Recent Reading

 Some Short Genre Fiction

A nice short story by Silvia Moreno Garcia.
Although I usually am not a fan of this genre, I enjoy her work.
As suggested by the cover, there’s a wolf in the story.

First sentence of this book: “She’d always known her lover would come from beyond the forest. It was foretold when she cast a divination spell. It was a game she played with the other village girls—quaint superstitions passed from one generation to the next.”

I’m always vowing to read Sci-Fi, but I never really like it.

The last sentence of the book: “ We go forth to find this city’s singer, and hopefully to hear the greatness of its birthing song.” — From N. K. Jemisin "The City Born Great"

And One VERY Long Detective Story

The Running Grave

Writing as Robert Galbraith, author J.K.Rowling has produced another massive suspenseful detective story. Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot, partners in a private detective agency, are working on several commissions, most dramatically the case of a purely evil cult involving a self-proclaimed prophet (nearly a deity to his followers) and numerous offensive and manipulative activities. The abuses of the brain-washed, imprisoned followers are revealed as Robin bravely endangers herself by embedding in the headquarters of the cult somewhere in the wilds of the English countryside. 

The Perils of Robin in cult captivity are almost (but not quite) overdone in the style of an old movie serial, or maybe like the classic perils of Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (published 1740 as Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, and considered to be the first ever example of the modern novel). I couldn’t stop reading!

The strength of this long book is that as Robin subjects herself to the horrors of this cult, the depths of evil that a single person can do are laid bare. I remembered, as I read about the cult leader and his willing victims, about Voldemort and the Death Eaters. All right, I still admire the Harry Potter books. I also admire the extremely pointed and well-observed criticism of cults and their exploitation of weak human beings expressed in this novel. 

As usual, there is plenty of personal detail about the two detectives, especially the struggle Cormoran Strike is waging to get his weight under control in order to reduce stress on his missing leg. His unwilling but disciplined choices, such as fish rather than steak, and his strenuous resistance against his craving for hamburgers and chips, as they are called in London, are very painfully familiar — as well as the circumstances where his will-power crumbles and he eats (in Robin’s estimation) 5000 calories worth of McDonald's. An example of his giving in:

“While Robin was in Kensington, Strike was back in the Denmark Street office, eating his second Chinese meal in two weeks, this time a takeaway. He was finding the last stone to go before hitting his target weight very hard to shift, and while he supposed a nutritionist might tell him the reappearance of takeaways and pub food in his diet might have something to do with that, the lure of sweet and sour chicken and fried rice had proved too strong for him this evening.” (p. 767) 

I was amused by one lunch: Strike is treated by a wealthy client at Rules restaurant in Covent Garden, an old restaurant with “comfortable glamour.” In fact, our friends in London, who are super knowledgeable about the city, took us there, and indeed we enjoyed the tradition and glamor of the place. Our visit was the same year as in the novel, 2016. Here are my photos of this experience:

After I found a couple of novels in the Cormoran Strike series to be grotesquely violent, I had decided not to read any more of them. However, a couple of people I trust (including our London friend in the photo!) said this one was better, and they were right. I’m glad I read it.

Reviews © 2023 mae sander

Shared with Eileen’s Saturday Critters and with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz