The Paris Wife / by Paula McLain

In Chicago in 1920, Hadley Richardson is a twenty-eight-year-old St. Louis native who's feeling the effects of not having any marriage prospects, especially since many of her friends and onetime schoolmates have already tied the knot and are starting families. Then one night at a party, she meets a man named Ernest Hemingway who says to her straight away: "It's possible I'm too drunk to judge, but you might have something there." Hadley's instantly captivated by Ernest. His conventional good looks and charged charisma are great, but most of all it's his deeply passionate desire to become a writer that attracts her to him and, after only four months into their relationship, she finds herself engaged and then married to the man they call "Hem". Ernest wants to travel to Europe. They both do, but the money to live even modestly overseas just isn't available until a writer friend of Ernest's, author Sherwood Anderson, generously obliges their wishes, getting them the necessary funds and connections to set sail for Paris and its bohemian allure.

In the City of Lights, a place truly in of its more glittery stages, Ernest and Hadley are instantly welcomed into the well-known circle of famous expatriates that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; James Joyce is also known to pop in on things once in a while too. The high life in Paris has its price though because, frankly, it's just not ideal for a monogomous married couple to begin their life. With time as their passions for each other inevitably wain, things grow more and more tenuous between the pair as Hadley becomes increasingly aware of her husband's fluctuating often desperate moods, his problematic binge drinking and tendency to flirt with other women. As Hadley struggles with jealousy and self-doubt and Ernest wrestles with his burgeoning writing career, they must confront the falsehood about themselves, their union and their futures.

The Paris Wife is a nice little book. A historical fiction-based-on-fact piece examining the personal history of not only one of America's better known writers, but an iconic world figure, it succeeds in illuminating a very interesting time, place and person. And though the writer's first marriage is almost, right from the get go, a doomed prospect, their's a charming sentimentality about the way McLain illuminates their time together through Hadley's first-person voice. It was an amicable enough marriage by all accounts despite it's failure and there was, for the most part, almost no recurring regrets or hard feelings lingering after their breakup from which Hemingway would marry three more times and Hadley once more. True to his reputation, however, Hemingway was definitely not an easy man to live with even if he was 'great at parties' and, of course, a dedicated literary craftsman. What's inferred from the text--deductions based more on fact than fiction--is that the author-legend probably never could have been a good husband type of man. His steady stream of extramarital affairs, moody instability, need for adventure and wanderlust lifestyle largely negated his ability to perform more domestic roles necessary for such an undertaking. (FIC MCLAIN)

A Doll's House (DVD) 1973 / based on the play by Henrik Ibsen; starring Anthony Hopkins, Claire Bloom and Denholm Elliott

"The man is a moral cripple."

Nora Helmer leads an idyllic life. She's the pampered wife of Torvald Helmer, a banker and a man who spoils her with cash presents and little gifts almost daily, and she's the mother to 3 small children who are well-cared for by their own nanny. At least this is how it's seen from the outside looking in. In actuality, things are far different, and in fact they're becoming more desperate by the day. In connection to his recent promotion to bank manager, Torvald has elected to fire one of his employees, a man named Krogstadt, who's been accused of forging a signature on an important document. But there's something Torvald doesn't know about. What's being kept from him by Nora, and has been concealed from him for quite a while is the matter of a sum of money that Krogstadt once loaned Nora some years back when Torvald was very ill and needed a vacation.

It is not only the debt which Nora has been secretly working off which binds her loyalty to Krogstadt, but the fact that Nora is herself guilty of forging a signature, that of her own father (then deceased) as guarantor on the loan. This little secret, something for which Krogstadt is now blackmailing Nora to keep his job, will be found out sooner or later, and it is Nora dignity, Torvald's reputation and Krogstadt's livelihood which lies in the balance. But how can Nora even approach Torvald with the knowledge that his future is in jeopardy, especially since their relationship has never gone beyond the boundaries of familial niceties and formal gestures of flimsy affection--Nora essentially treated as a 'doll' of Torvald's?

