Critical Mass, by Sara Paretsky

I love a good mystery. There, I said it. Give me a mystery with believable characters, believable plot that winds its way through the story rather than taking a short-cut from point A to point B, add crisp dialogue and clean writing, and there's a good chance I'll read straight through to the last line. Add a strong female character, and I'm hooked enough to want more. For these reasons, I love Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski mysteries.

If, like me, you've read through from the first novel (Indemnity Only) through to the latest offerings, you know that Ms. Paretsky has not kept Vic as a static person: Vic ages, has relationships that last through several books, updates her cars as needed, as happens in real life. She also works for herself as a Private Investigator; the mysteries deal with these.

Critical Mass deals with Vic's friend and mentor Lottie Hershel's past.

When Lottie calls to say a childhood playmate's daughter is in trouble, V.I. springs into action. Lottie and Kitty escaped the Holocaust together as children; however, the two have drifted apart. When Kitty's daughter calls Lottie, fearing for her life, she trusts that Lottie will try to save her; the doctor responds by sending Vic. The trail leads Vic to a remote area, and nearly costs her her life as she deals with drug dealers, crooked cops, and people paranoid over industrial theft.

Interspersed are flashbacks to Lottie and Kitty's past, first in Nazi Germany, then to the U.S., giving the reader probably one of the best glimpses to Lottie's past of any of the V.I. Warshawski books.

When Vic finds Judy - Kitty's daughter - she realizes that what looks like paranoia may be caused by someone trying to kill Judy - someone who does kill Kitty. The group responsible for Kitty's death is also trying to find Judy's son Martin, a science whiz who is trying desperately trying to uncover his family's past.

This is not the first V.I. Warshawski book to bring up Lottie's escape from Nazi Germany; Total Recall also touched on this back-story. However, Critical Mass dives deeper into the past while tackling a current problem. While it becomes obvious that answers won't fall into place until Kitty's grandson, Martin, is found, Vic isn't able to find him until the last few chapters.

While Vic still lives in Chicago, much of the action takes place away from the city; in fact, the book opens away from the city, with Vic looking through a drug den in the middle of nowhere, which felt a little disconcerting. Considering the story-line, though, it fit in perfectly.

In the end, though, Critical Mass is a thoroughly good read. For those who have followed and enjoyed Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski, this is a must read. For anyone who has yet to dive into the series, this is a good book to try.

Before And After Zachariah, by Fern Kupfer

Before and After Zachariah by Fern Kupfer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Fern and Joseph Kupfer decided to have a second child, they had no idea how that decision would affect their lives, as well as that of their daughter, Gaby. In Before And After Zachariah, Fern describes Zachariah's failure to accomplish even the simplest tasks: walking, sitting, crawling, even holding his head up.

As an infant, Zachariah was breath-takingly beautiful: long lashes, blond hair. The book's cover shows a sleeping baby (Zach) with his parents and older sister. However, it soon because obvious that he was severely developmentally delayed. At one point, Joe was visiting his mother, who was dying of cancer, when Fern called after a visit to a hospital with Zach; the doctors where baffled by what was causing Zach's problems. Fern was an emotional wreck over the lack of a diagnosis. Fern describes the phone call with Joe as the worse case scenario, likening it to an over-turned boat: who do you save, your mother or your wife?

The couple go from doctor to doctor, parent-meetings, groups meant to help developmentally delayed children, any place that offers a shred of hope, to no avail. In the end, they place Zach in an attempt to save their own lives as well as Gaby's.

I had originally read Before And After Zachariah years ago, then recently reread it. The newer copy of the book has two epilogues. The first was written several years after the book first came out, then a second one in 1998. The epilogues tie up the loose ends, telling what eventually happened to Zachariah, to her marriage to Joseph, to Gaby, and how Zachariah's live affected all off them, as well as their extended family and friends.

Before And After Zachariah is a good read, and a book that should be read. For the reader who has never had experience with a child or sibling with developmental delays, this will give insight to one family's struggles, while those readers with this experience will find themselves nodding, thinking yes, yes, that's it exactly! If you're wondering what non-fiction book to check out, this one gets my vote.

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The Lost Wife, by Alyson Richman

"I know you from somewhere," Josef says to the woman he has just been introduced to at his grandson's wedding. Both Josef and Lenka - the bride's grandmother - are the young couple's last grandparent.

