so profoundly? 

The folks building houses with me had such striking stories, such unique voices, and I spent twelve hours a day working next to them. And I didn’t read about them much—working-class people. So the absence of representation in literature influenced me. But maybe more than that, it was a desire to try and find a greater significance in grueling labor beyond an hourly wage and a house I helped build but would never live in. I wanted some permanent monument for me and the men and women I worked with, folks who rarely have job security and rarely get recognition.

A bit of a chicken and egg question: Did your time in the trades drive you to write about the working class (i.e., did it form your blue collar voice), or did you go into the trades seeking further authenticity for a voice or interest that already existed? If the latter, where did that voice originate?

I got into the trades first. It was how I supported myself for many years and how I managed to pay for a class or two in English or audio production or art history. Once I started seriously writing, I didn’t think that working world would overwhelm my art, but it did. It wouldn’t let go. Still hasn’t. I can’t seem to punch out, and I think I’m okay with that.

Your stories and poems have appeared in a wide variety of publications since 2008 (you can find links to Dustin's other work on this page of his website), and many of those that don't appear in One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist are also blue-collar themed. How did you pick which stories were going to be in the collection? 

It was so tough, and this collection started forming back then in 2008. Almost every single story that was originally in the collection got cut and replaced by a better one. Once I wrote “Building Walls” years later I really started to see what the collection needed to be. Then it was a matter of which stories communicated with that story in the most interesting ways. So I had to find the book’s gravitational pull. The stories that reacted to that gravity stayed. But I’ve always been really self-conscious about hitting redundant notes. I wanted variety. I get frustrated when I’m reading a story collection and I start to see the writer’s patterns and themes and by the end there are no surprises left. I wanted every story to harmonize toward a larger purpose, yet still have the ability to jar the reader at least a little bit.

Of those that were left out, which is your favorite, the one it killed you not to include? 

I wrote this weird story about animatronic president repairmen called “Mr. James K. Polk, Please Hold My Windbreaker” that fit this book’s themes perfectly and it made me laugh. Also, I keep thinking now that my flash piece “Silence in Forty-two” would’ve fit nicely. But those stories will find their place, and I’ve been lucky enough to have already published them with great magazines. 

I'm going to ask the worst thing you can ask a parent and see if you will admit to having a favorite child. Is there a particular story in One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist that is most personal or meaningful to you? 

I already mentioned “Building Walls,” and that continues to be a story I love. My mentor Jaimy Gordon once described this story as a long prose poem, and I like to think of it that way. This was where I think I really found the song in work voices.

How old were you when you started writing and what is the earliest piece you remember? 

Well, here’s the big cliché: I’ve been writing as long as I can remember. The earliest piece I wrote is kind of fabled in my family. It was a novel about my parents’ dog, a wired-hair fox terrier named…Foxy. We weren’t the best at naming pets. The novel was called Ninja Foxy and heavily featured a sidekick named Hammy the Hamster (again, not so great with names) who sported a mini missile launcher strapped to his back.

You have some very interesting voices in your head. How many times did you get sent to the Principal's office for your writing? 

Well, never made it to the principal. But for a few summers I went to this summer writers workshop for little kids. They’d annually publish our work in an anthology, and I never seemed to fail at embarrassing my parents. I once wrote a story about my dad crashing his van into the school. To set the record straight: It’s pure fiction. Dad’s a swell driver!

I do have a vivid memory of being in seventh grade and making a joke in an art class about pubic hair. The teacher pulled me into the hall and lectured me about how that was “locker room talk” and I shouldn’t say that stuff around girls. Most of my friends were girls then. And I was pissed, wondering why only boys should hear crass jokes. I think my anger at that point was formative to me as an artist. In the decade following that encounter, I played punk rock and cussed a bunch and pretended to be a little rebel. And then I started making art that transported what that teacher would’ve called “locker room talk” into the open in all its glory and horror. I think there can be poetry in swearing, art in filth and grit and grime and shit—maybe the most interesting, human art—and it’s not just for guys in locker rooms. That kind of gendered censorship condescends to huge swaths of readers, I think.

You currently teach creative writing at Winthrop University in South Carolina. What is the one lesson/manta/motto you most try to drive home to your students? 

There are two big ones for me: 1) Read voraciously. Everything you can get your hands on. Everything people you respect recommend. Stuff you wouldn’t think you’d like, and stuff that drives you nuts with adoration and obsession. 2) Writing is work, and it’s hard. To get anywhere with this trade of threading words together, it’s a matter of coming at it like a job. I highly recommend a regular schedule for writing. If you only write when you feel like it, when the muse hits, you’ll never get anywhere. I don’t think I believe in muses.

What are you reading right now and what's next in the queue?

I’m always reading a ton of stuff at once. I just finished Donald Ray Pollock’s stunning novel The Heavenly Table. I think it’s his best work yet, and I love all his books. I was doing NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names on audiobook, and I adored it. I’ve been rereading it and teaching it in print. Next in the queue is Anne Valente’s brand new novel Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down out October 4th, which I know will be amazing. In the meantime, I have some comfort reading: Vonnegut’s Palm Sunday.

If someone wanted to watch a movie or television show that was akin to the worlds you create in One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, where would you point them? 

That’s a fun question. I liked Dirty Jobs, which did a good job of highlighting a lot of previously invisible occupations. And I appreciated how Mike Rowe never talked down to the workers, but met them for who they were, skilled tradesmen taking pride in their tough jobs.

I don't believe in guilty pleasures, but who is the author most outside your reading/writing wheelhouse that you love to read? 

I love reading Studs Terkel’s interviews in Working. But if we’re really talking guilty here, I love baseball history. Most of all statistics. I could look up numbers on Baseball-Reference.com for hours. There are such stories in those numbers. So boring and nerdy, right?

I'll pick up whatever you write next regardless of what it is, but tell us a little about a project you're currently working on. 

Thanks so much for saying that, Lauren.

I just finished a novel tentatively called No City, Michigan, which is set in my hometown. It’s kind of a love triangle story between these kids named Tack, Hector, and April. It’s about being dangerously cooped up in a small town in the dead of a Michigan winter. It’s my first real stab at a novel. Though sometimes I think of it as a really long short story that’s still doing all the things I dig about stories: unified effect and all. Maybe the novel let me play with point of view and structure more than I could’ve with a story. That was a lot of fun and really damn frustrating at the same time.

*  *  *

Thanks to Dustin for taking the time to answer my questions so thoughtfully. If what I tell you about One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist doesn't get you to read it, I can't believe this quote won't:

"I think there can be poetry in swearing, art in filth and grit and grime and shit—maybe the most interesting, human art—and it’s not just for guys in locker rooms."

Dustin gets it. And I can't be the only one clamoring for the publication of Ninja Foxy.

ONE-HUNDRED-KNUCKLED FIST :: Dustin M. Hoffman

I didn't know anything about this book or its author when I spied the cover while perusing upcoming releases several months ago and it immediately jumped out at me. Once I cracked the cover it didn't take me long to realize I'd happened upon something special.

One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist is one of those reads that makes you want to scream about it from the rooftops immediately upon finishing. It also makes you want to contact the author to thank them. Which I did, and discovered that Dustin M. Hoffman is as much a gem as his book. Dustin was even nice enough to sit down and answer some questions in an interview that will run later this week.

Hoffman has one of the most extraordinary voices I've read in a long while. To be more accurate, he has many voices, as evidenced in the sixteen distinct stories in this debut collection. They are wonderful and weird and gross and gritty and ingenious. Some made me swear out loud in the best possible way, others simply left me silent with awe. Although the blue collar theme is carried throughout, each piece stands alone with a unique voice.

This collection is going to be a favorite of mine for 2016 and I'm now on the lookout for whatever Dustin has coming. I hope you'll pick up a copy. What follows is a version of the review that previously ran in Shelf Awareness:

"Life is full of lemon givers, and a smart man takes his fate and makes more than just complacent lemonade."

Dustin M. Hoffman's One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist is an ode to the men and women who are handed lemons on a regular basis--blue collar workers. The working class is often invisible and forgotten, folks trying to make their way despite the pressures exerted from above and at home, often under dismal circumstances. It is these pressures and circumstances Hoffman depicts so superbly over the course of sixteen stories.

Hoffman painted houses for ten years, but it is his craftsmanship with the written word that infuses these stories with atmosphere often visceral to the point of gut-knotting. From the commission salesman stressed to make sales so his manager's children can eat, to the ice cream truck driver who, despite beatings from rival thugs, keeps going to save money for his estranged children, to the hardscaping crew driven to violent conflict after a verbal sparring session gone awry, Hoffman shines a light on some dark slices of life in the trenches.

These are not easy stories. They are in turn crude, violent, outlandish, harsh and sometimes outright bizarre. But Hoffman deftly paints them with lines of beauty, determination and subtle humor that keep them from devolving into an exercise in depression. They are as varied as the trades they depict, but across the board they are engaging, bursting with authenticity, and often just plain brilliant.

STREET SENSE: Winner of the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize, this nifty set of sixteen short stories takes a compelling trip through the pressure-cooker world of the blue-collar worker. Several of these stories blew my socks off. Highly recommended.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: I could type passages most of the day and not tire of re-reading them. This was a difficult choice. Hoffman is my favorite kind of writer - one who can write a glorious run-on and also express an idea in one short sentence. I picked the first quote because it was one (the first line of the second story) that really had me feeling I was in for something special:

We backhoed a gash through the silky sod, brown like a week-old scab, red at the center. That hole in the Glavine family's front lawn was a big dig, so deep it split us into pieces, and we were never right again.

And then there was this little line, almost a throwaway, that the woodworker in me adored:

Ramon's bare torso is so thin, as if God ran him through the planer.

COVER NERD SAYS: So simple, yet so effective. Many covers that go for simplicity miss the mark and end up looking like something thrown together over a kitchen table at midnight. Not so here. I saw this cover and was so intrigued by the title and imagery I knew I had to read it. Who doesn't want to know about a one-hundred-knuckled fist? This one goes in the big win basket as far as covers are concerned. Well done.

THE KILLING KIND :: Chris Holm

"As he slept, he dreamt of dying. Of rebirth."

The second entry in Chris Holm's Michael Hendricks series, Red Right Hand, comes out next month (September 13, to be exact), and as a brief reminder of Hendricks's first outing (if you've read it) or precursor (if you've not), I thought this would be a good time to talk a bit about The Killing Kind.

Hendricks is a former military man who believed in the romantic notion that God and country were worth fighting and killing for. Although his talents as "the killing kind" landed him a spot in black ops, Hendricks is also the sentimental, do-right kind.

Thought dead after his unit is devastated by an IED, Hendricks takes advantage of his newly deceased status to give his beloved fiance the life he thinks she deserves--one without him in it. Having lost his moral center in service, Hendricks tries the best way he knows to atone and balance his accounts--by killing.

Hendricks doesn't become just any old assassin, but an assassin of assassins. He's found a way to identify the targets of hits taken out by various crime families and when his investigation deems it warranted, Hendricks takes out the hitter before the hit goes down. For a price, of course.

When the Council, representatives of assorted New York crime families, figures out what's going on, they do what comes naturally--they hire a hitter to take out the hitter of their hitters. That right there, folks, is what you call a stellar story idea. But story is one thing, execution (see what I did there?) is a whole other target, and with The Killing Kind Holm has perfected his kill shot. (I'll stop soon, promise.)

What follows is about as close as you can get to a perfect thriller experience, as Holm masterfully wields every weapon (so I lied) in his writing arsenal. There are some truly clever f'ing moments in this novel, but they never come close to annoying or sanctimonious. I experienced several instances of "Oh damn, that was crafty." Holm uses every element of storytelling to his advantage.

Case in point, The Killing Kind's secondary and one-off characters. Particularly the (assumed) one-offs, who Holm uses artfully to set a scene or transition the plot. This runs the danger of becoming tedious filler, but it's done so well here that you're glad you've spent even a few pages or paragraphs with these characters, who meld so seamlessly into the rest of the story you don't even realize they were background. And in a book filled with hitmen, it's no small feat to make each one unique and interesting in their own right.

The scene-setting is fantastic. At different times I felt immersed in the sweltering heat of Miami (holy hell, Florida, I really don't think I want to visit you), a barbershop that had me stepping into 1953, a casino showroom, and a Southern California playground-cum-drug dealer's paradise. As a really tough audience for scene-setting work (I'm a little impatient to get on with it), these hit the sweet spot.

The Killing Kind has been nominated for just about every award the mystery community has to offer (Macavity, Anthony, Barry and Lefty), and rightfully so (it's also based on an Anthony-nominated short story, The Hitter, which you can find in this issue of the fabulous Needle Mag). The plotting is a jigsaw with no bent corners, no last piece you have to jam in to make it fit. It flows at a perfect pace while still providing flesh and detail that make the whole more special and never feel superfluous.

Holm gets 1,000 bonus points from me for using Robert McCall as a pseudonym for Hendricks at one point, whether or not his intent was to evoke The Equalizer (only one of the best characters in television crime fiction evah).

STREET SENSE:  More than worthy of all the nominations it has garnered, The Killing Kind is written with the leanness of a crime writer but the soul of a romantic. Now is the best time to pick up a copy, as you can slide right into Red Right Hand come September 13.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  The booze had eaten through his stomach, his marriage, and his reputation, etching its mark deep into the lines of his face, into the broken corpuscles draped like lace across his nose and cheeks. It drove away his wife and friends, and left his children flinching every time the phone rang, not knowing if the voice at the other end would be that of their maudlin old man, or the inevitable rote sympathy of some faraway police officer, informing them they needn't flinch any longer.

COVER NERD SAYS: This is a great cover, despite the fact that the image looks disconcertingly like Chris himself. Even more so on the paperback edition, which makes me wonder if Mulholland has some genius cross-career plans for him (but which had nothing to do with the views expressed here). The Killing Kind's cover is lean and clean and representative without being testosterone-laden, which would have been an easy line to cross given the subject matter. (And psst, have you gotten a gander at the cover of Red Right Hand? Take a look at this beauty and tell me you don't want to get a copy just to hang on your wall.)

WHEN THE DEVIL COMES TO CALL :: Eric Beetner

"On the run. Fugitives. An ex-hitman and an orphan girl."

Lars and Shaine are back! Two years following the escapades that brought them together in Eric Beetner's The Devil Doesn't Want Me, the pair has carved out a nice quiet life in Hawaii. They escaped the mainland with very little, but have a cool million in the bank and spend their days surfing, home schooling and firearm training. Lars may be retired, but he wants Shaine to be prepared, just in case.

Did I say "retired?" Ha. We all know better than that, right? Eric might write a lot of great things, but the only type of retirement he writes has some serious finger quotes around it. When former employer Nikki Senior calls asking Lars for "one last favor," the qualities that make an excellent hitman a questionable hitman kick in. Loyalty and conscience have Lars heading back to the mainland, Shaine at his side. One quick hit. In and out, no problem, done forever.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy, especially in a Beetner novel. Soon enough, Lars and Shaine are caught up in mobster hijinks, personal vendettas, ghosts of Lars's past and the FBI net that Nikki has used to try and protect himself by turning on his former associates and going into witness protection. And while Lars may have loyalty to Nikki, Shaine has nothing but revenge on her mind when it comes to the man who ordered her father killed.

A  slim volume at 224 pages, When The Devil Comes to Call is what we've all come to expect from Eric - fast-paced, tightly-plotted shenanigans that always entertain, even when everything is covered in brains, blood and putrefying corpses. It's a fast run through a gritty world that makes mayhem and violence the norm.  

Book 2 in the Lars and Shaine saga digs into Lars's past in a new and somewhat unexpected way and introduces some great new characters that a girl can only hope she gets to revisit in further entries to this shotgun blast of a series.

STREET SENSE:  If you like high-octane crimefests with plenty of gun play and action to burn, When the Devil Comes to Call is definitely recommended, along with Eric's other work. Best get ready for the next installment in the McGraw series by reading Rumrunners (if you haven't already, and if you haven't already I'm not even sure what to do with you) before Leadfoot comes out in November.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Lars had suffered a broken heart. Shaine knew he had one, she wouldn't be alive if he didn't, but she always thought of his heart as solid, like polished marble. She didn't consider it had a warm, gooey center. And this Lenore, she turned his heart hard, calcified and carved with her initials.

COVER NERD SAYS: 280 Steps does a great job with its covers, and When the Devil Comes to Call is no exception. Although all the covers have a similar feel, they are also relevant to the content, and this cover aptly depicts all the pulpy innards.

REVOLVER :: Duane Swierczynski

"The trick to being a cop, a veteran detective once told him, is to go home at the end of the day."

A law enforcement family. Multiple generations. Five decades. Three timelines. A city steeped in racial turmoil. Murder. Revenge. Redemption. All these elements are boxed up inside one well-wrapped package in Duane Swierczynski's Revolver, which knocked my socks clean off.

There are plenty of things to love about Duane Swierczynski (his unparalleled sense of humor, his humility, and his deep-seated love of 70s Billy Ocean singles to name just a few), but one of the things I admire most is that he's always pushing his envelope and changing things up.

Duane has a hat full of speedily-breeding rabbits and you never know which rabbit he's going to pull out next. All you know is it's going to be a fierce, wise-cracking rabbit. (I have no clue where that analogy came from, apparently my rabbits have been drinking.)

He's written a few series books (the Charlie Hardie trilogy is fantastic), some terrific standalone novels and also works in the comics industry. He writes in a wide array of subgenres and does them all well.

This time, he put one right in my bread basket. Realistic cop drama - check. Multi-POV format - check. Alternating timelines - check. Snark - check. When something is that dead center in your alley, you're sometimes a harsher judge than if you're pushing your reading comfort zone. No matter, Revolver knocks it out of the park.

May 7, 1965. Philly PD Officer Stan Walczak and his partner George Wildey don't go home at the end of the day. Shot down in cold blood in a corner bar while waiting for an informant, the murders haunt their families for generations.

May 7, 1995. Homicide Detective Jim Walczak is one of the haunted. Son of Stan, Jim is obsessed with the man he knows killed his father and George Wildey. The man is in prison on another charge but about to be set free. For decades Jim has dreamt of being able to look his father's killer in the eye. He's about to get his chance; the only question is what he'll do with it.

May 7, 2015. Audrey Kornbluth is a bit of a disaster, in no small part due to the ripples from the waves that first capsized her family back in 1965. Daughter of Jim, Audrey is the black sheep of the family. A hard-drinking, tattooed, foul-mouthed (i.e., in Duane's hands, fairly delightful) forensics student in Texas, Audrey has strained relationships with her cop brothers and her parents. Audrey is particularly confounded by her father, who she hasn't seen in three years, calls "the Captain" and describes as "an emotionless golem."

On the 50th anniversary of her grandfather's murder, Audrey reluctantly returns home for a ceremony dedicating memorial plaques to Stan and George. Feeling angry and out of place even with her family, Audrey gets the brilliant (i.e., destined to stir up major shit) idea to solve her grandfather's murder as her long overdue graduate school independent project. Of course, the more people -- including her own family -- fight her efforts, the more determined she becomes.

