Books: Once & Future By Amy Rose Capetta & Cori McCarthy (2019)

"When Ari crash-lands on Old Earth and pulls a magic sword from its ancient resting place, she is revealed to be the newest reincarnation of King Arthur. Then she meets Merlin, who has aged backward over the centuries into a teenager, and together they must break the curse that keeps Arthur coming back. Their quest? Defeat the cruel, oppressive government and bring peace and equality to all humankind." 

Oddly, despite my love of fantasy, the whole Arthurian legend and the bazillion retelling’s that have come out over the centuries, have never really caught my interest (though I still have a copy of  T.H. White's The Once and Future King, I'm not sure I'll ever read it) over the centuries, have never really caught my interest. However, I did get this book at the LA Festival of Books this past April, as it was suggested by a dear friend of mine who happens to like this these tales. The difference here was that this tale of Arthur and his Knights was going to be told from the point of view of a young girl -who reaches out and grabs for Excalibur. Now gender swapping has become a big issue in media these days, especially with the recent announcement that the next Thor movie will have Oscar winner Natalie Portman becoming the new God of Thunder. So this book won’t be for those who have issues with male characters (especially these hero types) being rewritten as women. In addition, LGBTQA inclusiveness is part of this universe, to such a point that anything else is jarring out of place for the characters (and maybe to some readers). Therefore, for folks who like to find heroes that represent them in books, those boys and girls who are fluid, gay, bi, pan or whatever, it is here in this new series.

While I did like Once & Future, I do believe the authors -Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy- attempt at social commentary, along with its blend of sci-fi (no timeline is revealed, however it seems a fairly distant future) and quirky comedy (the closest comparison is Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy),  made for a weirdly paced novel. We get a lot of action that goes all pell-mell and then just as quickly, the book settles into more introspective plotting about the dangers of capitalism and trying to defeat the all-powerful Mercer Corporation and romantic pairings of the characters. The problem is a lot of that is dull and predictable, and it has done better in other works (even WALL-E’s subtle criticism on some of these subjects was more on point). Then the rom-com aspect toddle's along (some of the pairs seemed forced, including the Ari and Gwen relationship) along with the writers juxtaposition commentary on the destruction and pollution of Earth, illegal immigration, along with tales of massacres and genocide, and in a great soap opera fashion, familial betrayals.

What I did like was the whole reincarnation aspect of Arthur and Merlin. This one begins the 42^nd cycle (borrowing an in-joke from Douglas Adams, I think. Also, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) rebirth of the King and his trusty wizard. As noted, the book makes Arthur a female (maybe another subtle reference to the Thirteen Doctor being a women on Doctor Who, and which has also hinted from time to time over it’s five decade run, that the Doctor was/is Merlin?) and has Merlin aging in reverse (so now he’s a skinny twinkish teenager in love with a boy). Merlin also recounts (mostly to himself) and with the ghostly image of Morgana, the other versions of Arthur and their adventures, along with how he feels guilty on the times he’s failed each incarnation. But the whole cycle about Arthur obtaining Excalibur, Arthur falling into a doomed romance with Guinevere, and Morgana finally killing him is a fairly interesting when the sword chooses Ari and Merlin feels that this may be the one last attempt at breaking the whole sequence of events.

But the concurrence of the fluffy romantic comedy, a fantasy wizard existing in a science fiction universe, and a lot of queer romances -along with the whole violence and darkness of the Mercer Corporation- does make Once & Future suffer just a tad.

Books: Brothers Keepers By Donald E. Westlake (1975/2019)

"For nearly two centuries, a small order of monks has lived on New York’s Park Avenue. Through the rise of skyscrapers and crush of so many people living in the city, they’ve managed to keep their monastery safe from capitalism thanks in large part to a ninety-nine year lease. But one December Saturday, these monks are surprised to learn that the lease is almost up and that their entire block is about to be sold to build a new office building. As part of the attempts to save their building, Brother Benedict is forced to Travel from his beloved quiet monastery life several times to deal with the family that holds the lease. He also will need to deal with the business people who are buying it. Things become complicated for Brother Benedict when he meets and falls in love with the daughter –whose father holds said lease. Thus, Brother Benedict is forced into a battle of conscious, questioning whether he belongs with her or with his fellow monks. And in the battle of love, war, and New York real estate, nothing is as it seems."

Originally published in 1975, and later re-issued in the early 1980s by Mysterious Press, Brothers Keepers in now back in print after 30 years, released under the Hard Case Crime imprint (great new cover, as well). However, there is not much in the way of crime going on here. The closest, I guess, to having some crime (beyond the greed of men) comes about a quarter into the book when a copy of lease they’ve finally found (in a hilarious scene set in a dusty, dirty attic) that will prevent them from being evicted is stolen. A question arises on how anyone outside the monastery knew of the find, leading some fellow monks to ponder if was an inside job, or has someone managed to infiltrate the monastery without anyone noticing?

Beyond that, Brothers Keepers just showcases the kind of careful and precise character building Westlake seems to do with ease (even though most of the other monks get little in the way of personalities -but then again, most of them are not essential to the story). And his innate ability to add humor and curmudgeonly quirkiness to his characters and make them still endearing is another well earned talent.

But the book is fun and a reminder why New York of the 1970s may have been the best and oddest times to live in. It may not be laugh out loud funny like a lot of his Dortmunder tales, but the wry humor and Wes Anderson style setting (had Wes Anderson been around then) and dialogue surely will keep many amused.

Books: What Lies Buried By Margaret Kirk (2019)

Once again, I will note I happen to know the writers brother, so I’m still going to give my best review.

"Ten year-old Erin is missing; taken in broad daylight during a friend's birthday party. With no witnesses and no leads, DI Lukas Mahler races against time to find her. But is it already too late for Erin - and will her abductor stop at one stolen child? And the discovery of human remains on a construction site near Inverness confronts Mahler's team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant's murder linked to a nearby POW camp, or is there an even darker story to be uncovered? With his team stretched to the limit, Mahler's hunt for Erin's abductor takes him from Inverness to the Lake District. And decades-old family secrets link both cases in a shocking final twist."

What Lies Buried is the second Lukas Mahler story and is a gripping tale about an ugly, but very realistic subject of child abduction. There is also an additional sub-plots dealing with a 70 year-old murder and Mahler’s ongoing association with local crime boss Carl “Cazza” Mackay that gets a new wrinkle when it looks like someone is trying kill MacKay.

It’s a fast-paced story, and Kirk easily keeps all the threads of tale from unraveling –though I could do less with the Andy Black and his questionable tactics with his police work and his silly rivalry with Mahler.  While I understand the male ego, it’s very clear Andy’s moral compass is compromised and it irritates me that no one else see’s this. Maybe this is what cops do; ignore some of the other cops obvious flaws just because there is this “brotherhood” among them. And as clever as June Wallace, Mahler’s boss, I’m surprised how much she lets Black get away with. Sometimes I felt it made her a bit of a dim bulb. Also, I felt the whole issue with the Chief –Wallace’s boss- was too much Eastenders, to borrow a British soap opera title. Look, I understand that everyone wants things to be resolved nice and neat, and the press will hound police, but it all seems too predictable soap opera tropes.

This book also sets up the third yet-to-be-released third Lukas Mahler story, ending on a cliffhanger. This may explain why some story points are not resolved (unless I missed it), like why one of the girls who goes missing is later found dead. Why she died is never fully explained (though it’s later revealed that the girl’s disappearance is connected to events sometime prior), and there was no trauma on the girls body, so why was she murdered?

I liked the book, though and will look forward towards book three. But I do hope that Kirk winds down some of sub-plots (like who’s trying to destroy Cazza MacKay), as they do sometimes distract from the main plot.

Books: French Exit by Patrick deWitt (2018)

“Frances Price – tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature – is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Prices' aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts. Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, the City of Light serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self-destruction and economic ruin – to riotous effect. A number of singular characters serve to round out the cast: a bashful private investigator, an aimless psychic proposing a seance, a doctor who makes house calls with his wine merchant in tow, and the inimitable Mme. Reynard, aggressive houseguest and dementedly friendly American expat.”

Part of the charm of reading Patrick deWitt (Undermajordomo Minor, The Sisters Brothers) is getting wrapped up in his slim plotting that is filled with such wonderful oddness.

In French Exit, we get a strange tale filled with strange people and –perhaps- a magical cat. Neither Francis or Malcolm (or most of the people they interact with) for the most part are very likable -but I believe that’s part of the charm of this satirical short novel. As the blurb on the paperback version says, you may never “invite them over to dinner, but they sure make for fun reading.” Both are utterly and hilariously dysfunctional, including Franklin (the husband and father who died 20 years ago) who we see through flashbacks and other descriptions. The book also moves rapidly from one unbelievable situation to the next.

Frances does remind me a lot of Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development through most of the book. Here is a character that was used to being rich, pampered, and able to get away with almost anything (much to her late husband’s dismay). Much like Lucille, Frances uses her cutting comments, her penchant for drinking at all hours, and her domineering ways with everyone, including the coddling of her thirtysomething man-child son Malcolm (who is now bumbling around through life because it’s always been steered by his mother) to get through a life she seems bored with.

There is an absurdist aspect about the whole novel, which includes the Price family’s financial situation and how things seemly always work out for them; and whole theme of the book being about the “tragedy of manners”. And it even gets a bit fantastical with the reveal that their cat, Small Frank, is harboring the “spirit” (?) of Frances late husband. The subtleness and easy acceptance of this -and the fact that deWitt decides not to explain any of it- is somewhat enduring as well.

As the book proceeds to its end, you understand where it closes at, and even that’s hinted in the title, which “refers to leaving a social gathering without saying your farewells. One moment you're at the bar, or the house party, or the Sunday morning wedding brunch. The next moment you're gone.” Other terms include an Irish goodbye, and ghosting. Still, deWitt writes beautifully and, as always, I love his bizarre humor:

 

“What’s the opposite of a miracle?” Malcolm asks.

 

Frances sat upright in her bed. “How many letters?”

Books: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (2011)

"On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast--rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire, and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is ahead of her time, and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets."

Amor Towles debut novel, Rules Of Civility, is a Valentine, a love letter to a much earlier time in America, set during the Depression of the 1930s and before the onslaught of WWII. It has wit, style, charm, and drama that will remind anyone found of some Hollywood films that came out in that period. We have Katey Kontent, who through sheer coincidence and smarts gets a chance to see how the “other” half lives. But Towles does not give us a fool, as Katey is very much aware of her situations and keeps her mostly on the peripheral side of this high society.

Towles brings 1930’s New York to life in ways that are astounding and magical and gives (at times) a thoroughly modern and brilliantly smart woman in the form of Katey. Part of this modernism aspect may have to do with our narrator telling this story in 1966 and her sayings and wordings are a product of her middle-aged mind looking back, but it does not interrupt the narrative flow too much. But again, there is a lot of coincidences and some conveniences that pop up here –but I think that’s part of what Towles was trying to imitate here, that Katey’s story can be a bit unrealistic for the time period but that’s what made this era sort of magical. 

It's a fairly wonderful novel, even if a bit unrealistic.