Book Review: Across the Mekong River by Elaine Russell

Title: Across the Mekong River: A Novel
Author: Elaine Russell
Paperback, August 6. 2012; CreateSpace
Genre: historical fiction

We lived in the mountains of Xieng Khouang Province, in the middle of northern Laos. A beautiful place of gentle streams and green forests. On a clear day from the peak above our village I could see the broad Plain of Jars with its ancient stone jars, some as tall as two men. Lao villages and flooded rice paddies dotted the valley. Beyond were the houses and Buddhist temple of Xieng Khouang town. We built our Hmong villages on the steep hillsides, working our fields and tending our animals. Only our land mattered. (ch. 2)

Book description:  Nou Lee and her Hmong family escaped in 1978 from Laos in Southeast Asia after the Communist takeover there. The story follows the Lees from a refugee camp in Thailand to a new life in Minnesota and eventually California. Family members struggle to survive in a strange foreign land, haunted by the scars of war and loss of family.

Across the Mekong River paints a vivid picture of the Hmong immigrant experience, exploring family love, sacrifice, and the resiliency of the human spirit to overcome tragic circumstances. (publisher's description).

Comments: Across the Mekong River is a striking narrative that follows a Hmong family escaping from their home in war torn Laos, to refugee camps in Thailand, and then to the United States as sponsored refugees. It follows the family's fortune in the U.S., where the young daughter Nou grows up American and defies her parent's wish to live a traditional life and to agree to an arranged marriage to another from the Hmong tribe.

The book tackles the history of the Hmong refugee experience in the United States, which they helped during the war in Laos. The novel also candidly discusses the problems of adjustment to a new language and culture and to the younger generation growing up more Western than the older generation knew how to handle.

The book is valuable for its historical detail of the Hmong population, their war experiences, and their long journey to settle in other countries after the Pathet Lao Communist takeover in Laos in the 1970s. I was impressed that the author interviewed many Laotians here and in Laos about their experiences and helped to add this book to their records, though in fiction, of the intensity and quality of their struggles.

Visit the author's website at http://www.elainerussell.info
Across the Mekong River,was a finalist in the Carolina Wren Press 2010 Doris Bakwin Award for adult novels; the Maui Writer’s Conference 2003 Rupert Hughes Prose Writing Competition; and the Focus on Writers 2001 Friends of the Sacramento Library Awards.

Thanks to the author for a review copy of this book.

Book Review: And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

Title: And When She Was Good: A Novel by Laura Lippman
Hardcover; August 14, 2012; William Morrow
Genre: mystery, suspense
Book source: publisher/TLC Book Tours

About the book: Helen drops out of school as a teenager and leaves home to avoid an abusive father, eventually becoming a well-to-do madam and changing her name to Heloise. She feels she must keep her young son innocent of his jailed father's existence and the real nature of her work. When people from her past threaten her and her son's future,  Helen does what she has to do to save them both.

Comments: I thought about the title of the book, "And When She Was Good," and about the first verse of Longfellow's poem and considered the author's possible intent:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (American poet, 1807-1882)

There was a little girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead,
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid. (from destinyland.org)  

On the surface, Helen seems to be the victim of an abusive father and weak mother, the victim of a boyfriend, Billy, with whom she ran off, only to have to work on the streets to support his drug habit. She also becomes a victim of Val, who leads her into a life of prostitution.

But is Helen so innocent and blameless really? She manages to get rid of her abusers and her competitors on the streets and in her business, without ever seeming to lift a finger to deliberately hurt anyone. Things just seem to happen and work in her favor, even after she becomes a madam and raises her young son Scott in the traditional way, hiding her real source of income and profession from him and others relating to Scott.

I thought this was a nuanced psychological study as well as a good mystery novel, very well written to reveal the subtleties of Helen/Heloise's personality in her fight for survival and respectability. I would definitely recommend it for general readers as well as thriller/mystery lovers.

Laura Lippman wrote seven books while working as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun. She now is a full time fiction writer, author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Know and Another Thing to Fall. She has won the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity awards.

Laura's Website / Facebook

For a list of other reviews and tour stops visit "And When She Was Good" blog tour at TLC Book Tours. 

