HALF BROKE HORSES by Jeannette Walls (2009)

Because I was enthralled with Walls' memoir THE GLASS CASTLE, I couldn't wait to read this "true novel" about her grandmother Lily Casey. Although the cover has one of Dorothea Lange's famous Depression-era photos taken for the Farm Security Administration setting the tone, the inside sections have actual photos of Lily and her relatives including her hardworking husband Jim, her Hollywood-dreamer sister Helen and her daughter Rosemary (Walls' mother who so memorably opens her memoir rummaging through a NYC dumpster).

Lily is certainly a character worthy of the tale that her granddaughter pens for her. This bildungsroman stretches from Lily's Texan upbringing on a ranch where she learned to break the horses of the title to the two-bit towns she served in as a schoolteacher (including a remote settlement where when she educated the Mormon girls in her care about the wider world she was run out of town by the patriarch), to the dizzying excitement of being a flapper in Chicago, to the massive ranch where she and her husband raised their two children and she takes flying lessons with the hope of becoming a bush pilot to bring a much-needed income to support her family through more tough times.

In the Epilogue the story loops around to focus on Rosemary and Rex and their loose ideas about raising their own children and the certain difficult times ahead for them all. Lily's voice is resolute, however: "No way in hell were Rex and Rosemary cutting me out of the action when it came to my own grandchildren. I had a few things to teach those kids, and there wasn't a soul alive who could stop me."

THREE DAY ROAD by Joseph Boyden

I've read several wonderful novels set on the front during WWI including Pat Barker's REGENERATION trilogy and Timothy Findley's THE WARS, but none of them matches the exquisite detail and narrative triumph of THREE DAY ROAD.

With the convincing authentic voices of Xavier Bird (a Native sniper in the Canadian division on the front at Vimy and Ypres and Passchendaele) and his last remaining relative Niska threading together in the cyclical tradition of Native storytelling, Joseph Boyden weaves together stories that hurt, resonate and matter.

Using the legend of the windigo as a through line, THREE DAY ROAD will open your eyes once again to the human capacity to endure man's inhumanity to man and our desire for healing through the balm of storytelling.

BEIJING CONFIDENTIAL by Jan Wong

If you've read her column, you know that Jan Wong is no shrinking violet when it comes to asking tough questions. But, did you know that Wong was the first Canadian to be permitted to study at Beijing University after the Cultural Revolution, or that she was a dewy-eyed Maoist who laboured idealistically at Number One Machine Tool Factory in the 70s, or that she convinced the Beijing police to return her stolen car that they'd equipped with a red siren to her during her stint as the Globe and Mail's correspondent decades later?

BEIJING CONFIDENTIAL is Wong's journey back to Beijing with her husband "Fat Paycheck" and two teenaged sons in tow in the summer of 2006 with the single purpose of trying to find a woman she'd betrayed to the authorities in the 70s, a woman whose life she had most certainly ruined.

Wong reported on the Tian An Men Square massacre in 1989, has spoken openly about the "tank man" and has long been a voice against human rights violations, a national shame. However, her personal shame forces her to make this very personal journey to try to reconcile with a woman named Yin, if she can find her. Beijing is a modern city now. Few of its million cellphone users are listed in its phonebooks and a geography that was once familiar is perplexing as the government gears up to save face and welcome the world at the 2008 Summer Olympics

THREE DAY ROAD by Joseph Boyden (2005)

I've read several wonderful novels set on the front during WWI including Pat Barker's REGENERATION trilogy and Timothy Findley's THE WARS, but none of them matches the exquisite detail and narrative triumph of THREE DAY ROAD.

With the convincing authentic voices of Xavier Bird (a Native sniper in the Canadian division on the front at Vimy and Ypres and Passchendaele) and his last remaining relative Niska threading together in the cyclical tradition of Native storytelling, Joseph Boyden weaves together stories that hurt, resonate and matter.

Using the legend of the windigo as a through line, THREE DAY ROAD will open your eyes once again to the human capacity to endure man's inhumanity to man and our desire for healing through the balm of storytelling.

DEAD CONNECTION by Alafair Burke (2007)

When I started this book after a dinner party last night, I didn't expect to have it inform my dreamscape, but it did, and I woke up, heart racing, worried that my identity had been stolen.

NYPD Rookie detective Ellie Hatcher goes undercover on the Internet dating scene when it seems the murders of two young women exactly a year apart could be related to First Date, a NYC site for singles looking to hook up. Handpicked by maverick detective Flann McIlroy, Ellie finds herself navigating the high tech world of identity theft and discovering that the sociopathic behaviour of the suspect is all too familiar.

Being the reading geek that I am I especially enjoyed the moment where Ellie contacts a New Iberian detective Dave Robi.... to follow a lead about the past of one of the victims. What fun for Burke to have her father's most famous detective Dave Robichaux implied in the background investigation!

