Monday, July 31, 2023

BOOK REVIEW: All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby


All The Sinners Bleed is the third Southern noir book by S.A. Cosby that I have read, after Blacktop Wasteland (2020) and Razorblade Tears (2021). I was very happy to be alerted by the Libby app that this book was available for a 1-week loan; it took me only four days to finish reading it—All The Sinners Bleed was almost impossible to put down once started.

Like the two previous books by Cosby that I have read, All The Sinners Bleed is set in the rural South. This time the protagonist is Titus Crown, who has recently surprised himself—and Charon County in rural Virginia where he was born and raised—to become the first Black man elected Sheriff.

The book begins with a bang (literally!) on the first anniversary of Titus’ election with a shooting (at Jefferson Davis HIgh School!) where a mentally troubled Black man named Lattrell Macdonald shoots and kills a well-regarded science teacher Mr. Spearman and is then himself shot by the (white) members of the sheriff’s department after brandishing a rifle while muttering incoherently about Mr. Spearman’s phone. When Titus investigates what reasons Latrell could possibly have to kill Mr. Spearman he discovers a horrifying secret which roils the entire small town of Charon.

It turns out that Mr. Spearman was a murderous pedophile, who preyed upon young Black children, assisted by Latrell to do so, while wearing masks and costumes. Even the casual description of Mr. Spearman’s acts are nauseating and Titus takes it upon himself to spare his deputies from seeing the worst stuff himself once they get a search warrant to search Spearman’s house. (The people who do watch the videotapes and view the pictures often find themselves vomiting afterwards and questioning their religious faith.) However, it soon becomes clear that there's a third man who is either white or a very light-skinned Black guy who was also involved in the heinous acts that were committed and this person, who Titus calls “The Last Wolf”  is still on the loose.

Cosby does an excellent job of depicting the internal dialogue and philosophical contradictions that Titus has as a black man serving in a public-facing law enforcement role. Many in the community want to see the incidents only in black and white: i.e., “crazy black guy killed beloved white teacher,” or “brave white cop killed armed black guy,” but Titus takes a more nuanced view because he has a job to do: catch this m****f*****. Cosby shows how the procedures and rules the sheriff's office needs to follow don’t allow him to be as forthcoming to the public in as timely a fashion as he (or they) would like. Titus is laser focused on solving the crime and capturing the remaining at-large sicko who has been raping and torturing Black kids to death. But both the black and white concerned citizens of Charon are not happy with the way Titus is doing his job in light of the revelation that Charon County has a resident serial killer on the loose.

An important characteristic of detective novels is not only how interesting the protagonist is but also how well-drawn the supporting characters are done. In the case of All The Sinners Bleed, Titus is a fully realized main character. He lives with his elderly father and has a complicated relationship with him due to his father’s (in)actions after the death of Titus’s mom decades before. These events also complicated Titus’s relationship with his brother, who dealt with his grief by using drugs. Additionally, the reasons that Titus moved back to Charon County in the first place after leaving the FBI are slowly revealed (in intermittent flashbacks) with more details that cast him in a less heroic and more realistic fashion.

Of course, since this is a genre novel, we end up with a lot more violence and dead bodies than the ones from the school shooting scene that began the book. It’s clear that the perpetrator of these atrocities is becoming more unhinged as Titus’s investigation gets closer and closer to revealing who The Last Wolf is. 

In the end, Titus (and the reader) discover who the serial killer is and stops his crime spree, but not until after a number of more horrific acts get perpetrated. Overall, I enjoyed spending time in the company of Titus, but events towards the end of the book and the fact that Cosby appears to not feel the need to build multiple mystery stories around the same character/detective, mean that it is unlikely that he’ll appear in another Cosby southern noir book. Even if that is the case, I definitely hope that we get more books from Cosby!

Title: All The Sinners Bleed.
Author: S.A. Cosby.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 352 pages.
Publisher: Scribner.
Date Published: November 1, 2022.
Date Read: June 27, 2023.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

BOOK REVIEW: Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3) by Jane Harper


Exiles is the third (and final?) book in the police procedural series set in rural Australia featuring federal tax investigator Aaron Falk written by Jane Harper. The other books in the Falk series are The Dry (2016) and Force of Nature (2017). Harper is well-known for her suspenseful, lyrical mystery novels and Exiles (2023) is another example of this.

This time the main mystery is the disappearance of a 39-year-old new mother from a food and wine festival being held in a small rural (fictional) town named Marralee in the Australian wine country in Victoria. The missing woman is Kim Gillespie, the ex-wife of Charlie Raco, who is the brother of Aaron’s friend Greg Raco, another Australian cop who we were introduced to in Force of Nature. Aaron had been named godfather to Greg and Rita’s newborn kid Henry and was in town for the christening the very day Kim disappeared. He was at the Raco home when Kim called Zara, the 17-year-old daughter she had with Charlie to discuss how they would meet up at the Maralee festival.

All this information is provided in the prologue. When the story begins it's one year later and Aaron is driving to Marralee again to finally participate in the long-delayed christening of his godson, Henry Raco. We learn how the family members have been affected by Kim’s disappearance, and we get introduced to Kim’s husband, Rohan and his and Kim’s daughter. We also learn that Kim’s disappearance is not the only violent crime that the small town of Marralee has known. About five years ago there was a hit-and-run very near the site of the Festival, again during opening weekend (which is when Kim disappeared) that resulted in the death of Dean Tozer, the husband of Gemma Tozer and father of Joel. Joel and Kara are now teenage friends, bonded together through the loss of their parents.

One key aspect of Harper’s mysteries that makes them so compelling is that she uses her books to comment on and depict contemporary Australian life and the social problems that are lying below the surface. For example, in Exiles drinking alcohol by teenagers and the dangerous behaviors this can facilitate animates multiple important plot points. Ultimately, I would say that Exiles is about solitude, and the consequences of cutting oneself off (or being cut off by the actions of others) from the people around you that know you the best. (The book makes clear that in some cases this could be your family or your chosen family and doesn’t communicate any value judgments on the difference between them.)

Another key aspect of Harper’s mysteries, at least the ones that I have read that feature Aaron Falk, have been the internal dialogue of the protagonist. I wasn’t really that impressed with, or frankly very interested in, Falk’s inner life or personality in the first two books, The Dry and Forces of Nature, but in Exiles I really enjoyed getting to know him better. I’m not exactly sure why that is, but it could be that in addition to the career wanderlust that is a recurring theme in all three books, in Exiles he is also pursuing a romantic relationship. As a gay man reading about a straight male character (written by a presumably straight woman) falling in love, I was surprised at how much I was invested in the resolution of this storyline.

Overall, Exiles is (by far!) the best of the Aaron Falk books written by Jane Harper. It is billed as the last in a trilogy of books but I hope that is not the case, I would love to spend more time in rural Australia with Falk as he solves crimes. But even if Harper doesn’t write more books featuring Falk I am confident she will write more compelling mysteries set in rural Australia in the future.

Title: Exiles (Aaron Falk, #3).
Author: 
Jane Harper.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 353 pages.
Publisher: Orbit Books.
Date Published: May 26, 2022.
Date Read: May 22, 2023.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

Thursday, July 06, 2023

BOOK REVIEW: Eversion by Alastair Reynolds


Eversion is the latest book by Alastair Reynolds, one of my all-time favorite authors. Reynolds is probably best known for his hard science fiction space opera series Revelation Space (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, and Inhibitor Phase) and Poseidon’s Children (Blue Remembered Earth, On the Steel Breeze, Poseidon’s Wake). My favorite of his novels is Chasm City, but I have also read Century Rain, House of Suns as well as The Prefect (now called Aurora Rising) and its sequel Elysium Fire, which are very well done police procedurals set in science fiction settings. More recently, Reynolds’ work has shifted genres significantly. His Revenger trilogy (Revenger, Shadow Captain, Bone Silence) is basically young adult steampunk science fiction. This recent history had me approach Eversion cautiously, especially when I read the descriptive blurb:

From the master of the space opera comes a dark, mind-bending adventure spread across time and space, where Doctor Silas Coade is tasked with keeping his crew safe as they adventure across the galaxy in search of a mysterious artifact. In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

Eversion certainly starts off like it's going to be another steampunk novel, with the main character Dr. Silas Coade serving as the doctor of an actual ship sailing to the frozen tundra of the Northern Atlantic in the 1800s. However, we the reader soon realize things are not what they seem because Dr. Coade suddenly dies but wakes up and he’s on a slightly different ship in slightly different circumstances, this time in the 1900s it's an airship with the same cast of characters. Clearly we are in some kind of time loop but Dr. Coade doesn't seem to know the cause of it or how and why it keeps happening. About two-thirds through the book we start to get a better sense of what’s going on, and it’s a delight. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I think it will suffice it to say that Eversion is definitely NOT just a steampunk fantasy novel. It also has space opera elements but I can't tell you what they are without spoiling some awesome story elements; if I had known that was the case I would have picked up Eversion to read earlier than I did. Don't make the same mistake I did--go read it now! If you're a fan of Reynolds' space opera works I am fairly confident you will also enjoy Eversion.

Title: Eversion.
Author: 
Alastair Reynolds.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 353 pages.
Publisher: Orbit Books.
Date Published: May 26, 2022.
Date Read: May 22, 2023.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.