Westport Public Library BOOK blog

A treasury of thrillers that I cherished in my youth was one of the Alfred Hitchcock collections called Stories to Be Read with the Lights On.

A few of the authors who have signed on for Murder 203 write the kind of fiction and non-fiction that bring these stories to mind ... reminding me all of the times, having accidentally overheard about such terrible things, I feared my younger brother would be kidnapped, my little girlfriend next door would go missing or my older sister would never come home from a night out with one of her girlfriends. All of the nights I really did sleep with the lights on!

Jennifer McMahon’s novel Promise Not to Tell is not just another scary story—it is an impressive blend of suspense, the supernatural and self-discovery.

On the night Kate Cypher returns home to rural Vermont to care for her ailing mother, a young girl is murdered in the same way Kate's childhood friend, Del, nicknamed the "Potato Girl" by her mean-spirited classmates, was killed 30 years ago—a horrific crime.

Del's killer was never found, and the victim had since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Kate, beset by guilt for her own part in the girl’s persecution, reconnects with her childhood sweetheart, who is utterly convinced that Del's ghost is seeking its revenge.

In another of McMahon’s novels, Island of Lost Girls, Rhonda Farr is the only witness to the abduction of a six-year-old girl—by a person wearing a rabbit suit and driving a VW bug. Needless to say, everyone is skeptical of her story, but the kidnapping forces Rhonda to relive an earlier disappearance: that of her best friend from childhood.

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s poignant memoir Girls of Tender Age intertwines her own vivid childhood memories with a dim memory now fully examined: the brutal murder of a fifth-grade playmate killed by a serial pedophile in Hartford in 1953. After the crime the neighborhood children were told to never mention it again.

It wasn’t until the adult Smith was writing an essay for a literary journal when, after making a brief mention of the story, she decided to investigate whether justice was served in her friend’s case and “build a memorial” of sorts to her. The resulting chronicle was called “Larger than the sum of its parts” by Publishers Weekly.

Kate Flora co-authored the enthralling true crime narrative Finding Amy with Joseph K. Loughlin, the police detective who had been in charge of the case. Twenty-five year-old Amy St. Laurent disappeared after hitting some of the hot nightspots in Portland, Maine with a friend from out-of-town. Amy was missing for eight weeks before she was found in a shallow grave brutally beaten and murdered, the victim of a probable sexual assault.

Instinct, experience and good police work eventually bring the killer, a chillingly remorseless psychopath, to justice even though for weeks there was no body, no crime scene, and no witnesses.

Jennifer McMahon will be at the Murder 203 Easton events on Saturday. Both Mary-Anne Tirone Smith and Kate Flora will speak together with true crime writer M. William Phelps here in Westport on Sunday afternoon on a panel called “We Didn’t Make It Up!”

Check the Murder 203 website for registration details.

If you read to escape into a happier world or a thrilling one where your “real” life is forgotten, you can skip this blog. I have just read two books written with style, grace and the courage to tell the truth about “real” life.

Diana Athill is a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who has worked with the most important writers of the 20th century. Mailer, Roth, Naipaul, Updike for example. She retired at age 75 (in 1993) after more than 50 years in publishing. Somewhere Towards the End is her newest book. It takes a sharp-eyed, honest and humorous look at what it means to be ninety-one. Friendship, love, sex, family… all with only a tiny touch of sentimentality and absolutely no trace of self-pity. The writing is superb.

Athill was just awarded the Costa Prize for biography. From the Telegraph: “Diana Athill's prize is richly deserved and in no sense a special favour. Her writing has wit, bite and honesty. Such qualities are rare enough in any memoir and so are especially worthwhile in one that deals with the lives of the elderly – people we often either patronise or ignore.” For an interview with Diana Athill. For more Athill books.

Another beautiful and profound book is An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken. If you read The Giant’s House, her 1996 novel, you will remember her talent. Now, she has spilled the tears and grief of her son’s stillbirth into a memoir unlike any other. There is some humor and there are a few bittersweet moments, but mostly it’s about the healing powers of friendship in the midst of bottomless sadness. McCracken and her husband welcome a second, healthy son, but the death of their first baby has changed them forever. She concludes, “It’s a happy life, and someone is missing.” You will not forget this book.

Elizabeth McCracken's website.

Edgar Allan Poe is not the only one turning 200 in 2009! Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were both born in 1809 and on the same day, February 12.

The website for The Darwin Day Celebration, an international event, sums up their contribution to the world as we know it today quite succinctly: “Lincoln freed American slaves from physical servitude while Darwin freed the human mind from the bonds of supernatural dogma. The positive influences of their legacies are as relevant in the world today as they were in the 1800s.”

The inclusion of Darwin’s theory of evolution in the science curriculum is still under fire in many places and in some cases attitudes and beliefs have not changed much since the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial.

Ona Russell has written a recent historical mystery set at that trial, The Natural Selection, which incorporates all of the key figures, including H.L. Mencken, William Jennings Bryan, and Clarence Darrow, as well as actual courtroom excerpts.

Her protagonist, Sarah Kaufman, is a Jewish probate court official in Toledo, Ohio. She heads south to visit with her cousin and ends up in Dayton, Tennessee -- where the trial is underway -- working with Mencken to solve the murder of the cousin’s colleague, an enigmatic college professor who has left behind a cryptic Darwinian message for them.

Do not mistake this is for a cozy mystery. Sarah’s search for the truth is a harrowing one as she encounters bigotry and brutality and exhausts her physical strength and psychological reserves in the process.

Clarence Darrow has also been featured lately in a true crime narrative, For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz.

Later the basis of the Hitchcock film Rope, in 1924 it was a crime that shocked the nation -- the brutal killing in Chicago of a child by two wealthy college students solely for the thrill of the experience.

After Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were arrested for the crime, their families hired Darrow, the most famous lawyer in America, to defend their sons.

Darrow aimed to save Leopold and Loeb from the death penalty by showing that the crime was the inevitable consequence of sexual and psychological abuse that the defendants had suffered during childhood. But they had left a crucial piece of evidence at the scene of the crime and eventually confessed to the murder. Darrow had the men plead guilty to avoid a trial

Darrow’s adversary, the prosecuting attorney Robert Crowe, had ambitions of becoming Chicago's next mayor and was determined to see them hang.

Both sides trotted out numerous psychiatrists to testify whether or not Leopold and Loeb were indeed mentally ill. Darrow's gamble paid off in life sentences for the pair. Loeb was murdered in prison in 1936 and Leopold was eventually paroled in 1958.

Kirkus called Baatz’s book “A solid true-crime thriller that’s also a masterly analysis of postwar shifts in society’s ideas about crime and personality.”

For the Thrill of It was included on the 2008 Edgar Nominees List in the Best Fact Crime category.

Darrow also provided some remarkable fictional courtroom drama Caleb Carr’s 1997 thriller, The Angel of Darkness. Another mystery best to not mistake for a cozy.

It’s been a long cold winter. But there’s something about Valentine’s Day that can lift your spirits and keep them going until spring. Red roses, chocolates, and decorative hearts are everywhere. It’s a feel good holiday that makes me yearn for a good love story. Everyone has their favorites, but here a few that book clubs have embraced.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan is a love story and a whole lot more. This historical novel is the story of architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, one of his clients. Their scandalous love affair and the choices they made will provide your club with much to discuss. Due out this week is another novel about Frank Lloyd Wright and the four women he loved, The Women by T.C. Boyle. If you would like to find out more about this creative genius and his scandal filled life, be sure to read this one.

Audrey Niffeneger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife is part love story, part science fiction. Clare and Henry attempt to live a normal life even as their lives are disrupted by Henry’s time travel disorder. Their love endures in this unusual and enchanting story.

For a male perspective on the love story, James Collins’ Beginner’s Greek would make a good choice for book clubs. This first novel by journalist Collins is a romantic comedy about missed opportunities. Although it has a contemporary setting, fans of Jane Austen will enjoy it too.

One of my favorite books from 2008 is Marisa de los Santos’ Belong to Me. Although some may call it ‘chick lit’, the author’s beautiful writing style and well developed characters have great appeal. Can anyone ever really ‘belong’ to another person? Read this book with your book club and see what you think. Love Walked In, Ms. De los Santos’ first novel, is another sweet love story. The characters she created for this book, Cornelia, Teo and Clare, are also central to Belong to Me, but the story stands on its own and can be read without having read Love Walked In. I think you’ll enjoy them both.

So for your next book club selection, why not make it a romantic choice. Love comes in all shapes and sizes and there’s a love story out there for everyone. If you need more suggestions then don’t forget, on Friday, February 13th the Westport Public Library will hold it’s first Booklover’s Bash. Come and share your favorites with other booklovers and enjoy an evening of conversation and the celebration of books and reading. Hope to see you there. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

The noir form will be more than adequately represented at the upcoming Murder 203 event by authors Reed Farrel Coleman, Peter Spiegelman and Jason Starr.

