KINGDOM OF THE BLIND

January 14, 2019

Penny, Louise. KINGDOM OF THE BLIND.

Another Inspector Armand Gamache mystery. While he is suspended, a woman loosely connected to Three Pines names Gamache as one of her executors. A generations-long contested estate. Investment fraud. Recovery from the GLASS HOUSES drug-smuggling investigation. Winter in Quebec. Gripping. 

The BREAK

Katherena Vermette. THE BREAK. Anansi, 2016. 

Book Club selection for our January meeting. Style-wise, a tour de force, telling a story through a variety of POV, over four generations. Set in Winnipeg. Crime as a community wound. Identity. Grief. Heavy but uplifting. 

EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD

Ian Rankin. EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD. 2015.

Rebus is retired and consults on a case involving Big Ger and historic crime. Drives to Ullapool & stops to visit daughter and granddaughter. 

SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS

Tanya Talaga. SEVEN FALLEN FEATHERS: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. Anansi, 2017.

An incredible account of the loss of seven students from Northern Ontario attending high school in Thunder Bay. Precedes the inquiry about the TB police and police board. 

COVENTRY

Helen Humphreys. COVENTRY. HarperCollins, 2008.

A story of Harriet and Maeve who meet at the beginning of WWI and reconnect the night Coventry is bombed. I felt as if I were right there with them. Yeats' "terrible beauty". 

THE SACRED HEADWATERS

Wade Davis. The SACRED HEADWATERS: The Fight to Save the Stikine, Skeena, and Nass. Greystone, 2011.

I cheated a little on this coffee table book, reading only the photographs and captions. I am a great fan of Wade Davis' writing and this is local to British Columbia. 

HEART BERRIES

Terese Marie Mailhot. HEART BERRIES: A Memoir. Doubleday, Canada, 2018.

December 15, 2018. I read this memoir a second time, as the writing is so dense, like poetry, with every word and phrase needing to be attended to. Very brave. And complicated. The dual and triple diagnoses, with mental illness complicated by racism and obsession. Anxiety-producing in that the reader worries/hopes the writer is well now. 

I was watching more closely this time for the subtle cultural references of Little Mountain Woman who goes to the river and the desert.