The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

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What fascinated me about this from the start - well, it's a killer concept. One of those I-wish-I-had-thought-of-it-first ideas that fills a writer with envy - at any rate, it's a sort of brilliant mash-up of two genres: murder mysteries, which I love, and coming of age stories, which I don't, but together there was a sort of amazing synergy...the coming of age parts drawing out the suspense, the mystery keeping me turning pages. It made me wonder if other genre mash-ups might be successful, or if adding a mystery (something to find out) just makes any story better.

About two-thirds through, however, I thought the balance had slipped, and I was starting to thumb through the coming of age stuff, wondering why there wasn't more on the crime. Everyone has their own tolerance level, I suppose, but there was too much sex for me, and it started to feel icky. Voyeuristic. Gratuitous. Ultimately, the "crisis" of the book is sex, not justice, and this felt wrong, at least to me. The criminal is not painstakingly, laboriously hunted down, but quietly shoved off stage, as it were, in the last moment.

What is brilliant about the book is the psychological insight into a wide variety of characters - the innocent and the guilty, female and male, young and old. Sebold's glimpses into the killer's mind and life, the description of the initial, horrible crime, were extraordinarily well done. I found the conclusion less satisfying, in particular the passage about "lovely bones" as a metaphor for the new life and connections built by the survivors which in the end Susie finds beautiful. I understand the impulse to find some good coming out of something dreadful, but I think it is wrong. I thought what Sebold captured so well in the beginning was the horror, the everyday, inelegant horror, and I wished she had stayed there.

The Winter People, Jennifer McMahon

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I thought this was a great read - a suspense/mystery that takes place in 1908 and Present Day. I thought McMahon's style was engaging, the mystery unfolded with unexpected twists, and she drew me with her into deep emotions, like losing a child, that would normally send me running. It's creepy; it's gut-wrenching. I'm looking forward to reading more of this author's books.

Plutocrats, Chrystia Freeland

This was a fascinating read about the history of and contemporary situation of global super-rich. I found Freeland's discussion of the similarities and contrasts with the Gilded Age industrialists, like Andrew Carnegie, illuminating. Freeland was also particularly good, I thought, at describing an "insider" view which is often hard-working and philanthropic, but can be myopic. I am fascinated by the idea of a group of people whose sense of identity is trans-national.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North

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The premise of the book is a man, born on New Year's Day in 1919, who discovers that each time he dies, he starts over again at the same point in time, with all his life to live over again. Some things are the same, but other things change, and the variations are what make the book so fascinating. It is brilliantly, dizzingly told, hopping in and out of lives, and I couldn't put it down. Insightful, sophisticated, reminiscent of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I'm eager to read more by this author.

Killed at the Whim of a Hat, Colin Cotterill

I lost count of the times I rolled over, laughing out loud, reading this book, a murder mystery set in modern day Thailand, and the first of Cotterill's "Jimm Juree" series. There are brilliant secondary characters, like Lieutenant Chompu, but the real star is Jimm as a narrator, who brings wit and irony to her backwater surroundings.

I'm in the middle of reading my way through Cotterill's earlier "Dr. Siri" series, set in the 1970s in Laos. The characters are equally engaging, although the tone is more serious. Cotterill has an appreciation for the unusual, the eccentric, the elderly. the non-conformists, which gives all his books sweetness and depth.