The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

Three years later, Louis had gone away to college and I married Griff. Damn fairies, I thought to myself now. I don't live in a yellow house, I've never been to the ocean, and Louis didn't love me forever. And my Calli, my dear heart, is missing. All that I touch gets damaged or lost.

from page 115

The title of Heather Gudenkauf's debut novel, The Weight of Silence, has both literal and figurative meaning in this spell binding and heart pounding story. The story is straight from every parent's worst nightmare; however, at its heart it is truly about the cost of the silence it takes to keep a secret hidden and the trauma that would silence a little girl for years.

One idyllic summer day, the Clark and Gregory families wake up early to find that their seven year old daughters, Calli Clark and Petra Gregory, are missing. As the sweltering summer day progresses and the search continues, it becomes clear that the two girls, best friends for years, have not merely wandered off into the neighboring woods to explore together. It is not even clear that the girls are together.

The story revolves among several perspectives: Deputy Sheriff Louis; Antonia, Calli's mother; Ben, Calli's brother; Martin, Petra's father; and Callie and Petra. Slowly the events of the day unfold from each character's point of view and we learn what led each girl to be missing from her respective home. We learn also of the shared and separate histories of each character as brutal family secrets are revealed, including the alcoholism and abuse that the Clark children and their mother suffer at the hands of Griff, their father and husband and the tragedy that led to Calli's muteness.

This is a breath taking, page turning, suspenseful novel ripe with beautiful writing that vividly depicts the terror the children experience at the hands of their father in the midst of his alcohol fueled rages. I highly recommend this book.

The Weight of Silence is available upon request from Annville Free Library and Lebanon Community Library.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

This is the fourth novel by Maggie O'Farrell, but only the third that I've read. Copies of her debut title, After You'd Gone, are available in the county to borrow; her second title, My Lover's Lover, is available upon request from outside the county, which is how I read it. I've read her first two novels and I recommend them. O'Farrell's most recent novel is The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and it is a complex, tragic tale of the dynamics of family, love, trust and betrayal in 1930's Britain.

The novel switches off among three perspectives: Iris's point of view in present time, Esme's point of view that fluidly moves between her recollections of the past and her perception of the present, and Esme's sister Kitty's point of view that offers extremely disjointed recollections filtered through the fog of the Alzheimer's disease from which she suffers. Each perspective has a subtley distinct voice as each character narrates the story of a shared family history, a picture is slowly revealed of how the Lennox sisters' history effects the life and interactions of the granddaughter, Iris. It becomes clear that through familial dysfunction that lead to tragedy has forever shaped and continues to shape this family's path.

Iris has spent her entire life under the impression that her grandmother, Kitty, was an only child. Then she is contacted by Cauldstone, a psychiatric institution that's in the process of shutting down, regarding arrangements for Kitty's sister, Esme, who has been institutionalized for over sixty years and whose very existence has been thoroughly erased from the family. At a loss as to what to do with the great-aunt she never knew she had, Iris cannot ask her father to shed light on this mystery since he is long dead, and her grandmother, Kitty, cannot tell her how Esme came to be instutionalized and exiled from the family because Kitty is deep in the mires of Alzheimer's.

As the story of the two sisters emerges, one wonders: was Esme truly mentally ill or was she institutionalized because she did not fit society's strictly prescribed, oppressive role for a woman in the early twentieth century? What are the effects of a lifetime of institutionalization on an otherwise healthy and sound of mind woman?

This heart wrenching account from both Esme's and Kitty's points of view, of the mental institution, of Esme's treatment there and by her family. A vicious, vindictive betrayal cuts all the more deeply and sharply for the very fact that it was committed by the one person Esme loved and trusted most: her sister. You won't be able to put this book down until the final, devastating page is read and finally all secrets are revealed.

I recommend you read this book; check it out the next time you visit the library--it is available upon request from Annville Free Library, Lebanon Community Library, and Richland Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs is the most recent addition to the annals of the adventures and misadventures of Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist. This is a must read for die-hard fans of the series. From the gripping, frightening, heart pounding opening lines, the tension is thick and the suspense is high.

In this installment the stakes are much higher than in previous Brennan novels. 206 Bones is not just about catching a brutal murderer of elderly women; the integrity and credibility of the Montreal medical examiner's office is also at stake as well as Brennan's own reputation, credibility, career, and eventually her life.