The New York Times Book Review reported that "Among the undying conventions of detective fiction is the one that requires every retired cop to have a case that still haunts him. Reed Farrel Coleman blows the dust off that cliche."

The retired cop in question is Moe (Moses) Prager, who takes on a new career as a private investigator in 1980s New York City. Coleman won multiple awards for both The James Deans, the third title in the series, and Soul Patch, which came after that.

Publisher’s Weekly called Peter Spiegelman “one of today's best practitioners of neo-noir."

Spiegelman’s detective is John March, the black sheep of a staid merchant-banking family working as a private investigator in Manhattan. The first March mystery, Black Maps, was a Shamus award winner.

Jason Starr has eight non-series novels to his credit, including the award winning Twisted City, and he collaborates with writer Ken Bruen on a series for Hard Case Crime.

His book The Follower was dubbed “this generation's Looking for Mr. Goodbar.”

Starr’s books are also set in New York City.

All three authors are represented in Wall Street Noir, a collection of 17 stories with Spiegelman as the editor, and both Coleman and Starr (and Bruen too!) were contributors to the Hard Boiled Brooklyn anthology.

So don’t let the name Murder 203 fool you. We’re not just about suburban mysteries! There will be lots of talk about crime in the big city and one of our panels will address how urban crime differs from suburban crime.

Check the Murder 203 website for registration information.

You are invited to the Booklovers' Bash on Friday February 13 from 6-8 pm in the Great Hall at the Library. Your name tag will identify your favorite book or author to start a conversation with others celebrating the love of books and reading. There will be wine and cheese, romantic music and lots of good conversation. And you may pick up the list of books selected as your favorite reads in 2008. For a look at the list.

In a recent Random House/Zogby poll, 82% of readers preferred a printed book over new reading technology such as online, PDAs or e-book readers.
**At the Library you can try out the new technology or rely on our collection of printed books.

77% of book buyers go to the store with a purpose, but often make unplanned purchases as well.
**Browsing at the Library is a much more economical alternative. Find older titles by a favorite author. Ask staff for reading suggestions. Pick up a reading list.

52% admitted judging a book by its cover.
**The Library displays books from all corners of the collection with all kinds of covers. Did you see our recent YELLOW & GREEN displays?

40% are reading between two and four books at once.
**Did you know there is no limit on the number of books you may check out at the Library?

75% said they usually purchase books as gifts.
**“Test drive” your selections at the Library

49% said they were influenced by book reviews.
**Pick up a book at the Library and talk to staff to find a review.

The surprising poll result:
19% borrow most of the books they read from the Library.
**I know that among Westport Library users that percentage would be much higher.

See you at the Booklovers’ Bash.

Prolific bestselling author Val McDermid comes from Fife in the coal-mining region of eastern Scotland. On her website she explains “I had always wanted to write, ever since I realised that real people actually produced all those books in the library.”

After a career in journalism she began her first crime novel in 1984. She recalls that reading a Sara Paretsky mystery a "defining moment" because it was "a mystery with an urban setting that dealt with contemporary women's lives, that didn't shy away from engaging with the politics of the society it reflected, and that was fun."

McDermid made her lesbian sleuth Lindsay Gordon a reporter because, she says, "I had no idea how police investigate a murder, but I knew how journalists do their job."

There are six mysteries in the Lindsay Gordon series, but realizing that she "was never going to make a living out of lesbian crime fiction" she introduced her second detective, heterosexual private investigator Kate Brannigan in 1992. There are six titles in that series as well.

McDermid's third series features the crime-solving team of psychologist and criminal profiler Dr. Tony Hill and police detective Carol Jordan. The Mermaids Singing, the first title of the five titles in this series to date, won the prestigious Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger Award.

The BBC developed an enormously successful television series, The Wire in the Blood, based on these characters.

The author worked closely with the screenwriters on the adaptation and had a cameo role as a journalist, appropriately enough, in one of the episodes.

McDermid considers her work to be “Tartan Noir,” a form of hardboiled crime fiction particular to Scottish writers which has its roots in Scottish literature but borrows elements from elsewhere, including the work of American writer James Ellroy.

She will be speaking here as part of our AUTHORS@THE LIBRARY series on Monday, February 9, at noon to discuss A Darker Domain, her new stand-alone psychological thriller set in her childhood home of Fife which mixes fiction with one of the most symbolic and exceptional moments in recent history - the 1984 national miners' strike in the UK.

Books will be available for purchase and signing.