Thu Feb 09 2012
Three recent novels involve questions of identity.
"Think Twice" by Lisa Scottoline is a thriller about identical twin sisters, separated at birth: a good twin versus a bad twin. One is a successful lawyer in Philadelphia (fans of Scottoline will recognize Bennie Rosato). The other (Alice) is only good at getting in trouble.
The book wastes no time getting down to business, with a pretty intense action-filled sequence -- and a bit of violence: "It's a box. Am I in a box? ... It couldn't be. ... She told herself not to panic. The air felt close. She squinted against the darkness, but it was absolute. ... The top was sealed. There was nothing inside the box. No air, food, water. No hole to breathe through. ... It wasn't a dream, it was real." With the good twin in the box and assumed dead, Alice assumes Bennie's identity. Will she get away with it? Will the good twin's friends and co-workers be able to tell it isn't the same woman? How about her boyfriend? or her dog? Meanwhile, will Bennie somehow escape from her prison? Will she survive? "Maybe any one of us, pushed to the brink, is capable of evil," says one of the characters.
It's one of Scottoline's trademark nail-biters -- made more frustrating because the reader knows the truth throughout the page-turner and the characters don't -- and it's spiced with a bit of humor in the form of eccentric neighbors and relatives. There's even a "witch queen" who runs around putting curses on people. Credit Scottoline, as always, with some pretty ingenious plot points (even though a couple of them require the reader to just trust the author, suspend disbelief, and go along with the story). Make sure you've fed the pets and disconnected the phone, because once you start this one, you won't want to be disturbed.
In "The Double Comfort Safari Club" by Alexander McCall Smith, Mma Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana must identify an unnamed camp guide who has been left a bit of money in the will of a wealthy American woman. He was very helpful to her when she visited a safari camp on the edge of the river at the Okavango Delta, a camp that "bore the name of a bird or animal." So Mma Ramotswe and her terrified assistant, Mma Makutsi, head for the wild country near the river, where deadly hippos, crocodiles, snakes, lions, leopards and elephants are likely to appear at any time. And that is just one of the problems confounding the ladies of the detective agency. There are strange goings-on that lead to questions of marital infidelity; a horrible accident injures the fiancé of Mma Makutsi, and his bullying aunt makes life very difficult indeed; and an old adversary turns up in a very surprising way.
But mostly there's the wonderful Mma Ramotswe, around whom everything revolves. She gives us her take on social values ("That was the curious thing about Botswana; even when people were rude -- and some degree of human rudeness was inevitable -- they were rude in a fairly polite way") and on the joys of living in her beloved Africa (she says that in the wind from the Kalahari Desert she could smell "a fragrant mixture of dryness and emptiness and waving grass").
I adore these books. They feature mysteries, but they aren't like whodunits; there's so much going on that a reader could revisit them again and again. The characters and situations are so fresh, so out of the realm of anything we're used to encountering in the mystery genre. The gentle humor just sort of keeps drifting to the top and making me smile. And this one, the 11th in the series, made me laugh out loud several times. (As they head for the river, the rather large Mma Ramotswe tells her assistant she couldn't swim but she could float: " 'It was very pleasant. I did not have to move my arms -- I just floated. ... It was good to discover that I could do a sport after all.' Mma Makutsi was not certain that floating could be called a sport. Was there a Botswana floating team? She thought not. What would such a team do? Would they have to float gently from one point to another, with the winner being the one who arrived first? Surely not.") I loved it! In fact, I believe this book is my favorite of the series so far. It could restore your faith in human nature, and you'll begin to believe there is no problem in life that can't be solved by a kind, generous, traditionally built lady from Botswana and a nice pot of red bush tea.
In "The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag" by Alan Bradley, finding the identity of a killer is only one of the challenges facing Flavia de Luce in this second mystery featuring the delightfully precocious 11-year-old. Events are set in the English countryside in 1950. Flavia and her two cruel older sisters live with their father on his estate, Buckshaw, in the village of Bishop's Lacey. The village is filled with colorful, quirky characters.
One of the freshest and most interesting mystery-solvers around, young Flavia straddles a bizarre line between child genius and juvenile delinquent. She has a natural bent toward chemistry and has taken over her Uncle Tarquin's chemistry lab. There she frequently carries out experiments and complicated pranks against her vile sisters, who do hateful things such as telling Flavia they've voted her out of the family. She also loves making scrapbooks, only hers are filled with news articles about famous criminal poisoners.
When a popular entertainer comes to the village and is talked into putting on a puppet show, tragedy strikes, and Flavia is the first to ascertain that a murder has taken place. She goes on -- having to work around the local constabulary, who make the mistake of thinking she's an "ordinary" child -- to solve the crime. And she also solves another, much older village mystery. I had a little more fun with the first book -- the wonderful "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" -- but I thoroughly enjoyed this second visit with Flavia.
Copyright © 2010 by Mary Louise Ruehr. Find book news and more online at www.recordpub.com; click "News" in the menu bar, then "Lifetimes," and find "One for the Books" or visit my blog at http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light; Twitter @One4TheBooks.
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BOOK NOTES, One for the Books Extra Online
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Follow me on Twitter @One4TheBooks.
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Check out my blog on books, inspiration, fun and thought-provoking goodies! It’s called “Shine A Light!”
http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/
If you lose that link, go to www.recordpub.com. Click “Blogs” in the blue bar at the top of the page, and find “Shine A Light.”
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For best-seller lists and more book news, go to:
http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4824577
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Here are links to other recent One for the Books columns. More links are available on my blog at http://blogs.dixcdn.com/shine_a_light/one-for-the-books/
Lives of Real Women -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4817982
A Bit of Southern Hospitality -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4813799
Marriage -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4805797
Politicians Behaving Badly -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4796121
A Vicarious Vacation in Ireland -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4786929
Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4768003
Keep It Short! -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4758011
The “Dome” Tome and “U” -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4753011
Revisiting Jane Austen -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4743712
Fun Christmas Reading -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4727452
Palin-Tology -- http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4718844
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Thanks for reading One for the Books. Please let us know what kind of book news you’d like to see on this page. Send e-mail to Books@recordpub.com. Send other mail to Mary Louise Ruehr, Books Editor, Record-Courier, 126 N. Chestnut St. (P.O. Box 1201), Ravenna, OH 44266.
“One for the Books” appears the second and fourth Fridays of the month in the Record-Courier. Extra columns may appear on occasion, especially preceding Christmas and Hanukkah.
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