Review: "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn

On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne disappears from their Missouri home--and her husband, Nick, looks like the reason.

Nick scrambles to find a suitable alibi, desperately redirecting the investigation towards any suspect but himself. Meanwhile, Amy's diary entries reveal a portrait of a marriage gone sour. Gracious wife, beloved only child, the inspiration for an award-winning book series--it is unthinkable that anyone could wish harm on such a lovely woman.

But Nick has harbored resentment against his bride for years, envious of her inherited wealth, exasperated by her city-girl lifestyle. As his excuses run thin and his secrets come to light, all the signs point to his guilt.

But no one can answer the question: what happened to Amy?


***   4 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***   

Review: "Shards of Honor" by Lois McMaster Bujold

This was the only reasonable cover
I could find. The worst offenders
are displayed for your amusement
below the cut.

When Commander Cordelia Naismith's survey expedition is massacred in a Barrayan attack. Stranded in an alien wilderness, she joins forces with the enemy: Admiral Captain Vorkosigan, left for dead by a mutiny within the Barrayan forces. The history of war between their cultures is long and ugly--but the partnership forged over their long trek to safety is stronger still.

Now a prisoner of the Barrayans who rescued Vorkosigan, Cordelia is divided between her duty to her people and her personal loyalty to the man who crossed a planet with her. Intrigue and treason threatens Vorkosigan from his own people. Meanwhile, the survivors of Cordelia's crew team up with the mutineers in a desperate attempt to rescue her.

As far as the warlike Barrayans are concerned, the astrocartographer is no threat: she's no fighter, she's a woman, she's an unarmed prisoner. From where Cordelia stands, though, she holds the power of life and death: for herself, for Vorkosigan, and for both of their ways of life.


***   4 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***   

Review: "Bloodhound" by Tamora Pierce

(Bloodhound is the second book in a series. I reviewed Terrier, the first book , here.)

***

Beka Cooper has survived her training year in the Provost's Guard--but those who said the work would get easier with time were lying. Her ruthlessness in pursuit of justice has won her a number of enemies, both among the criminals of the Lower City and among her fellow Dogs.

Rejected by a string of partners, Cooper teams back up with her old mentor Goodwin. The pair leaves Corus for Port Caynn on a top-priority mission for the Provost himself--to track down the culprits behind a spate of counterfeit silver coins that are ruining Tortall.

They find Port Caynn in the grip of the underworld's Rogue, who isn't half so kindly disposed towards Cooper as the Rogue of Corus. Cooper and Goodwin are on their own in a city full of strangers while the lower classes turn to riot, with false money crashing the market and food running scarce in a bad season.

***   4 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***

Filing Systems and the Mystery of "Mystery"

After doing a bit of research on other book review blogs, I cleaned up the tags system and added a "file by label" system (over there to your right.) This way, dear reader, if you're interested in reading my grumps just in a certain genre, it's easy to find. Perhaps in time I'll add a "file by star rating" list as well.

While reassigning labels to these book grumps, I got stuck on how many of them can be called "mysteries." Even without the trappings of trench coats and forensic kits (or, depending on your taste in mysteries, cats), whodunits are found in absolutely every genre.

I now propose my own version of the "only [n] plots in the world" theory: there are three.

• Get the thing
• Defeat the thing
• Find out who did the thing

For fairness' sake, I'm only going to use the "mystery" tag if the book specifically describes itself as such.

Review: “Heat” by Bill Buford

Bill Buford is successful and happy in his career as a reporter when he befriends the famous New York chef Mario Batali. What was meant to be a simple interview spins out of control as Mario invites Bill to work for him. Untrained but eager, Bill begins work as a lowly assistant in the kitchen of Mario’s three-star Italian restaurant.

A classic comedy of errors ensues--but Bill’s perseverance and maniacal need to Understand Food sees him rise in skill and rank through the kitchen. He is sanctified (as it were) by the hellish fires of the grill.

Mario contemplates setting up the onetime reporter with a restaurant of his own, but Bill has caught the cooking fever. New York is no longer enough for him. He wants to go to Italy and learn where Italian food began. There are little old women in the hills with pasta-making secrets no one else remembers. There are butchers whose handling of meat is said to be operatic. Bill trades the typewriter for the filleting knife--perhaps for good.

***

  5 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***

My Own Favorites

It occurs to me that while I've been posting all these grumpy reviews of new books I've found, I haven't talked about the books that I already love, the ones which cancel out all the grumps.

 For the record: my absolute favorite, Best Beloved, accept-no-substitutes book is The Once and Future King by T.H. White.


 The rest follow in alphabetical order.

• Margaret Atwood: Cat's Eye
• Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn 
• Isabella Bird: A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains
• Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles
• Gillian Bradshaw: Imperial Purple
• Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre
• Bill Buford: Heat
• Novella Carpenter: Farm City
• C.J. Cherryh: Foreigner
• C.J. Cherryh: Rider at the Gate
• Evan Dahm: Rice Boy
• Tom DeHaven: Sunburn Lake
• William Goldman: The Princess Bride
• Joanne Greenberg: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
• Kim Harrison: The Hollows
• Stephen King: Hearts in Atlantis
• Stephen King: Lisey's Story
• Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Books
• C.S. Lewis: Til We Have Faces 
• James W. Loewen: Lies My Teacher Told Me
• George R.R. Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire
• Geraldine McCaughrean: Peter Pan in Scarlet
• Patricia McKillip: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
• Robin McKinley: Spindle's End
• Hayao Miyazaki: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
• Patrick Ness: Chaos Walking
• Naomi Novik: Temeraire
• Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast
• Julie Ann Peters: Far from Xanadu
• David L. Robbins: The War of the Rats
• Craig Thompson: Blankets
• Megan Whalen Turner: The Queen of Attolia
• Catherynne M. Valente: The Orphan's Tales
• Elizabeth Warnock Fernea: Guests of the Sheik
• Daniel Woodrell: Winter's Bone
• Patricia C. Wrede: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Feel free to share your favorite books in the comments!