Brennan awakens in pitch black darkness and cold without any memory of how she got there or the past several days. She is unsure of how long she has been unconscious or how much time she has spent in captivity. Instead Brennan focuses on passing the time by working to free herself from her terrifying, dark tomb while reconstructing her memories of the events of the past few weeks in hopes of sussing out her captors.

In the previous weeks Detective Ryan and Dr. Brennan accompany a body to Chicago where Brennan is accused of mishandling the autopsy by an anonymous call made to the powerfully connected next of kin to the elderly female victim. Upon return to Montreal, more elderly female murder victims turn up and before long it is clear that not only is someone targeting Brennan's credibility, but that person is also targeting the reputations of other pathologists' in the office. On top of this issue is the suddenly toxic working atmosphere of the office thanks to an ambitious recent addition to the staff. Ryan and Brennan race to put a murderer behind bars while Brennan races to put together the pieces of the mystery of who is sabotaging work in the office and how it all connects to her current predicament of captivity.

Fans of both mystery thriller/suspense and the Brennan series will eagerly devour this gripping, suspenseful, frightening, high stakes page turner of a novel. It is available at the Matthews Public Library and upon request from Annville Free Library, Myerstown Community Library, Palmyra Public Library, and Richland Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Frozen Fire by Tim Bowler

"I feel apart from everything and a part of everything ... I wish this pain would go," he muttered. "But it's getting worse ... It's like walking with a shadow you can't shake off. And now this new vision. I can't make sense of it. All I know is it's..." He breathed heavily out. "It's something to do with the light. Something not many people can see. But you can see it. You think your biggest mystery's Josh. But it isn't. It's this other thing." from page 78

Frozen Fire by Tim Bowler simmers with crackling, heart pounding suspense right from the start as the story breathlessly sweeps you up and along in its momentum.

The story opens with a frightening phone call from a mysterious and strange boy who wants to die and who knows things about Dusty that only her long disappeared brother Josh would know. For this reason Dusty thinks the boy knows more about her brother's disappearance and fate than the boy admits. The promise of getting to the boy, saving him and finding out what he knows about Josh lures Dusty out into the cold and snowy night. As she tracks the boy to a nearby park, she is confronted and chased by a trio of menacing men--a father and his two sons--who also chase the boy for far more sinister purposes. The men threaten Dusty and everyone she loves in an effort to coerce her into revealing her perceived connection to the boy and to exploit this connection in order to entrap the boy. Though Dusty doesn't even know the strange boy, she protects what little she does know of him and just how they have connected, in order to give herself a chance to track him down to find out what he knows about her brother.

When the boy contacts Dusty again over the phone, it's clear he is not a normal boy, but what or who exactly is he and what does the strange light he speaks of and that Dusty sees as well mean for her, for him and for her small village? Unfortunately, while the author excels in the suspense and thrills department, he does not excel in the department of answering questions for these are never fully resolved by book's end.

Ultimately made an outcast in her town and targeted by the bands of vigilantes bent on bringing the strange boy to justice for crimes he allegedly committed, Dusty is just as determined to shield him from police and angry mob alike. The mysterious turmoil brought about by the boy's presence and very existence steadily and wildly spins out of control as the story whips through one frightening confrontation between the angry mob of vigilantes and Dusty after another until the final frightening, breath taking showdown.

The lack of answered questions as to the boy's name and nature and what his presence means detracts considerably from the ending's impact potential. While the boy and Dusty are both clearly on journeys of their own that parallel and intersect, the story is mainly Dusty's as she seeks answers and healing for herself and her shattered family as she struggles to grasp the greater meaning of the lessons in the boy's predicament. Ultimately, Dusty receives a heartbreaking and harrowing resolution to the questions she had about her brother's disappearance and who he was as a person.

