Pot pourri of titles for the day

Rain, rain, go away!  The weeds are winning the battle with the flowers and the garden is too wet to spade.  Sigh.  (Not that I would be the one digging.) But everything is behind schedule.  And that includes adding the the book notes.  Not that I have not read them  I have  Just getting  the words on the screen has   been the problem. The books for today have nor theme or connection to each other.  RED ON RED (Speigel &
Grau, 9789-0-385-51917-5) by Edward Conlon; THE SISTERS BROTHERS (Harper Collins, 978-0-06-204126-5) by Patrick DeWitt;  GRAVEMINDERS (William Morrow, 978-0-06-18268-0) by Melissa Marr, and MINDING BEN (Hyperion, 978-1-4013-4151-0) by Victoria Brown.
These books are all about different themes.  RED ON RED is a cop story set in New York
city  the cops we meet are an odd couple for partners who are chalk and cheese to each other, yet make a good pair.  Meehan and Esposito take us through the cases and the minutiae that make up there days and nights.   There is a serial rapist, a suicide, a nasty gang war that gets the detectives involved on a one on one basis, and a strange case involving a school girl and her peculiar father.  There is also a melding of street life and family life. We are treated to a  gritty look at their lives and cases close up.  The book is slow going because there are many details to absorb.  Sometimes it feels as though this could easily have been made into two or more books.  It is dark and often depressing, but a good read.
THE SISTERS BROTHERS is an odd book.  It is a picaresque tale of the mid 19th century that takes us with a pair of brothers whose vocation is killing.  they are good at it and quite philosophical about their calling.  The book and its language reminds me of the recreation of a Victorian melodrama.  The brothers, Eli and Charles Sisters, are on a quest to kill  Hermann Warm because their employer, the Commodore, has decreed it.  But wait, Eli has somewhat of an epiphany on the way to California for the killing.  He begins to question what he does for a living.  He even begins to have doubts about  The Commodore. The frontier of old comes alive with odd and delightful characters who meet the Sisters on their journey.  Funny.  Amusing. Thoughtful. Violent - the bodies do stack up.  Yet the book has a lyrical feel to it as the brothers continue on their quest.  The writing is masterful,  stark as well as florid.  And the plot is well planned and keeps the readers interest.  It puts a new spin on the old west.
GRAVEMINDER is another odd read.  A fantasy of sorts, it has a dreamlike quality to it. 
Actually, make that nightmarish.  Claysville is a strange sort of town.  Things are different. there.  Maylene
Harrow takes care of the newly dead in the town for the safety of the town. She also has a connection to William Montgomery, the local mortician.  People never seem to really leave Claysville, or if they do, they come back.  Actually, those who were born there, need to be buried there. Such is the case of Rebekkah Harrow, niece of Maylene and Byron Montgomery, son of William.  They left but now they are back, but definitely not to be buried. Maylene has died under suspicious circumstances and Rebekkah comes back to settle her estate and finds herself enmeshed in learning the mystery of Claysville and discovering that she must take over the task of graveminding from her aunt.  And what exactly is graveminding? Byron also discovers why he is there and what bargain has been made in the past of the town that has created this anomaly.  Why are people being attacked?  Why have some gone missing?  Who is this strange young girl?  Dead people walk.  Many people are murdered before the mystery of the pact with death is sorted our and family histories and secrets are explained. And of course, their is a love story with Byron and Rebekkah.  And that is not withoiut its complications. Creepy and sinister, this book is a haunting read.  The mood it sets is fantastic.  Gloomy.  Gruesome. Apprehensive.  Anticipatory.  Both horror and fantasy, this is a book that holds one's attention.
And for something entirely different, we have MINDING BEN.  This is the delightful story of an intrepid young West Indian girl who leave her home for New York City and relatives in hopes of finding a new life.  Her adventures begin when no one meets her at the airport and she has to find her way in a strange city to the place where her relatives live.  The apartment is crowded, but she is inventive,  Her first job is working for a Jewish family, but that is only temporary.   As she searched for work her plans for getting an education are on hold.  Grace is a vibrant and warm person and comes to life as the author has her find a job with the wealthy young couple, the Bruckners also Jewish, as a nanny for their young son Ben.  They are nice, but they pay little, lie to Grace and give her tons of extra work to do.  All the while we learn through Grace the life of the nannys and how they are treated.  Their is a subculture of help that reflects how they see the employers.   We also get to see the life Grace leads with her friends from the islands and how different it is. We also get a good prevails and gets her education and ends up with a much better position along the way.  But not before lots of drama, more embarrassment, ill treatment, and hard work.  The book has a decided ring of truth to it.  The writing  brings the people to life and makes the reader care about their lives.The author was herself a baby sitter years ago when she came to this country also from Trinidad  She, like Grace, continued her education and was a college teacher.  This is a good read.

