Two debut thrillers and an exciting ebook

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides and Shiver by Allie Reynolds were gifts from my daughter. She'd enjoyed reading both the thrillers and thought my wife and I'd like them too. Her choice of crime fiction comes with high recommendations.

The Silent Patient is described as "A shocking psychological thriller of a woman's act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive."

The blurb on the back of the 339-page book tells us about the story of Alicia Berenson who "lived a seemingly perfect life until one day six years ago (when) she shot her husband in the head five times. Since then she hasn't spoken a single word. It's time to find out why."

"They were all there. So which one of them did it?" says the cover of Shiver (Headline, 2021). The 425-page book tells the story of "A reunion weekend in the French Alps (that turns deadly when five friends discover that someone has deliberately stranded them at their remote mountaintop resort during a snowstorm."

The Silent Patient and Shiver are both debut novels and were to be developed as a movie and a television series, respectively; although, I have no updates about either of the ventures.

Carolyn Arnold's The Little Grave (2021) is the first Detective Amanda Steele book in what appears to be a series of ten books. The 324-page Kindle edition was available for free on Amazon. My thanks to the author.

This is what the book is about:

"It's been five years since Detective Amanda Steele's life was derailed by the tragic death of her young daughter. The small community of Dumfries, Virginia, may have moved on, but Amanda cannot. When the man who killed Lindsey is found murdered, she can't keep away from the case. Fighting her sergeant to be allowed to work such a personal investigation, Amanda is in a race to prove that she can uncover the truth. But the more she digs into the past of the man who destroyed her future, the more shocking discoveries she makes."

At present, I'm reading The Silent Patient in paperback and The Little Grave on my tablet.

The Ann Patchett excerpt that made me buy her books

Excerpts often influence whether I pick up books by authors I have never read before. That, along with a post on Twitter (now X), is how I discovered the award-winning American author Ann Patchett, who writes both fiction and nonfiction.

I was drawn to her writing when I read about her latest book Tom Lake, which is described as a “Beautiful and moving novel about family, love and growing up” or in the words of The Guardian, “A truth that feels like life rather than literature.”

Those are the kind of books I have always enjoyed reading, and hope to write someday, now more so since my wife and I launched a website Pocketful of Happiness which stemmed from our desire to be as happy as possible and spread a little joy among our readers. Books like these have a feel-good quality about them. 

Ann Patchett's writing has been variously described as warm, poetic, illuminating, rich, poignant, funny, powerful, compelling and stirring. This was evident from the many excerpts I read including this affecting passage from This is the Story of a Happy Marriage (2013):

“People seem able to love their dogs with an unabashed acceptance that they rarely demonstrate with family or friends. The dogs do not disappoint them, or if they do, the owners manage to forget about it quickly. I want to learn to love people like this, the way I love my dog, with pride and enthusiasm and a complete amnesia for faults. In short, to love others the way my dog loves me.”

It prompted me to buy the book along with These Precious Days: Essays (2021). Both are personal  and literary collections of essays and memoir.

I look forward to reading one of these books as soon as I finish Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links.

The Case of the Wandering Redhead by Leigh Brackett, 1951

I’d never read Leigh Brackett until now and I’m glad I finally did. I found her short story The Case of the Wandering Redhead in the pages of New Detective Magazine, February 1951, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is the introduction to the story.

“Here is the most ruthless man you’ve ever met—a filler whom death could not soften nor bullets stop—yet whose relentless fists battered to their last futile gesture that softest thing a man ever finds—the heart of a woman in love. It is with a definite sense of accomplishment that we welcome Miss Brackett to these pages—which many of you will find unforgettable!”

The “ruthless man” is Marty James, a territorial gangster who lives by guns and fists, and the narrator of the story. He is wildly in love with Sheila Burke, a stunning redhead he wants to marry even if she detests the very thought of it. She refuses him point blank, just the way he’d shoot his adversaries. Sheila has good reason for not wanting to have anything to do with him.

“Can I get it through your head? I hate you, Marty. I hate everything you stand for. All I want out of life is decency and peace and maybe a little happiness. You can’t give me any of them.”

But Marty has no plans to leave her alone. In fact, he is trying to force her to marry him, when his sidekick calls him away on urgent business only to betray him to a rival gangster eyeing his turf. Marty fights and shoots his way out of captivity and returns to Sheila, with a rib wound and two bullet holes in his thigh.
 
Six flights, with thin snow beginning to fall, thinking of Sheila’s voice saying, There’s blood on you, Marty. You’re not in my world.

I thought, All right. That’s the way it is, Sheila. That’s the way we’ll play it. I was colder than the snow, and numb.