DEAD CONNECTION is a first-rate thriller that will have you cheering for Ellie Hatcher as she navigates her way through the mess and heartbreak to expose the greed and horror at the core.

CLOSE CASE by Alafair Burke (2005)

This is the second Samantha Kincaid novel I've read and it's cemented my urge to read every novel by Alafair Burke, herself a former deputy district attorney in Portland. There is a credibility to her storytelling that convinces me that everything is plausible.

In the opening pages, star investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw is bludgeoned to death in the carport of his tony neighborhood where his Mercedes with its vanity plate "Snoop" fits right in. Everyone says what a good guy Percy was and how generous he was to the extended community, especially to those who were so frequently marginalized by poverty.

Two young men seem easy suspects, especially when one of them confesses as much, only later to recant citing coercive police tactics. Complicating the tension is the fact that Kincaid's live-in beau, Chuck Forbes, is one of the detectives involved in the investigation. He is torn, of course, between protecting his love and supporting his partner Mike, who has a questionable past of his own.

Faced with a bull-terrier defense counsel and new evidence that brings her case under question, Kincaid finds herself wondering who she can trust, including herself. With the help of a fledgling reporter determined to interpret Crenshaw's notes, Kincaid follows the path of clues that leads her to the truth, but not before other innocent victims are slain in its wake.

RAIN GODS by James Lee Burke (2009)

Although I am a committed reader of Burke's Dave Robichaux novels, RAIN GODS is the first that features sheriff Hackberry Holland (a war vet with horrors of his own to exorcise) and his deputy Pam Tibbs (who has more than a little crush on her boss). Set in a tiny Texas town near the Mexican border, the novel offers a lens on the lives of the lost, the vulnerable, the wounded and the corrupt who people this desperate place in desperate times.

Holland's discovery of the shallow graves of nine illegal aliens leads him to the heart of organized crime and face to face with memorable villains like Hugo Cistranos, Nick Dolan and Bible-thumping sociopath "Preacher" Jack Collins all of whom want to kill a young damaged Iraq War vet Pete Flores, who with his girlfriend Vikki Gaddis, hopes beyond hope for a fresh start.

With betrayal at breakneck speed and Burke's capacity to show humans at their best and their worst, RAIN GODS will keep you reading through the night.

JOIN THE REVOLUTION, COMRADE by Charles Foran

I read this collection of essays and reminiscences and book reviews because Charles Foran is going to be speaking at an event I've curated called Focus on China here in Toronto on February 2nd. The essays include the titular one that explores relationships with native Chinese friends during the time Foran spent teaching in Beijing that happened to place him in the eye of the student protests that culminated in the Tian An Men Square Massacre at the beginning of June 1989. The writing moves to Bali and to Vietnam and to Dublin where he was a student of Irish literature and working on his first novel manuscript.

I especially enjoyed the pieces about language and listening to the music and rhythm of accents as well as the more provocative pieces chronicling his time in south east Asia, an area for which he clearly has a passion.

Charles Foran is the authorized biographer of Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler and that book MORDECAI RICHLER: A LIFE will be published later in 2010 by Knopf.

Visit his website: www.charlesforan.com to learn more about his other books.

ANGEL'S TIP by Alafair Burke (2008)

In ANGEL'S TIP, three female Midwest college students decide to spend Spring Break in NYC where, on their final night on the town, they use their fake I.D. to get into a trendy nightspot in the meat-packing district. When it's time to head back to the hotel to snatch a few hours' sleep before flying back to Indiana, Chelsea Hart decides to stay on in the VIP room of the elite club, flirting with handsome strangers while her friends Stefanie and Jordan call it a night.

Cue NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher, a looker herself, who is on her morning run with her brother Jess who is flopping at her apartment while he's trying to make it as a musician. Ellie comes upon the mauled corpse of what turns out to be Chelsea Hart, her legs splayed, lingerie on display, and stabbed several times, including on her face.

In this mystery, you'll be carried along from clue to clue in step with Ellie and her partner J.J. Rogan and your heart will thump just a little quicker as you begin to unravel the knot of deception that leads to the truth about who killed Chelsea Hart and why. You'll be white-knuckling it all the way through to the satisfying end.

I especially enjoyed the pop-cultural references to books and tv shows of my early adolescence including Judy Blume's BLUBBER and then-scandalous WIFEY and the misheard lyrics to the theme songs for ALL IN THE FAMILY and THE JEFFERSONS.

Alafair Burke knows her genre and is already writing at the top of her game.

FIREWALL by Henning Mankell (2002)

Two apparently unconnected cases disarm Inspector Kurt Wallander. In one, the corpse of computer consultant Tynnes Falk is found near the ATM closest to his apartment where it seems that he has died of an unexpected heart attack. In the other, two teenaged girls, Sonja Hokberg and Eva Persson have been arrested for the brutal murder of a cab driver, a crime to which they both confess without any remorse.

As Wallander peels away layers of both cases, he realizes that the implications extend far beyond the borders of Sweden. With compounding personal troubles at work, Wallander thinks he knows who to trust, but he's not sure. It is this doubt that allows him to save his own life and the life of another teenager who has been also caught up in this web of intrigue that reaches as far as the heart of darkest Angola and the World Bank.

STILL ALICE by Lisa Genova (2007)

Written by a woman who has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, STILL ALICE is not your typical novel. Because of the medical details, it reads more like a case study at times. However, as the protagonist, a 50-year-old cognitive psychology prof, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the narrative draws you in and Genova creates a character who is entirely credible.

For anyone with a family member who is suffering the ravages of this debilitating disease, STILL ALICE is a must read.

THE TELLING OF LIES by Timothy Findley (1989)

In this mystery, everyone seems to be a liar, including Vanessa Van Horne, our narrator and sleuth. Vanessa is holidaying for the last summer at the Aurora Sands Hotel (it is closing) on the eastern seaboard when Calder Maddox, an elderly and excessively wealthy businessman expires in his beach chair in broad daylight on the day that an iceberg has floated into view.

There is a flurry of activity as Maddox's wife is brought to the hotel and his longtime mistress is conveniently disappeared. What perplexes Vanessa and her MD cousin Lawrence is the discovery that Maddox's corpse is being kept on ice as important government agents descend on this sleepy retreat.

Not one to abandon her curious ways even when threatened, Vanessa, with the help of her friend Mercedes, uncovers ugly truths that lead her to solve the mystery.

This is not Findley's best novel (for me that would be either FAMOUS LAST WORDS or NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE), though it was given the 1989 Edgar Award for the best mystery book in Canada. He does know how to tell a story, and Vanessa albeit irksome is memorable.

MISSING JUSTICE by Alafair Burke (2004)

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid has been recently promoted and her first assignment back after having been attacked in her own home is one about a judge who has gone missing.

Clarissa Easterbrook's Cole Haan loafer has been found in the muck at a new building project on the outskirts of Portland and her lab Griffie picked up by neighbors wandering the streets with his leash still attached. From the outset it seems that Judge Easterbrook has been abducted and that is upsetting enough to her husband, the CEO of the local hospital. When the police find her corpse, her husband becomes almost catatonic.

It's too easy to apprehend a suspect who had been sending Clarissa threatening letters and Kincaid wisely doubts the decision to prosecute him without crossing all of her Ts and dotting her Is. Adding insult to injury it's Kincaid's suave and noxious ex-husband who turns up as opposing counsel.

There are many red herrings along the way, but they didn't deter me from happily flipping the pages through to its satisfying end where even Kincaid's father's mysterious professional past is delectably resolved.

This is the first Samantha Kincaid novel I've read, but it certainly won't be the last.

THE HUMBLING by Philip Roth (2009)

I'll read anything by Roth, but this most recent novella had me a little disappointed in the predictability of the three act outcome.

Roth continues to be preoccupied with sex and aging and here his protagonist, a formerly famous actor who recently admitted himself to a psychiatric hospital, finds himself smitten with a lesbian 25 years his junior whom he first met in utero when he played against her mother in Synge's Playboy of the Western World 40 years ago.

Pegeen Mike lands on Simon's doorstep and offers him sexual salvation and companionship, but of course that can't last what with her parents and her scorned lesbian lover interfering.

Yet, I can't help but admire the directness and honesty and the believability of the words that Roth puts in the dirty mouths of his characters.

THE BRUTAL TELLING by Louise Penny (2009)

It's the end of summer in Three Pines and good things are happening for some of the locals: Ruth has adopted a duck named Rosa who follows her around like a lost lamb; the Bistro is brimming with business over the Labour Day weekend as visitors stretch out the last long weekend; and Clara Morrow has an upcoming show of her paintings at the Fortin Gallery in Montreal, a vernissage that promises to provide connections to some of the most influential people in the art world including a curator from the MoMA in NYC.

Even though the old Hadley House has been sold and gutted to become a posh inn and spa, it has been tainted again, by the corpse of a stranger and by the living breathing presence of a man who is a stranger to his son, but a "saint" to the wider world.

When "the Hermit's" bludgeoned body shows up on the floor of Olivier's Bistro, Inspector Gamache and his crew from the Surete are called in from Montreal to reveal not only the killer but also some ugly truths about greed.

In addition to purposeful plot twists and being welcomed into the homes and hearts of Three Pines locals like the Morrows, Myrna, Ruth, Olivier and Gabri, the inclusion of a subplot involving a first edition of Jane Eyre, the china of Catherine the Great and the work of Emily Carr kept me flipping pages through the night so I gulped the book in one sitting from start to finish.

The Brutal Telling is Globe and Mail crime fiction editor Margaret Canon's favorite pick for 2009 and I can see why. Pass the word about Louise Penny. She deserves to be read widely and with enthusiasm.

THE BOY IN THE MOON by Ian Brown (2009)

I probably read close to 100 books/year, many memoirs, mysteries and novels and no book has moved me more than this one this past year. I put Ian Brown's memoir on my Grade 11 English reading list because of the connection to L'Arche ( a community established by Jean Vanier for adults with intellectual disabilities) where all of my students are spending an evening volunteering throughout this school year.

What is astonishing about this book is the honesty, directness, compassion and love that infuses it. Brown does not set himself up for a pity party as a parent of a profoundly disabled son. Instead, he has the humility and grace to write truthfully about the exhausting and infuriating challenges of raising a child who not only rages and self-abuses but also has the capacity for joy.

Your attitudes will be altered by The Boy in the Moon and your heart might just be opened to a radical way of thinking about disability.

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein

This is a book I wish I'd written. I'm always a sucker for a story that's told by a dog (shouts out to Virginia Woolf, David Wrobelewski and Erika Ritter for particularly memorable canine tales) and in this case, Enzo is especially engaging.

On the last day of his life Enzo recalls the recent upset and troubles that have befallen his alpha male Denny, a young widower who has had to fight for custody of his only daughter because his rich in-laws refuse to accept that he could ever provide for Zoe in a sufficiently materialistic way.

Enzo and Denny are as close as man and man's best friend can be. They bond over Zoe, Eve and car racing. Yes, car racing-the art of the racing in the rain that is the title.

From the outset you know that Eve is going to die and it can't possibly be a surprise when it happens, but Enzo's description from his canine perspective underscores how transformative death can be.

Treat yourself and read this book that you will wish could just possibly be true.

HELLO GOODBYE: A NOVEL by Emily Chenoweth (2009)

This novel about a brain cancer patient's final summer is deft and not self-pitying. It's written from a third person perspective, so you have a little emotional distance from the three main characters, a self-absorbed university-aged daughter (Abby) and her parents (Elliott and Helen).

Clearly Chenoweth has walked this grief walk in her own life, because many of the details smack of a reality that is not contrived and essentially believable.

Sparing the reader the final goodbye, Chenoweth wisely closes the book with Helen (in the final stages of her inoperable brain cancer--a fate her healthy lifestyle couldn't spare her) looking over her shoulder as her husband and daughter jog up the path to meet her.

SPADEWORK by Timothy Findley (2001)

Although a novel, this could easily have been a morality play. You find infidelity, murder, betrayal and lust on the side streets of sleepy Stratford, the provincial Ontario town that discovered its raison d'etre when Tyrone Guthrie launched the theatre festival in the 1950s. And, in the tradition of 16th century morality plays, no one remains unpunished: avarice and lust eventually take a backseat to more pressing situations that involve real grief.

If you're lured by peering into the private lives of theatre folk, this is the book for you. Findley weaves a tapestry of small town preoccupations and peoples the warp with characters those familiar to his other work will identify: the lonely, the dispossessed, the sexually confused.

The tale unfolds and all of the digging begins after an accidental spade severs the line of communication into the home of the festival's nascent and dishy actor Griffin Kincaid.

9 DRAGONS by Michael Connelly (2009)

I picked up Connelly's most recent novel at IFOA where I heard him read on a night that Ian Rankin hosted. Both are masters of the crime fiction genre.

In 9 DRAGONS, Detective Harry Bosch is sent to investigate a homicide at Fortune Liquors, a small shop in a seedy section of south L.A. There he discovers John Li has been shot to death at close range, three times in the chest. Having met Li several years before, Bosch feels a connection and vows to his family that he will find his killer.

As he closes in on a suspect, a triad gang member who had been collecting protection payments from Li, Bosch receives an upsetting text video from his daughter's phone. Madeleine lives in Hong Kong with her mother and it appears that she has been abducted and Harry is being threatened from afar to drop his case in L.A.

Over the next 72 hours, Harry is on the chase of his life to find his daughter before she is trafficked out of Hong Kong and her organs are sold on the black market. Before they are reunited, Harry and his ex-wife's new love (and former triad member) Sun Yee find themselves in the seediest districts in Kowloon where there is real danger at every turn. There are 9 corpses that accumulate--the 9 dragons of the title.

Fans of Connelly will be amused by the appearance of Mickey Haller as Bosch's defense attorney when the Hong Kong police follow Bosch back to L.A. and try to pin the slaughter on him.

9 DRAGONS zooms along at a breakneck pace. I read its 374 pages in one gulp.