The Midnight Choir; Gene Kerrigan

I think I found this in my feed reader while browsing through the Guardian online book section. Mr. Kerrigan is or was a journalist for a newspapers and magazines in Ireland. I’ve read one other title written by an actively working journalist. Generally, I find the quality of the writing to be high & the narrative compelling. The edition I read was published in 2006 by Europa and had a drab green cover. Yes I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover- I ordered this from interlibrary loan without seeing the cover. Recently though I’ve found other covers on the internet.

What I didn’t realize in my first forays into crime fiction, if I can call it that, is that certain subtypes are harder edged than others. And that crime fiction, like all genre fiction is often underestimated by those who are unfamiliar with it. Yes, I am one of those people. Crime fiction has within it other subtypes. Police procedurals are told from the point of view of the police although the perpetrator is usually known to the reader from the start. Noir fiction is often told by the criminal or someone intimately involved with committing the crime and is known to be unsentimental and unsparing in its look at society’s underbelly.

I have to admit my ignorance here. I’m primarily a romance and science fiction/fantasy reader, with a sprinkling of straight up fiction thrown in. My knowledge of police procedural and whodunit crime mysteries has been limited to characters like Sherlock Holmes, Sano Ichiro, Miss Marple and Sister Fidelma. Through watching Maigret and Wallender and a German detective series called Tatort in German (Scene of the Crime by our local tv station) my interest turned to similar literature. After I finished reading The Midnight Choir it occurred to me that there are distinct similarities between D.I. Synott and to characters in the US tv series The Shield and to the movie The Secret Window.

The Midnight Choir is set in modern Ireland. The narrative takes place over the course of a week, starting on Wednesday. Point of view swings between characters depending on what case is at the forefront. Mr. Kerrigan masterfully demonstrates to the reader that the assumptions you make regarding the protagonist, in this case Detective Inspector Harry Synott, are not necessarily the truth. To be clear, these are things that it appears Det. Insp. Synott believes about himself, thus inducing this reader to believe them too. I suppose that my inherent cynicism regarding motivation in actual human beings doesn’t always translate over into fiction. No matter. When I recognized the trend things were taking, it spurred many conversations between the Hubby and I regarding power, corruption, and the slow deterioration of the demarcation between right and wrong. Not that the line was ever clear and bright and unmistakable.

Despite my own initial misunderstanding of what this book might be labeled, The Midnight Choir grabbed me from the start and didn’t let go. I’m hopeful I can find more of his work, although I think it’ll have to be via interlibrary loan as his work is in neither my local library nor the local bookstores. Excellent read.

Ruby's Slippers; Leanna Ellis

Ruby’s Slippers by Leanna Ellis is a contemporary Christian women’s fiction novel set primarily in California. This is the second title I’ve read by Ms. Ellis, which was sent to me for review by B&H Publishing. While acknowledging that two titles is hardly a large enough soap box from which to preach, it seems to me that Ms. Ellis writes of women who are at a major turning point in their lives. A time when the confluence of events and people impel a woman to assess who she is and where she is going.

Ruby’s Slipper’s is such a novel. As both the title and the cover imply the novel follows a similar path, both literally and symbolically, as the characters in the Wizard of Oz: fellow travelers have a mission to accomplish, their path is replete with peril and misinformation, the exact destination & outcome are unknown. I have to say that while I enjoy the movie significantly more now than I did when I was a child, it is not something with which I’ve more than a glancing familiarity. I very much enjoyed figuring out which book character matched up with which movie character.

The plot is deceptively simple. Two sisters, whose mother has been deceased only a year, own a small family farm in rural Kansas. Their father disappeared when the girls were barely out of toddlerhood. The younger sister, Abby, is an actress in California, the older, Dorothy, a teacher who cared for their mother in her waning years. The farm has been a bone of contention between them ever since she died. Until the day a major tornado hits the tiny town and flattens the Meyers homestead, inflicting a head injury on the oldest daughter. Abby brings Dottie to California to recover. After that everything changes.

Ms. Ellis’ plot doesn’t go quite where this reader rather thought it would. It was fabulous! I became quite fascinated with unraveling the various threads in my mind and then reweaving them once I realized that I was quite wrong after all. LOL  As for theme, you’ve your pick of several. One, that there are two sides to every story and it’s best to try and learn what they both are. Two, fear and anger are often bedfellows and frequently feed each other. Three, the dawn must come eventually no matter how dark and menacing the night may be. And four, it’s always possible to begin anew.

A wonderfully fun insightful read. Excellent for the summer.

Rooftops of Tehran; Mahbod Seraji

I was so excited when I this came in the mail, I can't tell you! The blurb sounded wonderful. How can you resist young love and ideology and political unrest? All mixed in with the ancient Persian culture? Certainly not me. Many many years ago my parents bought me a beautiful lavishly illustrated child's book titled Persian Fairy tales. I read that book cover to cover often & my fascination for Persian culture stayed with me into adulthood. Rooftops of Tehran is a modern coming of age tale set in 1973 & 1974 Tehran, Iran.

Pasha Shahed and his best friend Ahmed are seventeen year old young men who live in the same alley in Tehran Iran in 1973 and 1974. They do many of the things buddies do: swear not to date each other's sister or any other girl the other admires, they plot together how to get the attention of the girls they admire from afar, they play crazy practical jokes on each other, they commiserate about how awful school is and they have lots of sleepovers.

They gossip and laugh and sneak around, just like teenagers everywhere. The objects of their admiration are Faheemeh (Ahmed thinks she's perfect) and Zari Naderi, who is actually engaged to college junior Ramin Sobhi. Pasha can barely admit to himself that he likes her because he admires Ramin as well. And everyone knows Zari and Doctor, Ramin's nickname in the neighborhood, are absolutely perfect for each other. Pasha wouldn't dare interfere with that. Would he?

We watch as the seasons slowly turn in 1973. Ahmed and Faheemeh manage to become a couple despite her near miss arranged marriage. Pasha becomes friends with Doctor and resolves to do the honorable thing and hide his feelings for Zari. Pasha loves and admires his father, but feels pressured to strive for his father's ambitions as opposed to his own. He's only seventeen though, he still has one more year of high school to go. Surely he'll think of a way to subvert his father's wishes by the time he graduates?

However, there are rumblings of upheaval to come. The Shah's regime is oppressive, and actively spies on his populace ruthlessly suppressing and eradicating any dissension- or even attempts at independent, critical thinking. Doctor is a third year political science major at a prominent university. The trial of a notorious political dissident marks the beginnings of drastic changes for all four friends.

Mr. Seraji does a superb job submerging the reader in the daily life and culture of everyday Iranians. Pasha's interior dialogue is quite vivid and his personality captures & holds your attention right away. The novel opens innocently enough but slowly and steadily an ominous feeling creeps over the reader. Tension builds. Hope and dread build simultaneously. I highly recommend this book. I plan to keep a sharp eye out for this author's future titles.

I received a review copy of this book from Authors on the Web

Rooftops of Tehran can be bought HERE.