The Case of the Wandering Redhead is a cracker of a story. The two main characters, Marty and Sheila, are drawn well. In the words of the gangster, human enough to go crazy over a girl. Brackett’s narrative style is clean, almost poetic and visually striking, as if the story is playing out on screen. Consider this passage.

I looked at her. She was beautiful. She was like something the wind might cut out of a snowbank, with the red fire of her hair on top. Her eyes met mine, and there was an awful coldness in them, like I’d killed the spark inside her.

The short story is a fine example of the hard-boiled crime fiction of the Golden Age, although I have plenty left to read from the genre.

Recommended.

Stone: M.I.A. Hunter by Stephen Mertz, 1985

Stone: M.I.A. Hunter by American thriller writer Stephen Mertz is book one in the adrenaline-soaked Mark Stone: MIA Hunter series comprising seventeen novels. The series was created and plotted by Mertz, who wrote the novels in collaboration with Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Newton and Bill Crider. Mertz and Newton have also written several of the action-packed Mack Bolan: The Executioner books created by Don Pendleton.

My Kindle edition is a reprint of the first M.I.A. Hunter with an additional title Leave No Man Behind and September 2017 as the publication date. As the series name suggests, M.I.A. Hunter refers to Mark Stone, a tough-as-they-come former Green Beret whose post-Vietnam War mission is to find American POWs forgotten by the government and declared either as MIA or KIA, and bring them home. He knows he can’t get them all out, but he’s determined to save as many as he can.

Stone does his MIA hunting in the jungles of Vietnam and Laos, and elsewhere, with his two trusted and battle-hardened friends, the six-foot-four Texan Hog Wiley and former British commando Terrance Loughlin. They rarely question Stone and his actions, even if it means going into hell and fighting their way out of it. They’re in it together. While Stone works for the CIA, in an unofficial capacity, he often operates on his own under Stone Investigative Consultants, a private-eye outfit in Los Angeles.

M.I.A. Hunter begins in the steaming Laotian jungle. Stone and his men, backed by Laotian anti-communist guerrillas, rescue a US navy pilot and other POWs held captive by the Viet Cong since the war ended. When they finally make it through over a hundred miles of enemy territory, their pickup chopper throws up a surprise: CIA man Alan Coleman with a twisted agenda. He detests Stone and places him and his friends under arrest for violating US law; in other words, for making the spooks look bad.

Back in L.A., Stone quickly overcomes his legal hurdle with the help of Carol Jenner, his lady-friend who works for the Defence Department in Washington, and a smart lawyer. Out on bail, Stone helps the widow of a close friend who served with him in Vietnam rescue her teenage son from a Mexican-run drug cartel and set him on the right path. And just when he’s looking for some MIA action, a badly wounded stranger turns up in his garage and gives him a shocking news before he dies–Rosalyn James, an army nurse and the love of his life who was believed dead in a medevac operation in Vietnam, is still alive. For nearly fourteen years, she has been the prisoner and mistress of a brutal and torture-loving drug lord, known only as General, in his mountain fortress on the Laos-China border.

Stone goes back with Hog Wiley and Terrance Loughlin, in what could well be the most important MIA rescue mission of his life.

Stone: M.I.A. Hunter is filled with edge-of-the-seat action that never ceases from start to finish. Mark Stone and his men use an array of weapons and hand-to-hand combat skills to kill their enemies with deadly precision and little more than a scratch. They’re almost invincible, even in the face of overwhelming odds, but that is only to be expected of such vigilante-type of novels where the good guys seldom get hurt and are the silent heroes long after the battle is won. They’re men of honour, integrity and sacrifice. I suspect many readers like it that way, as do I, because it appeals to our sense of justice. Someone's got to uphold it, even if it's in fiction and films.

Stephen Mertz does not disappoint in telling the story of the audacious MIA hunter and the forgotten war heroes he brings back from the dead. I will be reading more books in the series.

A Lesson in Deceit by Gillian Larkin, 2016

They came to a crossing and Sam pressed the button. “Anyway, let’s talk about you. How many dead bodies have you found now? Granddad thinks you’re cursed.”

“It’s not my fault I keep finding them,” Julia said with a note of indignation.

© Amazon Kindle

A Lesson in Deceit by Yorkshire-based author Gillian Larkin is the first book in her Julia Blake cozy mystery series. It is a delightful novella about a murder set in the University of Edinburgh.

Julia Blake has a son, Sam, and a daughter. She dotes on them. She lives with her Scottish shortbread-loving dad in Leeds and runs a cleaning business to support her family. Life has not been easy since her husband left them. But her hardships have not deterred her from caring for her family or solving murder mysteries, even if accidentally and often to the mild annoyance of DI Clarke of Leeds.

In the story, Julia is visiting Sam at his university and typically is full of motherly affection and concern. Sam takes her around the campus, including to the local pub where he works part-time. He introduces Julia to his close friend, Elliott, who is covering his shift that day. Elliott works many shifts because he needs the money, and hence misses lectures. In fact, he hasn’t been himself lately, causing Sam to suspect something is bothering his once happy-go-lucky friend. Elliott’s plight stirs Julia's maternal instincts.

But before Julia can think of helping him in some way, her dad’s prophetic words come true again — she finds Elliott dead in his room. There are no signs of injury or a scuffle. Did he overdose on painkillers and sleeping tablets? Or was he poisoned with a heady concoction of the two drugs?

DI Thostlewaite, who has heard of Julia’s reputation and her penchant for turning up where corpses do, gently tells her not to interfere with the case. But she has no option when the local police detain Sam as a suspect.

“Grandad wants to know if you’ve found any dead bodies yet. Ha! He’s so funny.”

“Dead bodies are never funny,” Julia replied.

A Lesson in Deceit is not a murder mystery in the true sense. There is no major investigation and the unearthing of clues, as Julia predictably does at some risk to her life, is kept to a bare minimum. Julia and Sam are likeable characters, mainly because of their strong familial bond, easy relationship and light banter. The author has also nicely interlaced her narrative with values. For instance, when Julia offers Sam extra money so he doesn’t have to work at the pub, he tells his mother that she’d done enough and that he wants to pay his own way.  A nice lesson for young readers.

The novella, available for Kindle, is written in an easy and engaging style, which I suspect is deliberate, and will appeal to both young and old readers. I hope to read more about Julia Blake’s charming mysteries as well as other offerings from Larkin. 

© Goodreads

About the author: Gillian Larkin is the author of several mysteries, both short stories and novels. Her series includes the Julia Blake Murder Mysteries, Storage Ghost Mysteries and Paranormal Mysteries among others. She lives near Leeds, Yorkshire.

The Ganesha Arati Book: Understanding Sukhakarta Dukhaharta, 2019

© Atah

Sukhakarta Dukhaharta—the harbinger of light and the dispeller of darkness—is one of the most popular aratis, or devotional songs and hymns, in the large repertory of Hindu religious anthems.

It is a heartfelt prayer by the devout, seeking the Lord’s miraculous intervention in bestowing peace and happiness on the worshipper and removing pain and obstacles from his life.

The arati is believed to have been composed by Samarth Ramadas, the renowned 17th-century poet-saint from the west-central state of Maharashtra, in praise of the beloved and endearing Hindu deity, Ganesha.

It is said that Sant (or Saint) Ramadas was inspired to compose the arati, in Marathi, after he was blessed with the vision of Mayureshwara, a form of Ganesha, in a temple at Morgaon in Pune district of the state.

© lalbaugcharaja.co.in

Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom, intellect and new beginnings, is revered by people across the country but most of all in Maharashtra and in the neighbouring states. The patron deity of arts and sciences is loved and feared in equal measure, though he is chiefly venerated as the god of benevolence, one who does good to those who reach out to him and seek his protection. For that reason Ganesha occupies a special place in the pantheon of Hindu gods as well as in the hearts and minds of devotees, young and old. Children, especially, hold him in awe and love him as a dear friend.  

The Ganesha Arati Book: Understanding Sukhakarta Dukhaharta is more than an exposition of one of the most widely sung aratis at holy rituals (known as pujas) and religious ceremonies; especially during Ganesh Chaturthi, the popular 11-day annual festival celebrating the birth and glory of Ganesha. It brings out the essence of the hymn in a way that will make worshippers—and families who pray together—aware of its inspiring message, even as they join hands and chant the arati with joyful enthusiasm before the resplendent idol of Ganesha. For, to know the true significance of an arati or prayer is to enrich the soul.

The book provides an easy-to-understand English translation of Sukhakarta Dukhaharta, the glorification of Ganesha, in three main stanzas and a chorus stanza repeated after every stanza. The stanzas are interspersed with three fascinating stories—The Legend of Mayureshwara, The Birth of Ganesha and The Story of Kubera’s Feast—which trace the origins of the deity and narrate one of his more famous lessons in humility and human values.

Apart from the excellent rendering of the arati, a lot of thought, research and imagination has gone into this beautifully-designed book. The horizontal format has been inspired by the pathi, in the size and style of ancient scriptures and aratis. Every page of the 48-page hardbound book consists of colourful motifs and illustrations in India's rich temple tradition. A glossary at the end offers a list of non-English words and their explanations. All these elements make The Ganesha Arati Book: Understanding Sukhakarta Dukhaharta a joy to behold, read and preserve for the next generation.

The book is published by Atah Lifestyle, a Pune-based company engaged in making objects related to Indian art, culture and tradition, and is available on its website as well as on Amazon and Amazon India.