No Such Creature by Giles Blunt

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Random House (Oct. 14, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0679314318
ISBN-13: 978-0679314318

I've read every book Giles Blunt has written and loved them all. No Such Creature is a departure from his award winning John Cardinal police mystery series. Even his first novel, Cold Eye, which is also a stand alone, had some chilling intrigue and great psychological insights. I can highly recommend them all. But No Such Creature, though well written and interesting to a point is a weak entry in this writer's oeuvre for me. I just didn't feel very attached to the characters and I don't think it's because they are all criminals.

Young Owen was tragically orphaned at nine and groomed to a life of summertime crime by his uncle Max who raised him. We do want to see the boy get away from all the dangers of this lifestyle, especially when a poor choice ends in their being pursued by infamously brutal mobsters. Old Max likes to quote Shakespeare and Owen likes to imagine they're like Robin Hood because his uncle insists on robbing only rich Republicans. If it sounds funny, it is to some degree but there is some terrible violence too, which makes for a dark story at times, though the tale does ends in a somewhat hopeful way.

This is a coming of age story for Owen, who at eighteen has begun to realize that the person he loves most in the world is most likely to lead him to harm. It's also a road trip with the hounds of hell on their tail. The pace is right and emotional attachments to family are something Blunt is always good at. I think after such powerful entries as Forty Words for Sorrow and By the Time You Read This, or even Blackfly Season, I was expecting too much from No Such Creature. And I was ill when I read it. So, though it's a reasonably good story for anyone not already familiar with Blunt's writing, I can only give it three and half stars. My recommendation is definitely read this man's works, but don't start with No Such Creature or you'll have the wrong impression. He's capable of, and usually serves up so much better.

His next book is already out and I can't wait to read it. Yes, I'm still in love with the man's writing and the way he thinks. Breaking Lorca is another departure for him, historical fiction set in El Salvador during the 1980s, and I suspect not for the faint of heart. A woman is detained in a government torture center and Blunt gives us "a terrifying journey into human cruelty and courage". Now all I need is for someone to send me a copy (big hint to his publicist).

Thank you to Random House Canada for the lovely hardcover copy and LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Giles Blunt's site.

Also reviewed at:

Book Reviews by Bobby

Any followers who comment before midnight Sunday August 2 may be entered in a draw for this book. Please indicate clearly that you do want to read it and that you are a follower.

*Edited: Winner was Upper West Side Writer.

Thursday Tea

Thursday Tea is a weekly feature hosted by Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog.

" To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the willingness to answer some very simple questions: What tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together."

The tea:

Yunnan Black Tea. Described on the packet thus: "Smooth, sweet honey flavour with an elegant flowery aroma. Highly prized by tea connoisseurs."

The book:

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin (2009) 235 pages HC

Set in Montreal and Cambodia during the 1970s, this love story plays out during the post Pol Pot era when Cambodia was getting back on its feet after terrible years of war and brutal oppression. The outside world was just discovering the extent of the deaths from the killing fields and democratic process was being promised but was not being delivered in any serious ways. Anne goes to Cambodia to find her boyfriend Serey after his return to his country and a silence of years that she has never been able to accept or understand. They were in love so what happened to him? Did he find any of his missing family? Is he even alive? Her heart tells her that he would never have deserted her if he could have returned to Canada. She will fight against a uncooperative bureaucracy that has much to hide, with nothing but her persistent love for this man. And she will find him but things do not always turn out quite the way we hope. A haunting tale, The Disappeared "is a remarkable consideration of language, truth, justice, and memory that speaks to the conscience of the world, and to love, even when those we love most are gone."

Do they go together?

A dark tea, Yunnan Black seemes appropriate to this story with its heartbreaking questions, deep loss and shadows of the past.

What are you drinking/reading today?

Previous Posts:

Library Loot

Haiku Friday

Review: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

More Thursday Tea

Coventry by Helen Humphreys

Coventry by Helen Humphreys

Fiction, Paperback 180 pgs.

Harper Collins

This was my first novel by Helen Humphreys. I have read her previous book, The Frozen Thames, which deserves its place as a #1 national bestseller in non-fiction. This woman certainly knows her history.

