When I started learning about reader’s advisory, the service of suggesting books to readers based on their likes and dislikes, I was very interested to learn about what are called appeal factors.  Appeal factors take recommendations beyond the genre or favorite author level to find books that they will really enjoy.  It interested me because I realized that while it seems that I read widely and disparately, some of the mysteries I enjoy most have a common appeal factor:  a protagionist that has a strong moral compass that guides their actions, so much so that they might lose their jobs or put their families or themselves in danger.

Cork O’Connor is one of those types.  Part Native American, part Irish American, former Chicago cop, Cork moves his family back to his hometown in Minnesota to give his family a better life, only to lose his position as sheriff when a conflict with Native Americans and his wife leaves him.  He finds himself working as a short order cook but when a politican is murdered on the same night that a Native American boy goes missing, he finds himself caught up corruption, conspiracy, and scandal that also involves his wife.  Cork is a fascinating character, and somehow Krueger makes it work.  Cork visits an older Anishinaabe medicine man for insight and advice, he has a great respect for the outdoors and for other people, and over the course of the novel, tries to come to terms with what he sees as his shortcomings and guilt over past events.  The same themes carry over throughout the series, and I bet if you pick up this first one, you will find yourself seeking out all of them.

If, like me, these types of stories appeal to you, I also recommend C.J. Box, Dana Stabenow, Kate Flora, Reed Farrel Coleman, Chris Knopf, Michael McGarrity, and Craig Johnson.

This week, in recognition of Banned Books Week, Patti wanted to recruit as many librarians as possible to blog about banned books and the freedom to read.  I thought about what I wanted to write about…I could write about banned books and the freedom to read in general.  I could write about well known books being banned, such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (racist) or Harry Potter series (witchcraft) or The Grapes of Wrath (profanity).  For a very compelling story of how Grapes of Wrath was not only banned, but burned in California, click here.  When I was surfing around the Internet, looking at different sites and reading lists of banned books, I came across Little Black Sambo.

Little Black Sambo is not great classic literature as many of the challenged and banned books are.  It is not a book with a timely or controversial message, as many of the recent challenged picture books are.  It is a book written over 100 years ago, by a mother for her children when she was visiting India.  She wanted a story that communicated a little about what an exotic place they were in but was also entertaining.  Sambo goes for a walk in the jungle, and meets a series of tigers, who threaten to eat him, but every time Sambo makes a deal with them, and gives them something he has in exchange–his red coat, his purple shoes, his green umbrella.  Later he hears the tigers fighting over all his things, and he gets them back, while the tigers are so angry and so bent on fighting each other, that they held on to each other’s tail and chased each other faster and faster till they melted away into a pool of butter which Sambo scooped up and took home to his mother who put it on pancakes for dinner.

The story itself is quite innocent and fun.  The problems that many have with this book are its portrayal of Sambo and his family as picanninys, racial caricatures of African Americans, even though the story and the family were Indian, not African.  The names, Sambo, Mumbo, and Jumbo, and the illustrations of many editions of the story contributed to this.  Recent retellings of the story have tried to capture the spirit of the tale while removing the racial stereotypes.

The Story of Little Babaji takes Bannerman’s original, and changes the names and details to match those of India.  Sambo becomes Babaji, Mumbo Mamaji, Jumbo, Dadaji.  The illustartions are Indian in detail as well.

Sam and the Tigers is a true retelling of the story by well known and respected African American author Julius Lester, and illustrated by African American illustrator Jerry Pinkney.  In this version, Sam lives in the land of Sam-sam-sa-mara, where everyone is named Sam, and animals and people live and work together.  In this story, Sam is witty and comical and the story maintains the essence of the original while managing to find its own voice.

It is my hope that libraries would have all three versions of the story to share with patrons so that they could see the evolution of the illustrations and the tale, and discuss the portrayal of African Americans, not only in this story, but in popular culture across time.

I find many books that I might want to read by reading reviews.  Even before I was the fiction librarian, I devoured huge amounts of fiction and mystery reviews every month.  When I left the public library world, I suffered withdrawal and tried to figure out how to convince my new employer that yes, we really did need a subscription to Publisher’s Weekly or Booklist, two of my favorite places to find out about mysteries.

Booklist is where I first read about Sam Acquillo in a starred review, no less.  Sam Acquillo has dropped out of life.  Leaving his high paying, high stress job and high maintenance wife behind, he is living in an old family cottage in the Hamptons, slowly drinking himself to death.  Occaisionally he goes to a nearby bar or over to her elderly neighbor’s to help her with odd jobs.  One day he sense that things are not quite right next door, and when he goes to investigate, he find an overwhelming smell and a dead body.  The police brush the death off, how unusual is it for old people to die?  They do convince Sam to take over as the executor of her estate, and in the process of tidying up the old woman’s affairs, Sam starts to sense that her death was by no means natural.

