-
Playing a risky game
Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor SWEET TOOTH. By Ian McEwan. Anchor Books. 400 pages, Softcover. $15.95 Serena Frome has been playing out of her league all her life. The mostly overlooked daughter of an Anglican bishop, she attends Cambridge University, where she’s a middling student in “the maths” and the target of derision by more…
-
Let justice prevail
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE WHISTLER. By John Grisham. Read by Cassandra Campbell. Random House Audio. 11 CDs. $45. John Grisham has written so many books that it’s hard to keep count: In addition to the legal thrillers (29?), there are children’s books and books about the rural South, among others. His fans are…
-
Beneath the surface
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE TRESPASSER. By Tana French. Penguin Audio. Read by Hilda Fay. 21 hours; 18 CDs. $55. Also available in hardcover from Viking. What a delight it is to discover Tana French, a wonderful Irish writer who pours her prodigious literary skills into richly layered detective fiction. I’m a latecomer to…
-
Why we do what we do
Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor INVISIBLE INFLUENCE: THE HIDDEN FORCES THAT SHAPE BEHAVIOR. By Jonah Berger. Simon & Schuster. 232 pages. $26.99. As much as we’d all like to think that we run our own lives, there’s no denying that social influences help us choose a new car, a preferred brand of jeans or a…
-
Dark corners in the heart of North Carolina
Bob Moyer reviews the latest thriller by John Hart, a fine North Carolina author. I scooped Bob by a few months: You can see my review of the same book that ran May 8 in the Greensboro News & Record here: http://www.greensboro.com/go_triad/arts/books/hart-s-thriller-redemption-road-is-well-worth-the-wait/article_ae13edaa-bd4d-5e40-a496-51957f15bfd1.html Fortunately, Bob and I agree in our praise of the novel. Reviewed by…
-
“Jack is back,” and fortunately, so is Maggie Hope
Reviewed by Linda C. Brinson THE QUEEN’S ACCOMPLICE. By Susan Elia MacNeal. Read by Susan Duerden. Books on Tape. 10 ½ hours; 9 CDs. Also available in paperback from Bantam Books, $16. Maggie Hope, intrepid spy, code-breaker and all-around spunky young woman, is at it again, in the thick of World War II action and…
-
From dark times, brilliant fiction
Two novels, both set in France during World War II, provide Paul O’Connor with a feast of outstanding fiction. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor THE NIGHTINGALE. By Kristin Hannah. St. Martin’s Press. 440 pages. $27.99. ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. By Anthony Doerr. Scribner. 531 pages. $27. It’s early summer. We’re in the family…
-
Dealing with the devil
Bob Moyer was in Germany recently, but at least part of the time, his imagination was in New Orleans. He offers a review of the book that transported him to the Big Easy. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer LET THE DEVIL OUT. By Bill Loehfelm. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 304 pages. $26. The last time we…
-
An uncommon friendship
The Roosevelts, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War – these are fascinating topics of fairly recent history that have been dealt with extensively in books, movies and TV documentaries. Susan Quinn, coming at them from a different angle, has written a fascinating book that sheds new light even on stories we’ve heard…
-
A secret hero
Before there was James Bond, before there was John le Carré, there was Baroness Orczy. Paul O’Connor reviews her inventive and rewarding classic. Reviewed by Paul T. O’Connor THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL. By Baroness Orczy. Barnes & Noble Classics. Softcover. 252 pages. $8.05. It’s 1792, and the Reign of Terror is well under way in Paris. The…