Via these three timelines, Swierczynski brings to life a family hit hard by life and legacy, a city mired in racial tension that may or may not have had something to do with Stan and George's deaths, and a troubled young woman bound and determined to set a few things right, even if she doesn't fully recognize the depths of her mission.

I'm a sucker for a multi-timeline work, and Duane does a great job with that format in Revolver. He weaves the three disparate decades together such that you know where you are in each arc and yet in many ways they are all set in the same place and time. Philly comes out in full color (or maybe stark black and white, Philly feels like it would always be in black and white) to tie all of the decades and characters together in a tight knot.

Part mystery, part procedural, part character study, social study and family drama, Revolver is a dark and gritty love story about a family, a city, legacy and what it is to be a cop. This is sure to be one of my favorite reads of the year. Philadelphia Police Officer Joseph T. Swierczynski (1892-1919) would be proud.

STREET SENSE:  I highly recommend Revolver to everyone who enjoys a good crime story, thick with history, that doesn't short-change on character or place. Although I had small issues with one minor plot point and Audrey could be a bit over the top at times (which is also what made her such a stand-out character), I loved this book unabashedly.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  And there he is, bold as day. His father's killer steps out of the halfway house, fists shoved into the pockets of a fleece jacket. The weird thing is, he looks nothing like the mug shot Jim knows in vivid detail (obsesses over). The guy in the mug shot looks feral, ready to punch you in the gut as soon as say hello. But this later, post-prison version is just a skinny old man, walking down Erie Avenue with his head hung like there are invisible weights attached to his forehead, presumably headed for the El so he can ladle out chicken noodle to the less fortunate.

COVER NERD SAYS: This cover is perfect. It evokes historical fiction and police procedural to a T. It might not give a clue about the deep character work inside, but anyone who is interested in stories based on cops and police work won't be able to resist this one anyway. I love the sepia tint and the stark fonts. Great work.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS :: B.A. Paris

Grace would rather not spend her life alone, but she's been having trouble finding the right man to share her life. Her devotion to her sister Millie, who has Down syndrome, always seems to be a deal-breaker. Then Grace meets Jack Angel. Jack, who has movie star good looks and charisma to burn, is a star attorney who represents battered women and has never lost a case.

Grace can't believe her luck. Not only is Jack crazy about her, but he loves Millie as well, and doesn't blink an eye at Grace's plan for Millie to move in with them once she turns 18 and is done at boarding school. After a whirlwind courtship, Jack and Grace marry and move into the dream house Jack built for their family, including a special bedroom just for Millie.

The Angels settle into their perfect lives and from the outside all appears well. But what if it wasn't luck that brought Jack into Grace and Millie's lives? And isn't their 'perfect' relationship just a little too 'perfect' to be believed?

Behind Closed Doors is a steam train of a psychological thriller. I can't remember the last time I wanted to stay up way past my bedtime to finish a book. If I hadn't started this one so late in the morning, I would have made it. Paris does a great job of making the pieces of this thriller fit together.

All too often, a psychological or "domestic thriller" will leave me rolling my eyes at one partner's choices or actions. While some pushing of the envelope is often necessary to keep the story moving, Paris does a good job of at least providing rationale, however warped, for her characters' actions, even when they fall in the "What the hell?" column.

STREET SENSE: Along alternating timelines, Grace and Jack's past and present unfold, winding together and building anticipation for a final confrontation. Behind Closed Doors is a riveting thriller that may keep you up into the wee hours.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: I almost didn't pick one, as it was difficult to be non-spoilery, and this book isn't after unique or dreamy turns of phrase. Paris simply motors through in a manner that keeps you turning the pages. But I thought this one added a little something without giving much away:

I'm beginning to despair of anyone ever questioning the absolute perfectness of our lives and, whenever we are with friends, I marvel at their stupidity in believing that Jack and I never argue, that we agree about absolutely everything, that I, an intelligent thirty-two-year-old woman with no children, could be content to sit at home all day and play house.

COVER NERD SAYS: It's not just that I'm a wood nerd that makes me a fan of this cover. I love a clean image that is somewhat mysterious, and this one is that. It's simple, and yet the image along with the title can leave no doubt what this book will bring, and it brings it with gas. I also love the tag line, which is just big enough to add to the cover without being distracting. If I had to pick nits, I'm not sure why the light from the keyhole is necessary (if that's even what that flare is supposed to be). I think a dark keyhole would have been even more effective. Overall, though, this is a winner.

ALL THE BRIDGES BURNING :: Neliza Drew

"Sometimes we don't have a choice. Even when we want one."

Neliza Drew's debut novel, All the Bridges Burning, is aptly titled. I have great appreciation for an author who doesn't shy from the dark places and isn't afraid to simply burn everything to the ground. Not that everything started out peaches and cream for Drew's protagonist, Davis Groves. Just the opposite. She and her two sisters grew up in a hostile, abusive environment.