This book is available in the young adult fiction section of the Matthews Public Library and also upon request from Richland Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

First of all, as a person who has always been interested in names and their origins and meanings, I'd just like to say that the name Deliverance Dane is awesome. Truly awesome--and according to the author's note at the end of the book, it belonged to a real person involved in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in Massachusetts. Deliverance Dane. I love that name.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is the debut novel of Katherine Howe, a doctoral candidate in American and New England Studies. In 1991, Connie, a Harvard graduate student just beginning her doctoral dissertation research in American colonial history and culture, is coerced by her mother into cleaning up her grandmother's ancient house in Marblehead, Massachusetts. When Connie arrives, the house is in near ruins, having stood empty for about twenty years, the yard's herb and vegetable gardens are overgrown and the house lacks a phone and electricity. One evening Connie happens across an old key hidden in a family bible; the key is labelled with ancient parchment as belonging to one Deliverance Dane. Thus begins Connie's search for the identity of this woman; Connie's early research yeilds the name of Deliverance Dane on a 1692 list of excommunicated persons from the Salem church. She knows what this means: Dane was caught up in the tragedy and terror of the Salem Witch Trials of that year. But who was she and why was her name purged from history? Connie, plagued by puzzling, frightening visions, becomes determined to answer these questions. Interwoven with this story are chapters hearkening back to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that reveal the very beginnings of Dane's ordeal in the decade preceding the panic that spawned the witch trials, the trials, and Dane's trial's aftermath on the generations of Dane women immediately descended from Deliverance. How does Dane's story connect to Connie's present? Connie utilizes all her skills as a historian to trace the whereabouts of Dane's spellbook as it is passed down the generations mother to daughter.

With a gripping story firmly rooted in research the intriguing, fascinating and heartbreaking history of the Salem Witch Trials is intermingled with several historical, cultural, anthropological and societal theories explaining the panic that gripped such a small town. The page turning suspense carries the reader quickly toward a heartpounding climax in which Connie realizes that both her history and her future are far more intertwined than she ever could have imagined.

This book is available here at the Matthews Public Library and also upon request from the Annville Free Library. I highly recommend that history buffs, family genealogical enthusiasts, or mystery lovers check it out.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee

Let me tell you a girl of eleven is capable of far more than is dreamt of in most universes ... a girl of eleven is more than the sum of her age. Although it is not often stated, she is already living in her twelfth year; she has entered into the future. From pages 4-5

I told him stories are the way you look at the world. That stories are your salvation. Stories are your salvation. From page 228

There may be no one [my mother] loves more than me, but every time she looks at me she sees my sister ... Warring ghosts fight each other inside my mother's heart, and the battles have made her stern and strong. From page 229

I have a lot to say about this book, and I suppose that means it had more of an impact on me than I initially thought. When I was reading one of the last chapters I was thinking about how I was disappointed in this book... mostly because I felt that nothing really "happened" in it. Upon further reflection I've realized that this is not really true. Perhaps the reason I felt like this is because it's a quiet kind of book that sneaks up on you and also because it is largely a book that depicts the very colorful inner life, internal thoughts, and vivid imagination of an eleven year old girl. Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee is a coming of age story; it is very much a story about how Clara winter (spelled with a lower case 'w'--she has profound reasoning behind this quirk) sees others and the world around her. This is also very much a book about a reader and a lover of words.

Clara loves reading; she loves words--one of her favorite words is ingenuous because it's "perfect ... the way the 'g' slides into the 'enuous.'" She is also fascinated by pioneer history, and she hates the dark and the cold and the desolation of the winter season and what it took from her all those years ago, and that is why her last name is spelled with a lower case 'w.' Clara is an unusually precocious, eccentric eleven year old with an extremely vivid imagination, and one winter she decides to befriend an old man in her town named Georg. Clara likes to make up stories and sometimes she forgets what she's made up and what is the truth; at first I thought she was an unreliable narrator. However, Clara has no trouble realizing or remembering what is part of a story she made up and what is fact. The novel is as much about Clara and the year she puts away childish things as it is about her made up stories and how she uses them to fill in the blanks of her history--namely, the absence of her father, grandfather, and twin sister--that her mother refuses to talk about and to cope with these painful absences. In the short months long friendship between Clara and Georg, she learns a lot from the old man; specifically Clara learns how to see the possibility of both beauty and usefulness in the discarded detritus of others' daily lives. She is forever changed by her friendship with the old man.

This quiet kind of beautiful story with its beautiful writing is meant to be read slowly--to be savored and reflected upon as one reads. This wasn't how I read most of the book and in some ways I regret not taking the time to appreciate the story for what it is-- a coming of age story of a young girl and the account of the year that demarcates where her childhood ended and her adulthood began.

This book is available upon request from Lebanon Community Library. I recommend that you check it out the next time you visit.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Session 9

Session 9 stars Peter Mullan, David Caruso and Josh Lucas, who, let's be honest, is the whole reason I stumbled upon and watched the movie. It's too bad Lucas plays an insensitive jerk, but I guess it's good for his career not to be cast as the romantic lead/hero in every movie he's in. At the end of this movie, I thought "Whoa. Wait a minute. What just happened?" And apparently the catalyst behind what happens in this film is up to much debate and interpretation in the cyberuniverse where the ultimate consensus is that it is in the eye of the viewer as to which interpretation one believes. I will say that while I expected this movie to go in one direction --that is, the supernatural/horror path--it really went in an altogether different direction for me. One bit of advice for viewing this movie: watch closely because there little details that will clue the viewer into what is happening.

Jeff, Mike, Hank, Phil and Gordon make up the hazardous materials clean up crew hired by the city to clean up the Danvers State Mental Hospital building so that the structure can then be converted into city government office space. The crew has just a week to finish the job if they want to collect the $10,000 bonus that's been offered to them. The guys undertake the job in the creepy hospital, and it quickly becomes apparant that stress and tension threaten to endanger both the team and the job. Are the cracks that threaten the team's cohesiveness the result of something more sinister at work that's preying upon the men's psyches and fears? Or are the cracks the result of various outside stressors occurring in the men's outside lives to create a perfect storm of infighting and tensions on the job site? Gordon has tension at home, Hank is a jerk, Phil starts having doubts about Gordon's leadership, Jeff fears the dark, and Mike becomes obsessed with a box of old session tapes that may or may not reveal the dark secret the hospital harbors. There are nine session tapes in all and it is from the ninth tape that the movie takes its title. How does the story related in the session tapes parallel what's happening in the movie's present?

Wicked scary, creepily freaky more than adequately describe this film, a psychological thriller in every sense of the word; you'll be viewing it from the edge of your seat by the end of the movie. After the movie's over, you'll wander if it was something supernatural that lingered in the hospital or was it the residual effects of treating so many mental illnesses for so many years in one building that haunted the team.

I highly recommend you check out this movie the next time you visit the library. It is coming soon to the Matthews Public Library's DVD section.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Fractured by Karin Slaughter

I have now read every Karin Slaughter book out there and must now wait for the next one. I believe I talked about Slaughter's penchant for the wicked twist in a previous blog entry; whether it's in the opening chapters or at the end, she's got a talent for them. Another thing I like about Slaughter's books is how the mystery of whodunit is revealed and resolved. She makes the resolution believable and organic--though this does not mean it was necessarily predictable by any means and is often quite the opposite. Maybe it's a testament to Slaughter's meticulous development of characters throughout the story that one never feels that the culprit appears suddenly from the mists out in left field.

Fractured opens in an affluent, Atlanta neighborhood. A wealthy teenage girl has been beaten to death and quite possibly raped during the course of her brutal murder. Before the sun sets on this murder, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has taken over the case and agent Will Trent is searching for another girl, who has been kidnapped. Throughout the course of the investigation an extremely unfavorable portrait is painted of a cruelly manipulative girl for whom causing trouble and wrecking lives soon becomes a blood sport. The investigation also introduces Trent to Atlanta homicide detective, Faith Mitchell, his future GBI partner.

While I love the characters of Mitchell and Trent, I can't say as much for Trent's "fiancee," Angie. If that woman jumped off a cliff, never to be seen nor heard from again, I would be very happy.

This is a gripping page turner dripping with suspense as Trent and Mitchell track down leads and clues, putting the pieces of the puzzle together as quickly as possible. But will it be quickly enough to save the girl who's been taken and is surely suffering unspeakable horrors at the hands of her captor?

I highly recommend you read this book. It is available on shelf at Matthews Public Library; it is also available upon request from Annville Free Library, Lebanon Community Library, Myerstown Community Library, Palmyra Public Library, and Richland Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

TripTych by Karin Slaughter

I'm a big Karin Slaughter fan. After reading Undone and the last two Slaughter books outside of the Grant county series that I hadn't read yet, it's like I'm rediscovering why I'm a Slaughter fan in the first place. Now that I've read all of her books (a review for Fractured is forthcoming), I am giddy with anticipation for the next novel coming out in 2010 and desperate for information on what it's about. I'd settle for knowing whether or not it'll feature both Dr. Sara Linton and GBI agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell like her current release does.

