Tag:

Humorous

Review

Neighborhood Watch

by Henrietta Thornton

This book could just as well be titled When the HOA Attacks or Ring Cameras on Steroids: A How-To. Oleander Court, a street in ritzy Alpharetta, GA, has it all. The fountain with $500 apiece koi, the perfectly maintained lawns (did I mention that HOA?), the perfectly Botoxed neighbors. But a few residents keep things from being too plastic. An artist, Helen Beecham, has moved in and while she likes to observe the others, she’s doesn’t love their snooty book clubs (at which the book is never mentioned) or other tortuous gatherings. A Korean American family, the Jungs, lives on Oleander, too, amid nasty comments; one neighbor in particular spreads the rumor that the mother barely speaks English, only Chinese. Lesbian couple Ray and Laura are hiding their rocky marriage and past secrets. And then there’s Adelaide, who formerly lived in a trailer park but is now married to a doctor and struggling to feel she belongs. Closed circle meets cozy when the nastier neighbors start getting bumped off in their homes, but with little attendant grisliness and dollops of dark humor. Come for the bitchiness, stay for the deep characterization of the oddball characters as well as the puzzling whodunit.

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Review

Feel the Bern

by Brian Kenney

I love mysteries that feature the famous, from Walt Whitman to Dorothy Parker to Eleanor Roosevelt. But featuring a living celebrity—in this case, Bernie Sanders—is even more of a challenge, one that Shaffer succeeds at wonderfully. Gen Z intern Crash Robertson is our wisecracking intern and narrator, and after months of answering phones in the DC office—from constituents who don’t know how to text?—she gets to accompany the senator on a fall-recess trip to Vermont. By chance, they head to Eagle Creek, Crash’s hometown, and end up staying in her mother’s B&B. But what has the makings of a low-key visit with constituents, and plenty of apple griddlecakes, suddenly gets upended when Crash finds the body of the local banker floating in Lake Champlain. Crash’s running commentary on Bernie—who’s always ready to deliver a lecture on the declining honeybee population, or the cozy series he’s reading, set in a cannabis bakery in the Northwest—makes for a good part of the humor in the book. But when a second citizen goes missing, it’s time for our team to get down to work. The biggest suspect is a tech-obsessed one-percenter, think Elon Musk, who’s buying up acres of maple trees, driving out local farmers, and monopolizing maple syrup production in a move Bernie dubs “Big Maple.” Unmitigated fun for everyone, no matter where they might fall on the political spectrum. Shaffer is also the author of the Obama mysteries, Hope Never Dies and Hope Rides Again.

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Review

Your Driver is Waiting

by Henrietta Thornton

Damani Krishanthan’s life is drudgery. Her Amma, or mother, is housebound and expects to be waited on hand and foot, even leaving food all over her face for that extra touch of martyrdom. When not on Amma duty, Damani drives for an Uber-like service that’s taking an ever bigger cut of her proceeds, even her tips, as time goes by, so that she takes every customer who pops up, sleeping only at red lights. A few times in the book the character directly addresses the reader, telling us for example that the city that this story takes place in will remain nameless because cities are all the same now; the effect is to telegraph that she’s so tired that she can’t even maintain the façade of fictionality and will just talk to us, OK? The non-stop grind lifts a bit when Damani gets a cute customer, Jo, who then shows up at a club the cabbie goes to with friends. She’s unlike anyone Damani has dated, but the same is true for Jo, who is not used to being in spaces where she’s a minority, a situation with results that push Damani over the edge. This protagonist’s life is a slow-motion train crash that you won’t be able to look away from, and Guns paints a scathing portrait of the gig economy, both in literal terms and in terms of those considered a temporary novelty in relationships. A debut with shades of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan series, but also memorably and refreshingly unlike anything else.

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Review

Killing Me

by Brian Kenney

Ever feel like you’ve lost your reading mojo? Spending too much time consuming mediocre series on Netflix? Then this fun, female-driven narrative featuring a grifter/psych student, a terrifying serial killer, a cool and elegant femme fatale, and a handful of Las Vegas ladies is sure to get you back into the reading groove. A serial killer is stalking Amber’s college campus, and despite all her street smarts he manages to kidnap her, dragging her off to his lair. Just when things start to get serious, Amber is liberated by this cool and aloof woman who promptly disappears. But when the cops, and then the FBI, show up, Amber gets jittery—she and law enforcement don’t mix—so she heads out of town, randomly picking Vegas. It would be foolhardy to try to summarize this story; it’s got more twists and turns than the Tour de France. Let’s just say that Amber’s voice—witty with a side of snark—is just everything, the dialogue is pumping, and the characters are, strangely enough, completely credible. And how refreshing is it to read a thriller without any male leads? Turns out you don’t miss them at all. An absolute delight from beginning to end.

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Review

Confidence

by Brian Kenney

Meet the confidence man (or woman), also known as the scammer, the grifter, the swindler. He’s long been a part of our national identity. Don’t believe me? Go back 175 years and take a peep at Melville’s last novel, Confidence-Man. Here, Frumkin updates our national passion—American dream, by any means!—in an epic tale of betrayal, at once gloriously hilarious and heartbreakingly sad. Ezra and Orson meet up one summer as teens at Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvenile detention. They become lovers of sorts, with homely Ezra in love and gorgeous Orson in like. They’re equally poor, already petty criminals as well as small-time dope dealers. This is a clear case in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because Ezra and Orson don’t just succeed at digging their way out of poverty. In ten years, they propel themselves into absolutely incredible wealth all through lying, scheming, and cheating. It’s a delight to watch. Eventually, they reach a sort of zenith with NuLife, a kind of wellness practice involving magnets—sort of a cross between L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop. This fast-paced, wonderfully unique novel holds a mirror up to American culture and asks all the right questions. It’s the answers that are so disturbing.

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Review

The Self-Made Widow

by Brian Kenney

After Andie Stern’s debut in Suburban Dicks—in which she solved a shocking murder in her New Jersey town—you’d think the former FBI employee would be ready for a little R&R. Or at least as much relaxation as a mother of five can get. But when the husband of Molly, a member of her mom’s group—which Andie secretly calls The Cellulitists—unexpectedly dies, Andie strongly suspects Molly is to blame. The hard part, but also the fun part, is proving it. Helped out by disgraced journalist Kenny Lee, a buddy from Suburban Dicks and the only man in the book who isn’t a complete, well, dick, along with new friend Sathwika, Andie follows the many leads, which eventually bring her and Kenny far too close to home. Nicieza, the co-creator of Deadpool, is a wonderful satirist, and the friction brought about his women characters’ multiple lives as mothers, wives, professionals, and even criminals is pure pleasure and more than just a little bit realistic. Towards the end there’s the hint that Andie and Sathwika may set up their own detective agency. Pray God this is so.

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