THE COMMUNIST'S DAUGHTER by Dennis Bock (2006)

Bock's hugely anticipated second novel reveals layer by layer the life of Norman Bethune. A life that he guardedly offers up to the infant daughter he has yet to meet. In Spain, Bethune meets Kajsa, a formidable woman who works with an anarchist group to get prostitutes off the streets of Madrid and into respectable work raising orphans of the Spanish Civil war. Although pregnant by him, Kajsa never admits as much and Bethune finds out after the fact that she was allowed to deliver the baby, but then killed because she was suspected of having pro-Fascist connections.

In this series of letters, Bethune confides all to his imagined daughter. He tries to face the truths about himself and his past and tries to communicate to her the necessity of the Chinese struggles against oppression through the leadership of Mao and the communist revolution.

Rife with historical detail and gorgeous descriptive passages, Bock paints a convincing portrait of a flawed man.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER by Michael Connelly (2005)

Defense attorney Mickey Haller has just about had it with his suspect clientele. He has two ex-wives--one on the payroll running his office from her condo; the other raising his only child. To protect himself he curiously runs his business from the backseats of several Lincoln Town Cars that are chauffeured by a former client who is going straight.

Mickey gets picked by a Beverly Hills rich boy realtor to defend him in a case of assault which he claims he didn't commit. The twists and turns of this hyper narrative will keep you second guessing right until the murderer is revealed at the climax.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER will have me reaching for other Connelly books. I will certainly make a point of hearing him read at IFOA in October.

CERTAINTY by Madeleine Thien (2006)

Thien's debut novel tells the story of Gail Lim, a radio documentary producer, who lives in Vancouver with her doctor husband Ansel. She believes in the serendipitous nature of life--that eventually everything will connect in a meaningful way. In her attempt to make a documentary about a man who encoded a journal during WWII, Gail discovers that she must crack the code of her own father's past in war-torn Asia.

Thien's understanding of grief is accurate and her evocation of it eloquent.

This is a stunning novel in which the characters are fully formed. Thien is the bright new voice in Canadian fiction. You will be able to hear her read from CERTAINTY at this year's IFOA at Harbourfront in Toronto this October.

THE GRAVE TATOO by Val McDermid (2005)

Atypical torrential rain drenches the Lake District and exposes a bog body that has been wildly tatooed. Local lore suggests it could be the corpse of the legendary sailor Fletcher Christian who led the mutiny on the Bounty against Captain Bligh. For four centuries people in the district have gossiped that Christian returned home to England after staging a massacre on the island of Pitcairn in the South Pacific. He told his story in confidence to the most famous man of the district, William Wordsworth, a school chum and longtime family friend. Wordsworth, at the height of his poetic power, may have turned the sailor's tale into a long narrative poem that he never published.

Enter Jane Gresham, a Lake District girl who has become a Wordsworth scholar. Jane discovers fresh correspondence between Wordsworth's widow and their son John that intimates the existence of such a poem. As she tries to follow the genealogical labyrinth to the possible whereabouts of this precious manuscript in the present, there are a series of troubling murders.

I couldn't put this book down because of its galloping pace and interweaving subplots. No stone is left unturned by McDermid in her research. I stayed up reading into the early hours even knowing I had to haul myself out of bed at 5 a.m. to row this morning.

TURNING ANGEL by Greg Iles (2005)

Following the current run of mysteries I seem to be devouring, I've added an author who is new to me: Greg Iles. Set in the American South and rife with the racial strife that continues to stain that area, TURNING ANGEL, follows Penn Cage (a prosecutor-turned-novelist) whose best friend Drew Elliott is desperate for his legal counsel once the body of a high school senior has been found near the Mississippi River. Penn plans to do all he can to help Drew (a respected town doctor who had been sexually involved with the murdered Kate Townsend) who saved his life when they were boys; however, Penn suspects Drew is hiding the truth.

The story is utterly consuming.

DEAD SOULS by Ian Rankin (1999)

Inspector Rebus stumbles upon a freed paedophile at the Edinburgh Zoo while he is stalking someone who has been poisoning the animals. By outing Darren Rough, Rebus has roused the local vigilantes from the housing project where Rough has been located since completing his sentence.

In addition to his troubles with the former paedophile who has been out for a year and not re-offended, Rebus has to deal with the apparent suicide of his colleague Jim Margolies who has hurled himself from Arthur's Seat on a dark and stormy night. And, if that isn't enough, a convicted murdered who has served his time in US jails, is looking to play games with Rebus as his pawn.

This is crime writing of the highest order.

Read Ian Rankin.

THE HANGING GARDEN by Ian Rankin (1998)

O.K.

Any book that begins by quoting both T.S. Eliot and the Lerner and Loewe musical BRIGADOON is a must read as far as I'm concerned. That it happens to be a rapid fire murder mystery makes it all the more charming.

In THE HANGING GARDEN Rebus is trailing a WWII war criminal when their paths cross with a Chechen gangster who is running prostitutes out of eastern Europe. It becomes very personal when Rebus's only daughter Samantha is the victim of a hit and run. Rankin makes you hypothesize how the rules of the game change when family is threatened.

LET IT BLEED by Ian Rankin (1995)

I'm beginning the back-to-school Rankin-reading blitz. I just can't get enough of his fast-paced literary thrillers featuring Detective John Rebus, who speaks his mind often to his own detriment. But, his Edinburgh bravado has its winning ways.

Rebus is, as usual, in the wrong place at the right time. Three storylines interweave: the Lord Provost's daughter seems to have been kidnapped; a city counsellor is caught shredding documents; Rebus finds himself on the invitation list to a private shooting party hosted by the Scottish Office's Permanent Secretary. It can only me corruption at the heart of modern Scotland.