Just in time for Mother's Day

Motherhood and a mother's love has a universal appeal.  SECRET DAUGHTER  by Shilpi Somaya

Gowda , ( William Morrow,978-0-06-192835-2) is an international best seller that is now available in trade paper and a heart tugging book to read.  It may bring a tear or two to your eyes.It is basically two parallel stories.

 It is the story of the upscale life of a doctor, Somer, in San Fransisco, who married her college sweetheart and fellow doctor, Krisnan (Kris)   Thakkar, who was from India.They seemed to lead an ideal life, but the pediatrician Somer is unable to have children.  The parallel story is set in India and concerns the life of a poor couple, Kavita and Jasu.  Kavita has just given birth to a baby girl and according to custom baby girls are abandoned  as they are economically unfeasible for poor families.But, Kavita will not allow her child to meet this fate and walks to an orphanage where she leaves her daughter named Usha.  And this is how the stories intersect.
After much soul searching, Somer and Kris decide to adopt and opt for a baby from India...The Thakkars are a wealthy and influential family in Mumbai and the adopting couple use an orphanage the family supports.  They adopt a baby girl and are told her name is Asha.  Asha is their much loved daughter and grows in to a typical California girl..  She is smart, pretty, and becoming an independent thinker. The American Thakkars life has changed when  they moved to the suburbs to accommodate family living and  Somer has a less satisfying position. And Asha is now a teenager and a rebellious one.  Her family would like her to study medicine in college,  but she prefers journalism.  She too is restless.  The family is fraying a bit.  Somer is unhappy with her life, with Kris. and everything in general.  Krisnan is a bit oblivious, but always goes to India to visit alo9ne,  This bother Asha somewhat. Asha wants to know about herself and her background.  This frightens  Somer because she feels that she, Somer, will then be totally isolated.
While all this is transpiring in California, Kavita and Jasu have moved to Mumbai to find a better life.  They have a  son now who provides them with extra living expenses.  Except their beloved and sacrificed for son is involved with some well paying but criminal activities.  Kavita still yearns to know what happened to her lost Ushi.
And Ashi (Ushi) is the conduit that brings the parallel stories together. 
Ashi take a year from college and goes to India as an intern on a newspaper and gets to know her grandparents and meet many relatives of her father and understand who she is and what her real heritage represents,  She also searches for her birth mother.
The story of how each family deals with adversity and change and what love of a child can cause a mother to do are poignantly shown to us.  Somer learns to look outside herself while looking within for strength.  Ashi learns that she is part of a larger whole and yet an intrinsic part of her adopted family.    .
The beautifully scripted book redefines motherhood and family in a heart warming a compelling story.
It is also a timely story.  Only the other day i was reading a report about the falling population of femal children in India and the consternation it was causing.  The high cost of some traditional doweries is one deterrent to keeping daughters.  The prevalence of determining the sex of the fetus has also upped the abortion rate. This is not a comfortable thought,
Gowda, while born and raised in Canada, is the daughter of parents who emigrated from  Bombay.  She is now living with her family in California. This is a real treat for mother's Day.

One copy is available from publisher to first who responds.