BOOK REVIEWS

Review by Philip Spires  -  Generally, genre thrillers are books without thrills. Someone gets killed. Turn the page and it happens again to someone else. There’s a chase, a near miss; da capo al fine; repeat. There are never consequences. Characters seem to exist – they never come to life – in an eternal present devoid of either thought or reflection. Plot is a series of events, while characters are mere fashionably dressed acts. William Trevor’s beautiful novel, Fools Of Fortune is, in many ways, a whodunit – or better...

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Several phantoms haunt the “decommissioned” agents of the grand 0007 pantheon, not the least of which is a dream of the Red Phone ringing with ‘N’, the organizational honcho at the end of the line, ordering them to report in for another mission. But, a mission where? Melville, Louisiana??? With enthusiasm worthy of Joseph Heller and the expertise of a Cajun cook combining the choicest fictional ingredients with reality and getting the combination just right, Anthony J. Lomas serves up delightfully witty (and sometimes magnificently deranged) fiction with Operation...

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Review by Kendra Redman –  Crossed by Ally Condie is the sequel to Matched.  Unlike the first book, this one is set in the Outer Provinces on the farthest frontiers away from the Society.  Maybe it’s the setting, but this book had a completely different feel than the first one.   In Matched there were some chilling glimpses of what happened behind the curtains of the Society, but this book directly shows the cruelty and violence of which the Society is capable.  Maybe that is part of the reason I...

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A book review by Kendra Redman  -  In the Internet age we have grown accustomed to the idea of finding our match online, screening for ‘the One’ based on the data provided.  The novel Matched by Ally Condie takes this idea a step further.  Matched takes place in a world where the Society has complete control over people’s lives, which include deciding who someone will love.  Who people will marry is decided by the Society’s Officials who have carefully made selections based on optimal results.  The administrators of the...

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A book review by Kendra Redman  -  It’s funny how a name thousands of years old can still ring with power.   I had heard the name Masada and knew it signified a terrible event a long time ago, but until I read The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, I didn’t really know why the very word had survived over centuries as a symbol. Set in ancient Judea, known now as Israel, this is a novel of four extraordinary women who rose above the laws, society’s rules and  women’s place in the world of...

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