Short Fiction Friday: An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten

In spite of having more books in my TBR than I can possibly even think about finishing at the moment, I'm thanking my lucky stars that I went out and got both city and county library cards before all this mess started. It's meant that I have access to both library systems' online collections for when a wild hair strikes!

I've been reading a lot of Scandi Crime of late and Helene Tursten has been on my list to try for some time now. But while I do actually have books in both of her series on my shelves, it was her collection of short stories that I was craving!

Maud is 88 and still living on her own, thank you very much. Because she's saved carefully, and because there's a clause that allows her to live in her apartment rent free (a clause the powers that be at the building would love to find a way around), she's also able to travel at her leisure.

Maud is also a problem solver. Like when a celebrity moves into the building with an eye to taking Maud's larger apartment for her own. Or when the neighbors upstairs become a nuisance. Maud knows how to fix these things. And the best part about it all is that no one suspects a thing.

Maud is funny and clever. She plays the old lady when necessary, but she's definitely got all of her wits about her! She's also quite devious :) In each of the tales, she's faced with a bit of a problem to varying degrees. And in each tale she comes up with a solution that I think most people would never even consider. And yet, dark as this collection is, it's quite amusing—perfect for me at this moment! And it's quick. I read this in one sitting in my hammock.

Tursten is a Swedish author who apparently worked as a dentist and a nurse before she took up writing. And while her two series focus on detectives, this little collection deviates from that a bit. (I should note that both detectives make a very brief appearance in this collection.)

If crime fiction is your jam but the current predicament is proving to be a bit hard on your reading habits (in other words, you can't read like you normally would—either because of lack of focus or being pulled in a million directions), this is a great one to dive into. And it's a nice way to dip your toe into Tursten's work and/or Scandi Crime as a whole!

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Feature: The Last Trial by Scott Turow

Happy Book Birthday Week to Scott Turow whose latest, The Last Trial, is out now!

Here's a bit about the book from Goodreads:

At 85 years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, is on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial.

In a case that will provide the defining coda to both men's accomplished lives, Stern probes beneath the surface of his friend's dazzling veneer as a distinguished cancer researcher. As the trial progresses, Stern will question everything he thought he knew about his friend. Despite Pafko's many failings, is he innocent of the terrible charges laid against him? How far will Stern go to save his friend, and--no matter the trial's outcome--will he ever know the truth? Stern's duty to defend his client and his belief in the power of the judicial system both face a final, terrible test in the courtroom, where the evidence and reality are sometimes worlds apart.
Turow is one of those authors all the highly respected authors in his genre frequently recommend. And yet, I haven't actually read any of his work yet. My own uncle has been trying to get me to read Presumed Innocent for ages now and I even bought a copy, but it's been waiting in my massive TBR.

It's not at all that I don't want to read him. In fact, not only to I want to read his work, I feel I have to. I'm a fan of crime fiction, he's an acclaimed writer of crime fiction! I should be reading him, I know!

The Last Trial is, according to Goodreads, the eleventh book in the Kindle County Legal Series. I'm fairly certain that they don't have to be read in any particular order, but just in case, here's the series order:

Presumed Innocent
The Burden of Proof
Pleading Guilty
The Laws of Our Fathers
Personal Injuries
Reversible Errors
Limitations
Innocent
Identical
Testimony
The Last Trial

Presumed Innocent is actually sitting on my nightstand as we speak. I really think my respectability as a crime fiction fan is going to be adversely affected if I don't read it soon!

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Have You Seen Me? by Kate White

Ally Linden is a bit miffed when she realizes she's arrived at work without her key card. No worries, though, a fellow employee lets her in and she can wait patiently for her boss to arrive and let her into her office. 

There's just one problem—Ally hasn't worked in this office for years! She doesn't know why she's turned up here. She doesn't even realize initially that she doesn't work there anymore. But as her memories do start to come back it appears that there are two days in particular still missing. 

As Ally tries desperately to coax the memories to return, she begins to wonder if they could be tied to a trauma she experienced as a child. And as she digs into both that incident and the time surrounding her missing memories, it becomes clear that she's stirred up something. Only by remembering exactly what, though, can she save herself from very real danger!

