Whodunit Book Club Feb. 25, 2014

Fourteen friends met for book club on this frigid February evening.
A special evening for Whodunit as we celebrated the 15th anniversary of the club's meeting in our present location.  Quite a record for a book club!
The book discussed this evening was "Starvation Lake" by Bryan Gruley.
A debut novel in what is now a series of three titles, the clubs rating out of ten was 6.8 points with half the persons in attendance stating they wanted to read more novels by this author.

Set in northern Michigan, the novel's protagonist Gus Carpenter is a talented hockey goalie. Though Gus walked under a shadow. He was blamed for the town's hockey team losing the state championship game back when he was a teenager.  Since then the town's team hasn't come close and Gus is the scapegoat they blame as a jinx.  After that fiasco he left home for Detroit and a career in journalism.  That too went 'belly-up' and he returned home to Starvation Lake to get himself back on his feet.  Now he works on the small town newspaper as editor.

Ten years ago his former hockey coach went through the ice on his snowmobile.  When the snowmobile is washed up at a different lake than the one where the accident occurred there is rampant speculation of underground tunnels and finally murder.  Gus and his paper set out to investigate this, the town's biggest news in a decade.  The investigation leads to unearthing some dark and dirty secrets which hit close to home.

For a first novel, there were many positive comments such as:
Many of the characters were likeable
Believable premise
Vivid depictions of small town life
Lots of hockey scenes
The author's passion for hockey comes through the narrative

On the negative side:
Starts slow
Too many hockey scenes with too much detail about the game
Too much repetition

The central character of Gus was portrayed as naive and immature.  He seemed self-absorbed.  He let one occurrence in his past colour his whole life. The town compounded his guilt by dwelling on his failure.  They dwelled on him because he did the only bad thing in the town that wasn't a 'secret'.  They couldn't talk about what was really at the root of the 'town rot'.

Some characters were pitiful favorites like Gus's friend Soupy.
An overall favorite character was Sheriff Dingus Aho.

One of the least favorite characters was the paper's receptionist Tilly.

Gus's mother was disliked by some readers, while others thought her to have made the best of a deplorable situation.

By the end of the novel, (which held a surprise for many Whodunit members), Gus had matured somewhat which bodes well for future novels in the series.

One member, Carmella,  declared that this club meeting was a "Who won it" rather than a "Whodunit" as there were six lucky winners of book giveaways.
1. Jean
2. Shauna
3. Carmella
4. Marilyn
5. Nancy
6. Heather

The Whodunit Book Club will meet next on Tuesday March 25th when we will discuss
 "Crossing places" by Elly Griffith.

Whodunit Book Club October 25, 2011

Eighteen Whodunit members turned out for the meeting on this damp and chilly evening.
The novel discussed this month was "The little stranger" by Sarah Waters. Including one vote made in absentia, the club's average rating for the book was 7.194 out of 10.
Like the familiar saying "Those who loved it, loved it a lot". Those who didn't, didn't. The reaction to the novel was polarized, with members voting either very high or very low.

The author, Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She earned her PhD in English literature in 1995 and soon after starting writing novels. Her books have been in the running for several prestigious literary awards including the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger and the Lambda Literary Award for Fiction, and were shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize. A lesbian herself, she often portrays lesbians in her novels although she didn't in "The little stranger". Her fifth novel, it took her two and half years to write.
See her online interview discussing the writing of "The little stranger".

Positive praise from Whodunit members included such comments as "well-written"; "suspenseful"; "great characterization"; "great sense of place".
Negative comments included "too much detail"; "too long".

Written with consumate skill, the story was absorbing and could be interpreted many different ways. Hundreds Hall, the decaying house featured in the novel was a character unto itself and many said that they could perfectly picture it in their mind's eye.
Doctor Faraday, a rural physician and a bachelor, seemed to have aspirations to own the house with the elevated status it represented -- and some mentioned that he could be interpreted as 'the little stranger' as he visited the house as a child when his mother was a servant there. (Incidentally Sarah Waters' grandparents worked as servants in an English country house). A member commented that there is a 'little stranger' in all of us - that it is the dark part of our personality.

The setting was written so well that the reading of the novel was almost a visual experience. The novel was set in a time when there was a distinct and impassable divide between the social classes and the author aptly describes the social mores and customs of the time period. Somewhat gloomy and dark, Sarah Waters describes her work as being somewhat Dickensian.

The novel can be read as a gothic ghost story; a supernatural thriller, a psychological character study, or a historical mystery novel. All would be correct and the author leaves the decision up to the reader.

Congratulations to the lucky winners of five free novels this month:
Brenda (welcome back!)
Carolyn
Liz
Nancy
Heather

Karin Alvtegen... Sweden has done it again!

The single most positive aspect of "Shadow" is the beautifully written prose. The words seem to speak directly to the reader in a heart-touching and sometimes heart-wrenching way.

I'll admit this is one of those novels where the cover art drew me in. Who can resist an adorable little boy?
Then I read the blurb at the back which told me that this little boy was abandoned and was somehow connected to the death thirty five years later of a 92 year old woman who had books in her freezer upon her death... That was enough to capture the attention of any bibliophile. Too old to be the boy's mother, how could this woman be connected to him?

The novel was a mystery, but not written in the traditional way. In fact the reader does not really know what the crime(s) were until close to the end of the book. When the circumstances are revealed it left me both disturbed and profoundly moved.

Set in Stockholm, the novel followed the life and family of Axel Ragnerfeldt, a famous and Nobel Prize winning novelist. (the author of the books in the freezer). The novel poses the question: How much is glory and fame really worth, when counted in the suffering of the people closest to you? His family were portrayed with such depth and empathy that the reader felt their hopelessness. The claustrophobic family ties, mysterious disappearances and dark secrets surrounding a man shrouded in myth were portrayed with an honesty and brutality that spoke of deep understanding. The theme of how the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children is not a new one, but Alvtegen's prose brought the theme home to me like no other book ever has. "No matter whether your action is evil or good, it spreads like rings on the water. Over vast expanses it will travel, finding ever new paths. That is why your influence is infinite, and also your guilt."

"Shadow" is the first novel I've read by Karin Alvtegen and I will read as many more as I can get hold of. That being said, this novel was not exactly uplifting. In fact I would go as far as to say that anyone suffering from seasonal affective disorder should not read this book in the winter. The overall tone was bleak and melancholy. To quote the novel's description on the author's website, "her darkest and most complex thriller to date, in which the disturbing truth of a sick family is gradually and mercilessly laid bare. " Highly recommended.

Is fiction ever really unique?

I recently read the new novel by Chelsea Cain entitled "Heart Sick".
After reading this novel I went on to read several reviews of the title. Some reviewers seemed to think less of it because it reminded them so much of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter novels. They felt that the author leaned too heavily on the plot style and method of Harris. True, there were similarities. However, is fiction ever completely unique? When you read a specific genre, whether it be mystery, fantasy or romance you are going to encounter similar themes and devices. The sadistic serial killer is just another example. Despite some bad press I enjoyed the novel. You can read my review in November's Gumshoe Review.