In deceptively simple language Humphreys here portrays the night of November 14, 1940 and the bombing of Coventry , England during World War Two. Harriet has been a widow since the First World War. Through her eyes we experience unending hours of destruction and terror, but there is kindness and love too. She starts out on fire watch on the roof of Coventry Cathedral, which does not survive, and ends up with Maeve who searches for her son throughout the city that is burning and reduced to rubble.

This is a novel with heart, a story of shared tragedy. So much is lost to the people of Coventry, life will never be the same for any of them. Humphreys' writing is beautiful, as when Maeve, rushing home from the bomb shelter hoping to find her son there, sees tin soldiers in formation on his bedroom windowsill and realizes that they are young Jeremy's " last station of childhood ". He had tried to enlist but was turned down because he is colour blind. He was on fire watch with Harriet and they spent some hours helping with the injured where they could and dodging falling incendiaries and collapsing buildings in an attempt to get home.

The details of the history are accurate and the novel ends with an epilogue about the dedication of the newly rebuilt cathedral some twenty years after the war. I wanted to begin reading this book again as soon as I'd finished it, not something that usually happens with me. I will be rereading it to enjoy the way language is used in the story, and I look forward to reading her other novels. A very satisfying read that I can recommend to everyone. Five stars.

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Thank you to Deanna at Harper Collins Canada for providing me with a review copy.

Other Harper Collins books I have enjoyed recently:

Breath**** by Tim Winton (Australia)
Day**** by A.L.Kennedy(UK)
Broken Colors**** by Michele Zackheim (US)
Skeletons at the Feast**** by Chris Bohjaian (US)
Atmospheric Disturbances**** by Rivka Galchen
The Letter Opener***+ by Kyo Maclear
The Line Painter**** by Claire Cameron
Run by Ann Patchett****
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett****
The Yiddish Policemen's Union**** by Michael Chabon

What We All Long For by Dionne Brand

Review and Giveaway

What We All Long For by Dionne Brand

St. Martin’s Griffin (November 25, 2008)

Fiction, Paperback 336 pgs.



This is a guest review written by Dawn of She is Too Fond of Books.

"They all…felt as if they inhabited two countries - their parents’ and their own - when they sat dutifully at their kitchen tables being regaled with how life used to be “back home,”…They thought that their parents had scales on their eyes. Sometimes they wanted to shout at them, “Well, you’re not there!”…Each left home in the morning as if making a long journey, untangling themselves from the seaweed of other shores wrapped around their parents. Breaking their doorways, they left the sleepwalk of their mothers and fathers and ran across the unobserved borders of the city…to arrive at their own birthplace…They were born in the city from people born elsewhere."

Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For is described as “a raw novel of bittersweet youthfulness.” Set in the spring of 2002, this is an amazing story of four second-generation Torontonians in their mid-twenties. They share a strong desire to break free from the past - from their parents’ view of the past which anchors them, and from their personal family stories which shape them.

The four main characters:

* - Tuyen - an installation artist who lives in a walk-up apartment she has converted to a work studio, returning to her parents’ home only when she is in desperate need of cash. Tuyen was born in Toronto after her family escaped Vietnam in 1980. In the chaos of the evacuation, Tuyen’s brother Quy (a young boy about 4 years old) went missing. Her life has been shaped by her parents’ fruitless long-distance search for him.

* - Carla - lives across the hall from Tuyen, and is the subject of her unrequited love. For reasons that are revealed as the story progresses, Carla feels responsible for her younger brother, who is often in trouble with the law. She has a strained relationship with her father, and an ambivalent attitude toward her step-mother.


* - Oku - a would-be poet and musician. At age 25, Oku mimes attending college, although he has recently dropped out of a Master’s program for English Literature. He is in love with Jackie, who teases him and flaunts her relationship with another man.


* - Jackie - she is probably the least-developed of the main characters, perhaps more of a place-holder for Oku’s love interest. Fifteen years earlier she took a train from Halifax to Toronto, where her parents promptly found low-income housing and started a routine of leaving her with neighbors to hit the clubs and dance and party the night away.