This is a first-rate adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's classic tale, a filmed version of a play which included many of the same participants from the West End theatrical production. It is a story about lies and deceit, about place and society and, above all, of patriarchal hypocrisy of men and the victimization of women. A resplendent core cast of actors, namely Bloom, Hopkins and Elliott, all of whom were in their prime, or in Hopkins' case, just moving to the forefront of the A-list, entwine the audience to the suspense and conflict which arise out of circumstance and desperation. But it's Ibsen's finely crafted drama, his interweaving of chance, ambition and existential conundrums, which set A Doll's House (first written and produced in 1879) at a level above so many other classic fables and morality plays. The rising theme is bigger than what many consider it's crux, that of emerging feminism, to be. At it's core, it is a piece which exemplifies the human condition, indeed the need of every individual discover the kind of person they really are and strive to embody that person throughout their life. (DVD DOLLS)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother / by Amy Chua

"This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.” (cover)

The daughter of first generation Chinese immigrants, Amy Chua's childhood was instilled with the virtue of hard work, the value of academic excellence and the efficacy of superior performance achieved through strict attention-to-detail and time-intensive practice. It paid off. She excelled in school enough to get into Harvard where she also excelled, graduating magna cum laude in Economics and again cum laude from Harvard Law School. Currently she's a Yale professor and has a resume which includes a former professorship at Duke and an executive editor position for the Harvard Law Review.

Not without controversy, her parenting memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, contrasting the Chinese way of child-rearing and the Western/American approach, probes, among other things, the reason why Asian children do better in school than Americans. Chua states, more than once, that her station and success in life is owed to the strict, uncompromising ideology which her parents adhered to during her upbringing; subsequently, she muses that it's no coincidence that Asian children do better in school than their Western counterparts. Americans are too concerned with self-worth and positive feedback, a system depriving children of the persistence needed to strive toward success. This westernized way of rewarding marginal achievements and too readily accepting failure  a viewpoint inevitably slanted toward sentimentality and self-esteem building, can't compete with the Chinese method more associated with punishing ignorance and extracting perfection, often through seemingly cruel and excoriating maneuvers. Additionally, by placing emphasis on a child's success in things like sports or drama, American parents are actually discouraging hard work in other more academically-oriented areas. 

But this book's not really about grades or test scores. Nor is it a hard-edged, this-is-the-right-way-to-do-things diatribe stressing personal preference or cultural difference. With candid exposition and good dose of familiar humor, it's more about Chua's interaction with her two daughters, how over the years she's imputed to them the same rigid structure her own childhood entailed and how the results have played out. No birthday parties, no sleepovers, no sports, no TV, no portable media devices, no being in school plays, no complaining about not being able to do/have said things, etc. pretty much grasps the gist of the way things work in the Chua's household. Failure to make not only good grades, but perfect grades, can and will result in removal and/or destruction of stuffed animals, dolls or toys. The same goes for not getting a musical solo piece exactly right within a condensed time window. Chua's narrative, strict stipulations and all, isn't as tyrannical as it may seem. Nor is the book a direct challenge to other, less aggressive parenting methods. In Chua's family, as in all cultures and generations, there are conflicts inherent in every parent-child relationship, problems which often have no solution, and stubborness at both ends which tends to escalate tension. There's also love, joy and genuinely heartfelt moments between mother and daughter(s), something making this book a worthwhile read. (B CHUA)

Strangers / by Anita Brookner

Anita Brookner is one of those writers which few people know about and even fewer will understand. But her genius won't be lost on those who commit to her work. Successfully completing her Art History Ph.D. in 1949, she worked as a fellow and a scholar in the profession for the next few decades, ultimately becoming the first woman to be awarded the Slade professorship at Cambridge and later receiving a CBE (Commander of the British Empire). Brookner didn't start writing until 1981 when at the age of 53 she published A Start in Life; three years later her novel Hotel du Lac won the Booker Prize. In the time since, she's churned out 24 books with Strangers, her latest, successfully incorporating all of the intuition and high comedy she's come to be known for.

