• (5/28) Vitals by Greg Bear.
  
  Hal Cousins is a research scientist with a new idea -- an idea on how to halt the aging process in humans. He believes the secret lies inside bacteria -- that the human body is essentially created to feed bacteria, kept alive to sustain them, and ultimately worn down by their constant feasting. Stop the bacteria -- stop time. To fully explore this theory, though, Hal needs to study the least developed, evoluationarily speaking, cells he can find -- ones from back before mitochondria. And the only place you can find cells like that is at the very bottom of the sea.

  Those kinds of trips cost a lot of money, though, and Hal no longer has any grants. So, he finds himself a private donor, an egomaniac desperate to live forever. With his money, Hal is able to get a team of marine biologists to take him down to the depths of the sea. Only something goes wrong with the expedition -- several of the crew members become ill, and then go nuts and try to kill everybody else. Then Hal's twin brother Rob, also a bacteriologist, is murdered. He leaves behind evidence that he was on the trail of something big -- someone is using altered bacteria to control people's minds; spraying it on food and then essentially brainwashing the victims who consume it. Those bad guys are, Hal discovers, somehow linked to Nazi, Germany. And then seem especially determined to stop Hal's research on aging. But why?

  While I really found the plot of this novel convoluted beyond belief, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I didn't find the ending very satisfying (seemed convenient), but the ride to the end was pretty exciting and interesting. The science is good and there is a good balance between it and the plot (sometimes serious sci-fi gets so scientifically intense the technical stuff overshadows and bogs down the plot -- that doesn't happen here). I'll definitely look for more by Bear -- and recommend this one to fans of the genre.
  [SCIENCE FICTION]

  (5/23) A Heart of Stone by Renate Dorrestein.
  

  Incredible, wrenching novel about a young girl, Ellen van Bemmel, whose family was almost completely destroyed when she was only 12. The story of what happened that day is slowly presented to us piece by piece throughout the course of the novel, as a grown-up Ellen, pregnant with her first child, is bedridden after a near-miscarriage. As she kills times by flipping through her old family photo album, she remembers all the happy days of her youth. The times spent with her two brothers and two sister, and her very loving, intelligent, and wonderful parents.

  There's something about the way the details of the horror that struck them all are presented -- almost casually, here and there admist Ellen's stories of her childhood -- that very clearly conveys Ellen's state of mind. Her reluctance to recall the terrible thing as a whole. As the book progresses, she reveals more and more to us, as she herself finally comes to address head-on the demons that have haunted her for so long. This same technique also creates an extremely suspenseful atmosphere for the book -- I HAD to find out what happened. I HAD to keep reading. I literally read this book in two sittings. The second time I picked it up, I could not put it down until it was all over. Incredibly, the shocking truth very closely resembled a true life event that has been in the news lately, even though this book was written years ago and in Dutch. Really reminds you how much we are alike -- all of us people, all over the world. Our fears, our love, and our tragedies.

  Outstanding novel -- moving and unforgettable. Highly recommended!
  [FICTION]

  (5/20) Glare Ice by Mary Logue.
  

  Engaging, entertaining mystery featuring a one-time big city policewoman, Claire Watkins, who moved to the small northern town of Fort St. Antoine to find a quieter life for herself and her young daughter Meg. When a bad winter storm blows into town over Thanksgiving, it seems to bring with it a series of violent acts, all linked to the same quiet, reserved townswoman, Stephanie Klaus. First Claire sees her in town with a black eye. Then Stephanie's boyfriend Buck is murdered -- tied inside his car, which is then pushed out onto the thin ice over Lake Pepin. Claire begins to wonder if Buck was Stephanie's abuser -- if she killed him to stop the attacks -- but before she can even really question her, Stephanie is found battered and near-death on her front lawn. Clearly someone else is involved but Stephanie won't say who. Is she protecting someone? Or is she too afraid of retribution to open up? The violence will continue if Claire doesn't find the killer, but how can she get Stephanie to trust her?

  This was a fast-paced, well-plotted novel. I really enjoyed the characters and the setting and the storyline was creative and original. Quite happy to discover there are already others in this series! Recommended!
  [MYSTERY]

  (5/14) Quit Monks or Die! by Maxine Kumin.
  

  An okay mystery about a psychology researcher (studying the effects of maternal deprivation on infant primates) whose murdered body is found in one of his lab's deprivation chambers. A few days later, the young graduate student he both worked and slept with also turns up dead. And, at about the same time, two lab monkeys are stolen by some animal rights activists. Are these crimes connected? Yeah, sorta. But to be honest, I really didn't give a hoverin' hoot about any of the characters in this novel, alive, dead, or furry. The writing was good (Kumin is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet), but this mystery lacked. . .oomph. I read the whole thing and didn't regret having spent the time doing so, but I frequently set it down mid-chapter (bad sign!) and was never all that anxious to get back to it. That says a lot about how suspenseful it was -- and while I'm not saying all mysteries have to be nail-biters to be good, they DO kind of need to instill a sort of eagerness for resolution in the reader. This novel just kind of. . .well. . .*yawn*.
  [MYSTERY}

  (5/11) The Stone Monkey by Jeffrey Deaver.
  

  At long last! The new Lincoln Rhyme novel comes out! And while I was disappointed for a few reasons by this installment in the series, all in all, it was a pretty enjoyable mystery. The book starts out with Lincoln and Amelia being asked by the INS to help track down a ship en route to the U.S. from China. On board are a couple dozen Chinese dissidents trying to sneak into America with the help of a notorious "snakehead" (a Chinese bad guy who helps his people sneak into our country) named "The Ghost." The Ghost is more than just a regular snakehead, though -- he's wanted for murder and a whole host of other evil crimes, both in China and in the U.S.

  Lincoln, of course, easily pinpoints the location of the ship after being given just a little information about it and the INS immediately sets out in pursuit. However, before they can get close, the Ghost blows the ship up, killing almost all the passengers (whom the Ghost refers to as "piglets"). A few of the piglets manage to escape and get onto life rafts, only to find the Ghost is trying to pick them off one by one with a handgun. Finally, they manage to get clear of him and land on shore. But they know something has gone terribly awry and that the Ghost will not stop until they are all dead, so they promptly go into hiding.

  Meanwhile, Lincoln and Amelia are picking up pieces of the puzzle from the wreck and the evidence they find on the shore. They also manage to rescue one more piglet, a doctor named John Sung who was shot by the Ghost and survived by playing dead in the water. With the help of John and a Chinese cop who joins them, they begin working to track down not only the Ghost but the remaining survivors. As they build up clues, they start to figure out the truth behind the entire voyage and the Ghost's involvement. And they also start to figure out that the Ghost is getting inside information -- there is a mole somewhere in the operation and if they don't figure out who it is, the remaining piglets will surely be killed and both Lincoln and Amelia may go down with them.

  It was a pretty intriguing storyline, actually. But what bothered me was the lack of good forensics this time around. The few "clues" they find weren't all that interesting and I wasn't excited or impressed by any of the crime scene work. Maybe I've been spoiled by "C.S.I.," but while the forensics was my favorite part of the three previous Rhyme novels, it seemed really secondary this time around. Also, there were too many times when Deaver clearly led us to believe one thing and then tried to shock us by revealing the truth to be the exact opposite. That works once, maybe twice, in a novel. But if you pull that game over and over, by the middle, the reader figures it out and starts assuming the opposite is always true -- and is then disappointed when that keeps being the case.

  Still, even a bad Lincoln Rhyme novel is a really great way to spend a weekend. And, I was realizing as I read this one that it's been long enough since I read the earlier ones that I could probably reread them right about now and really enjoy them. So, watch for them to start popping up in the list again soon! Recommended to already-established fans of the Rhyme series -- but newbies should start at the beginning with "The Bone Collector."
  [MYSTERY]

  (5/5) The Fig Eater by Jody Shields.
  

  In 1910, the hunt for a killer in Vienna begins after the brutalized body of an 18 year-old murder victim named Dora is found in a park. The inspector on the case, one of the most respected in the city, struggles to find the clues that could lead him to the killer. Meanwhile, the inspector's wife, Erszebet, becomes obsessed with the woman and her death, fixating especially on the strange clue found in Dora's stomach, a partially digested fresh fig. Knowing that fresh figs are rare in the city, Erszebet begins a quest for its origin, one that puts her closer and closer to the killer each day. But as the inspector and his wife follow their own paths towards the truth, the distance between them increases. They may find the killer, but will their lives and marriage ever be the same?

  I really enjoyed this novel, although there are a few slow moments. It's a complex look at obsession and desire, and a pretty intriguing mystery to boot. I also greatly enjoyed the historical aspects of the setting and characters. This would be an excellent novel for book clubs -- it's not just a great mystery, but also a wonderful exploration of marriage and what obsession can do to the human psyche. Recommended!
  [MYSTERY]

  (5/3) Atonement by Ian McEwan.
  

  Complex, engrossing, and heck, just plain impressive novel about a little girl whose jealousy and confusion leads her to commit an act that changes her family and a young male friend forever. The guilt she later feels colors her entire life and though she eventually tries to make things right by coming forward with the truth, too much damage has been done and the situations that resulted from her "crime" are irreversible.

  The novel tracks both the girl and the young man over the next decade or so of their lives, focusing strongly on their separate experiences during WWII (he as a soldier, she as a nurse). Both of their actions are continually influenced by their shared past and the emotions they cannot shake as a result of that one fateful day in their youth. The girl's shame weighs heavily on her -- and his anger and rejection of anything resembling forgiveness leads him down a path he never thought he'd be capable of traveling.

  Taken together, this is a wonderful story of the evolution of peoples' minds as they experience their various pieces of life. It's a story not just about shame and forgiveness, so much as the struggle to put things right -- both of them -- the struggle for an atonement neither can really achieve.

  Amazing story, amazing writing, amazing book! This was my first McEwan novel -- it definitely won't be my last. HIGHLY recommended!
  [FICTION]

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