… a mystery/coming-of-age novel about college student Joe Talbert, who, for a class assignment, interviews Carl Iverson, a dying, incarcerated Vietnam vet convicted of murder
… only to uncover a complex, decades-old crime, all while juggling his own volatile family life and guilt over his autistic brother, Jeremy, leading to shocking truths about justice, lies, and heroism. …
Enjoying many Indian authors in the past, I gave it a go.
Good, not great, is my review.
It’s climate change dystopia.
In a near-future Kolkata (Calcutta), Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America.
But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom.
He wanted a change from his usual genre, this time a love story.
New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design a summer home for his best friend, seeking a fresh start after being treated for acute depression.
Still mourning his sister’s death, he meets Wren, a young woman who disrupts his carefully ordered world.
I lust for dead people, might be the tag line. 😀
Unique in this project is how the story was written.
It was developed simultaneously with author Nicholas Sparks, who separately wrote the novel version of the same story.
Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must confront a dark evil to solve the mysterious murders of an entire Amish family.
The Plank family moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to join the small Amish community of Painters Mill less than a year ago and seemed the model of the Plain Life―until on a cold October night, the entire family of seven was found slaughtered on their farm.
… few clues, no motive, and no suspect.
Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the English―and each other―but this crime is horribly out of the ordinary.
I enjoyed the book — but the strained relationship between John Tomasetti and Kate is WAY too much.
The 35th Stone Barrington novel takes the peripatetic New York lawyer, playboy, and investor to Rome, where the Arrington Group, of which he is a board member, is planning to build a palatial new hotel.
On Stone’s last-minute flight from JFK, he meets Hedy Kiesler, a beautiful artist, with whom he shares an upgrade to first class—and later a bed in Rome.
Meanwhile, Leonardo Casselli, a relocated New York Mafia don, makes it clear that the hotel won’t go up peacefully until he gets his share of the action.
Stone calls on old friends Dino Bacchetti of the NYPD and Mike Freeman of Strategic Services for aid in his fight with Casselli, who has plenty of goons at his disposal.
When Hedy becomes a pawn in the conflict, Stone devises a dangerous plan to infiltrate Casselli’s stronghold on the Amalfi coast.
Helen Mirren as Elizabeth Best, a retired MI6 officer
Pierce Brosnan as Ron Ritchie, a retired twice-divorced union leader
Ben Kingsley as Professor Ibrahim Arif, a retired psychiatrist
Celia Imrie as Joyce Meadowcroft, a retired trauma nurse
Ibrahim is my favourite, for sure.
Four pensioners, friends at a retirement village in Kent, England decide to solve murders as a retirement hobby.
This book is a little different. They investigate a crypto scheme. Not a bad plot.
In her Library Journal review, Liz French wrote, “The crime, though ingeniously plotted, with many red herrings, is not the main attraction. It’s the growing love and respect among the Thursdays and their kith and kin, including a few criminals and cops, that is the biggest draw.”
In the latest instalment, NAKED GREED (2016), the narrative begins when Stone helps a man who is being beaten up by two thugs who turn out to be former police officers. After the fight is over and the victim has a chance to talk, he and Stone become fast friends.
Stone learns that the man’s name is Jose Perado, but he wants to be called “Pepe.” He says he is a beer brewer from San Antonio, Texas, and wants to open a brewery, which would bring his business to New York City. …
The love interest in this one is Pat Frank, a blond, slight and attractive young woman who is assigned to check whether he is ready to fly his new plane.
They fall into bed. All good — until her jealous former lover/partner shows up.
Two subplots unfold to move the story along.
The first is a search for Middle Eastern terrorists intent on launching a plot against the U.S. run by Holly and her enthusiastic young assistant, Millicent Martindale, with help from the FBI.
In Dead Aim, an unsuspecting man tries to help a young woman on the edge, and finds himself drawn into a lethal struggle with a deadly adversary–and then another, and another, and another.
The plot is driven by an ex-mercenary soldier who has set up a camp where he trains wealthy people (the only kind who can afford his fees) to hunt and kill other people. The body count is very high. The innocent hero becomes a target.
Translation of My Friends (2025) is excellent, so far as I can tell.
Always interesting and original, this time the author wrote mostly a philosophical look at friendship:
Ted and the painter(KimKim)
Louisa and Fish
Ted and Louisa
4 teenage friends (Ted, Joar, Ali, and KimKim)
It’s dark with far too many deaths. Poverty, abuse, hatred and ugliness of humanity. But very funny, as well.
Mouthy Louisa is an outrageous teenager. Very believable. I wonder if Backman modelled her on some young person he knows. 😀
A story that alternates between two timelines: the present-day journey of an 18-year-old named Louisa, who is grieving the loss of her best friend, and the past, 25 years earlier, when four teenage friends—Joar, Ted, Ali, and the artist C.J. Jat—spent a transformative summer together.
Their friendship and shared secrets lead to the creation of a world-famous painting, which Louisa discovers and becomes obsessed with. Louisa’s journey to learn the story behind the painting connects her own grief to the past lives of the four friends, exploring themes of friendship, loss, trauma, and the healing power of art and human connection.
A.I. summary
“This is Fredrik Backman at the height of his empathy and resonance. . . I frequently paused to marvel at the way Backman captured the rebellion of joy, the ferocity of devotion, and the cruelty of indifference. Every Backman book should come with the warning that your heart will be split in two, but also, more importantly, with the assurance that it will be repaired with restored faith in the small miracles of being human.” —NPR, Favorite Fiction Reads of 2025
Rick McCharles 