“Sharp Objects”, by Gillian Flynn

254 pages, Broadway Books, ISBN-13: 978-0307341556

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn must be all the rage where I’m at because I had to reserve a copy – one of eight in the system – and compel someone or other to return it just so I could read the damn thing. But I’m glad that I did. Anyway, another entry in my Mysteries & Munchies bookclub, Sharp Objects finds reporter Camille Preaker, fresh off a brief stay at a psych hospital (for reasons that become clear), sent home to Wind Gap, Missouri, by her editor to cover the murders of two preteen girls. All but estranged from her hypochondriac, neurotic mother and 13-year-old half-sister – who has a kind of eerie grip on the town – she finds herself identifying with the young victims and dives back into her own murky past.

This is one of those books that is as much a character study as it is a mystery; indeed, often it is more so. Oh, there is plenty of that in the book, as Camille investigates and tries to write her story, questions a plethora of suspects and townsfolks, interrogates the local constabulary and generally acts like a reporter. But it is as much a delve into the psyche of our protagonist, a study on how a place can affect and stay with us through our lives, how families are both blessings and burdens (often more one than the other) and how the past is with us always. It is so much more than a mystery (in retrospect, this could just as easily have been an entry in my Books on Tap bookclub, seeing all of the themes that are explored).

A good story must have strong characters, and Camille Preaker fits the bill – but not in the way you may think. She is intelligent and tenacious and dedicated to uncovering the truth and writing her story – but she is also a deeply flawed woman and brimming with contradictions and subject to bouts of weakness as powerful as her drive to see her task completed. She is, in a word, human. And it takes a writer of uncommon honesty to write a character known as much for her flaws as her strengths, who could just as easily fail as succeed because of who she is. As one who is fed up with female characters who can do no wrong, it was refreshing to read about one who screws up as much as she triumphs.

The mystery behind Sharp Objects was, if I may be so ‘umble, rather easy to solve (about hallway through, to be exact) until I read the last chapter and Epilogue, and – I mean, damn; shoulda seen it coming. But one reads a book like this as much for the characterizations and the atmosphere as for the mystery. It rather put me in mind of Stephen King’s IT – bear with me here – in that it was a horror story, yes, but also a tribute to King’s childhood in the 60s and those summers that you never wanted to end. Sharp Objects is a mystery in which the murder and disfigurement of two young girls opens up a whole world most would like to keep hidden – but that is pried open by the sharp objects of our psyches which we can never blunt.

“Blood for Blood”, by Ryan Graudin

 

496 pages, Little, Brown, ISBN-13: 978-0316405157

Hey, remember reading my review of Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin last month? And remember me saying that there was a second book in the series that I thought I’d tackle, seeing as I got them both from the Shelby Public library for $1.50 for the pair? Well, here it is: Blood for Blood continues and completes the story began in Wolf by Wolf, beginning as it does exactly where the prior book ended, in which Yael (remember, its pronounced Yah-ell) finds herself on the run after her botched assassination attempt on Der Führer in Tokyo and racing back to Germania – with Luka and Felix in tow – in the hope of aiding the long-simmering resistance in finishing Hitler off before the Nazis can overpower them all. Thus, Blood for Blood has the feel of not being a proper sequel but merely the continuation of the story, as if the publisher didn’t want to shell out all that money for a 1000+ page book.

Without the structure of the race in Wolf by Wolf, the novel is rather less focused, as much of the action takes place off-screen, if you will, what with the resistance rising and implementing their decade-old plans. But this is alright, as it is the character motivations amongst the big three – Yael, Luka and Felix – that are the focus here. Each of them are more complex than at first blush, with the boys getting almost as much page-time as our heroine. More than just paper-thin good little Nazis, the boys are fleshed out through a series of short chapters that provide snapshots of how both of them (and Yael) were affected by certain historical events, especially the first assassination attempt against Hitler. With the focus off of Yael, this both expands the focus of the book while also personalizing it, as we see change come to this nightmarish, Nazi-run world, for while big events occur they are caused by little people.

It would appear that Graudin has written a duology and that we must say farewell to Yael, Luka and Felix (although there is a novella, Iron to Iron, at the back that stars Luka. DON’T skip it). Blood for Blood was a good continuation of Wolf by Wolf (I won’t call it a sequel) and I, for one, was satisfied with the tale of Yael and company – and all for $1.50.

“Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge”, by Eleanor Herman

 

 

320 pages, William Morrow, ISBN-13: 978-0060585440

 

Well, that’s a title that will grab anyone’s attention. Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman is a study of the European phenomenon of the official Royal Mistress – the maîtresse-en-titre as the French would have it (naturally) – and how these women influenced their royal masters. A clear-eyed and unromantic view of this…institution, Herman shows how the idea of an “official” mistress came about (to be distinguished from royal flings with this duchess or that chambermaid), what power was wielded, how they came and went, what the other women or the mistresses’ husband’s in the royal lives thought about it all (not that it really mattered), and so on. What is, perhaps, most interesting about this book is that, despite its topic, it is rarely salacious; oh, Herman talks about sex, alright, but it is the interaction of all of the various factions that interests her more, the interpersonal relationships that were formed and strained by all of those royal libidos. While the physical is never far away, it is the emotional and intellectual aspects of mistresshood that is being studied here.

While most mistresses were beautiful, not all were, and I think, if I may be so ‘umble, this says something about the Male species. While men are so often dismissed by members of the gentler sex as walking sex addicts, the fact that so many of the royal mistresses described within this book were plain – if not downright ugly – but possessing other virtues says something about My Boys. Some were brilliant conversationalists who could declaim on any number of topics. Some were excellent artists, musicians or poets who could entertain their royal lovers in any number of (nonsexual) ways. Some were artisans who planted gardens, decorated rooms or even designed whole palaces for their masters. But what they all were were companions who provided a sanctuary from royal duties, the pressures of government, their (sometimes) termagant wives and ungrateful children, or a true family atmosphere that they had never known. Most royal marriages were dynastic unions in which love did not and was not expected to exist, so if a king could find love outside of such a union then they did so (Queens? Not so much).

Speaking of which, as to what their relative queens thought of all this royal screwing is brought to light, but I, for one, think this is relatively straightforward. Just as many a king was not in love with his queen, seeing as these marriages were political acts, so many a queen was not in love with her king, either. I rather think that these queens liked the idea of a mistress to distract from the royal pillowing and leave her alone. Take Alexandra of Denmark, wife of Edward VII, who bore the king six children. On his deathbed, she allowed his mistresses to visit him, an act of which Society approved and which I was always perplexed by; I mean, why honor the women with whom your husband betrayed you with? Until you get a look at her husband: fat, squat, with bulging eyes and always reeking of booze and tobacco, Alexandra must have taken the time to thank these women for letting Bertie climb top them rather than her. As for why they let him, well, every man will tell you that a fat wallet compensates for a lot; Bertie may have thought these women wanted him for himself when all they were doing was chasing money and power. Sorry, Bert.

Luckily, in this instance at least, we know what was going on through the mind of Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia Glücksburg Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. When she was at last alone with her comatose king and Sir Francis Laking, Physician-in-Ordinary to King Edward VII, she spoke for many a Queen through the centuries:

…I would have done anything he asked of me. Twelve years ago, when I was so angry about Lady Warwick [Frances Evelyn “Daisy” Greville, Countess of Warwick], and the King expostulated with me and said I should get him into the divorce court, I told him once and for all that he might have all the women he wished, and I would not say a word; and I have done everything since that he desired me to do about them. He was the whole of my life and, now he is dead, nothing matters.

Or, while viewing the body of the King with Lord Esher, Alexandra spoke for many a wronged wife who makes a kind of peace with a philandering husband: “After all, he always loved me best”.

Sex with Kings was enlightening and entertaining and was much more than its title suggests. And it also displays, without outright stating so, why a Republic is so much better than a monarchy: while we may be stuck with an addlebrained, dimwitted, corrupt and idiotic President for a few years, for a kingdom it could be decades before such a fool at last shuffles off this mortal coil, costing his subjects an inordinate amount of money and inflicting who knows how much damage on the body politic.

“Norse Mythology”, by Neil Gaiman

 

301 pages, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN-13: 978-0393356182

Most everything I know about Norse Mythology I learned from D’Aulaire’s Book of Norse Myths by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire (review upcoming), but that book was geared towards children and, anyway, I read it ages ago. So when cruising the bookstacks of 2^nd & Charles I came across Norse Mythology by none other than Neil Gaiman and I thought “Oh, why the hell not”. First off, this is not an exhaustive collection of Norse myths; only three gods – Odin, Thor and Loki – are given any sort of background and, thus, each of the tales presented within star this trio in some fashion. Which is a damn shame, for the Big Three are all well and good, but there are so many other gods with their own myths that are just as entertaining. Perhaps Gaiman was only interested in an overview of the Norse mythos and decided to limit himself? Anyway, while disappointing, this in no way detracts from the telling of these tales and revealing the Norse people as they were through the gods they invented and worshiped.

And man, what gods they were. Boisterous, adventurous, full of life and joy and loving nothing more than to eat, drink and be merry, often to excess, with violence not unknown at their feasts. They travel the world(s), getting into trouble and returning with tall tales full of both fact and hyperbole; their boasts about their exploits are exaggerations and one can’t help but question their veracity. They can smash mountains, drink rivers dry, transform into anything and fight with the might of whole armies. They can feel jealousy, rage, desire and contempt – while also feeling love, compassion, empathy and admiration. These gods are, in short, all-too human and reflect the values and aspirations of the Norse people themselves. As do all pagan gods everywhere. In my youth I played D&D, and one of the points the game makes is that the gods need mortals as much as mortals need gods, for it is belief that give gods not only their power but their very lives. When belief dies, gods die.

And so does a culture. Norse Mythology is an incomplete though still-enlightening look at these long-dead gods, representatives of a vanished culture that has much to recommend and damn it. As do all cultures everywhere.

“Moriarty”, by Anthony Horowitz

 

304 pages, Harper, ISBN-13: 978-0062377180

Moriarty is the second Anthony Horowitz book I have read, the first being Magpie Murders, reviewed on May 14^th, 2025 (and one of my Mysteries & Munchies selections for the Fraser Public Library). Beginning mere days after Holmes’ and Moriarty’s deaths at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the Pinkerton Detective, Frederick Chase, arrives in pursuit of one Clarence Devereaux, a fiendish criminal mastermind and Moriarty’s Yankee counterpart who hopes to step into the void left by the Napoleon of Crime’s demise. He is aided by Scotland Yard Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’ methods of investigation and deduction originally introduced by Conan Doyle in The Sign of Four.

The majority of the book was a pretty standard mystery: things happen, the protagonists investigate, clues are discovered, suspects interrogated…and so on. All in all not very riveting, if I’m to be honest. And yet, throughout the book I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, that there was a malevolent presence that was lurking just off the page that was directing and hadn’t made its presence known. While I followed Jones & Chase in their quest to see justice done, I just knew there was more to the story – and I can’t for the life of me tell you why. Perhaps it was because Horowitz, a veteran storyteller, wrote it, or perhaps it is because I am becoming an old hand at reading mysteries.

And then I reached the last two chapters, and…hoo, doggy.

I won’t, I can’t, spoil the ending for you, only to say that my sense of dread while reading Moriarty was justified. Only…now, while I salute Horowitz for keeping me (mostly) fooled throughout the book, I have to say that I hated his rewriting of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Conan Doyle’s works are not holy writ, but to upend the author’s establishment smacks of chutzpah and has the effect of dragging Holmes down a little (come to think of it, perhaps Conan Doyle would have approved of Holmes being knocked down a peg). And as for the fate of one of the characters in the book – well, I grant you, it was shocking, but also disturbing. I tend to identify with the protagonists of the books I read, and to see this person’s fate was nothing less than heartbreaking.

Moriarty is a serviceable mystery with a rather shocking twist that I subliminally anticipated but still didn’t see coming. An excellent work by an author at the top of his mystery game.