Kate White's latest stand alone is an entertaining read about trauma and memories.

Ally is a financial expert who lives a fairly normal life. She's happily married, runs a well respected podcast, and is working on a book. She has friends and sees a therapist regularly about pretty run of the mill issues.

In other words, when she realizes she's having memory issues there's nothing that pops out for anyone that would explain the situation.

Except for one thing. When Ally was a child, she witnessed something fairly traumatizing. And that's immediately where her mind goes when she tries to find a reason she could be missing two days of her life.

I liked Ally, she's rational and logical. She enlists the help of her brother and even hires a PI all in an effort to tease out the two days of memories. But as the story played out, I wanted more tension and more surprises.

It felt like White, the author of the very fun Bailey Weggins series and a number of stand alone titles, kind of took the easy way out with this one. There were some half hearted red herrings along the way, but ultimately the book as a whole wrapped up too conveniently for my taste.

I wanted more of the plot line involving her childhood incident and I wanted less obvious sort of foes throughout the book (I will note that I appreciated the way White balanced the characters—they all had faults and felt more human as a result, but each of them could have been explored more deeply for my taste). I think, for me, this particular outing from White could have been made much better with a little simplification. Too many threads just made for a watered down story as a whole this time.

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Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

Just over a year ago, Marin's four year old son disappeared. They were shopping at a crowded market in the days before Christmas and Marin lost him. Cameras show that he was led away by someone in a Santa Claus outfit, carrying a lollipop he'd been begging his mother for only moments before. 

Marin has lived with the guilt ever since. 

Then a PI Marin hired to help find her son reveals that Marin's husband is having an affair. After losing her son, Marin is determined not to lose her marriage as well. And she's willing to do whatever it takes to keep her husband devoted to her. 

Little Secrets is a super fast read. I started on audio and switched back and forth between that and the physical so that I could read through as fast as possible! No childcare has definitely affected reading time and audiobooks from Libro.fm have been an even bigger part of my reading life of late than even before!

We meet Marin on the morning her son is kidnapped. And then we jump forward, sixteen months later. Marin attends a support group for parents who have missing children but otherwise she's tried her best to put her life back together.

Oh, and she's hired a PI that she hasn't told her husband about.

So when she gets a call from the investigator asking to meet, she assumes it means something regarding her son's disappearance has turned up. Boy is she wrong!

The thing is, Marin isn't really all that shocked to learn that her husband has cheated. In fact, she almost blames herself for the distance. Which is sad considering she already blames herself for their son's disappearance. But her solution for the problem...well, it's an avenue most people wouldn't take themselves!

Hillier does a great job of exploring Marin and her emotions. And she does a really good job illustrating just how many different layers there are to actual people. Marin's choices are certainly questionable, but it's easy to empathize with her even if you (hopefully) don't agree. And she's not the only character Hillier gives voice to as the story continues.

Like I said, it's a super quick read and an intense one as well. Perfect for summer hammock reading :)

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Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles

Good morning, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC blog tour for Paulette Jiles's latest, Simon the Fiddler.

Simon has long avoided being drafted into service thanks to the fact that he looks young and he plays a mean fiddle. It came close more than once, but it's not until he's harassed by a drunken braggart in a bar in Victoria that the conscription men catch up to him. 

He's drafted into the regimental band and manages to survive the next few weeks of the war. Luckily, the Confederates surrender. And that's when Simon, along with other musicians from both sides, are asked to play a dinner for officers and their wives. A dinner that introduces him to Doris, an Irish girl working for a Union family. 

The two are separated, Doris must work off her debt to the Union family and Simon goes on his own way. But he never forgets Doris. And getting back to her becomes his ultimate goal.

Simon is a schemer and a liar, which is how he survives not just the war but everything. But meeting Doris changes him some and his determination is not only to get back to her but to be the kind of man she deserves. To support her and be with her.

The story is Simon's road to seeing that happen. It's not a quick read, but it is an atmospheric one filled with music and hardship.

Simon's journey isn't easy, but that's to be expected considering the book is set in the aftermath of the Civil War. And it's a nice complement to Jiles's News of the World, which is set in the same time period. But they are very different stories indeed!

