Manhattan Beach

The Girl And The Sea

Anna Kerrigan and Dexter Styles do not belong to the same world, but their paths cross in Pulitzer prize-winning author Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, a sprawling historical-cum-crime novel, set during the Depression and World War II.

When the novel begins, 11-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father Eddie to visit Dexter Styles at his house in Manhattan Beach. She plays with the host’s kids, charms Styles and almost forgets that strange meeting. What she does not know the is that Styles is a gangster, and that Eddie who has fallen on bad times, which force him to work at low wages for a corrupt union official, has approached the mob boss for a job. He needs money to buy a wheelchair for his severely disabled younger daughter, Lydia. Anna’s mother used to be dancer, but now stays home to care for Lydia and does some sewing for money. Lydia is lovingly cared for by her mother and sister, but Eddie is always uncomfortable around her. One day, he disappears and leaves the family to cope by themselves. Anna is heartbroken, but after days of grieving, stops waiting for him

Years later, when Anna is 19, she works as the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The War has taken away all the young men, and women are doing what was always considered men’s work. But Anna is not satisfied inspecting ship’s parts like an automaton; she fights discrimination and ridicule to be allowed to be a diver. At the yard, divers wore very heavy outfits and went underwater to repair ships. Nobody believes that a woman could move in a 200-pound costume, leave aside dive in it, but Anna shames the men into respecting her determination.

She run into Dexter Styles, who is more powerful than ever, and single-mindedly pursues him to find out what happened to her father.

The story elaborates on Anna’s life, as well as Styles’s complicated marriage and relationship with his wife’s family, particularly his father-in-law. Egan gradually reveals events from the past that have an impact on the present, and brief encounters in the present that change lives forever. 

There are is a large chunk in the book, set on a ship that is a dull read, but whenever the focus in on Anna, the story sparkles. Egan brings the thrill of diving alive—for Anna is not just a challenge to prove herself in a man’s world, but an almost spiritual path to fill the void in her life. Anna is such a remarkable young woman that the soap opera-ish fate Egan charts for her in the end comes a disappointment. Still, there are passages of exquisite prose, that make Manhattan Beach worth a visit.

Manhattan Beach

By Jennifer Egan

Publisher: Hachette

Pages: 448

No Middle Name

The Nowhere Man

Lee Child’s creation Jack Reacher is a fascinating character. Leaving his army past behind, he lives like a vagabond, travelling to random places with no more luggage than a toothbrush in his pocket. He moves about constantly, sleeps whenever and wherever he can; when his clothes get too dirty, he simply buys new ones and chucks the old. He takes life as it comes, but does not hesitate in interfering if he sees a crime being committed or some injustice being done. His body is built for endurance, his mind never shuts down and his wisecracks bubble up at just the right moment.

He is tall, muscular, hefty and a fighter no ordinary mortal can take on in hand-to-hand combat. Very few can match his astute reading of people—their behavior and their motives. No Middle Name is a collection of short stories starring Jack Reacher, that gives some glimpses of his growing up years and indicates what makes him the way he is.

The younger son of a marine, Reacher and his smart older brother Joe, grew up on several military bases, which is probably why he never formed any deep friendships or connections with other people.  Reacher does not have a middle name, but his first name, Jack, is also never used. 

Even as a kid, as the story Second Son, set in Okinawa, shows, he is prepared for a fight and his “lizard brain” is as sharp as ever.  In High Heat, set in New York in 1977,  he is a teenager travelling alone, looking for adventure and no-strings-attached romance, when he gallantly step in to save a woman from being beaten in the street, only to discover that she is an FBI agent and the man belongs to a notorious gang. Soon the mob is after him, and the city suffers a sudden blackout. In the dark and in sweltering heat, Reacher gets a girl to drive him around, thrashes the gang boss, and also manages to point the cops towards dreaded serial killer Son of Sam.

The compliation begins with Too Much Time, in which Reacher, just taking a walk in a small nondescript town, sees a bag-snatch taking place, catches the thief, is persuaded by the local cops to give a witness statement and finds himself in the midst of a conspiracy. He is arrested for being an accomplice and somebody up in the chain wants him dead for a reason he fathoms as he goes along.

The reader is grabbed by the neck with the intrigue and suspense in this one, and Lee Child simply does not let go till the last page has been turned. This story leads to The Midnight Line, the the 22nd Reacher novel, just out.

No Middle Name: The Complete Collected Jack Reacher Short Stories

By Lee Child

Publisher: Delacote

Pages: 432

The House Of Unexpected Sisters

Always Precious 

The House Of Unexpected Sisters is the 18th book in Alexander McCall Smith’s bestselling No 1 Ladies Detective series and comes just a few months after Precious And Grace.

These books, set in Botswana and featuring the “traditionally built” Precious Ramotswe, the country’s first female private detective, with her colleagues, family and friends, are simple and warm-hearted. The writer makes Botswana sound like heaven on earth, and the African country must have been added to every fan’s must-visit list.

Over the year, the books, set in the capital city of Gaborone, have covered the setting up of the Agency, Precious’s marriage to the very gentle Mr JLB Matekoni (garage owner and expert mechanic), her adoption of two kids, her friendship with Mma Potokwane, who runs an orphanage and makes divine fruit cake. Then there’s Grace Makutsi, who started as a secretary, leaving her poverty-stricken past behind, married the rich furniture shop owner, Phuti Radiphuti, gave birth to a son, and kept promoting herself to partner, associate and in this book, Principal Investigating Officer. And, in most books, the vamp is the pretty, ambitious and ruthless Violet Sephotho, the bane of Grace’s existence since her secretarial college days (where Grace got an unmatched ninety-seven percent).

There are crimes committed in these books, but nothing ghastly enough to give the reader sleepless nights; as much as solving the cases that come to the Agency, the books are about family, loyalty, friendship and nostalgia for the old days when people were kind and gracious.  (In an earlier book, Mr LJB Matekoni had to regretfully sack Charlie, one of his apprentices, because of financial constraints; on seeing his distress, Precious hired him to help at the Agency--much to Grace’s annoyance-- even though she did not need, and could not afford another assistant.)

In The House Of Unexpected Sisters, Precious’s friend and voluntary assistant, the mild-mannered Mr Polopetsi, asks for help—gratis-- for Charity Mompoloki, who was fired from her job at an office supplies store, for alleged rudeness to a customer. Charity is a widow with children, and Precious’s heart melts at the unfairness of the situation.

While the ladies and Mr Polopetsi set about investigating, Precious learns that her abusive ex-husband the trumpet player Note Mokoti, has returned to Gaborone, which causes her some discomfort. She also discovers another Ramotswe she has never heard of, and this leads her to question the character of her dead father Obed, whom she idolizes.

In a peaceful scene, having tea with his wife, Mr JLB Matekoni says: “It would be good to talk to you all day. To talk to you that is – not to other people. Talking to you Mma, is very… very restful, I think.”

Reading No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books is also restful…and pleasing.

The House Of Unexpected Sisters

By Alexander McCall Smith

Publisher: Hachette

Pages: 240

Sleeping Beauties

 The Ladies Vanish

Stephen King has collaborated it his son Owen to write Sleeping Beauties, a horror fantasy fable for the times. As innumerable cases of sexual harassment and atrocities against women are reported, at least some must have wished for a world without such men.

Sleeping Beauties is set in a small town of Dooling, at the centre of which is a women’s prison. The town’s sheriff is Lila Norcross, whose husband Clint is the prison psychiatrist.  One day, Lila is called out to a crime scene, where a strange semi-nude woman who calls herself Evie, has killed two drug dealers and blown up their meth lab.

When Evie—who seems to trigger all manner of supernatural occurrences-- is taken to the prison, she is unperturbed. But slowly, women in the town start falling asleep, covered with a web-like cocoon. It they are disturbed, they violently assault the person who attempted to awaken them.

This sleeping sickness, given the name of Aurora (after the heroine of Sleeping Beauty), spreads throughout the world, and baffles scientists. The Kings stay in Dooling, however, and write an intricate, somewhat overpopulated (70 odd characters, listed in the beginning) novel with multiple backstories, subplots and even a teen romance.

Women inside and outside the prison start dozing off and nobody can tell if they will wake up, or are gone forever. Lila and some of her police colleagues struggle to stay awake on uppers and cocaine. The town goes berserk, the hospitals are overrun by desperate families, medical supplies stores and supermarkets are looted and destroyed.

Eventually word gets out that the only woman not afflicted by Aurora is Evie. The town’s hothead Frank Geary, who wants to save his daughter’s life, instigates the men to arm up and attack the prison to capture Evie and send her to a lab to find an antidote. Dr Clint Norcross gets his posse together to defend the prison and save Evie.

The Kings write with perspicacity about what is means to be a man today—Frank and a bunch of school bullies think violence and aggression is manly.  Clint and Lila’s son Jared is kind and protective, but the girl he loves prefers a nasty thug-ish kind of boy.

Smaller stories unfold under the huge 700 plus page umbrella, Lila’s unhappiness with her husband’s possible infidelity, a tender love between two prison inmates, and, amusingly a Mercedes owned by a doped out doctor makes an appearance.  (Stephen King’s novel Mr Mercedes was a bestseller with two sequels).

A fake social media post says that the cocoons should be set on fire to end the epidemic and hordes of rabid men go around hunting for women to burn alive. One soap box speaker rants that this virus is punishment for women wearing pants and trying to get ahead of men. In this apocalyptic scenario,  gender politics rear up eventually—it would be a spoiler to reveal what happens to the sleeping women, but the novel tends to get dull and repetitive after a point. There was no need for so many characters that it is difficult to keep track of them—some are totally redundant.

What the book, rambling on over peace and war, asks in Evie’s voice, “I think it might be time to erase the whole man-woman equation. Just hit delete and start over. What do you think?”  It is an idea whose time has come.

Sleeping Beauties

Stephen & Owen King

Publisher: Scribner

Pages: 702

The Rooster Bar

The Big Scam

John Grisham seemed to have taken a beach holiday with the pleasantly breezy Camino Island, and, with his new book The Rooster Bar, is back to the kind of taut legal thriller his fans expect of him.

The general assumption is that the law is not such a big ass in the US, that justice may be occasionally denied but it is seldom delayed. The Rooster Bar exposes not just how scam-ridden the legal system is, but how rampant corruption is in banking and education sectors.

The three protagonists of this novel—Mark, Todd and Zola—discover just a semester before they are to complete their law course in a college called Foggy Bottom (how could a law school with a name like that even exist?) that they were victims of a huge education scam.

They were taken in by the career success fairy tales on the Foggy Bottom brochures, and took loans to enroll. They did not stop to think why they got the big loans so easily or how mediocre students like them were even admitted. They realized that the well-paid jobs they were promised did not exist, they could not possibly pass the bar exam, and that they had no means to repay the loans. One of their friends, the bipolar Gordon, digs into the workings of Foggy Bottom and its elusive owner Hinds Rackley and before committing suicide, tells them how the system has taken them for a ride. Rackley hides behind several shell companies and rakes in billions from hopeful, trusting and desperate students.

All three are in a financial soup with their massive debt; things are worse for Zola, whose family is about to be deported to Senegal, as illegal immigrants after twenty-six years of a tough life in the US.

Disheartened and disillusioned, the three decide to drop out of law school, head for the overcrowded courts and start hustling clients caught in minor cases, like drink driving, for cash payments. They rightly figure out that nobody will actually ask to see their licences. The set up a fake office about The Rooster Bar, where Todd is a part-time bartender, change their names and print cards for their phony law firm

For some time they are successful and dizzily happy at pulling off the stunt; it’s when Mark gets into a medical malpractice suit for big money that their deception starts to come apart at the seams. Their third rate college has not even equipped them with the basics they need to know to practice in courts.

In his author’s note, Grisham writes that his book was inspired by an investigative piece titled The Law School Scam, by Paul Campos, published in The Atlantic; around the facts he builds a somewhat convoluted by always absorbing thriller. The reader actually hopes the three get away with it, because the big guys who run their shady businesses seldom get caught. The book is not just an enjoyable read, but also wraps some eye-opening legal information in its pages.

The Rooster Bar

By John Grisham

Publisher: Hachette

Pages: 374