Book Review: In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck

In the Shadow of the Cypress : A Novel  by Thomas Steinbeck (Hardcover - April 6, 2010)

 Yes, the author Thomas Steinbeck is the son of John Steinbeck. The younger Steinbeck refers to his famous father in the Epilogue of his book, which deals with the possible visit of Chinese fleets to the coast of California years before Columbus discovered America:

" It was my father, a fine historical scholar in his own right, who long ago first suggested to me that the Chinese had visited and explored the west coasts of the Americas long before Columbus discovered which side of the planet he was on. ....When I later learned that Chinese anchor stones, quarried in China, had been discovered in Monterey Bay, I came to realize that my father must have been instinctually correct."

In the Shadow of the Cypress is set in 1906 among the Chinese fishermen on the coast of California. After a horrific earthquake, an ancient Chinese jade seal and an inscribed plaque in three languages are discovered at the base of a giant uprooted cypress tree. The villagers try to keep the antiques but must compete with the major tongs in San Francisco for the artifacts. How they manage to keep them or not is the main theme of the novel. A century later, a young American scientist seeks the answer.

My comments: The novel is written in a formal, smooth style that is a pleasure to read. The premise of the book, that the fleets of Admiral Zheng reached the western coast before America was discovered by Columbus, has been the subject of several other novels that I know of. Steinbeck's story, set in Monterey and the northern coast of California, is unique in that he shows us the fishing culture of the early Chinese coastal villagers in that region.

The historical aspects of the book are very compelling. One thing that stood out for me is Steinbeck's claim that the cypress tree, which defines the northern Callifornia coast, (see the picture on the cover of the book). is not native to the U.S. or California, but is of Asian or Chinese origin. A mystery, indeed.

Thomas Steinbeck is also author of Down to a Soundless Sea (Ballantine Reader's Circle), 2003, a book about the settling of the Monterey Peninsula in the early 1900s.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge, China Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge

 

Book Review: Flirting with Forever by Gwyn Cready

Flirting with Forever by Gwyn Cready (Mass Market Paperback, March 30, 2010)
My summary: Art historian Campbell Stratford finds herself transported to the 17th century while doing research for a book on the sex life of Dutch artist Van Dyke. There she meets Peter Lely, a former portraitist for Charles I. Peter lives in the Afterlife, is waiting for a new life from the powers that be, but is told he first has to stop Campbell from writing her book and smearing the reputation of the great Van Dyke.

When Peter and Campbell meet in the 17th century, sparks fly and they become romantically involved. She returns to the present, but he follows her to the 21st century, where she discovers that he has betrayed her.

My comments: As chick lit, the book's for mature chicks. As romance, it is sizzling in at least two lengthy 17th century scenes, though artfully done. As comedy, it is often clever and funny, as when Campbell tells the 17th century folk that her name is Katie Holmes and at another time, that she is a Spanish countess, wife of Antonio Banderas. As fantasy and time travel, the plot is original and the story well written.

The words that came to mind while I was reading this book: "Saucy! Spicy!" (Something Bruno might say before announcing his rating for a "hot" tango in "Dancing With the Stars"). This chick-lit time-travel romance is definitely for over age 18, I'd say. Make that over 21! The spiciness was thoroughly enjoyable however!

Gwyn Cready is a RITA Award winner and author of other time-travel novels, Seducing Mr. Darcy and Tumbling Through Time. I am tempted to pick them up as well, not for the eroticism, which I think is a bit overdone, but for the unusual fantasy, the humor, and what I suspect are more clever plots.

Thanks to Ayelet Gruenspecht of Simon and Schuster for a copy of Flirting with Forever, for my objective review.

Challenge: 100+ Reading Challenge,

Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection by Stephanie Wincik: Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays, hosted by MizB, asks you to choose two sentences at random from your current read. Include the author and title for readers.

Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection

"With only a slight shift in our perception, we can clearly see that the extraordinary individuals dismissed for centuries as 'disabled' actually have a vitally important role to play in the world, and indeed may even hold the key to our positive advancement as a human family." (Book cover)

Goodreads description:
In her new book, Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection, Stephanie Wincik dispels many of the common myths and misconceptions about people with Down syndrome and urges readers to reconsider the meaning of disability. “Some researchers are beginning to explore the concept of neurodiversity,” Wincik says, “that is, looking at the possibility that so-called “disabilities” such as Down syndrome and autism have a natural place on the normal continuum of human behavior, and as such should be included in the wide spectrum of human diversities along with gender, race, and sexual orientation.”

Wincik’s book also includes a discussion of eugenics as it relates to individuals with disabilities, and examines “the myth of the perfect child…if we hope to reverse what appears to be a downward spiral for humanity, then kindness, compassion, gentleness, tolerance, and good humor—attributes, by the way, observed with remarkable consistency in people with Down syndrome—must surpass physical perfection in terms of the enviable traits we dream of seeing in our children."

My comments: Ms. Wincik's book makes us aware that there are many valuable reasons for welcoming and accepting the disabled. The children with Down Syndrome, for example, are open, honest, kind, and tolerant, and have qualities that are desirable for us all as human beings. An honest and thoughtful book, I recommend it for those who would like a better understanding of Down Syndrome and the place of children with disabilities in our society.

Thanks to author Stephanie Wincik for providing a copy of this book for my objective review.

 

Guest Post/ Book Tour: Jeffrey A. Cohen, The Killing of Mindi Quintana: A Novel

Guest post by Jeffrey A. Cohen, author of The Killing of Mindi Quintana, published May 16, 2010.

Welcome, Jeffrey. What can you tell us about your new crime novel?

Jeffrey:
My Courtroom Thrillers: Exposing Injustice Through Fiction

As a Philadelphia lawyer whose novels always include some courtroom drama, I am often asked what it is that fascinates me so much about trials.

Well, it’s this: We pluck twelve people from life, call them society, and suspend time while an accused sits in purgatory waiting to be cast out or accepted back among us. An epic battle ensues. At stake is freedom for the accused, vindication (or what can be had of it) for victims, and fairness in the process for all of us. In short, it is justice that hangs in the balance.

As a child I would skip school, take the train to center city Philadelphia and watch criminal trials at our imposing City Hall. My father is a lawyer who had an office across the street; he’d circle trials for me in the Legal Intelligencer, and send me over. He considered what I’d be watching an education as important as anything I’d learn at school, and it certainly was.

Even for a child, it was easy to mark the transformation in the courtroom as the bailiff presented, and the judge took the bench, and the jury was seated. Only moments before, the lawyers and courtroom personnel had been milling about, at ease and informal, gossiping, laughing at a joke, shaking hands or pointing their hellos. Perhaps defendant’s counsel and the prosecutor had stood aside for a moment and chatted—this was usually amicable—and then returned to their tables to make notes, or the defense attorney to confer with the defendant. The judge himself might even have entered the hubbub from his chambers and almost unnoticed conferred with a clerk; or I might have glimpsed him on the phone through his open chambers door, already enrobed or in his suit.

But now, the courtroom called to order, informality evaporated like a disappeared smile. And I would watch amazed as these courtroom actors, these joke tellers and back slappers of a moment ago, slipped unmistakably, even awesomely, into roles much larger than themselves. This is how I experienced it as a child. And it hasn’t much changed, my reverence for the adversarial process by which we Americans render justice.

But, of course, justice isn’t always rendered. The spark for my novels is always an injustice, a particular miscarriage or a systemic problem. It will be an injustice that comes back to me in my thoughts over a long period of time, and increasingly gets to me, until I find myself considering how to expose and address it through fiction. Really what it is, is that I want to get to the bottom of it and understand it myself.

For example, the spark for my novel The Killing of Mindi Quintana was the true-life story of convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott. Abbott became a cultural icon and literary shooting star when his book of prison letters, In the Belly of the Beast, was published in 1981.

One injustice of the Abbott case is that this evil man’s letters, irrationally justifying his lifetime of violent crime, resulted in public sympathy, literary acclaim, and even his parole. Another injustice, tragic, is that within six weeks of his release Abbott killed again, the night before a laudatory review of his book would appear in the New York Times. A final injustice—the one that got me writing—is that Richard Adan, the 22 year-old waiter Abbott stabbed in the heart for refusing him use of an employees-only restroom, was pursuing his dream of becoming a writer himself.

The Killing of Mindi Quintana deals with the injustice of fame and acclaim through murder. It takes issue with our attribution to our violent criminals of special talents, bravery, charisma and charm; our remaking of them as folk heroes and sympathetic anti-heroes. In The Killing of Mindi Quintana a frustrated department store clerk kills, and his little life turns big. The object now of fascination, he pens the book about his victim everybody wants, and drags her through the mud. A new celebrity murderer takes the stage. A comeuppance is in order.

I’m currently working on my second novel, A Plea for Leniency, in which a white-shoe criminal defense attorney has just lost his case defending a major corporate America CEO. Convinced he’s failed an innocent man, A Plea for Leniency is his unorthodox request of the prosecutor for compassion in recommending sentence. It is the truth about his client he could not tell in court. The novel takes us from Wall Street to the mountain slums of Rio de Janeiro; and from astounding business success to ruin, and in some ways back. We come to see that that this lawyer pleads for compassion not only for his client, but for himself. And we find reasons for mercy.

In A Plea for Leniency the injustice addressed is that of painting CEOs, in an age of popular anger, with too broad a brush; and the scant evidence upon which several high profile CEOs have been prosecuted. Not all corporate CEOs are crooks, not even all accused CEOs are crooks. Mine isn’t, yet he’s swept up in the cultural rage of the Enron and post-Enron eras, and he’s convicted. There’s no constituency for CEOs, maybe they don’t need one—but there should always be a constituency for those wrongfully accused of crime, and those convicted on too little evidence.

For more information on the author:
Website: http://www.jeffreyacohenbooks.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffreyACohen

My comments:  I thought this was an interesting story about profiting from crime and the injustice of it. In this novel, the criminal is thwarted at the end, however, in a clever plan.

My only objection to the novel is the title, The Killing of Mindi Quintana, which gives too much of the plot away, right up front, especially since Mindi's demise is not until the middle of the book. I kept reading just to find out when and how, not what would happen. The book became more suspenseful in the second half, however, with a twist at the very end.

Thanks to Jeffrey A. Cohen for explaining legal thrillers and his book in such good detail and so convincingly.

TLC Book Tour provided an ARC of the book for this tour. Click on the link for other stops on the tour.

 

Sunday Salon: Relaxing Sunday

Welcome to the Sunday Salon!
My current read? In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck, who I think is John Steinbeck's son.

Received in the mail, Making a Case for Life: A New Definition of Perfection by Stephanie Wincik, a book on disabled children and the vital role they play in families and society.

A book tour post will be up tomorrow for  The Killing of Mindi Quintana by Jeffrey Cohen and I will be doing a review later on of  the time-travel romance, Flirting with Forever by Gwyn Cready.

I'm also reading an ARC of the latest thriller set in hot Bangkok, The Queen of Patpong: A Poke Rafferty Thriller by Tim Hallinan, a Sept. 1, 2010 release.

I reviewed two books, in spite of a hectic work week:  Nancy's Theory of Style, a romatic comedy by Grace Coopersmith, plus the detective thriller, Snakes Can't Run by Ed Lin.  I also had a Guest post by Grace Coopersmith aka Marta Acosta, who also writes the Casa Dracula series.

Have you heard of the new eReader that's coming on the market, the Kobo eReader?  Suzanne of Chick with Books has a post all about it. It's to be distributed by Borders and costs only $150! This may be the one for me!

What did you read last week?

Book Review: Snakes Can't Run by Ed Lin

Snakes Can't Run: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) by Ed Lin

Snakes Can't Run by Ed Lin, March, 2010, Minotaur

Book description:

" It's a hot summer in New York's Chinatown in 1976 and Robert Chow, the Chinese American detective son of an illegal immigrant, takes on a new breed of ruthless human smuglers - snakeheads- when two bodies of smuggled Chinese are found dead under the Brooklyn Bridge underpass. But as Robert comes closer to finding some answers, he discovers a dark secret in his own family's past."

The book's title: I knew about the term "snakeheads," having read a mystery set in more recent times about illegal immigration from China. Snakeheads prey on people looking for a way to enter the U.S. at any cost, but the illegals or "snakes" usually face conditions worse than they ever imagined when they get here. I assume that's the meaning behind the title of the book, Snakes Can't Run.

Main character: Author Ed Lin uses dialogue between his characters to give the history of the Chinese immigrants to the U.S., both legal and illegal. Lin also uses the plot and circumstances to explain Chinese customs and culture. The book's main character, Robert Chow, a Chinese American cop with a Chinatown beat, is also a Vietnam vet who sometimes has nighrmares and flashbacks of his time during the war. He tries to help a fellow veteran in Chinatown, Don, who seems to have severe psychosis, insisting there are voices coming from behind the walls of his room. His partner in the police force, Van Dyke, a black cop and a supportive friend, also has family problems of his own and Robert tries to help him with this.

Robert also has to find out the identity of the key player, the top snakehead responsible for the killing of two young men in Chinatown who might have tried to defy the exploiting system of payback to make it on their own. He traces his own father's history as an illegal immigrant and comes up with some surprising finds.

Comments: I learned more about the tongs, what they are, and how they worked in Chinatown to protect and organize people who speak the same dialect or who are from the same villages in China.  I also learned how some of the tongs turned to criminal activity. A good plot, sympathetic main character, and a lot of information about the early Chinese in America. I recommend the book for mystery lovers as well as those interested in this part of American history.

Ed Lin won awards for his first and second mysteries, Waylaid and This Is a Bust. He lives in New York City.

Challenge: Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge, 100+ Reading Challenge, Support your Local Library Challenge

 

Review: Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith

Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith (Paperback, May 18, 2010)

Genre: women's fiction, romance

My comments: Nancy's Theory of Style is funny, original. I loved the romance and the characters. Nancy is a perfectionist in her tastes - her dress, her apartment, and her relationships have to be "just so." When she splits from her husband because of what he did to their dream house in her absence - putting a gigantic wet bar in their bedroom, for instance - she leaves for her San Francisco apartment and hires an assistant, Derek, who is equally fastitidous about style. Because he is gay, Nancy assumes their business relationship will work out perfectly.

Nancy's style is put to the test not only by Derek, who becomes increasingly attractive to her, but also by a four year old child literally left on her doorsteps by Nancy's irresponsible cousin, Birdie. How does Nancy cope with toys on the living room floor, a puppy in the closet, and the mayhem that a young child brings?

I can't wait for the next romantic comedy that Grace will write! I loved Nancy's Theory of Style! And not just because I was given a free copy of the book by Simon and Schuster to review! For romatic comedy, I give this a five.

See Grace's guest post: Mayhem Ensues by Grace Coopersmith

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge,