Weekend picks for book lovers
What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include the new mystery from the author of the mega-selling thriller The Girl on the Train.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins; Riverhead, 388 pp.; fiction
Is it really fair of Hawkins to conjure up a menacing body of water just as beach season beckons?
There are no sharks, a la Jaws, in Into the Water, other than the human sharks who lurk in the English riverside town of Beckford.
The British author makes some perplexing choices early on that threaten to sink Into the Water in a sea of confusion: More than a dozen narrators. Shifts back and forth in time. Lots and lots of drowned girls. Myriad secrets to keep us wondering whodunit and to whom they did it.
Pay attention, though. The various plot currents eventually converge, and when they do Into the Water takes off with a rush.
The novel begins with Jules (Julia) Abbott being summoned back to Beckford after her estranged sister, Nel, is found dead in the “Drowning Pool,” as the infamous bend in the town’s river is called. Did Nel, a photographer and writer who was investigating the Drowning Pool’s many female victims (including 17th-century “witches”), jump or slip from the cliff above? Was she pushed?
Paste BN says *** out of four stars. “Succulent… Hawkins, influenced by Hitchcock, has a cinematic eye and an ear for eerie, evocative language.”
Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee by Wayne Flynt; Harper, 210 pp.; non-fiction
An Alabama historian offers a slim volume of correspondence exchanged with his friend, author Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), who died last year.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Probably the most well-informed and clarifying book that has emerged from the Lee-industrial complex.”
Incendiary by Michael Cannell; Minotaur, 257 pp.; non-fiction
An account of a mad New Yorker who terrorized Gothamites in the 1950s by setting 32 bombs over 16 years.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Riveting…much of Incendiary’s power comes from Cannell’s writing.”
The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris; Little, Brown, 246 pp.; fiction
In these stories of male dread, dinner parties have zero guests, staying late at the office leads to ruining your whole life, and meeting up with your in-laws might coincide with running into your mistress.
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Elegant and fresh.”
The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve; Knopf, 241 pp.; fiction
Looks at the secrets of a marriage, set against the backdrop of devastating wildfires in 1947 Maine (a real event).
Paste BN says ***½ stars. “Masterful… Shreve’s quiet novel about marriage, duty and passion lingers long after the last page is turned, like the smoke from a wildfire.”
Contributing reviewers: Jocelyn McClurg, Charles Finch, Marco della Cava, Eliot Schrefer, Patty Rhule