THE LAST HEATHEN by Charles Montgomery (2004)

Shortlisted for the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction, this memoir is subtitled "Encounters with Ghosts and Ancestors in Melanesia." Montgomery's great grandfather was the Bishop of Tasmania at the end of the 19th century. At that time, the volcanic islands that make up Melanesia were a hotbed of cannibalism and witchcraft. Travelling in his relative's footsteps, Montgomery explores the effects of colonialism and marvels at cultural anthropology and myth making.

A compelling read.

A WAY OF LIFE, LIKE ANY OTHER by D'Arcy O'Brien (1977)

Set in Hollywood in the 1950s this is about a former cowboy movie star, his leading lady wife and their son. Their heyday far behind them, the husband and wife split and she spends the rest of her life searching for the perfect man through her alcoholic stupor. She thinks she's found him in a short, stocky sculptor.

The best part about this book was the epigraph attributed to Benedict Kiely: "There's what I want on my tombstone: Growth, Self-Deception, and Loss."

Don't bother reading it. That's 3 hours of my life wasted.

THE NAVIGATOR OF NEW YORK by Wayne Johnston

The narrator, Devlin Stead, was born in St. John's Newfoundland in the late nineteenth century. Through this bildungsroman we witness Devlin's early years when his doctor father abandons his wife and son to explore the Polar seas in the company of Lt. Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook. Devlin's mother dies when he's only six and he's raised by his aunt and uncle until he decides to pursue a dream in New York under the tutelage of Dr. Cook from whom he has been receiving letters for many years.

Devlin learns truth after truth about his past and comes to find himself secure in love at last.

MONSTER by John Gregory Dunne

Screenwriter and novelist John Gregory Dunne chronicles the years it takes to pitch, draft and re-draft a story for the big screen. He and his wife Joan Didion collaborated on the script for UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, a movie finally made once Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer attached their names to the project--8 years later.

Ten years ago the best "script doctors" in the business (Dunne cites Carrie Fisher a.k.a. Princess Leia for one) got paid upt to 200k for one week's work.

There's a gig worth getting.

EVERYMAN by Philip Roth (2006)

Roth's 5th novel of the 21st century takes its title from the allegorical early English play about the summoning of the living to death. In it his everyman is a retired advertising executive who lives alone outside of NYC along the Jersey Shore and paints watercolours, an avocation of which he has dreamed. He has three failed marriages behind him, a doting daughter, an iconic older brother and two sons who have alienated him most of their adult lives.

Every word in this 182-page novel counts. Roth manages to get the reader on side from the opening sober scene at the graveyard where the cast gathers to contemplate this life.

"The terrain of this powerful novel is the human body. Its subject is the common experience that terrifies us all."

MORTAL SINS by Anna Porter (1987)

Journalist Judith Hayes gets an exclusive interview with secretive businessman Paul Zimmerman thanks to her friend Marsha Hillier. For some reason Zimmerman is ready to spill the beans about his private life. Hayes is invited to a special dinner party chez Zimmerman and there, in the company of strangers, bears witness to his unexpected death at the table. What follows is a journey into Zimmerman's obscure past in Hungary.

NIGHT GAME: A KATE HENRY MYSTERY by Alison Gordon (1992)

Kate is in Florida covering the "Grapefruit League" pre-season training for the Toronto Titans, when their pre-season rituals take a sinister turn. A rookie from the Dominican Republic is arrested for the murder of a blonde bombshell reporter, and Kate sets out to clear his name.

You get an inside peek at the complicated relationships between players and their wives and families during life on the road. Many of the adults follow Oscar Wilde's advice that the only way to deal with temptation is to yield to it.

SAFE AT HOME: A KATE HENRY MYSTERY by Alison Gordon (1990)

Ace reporter, Kate Henry, is about to break a story featuring a gay baseball player on Toronto's major league team. The news is sure to throw the sports world a curve ball. At the same time, Kate's lover, Detective Andy Munro, is trying to find the person responsible for the murders of two young boys. When their paths cross, Kate and Andy find that it's just not safe at home.

This novel clips along right to its satisfying end.

Perfect summer reading.

MOUTHING THE WORDS by Camilla Gibb (1999)

This is Gibb's debut novel. In it she writes convincingly from the perspective of Thelma, a young girl who has moved from England to Toronto and tries to make sense of her new world. Themes of incest and self-discovery make this book uncomfortable, but important reading.

ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith (2005)

England's wunderkind novelist who broke on the scene with the satiric WHITE TEETH, has established herself with this third novel about a blended family living in small town New England. Dad is a progressive professor who made the predictable middle-aged man's mistake and had an affair with a colleague. Mom is a luscious African American whose kindness keeps her weary family together. The three siblings position themselves for approval from a variety of sources. What Smith does most convincingly is write dialogue. Zora and Levi and Kiki leap off the page.

ON BEAUTY won the Orange Prize for fiction. The title is stolen from a poem by Smith's equally ambitious literary spouse, Nick Laird.

THREE WISHES by Deborah Ellis (2005)

Banned by the Toronto Board of Education, this collection of personal essays from the point of view of both Israeli and Palestinian children and teens tries to account for the prejudice into which they are born. In their own words, these vignettes are equally despairing and hopeful about the burden of growing up in the Middle East today.

THE MASTER (2005) by Colm Toibin

Toibin inhabits the psyche of American man of letters Henry James in this triumph of imagination and style that takes place over the course of five years in James's life in England, when he found himself writing for the stage at the same time as the celebrated and immensely popular Oscar Wilde.

THE MASTER recently won the 2006 Dublin IMPAC Literary Award, the richest prize for English language fiction.