Book Feature: The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots by Tamar Myers

Title: The Boy Who Stole the Leopard's Spots: A Mystery
Author: Tamar Myers
Genre: historical mystery
William Morrow Paperbacks; May 8, 2012
Source: publisher

Opening sentences: 
"It was much cooler in the canyon that lay in front of, and below, the village. Over centuries the crystal clear spring had carved itself a bed two hundred meters lower than the surrounding savannah. Erosion had widened this space enough to accommodate a forest with trees large enough to require buttress roots, their crowns soaring up to neck-craning heights. It was a place of magic, awe, and, of course, much superstition.... One night the chief stayed in the canyon to kill a leopard that had ben terrorizing his village. This is the story of what happened, and how it came to be that a boy could steal a leopard's spots, and what that would mean for that boy when he grew into a man." ( from the Prologue) 

About the book:

American missionary Amanda, police chief Captain Pierre Jardin, and the local witch doctor and his wife, Cripple, all become embroiled in the mystery as evil omens and strange happenings in the village of Belle Vue in the Belgian Congo suggest more lives will be lost before a killer is unmasked. (from the book description)

Book Teaser: The Roots of the Olive Tree by Courtney Miller Santo

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB; choose sentences at random from your current read. Identify the author and title for readers.

The Roots of the Olive Tree: A Novel by Courtney Miller Santo
Hardcover; William Morrow
Release date: August 21, 2012
Source: publisher

"What's wrong with letting her believe in the olives? Neither of you can say that the olives had nothing to do with your remarkable health. You don't believe that they have kept you younger than your years, but that's not to say that they haven't." (ch. 7)

About the book: Set in a house on an olive grove in northern California, The Roots of the Olive Tree brings to life five generations of women--including a 112 year-old matriarch determined to break all Guinness longevity records--the secrets and lies that divide them and the love that ultimately ties them together. (Goodreads) The novel also has a geneticist who stirs up the hornet's nest, so to speak, as he unearths secrets while probing into the lives and history of the family.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading This Week?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading This Week? This is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week. It is hosted this week by Book Journey.

Books completed last week:
Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready
Broken Harbor by Tana French
The Playdate by Louise Millar



Books currently being read:
Disgrace (aka The Absent One) by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Twelve Rooms of the Nile by Enid Shomer
The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

Books to finish this week:
And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman
A Fistful of Collars ( A Chet and Bernie Mystery) by Spencer Quinn

I review the Lippman book for a tour on Aug. 16, and then go on to Following Atticus by Tom Ryan for another tour later this month.

What do you plan this week?

Book Review: The Playdate by Louise Millar

Title: The Playdate: A Novel by Louise Millar
Published July 3, 2012; Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Genre: light psychological suspense, women's fiction

About the book: The lives of three neighbors connect and intertwine when one of them needs after-school care for a daughter with fragile health.

Callie, a single mom with a daughter Rae who was born with a bad heart, and her neighbor, Suzy, do things together and look out for each other as neighbors and mothers. A newly married woman, Deb,  moves in to the semi-detached next door to Suzy and is so sensitive to sounds, she is bothered by noises  she can hear through the thin walls.

The plot takes off when Callie decides to go back to work and puts her daughter Rae in an after-school care program at school where Deb is a teacher. Rae is also eager for playdates with her classmates. Rae has an accident while walking home with Deb and could be in danger, but from whom? The evidence could point to Deb, but nothing is clear. Callie doesn't know who to trust when she is at work or when Rae is on one of her playdates.

My comments: The plot switches direction suddenly and dramatically two-thirds of the way through the book. It becomes suspenseful and I couldn't put the book down till I had gotten to the end. I could sympathize with the single mom Callie up to that point, and then later had to question her choices in dealing with her two neighbors.

I recommend the book for anyone with young children who might wonder, " Who can I trust to watch my children?"

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book.

Book Review: Broken Harbor by Tana French

Broken Harbor

Title: Broken Harbor: A Novel by Tana French
Published July 24, 2012; Penguin Group
Genre: police procedural, psychological thriller
Source: publisher

"Under all the paperwork and the politics, this is the job; this is its cool shining heart that I love with every fiber of mine. This case was different. It was running backwards, dragging us with it on some ferocious ebb tide. Every step washed us deeper in black chaos, wrapped us tighter in tendrils of crazy and pulled us downwards." (ch. 15)

About the book: A seasoned detective and his rookie sidekick investigate the murder of a family of four in an out of the way, half finished, and remote seaside housing project outside of Dublin, Ireland.

My comments: This was an intense read for me. The two detectives see the suspects differently and have different ideas about who the real culprit might be. Evidence they painstakingly collect from forensics and interviews point first to one suspect, then another, and then to another suspect, pingponging back and forth from one to the other and back around again. The plot keeps you guessing; the police procedures are enlightening; the characters are personalized, realistic, and engrossing.

Throw in some spooky, creepy scenarios with a hint of the supernatural surrounding the setting, the seaside town of Broken Harbor, which makes nature seem menacing and destructive instead of soothing and calming.

This is one of the best books I've read in the genre.