Part of the genius of Knopf’s books are his pace, tone and characters.  This is not a thrill a minute full speed ahead catch your breath kind of story.  Rather in places the plot even might seem to slow down or meander through side streets.  Only later does the reader realize that Knopf had laid the groundwork for the solution by hiding it in plain sight.  The tone is hard to describe, saracastic and down but bitingly funny in places.  I love the fact that the subtitle makes this sound like a true crime tale.  The characters are quirky at times, but so well drawn that they never feel fake or cartoonish, and they often have complicated and complex relationships with one another.  I have also read Two Time, the second in the series, and I enjoyed it just as much if not more.  It does seem to amp up the suspense just a little.  Yet another mystery series that does not get the recognition and readers it deserves because it is hard to pigeon hole or classify.

As a reference librarian in the public library, one spends some time talking to patrons about books.  Often I would be placing holds on books by their favorite authors, occaisionally I would recommend books I thought they might enjoy.  On a rare occaision, someone would recommend a book to me.  Thank goodness one of those recommendations was for Walking the Perfect Square, as I don’t think I ever would have found it on my own.  Despite excellent reviews, being nominated and winning many prestigious awards, Reed Farrel Coleman is one of those (many) authors who never made it into the mainstream.

Perhaps it is because his books are somewhat hard to categorize.  In Walking the Perfect Square, Moe Prager is a young man whose career in the police force was cut short by a freak accident.  It’s not what you think–he was walking through the squad room, slipped on a piece of paper, fell down and blew out his knee.  Not exactly going out in a blaze of glory.  His brother convinces him that they should go into the wine business, abd Moe reluctantly agrees.  When a college student seemingly vanishes from the streets of New York one day, Moe is hired by the family to look into his disappearance.  In doign so, he enters the underground world of the punk scene, sex clubs, and biker bars, and he is faced with politicans, journalists, and cops who seem bent on stopping him from finding the truth.

Here is where the book shines.  Moe is nothing is not determined.  He made a name for himself as a youg patrol officer by finding a little girl who had been missing for several days.  He just decided to go down to Coney Island and search for her.  Later he couldn’t say exactly why, just that he needed to be searching.  While he was there, he heard some faint noise and after some time, found her.  He said he was lucky, but he is the kind of person who makes his own luck, and this story of saving the girl will follow and affect him for some time to come, as will the current one.

The set up of the book sounds like just another private investigator story.  But Moe is dragged almost kicking and screaming into the job.  It isn’t a cozy or a police procedural or a crime story.  But is it a great story about a genuinely good man who can’t stop till he finds the truth, with some twists that you won’t see coming, and a decision that Moe is forced to make that will later come back to haunt him.  Thank you to Busted Flush Press for reprinting both Walking the Perfect Square and Redemption Street (the second in the Moe Prager series sadly had been out of print.)

It might be a stretch to call this a “forgotten book,” since Elizabeth Peters (also writing as Barbara Michaels) has remained very popular with readers.  But more so for her Amelia Peaody series.  There are soon to be six entries in the series, but there is an almost 14 year gap between number 5 and number 6 in the series.  The publication of what is being called the last of the series, prompted me to seek out the first book where we are introduced to Vicki Bliss.

Vicki Bliss is everything one would want in a heroine of these types of stories–young, beautiful, smart, determined, and while she enjoys the company of men, she is independent and very much her own woman.  When she and another junior professor in art history (an arrogant male junior professor named Tony) discover clues to a lost masterpiece in an obscure history book, the hunt is on.  And to make the hunt more interesting, Tony implies that Vicki can’t find it on her own.  Off to Europe they go, finding themselves guests in an old German castle that is now a hotel of sorts.  They skulk through its corridors and secret passages, explore its crypts, and try to avoid giving away any clues to the other guests who might be after the same treasure.  Along the way, the situation takes a serious turn, when they realize someone else is after the treasure and will do anything to get it.

Definitely a fun and fast read.  There are hints of gothic, or perhaps neo-gothic, which the author later exposes as fake, which add to the fun.  Up till the cilmax, that whole book feels that way, but when faced with death, the reader and the characters realize there is more at stake then bragging rights of who found the treasure.  I am definitely looking forward to reading more about Vicki Bliss and her adventures.

I often discover “forgotten” or “overlooked” titles when I am perusing reviews for new titles.  Not that long ago, I came across a review for Wall’s latest, The Mercy Oak.  The review was very complimentary, and I was interested in the series for the setting alone, the Deep South, coastal South Carolina where my family visited often while I was growing up. I do not think I am alone in my idiosyncrasy–I can almost never start a series in the middle.* So I searched my library and didn’t find the first in the series, and from Wall’s website discovered that it had been self published and then picked up by a small press before the series was picked up by St. Martin’s.  Thank goodness for interlibrary loan!  My local library had the book for me in a matter of days, and I pretty much inhaled the whole thing.

