The Square Root of Murder by Ada Madison

If Dr. Sophie Knowles wasn't such a nice person, and a mentor to so many math students, I'd be more upset with the character in the new mystery series by Ada Madison. Sophie violates one of my cardinal rules for amateur sleuths. She keeps secrets from the police. But, I like Sophie and the other characters in The Square Root of Murder, so I'll forgive her, this time.

In her mid-forties, Sophie teaches math at Henley College, a women's college about to turn coed, in Massachusetts. She loves math and her students, In her spare time, she publishes puzzles and brainteasers, and does beading at a shop owned by her best friend. She also spends as much time as she can with Bruce Granville, the pilot of a medevac helicopter. There are a few flies in Dr. Knowles' ointment. The dean doesn't seem to like her. And, she has frequent disagreements with Dr. Keith Appleton, a chemistry professor. But, then, everyone except the dean seems to have problems with Keith, from Rachel, a post-graduate assistant, to the science undergrads, to Sophie's friend, physics professor Dr. Hal Bartholomew. But who hated him enough to kill him during the party celebrating Hal's promotion?

When Rachel is called in for questioning, Sophie tries to convince a friend, homicide detective Virgil Mitchell, that Rachel couldn't have killed the professor. When her defense of the student fails, Knowles decides to use her analytical skills to narrow down the possibilities, and find a killer. When Sophie sneaks files out of Keith's office, and they subsequently disappear, it seems the killer has learned about Dr. Knowles extracurricular sleuthing activities. There might just be a second dead professor from Henley College.

As I mentioned, some of Sophie's methods bother me. I don't approve of the amateur sleuth who sets out on their own to find a killer, and fails to turn clues over to the police, particularly when one of the investigators is a friend. However, when she lines up enough information, Dr. Knowles does reveal her timeline to the police, along with her list of sources. But, I like Sophie. I like her depth of feeling for her students and friends. She has a terrific relationship with her boyfriend, and, despite her secrets, a good relationship with Virgil. So, after The Square Root of Murder, I'm willing to give Dr. Sophie Knowles a second chance to prove how smart she really is. I'm looking forward to the next puzzle in Sophie's life.

Ada Madison's (Camille Minichino) website is www.minichino.com

The Square Root of Murder by Ada Madison. Berkley Prime Crime. ©2011. ISBN 9780425242193 (paperback), 292p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - The publisher sent me a copy of the book, hoping I would review it.

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

Does anyone read Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology nowadays? It's a haunting story of the citizens of a town, told through the free verse epitaphs on the tombstones. Over two hundred citizens of the fictional town of Spoon River, Illinois told the truth about their lives.  Nothing reminds me of that book as much as Alice Hoffman's latest novel, The Red Garden.

Blackwell, Massachusetts was founded in 1750 when Hallie Brady, her husband, and three other families settled the Berkshire Mountain community. They wouldn't have survived that first winter if Hallie hadn't been strong enough to fish for eels with her bare hands, kill rabbits, and find milk from a bear. Hallie was considered the founder of the town, and following the shooting of a bear, no one was ever allowed to shoot bears again.  The story of Hallie Brady was just one of the stories that grew over the years. John Chapman, later known as Johnny Appleseed, traveled through, planting the tree known in town as the Tree of Life. A young girl drowned in the river, and her ghost was seen, then later commemorated in a pageant in which she was known as the Apparition.  In a book of entwined stories, Hoffman tells the stories that grew over two centuries in Blackwell, stories of the original settlers, and then their descendants.

Hoffman's latest book isn't a happy one, but two centuries of any town's history will have its share of tragedies. But, she picks the romances, even the tragic ones, the stories of longing, to frame Blackwell's story.  In fact, when she says, "A burying ground was the true mark of the established town," she told the story of the entire community, from the love of a bear, and its death and burial, to the final burial of a dog.  There are stories of many strong women who saved themselves. Over time, the women became legends, although they were whispered about in their time. Yes, there's some of Hoffman's magic realism, as shown in Hallie's first relationship with the bear, and the story of the eel woman.  The Red Garden is a melancholy story, a story of love, lost more than found.  Spoon River, Illinois and Blackwell, Massachusetts are two imaginary towns, with fictional people. But, in the subject matter of people's lives, the tragedies, losses, and quiet triumphs, Masters' Spoon River and Hoffman's Blackwell are linked to every community.

Alice Hoffman's website is www.AliceHoffman.com

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman.  Crown, ©2011. ISBN 9780307393876 (hardcover), 270p.

*****
FTC Full Disclosure - Library book

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane

Twelve years ago, Angela Gennaro walked out on her partner, Patrick Kenzie when he turned four-year-old Amanda McCready over to her mother in Gone, Baby, Gone.  There was one more book in the series, then Dennis Lehane moved on to standalone novels, leaving Kenzie/Gennaro fans begging for more.  We've waited eleven years for Moonlight Mile, but we finally have the novel that concludes the series in a way we can live with.

Twelve years after the events of Gone, Baby, Gone, Patrick Kenzie is still a private investigator.  He's also a desperate man, "Sucking it up doing jobs I don't like for a company I'm not terribly in love with so that eventually I can get hired permanent and we can get insurance and benefits and a paid vacation."  He and Angie are married.  She's close to getting her doctorate, and they have a four-year-old daughter.  But, they're hurting in a bad economy just as everyone else is.  He lost his free office as a consequence of the church reforms in Boston following their failure to deal with bad priests.  Patrick is feeling the same desperation as so many people in the bad economy, worrying about money and mortgage payments.

And, Amanda McCready has disappeared again.  Her aunt never forgave Patrick for giving Amanda back to her lousy mother.  Since Bea blames Patrick for the past, she wants him to find the sixteen-year-old. But, now, she's a sixteen-year-old on the run from her crazy mother and gun-toting husband, with just a few members of the Russian mob after her.  So why wouldn't Patrick look for Amanda when, "A girl disappears again twelve years after her first disappearance brought down a gang of cops and cost the city a few mil during a bad budget year?"  Of course, he'll take the case that drove a wedge between him and Angie twelve years earlier. 

Dennis Lehane has brought us full circle with Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Kenzie.  And, he is still the master at telling the story of the couple and their community.  They're brought up-to-date in a city suffering from a bad economy; empty houses, unfinished developments, and people desperate to survive.  It's a story of consequences, consequences as a result of events twelve years earlier, and consequences of events the characters have no control over, the economy.   Moonlight Mile allows Patrick and Angie to team up for one more case, while Angie reminds him "Why we got out of the rough stuff business.  It wasn't just because you got shot.  It was because we were junkies to it.  We loved it.  We still love it."  

And, we still love Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro.  So, thank you, Dennis Lehane, for Moonlight Mile.  Here's a fan who accepts Moonlight Mile as a satisfying conclusion to a beloved series.

Dennis Lehane's website is http://www.dennislehanebooks.com/

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane.  HarperCollins, ©2010. ISBN 9780061836923 (hardcover), 336p.


*****
FTC Full Disclosure - I requested a copy of Moonlight Mile from the publisher, so I could read and review it.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Lisa Genova's Still Alice is a novel you'll read with your heart.   And, it will break your heart, but Alice Howland's story is so tragic, and so realistic, that it needs to be read.   I'll thank the friend that recommended it to me.  And, you won't regret picking it up on my recommendation.  I promise.

As a speaker, Dr. Alice Howland was introduced as "The eminent William James Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.  Over the last twenty-five years, her distinguished career has produced many of the flagship touchstones in psycholinguistics."  However, Alice Howland, at only fifty, lost a word in that speech she presented.  She lost other things, but chalked it up to getting old and menopause.  But, her youngest daughter, Lydia, noticed she repeated questions.   Alice didn't panic though, until she couldn't find her way home from Harvard Square one day.  Alice's husband, John, a scientist himself, didn't notice Alice's problems.  But, Alice did, and she pushed her way into doctor appointments until she was diagnosed.  Alice had early-onset Alzheimer's. 

Lisa Genova's story of a woman with Alzheimer's is unusual because it tells the story from Alice's viewpoint.  So many Alzheimer's stories deal with the elderly.  Instead, we see a brilliant young woman, at the top of her profession, with three grown children and a successful husband, realize that someday she was going to lose her sense of Alice.  And, in Alice's two-year journey, we watch her husband's denial, the uncertainty as to how to handle it, and the eventual loss of the Alice she thought she was.  "Who was she if she wasn't a Harvard psychology professor?"  Genova shows us a woman who knows what she's losing, and she recognizes it before her family does.

Lisa Genova holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University, and she combines her scientific background with an insight into the heart and mind of a woman who suffers from Alzheimer's.  It's important to know that the National Alzheimer's Association endorsed the book.

I can't praise this novel highly enough, and I won't give more details.  You should read this book to see Alzheimer's from the victim's point of view.  Still Alice is unique because Genova shows that Alice, as she becomes, still embodies someone beautiful.  She no longer knows her family, but she recognizes love.  And, she herself embodies the comment her mother once made about butterflies.  "Just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic." 

Lisa Genova's website is http://www.lisagenova.com/

Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  Simon & Schuster, Pub. Date, 2009.  ISBN 9781439102817 (paperback), 320p.