Brand doesn’t visit the Toronto of white-collar business and tourism; she explores the daily grind and the dark alleys of the city. These four and their companions spend nights drinking, smoking and hooking up. Slowly and carefully she reveals more and more of their personal histories as she follows them making their way in the present day. As the novel progresses, the four do indeed discover and confront what they each long for; we are left not with a neat and tidy ending, but with a faint hope for better times.

Interestingly, although the majority of the novel is told in third-person narration, there are several chapters narrated in the first-person by Quy, Tuyen’s missing brother. These chapters are left-justified only, leaving raw ragged edges on the right-hand side, which mirror the turbulent tale he tells.I found What We All Long For to be an engaging and unique work of fiction.

Author Dionne Brand was born and raised in Trinidad, moving to Canada at age 18 to attend Toronto University. She has won several awards for her poetry collection, Land to Light On; her novel In Another Place, Not Here was on the short-list for two awards. She has published one other novel, At the Full and Change of the Moon, and two works of non-fiction. What We All Long For was originally published in hardcover in 2005 and will be released in paperback by St. Martin’s Griffin imprint on November 25, 2008.

Thank you Dawn. She is Too Fond Of Books is Dawn's bookblog where she writes about both fiction and non fiction.

If you would like to do a guest blog, past reviews and article are accepted, please email me at sfuhringer (AT) sympatico (DOT)ca.

I read What We All Long For too and highly recommend it. I don't usually relate well to the very young in fiction, in this case early twenties, but this story had me from the beginning. Very well written, Brand made me feel the loneliness, frustration, joy, satisfaction, or worries of these characters. And she had inner city Toronto and immigrant life, as well as first generation young people down pat. Quite an accomplishment.

I'm offering an ARC copy of What We All Long For by Dionne Brand to one of my readers. I did not receive it as a book to review but through Bookmooch as something I wanted to read. So, it's been read twice but it's a clean copy.

To enter:

1) Tell us the best book of Canadian literary fiction you've read. Either written by a Canadian or set in Canada is acceptable.

2)Blog about this giveaway and put a link back to it and I'll give you a second entry. If you don't have a blog, email 3 friends telling them about this giveaway and copying me at sfuhringer (at) sympatico (dot) ca.

Entry is open worldwide until midnight Sunday January 25, 2009.Be sure to leave an email address if you don't have a blog where I can contact you.Winner will be announced on Monday January 26, 2009.

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

Review

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden

Giller Prize Winner 2008

Fiction, Hardcover, pgs.

Penguin Group Canada, September 2008


This is a guest review, written by Tamara of Books by TJ Baff.

From the Publisher

From internationally acclaimed author Joseph Boyden comes an astonishingly powerful novel of contemporary aboriginal life, full of the dangers and harsh beauty of both forest and city. When beautiful Suzanne Bird disappears, her sister Annie, a loner and hunter, is compelled to search for her, leaving behind their uncle Will, a man haunted by loss. While Annie travels from Toronto to New York, from modelling studios to A-list parties,Will encounters dire troubles at home. Both eventually come to painful discoveries about the inescapable ties of family. Through Black Spruce is an utterly unforgettable consideration of how we discover who we really are. About the Author Joseph Boyden is a Canadian with Irish, Scottish, and Métis roots. Three Day Road has received the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award and has also been shortlisted for the Governor General Award for Fiction and published in 10 languages. He divides his time between Northern Ontario and Louisiana, where he teaches writing at the University of New Orleans.

The novel Through Black Spruce is written by alternating chapters between Annie Bird's story, a somewhat confused loner and niece to, Will Bird, bush pilot, who lies in a coma in a hospital bed. Annie shares her story, while seated at her uncle's bedside, about the search for her sister in the international modelling world, in an effort to interest her uncle enough in the day to day troubles that he will awaken from his coma.

Will's voice comprises the alternate chapters about his recollections of events leading up to the beating that leads him to the coma. Both stories culminate in a shared climax that has it's roots in the same sequence of events.

I loved this book. I found the style of writing easy to read and it flowed. The characters were well developed and through the tale there was shown to be a growth period for both of the main protagonists. The sequence of events leading to the climax made sense and was well planned and executed and the overwhelming theme of family was well described.

I left this book after the closing of the last page feeling as if I had read an authentic tale relating problems experienced by a few aboriginals in their native northlands and how they are fighting the the same fight of drug related gangs and violence that we are further south. Their success in this fight also depends on the few who stand up against this oppression and fight back. A timely tale.

5 out of 5 stars.

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Thank you Tamara. You can see more of Tamara's work at Books by TJ Baff.

This was Joseph Boyden's second novel. Though the story stands alone it does follow the same family as his first, Three Day Road, which I will be reading as part of the Diversity challenge (button in sidebar). Through Black Spruce was a five star read for me too and the Giller Prize for literature was well deserved.

Have you read it, or any other Giller Prize nominees? What other Native North American literature can you recommend?

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection:

The Disappeared by Kim Echlin

Fiction, Hardcover, 224 pgs.

Hamish Hamilton Canada, March 3, 2009

From the Publisher

"This story of passionate love between a Canadian and her Cambodian lover evokes their tumultuous relationship in a world of colliding values. Set against the backdrop of horrific loss, these two self-exiled lovers struggle to recreate themselves in a world that rejects their hopes. Spare, unrelenting, and moving, The Disappeared is an unforgettable consideration of love, language, justice, and memory set against the backdrop of the killing fields of Pol Pot."

I read Elephant Winter by Kim Echlin, her first novel which I reviewed briefly here, and I loved it. So I just have to read her new book, The Disappeared. It's a more serious subject but I look forward to reading it.

Which books are you waiting for?

Waiting on Wednesday

This week's pre-publication

"can't-wait-to-read" selection:

Breaking Lorca

by Giles Blunt

Publication Date: February 17, 2009

From Random House :

"A literary novel that treads fearlessly into one of recent history’s most shocking moral crucibles. In 1980s El Salvador, a young woman is detained in a government torture squad’s head-quarters, suspected of supporting guerilla forces. There, a bookish new recruit, Victor Peña, is assigned to assist in her interrogation. Before they learn so much as her name – Lorca – the squad relentlessly break her, body and soul. It is a terrifying journey into human cruelty and courage, one which years later – in the pinnacle of cosmopolitan America – still haunts the tormentor as dramatically as it does his victim."

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed every book Giles Blunt has written except his latest "No Such Creature" (April 2008) which I have a copy to read and review for LibraryThing. Breaking Lorca is a departure for Blunt and I always knew he was too good to just keep writing crime mysteries, even award winners as his have been. I can hardly wait.

What are you looking forward to reading?

At a Loss for Words by Diane Schoemperlen

Review and Giveaway

At a Loss for Words: A Post-Romantic Novel by Diane Schoemperlen

Fiction, paperback, 188 pgs.

Harper Collins

She can't eat. She can't sleep. She drinks too much coffee and smokes too many cigarettes. She can't focus. She's a writer who can't write. She checks for messages several times a day and her disappointment is palpable. What's wrong with her? She's in love. Such is the author's strength that she makes us feel everything her character is going through.This woman's first love has walked back into her life after many years while she's giving a reading in a bookstore. Her euphoria knows no bounds. It's a long distance relationship this time and she just can't get enough of his letters, emails, phone messages or the occasional day or two together. The bad news is that, between the exhilarating highs of passion and devastating lows of doubt and fear, she can't concentrate enough to work. This has never happened to her before. She doesn't want to panic but books on writing don't help much with their simplistic though well-meaning suggestions on how to get past the big WB-writer's block. She uses some of their ideas to great satirical effect in the novel, which reads much like journal entries. "Take some swings in a batting cage". "Write in the woods while leaning against a tree". In her mind these become as inane as "Make a paper clip chain six feet long or more." This is the story of words and the power we give to them during the throes of romantic love. We go over every word or phrase the object of our affection says. Was there more there than stated, some unspoken meaning, did he mean it seriously or was it just a casual remark? Is he as commited as he says or just a smooth talker? Our character finds sudden meaning in crossword puzzle definitions or horoscopes, things that emphasize her new feelings or sharpen her worry and pain. It's not long before the reader begins to squirm a little because you've see yourself behaving the same way. She's exposed us all a little, told the unspoken truth about how obsessed or even goofy we can be when we think we're in love. We all have friends who act like this and we know there's little reasoning with them when their under the influence of adoration. We suffer along with her but like our friends we sometimes want to shake her and tell her to get real. The author has done a terrific job, with a slow reveal of the other side of the relationship. I reread large portions just to enjoy the way she uses language. Schoemperlen has several novels to her credit already but the format is different here. Some may not like that it's not a simple narrative but it works for her purposes very well. And some will think the story should have ended sooner but then so should some of our own rides on this rollercoaster of the heart. Four stars out of five.

Thank you to Deanna at Harper Collins Canada for the reviewer's copy.

Lack of space forces me to relinquish my ARC copy in another Thursday Giveaway. It is gently read but slightly marked from having a sticker removed from the cover. Entry is open worldwide until midnight Wednesday October 1, 2008.

1) To enter recommend a five star book of literary fiction. NOT science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance, action, thriller, Western, horror, supernatural etc. I don't read them. I'm looking for really good books to enjoy. Books in translation interest me too. Anything written during the last hundred years.

2) A second entry goes to anyone who blogs about this giveaway and puts a link back to it. If you don't have a blog, email 3 friends telling them about this giveaway and copying me at sfuhringer(at) sympatico(dot) ca.
Please leave a contact address if you're entering the giveaway and don't have a blog where I can contact you.

Winner will be announced on Thursday, October 2, 2008.

The Twice Born by Pauline Gedge

The Twice Born by Pauline Gedge

Fiction, Trade paperback, 554 pgs.

Penguin Books

The Twice Born is Pauline Gedge's twelfth novel, eight of which were inspired by Egyptian history. It's another of her richly detailed portrayals of the lives of farmers, slaves, nobility and priestly classes of ancient Egypt. Several of her novels have won awards so it's no surprise that her books have sold over six million copies worldwide and been translated into 18 languages. The Twice Born is the first of a new trilogy about Huy, son of Hapu. Known in history as Amunhotep, he was a real and significant figure in Egypt whose achievements were inscribed and survive to this day. But his personal life and origins remain unknown. Pauline Gedge has imaginatively created this story of his early years and development into a seer. The story begins when Huy, son of Hapu, is barely four years old. We follow him through school with nobles' children and friendship with the governor's son Thothmes, and his sisters. Well-written and full of fascinating details of the daily life and customs about food, drink, clothing, jewelry, oils and perfumes, medicines, games, funeral customs and much more, the story keeps us engrossed. Then a shocking transformation occurs following a fatal accident while he is still a boy that will determine his future fate. Some family and friends fear the changes in him while many of the common people and priests will revere him for his new powers of insight. Huy is a likeable person who longs for the simple life even while he knows he's been chosen to serve Egypt in a much greater capacity than the farmer's son he is. He will experience love and disappointment, struggling in the final years of his youth to accept his own destiny as Seer of Egypt. The readers in this family are waiting intently for the continuation of the story. No one does ancient Egypt like Pauline Gedge. Treat yourself and read it, I recommend it highly. Four and a half stars out of five.

The second book of the trilogy is entitled Seer of Egypt and will be released in November 2008. Watch for my review.

Pauline Gedge's homepage:http://www.paulinegedge.ca/

Thank you to Melissa Robson of Penguin Group for the reviewer's copy.

Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown - Review

Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown

Fiction, paperback 303 pgs.

Key Porter Press (2008)

Three brothers, identical triplets, have come home to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to bury their parents who've been killed in an accident. They haven't been together in all the years since they left home as young men. They're on the cusp of forty now. They've reunited from Toronto, Halifax, and Copehagen. A carpenter who sings beautifully in church choirs but has no interest in religion, Cameron has a blind daughter and a wife now living separately. He has a great deal of guilt about his daughter, Mary Anne, wondering if drugs he took when he was young might be responsible for her blindness. Rory is an artist who exhibits his paintings in art galleries in Toronto. He experiences synesthesia, he hears colours, and his work is dominated by red. He's married to a doctor fifteen years his senior whom he adores. Adrian runs a haute cuisine restaurant in Copenhagen with his male partner who is seriously ill. Each of the three brothers has no idea what's going on in the others lives, they haven't kept in touch. They miss each other but are harbouring negative feelings toward each other and their parents, as most siblings do. But they all agree in their resentment of their older brother, "the Big B", who has stayed near his parents and has secrets of his own.

The story of their lives for the past twenty years is told in the form of a journal that each triplet keeps for four months then mails to one of the others. This form works very well, no sudden time shifts or confusion about which of them is telling their story in each chapter. Written in simple, not flowery language, as one brother opens up a little so do the others in what they tell about their loves, losses and triumphs. Their individual expression of themselves nicely dispels the myth of identical character so often presumed about multiple birth children too. Over time, they become more reflective and honest about their lives as children and the feelings that led to their ending up so far apart, at least in distance. They are clearly still deeply attached emotionally. Strong feelings emerge, a few raw emotions are revealed, but there is humour too. It's set in Canada and we get to travel through their eyes in Canada and Europe. And we are privileged to watch them come together in their journal accounts and rebuild a brotherhood of trust and love. I enjoyed their story. Four stars out of five.

This is Douglas Arthur Brown's second novel. His first was A Deadly Harvest.
He has also published a collection of short fiction, The Kimodo Dragon and Other Stories.

Douglas Arthur Brown's homepage
http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/douglasarthurbrown/

Key Porter Press
http://www.keyporter.com/BookDetail.aspx?ISBN=1552639975

Thank you to Mini Book Expo and Key Porter Books for providing me with a review copy.

BOOK GIVEAWAY

I'm giving away my gently read paperback copy of Quintet by Douglas Arthur Brown. This is not an Advance Reading Copy, but a true copy.
Entry is open worldwide until midnight Wednesday,September 10.

Tell me you want Quintet and

1) Comment on any other book mentioned on my blog that you think you might enjoy reading and tell me why for one entry. This includes those in my personal library (shown by LibraryThing).
2) If you blog about this contest and put a link back to it I'll give you two entries.
3) Do both and you'll have three chances to win.

Winner will be announced on Thursday, September 11

Next review: Months and Seasons by Christopher Meeks

Previous review: Schooled by Alisha Lakhani

Out Stealing Horses,Elephant Winter,Tirra Lirra By the River

Out Stealing Horses***** by Per Petterson (Norway)

This won the Dublin Impac Award 2007. That's the big one cash-wise:100,00 Pounds. This prize is chosen by librarians around the world.

Other Awards:

Norwegian Critic's Award

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Winner Norwegian Booksellers' Prize

American Library Association Notable Book

Time Magazine Best Book of the Year

New York Times Best Books of the Year

New York Times 100 Notable Books for 2007

Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist

Out Stealing Horses is about boyhood friendship, tragedy and loss, fathers and sons and their expectations of one another. And how the main character deals with loneliness both in his youth and late in life. Well worth reading. A good place to start on Scandinavian literature if you haven't tried any yet. Four and a half stars. Highly recommended.

Elephant Winter***** by Kim Echlin (Canada)

A very good story set in the Africa Lion Safari Park, close to where I live in Ontario. Elephants figure prominently but there is love, loss, illness, and trust between both animals and human for those of you who need people in your stories too. An original story, highly recommended.

The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy (Canada) will be my next novel about elephants. An elephant family comprises the characters of this story.

Tirra Lirra by the River**** by Jessica Anderson

This won the Miles Franklin Award (Australia) in 1978.

I Bookmooched it so I could read it and it was worth it. An oldie but goodie about how a woman's life turns out differently than she'd expected. Denied independence, then having it forced upon her by her husband, she reflects on her two lives. One lived in Australia and the other in London until she returns to her childhood home in old age and finds the world a very different place. A very good read, I recommend it.

Currently reading Under The Skin by Michael Faber

I'm 40 pages in and scared to find out what the woman is doing with the hitchhiking men she keeps picking up in Scotland. They disappear, you see, and it's giving me the creeps.

Reading recommendations and comments are always welcomed.

Next Review: Scandinavian Mystery Writers
Previous Review: Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez