Pace Setter : March 2020

Books to Read After Running

by Mark Mindel and Sally Drake

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When You See Me

(Detective D.D. Warren #11) by Lisa Gardner 

Terrific, edge-of-your-seat thriller set in the wooded hills of rural Georgia. Gardner reunites FBI SA Kimberly Quincy, Boston Detective D.D. Warren, former rape/ kidnap victim Flora Dane (now a victim advocate and D.D.'s informant) and Flora's new 'boyfriend' Keith Edgar, a computer nerd who also is an expert on serial killers, including Flora's kidnapper, Jacob Ness. Quincy puts together an FBI task force which includes her Boston threesome to investigate a Georgia discover of “bones in them there hills” which most attribute to Ness, because Flora remembers being held in a cabin in the woods in Georgia. What they discover is way beyond their original purpose.... multiple grave sites with dozens of bones of young women, from 15 years ago. Flora and Keith find Walt, a recluse who turns out to be Jacob's father and D.D. finds a mute young teenager who has so much to tell. Is it all from Ness, or is there something far more mysterious here? A must read.

The River Murders

(Mitchum #1-3) by James Patterson & James O. Born

Three books in one by the master craftsman and his co-writer Janes O. Born. All feature Mitchum, a “sort of” private eye who left the Navy after he couldn't quite make it as a Seal. He passed all the tests with flying colors, except for swimming. He's home again in Marlboro, NY (just north of Newburgh) and the three stories concentrate on his brother Natty, a drug dealer, and his mom, a nurse. In Book One, "Hidden," Natty and Mitchum's cousin goes missing and in looking for her they discover a prison holding Middle Easterners. The feds come to take the people in charge, but Mitchum gets his cousin back. In "Malicious," Natty is falsely accused of killing a friend and although he was "really close" with the victim's wife, he isn't a murderer. Mitchum gets him off by investigating the Newburgh police department! In "Malevolent," Mitchum finds that the guys he found guarding the “prison” in Book One, have been released by Homeland Security and one of them, Richard Jackson, has tried to kill his mom, his brother Natty, and his girlfriend Alicia in retaliation. Mitchum chases him to Afghanistan for a big confrontation. All's well that ends well? Read it to find out. 

Bloody Genius

(Virgil Flowers #12) by John Sandford

Like a good wine, John Sandford's Virgil Flowers series gets better with age. In his latest appearance, Virgil is called in to solve the murder of a professor at the University of Minnesota. The trail leads us on various sideways trips, but as always, Virgil's humor leads the way. Virgil is like no other (compare him to Justified's Raglan Givens, the Cowboy hat, the long hair, the Cowboy boots) and a great sarcastic personality plus the sharp ability to see things others don't and solve crimes others don't. As we weave our way through various plots and wrong turns, Virgil (who works for the Minnesota Criminal Bureau of Apprehension) and his new partner for the story, Sgt. Margaret Trane of the Minneapolis PD must race against the clock as our killer strikes again, and perhaps again. 

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The Cactus League

by Emily Nemens

A novel about a spring training season in Arizona that is about so much more than baseball. The linked stories featuring memorable, poignant characters tell a story about false hope, American boom and bust in the mid-2000s southwest, the rise and fall of athletes, the fickle, exploitative economy of professional sports, and the painful pursuit of the American dream. Masterfully written at the edge of hope and despair, this novel tells a uniquely American story with grace and power.

Uncanny Valley

by Anna Weiner

This darkly funny memoir about a millennial, liberal arts-educated woman who leaves her publishing job in Brooklyn to work for a Silicon Valley startup exposes the ruthless modern capitalism of the tech economy.  She tells a story of the brilliant and focused but unregulated and unethical pursuits of Silicon Valley and the resulting political, economic and social ramifications we are reckoning with now. Her personal experiences as a bookish, artistic, humanistic person trying to fit in to the analytical, awkward and emotionally disconnected tech personalities also tells an important and infuriating story about the challenges women face in this male-dominated field.

Long Bright River

by Liz Moore

As a beat cop becomes embroiled in the serial murders of female drug users in Philadelphia she is forced to confront her complicated, devastating family history involving a sister with drug addiction, a bizarre and abusive relationship in her past, and scandal in her workplace. A propulsive crime drama, this novel also deals with the devastating toll of the opioid crisis and its unrelenting and terrifying impact on generations within countless families. This is a page-turner with emotional heft.

In the Land of Men

by Adrienne Miller

Adrienne Miller graduated from a Mid-Western University with an English degree in the mid-1990s and improbably began work as a literary editorial assistant at GQ and quickly rose to Literary Editor at Esquire. Her coming of age memoir is about working in the male-dominated literary world as writers like David Foster Wallace were ushering in a new era of fiction writing just as literary sections of periodicals were on the cusp of demise.  As fascinating as that part of the memoir is, I was most moved by her relationship with David Foster Wallace, an erratic, seriously depressed and disturbed man with whom she was involved for several tumultuous years. Loving someone with severe depression is difficult and she writes about it in an honest and illuminative way.  Miller's Insider look into the rarefied and now mostly bygone, for all the right reasons, era of elite book circles in New York City at the turn of the 21st century is entertaining but the deep dive into the complicated relationship is the more impactful part of this memoir.

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