To get there, don't follow the signs

Just one of the many lessons learned by Lara McClintoch on the island of Malta, the setting for Lyn Hamilton's second archaelogical mystery, The Maltese Goddess. I read Hamilton primarily for the settings and the historical/archaeological detail thereof; as mysteries they're merely so-so. However, I'm willing to overlook a somewhat contrived murder investigation to get to the smaller details that make the book worthwhile, even if it means that the characters tend to exposit more than talk.

Lara, co-proprietor of an antiquities shop in Toronto, is by turns delighted and nervous as prominent architect Martin Galea sweeps into her shop one day and buys up a healthy grouping of furniture and other pieces for his home in Malta. Galea also wants Lara to fly to Malta post-haste and arrange his many purchases to his exacting standards. Unsure about the deal but unable to walk away from the money, Lara agrees and takes off. However, all is not right at the Galea household - someone is clearly trying to scare Lara off. The worst-case scenario begins to unfold when the furniture finally arrives, complete with Galea's body stuffed into a trunk. Despite the fact that both local and Canadian police are involved in the case, Lara can't help poking her own nose in. Too bad she just might get it cut off.

Hamilton's definitely improved her form from this early outing in the series, as I was much more impressed by one of her more recent entries (The Magyar Venus). But despite the rough edges and somewhat paint-by-numbers plotting, the pace is swift and the characters are agreeably engaging. A good choice for someone who's into archaeology or the local history of often-overlooked settings, but otherwise skippable.

To live and die in L.A.

Updates galore, y'all - get 'em while they're hot.

Next up is Iain Pears' The Bernini Bust, another in his delightful Jonathan Argyll/Flavia di Stefano series. I've raved about Pears a lot here, and his books are a constant source of delight for me. In this entry the scene shifts from Rome to L.A., where Jonathan is negotiating the final details for one of the biggest sales of his (admittedly less than spectacular) career - the Moresby Museum has agreed to purchase a small Titian at a very favorable price. If Jonathan makes the sale, his boss has promised him a promotion that will bring him back to London (much to Flavia's consternation).

But as is to be expected, all does not go according to plan - Arthur Moresby, the museum's benefactor, is murdered during a party celebrating the announcement of the museum's enormous expansion project. What's worse, the prime suspect, a Spanish art dealer named Hector di Salvo, has vanished without a trace. The icing on this disaster-cake? A valuable bust of Pius XI by Bernini has likewise disappeared. Unable to resist a bit of poking about, Jonathan collaborates with the local P.D. to find out what happened, with a little help from his beautiful Italian copper "friend."

I love Pears because he's one of the few authors that can shift from dark, serious work to lighthearted genre fiction easily and naturally without losing his edge. His non-series work is much loved by critics (and rightly so) but I find these little petit four mysteries a delight as well. Definitely recommended to anyone with an interest in Italian art who appreciates a light hand and engaging characters.

The power of the written word

Today's update is for Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, a beautifully written children's book translated from the German about the magic and power of reading. Sounds familiar, right? While I appreciate everything the omnipresent Ms. Rowling has done to draw attention to the high-quality kids' fiction coming out of Europe these days, it makes it difficult for other talented authors to avoid comparisons. While the fantastical elements of Funke's book invariably call to mind a certain boy wizard turned media hero, Inkheart deserves to stand on its own as a deeply enriching contribution to childrens' fiction.

The book stars a young girl named Meggie and her father Mo, a book restorer and storyteller. Mo has passed on his love of books and reading to his precocious daughter, but Meggie learned to read on her own. For reasons unknown, Mo has never read aloud to her. One day a mysterious stranger comes to town and explains to a befuddled Meggie why - when Mo reads aloud, he conjures the characters off the page and into reality. Mo learned a painful lesson about his ability when he read an evil villain and his henchman out of the titular book, and read his beloved wife into it. Ever since, Mo has never read aloud for fear of losing his daughter.

However, the stranger comes with dire news - Capricorn, the novel's villian, is looking for Mo to read aloud for him and conjure up something great and terrifying. Mo grabs Meggie and goes into hiding at Meggie's Aunt Elinor's, but Capricorn will not be denied. As the family gets sucked into the villain's web, only their ingenuity and and cunning will save them and set things right again.

First of all, many thanks to my mom for her excellent recommendation on this one. Inkheart is an absolute delight and a must-read for anyone who loves books and reading, adult or child. Funke's way with words comes through beautifully even in translation, and her characters are wonderfully vivid and engaging. I confess that I saw more than a little of myself in Elinor, the hermit-like aunt whose very world is her book collection. The plot is delightfully twisty with action, adventure, and humor, and the pace will keep the pages zipping along. And not surprisingly, this story would make a delightful read-aloud or shared-reading experience for parents and their children and might be just the thing for great entertainment on that summer road trip.

If you've already had the pleasure of reading Inkheart, you'll be pleased to know that the sequel, Inkspell, is due to hit store shelves October 1.

What is the "update" of which you speak?

Shocking, eh? I'm actually posting a real review for the first time in ages - you can thank the fine people who set my graduate school class schedule, as they've seen fit to give me a three-week hiatus from academic life. I love my program, but after writing 40+ pages of library science babble over a 2 week span, I'm ready for a holiday.

Last night I finished up Robert Wilson's The Blind Man of Seville. I wanted to like this book, I really did, but somehow it just left me cold. It's got all the elements that normally grab my attention: foreign setting (the titular city), complex mystery, past events coming to bear on the present, the struggle for creative genius, and a tortured hero. For the all the flash and bang of the opening, the book never seems to reach the promise set by those early pages.

We open with the murder victim's view of his final moments - bound to a dining room chair in his home, he is forced to watch unspeakable horrors unfold on his TV screen by an unknown assailant. His eyelids have been removed, and he has no escape from the images that flash before him. Finally, he escapes this nightmare by bashing his own head in against the back of the chair.

Javier Falcon, a detective in the Sevillian police force, is called to investigate the brutal killing. However, this is no garden-variety murder and the clues left behind indicate that the story may strike uncomfortably close to home and force Falcon to delve into his life's biggest mystery - the shadowy past of his own father.

Sounds good, right? While the premise certainly captured my attention initially, the book drags heavily until the final 100 pages or so. Considering that this book is 400+ pages, it makes for a substantial amount of slugging. Maybe I simply wasn't in the right frame of mind for this - Wilson's writing style tends towards a slow burn rather than fireworks, which made it tough to stay connected to it. Unfortunately, this slower pace defuses the dramatic tension of the revelations throughout the story, to the point where even the most shocking moments have all the power of my old beater Mitsubishi. By the time the story comes to a close, so much of what has gone before is tossed away as irrelevant and nearly every B-plot is abandonned like an old shoe on the side of the road.

One aspect of Wilson's book that does work is the historical thread, based on the journals of Javier's father Francisco. This well-researched look into the Spanish Civil War and the post-war life of the legionnaires who fought is the only truly compelling part of the book, and I can't help but wish that Wilson had dropped his modern A-plot altogether and written the much better historical novel lurking in the journal excerpts.

I'll give this one 3/5 - it doesn't suck, but it didn't send me either. With so much else out there to read, I doubt I'll return to Wilson anytime soon. At least I only spent $3 on this.