The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
‘A Song for the Dark Times’ contains two mysteries
“A Song for the Dark Times,” by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)
Ian Rankin’s best-known character, John Rebus, typically resides in the dark world of the human soul and things are no different in “A Song for the Dark Times,” Rankin’s newest Inspector Rebus novel.
The Rebus of “A Song for the Dark Times” is a slightly diminished one — he is drinking less, nor do we find him sparring with local Edinburgh gangster Ger Cafferty, though he does play a role in the drama. The retired detective is a wee bit less enjoyable to read, but he is a familiar character with whom the reader will feel comfortable.
Rebus is still the dogged investigator, able to make intuitive leaps about the dark places that inhabit the human soul and lead some to commit murder, whether in the distant past or in more recent times. Rankin will in time, likely retire Rebus for good, so we should appreciate him while we still have him.
New thriller tweaks the `unreliable female narrator'
“Goodnight Beautiful,” by Aimee Molloy (Harper)
Early on in the deliciously twisty “Goodnight Beautiful,” one of the main characters, a charismatic guy who we’re getting the sense is being stalked by a fan, is reading Stephen King’s “Misery.”
His wife, meanwhile, is reading “that thriller everyone’s talking about” with an unreliable female narrator. (Think “Gone Girl” or “The Girl on the Train.”)
So we have some idea where this might be headed.
But that doesn’t mean we can anticipate the surprises that Aimee Molloy has in store, or guess whodunit.
This is Molloy’s second novel, after her suspenseful debut, “The Perfect Mother,” which was about a missing child in Brooklyn. Molloy keeps the dialogue sexy and the action brisk, switching back and forth between one character’s first-person account and a third-person narrator describing everything else. The author has fun toying with the conventions of gender in pop culture, and the assumptions we make.
It adds up to a book you’ll read late into the night, trying to figure out where the next twist will take you.
Penguin Random House, PEN America team up to Book the Vote
Neil Gaiman, Anita Hill and Ann Patchett will be among the contributors to Book the
Vote, an online initiative to provide information on the electoral system, voting registration and civic topics.
Book the Vote is a collaboration among Penguin Random House, PEN America, the non-profit organization When We All Vote and the literary retailer Out of Print, which is owned by Penguin Random House.
The web site will include videos from Gaiman, Hill, Patchett and other authors and public figures, including Jennifer Egan, Jeffrey Tobin, Susan Orlean and Alan Cumming.
“Truth, facts, press freedom, and the future of open discourse are all on the ballot this November,” PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.