"Sturgis had always known that it was his destiny to die among strangers." (p. 1)

Londoner Paul Sturgis is 74, comfortably retired and alone. He's always been alone. And he's learned to accept it. Never having married, though not for want of trying (his only two serious liasons ended because both women felt he wasn't exciting enough), Paul's routine existence steadily plods along, revolving around morning coffee, visits to the library and Sunday trips across town to see his only other relation, Helena, who's not even a blood relative, only the widow of a cousin. He's keen on how he fits in to society, conscious of his effect on people, knows he can sometimes come off as too eager, too polite. An always internally recurring "You're too nice", a sentiment expressed on more than one occasion by a former girlfriend promptly before she left him, is the opinion firmly imbedded in his mind as too how others receive him. He's gotten used to it. A particularly emotionally cold upbringing, he knows, has committed to this life of obligatory inoffensive behavior. But he can always postulate (repeatedly) on the personal inadequacies post-childhood which may have contributed to his current disposition, chief among them his steady though decidedly non-essential career as a bank manager, a job he worked dutifully at until retiring early to avoid the humiliation of being replaced by "the new man with new ideas".

But even amidst his introspective, settled manner, Paul is no invalid; he's not a recluse or confirmed loner who won't approach even the idea of an active life or companionship and, inevitably, he can always begin to sense the restlessness of his station. Trying to shed his melancholy by changing his atmosphere, Paul suddenly jettisons off to Venice for the Christmas holiday where he hopes the sights and scenes, revisiting the same museums and restaurants he's been to before and staying at the same hotel with the same beds, will refresh his outlook. It doesn't work. He returns from his little vacation as desultory as when he left. But something which happened on the trip, an encounter on the plane and later reacquaintance at a restaurant with a fifty-ish divorcee, has ruffled his routine enough to take his mind off himself, if only for a little while. Or so he thinks.

What may seem another boring tale of elderly incapacity and despair upon first appearance (a sentiment parlayed by more than a few dour reviews) is actually something else entirely. Look closer. Take the time to let Brookner's words seep in and discover that Strangers is a truly poignant novel by an astoundingly gifted author. The book is in no way a sad novel; neither does it offer false hope. Rather it captures the condition of solitude in a staggeringly accurate, almost infallible way, unmistakeable in its manner of exacting a life lived inside the mind, from waking to sleeping, walking to sitting, almost on a moment to moment basis. And yet, at the same time, it's as charmingly candid an exposition of subject matter as anything could ever be, the author's manner and style a pleasant discovery at every turn. With Strangers, seemingly even the most mundane, the most pitiful and pathetic of lives becomes as engendering (and more so) as the youthful exuberance of more well-connected characters. No one who attempts to read Brookner with willing attention will be disappointed. (FIC BROOKNER)

The Cold Kiss / by John Rector

Fleeing a past they'd rather forget, Nate and Sara are two twenty-somethings driving from Minnesota to Reno to get married when they stop in to a diner to have lunch. There they meet a man, Syl White, who's car won't start. Syl also seems to be desperately ill though he vehemently denies it, saying he just needs a lift to Omaha for which he openly offers Nate over $500 in cash. Despite reservations, sympathy gets the better of them and they agree to give the stranger a lift. But as the trio set off, a furious snowstorm practically strands them on the road until by chance they stumble into a shabby motel, The Oasis Inn, where they discover that there passenger has not only been shot recently, but that he's (practically) dead. Owing to the storm, emergency relay is virtually impossible and further arrangements have to be delayed. But that's not all. Inside his coat pocket he's got over $20,000 in crisp new bills, a discovery startling both Nate and Sara until they get a look at what's inside Syl's briefcase--almost $2 million in cash.

In a panic over what to do and knowing that to take the money would mean having to lie about their encounter with the stranger, Nat and Sara spend the night restlessly trying to handle their little situation, ultimately deciding to abscond with the cash the following morning since nothing more can be done for their now decidedly dead passenger. That night Nate tries to hide the body, dragging it out of the car and into a nearby field where presumably it would be hidden from view. But someone sees him and before long, the couple's little plan becomes a desperate attempt to cover up their maneuvers as the ever-worsening blizzard keeps them snowed in at least for the next few hours and the curious story behind the money steadily unravels.

Having written nothing but short fiction before Cold Kiss, his first novel, Rector doesn't waste any time introducing his story and his ill-fated characters which he tailors into a fast and manageable read, one which maintains a steady stream of abrupt turning points throughout the narrative. There's nothing all that original about the plot--large sum of money of vague origins falling into the hands of some not-terribly-bright individuals/handful of strangers stuck together under confined conditions. But the author seems to know where he's headed. That is to say he knows where his characters are headed, all eight of them, who, while they may not jump off the page, are enough of an assortment imperfect people to both scrutinize and evoke sympathy simply because, not unlike real life, they're people who just can't seem to learn from their mistakes. (FIC RECTOR)

Mall: A Novel / by Eric Bogosian

A graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, Eric Bogosian was actually born in Massachusetts to first generation Armenian-Americans. Following college, he moved to New York City where he's worked as an actor and writer and been called one of the most influential conventional playwrites of his generation. His 1987 off broadway play "Talk Radio", based on the real life of Denver Disc Jockey Alan Berg, won him a Pulitzer Prize with Bogosian later starring in the Oliver Stone film version of the same name. Another play, "suBurbia", about a group of slacker college-age kids who never left their hometown, was adapted to the big screen by Richard Linklater in 1996. Mall, published in 2000, is his first novel.

"The mall was the same, fully lit up but devoid of its warm-blooded content." (p. 243).

Malcolm "Mal" is a thirtysomething slacker who lives in his mom's basement. A speed freak who cooks his own methamphetamine, he's gotten so sick of his mother's consistent prodding and nagging that one day he shoots her dead, sets fire to his home and sets off to the local mall with a sackful of loaded weapons and a frenzied plan to implement further destruction. Among the shoppers and pedestrians on this particular day is Danny Marks, a jet-setting businessman with a fetish for underwear models and a penchant for peeping at girls in department stores. Danny's been scoping out the action in JCPenney's when he's caught by mall security and taken into custody. Elsewhere, Jeff is a mopy teenager who's just dropped another acid and is casually doing his people watching, sort of a habit of his, from a local bench. Donna is lonely housewife who's looking for a man and Michel, a Haitian immigrant, is a mall security guard who only wants to work hard and live honorably. As Mal and his personal armory converge on the mall and pandemonium invevitably ensues, all 5 characters, their needs and wants seemingly drawing them together, cross paths at the modern promenade of possibility in the most unlikely of ways.

Whether he's writing or acting, Bogosian seems to be at his best when he's jumping around from place to place at warpspeed. Something about a lot of characters, multiple backstories and a conflux of motivations converging over a very small window of time is where his ability really shines. "Talk Radio" and "suBurbia" were like this; both elucidating with candid, visceral authority the quiet desperation of malcontented middle-classers. But in the post-Pulp Fiction era, where hell-bent characters, drug-addled rage and trigger-happy lunatics are something to almost be expected in media of all forms, the approach can be risky. It doesn't matter. Bogosian's writing, his terse alternating sections thrust out by an omniscient narrator, ring true even as much of the time the action does the talking. Easy to read, with concepts and internal psyches that aren't hard to grasp, Mall is a candid look at the most normal of normal lives in the most pedestrian of places, illuminating a world in which we live and an atmosphere we think we know. (FIC BOGOSIAN)

Newer Civil War Fiction

Devil’s Dream / by Madison Smartt Bell

In the years leading up to the Civil War, soon-to-be Confederate General

Nathan Bedford Forrest marries a woman, has a child and adopts the position of slave owner in the rural south. Fast forwarding in time to Sherman’s march, which targeted Forrest directly, the general tries to fend off the South’s inevitable defeat as he looks back on his past. (FIC BELL)

Sweetsmoke: A Novel / by David Fuller

Cassius is a secretly educated slave on a tobacco plantation in Virginia.

 While the Civil War rages on around him, Cassius is pursuing his own cause: to find out who killed his adoptive mother, a free black woman named Emoline Justice. Setting out on the road, employing various aliases and ruses to avoid suspicion, Cassius encounters a world seemingly bent on chaos as he confronts soldiers, slave traders, spies, slaves both free and those still unliberated in his determined quest. (FIC FULLER)

Escape From Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War / by Gene Hackman
Following capture by a Confederate regiment in 1864, Union Captain NathanParker and 23 of his men are transported to Andersonville prison in Georgia where deplorable treatment prompts Parker to hatch an escape plan. After the daring plan is carried off and the Captain finds himself on the outside, he formulates another daring plan: to improvise a scheme to rescue his remaining troops. (FIC HACKMAN)

Home Land: A Novel / by Barbara Hambly
As a nation goes to war and tensions rise between North and South, two

 women become close friends as pen pals sharing their lives to each other via correspondence. Susanna Ashford, a plantation owner’s wife, and Cora Poole, who lives on an isolated Maine island, find that they have more in common than just liking the same books. They also share a common bond of peace and companionship in a time of conflict. (FIC HAMBLY)

All Other Nights: A Novel / by Dara Horn
In 1862, Jacob Rappaport, a jew, runs away from home and enlists in the Union army where it doesn’t take for his superiors to catch wind of who he really is. Jacob comes from a very powerful mercantile family whose holdings are headquartered in both the South and the North. The 19-year-old is quickly employed as a spy to help the Union get an edge on the supply end of things. But when he’s assigned to infiltrate a Confederate spy, a young jewess named Eugenia Levy, Jacob finds that his mission has become endangered by his growing attraction to the girl. (FIC HORN)

Hallam’s War / by Elisabeth Payne Rosen
Leaving Charleston for what they think will be a better life in Tennessee, Hugh and Serena Hallam have set up shop at a farm called Palmyria with their

three children and 12 slaves. With war on the horizon, the Hallams are still hopeful that a peaceful resolution will come. But when the conflict can no longer be put off and war is declared, Hugh, a West Point graduate, heads off to fight for the Confederacy leaving Serena to deal with what is already the daunting task of running the farm. (FIC ROSEN)

The Age of Iron by J.M. Coetzee

Coetzee was raised in South Africa and now lives in Australia. He is an acclaimed writer who writes of the legacy of lies that is generated from man’s inhumanity to man, from the unequal power structures that are created and exist within our neighborhoods, families, schools and governments.

The Age of Iron is his sixth novel. Written in 1990, in the last years under South Africa’s system of apartheid, the novel is about a Mrs. Curran, a white liberal South African, living in Cape Town, who is dying of cancer. The cancer has eaten into her bones. It gives her immense pain, but she does not want to check into a hospital, since she knows that all they will do is help to obliterate her, drown her with medication. South Africa has cancer too, suffering from a malignancy that has enveloped all its population. Mrs. Curran, as a liberal, has considered her existence as apart from the injustice of apartheid. As a university professor, she has bemoaned it, witnessed against it, and finally lived with it, although unwillingly. But what she will discover is that she has never been outside its influence. And instead of being a bystander, she finds that she has been an accomplice.

Mrs. Curran’s dying condition is what arrests her, opens up her life to the reality outside her. First she forges a strange alliance with a homeless man, an alcoholic, who she feeds and offers shelter to, asking him for favors - like helping her when the pain is too intense. He is inscrutable, as ready to curse her as to mutter an unwilling response, to her intense and agonized questions. Her black maid has a teenage son, caught up as all the other young black people are, in the violence happening in the townships - the official reaction to their demonstrations. Dying alone, Mrs. Curran sees the ties that others have, and follows any claim now put upon her. She drives her maid out to the township, and sees the boy’s body laid out, killed by the police. Later another black young man, the dead boy’s friend, comes to her for hiding and is found and killed in her own house.

Coetzee's writing is searing and memorable, spare yet evocative in detail and in mood. You cannot escape the impact of what he writes. Yet for all his understanding, he will not countenance any real hope for redemption. He points to our ability to fool ourselves, to weave impressions of our plight that suit our need for affirmation, that we can be “baring our soul” and still be manipulating our audience. Mrs. Curran has grandchildren – the sons of her daughter who fled South Africa, turned her back on her country and now lives in the United States. But Mrs. Curran does not envy those children. Instead, she regrets their having escaped this doom, this inheritance of weight and implication. To her, they will die “as stupid as the day they were born” – protected: never to drown, never to taste dirt in their mouth.

Coal Run / by Tawni O'Dell

There isn't much to Coal Run. It's always been a thoroughly forgettable place. Even back during its relatively prosperous days, and even before a mine explosion killed 96 men (half the entire male population), it was just another dying Pennsylvania coal town. But a generation later, the fierce pride of its people still resonates even as the physical evidence of wrecked lives and abandoned homes can kill the mood of observers. In its citizens, nearly all still feeling the effects of the disaster, flickers of the hardworking, blue collar spirit are still alive, it's women and (remaining) men holding on to what's left. This mentality of hardscrabble gumption is something Ivan Zoshchenko knows well as anyone. A former gridiron legend who left the town for further glory, the man known by all as "The Great Ivan Z" is back home after almost 20 years of drifting nomadically from one place to another. A sheriff's deputy, he now spends his days dealing with domestic disputes and high strung rednecks in a job--the only one he could get--which at least leaves his nights free to drink away his sorrows.

Anyway, it's the more personal matters that seem to occupy his time these days. With his father killed in the explosion, the only remaining family Ivan has are his stubborn mother, a hospital administrator still suppressing the past, and his staunchly independent sister, a single mom who despite her squalid living conditions, won't take any help from Ivan or her ex and never misses an opportunity to rail against the men in her life. There's also a little matter concerning two people he was once very close to--a friend and old girlfriend with whom he's lost touch. Only days away is the prison release of Reese Raynor, a onetime friend and teammate who's been serving time for beating his wife, (Ivan's ex) Crystal, into a coma. It's got Ivan thinking about the past more than ever and, as the release date lingers, he feels compelled to confront Reese, about his wife, sure, but also about a long-ago hidden secret the two men share and a regretful past that binds them both to the town.

O'Dell grounds her story in a starkly familiar world which no one will have difficulty engaging. Even readers who have no connection to the region and are unacquainted with the plight of its people, Coal Run communicates a common theme of grief, loss and regret with frightening realism. And while the character of Ivan, a figure mirroring the town's plight perfectly, can seem a bit unoriginal (the fallen athletic hero forced to come to terms with his shattered dreams) and O'Dell has a tendency to distort or oversentimentalize about his suffering, it's a story which moves along well enough. The book isn't really about individuals anyway. It's more of an acutely realistic case study of how past mistakes can reverberate, of how tragedy sometimes marks its survivors more than its victims and how the despair of dead-end lives exists right here in America, something which, as O'Dell tells it, is a story worth hearing. (FIC ODELL)

Quiver: A Novel / by Peter Leonard

Tragedy strikes 16-year-old Luke McCall, son of NASCAR champion Owen McCall, when he accidentally kills his father in a hunting accident. Plunged into a deep despair from which his mother Kate fears he may never get out of, Luke finds his circumstances altered when he's kidnapped and held for ransom by some East Detroit criminals barely older than himself. The trio, headed by a sadistic crystal meth-head named Teddy Hicks, someone who'd actually had a run-in with Owen McCall some years earlier, may seem bumbling but they're definitely as ruthless as they are witless and aren't afraid to resort to torturous methods to get what they want. Together with his girlfriend Celeste, a runaway, and Dejuan, a car jacker, they succeed in abducting their target but still can't decide on what to do about a mysterious fourth member of their party who's been operating behind the scenes.

45-year-old Jack Curran has a problem staying out of trouble. OK, maybe not so much as before he convicted of fraud and sent to prison, but he still feels the pull of his old life of crime, a life he was actually good at. It was a better gig, anyway, than the pittance he makes working as a laborer during his probationary period. So when he reads about an old girlfriend, a wealthy old girlfriend, who's just lost her racecar-driving husband, Jack decides to take a little trip. Kate McCall is more concerned than surprise when Jack shows up, seemingly out of thin air, and is frankly at a loss about what to do. Still in the process of grieving over her dead husband and managing her emotionally damaged son, Kate tries to do what she thinks is right, choosing to believe Jack's story about his investment property in Arizona and his occupation as a realtor. Plus there's a lingering attraction which she feels to the man she loved before she ever loved her husband and before any of her current misery befell her.

Quiver has all of the essentials of a classic Elmore Leonard novel but lacks much of the personality. Peter Leonard, son of the aforementioned (truly one of America's under-the-radar literary legends), succeeds in grasping the attention of the reader with those same brief, succinct sequences his father has demonstrated so brilliantly over the decades. Yet he doesn't quite complete the circle. His characters, nuanced and memorable as some of them are, don't quite stand on their own the way so many of his father's have. This is a problem because it kind of contributes to the disjointed first half of the book. Characters like Teddy and Dejuan, both recognizable Detroit-types who true Leonard fans won't miss on, are perhaps more forced than they need to be and Kate's backstory, which includes a harrowing near-death experience as a part of her early life, doesn't quite make her into a believable heroine at the conclusion. It's a good read though, solidly paced and short enough to hold interest of true thriller fans up until the very last stand-off. (FIC LEONARD)