I have recently decided that what takes a mystery and elevates it above being just good, or a good example of its genre is that the book is filled with complex characters and complicated events that just happen to become involved in murder.  Okay, a little flip, as usually those people and events lead to the muder in some way.  But for me, this was how I felt about this book.  Excellent first mystery. I loved Bay Tanner, and the secondary characters and the setting of the Deep South. A little romance, a little murder, a little suspense, a little conspiracy, a little family secrets all add up to a well written and satisfying mystery.  I am still shocked! (Shocked I tell you!) that someone who is not a native Southerner was able to capture the feeling, the sense of place, the dark side of the South so well.

* The one exception to this was when I read a review of Lindsey Davis’ Three Hands in the Fountain, and the trifecta of great review, title, and cover art compelled me to read it immediately.  I have since gone back to the beginning and read about Falco and friends.

Digging in my memory, I believe I read The Ghost Next Door (which, if you go here, obviously is not really a forgotten book, although many people have struggled to recall the title…and which, for its time was remarkable in its respect for the young reader, with a very ambiguous ending), The Gingerbread House Mystery (Even though it wasn’t about houses made of gingerbread, I learned about real houses with gingerbread trim), Uncle Robert’s Secret (which I may have read more than twice…I was fascinated with the rhyme and the figuring out of what each part meant to find the hidden treasure and was nominated for an Edgar), and The Mystery of the Other Girl (which is the one I am struggling to remember, but I believe featured a group of teens, some of whom worked in a diner/restaurant and one of whom had a catfish he took for walks on a leash–this was a book about people I wanted to be, wanted to be friends with because they were cool.)

Remembering these books has made me long to read them again, plus all the ones I didn’t read the first time around.  I see from reading online that The Mystery Book Mystery definitely is a must read.  Unfortunately, these are all out of print.  So thank goodness for the public library and the internet, so that her work lives on.  I am off to request a few my my library.

]]> http://readspace.net/2008/07/forgotten-author-for-children-and-teens-wylly-folk-st-john/feed/ 0 http://readspace.net/2008/06/forgotten-book-corpse-de-ballet-by-lucy-cores/ http://readspace.net/2008/06/forgotten-book-corpse-de-ballet-by-lucy-cores/#comments Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:43:31 +0000 Susan http://readspace.wordpress.com/?p=46 Bibliography: Cores, Lucy. 2004. Corpse De Ballet. Lyons, Co: Rue Morgue Press. ISBN: 978-0915230679

I am now and have always been obsessed with anything that has to do with the world of dance, but especially ballet.  I was very excited then to discover this book a few years ago as I was sure I had read every dance book and especially dance mystery that was out there (there aren’t that many…) Also it was great fun to learn about a woman mystery writer who was writing about strong independent women sleuths during this time period.

Toni Ney is a former dancer who now works at a spa as the exercise director and later writes a fitness column for a New York newspaper. She is strong, idependent, fashionable and witty, and living in the bustle of New York in early 1940s. Her boyfriend is suave and handsome, and may be sent to the front at any moment, but she isn’t ready to commit to him just yet.  This is the second of two books about Toni (the first being Painted for the Kill which was set in the salon/spa).

In this second book, Toni is writing about the return of a famous Russian dancer to the New York stage and gets caught up in the drama and intrigue of the theater and the members of the dance company.  There are great descriptions of the theater and the dancing, and a wonderful scene that makes full use of the theater setting. I am not doing this book justice, but hope you are interested enough to seek it out for yourself.  All I can say is that I was very sad to find there were only two entries in this charming series.

Through one of the library listservs I monitor, I received a forwarded e-mail with an invitation to post about a forgotten or obscure book that I felt deserved to be recognized or remembered. The Owen McKenna series was the first that came to mind. Perhaps too new to truly have been forgotten, and slowly coming out of obscurity with a great review from Booklist magazine (Tahoe Silence was selected as one of the best mysteries of last year.) But I still believe that this series and its author deserve wider readership. The set up is like many other such series on the market today: a former cop who had a tragic experience on the job has left the force and set up shop as a private investigator. But McKenna has so much more than that (besides a name that sounds ready made for a tv show, but I digress…). He owns a Harlequin Great Dane named Spot who besides being a great and lovable dog, is also a great tracker and guard dog. Plus I can’t tell you how many times he has intimidated the bad guys with his size and teeth alone. He has an appreciation for fine art, which is nicely woven in to the theme of the story. A great girlfriend named of all things, Street who happens to be a forensic entomologist and while they have a great and faithful relationship, refuses to marry Owen. A great cast of secondary characters, from sheriff deputies to crime journalists. And a wonderful setting which really works, lots of description of the outdoors, the wilderness, and the unique position that Lake Tahoe occupies in the United States landscape.

But I hear you asking, what about the story, the writing? Well, Borg is a master at ratcheting up the suspense level in all his tales and you will find yourself turning the pages to find out what happens next. And his writing which starts out pretty good, is improving with each book he writes. You’ll be happy to know that there are five books already out with a sixth due to be published August 1. For more information, check out www.toddborg.com