MEM

MEM by Bethany C. Morrow (2018) 189 pages

Are you a fan of the Netflix series Black Mirror? You might like this. This short novel is set in the 1920s and doesn't feel as dystopian. A scientist has discovered a way for people to extract memories. The MEMs are zombie-like pale copies of the original person that just re-experience the emotional core of the memory until they expire. Except for Dolores Extract #1, who chooses the name Elsie to distinguish herself. She breaks all the rules by remembering all of her source's memories and has the unique ability to remember new experiences. Is she fully human? The mystery of her existence in a non-linear timeline with profound questions about identity, memory, and civil liberties are explored with much contemplation.
 

This Spells Disaster

 This Spells Disaster by Tori Anne Martin, 368 pages.

Morgan Greenwood is a disaster witch with a massive crush on Rory Sandler, who recently quit professional spellcasting to mix up magical cocktails in Morgan's hometown. Her family isn't thrilled about this decision, so Morgan agrees to be her fake girlfriend for the upcoming regional witch festival to convince Rory's family that she's happier with her life now. Unfortunately, the "disaster" part of "disaster witch" appears in the form of Morgan messing up a perfectly normal relaxation potion and potentially giving Rory a love potion instead, leaving her trying to break the effects of the spell with as little collateral damage as possible.

I really expected to like this book. The blurb really sold me, and I was ready for a light, funny book for Halloween. Unfortunately I found it very difficult to read because most of the plot could have been avoided if Morgan didn't constantly make the worst decisions physically possible for no obvious reason. There's an amount of suspension of disbelief usually inherent to fake dating (it's usually a larger-than-life kind of premise), but there was an amount of frustration involved with the choices of this book that made it very difficult for me to get invested in finishing it at all. I could clearly see all of the plot twists of the last fifty pages coming from before Morgan even suspected she gave Rory a love potion, and given that it's in first person it feels hard to believe that Morgan didn't even consider any of the many ways there may have actually been no problem. Although I'm sad to say it, I don't think I can recommend this one. 

The Lost Van Gogh

The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer  339 pp.

This novel starts out great but then slips in to a story of too much with too many characters. A young-ish couple, one a painter, the other an art historian find a nondescript painting in an antique shop. With closer examination they discover that under the painting of a woman, a Van Gogh self portrait is hidden. As they try to prove it is real, it is stolen from them. This leads the couple on an international search with private investigators, art galleries, INTERPOL, and Nazi looted art specialists. The introduction of more and more characters - good guys, bad guys, and ones who switch allegiances - make the story much more complicated and tedious. You really need a scorecard to keep track of who is on which side and who can be trusted. It's a nice premise but overblown. No fault to the audiobook narrator, Edoardo Ballerini who does an excellent job, as usual.

Holy City

Holy City by Henry Wise, 344 pages

For unknown reasons, deputy Will has returned to his small hometown in rural Virginia, despite the fact that his estranged family is long gone and he has a barely functional house to live in. After Will pulls the body of a local man from a fire, the corrupt sheriff immediately pins the murder on a Black man who was seen running away from the scene, though Will is sure that he's not the culprit. Will grudgingly partners with a private investigator to start looking into the murder outside of proper channels, and the pair uncovers all manner of seedy corruption in the small town.

This was suggested to me as a mystery, and while yes, there is an investigation into who killed the guy found in the fire, it's pretty obvious who did it and it gets solved WAY before the end of the book. I wasn't a big fan of this one, as it was really hard to find any redeeming qualities in any of the characters, or to really understand their motives. If you want morally questionable characters in a gritty, racially charged crime novel set in the South, pick up S.A. Cosby and leave this one on the shelf.

A Study in Emerald

 A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman, illus. Rafael Albuquerque, Rafael Scavone, and Dave Stewart, 88 pages.

This alternate history version of A Study in Scarlet takes readers to an alternate history version of London where eldritch monsters replaced all of the heads of state many generations past. Our brilliant detective is set with solving the murder of a visiting prince, and the search takes him and his new assistant through all sorts of twists in this strange London.

This comic definitely had some interesting ideas, I just wish it did a little more with them. That being said, the pace at which the story unfolded let some of the stranger elements dawn on the reader only very slowly, which I did find fairly effective. This is an interesting take on an old story, and my only real complaint is that it was so comfortable in its role as a retelling that it didn't feel the need to make the story stand on its own. But it is a quick read, and definitely interesting enough to be worth the little time I put into it. 

