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Features & Reviews

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane: A-

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From the back cover:
When Jimmy Marcus’ daughter is found murdered, his childhood friend Sean Devine is assigned to the case. His personal life unraveling, the investigation takes Sean back into a world of violence and pain he thought he’d left behind. It also puts him on a collision course with Jimmy Marcus—a man with his own dark past who is eager to solve the crime with brutal justice.

And then there is Dave Boyle, a man who hides monstrous secrets beneath a bland facade—secrets his wife, Celeste, is only beginning to suspect. As the race for a killer heats up, all are pulled closer toward an abyss that will force them to face their true selves—and will mark them as irrevocably as the past itself.

Review:
Mystic River was darkly riveting and well plotted. It was also depressing and disturbing. I was most freaked out by one character’s desperate thoughts while contemplating a very imminent demise; it trod too near things I try very hard not to think about. The whole tale was a tragedy and, while I appreciated how everything fit together, I was relieved to finish it.

It didn’t read like the average mystery story, though I must admit that most mysteries I’ve read are British and maybe a bit erudite in tone, and this was anything but. It was gritty—full of criminals, misery, profanity, and lots and lots of beer—but still thoughtful. So many important things were unspoken, in fact, that it left me wondering how on earth the film adaptation (which I haven’t seen) managed to convey what was going on in the characters’ heads. Even characters who weren’t likeable were still vivid. All that said, however, I thought the truth behind Katie’s murder was disappointing; it felt like Lehane fell back on a stereotype.

I did like it, though I’m not sure it’s the kind of book one can truthfully claim to have enjoyed. And I’d read more by Lehane. But right now, I’m left with a craving for something utterly fluffy.

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman: B+

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From the back cover:
“Beware the seven blessings…”

When she first utters these words, sixteen-year-old Sally Lockhart doesn’t know their meaning. But when an employee of her late father hears them, he dies of fear. Thus begins Sally’s terrifying journey into the seamy underworld of Victorian London, in search of clues that will solve the puzzle of her father’s death. Pursued by villains and cutthroats at every turn, she at last uncovers two dark mysteries. One involves the opium trade; the other, a stolen ruby of enormous value. Sally soon learns that she is the key to both—and that it’s worth her very life to find out why.

Review:
This made me cry, dangit. I swear, I am such a sucker for kind fathers. It’s ridiculous.

Anyway, it took me a little while to get into this book, because there were a few mysteries going on simultaneously and nothing really made sense for a couple of chapters. Sally’s coolness as a character really only emerged once she’d left the care of a distant relation and come to live with a photographer and his sister. Their business was in financial straits, and she delighted in devising ways to get it back on track. I loved that she was a competent girl who excelled at bookkeeping and numbers. The supporting cast were also lively and fun, and I snickered more than once.

Anton Lesser narrated the audiobook and he was fabulous. He had distinct voices for each character, and I’ve never heard a man achieve such a realistic voice for a woman as he did for Mrs. Holland. It really added a lot to the experience.

The actual mystery was a little too Holmesian for my taste, what with secret societies, sparkly jewels, and ties to the Mysterious East. I also didn’t like the use of opium as a means to impart revelations upon the heroine. Still, I enjoyed it well enough to continue on with the series. The library has two more narrated by Lesser, so I will definitely be seeking those out.

All you are is the game you play.

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The new year has already turned out to be even more challenging than the last, which is certainly not what I expected, but perhaps it all leads to a more meaningful path, both for me and those close to me. None of that is really appropriate to this blog, so I won’t go further, but it’s in my nature to be optimistic, so that’s what I’m running on right now.

Something I’ve done to distract myself from deep thoughts the past couple of days, is to reacquaint myself with Hikaru no Go, specifically the manga. I’d watched the anime somewhat recently, but I hadn’t gone back to the manga, especially the final arc which is not included in the anime, since my first whirlwind through it. This time, I started with the final arc, which actually disappointed me a bit the first time through, but worked much better for me on the second read. Something that I was struck with immediately was just how skillfully crafted this story is. What rich characters! What a compelling plot! What delightful artwork! Jason Thompson refers to Hikaru no Go, in his book, Manga: The Complete Guide, as “…one of the few all-ages manga that can truly be enjoyed by all ages,” and though I personally have not read enough all-ages manga to make such a statement, I can absolutely vouch for Hikaru no Go. …

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Hornblower and the Hotspur by C. S. Forester: A

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From the back cover:
April 1803. The Peace of Amiens is breaking down. Napoleon is building ships and amassing an army just across the Channel. Horatio Hornblower—who, at age twenty-seven, has already distinguished himself as one of the most daring and resourceful officers in the Royal Navy—commands the three-masted Hotspur on a dangerous reconnaissance mission that evolves, as war breaks out, into a series of spectacular confrontations. All the while, the introspective young commander struggles to understand his new bride and mother-in-law, his officers and crew, and his own “accursed unhappy temperament”—matters that trouble him more, perhaps, than any of Bonaparte’s cannonballs.

Review:
It took me over a month to finish this, and I’m not sure why since I really did like it a lot. It might’ve been because the problems faced by Hornblower and crew were often exhausting. Like the weeks of raging storms they endured as their supply of drinking water dwindled away, culminating in a mad dash to port in unfavorable winds, necessitating all sorts of changes in navigation and sails. When they were finally free to collapse into heaps, I too went ‘phew’ and wanted to have a bit of a rest.

The characteristics that have made the other Hornblower books so enjoyable were present here as well: interesting and endearing characters, daring exploits coupled with “inexhaustible ingenuity,” and access to the title character’s fascinating thought processes. There were a couple of things that bugged me, but they weren’t major. One was the lack of a map, since the details of a certain bit of French coastline were of particular importance, and the other was the treatment of Hornblower’s seasickness. I’m not sure about this, but I believe that in the other books I’ve read (written earlier, occurring chronologically later) he’d suffer for the first few days at sea and then be fine afterwards. Here, it was a recurring problem.

I learned some new words from this book, but none were as potentially amusing as “ullage,” which means “the amount that a container lacks of being full.” So, next time you open a bag of potato chips to find its contents woefully scant, astound your friends by proclaiming, “What an abhorrent surfeit of ullage!”

Well-Schooled in Murder by Elizabeth George: B+

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From the back cover:
When thirteen-year-old Matthew Whateley goes missing from Bredgar Chambers, a prestigious public school in the heart of West Sussex, aristocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley receives a call for help from the lad’s housemaster, who also happens to be an old school chum. Thus, the inspector, his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, and forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James find themselves once again outside their jurisdiction and deeply involved in the search for a child—and then, tragically, for a child killer.

Questioning prefects, teachers, and pupils closest to the dead boy, Lynley and Havers sense that something extraordinarily evil is going on behind Bredgar Chambers’s cloistered walls. But as they begin to unlock the secrets of this closed society, the investigation into Matthew’s death leads them perilously close to their own emotional wounds—and blinds them to the signs of another murder in the making…

Review:
While I did enjoy this book, and felt that the mystery was probably the best in the series so far, it had some pretty significant flaws that ultimately kept it out of the “A” range.

In the previous two books, it had been the personal lives of and interactions between the main detectives that I enjoyed best, with the case itself a distant second. Not so with this installment. I appreciated the decision to show Lynley and Havers working together quite companionably now; any further angsting about possible insuitability would’ve been frustrating; the time was right to move away from that theme.

Doing so, however, left a hole that ended up being only partially filled. There’s a subplot involving Havers’s family and also one involving a couple (friends of Lynley’s) who’ve suffered a chain of miscarriages. The former was okay, though its outcome was predictable, but the latter appeared so sparsely that when it did intrude upon the narrative, it was annoying rather than affecting.

The case itself offered many twists, and though I had a gut feeling about the culprit relatively early on, I was still swayed into suspecting various folks at various times. I thought it got a little convoluted near the end, but otherwise it was good.

Ichigo’s MJ’s Resolve

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Wow, it’s been a while, I realize. The holidays took over my life for a bit, but now I’m back into the daily grind. I worked a lot on the graphic novel over the past week, and things are really starting to take shape. I won’t have as much time, now that I’m back to work, but I’m trying to set some realistic goals over the next few months to keep myself motivated. I truly have never had an original project of my own that excited me as much as this one does, which helps too. I’m hoping to have a final script for the entire series completed by the end of the year, and possibly even well before then, depending on how demanding the rest of my life is. I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions, because I think they tend to set a person up to fail, so I’m not going to make one. But my desire to complete this project is strong, as is my resolve to do so.

I also did some reading over the holidays! …

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Hikaru no Go 11 by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata: A

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From the back cover:
Hikaru’s classmate Ochi has won enough games to guarantee his place among the top three players who will pass the pro test. Hikaru, on the other hand, still needs to win more games, and he’ll soon face his friend Waya and Ochi himself, who has been preparing for their match with Akira’s help! When the dust clears, who will be left standing?

Review:
The pro test concluded with this volume. I really enjoyed the match between Hikaru and Waya, and how when Hikaru got stuck, he asked himself what Sai would do in a given situation. There was more focus on Sai this volume than there has been of late, as he began to realize how much Hikaru has improved and how he is becoming a capable stand-in for Sai himself.

I would’ve liked to have seen more of the match between Hikaru and Ochi, after all the set-up it received, culminating in a confrontation wherein Hikaru learned that Akira had been training Ochi nightly and deduced that it was all Akira’s attempt to gauge Hikaru’s strength through Ochi. There was a really cool panel where Ochi and Hikaru were sitting at the board with Akira and Sai behind them, respectively. But alas, much of their match happened off-camera. That said, I really liked that it was from Isumi’s perspective that we learned the result, since it meant the end of his chances of passing this time around.

The volume finished off with Hikaru doing some nostalgic eavesdropping on the middle school Go club to which he used to belong and with his mom wondering whether she ought to fret about his unusual profession. Little touches like these are what make this series truly excellent. I’m sad that I now have to wait until May for the next installment.

Hikaru no Go 10 by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata: A-

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From the back cover:
The main round of the pro test has begun. Everyone’s feeling the pressure—no one more so than Hikaru’s friend Isumi, who has failed the test twice before. Fighting off his feelings of self-doubt, Isumi faces his next opponent, who turns out to be Hikaru. But a careless mistake lands the pair in an awkward position!

Review:
This entire volume was full of pro test goodness. Placements shifted a bit throughout these chapters, but it was always clear who was ahead and who’d fallen behind. The complete chart of each player’s wins and losses was also included at one point, which was neat to see. I liked that the focus wasn’t solely on Hikaru.

Once again, though all of the pro test stuff was great, my favorite chapters were those where Akira is dealing with his “fixation” on Shindo, as Ochi (who received a couple lessons from Akira) put it. I particularly liked the last chapter, where Akira recreated his first game against Sai for Ochi to explain his obsession. Ochi was appropriately astonished.

The art was really great, too, though that’s not unusual. I was struck again, though, by the variety among the character designs. No one looked the same, but Obata didn’t need to resort to unrealistic gimmicks to distinguish between characters. This series also has a lot of just average-looking people in it, which is something I appreciate.

The Moonlight That Surrounds Me 1 (Japanese) by Saki Hiwatari: C

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From the back cover:
Rin and Alice have brought closure to their past lives and are living happily. Their son, Ren, is a completely normal boy. One day, his guardian angels appear to him. But what is their true form!? And what is the power closed inside Ren!? Inherited thoughts and abilities… The first volume of the long-awaited Please Save My Earth second-generation series has arrived!

Review:
Alas, this is not very good. I didn’t expect much, but reckoned for something better than this.

Ren is likeable (and kind of goofy), but because he couldn’t resist bragging about his parents’ powers at school, everyone there thinks he’s a liar. His only friend is Kachiko, daughter of ESPer Mikuro. In the first of three stories, the spirits of Shion and Mokuren protect him from a villain practically straight out of Sailor Moon.

In the second story, Kachiko and her tiresome angst about her father spending time at his ESP research job in America take center stage. It grows worse when Shion gets involved and imbues Ren with powers so he can go harrass Mikuro for making Kachiko sad. I feel like Shion’s dignity has been sullied.

In the last story, Rin has no memory of promising his son to tell him about Shion and Mokuren, so everyone worries about him acting strangely. Turns out, Shion has been “hijacking his consciousness” because he wanted to interact with Ren.

Also, Shion and Mokuren can now apparently appear in the physical realm to those with ESP ability. The only scrap of explanation given for why they never did this in the first series (that I recall, at any rate) is a lack of motivation. Uh-huh. Shion was pretty motivated to get those passwords.

Lastly, Hiwatari’s artistic style has changed a great deal and I don’t like it as well. Jinpachi looks absolutely nothing like the character did in the original. I realize they’ve grown up, but the rest are still recognizable, even if it did take me a couple of seconds to realize who Shion was upon his first appearance.

I doubt I’ll be continuing with this series. Hiwatari herself admitted she doesn’t know where things are headed. The only truly interesting parts to me were the moments where Alice and Rin were alone together, or when it became clear that Haruhiko still has feelings for Alice, and even those weren’t enough to quell the notion that maybe I should’ve just let the original stand on its own.

Demons Are Forever by Julie Kenner: B

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From the back cover:
It isn’t easy when your daughter’s figured out that her mom’s a demon hunter—and wants to grow up to be just like her. Or when you suspect your dead husband used the forces of darkness to filch the body of another human. Moreover, Kate’s acquired a precious but deadly item that every demon within commuting distance wants. With husband woes playing havoc with her emotions, an ambitious teenage protégée at her heels, and hell to pay, this stay-at-home mom is putting in a lot of overtime.

Review:
I really can’t explain how I wound up kind of addicted to this series. It’s got some major flaws: the demonic threats usually aren’t very interesting, the turns in the story are often predictable, and the protagonist is still pretty bland even after three books.

In this particular installment, a new hunter is introduced who could not possibly be more of a Faith clone, so her inevitable betrayal is not one bit surprising. There’s also no suspense regarding the item the demons are seeking, since the story structure goes like this:

1. An old ring with a ruby gemstone is found in ex-husband’s possessions.
2. Demons demand to be given “the stone.”
3. Good guys are clueless.
4. Readers roll their eyes. “Oh, golly gee, could it be the ring?!”

And yet… I’m kind of caught up in Kate’s dilemma over finding out the soul of her first husband is still around. The ending also promises all kinds of interesting things concerning this plot line, so I find myself actually annoyed that the next volume won’t be out until July. How did this happen?

Holiday ramble

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Happy holidays! I hope you’re all enjoying yours, however you choose to spend them. It’s been a bit of a strange holiday season for me, I admit. This is usually my favorite time of year, but everything has had a bit of a damper on it this time around. This year has been like that overall, I suppose, but I’m still surprised to find myself with anything even approaching the holiday blues. It is very unlike me. I hope this year remains an anomaly, as I don’t especially wish to repeat it. I did enjoy time with family, which was a true pleasure.

…

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The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey: B-

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From the back cover:
When they found the stranger stabbed to death in the queue outside the theatre, it was his complete lack of identity which struck everyone as very odd. The labels on his clothes were missing and nobody came forward to claim him. Inspector Grant of the CID has no choice but to travel deep into the theatrical world in his efforts to build up a picture of the nameless man. As the picture builds, Grant must cast his net ever wider as the dead man and the murderer slowly give up their secrets.

Review:
Luck and fingerprints. That’s how Grant seemed to operate. Oh, and much theorizing in advance of the facts with a dash of foreigner-bashing thrown in for good measure.

As the case progressed along by a series of coincidences, I was initially annoyed; it really didn’t make for much of a story. Grant had no clue there was a witness until one showed up to talk to him. And then he just so happened to run into a man fitting the description given by the witness while walking down a London street one evening. There wasn’t much delving into character.

By the end, though, it seemed more like Tey was doing this on purpose to thwart the image of the omniscient detective so prevalent in crime literature of this period. Many, if not most, of Grant’s hunches and assumptions were proven incorrect. He failed to think of things that could have significant bearing upon the case. In fact, he did not actually solve it, though there is closure on the point. For the novelty of that alone, even if the mystery itself wasn’t that great, I enjoyed the book.

I’ll keep running, even barefooted, because I can’t give this up.

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The holidays are quickly approaching, and everything is madness, both in my professional and personal life. Still, we’ve found time for some reading/viewing, most of which has been Kino’s Journey (Kino no Tabi). I wrote a little bit about this the other day, but like most things I love, I can’t seem to stop talking about it.

I have fallen for this series hard, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that, while most of my favorite manga and anime characters are men/boys, the protagonist of Kino no Tabi is a …

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“the world is not beautiful, therefore it is.”

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It’s been a while since I’ve written here, primarily due to stress and illness, both of which are still with me. Tonight I am snuggled under and electric blanket with my pup at my feet, and as usual, these things make me want to talk about manga. Actually anime, tonight, I guess. Heavy cold and flu medicine have made reading difficult, though I am still working my way through the Bleach manga, and have re-read Fullmetal Alchemist 13 & 14 in anticipation of the English release of volume 15, which should be sometime this month, I think.

Speaking of Fullmetal Alchemist, I must take this opportunity to tell you all that my workplace Secret Santa (who today was revealed to be our creative director’s assistant, Chelsey) has outdone every Secret Santa in the history of time by making me an Elric Brothers shrinky-dink keychain. I repeat, an Elric Brothers shrinky-dink keychain. That’s right, she drew Edward and Alphonse Elric on a shrinky-dink, baked it, ran a key ring through it, and gave it to me for Christmas. I spent much of this afternoon admiring it, and now my coworkers may believe I am insane. I will attempt to blame this on the illness.

Anyway. Continuing. Not even illness can stop the consumption of anime, so that’s what I’ll talk about tonight. …

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Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George: A

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From the back cover:
The career of playwright Joy Sinclair comes to an abrupt end on an isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands when someone drives an eighteen-inch dirk through her neck. Called upon to investigate the case in a country where they have virtually no authority, aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, grapple for both a motive and a murderer.

Emotions run deep in this highly charged drama, for the list of suspects soon includes Britain’s foremost actress, its most successful theatrical producer, and the woman Lynley loves. He and Havers must tread carefully through the complicated terrain of human relationships, while they work to solve a case rooted in the darkest corners of the past and the unexplored regions of the human heart.

Review:
Although I thought the mystery here was better than in the first novel in the series, I still found it to be less interesting than the developing relationship between Lynley and Havers. Payment in Blood was set fifteen months after the events in the first book, and found Lynley and Havers still working together, but not on the same page regarding the partnership. Lynley, in fact, shuddered at the idea of its being permanent, while Havers soon demonstrated that, though he irritated her immensely, she felt a great deal of loyalty to him and would fight to protect him.

I wondered that Lynley did not recuse himself from this case when he found that one of his close friends (he didn’t realize yet that he loved her) was technically a suspect, but the tense conversations he and Helen shared were so riveting that I didn’t mind very much. The resultant jealousy Lynley experienced on finding her there with another man led him to twist facts to suit his conviction that her lover was the murderer. Feeling her superior to be on the wrong track, and desirous of protecting his job and reputation, Havers began her own secret investigation into other areas of the mystery, and eventually Lynley’s friends arrayed against him to confront him about the single-mindedness of his pursuit. All of this was excellent.

The mystery itself was pretty good and featured a more defined cast of suspects than the previous book. The conclusion was exciting, surprising, and emotionally satisfying. And really—who could ask for more than that?