"You must be mistaken," Lenka replies, not wanting to appear rude, but wanting to concentrate on her granddaughter's wedding. However, the exchange continues for several minutes, letting the reader know that something almost magical is up, until the older couple finally realizes the truth: "'Lenka,it's me,' he said. 'Josef. Your husband.'"

So begins Alyson Richman's The Lost Wife. While the first two chapters, as well as the final chapters and epilogue are set in modern New York, the majority of the book is set in Europe during World War II. The novel introduces us to the young Lenka and Josef, both of whom live with their families. Josef is the older brother of one of Lenka's schoolmates. Against the backdrop of war and the Nazi march across Europe, Lenka and Josef fall in love, even as both families worry about whether to leave their homes. (Both families are Jewish, so staying a step or two ahead of the Nazis is a real concern.)

At one point, Josef's family is able to secure passage out of the country. He proposes to Lenka, with the understanding that since they will then be married, she will be able to accompany his family. Lenka is under the impression that her birth family may also be included in this escape. After the hurried wedding and very brief honeymoon, Lenka discovers that her family can't come right away with her new husband's family, and she opts to stay, with the understanding that she will meet up with Josef and his family once they are safely settled. However, the boat that Josef's family is on sinks; the reports state that the entire family are among the missing and presumed dead.

Shortly afterwards, Lenka and her family are rounded up with other local Jews and sent to concentration camps. While most of her family perishes, Lenka manages to survive the torments of the camps, even after ending up at Auschwitz.

When the prisoners at Auschwitz are liberated, Lenka is still alive. One of the American soldiers, Carl, takes her under his wing, falling in love with her. Lenka, who still believes that she is widowed, eventually marries Carl, who brings her to the United States. While she feels affection and gratitude towards Carl, it is not the same passionate love she had with Josef.

Meanwhile, Josef has made it to the United States, having survived the boat wreck that killed the rest of his family. He, too, remarries, believing that Lenka has died in the camps.

The last few chapters fast forward from the horrors of WWII to the present, where both Lenka and Josef are waiting for their grandchildren to marry, unaware of the surprise awaiting them at the wedding.

The backdrop of this book has the potential to depress the reader, and in many ways, it is heart wrenching when one realizes that while this is a novel, the reality of The Lost Wife was played out in millions of lives. In fact, many entire families were snuffed out in the concentration camps of WWII. But the story of these two people who loved each other and who thought for the majority of their lives that the other was dead, only to discover each other during the wedding of their grandchildren, is a beautiful story that will take the reader along time and again.

Will Love for Crumbs, by Jonna Ivin

Will Love For Crumbs by Jonna Ivin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Will Love For Crumbs, by Jonna Ivin is an interesting memoir of a woman whose life was anything but easy. Raised by an alcoholic mother (her father disappeared when she was young), Ivin and a boyfriend get a house so that they can care for her now aging mother. However, when her mother dies, Ivin and her boyfriend split up.

Ivin becomes a volunteer with the Red Cross, helping to clean up an area hit by a hurricane. It is while doing this that she meets Chris, a charming man with more stories than substance. Ivin and Chris soon become involved. At first, she feels that he is the love of her life; it soon becomes apparent that he is the man she should have run from.

Compelling and, at times, almost frightening, the reader roots for Ivin, hoping she will become strong enough to leave. Does she? Read and find out...

The only real down side to this book is that it ends too abruptly. If one is looking for a happily-ever-after book, the ending might disappoint, in that we don't know whether she ever finds Mr. Right. But then, this is real life.

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River of Hidden Dreams, by Connie May Fowler

River of Hidden Dreams by Connie May Fowler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some writers have a knack of weaving a story that draws a reader in so seamlessly that it's difficult to put the book down. That is what Connie May Fowler did with River of Hidden Dreams. Her second novel, published in 1994, River of Hidden Dreams is the story of Sadie Hunter, a forty-something woman whose past haunts her, keeping her captive, even as she keeps Carlos, her passionate Cuban lover, at arm's length.

