A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck
104 pgs

Soren Johansson, a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dies at a relatively young age from cancer. Upon dying, he's sent to hell, but not the hell he learned about in church, or from reading the bible, or even the Book of Mormon. Instead, he's sent to a seemingly infinite library with the promise that if he can find the book that contains the story of his life, he will be free to leave.

Peck uses this simple idea to craft a disturbing story, a story which, at the very least, will leave you unsettled about the concept of hell and an infinite afterlife.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Saints: No Unhallowed Hand

675 pgs

The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1846 - 1893.

Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak
534 pgs

In Bridge of Clay, Markus Zusak tells the story of the Dunbar family. Penelope, the mother, who died of cancer three years before the book begins; Michael, the father, who abandoned their five sons shortly afterwards, and the five brothers, left to fend for themselves.

The oldest son, Matthew, narrates the story and begins it on the day their father -- whom they refer to as the murderer -- returns to ask whether any of the boys would be willing to help him build a bridge. Four of his sons don't want anything to do with him, but Clay, the second to youngest, decides to drop out of high school to help his father.

From there the story jumps back and forth in time, going back to tell the story of Penelope, who grew up in the Eastern Bloc of Europe when it was controlled by the Soviet Union, and who became an accomplished pianist under the tutelage of her stern father. She met Michael when the piano she bought was incorrectly delivered to his house further down her street. They fell in love, were married, and had five sons.

The story is nowhere near as simplistic as it sounds, which has its pros and cons. On the positive side, the story is packed full of symbolism and emotion. Zusak does a great job of telling the story of a family torn apart by death and grief, and the emotions and raw nerves they leave behind are on full display. But I think Zusak got in his own way too often in trying to tell the story the way he did. Part of my issues with the book may have been a result of me listening to the book, instead of reading it.The story jumps back and forth in time abruptly and I found it difficult to follow the shifts while listening. I'm assuming it was clearer on the written page. My other complaint was that I think Zusak tried to cram an 800-page story into a 500-page book. It would have been better had it gone through another round or two of editing.

One last thought on the book is this: in the United States, it was marketed as a young adult book. It's not, nor was it marketed as one in any other country.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson
317 pgs  (Longmire series #12)

Chief William Nutter is the police chief of Hulett, Wyoming, a small town with about 400 residents that once a year is overrun by 50,000 bikers, who come to town for a motorcycle rally. hen alt Longmire arrives in town to support his friend Henry Standing Bear, who has come to try to win a race he won several years ago, Nutter immediately calls on him to help with an investigation.

Bodaway Torres, a young member of a biker gang, lies in critical condition in the hospital, and it appears as though someone ran him off the road. His mother, Lola Wojciechowski, is an old "biker chick," who has a history with Henry. In fact, she's the woman he named his car after. Both men are reluctant to get involved, until Lola hints at the possibility that Bodaway could be Henry's son.

Walt's investigation leads him to Bob Nance, a wealthy businessman in town, whose daughter has both romantic and criminal ties to Bodaway, and to Brady Post, an undercover ATF agent currently riding with the motorcycle club. Things quickly escalate into chaos, but fortunately, for both Walt and the reader, Walt's undersheriff Victoria Moretti arrives in town to further agitate the situation.

An Obvious Fact is another solid book in Craig Johnson's increasingly entertaining mystery series. I don't know of another author who is as consistent in the quality of the books he puts out, especially not at the frequency he does. I'm often asked for reading recommendations by people who know how much I enjoy reading, and I've recommended Johnson's Longmire books numerous times. Of those who have taken my advice and tried one, I have yet to hear back that they were disappointed. Something I can't say about my other recommendations.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Institute

by Stephen King
557 pgs

Luke Ellis is an extremely gifted 12-year-old, who lives in Minneapolis with his parents. Luke plans to attend MIT soon, but that will never happen. Because Luke also happens to possess minor telekinetic abilities. Abilities which have placed him on the radar of a secret organization, an organization that is monitoring kids like Luke all over the world.

One night, Luke's parents are killed in their sleep and Luke is taken to The Institute, a non-descript campus somewhere in the woods of Maine. Very few people know that The Institute exists, and none, except for the children who have been taken there and the small group of men and women who work there, know what has been going on there for decades.

At The Institute, Luke and the other children are given injections and subjected to extreme conditions, which all have the affect of heightening and enhancing their telekinetic or telepathic abilities. And once they've reached a certain level, the children are exploited, drained, and discarded.

The Institute is classic Stephen King. It bears similarities with some of his earlier works, like Firestarter and It, with children having to face extraordinary circumstances, but does so in a wholly original way. And the fear and horror King taps into is the very real fear and horror that can take place when otherwise normal adults do horrible things because they believe what they're doing is ultimately for the best.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Snowman

by Jo Nesbø
384 pgs  (Harry Hole series #7)

Several years ago, I saw a copy of Jo Nesbø's The Snowman at the bookstore and picked it up. I had never heard of Nesbø before, but after reading the summary of the book on the flap, I was interested and bought it. But I didn't read it. I'm the type that only reads a series from the beginning, and I typically buy the books I read, so I started collecting the previous six books and had to read those first. It's a little sad how long it took me to work my way to finally reading this one, but it didn't disappoint.

The book begins with the first snowfall in Oslo in 1980. A married woman is having an affair with a man and gets startled by what she believes is someone watching them through the window. It turns out to be merely a snowman outside. Twenty-four years later, a young boy wakes up in the night to discover his mother has gone missing. The only clue the police have to go on is the pink scarf the boy gave his mother for Christmas, which is now wrapped around the neck of a snowman, which inexplicably appeared in front of the house earlier that day.

During his investigation, Harry Hole discovers the links between the current missing-woman case and eleven previous cases, all of women who went missing in Norway over the span of several years, and all on the first snow of the season.

The Snowman is the best book in the series so far. I'm a fan of other mystery writers, who rely more on surprise twists and the use of red herrings to misdirect their readers away from the clues they place in the story. But Nesbø doesn't do that. Instead, he methodically and subtly presents the clues for Hole to discover, leading up to a very satisfying reveal by the end. And as good as his mysteries are, Nesbø's characters are always equally fantastic, Hole being primary among them. I'm looking forward to many more stories featuring the character.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Never Game

by Jeffery Deaver
399 pgs  (Colter Shaw series #1)

The Never Game kicks off a new series for Jeffery Deaver, one without any connection to his Lincoln Rhyme series. Colter Shaw is a "reward seeker," someone who investigates missing-persons cases whenever a reward is offered. He's a brilliant man, who really doesn't even need the reward money to survive, and he uses his keen intellect and deductive skills to search for the missing child or person. More often than not he's successful and able to rescue the missing person before law enforcement is able to locate the person themselves.

When a $10,000 reward is offered by the father of a college student named Sophie Mulliner, who goes missing in Silicon Valley, Colter travels there to see if he's able to find her. He's quickly able to locate and save Sophie, but soon two other people go missing as well, and Colter discovers that all three kidnappings are tied to a video game called The Whispering Man, in which players find themselves dumped in inhospitable settings with five random objects they must use to try to survive and escape. Colter recognizes the fact that the three kidnappings resemble the first three levels of the game, and using the next levels as clues, tries to get ahead of the kidnapper and catch him before someone else disappears

Deaver has created a great new character to base this new series on. With his genius-level intelligence and his unique upbringing by a survivalist father, Colter Shaw is a character I'm looking forward to learning more about, and finding out what Deaver has planned for him next.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