I remember when TripTych first came out; I started to read it and then stopped after the first couple chapters. Something about the character of Michael Ormewood just turned me off. A couple years later after I finished reading Undone and decided I had to read Slaughter's other novels that featured Trent, I gave TripTych another try, and I am so glad I did. In a way it is different from her other novels in that its parts focus on the story from different character perspectives. Through my recent experiences with Slaughter's books, I've realized that she has a penchant for throwing wicked twists at the reader, and the twists she throws into this story will make your jaw drop.

In 1985 the daughter of an Atlanta assistant district attorney is brutally raped and beaten to death; in short order her murderer is caught and brought to justice. This portion of the story is related through newspaper clippings. Cut to 2006 when teenage girls are being raped and beaten in a similar manner; Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Will Trent is tracking these crimes. Then an Atlanta prostitute is murdered and mutilated in a manner that matches previous rapes in other parts of Georgia; the pattern of crime matches the others in all ways except victim profile. Atlanta Police homicide detective Michael Ormewood catches the murder of the prostitute and the unique method of her mutilation catches the attention of agent Will Trent, who joins the investigation in an advisory role. The investigation is barely hours old before the serial rapist/murderer strikes again, this time in Ormewood's backyard. How do the murders connect to the rapes that took place in other parts of Georgia? How do the current crimes connect to the murder from 1985?

Slaughter crafts another intricate mystery that has several threads that in the end are all tied together in a messy, little knot. She produces yet another twisty, turny, unputdownable page turner of a novel. Your heart will pound when the murderer is revealed early on and then your fear will be whether or not Trent and Ormewood put the pieces together in time to prevent another life from being taken and to bring the murderer to justice.

If you haven't already read this book, I highly recommend you do. If you love a suspense filled mystery with vivid characterization, you will love this book. It is available on shelf at Matthews Public Library; it is also available upon request from Annville Free Library, Palmyra Public Library and Richland Community Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

Undone by Karin Slaughter

I started reading Karin Slaughter's Grant county series a few years ago and quickly fell in love with the characters of Dr. Sara Linton, coroner to rural Grant county and her husband, Jeffrey Tolliver, the local police chief. Slaughter says that in these novels she tells the story of Sara. While this may be true, I've noticed that for novels that are supposed to tell Sara's story, the focus of the story is often on Tolliver and his crime solving rather than Sara. The same is true for the latest (highly anticipated) installment of the series, which picks up Sara's story three years later.

Undone is the latest installment of Karin Slaughter's Grant County series that features a cross-over with the characters of Will Trent and Faith Mitchell, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents that were featured in a previous novel by Slaughter. I can only hope this means that we'll see more of Trent, Mitchell, and Dr. Sara Linton sharing the pages of new installments. (The next Slaughter book is due out in 2010 and I can hardly wait for it; luckily, I have her other two stand alone novels to help hold me over until then.)

In the suburban backwoods of Atlanta, Georgia, a woman, who has been brutally tortured, runs out into the road; as if this woman has not suffered enough, she is struck by an oncoming car. She is brought to Grady Hospital's emergency room where Dr. Sara Linton treats her. Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell catch the case (or more accurately, wrest it from the jurisdiction of the ignorant, local police authorities). Before the night is done, Trent is searching the same woods from whence the woman came for the place where she was kept and tortured. Soon it becomes apparent that the woman was not the only one being held captive and that there is another woman out there somewhere in those woods. Then another woman, matching the description of physical features of the first victim, is abducted in broad daylight in front of her son from the parking lot of an Atlanta grocery store. Now Trent and his partner, Mitchell, must race against time to find the third victim, figure out if and how the victims might be connected, and track down the murderer before it's too late to save the last woman that has been abducted.

Is the recent abductee really connected to the torture victims or is it a separate case? Trent and Mitchell must contend with a turf war between the GBI and the local cops on the case in addition to a case that yields few leads.

In addition to being a talented writer, Slaughter also has a gift for creating powerfully and vividly drawn characters. Slaughter graphically portrays Linton's grief over a brutal, personal tragedy suffered three years prior that the reader feels Linton's pain over the loss. I will also be reading the previous novel that featured the characters of Trent and Mitchell. In short, this book was extremely hard to put down and when I was away from it, I was wishing I was at home reading it.

I highly recommend you read this book --or any book by Karin Slaughter. It is available here at the Matthews Public Library; it is also available upon request from Annville Free Library, Myerstown Community Library, and Palmyra Public Library.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie