The Girl from Venice
Martin Cruz Smith, 2016
Simon & Schuster
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439140239
Summary
The highly anticipated new standalone novel from Martin Cruz Smith, whom The Washington Post has declared an “uncommon phenomenon: a popular and well-regarded crime novelist who is also a writer of real distinction,” The Girl from Venice is a suspenseful World War II love story set against the beauty, mystery, and danger of occupied Venice.
Venice, 1945. The war may be waning, but the city known as La Serenissima is still occupied, and the people of Italy fear the power of the Third Reich.
One night, under a canopy of stars, a fisherman named Cenzo comes across a young woman’s body floating in the lagoon. He soon discovers she is still alive and in trouble.
Born to a wealthy Jewish family, Giulia is on the run from the Wehrmacht SS. Cenzo chooses to protect Giulia rather than hand her over to the Nazis. This act of kindness leads them into the world of Partisans, random executions, the arts of forgery and high explosives, Mussolini’s broken promises, the black market and gold, and, everywhere, the enigmatic maze of the Venice Lagoon.
The Girl from Venice is a thriller, a mystery, and a retelling of Italian history that will take your breath away. Most of all it is a love story. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1942
• Where—Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Gold Dagger Award; Dashiell Hammet Award (twice)
• Currently—lives in San Rafael, California
Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery novelist. He is best known for his eight-novel series on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was first introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park.
He originally wrote under the name "Martin Smith," only to discover other writers of the same name. He now inserts Cruz into his name, his paternal grandmother's surname.
Early life and education
Martin William Smith was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, to John Calhoun Smith and Louise Lopez, both jazz muscians. His mother is amerindian—from Pueblo descent—making Smith partly of Pueblo, Spanish, Senecu del Sur, and Yaqui ancestry. His mother has also been an activist in the Amerindian rights movement.
Smith was educated at Germantown Academy, in Germantown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then at the University of Pennsylvania, also in Philadelphia. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing in 1964.
Career
From 1965 to 1969, Smith worked as a journalist and began writing fiction in the early 1970s.
Canto for a Gypsy (1972), his third novel overall and the second to feature Roman Grey, a gypsy art dealer in New York City, was nominated for an Edgar Award.
Nightwing (1977), also an Edgar nominee, was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a feature film of the same name (1979).
Smith is best known for his novels featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, whom Smith introduced in Gorky Park (1981). That novel, which was called the "first thriller of the '80s" by Time, became a bestseller and won a Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Taken together, Renko has since appeared in eight novels by Smith. Two books of the Arkady series occupied the nos. 1 and 2 spots for several months at a time: Gorky Park and Polar Star (1989).
During the 1990s, Smith twice won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. The first time was for Rose in 1996; the second time was for Havana Bay in 1999. And in 2010, he and Arkady Renko returned to the top of the New York Times bestseller list when Three Stations debuted at No. 7 on the fiction bestsellers list.
Other books/series
Earlier, in the 1970s, Smith wrote under the pen name Jake Logan, publishing two Slocum adult action Western novels. Under his own name, Smith has also written the Inquisitor series, focusing on a James Bond-type agent employed by the Vatican. He also wrote two novels in the Nick Carter series.
Personal life
Smith lives in San Rafael, California, with his family. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/17/2016.)
Book Reviews
“Evocative.... Smith conjures the time and place with a generous dose of what the novelist Evan Connell called ‘luminous details."... The Girl from Venice’s vivid treatments of a timeless trade and certain little-known aspects of World War II make it well worth your time.
Dennis Drabelle - Washington Post
You think you've read every permutation of a World War II novel possible—then along comes a Venetian fisherman and his unlikely first mate, a beautiful Jewish teenaged girl on the run from the last few Nazis occupying Italy.... Suspense, romance, spying, action—this novel has a little bit of everything, and it works. Cruz Smith is a master of quick scene changes . . . [who] has chosen, in The Girl from Venice, to put aside his usual spy stories for a straightforward wartime chase-cum-romance, a slice of La Serenissima life so perfectly researched that details melt into action like the local goby fish into risotto.
Bethanne Patrick - NPR
[A] clever, well-crafted, and exciting blend of WWII romance, suspense, and intrigue.... Capture, escape, a hoard of stolen gold, a forger, and a Swiss movie producer add action and passion to the novel’s unexpected plot twists, and its most satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly
A strong, atmospheric.... However, Cenzo and Giulia's relationship doesn't feel fully fleshed out, making it hard to be invested in the risks he takes to find her. Cenzo is often catching up to the action, not driving it, keeping readers at an arm's length against. —Emily Byers, Salem P.L., OR
Library Journal
[A]n Italian fisherman and the Jewish girl he finds floating in the sea.... How he meets that challenge both illuminates his humanity and entertains the reader. In fact, all the characters come alive.This is a thoughtful and engrossing novel with more than enough action to keep the pages turning.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman
Kathy Aspden, 2016
Blue Shoe Publishing
302 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781533022004
Summary
Nothing can be done to take back that tiny millisecond when one soul recognizes another.
Artfully weaving together three lives, three coasts and three generations, Kathy Aspden's breathtaking debut, Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman is a dazzling pastiche of love, deception, acceptance and forgiveness.
When the choices that Teressa, Danny and Gregory make intersect with circumstances out of their control, they must straddle a fine line between what is right and what is unimaginable to live without. What would I do for the sake of a child?
Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman is a deeply moving story about the dynamics of love and loss, and what it takes to survive both. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Kathy Aspden lives with her family on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and is a freelance writer for a of screenplays, including the feature-length films, An Inconvenient Miracle and Only Words. Her movie short, The First of the Month was chosen as an official selection for the 15 Minutes of Fame Festival in Orlando, Florida. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Kathy Aspen's debut novel, Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman, is written with a quick wit and a sincere heart, weaving a twisting tale of passion, deceit, and redemption. It made me feel the weight of life (or as Milan Kundera put it, the unbearable lightness of being) with all its trade-offs and conflicting desires/emotions/ideals.
Tim Miller - Cape Cod Times
Discussion Questions
1. Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman began as a single question: Is it soul recognition that determines who we love, thereby making human relationships somewhat out of our control? What do you think about this concept?
2. Teressa is the common thread between the main characters in this novel. Do you feel that the principal story is hers?
3. For centuries, and in many cultures, women have looked the other way when it came to infidelity. In this case, it's a man who looks the other way. Other than love and loyalty, what factors allowed him to do so, even before he knew the entire story?
4. Was the glimpse (given through Joseph Costas' eyes) into the three months that Teres and Danny were away enough for you to imagine the conversations leading to the choice they made?
5. The deja vu of history repeating itself throughout the story is a common thread. If you can look back into your own family history, have there been situations and scenarios where you can see a pattern of repetition or, in the case of good fortune, serendipity?
6. "God, I hope no one ever judges me by my worst day or my worst deed," is what Mike Donohoe says when Gregory tells him about his father's crime. It's a powerful statement. How does that apply to the way in which we view mistakes and misjudgments in today's world?
7. Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman is written using interweaving timelines, each in chronological order for its individual character. This allows information to dribble out in a manner chosen to create the most impact on the overall story. Can you recall an example where an incident made more sense to you later in the story, because you became privy to a scene that took place earlier in time? Did you enjoy this style of writing?
8. There are many types of strengths showcased in Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman. Costas sees his mother as a "force to reckon with" and questions why his father treats her "as though she would break at any moment." Teres is accused of thinking of Danny "as a delicate flower" when it comes to his health. Do you see the trading of strengths as a normal part of any relationship? What about between Costas and Julia?
9. There are no accidents. Did reading Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman cause you to rethink the concept of fate and destiny?
10. Teres and Danny's friends play small but important roles in the novel. Ron Watters is particularly vital to the story. Would you have wanted to know more about him? Did his desire to be "solving someone else's problems" rather than "thinking about his own" make you curious all along to know what those problems may have been?
11. Gregory's history evokes a lot of sympathy. Did knowing about his life cause you to vacillate when considering your own desired outcome for the story? What was your desired outcome for the story?
12. Danny and Gregory would appear to be opposites, but in what ways were they similar?
13. Both Teres and Gregory have affluent early lives and then a period of struggle. Danny's life is structured in the opposite, having come from parents who didn't have much. Danny appears to resist an affluent life. Do you think it's more common, or less, for a person to seek the lifestyle they knew in their early years? How do you feel that Danny's ego (or sometimes lack of ego) factored into their success?
14. The role that religion plays for at least two of the main characters is obvious. Although Teres remains particularly devout, it appears that her devotion transfers from religious to spiritual. Do you think she views her Greek Orthodox religion as having failed her or she having failed it? Or is it neither of those things?
15. Even without Julia's persuasion, Costas' need to know the truth is apparent. What do you view as the main question that Costas needs to have answered?
16. Thirteen times the word "miracle" is used in the novel. Only four of those times have nothing to do with the conception of a child. Do you think everyone views birth as a miracle, or is it viewed as more of a miracle when the desire to have a baby is unfulfilled?
17. Gregory admits he is good at "compartmentalizing" in order to achieve his goals. In what ways were the other characters also compartmentalizing their lives?
18. If you haven't already, did reading Baklava, Biscotti, and an Irishman make you wish to visit Italy and Greece?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Next
Stephanie Gangi, 2016
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250110565
Summary
Is there a right way to die? If so, Joanna DeAngelis has it all wrong.
She’s consumed by betrayal, spending her numbered days obsessing over Ned McGowan, her much younger ex, and watching him thrive in the spotlight with someone new, while she wastes away. She’s every woman scorned, fantasizing about revenge ... except she’s out of time.
Joanna falls from her life, from the love of her daughters and devoted dog, into an otherworldly landscape, a bleak infinity she can’t escape until she rises up and returns and sets it right—makes Ned pay—so she can truly move on.
From the other side into right this minute, Jo embarks on a sexy, spiritual odyssey. As she travels beyond memory, beyond desire, she is transformed into a fierce female force of life, determined to know how to die, happily ever after. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—?
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Rasied—on Long Island, New York
• Education—State Universit of New York-Buffalo
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Stephanie Gangi is an American writer living in New York City. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, raised in Long Island, New York, and after a spell in the outer suburbs of Rockland County finds herself back living in New York, this time in Manhattan. Gangi received her B.A. from the State University of New York-Buffalo.
Gangi had her publishing debut years ago—a children's book titled Lumpy: A Baseball Fable, which she co-authored with New York Met pitcher, Tug McGraw. Her second book, a gossipy tell-all, was maddeningly lost, never to be found, and obviously never published. The Next, her debut novel (for adults), came out in 2016. Gangi is also a poet working on a compiling a chapbook. She is also at work on another novel. (Adapted from the author's webpage.)
Book Reviews
Gangi has come up with a very cunning variation on the revenge fable.
New York Times
Fast-paced and engrossing.
Booklist
(Starred review.) There's a lot going on in this modern literary ghost story—love, death, family, revenge, Instagram—but it's never hard to follow.... Gangi's ability to create compelling stories and humanize her supporting characters will make readers empathize with them, too. —Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
Library Journal
Gangi has a blast with her undead harpy character, who dive-bombs her own memorial service, trashes Dr. Trudi’s penthouse, and makes Ned into a social media pariah.... Good fun, good writing, and strong characters keep this high-wire plot aloft.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Next is not simply a novel about the relationship between ex-lovers, but also one about the relationships between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, siblings, and dogs and their human companions. Which characters and relationships did you connect with the most as you were reading? How do we see these various relationships develop and change as the novel progresses?
2. What are some instances where we see the important role that music has played in the lives and relationships of the characters in this novel? Does music play a similarly important role in your own life? What are some specific songs that come to mind as significant to you?
3. What role does social media play in this novel? How does it result in both the rise and fall of characters?
4. What are the differences and similarities in the ways that Anna and Jules express and process their grief? On page 137, Anna’s grief is described as "the wrong kind of grief." What does this mean? How do they both work through this to a different sort of grief?
5. On page 282, Anna’s behavior toward Jules is described with this observation: "She had acted out precisely the behaviors she felt most aggrieved by, as humans do." What is meant by this? Do we see other characters doing the same thing elsewhere in the novel? Why do you think it is that people often do this?
6. What does Ned get from his relationship with Trudi that he does not get from Joanna? What does he get from his relationship with Joanna that he does not get from Trudi? How do you think he should have handled the discovery of Trudi’s pregnancy?
7. On page 173, Ned’s relationship with women is described as a fear of being consumed:
Or maybe she would consume him, just like he had always secretly worried that she would—that any woman would, that all women would….
Where does this fear stem from? Why does Ned feel the need to establish the "Ned-zone of plausible deniability"? Do you think he has changed at all by the end of the novel?
8. What do you imagine the future to hold for Ned? What about for Anna and Laney?
9. What was your reaction to the depiction of the waiting room Joanna goes to after she dies, and the depiction of her as a ghostly presence (and the other ghostly presences around her)? Is this how you would imagine it, or would you envision the ghostly world in a different way?
10. On page 182, Joanna rejects the idea that her lesson and her path to a Beaches ending is to "Feel it all, feel it all, leave it all behind. Love it and let it go." What is it that ultimately brings her peace and enables her to move on?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae
Graeme Macrae Burnet, 2016
Skyhorse Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781510719217
Summary
Finalist, 2016 Man Booker Prize (Shortlist)
A brutal triple murder in a remote Scottish farming community in 1869 leads to the arrest of seventeen-year-old Roderick Macrae.
There is no question that Macrae committed this terrible act. What would lead such a shy and intelligent boy down this bloody path? And will he hang for his crime?
Presented as a collection of documents discovered by the author, His Bloody Project opens with a series of police statements taken from the villagers of Culdie, Ross-shire. They offer conflicting impressions of the accused; one interviewee recalls Macrae as a gentle and quiet child, while another details him as evil and wicked.
Chief among the papers is Roderick Macrae’s own memoirs where he outlines the series of events leading up to the murder in eloquent and affectless prose. There follow medical reports, psychological evaluations, a courtroom transcript from the trial, and other documents that throw both Macrae’s motive and his sanity into question.
Graeme Macrae Burnet’s multilayered narrative—centered around an unreliable narrator—will keep the reader guessing to the very end. His Bloody Project is a deeply imagined crime novel that is both thrilling and luridly entertaining from an exceptional new voice. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Kilmarnock, Scotland, UK
• Education—B.A., Glasgow University; M.A., St Andrews University
• Awards—Scottish Trust New Writer's Award; Shortlist, Man Booker Award
• Currently—lives in Glasgow, Scotland
Graeme is one of Scotland’s brightest literary talents. Born and brought up in Kilmarnock, he spent some years working as an English teacher in Prague, Bordeaux, Porto and London, before returning to Glasgow and working for eight years for various independent television companies. He has degrees in English Literature and International Security Studies from Glasgow and St Andrews universities respectively.
His first novel, The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust, was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award and was a minor cult hit. Set in small-town France, it is a compelling psychological portrayal of a peculiar outsider pushed to the limit by his own feverish imagination.
His second novel, His Bloody Project (2016), has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016. He is currently working on another novel featuring Georges Gorski, the haunted detective in The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau. (From Saraband Publishing.)
Book Reviews
For a "semiliterate peasant," he has recorded a testament so "sustained and eloquent" that the Edinburgh literati suspect a hoax. Not so Roderick’s lawyer, Andrew Sinclair, who marvels at the prisoner’s graceful writing and command of language even as he’s sickened by the conditions under which people like the Macraes must toil. But the lawyer’s defense may not be enough to counter the contemptuous testimony of men like the bigoted prison surgeon, J. Bruce Thomson, who contributes his own sour observations to the medical reports and witness statements presented in court. Thomson’s examination of the prisoner confirms his view that criminal behavior is determined by heredity. In Macrae’s case, though, what might be inherited is sheer desperation.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
[A] powerful, absorbing novel…. Fiction authors from Henry James to Vladimir Nabokov to Gillian Flynn have used [an unreliable narrator] to induce ambiguity, heighten suspense and fold an alternative story between the lines of a printed text. Mr. Burnet, a Glasgow author, does all of that and more in this page-turning period account of pathos and violence in 19th-century Scotland…. [A] cleverly constructed tale…. Has the lineaments of the crime thriller but some of the sociology of a Thomas Hardy novel.
Tom Nolan - Wall Street Journal
Burnet is a writer of great skill and authority...few readers will be able to put down His Bloody Project as it speeds towards a surprising (and ultimately puzzling) conclusion.
Financial Times (UK)
Fiendishly readable.... A psychological thriller masquerading as a slice of true crime.... The book is also a blackly funny investigation into madness and motivation.
Gaurdian (UK)
A gripping crime story, a deeply imagined historical novel, and gloriously written – all in one tour-de-force of a book. Stevensonian – that’s the highest praise I can give (Books of the Year).
Chris Dolan - Sunday Herald (UK)
Psychologically astute and convincingly grounded in its environment, this study of petty persecution and murder is a fine achievement from an ambitious and accomplished writer.
Richard Strachan - National (UK)
I disappeared inside the pages of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project.... [F]ascinating.
Seattle Times
Burnet has created an eloquent character who will stick with you long after the book is read.
Seattle Review of Books
Both a horrific tale of violence and a rumination on the societal problems for poor sharecroppers of the era.
Time
One of the most convincing and engrossing novels of the year.
Scotsman (UK)
A truly ingenious thriller as confusingly multilayered as an Escher staircase.
Daily Express (UK)
There is no gainstaying the ingenuity with which Burnet has constructed his puzzle.
Telegraph (UK)
(Starred review.) [F]ascinating.... The Rashomon-like shifting of perspectives adds depth to the characters and gives readers the pleasure of repeatedly reinterpreting events.... [T]his is not a bleak book. Rather, it is sly, poignant, gritty, thought-provoking, and sprinkled with wit.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Clever and gripping.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Zigzag Road To Happy
Anita Heavens, 2015
Terrapin Publishing
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780993317842
Summary
Based on a true story.
This is the story of 16-year-old Nicky who, feeling suffocated by her dysfunctional family life, runs away to London, England of the 1960s.
We follow her ups and downs, her tears and her boundless enthusiasm as she encounters a variety of quirky characters, including an African snake dancer, biker gangs and crafty old men.
At the same time Nicky is on an internal journey, struggling to get a sense of her own identity. She remembers the feeling of being happy from when she was small, and is constantly trying to get back to that. Flashbacks tell us how that got lost and how she became a chameleon, trying to please everyone. This means others are able to control her, particularly some of the young men she meets.
The novel follows the zigs and zags of Nicky's journey, which is full of the unexpected, constantly leading the reader to wonder whether the next turn of the road could take her back to happy.
Author Bio
• Birth—December 28, 1947
• Where—Croydon, England, UK
• Education—Reigate Grammar School
• Currently—lives in Thornton Heath, Surrey, England
Anita started her career in the business world, becoming Company Secretary to a group of retail companies and a Director of four of them. She then noticed her work was no longer bringing satisfaction and, realising what really interested her was people and how they develop despite and because of adversity, she retrained as a psychotherapist.
After a long and fulfilling career Anita gave up work due to two episodes of cancer. Having always wanted to write a book 'one day' she realised we can never be sure we will have that 'one day', and that prompted her to write The Zigzag Road to Happy, her first novel, some of which is based on her own experiences. She is currently working on some short stories and a possible sequel. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow news of the novel on Facebook.
Discussion Questions
1. Do you feel Nicola was selfish in abandoning her mother as she did?
2. Why do you think Mr Cazian was so hostile towards Nicky?
3. Could Nicola have handled Lars' controlling behaviour differently?
4. How real did the characters seem? Did you feel strongly about any of them?
5. Did you think Laura made the right choice, given her circumstances?
6. How do you feel the central character developed during the novel?
7. Would the prejudice met by some of the characters in 1960s London be any different now?
8. Do you feel Nicola was a victim?
9. Do you think the English class system was relevant in the story?
10. How did you feel about the way the book ended?
11. Did you consider the book conveyed any important messages?
12. Should Nicky have eaten the sausages for an easier life?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)