Davis eventually got out, knowing she had to do so to save what remained of her mind and body. She thought she and her sister Nik left younger sister Lane in as good a position as possible, despite the fact Lane is still living with their unstable addict mother. In the time she's been away, Davis has continued working to make herself as invulnerable as possible, at least on the outside.

When she learns Lane has been arrested for killing a man, Davis is drawn back "home" to do what she feels she failed to do previously--save her sister. What she finds is an angry teen she doesn't recognize, a mother who insists Davis is dead, and years of ghosts, good and bad, coming out of the woodwork to throw wrenches in her works.

Davis has a powerful yet obviously damaged voice that seethes with authenticity. When you find yourself feeling (and wondering) how much of a story is autobiographical (either through self-experience or as a witness), you know an author has crossed into fearlessness and vulnerability.

Knowing things and being able to write them effectively are two different things. Drew is a second-degree black belt (maybe higher by the time I write this). Proficient as she is physically, describing an action scene is a very distinct and difficult task. In All the Bridges Burning, Drew proves she has a black belt with the written word. Her action scenes are tight, realistically brief, and non-fanciful. Her combatants suffer from their acts and don't miraculously recover with a little spit and polish.

Likewise, Drew's writing feels deeply on point when she's addressing difficult issues, whether through dialogue or exposition. She is able to channel her experience with troubled youth onto the page without missing a beat or moving into cliche. Even beyond the story itself, reading Drew's work is both enjoyable and an immersion into raw emotion that feels aptly uncomfortable.

As Davis takes on her past in order to save Lane, the story bends and twists and adds characters such that you need to pay attention. It all comes together, while leaving room for Drew to revisit Davis from a multitude of perspectives. Other than a flashback sex scene that took me out of the narrative for a moment, I was sucked in by Drew's writing from start to finish.

STREET SENSE:  All the Bridges Burning is an emotional and gritty debut that brings to life a female protagonist with plenty of edges to explore. Davis is authentic and multi-dimensional, wounded and fierce. This is crime fiction strong on character and I look forward to learning more about Davis Groves.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: Unfortunately, Adobe Digital Editions decided to eat all my highlights, of which there were plenty. Drew has a great voice, and more than one turn of phrase had me re-reading. Thankfully, I wrote a few down, so I'm just going to go ahead and share those.

The opening sucked me right in:

The first time I saw someone die, I was almost thirteen years old and still naive enough to hope our mother, Charley, would keep us safe.

And this:

After he left, I sat in the car and looked at my hands. There was blood there no one else could see. A lot of it was mine.

In one scene, Davis is being patched up after a fight. Her friend Craig is applying bandages on fresh wounds, not commenting on "the melted whorls in the shape of a stove burner that refused to disappear."

I loved Davis's description of a public defender:

...a small man with a neck like a turtle who looked like he'd take any opportunity to duck down into his brown suit jacket and refuse to return.

And these of herself:

In my experience, sometimes people had personalities that just lent themselves to eventual execution or accidental death. Many would argue I was one of them.

The normal me I'd tried so hard to be had peeled away, like a costume left on the floor after a night of Halloween partying.

COVER NERD SAYS:  This cover is something special, because despite really being pretty far outside my wheelhouse, I kinda fell in love with it on sight. I love the color palette, and the images and text all fit together perfectly.

THE MAN WHO MADE THINGS OUT OF TREES :: Robert Penn

Those of you who didn't just meet me yesterday know I took one look at the gorgeous cover of Robert Penn's The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees and went all Muppet arms, threw a huge clot, picked my aged bones up off the floor and put on my wily hat in an attempt to get a copy to feature on the blog. If this site has two themes they are violence and woodworking (I do try to keep the two separate). Look at this beautiful thing. I don't know how anyone could resist the outside, but what about the content? Fear not and read on.

The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees is something of a love story written about the ash tree. Which, as you will learn in this ode to the ash, is a pretty amazing tree. As Penn notes, "I can't remember as a child ever making the connection between the tree and many of the things I loved." How many of us do as children? Or perhaps even as adults? It's never too late to learn and appreciate, and Penn's delightful prose and engaging writing style provide the perfect tools for learning. It's all about picking the right tool for the job. Penn's got 'em.

The almost exhaustive use of ash wood throughout history is mind-boggling. Penn's adult love of the versatile ash led him to undertake a search for the perfect tree to fell and have made into as many different items as possible. Nothing other than using every last part of that tree would do it justice. I admit I was at first a bit dismayed to discover Penn was not going to be making things from the tree himself. But once I read on, my grin grew wider and wider and didn't stop until my face hurt and I hit the last page and cried for more.

Penn does not do the selecting alone. He does not fell the tree alone. He does not do the milling or shaping or lathing. What he does do, as it turns out, is even more fabulous. Penn takes his ash to some of the finest woodworkers in the UK and beyond, and at each stop he delves into the lore of the craftsman he's visiting. Each is as fascinating as the last - a tool handle manufacturer, a wheelwright, a bowl turner, and a medieval bow and arrow maker to name a few. Penn also ventures to Austria for a first class toboggan (taking his ash with him to be steamed, bent and jointed into a sled) and to the infamous Louisville Slugger plant in the United States.

Penn is wonderfully adept at taking the reader with him. I could smell the shops, picture the craftsmen and their tools, and nearly feel the grain as they worked. Wood nerds, tool geeks and history buffs, this book is your nirvana.

Just a few of the fascinating tidbits I learned:

• Some historians believe tree ownership issues were as instrumental in bringing about the American Revolution as those relating to tea taxation

• Steam-bending of wood dates back to at least 2000 B.C.

• Achilles's spear was made of ash

• An arrow's feathers need to be from the same wing for it to fly true

• A bow from the Middle Ages could be drawn by only a handful of people today. Middle Age folks were studly, able to hold what amounts to a weight of 90-160 pounds out on the end of a straight arm

• No other tree species is more commonly used or referenced in geographical locations (take that, oak and elm)

• The Morgan Motor Company still uses ash in the manufacture of its boutique sports cars

I could go on ad nauseam (some may argue I already have), but I loved this book so much I want to sing its praises from the highest branch of the nearest ash tree. I swear I have a book dart on just about every other page of this gem. While reading, I felt as if I was sitting around a campfire listening to a wise elder share the mythology of the world through wood and craftsmen. To top it off, Penn has a great sense of humor (as does his wife; see favorite passage below) and the soul of a poet and I swear he would also make great crime writer:

Someone had described hurling to me as a cross between hockey and homicide: I thought it was more like ballet on crack cocaine.

There were a dozen ash trees together, like a family, near a brook. The bark on all of them had fissured. They were mainly straight. One had the faint, graceful, feminine sweep so distinctive of ash, like a slim-hipped femme fatale in a floor-length cocktail dress.

Ash wood is pinkish white and disturbingly like human skin when freshly sawn.

Perhaps Penn's next work will be a bit of crime fiction featuring some of the forty-four different types of items/uses Penn found for his ash tree. Not a cell of Penn's ash went to waste, nor does he waste any words. Despite the technical or scientific nature of some of the information being shared, I was never anywhere close to bored or disinterested. This one is going to be high on my "Best of" charts for this year, no doubt. And my next project? It's going to be made from ash.

STREET SENSE: If you're not convinced by now, there's not much I can say here to persuade you. What's not to like about trees, wood, craftsmanship, history, great stories and humor?

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  A few, because the rules are mine and while not as much fun to break, I've gotta stay in shape:

The more I understood about the process, the less Phill spoke. The afternoon passed in a gentle sea of timeless, elemental sounds: the rhythmical rasp of the hand planer as the wood yielded to Phill's wishes; the ringing crack of the mallet; the scrape of Phill's pencil on wood; the plunk of ash touching oak; the caw of the spokeshave on the felloes; and the hiss of sandpaper turning dry ash to dust.

Each swing of the axe is like turning the page of a book; it opens a new part of the tree, and elicits a little bit more information about the tree's life: V-shaped and ellipsoid figures, curly grain, ray flecks, dimples, tight knots, loose knots, bark pockets and staining from diverse fungi might all show for the first time when a log is split open.

And the last because it made me laugh out loud and fall completely in love with this book on page 13. This from Penn's wife upon learning about his plan to find a tree and use 100% of it:

She looked unimpressed. Her eyebrows arched. "Do you know a wheelwright?" she asked. "Do you know a toboggan-maker or even a bowl-turner? Do they still exist? This is the beginning of the twenty-first century, not the middle of the fifteenth. And don't you need to know a great deal about timber? I can see a large pile of very expensive firewood at the end of this venture. Perhaps there'll be enough wood left over to make the coffin you're going to bury yourself in." I decided not to mention the idea again. Nor did I say she had hit on the one thing I would not be making from my ash: elm was traditionally used for coffins.

COVER NERD SAYS:  JUST LOOK AT IT. Genius.

LISTEN TO ME :: Hannah Pittard

"At so many times of the day, we expose ourselves to chance."

It's that chance, the possibility of being touched by violence, that keeps Maggie wrapped in a cocoon of fear. Assaulted by a homeless man nine months ago, she has almost worked her way back to "normal" when she gets news of another violent attack on her street and retreats even deeper into her debilitating malaise. She cuts her hours at work and starts hiding weapons in the house, all to the consternation of her husband, Mark.

As Hannah Pittard's Listen to Me begins, Mark, Maggie and their dog Gerome are leaving Chicago early for their annual road trip to Mark's parents home on the East Coast. Mark hopes the trip will straighten Maggie out; he's tired of living with the new Maggie. But the couple is heading into stormy territory, literally and figuratively, and their communication fluctuates between anger, understanding, disbelief, frustration, acceptance and back again.

Although it often felt as though nothing was happening (other than  Mark and Maggie arguing) on the surface, the undercurrents were moving about wildly. Mark doesn't understand why he seems to be losing his wife to the darkness, why she has become so obsessed with trolling the internet for tragic stories. For her part, Maggie can't get Mark to see her new reality or to deal with the violent state of the world as she sees it.

The threesome is driving into the largest storm of the season and surely the biggest test of their marriage. As they deal with their issues on the long car ride, the reader is WAITING for something to happen. All the portents of disaster are there, waiting to hit them, to prove Maggie right, and the anticipation is fed to the reader by Pittard throughout the long drive.

The trip often felt bogged down in repetitive arguments between husband and wife; this is the story of a marriage, not a straight-up thriller. I never considered putting the book down (I'm a big fan of Pittard's work), but I was getting restless. Only when the story came to a close did I really appreciate the trip I had been on through the first three-quarters of the novel. I then realized how I'd been sucked into and become a participant in it. In some ways Pittard manipulated me masterfully, and I loved her for it. Not all readers might feel this way after being in the car that long with a couple so at odds, and I can see the tone and structure of the book being a bit polarizing.

A very interesting thing happened to me while reading this book. As a dog lover, I am always curious about people's dogs. I like to think it tells me something about them. So it drove me batshit insane that Pittard never described Gerome. I had no idea what kind of dog he was and that fact actually distracted me. It was only when I sat and thought about it that I realized I don't think Pittard ever really physically described Maggie or Mark, either. That hadn't even dawned on me while reading. Why was that different?

The only answer I can come up with is that by their actions and words I got the sense of who Maggie and Mark were. What they looked like wasn't a necessary element to their character. But because Gerome can't talk and was under the control of his owners, there was nothing to give me a sense of him. And hey, he was just a dog, so why did it matter? I don't know why it mattered, maybe just because I'm a dog geek, but it stood out like a flashing light to me. Weird?

STREET SENSE: Although violence swirls around every moment of this story, it really is more of a study of character and marriage. If you can hold on for the ultimate "reveal," this is a story worth digging into.

COVER NERD SAYS: This cover is fantastic, from the image to the font, but I'm not sure it accurately reflects the tone of the novel. It had me expecting more of a thriller, with the font almost evoking a bit of a horror or gothic element. While the book did have elements of those genres, I wouldn't classify it as such. Taken alone, I love the cover work. As a visual representation of the subject matter of the book, I don't think it's a perfect fit.

THE TRAP :: Melanie Raabe

"A trap is a device to trap or kill. A good trap should be two things: foolproof and simple."

Best-selling author Linda Conrads hasn't stepped outside her house in eleven years. Twelve years ago she discovered her sister stabbed to death, and her eyes met those of the murderer as he fled. When the investigation ultimately went cold, Linda retreated from the world.


More than a decade later, Linda sees the killer again. Determined to bring him to justice yet unable to leave home, she decides to lure him into an elaborate trap she designs by writing a book mirroring her sister's murder and the investigation that followed. Using herself as bait is risky, since Linda is certain the killer knows she saw him leave the scene. 

Alternating between Linda's first-person narrative and the chapters of her book, The Trap is a fun, engaging read that flows well despite getting a bit bogged down by repetition in Linda's head as she obsesses over the murder and her plans to solve it. At times the story felt like a twisted game of cat-and-mouse, at others a game taking place only in the head of a really unstable cat.

I'm a sucker for the book-within-a-book format, and this is one done well. As Linda's preparation for her showdown with the killer progresses, so does the prior investigation (as depicted in Linda's book). As Linda's mental state is called into question, so is everything about what she has written. As Linda admits, "I've been living in a hall of mirrors that have distorted everything in my life." Is what Linda has written the truth about her sister's murder, or just what she wants to remember?

Part of what made The Trap enjoyable was wondering who to believe and when. As a lifelong storyteller, Linda begins to wonder, along with the reader, if she hasn't simply come to believe a story she's been telling herself for years. Despite one loose thread that nagged at me, Raabe brought both stories (her sister's murder and her present day efforts to bring the killer to justice) to a satisfying conclusion.

STREET SENSE:  The Trap is an entertaining summer read with a unique premise that doesn't feel too heavy despite the subject matter. If you're a sucker for the book-within-a-book format, this is one to put on your wish list.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:   People think it's hard not to leave your house for over a decade. They think it's easy to go out. And they're right; it is easy to go out. But it's also easy not to go out. A few days soon become a few weeks; a few weeks become months and years. That sounds like an immensely long time. But it's only ever one more day strung on to those that have gone before.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I fell in love with this cover immediately. I'm a sucker for dark photographic elements, and this image appeals to be even standing alone. I appreciate the plain font and the ratio between the title and the author type size. You can still read Raabe's name, but the differential leaves room for the two plot blurbs. I'm not usually a fan of such tools, but I think in this instance it works extremely well. If you can resist those plot hints, you're a stronger reader than I.