Fans of Jiles's poetic style and prose will love this latest!

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here. And for more on Paulette Jiles and her work you can visit her website here.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookBar

The Boy From the Woods by Harlan Coben

Hester Crimstein's grandson has asked for help. A girl in his class has gone missing and no one seems to be concerned. And since he's never asked for anything of this kind from her, Hester is inclined to take him very seriously. 

She reaches out to Wilde, her son's best friend. Wilde spent time in the military and also as a PI with a private firm, so he's perfect for the job. Plus, he's her grandson's godfather, which means he too is inclined to believe the boy. 

But there's more to Wilde's past than his work history. Wilde was discovered hiding out in the woods as a boy. No one knows how long he was on his own and no one ever stepped forward to claim him. Wilde grew up an outsider, something he has in common with the missing girl. 

But when the case takes a bizarre turn beyond that of a missing teenager, Wilde and Hester both find themselves in the crosshairs. And the repercussions of this case could have a huge fallout!

Coben's latest is another fast paced and fun read. But this time, rather than his usual ordinary man or woman dragged into extraordinary circumstances, he's created a pretty extraordinary character in Wilde.

One thing I'd hoped was that we would get some sort of explanation or closure in Wilde's actual story. We do not. But the last pages of the book do seem to hint at a possibility of that to come, so we can still hope!

Naomi Pine is bullied relentlessly. But when she doesn't turn up for school for a few days, no one seems concerned. Except Matthew. Matthew feels guilty for not stepping in to defend Naomi. And there's more to it than that. So Matthew turns to the person he knows has enough clout to do something about it: his grandmother, Hester Crimstein. Hester is a well knows lawyer with the platform and the know how to really get the ball rolling on an investigation. And she does exactly that.

Long time readers of Coben's work will remember Hester, considering she's appeared in multiple titles. She's never been a main character herself and I don't recall ever getting any of her backstory before.

She's fun and feisty and it was really great to finally get a book focused around her and her family.

Coben is always a sure bet for me, but I will say that this one didn't feel as strong as some of my favorites by him. There was the dangling thread of Wilde's story, for one, which I do trust is being held for another book. For another, things just seemed to come together a bit too quickly and easily this time around. I wanted to sink further into the story and get depth overall in terms of characters and plot.

I will say that I quite enjoyed the turn the plot took. I won't give it away, but I was surprised that Coben took the story where he did. If you're a longtime reader, you'll love this latest. Don't make the mistake I did, though. Stock up on Yoo-hoo before you start reading!

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The Closer You Get by Mary Torjussen

Happy Book Birthday to Mary Torjussen whose latest, The Closer You Get, is out today!

Ruby's marriage has been under strain for some time but falling in love with her boss has prompted her to do something about it. She and Harry are going to be together. They have it all planned out. And on a Friday evening, the plan is set in motion. They're to tell their respective spouses that their relationships are over, meet up at a local hotel where the room is already booked, and start their new lives together. 

But when Ruby arrives at the hotel, Harry is nowhere to be found. She waits all weekend, and Harry never shows. Then, on Monday, she arrives at the office to be told she's being fired. No explanation from Harry at all. 

As Ruby tries to move forward, things get even worse. She's unable to get work at another temp agency. Her funds are low until her house is sold. And it appears Harry has reconciled with his wife. And then things take a darker turn. Someone has been in Ruby's apartment. Someone has gone through her things. Someone is out to get Ruby and it's only a matter of time. 

Mary Torjussen's latest is an absolute page turner. The book is told in multiple perspectives, but we begin with Ruby. And we're given an inside look at her marriage, her hopes about her future, her confusion when things don't go as expected, and her growing terror as her life spins out of control.

It's not hard to guess the motive behind her harassment but this doesn't take away from the experience of reading it at all!

Ruby is immensely sympathetic. Which you might not expect considering she's married and having an affair with her (also married) boss. And this is perhaps down to the fact that we open with her and spend so much time with her at the beginning of the book.

But it's also down to the story!

Torjussen has built narrators that are multi layered and real. The kind of characters that are not all good or all bad. Because of that, The Closer You Get is an easy and fast read! And great fun, if you're into dark reads like I am :)

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