The Couple at the Table

The Couple at the Table by Sophie Hannah (2022) 358 pages

A murder takes place at an exclusive resort. All the employees have left the premises, except for Anita, the woman in charge. She is in a dining area with all the guests, except for a husband and wife who have returned to their quarters after an exhaustive series of verbal sparring between Jane (the wife) and practically all the other guests, including her husband, William. One couple, Simon and Charlie, are cops on a holiday, and they decide to check on the couple and find William is in a trance-like daze, sitting with his back to Jane, who is dead on the floor. But William is cleared in the murder, because blood splatters from the stabbing have soaked through the slats in his chair onto his clothing, showing that he had to have been in that chair while his wife was killed behind him.

The guests say they were all together while the cops were checking on William and Jane. The resort  has cameras that indicate that no one from the outside got in. Six months have passed by. Chapters indicating differing characters' points of view alternate between July (when the murder occurred) and January (when the case gets more attention again).

It's a classic mystery with an interesting array of characters, keeping this reader, at least, in the dark until the big reveal.

Good Girls Don't Die

Good Girls Don't Die by Christina Henry, 313 pages

Celia loves to read a good mystery, but — after waking up in a home that's not hers with a family that's also not hers and no idea how she got in this situation — she decidedly does NOT like living in a mystery. The same could be said of horror movie fanatic Allie, whose beach trip with her friends turns into a terrifying weekend at a remote cabin in the woods. And then there's Maggie, who loves reading YA dystopian novels, but is less than impressed to find herself forced into a Hunger Games-esque maze with several other women. Obviously, there's someone behind all of these situations, and if they can survive, they're all determined to make them pay.

Told as three separate stories, this book ended up feeling a bit repetitive and predictable by the time the three heroines came together at the end. Perhaps restructuring the story could've helped combat that and make the suspense hang on just a bit longer. I generally love Christina Henry's books, so I'm particularly disappointed in this one. 

Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984) 288 pages

This originated the term Cyberpunk. It is a hard-boiled crime novel with a heist as the central plot device. It takes place in a futuristic world that would inspire the Blade Runner movies and The Matrix movies. Designer drugs, genetic manipulation, violence, and virtual reality are present everywhere. The main character Chase, while working to plant a computer virus as part of the heist, has to navigate three layers of virtual reality. The technobabble, made up terms for the future technology and the slang used in talking about it, is pretty dense. It was a struggle to find my bearings in the beginning. What is a noun and what is a verb in the sentence? From context, I'm pretty sure this is a noun. But is it a person, place, or thing? It is a bit shocking being dropped into this world, and each scene moves along very quickly. Eventually, I did become more accustomed to Gibson's use of language and went along for the fast-paced ride.
 

A Fine and Private Place

 

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle 317 pp.

I first read this book sometime in the 1970s and for some reason it stuck with me so I decided to revisit it. It's the tale of a man, Jonathan Rebeck, a former pharmacist who has hidden himself from society by living in an old mausoleum in a Bronx cemetery. Rebeck doesn't leave, believing he cannot pass through the gates into the outside world. A crabby raven brings him food stolen from local venders. In his nineteen years there Rebeck has met ghosts of people interred in the cemetery. When the ghosts first arrive they are very "alive" but as time passes and they gradually forget their former lives, they fade away. The latest cemetery residents are a middle-aged man who was poisoned and a young woman. Improbably, the ghosts fall in love with each other. Rebeck, too, finds himself with a lady friend who visits the mausoleum of her late husband. When Mrs. Clapper learns that Rebeck lives in the cemetery she tries to convince him it's time for him to return to the "real world." This book was originally published in 1960 and has recently been reissued. I listened to the audiobook which has an introduction by Neil Gaiman.

A Wodehouse Bestiary

 A Wodehouse Bestiary by P.G. Wodehouse 329 pp.

This is a collection of short stories and random chapters from Wodehouse novels, some including Jeeves & Wooster, and all involving animals in some way. In one there is a house that seems to cause residents and visitors, even anti-hunting ones, to become rabid about hunting and killing game animals. Another has a potentially doomed engagement salvaged because of a dog and a cowardly suitor but with no help from a dog food salesman. In a third, a trip to the horse track helps a friend of Bertie Wooster's get rid of a troubling house guest who has endangered his marriage by forcing them into an extreme vegetarian diet. These are just a few of the classic Wodehouse tales collected in this volume. Some I read before in other collections but many were new to me. It's enjoyable, humorous, frequently silly, light reading.