“How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization”, by Mary Beard

 

240 pages, Liveright, ISBN-13: 978-1631494406 

I find I have mixed feelings regarding Mary Beard as an author. On the one hand she wrote SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (reviewed on January 12^th, 2017), a brilliant introduction to Roman history, while on the other she also wrote Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations, which was nothing more than a bunch of book reviews. But when I found How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization at 2^nd & Charles I figured “what the hell” and hoped that the Beard of SPQR wrote it and not the Beard of Confronting the Classics. Turns out How Do We Look is a companion to the “How Do We Look” and “The Eye of Faith” episodes of the miniseries Civilization produced by the BBC in 2018 (which I never heard of). And it shows, seeing as how it is jam-packed with color photographs. What is strange are the dimensions; not only is it a mere 240 pages, but the book overall only measures 8¾” x 6”. How I wish Taschen had produced this thing; we would have gotten a brick that one could build houses out of.

As Beard states in the introduction, How Do We Look is “inevitably and unashamedly selective”, with Part One concentrating on the art of the human body and Part Two on images of the divine. Seeing as this is a companion book to a television show, it serves mostly as a primer to its subject. Apart from the many pretty pictures, it provides a general overview of its subject as it attempts to cram several centuries and numerous cultures into its slender form. It should be noted that it is mostly Beard’s opinions that are being related as she raises one Meta subject after another, not all of which I found persuasive. If you are a serious student of art in general or in one of these cultures in particular I doubt any of this will move you; but if all you want is an introduction to the field then How Do We Look will fit the bill – as would the TV series, I imagine. And most of the pictures are top-notch, too – even if some include the author, as if she was some kind of obnoxious tourist scrambling over priceless artifacts.

“Wolf by Wolf”, by Ryan Graudin

 

379 pages, Little, Brown, ISBN-13: 978-0316405089

My boss at the Fraser Public Library told me all about Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin – leaving out the fact that it was written with tweens in mind. Anyway…so it is an alternate 1956 in which the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan have won World War II and rule the world between them, with America an isolationist outpost. Every year the victorious powers host the Axis Tour, an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents to commemorate their triumph. The grand prize is a personal audience with the now-reclusive Führer at the Victor’s Ball in Tokyo. This is important to Yael (that’s Yah-ell), a member of the Resistance, former death camp prisoner and survivor of painful human experimentation which gave her the power to skin-shift and take on a different face and form almost at will. This year her mission is to impersonate last year’s only female winner of the race, Adele Wolfe, so that she may win the Tour and get close to Hitler – and assassinate him in public before the eyes of the world.

I have been on something of an Axis-Win-It-All-Alternative-History kick for a couple of months now, starting with reviewing Fatherland by Robert Harris on January 3^rd, 2024, continuing with watching “The Man in the High Castle” miniseries on Amazon Prime and now with Wolf by Wolf, all totally by accident, too. I swear. No really. So Wolf by Wolf just kind of continues the trend. The premise is interesting and the character of Yael, complete with superpowers, put an interesting twist on the whole Nazis Won It All narrative. And her coping with all of those people who know the real Adele – including Adele’s brother, Felix – added tension and brought forth Yael’s characteristics. Unfortunately, she is the only really developed character in the book, as brother Felix and erstwhile suitor/rival Luka are cardboard cutouts constantly trying to get close to “Adele” while also trying to control her. All the other characters are just background decoration who add nothing to the tale. And a little more insight into this alternative timeline would have been nice.

There were some surprising moments, as an event occurs at about midpoint during the race that I didn’t see coming; this was a negative and a positive, I thought, as it disrupted the flow of the narrative (and the race) while also giving a certain insight into this nightmare, Nazi-run world. And the ending was rather a surprise, as well, and was not typical of works of this sort. Trying not to spoil anything for you, Dear Reader, only trying to describe some strong-and-weak points in a book that was outside of my comfort zone. So Wolf by Wolf was okay and I don’t regret reading it; perhaps if I was in the target demographic I’d get more out of it, but it is what it is. There is a second book in the series that I think I’ll tackle, because why not? I got them from the Shelby Public library for $1.50 for the pair, so might as well get my modest cost out of them.