As a child, Sadie lived on the boat that her Mulatto grandfather built with her mother and Cherokee grandmother. Years after her women die, dancing, during a storm, Sadie is back living on the boat, giving tourists rides while spinning stories of her history. Even as she is afraid to let anyone close, fearing another unbearable loss, Carlos, a man who has experienced his own heartache, loves her, helping her to finally face her demons in order to heal.

Weaving Sadie's voice with those of her mother and grandparents into a beauty story, River of Hidden Dreams is a story that will haunt the reader well after the book is finished.

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Wild: From Lost To Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many of us have, at one time or another, wondered what we would do if we had several months of free time. I had thought it might be interesting to walk the Appalacian Trail; Cheryl Strayed decided, instead, to walk the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), which she chronicled in her memori Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

In her early twenties, Strayed went through a rough several years: the death of her mother to a recently diagnosed cancer, the slow drifting away from her step-father and siblings, and the end of her first marriage. Needing to get away and find her center, Strayed decided to hike the PCT, a feat made even more remarkable when one considers that she had not hiked any distance prior to starting out.

Wild is, for the most part, an intense, quick read. The beginning of the book describes her mother's relatively sudden death after an advanced cancer diagnosis and how Strayed cares for her mother is slightly reminiscent of parts of Anna Quindlen's novel One True Thing. While this section seemed to drag a little, as well as the break-up of Strayed's marriage, both sections are needed to help the reader understand her state of mind and why she felt the need to get out and hike the PCT. Her descriptions of the trail, the people she meets along the trail - who are somewhat few and far between and predominantly men - and the sense of peace the hike gave her make the book an interesting read.

There were only a few places in the book that, I felt, Strayed could have condensed. One place was when she and her brothers had to put down her late mother's old, sick horse, Lady. It was obviously quite traumatic for Strayed. However, she goes into way more detail of the horse's death than is necessary. Also, near the end of the book, she met up with a man working at a bar who she got to know very intimately during the few days they were together. That section, too, could have been condenses; suffice it to say that what she's written of the encounter would have made a fantastic erotic short story. Then there's the heroin experimentation. Those three sections - or, rather, the elaboration in those three sections - make Wild questionable for very young or very sensitive readers.

This is not to say that the book should be ignored. It is, for the most part, a truly amazing memoir, one that should be read more than once.

View all my reviews Note: To read my review about two books on hiking the Appalacian Trail, click here. There, you'll read aboutAWOL On The APpalachian Trail, by David Miller, and Dennis Blanchard's Three Hundred Zeros.

Kidowed, by Jessica Kenley

Kidowed by Jessica Kenley


What would you do if you outlived your children? How would this affect you? In Kidowed, Jessica Kenley tells how the death of her two children to a rare genetic disease affected her.

Kenley had planned to divorce her husband of two years when she discovers she's pregnant with their son. After Ethan's birth, Kenley learns that her son has epidermolysis bullosa, a disease that affects his skin. According to www.debra.org, approximately 200 children a year are born with e.b.; the disease can range anywhere from mild to extremely severe. Ethan dies from the disease. Not long afterwards, Kenley becomes pregnant with her daughter, Kaylee, who also dies from e.b.

The first half of the book deals mainly with Kayley's life and death, both singly as in comparison to Ethan's life with the disease, while the second half deals with how Kenley copes with the after-effects of her children's deaths.

Jessica Kenley's family and her sense of humor both help her through the dark days of dealing with her children's illness and the after-effects where she tries getting her life back together. Early on, Kenley writes, "I got married. Two years later, right after we had decided to get a divorce, I found out I was pregnant. Whoops." She and her husband, "who we'll refer to as 'Bobo the sperm guy,'" split up the month before Ethan is born. (She also writes that Joy, her therapist, has told her that "anger is my biggest issue. Who knew?") She also gives most people nicknames, rather than their real names, such as Bobo (her ex-), her friend "Nice," and her Aunt "Sweetheart."

When Kaylee dies, half-way through the book, the reader is left to wonder how Kenley can fill another half a book without her children. While she writes how she falls apart on various levels, and how she attempts to cope, Kenley could have drastically shortened the second half of the book. It was almost as though there were two books - before the deaths, and after them. However, there were several places in the second half that I had to scan to keep from putting the book down completely, places where Kenley could have drastically condensed what she was going through in an effort to assuage the pain of her children's deaths.

In the end, though, Kenley writes a sympathetic memoir about the pain of her children's death.

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