After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

I originally picked up the audio After Visiting Friends because although it was in the biography section, the blurb on the cover almost made it sound like a mystery. And it was, but also so much more.

Michael Hainey, an editor for GQ, lost his father, a Chicago newspaperman, when he was just 6 years old. At the time, he remembers being told his father died "after visiting friends" and was found by police in the street in an area that he really had no reason to be. Somehow, even as a child, this did not seem right.

It is not until he is an adult that he decides he must find out what really happened on the night his father died.

At this point, the story really becomes more of  a history lesson on what the newspaper industry in Chicago was like in the 1960s. And how these men took care of their own, no matter what. Michael Hainey discovers a lot more more about his father than he could have ever hoped for, as well as things he may have wished he had been kept in the dark about.

This is a fascinating story! If you do end up listening to it, be sure and pick up the actual book so you can take a look at the pictures.

Karen

Missing You by Harlan Coben

If you are looking to read something that is not only suspenseful but very, very complicated, then Harlan Coben's newest, Missing You, fits the request perfectly.

NYPD Detective Kat Donovan's life is not perfect, but she gets by. She has a job she loves, and a few good friends that she can spend time with on the few days she actually takes off. Although still haunted by the murder of her father and the sudden departure of her fiance years ago, she is doing OK. But when a friend gives her a membership to an online dating site, things very rapidly start to change. And when a young boy comes to her because his mother has gone missing, Kat is really in trouble.

How does this all tie together?

Well, read carefully and pay attention. It will all be worth it in the end.

Karen

Readalike author: Linwood Barclay

Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky

Old secrets do not die as long as there exist those who know them. Long-hidden under layers of painful memories of the Holocaust and loss, V.I.’s friend, Lotty Herschel, asks for her help.Tied together by their shared Kindertransport experience, Lotty and Kitty have a long, strained relationship. Kitty’s mother, Martina, was a brilliant physicist at a time when women were grudgingly, if at all, allowed to work in the field. But the Nazi’s were trying to split the atom and initially accepted any workers, even a Jewish woman. Martina was last known to be transferred to a concentration camp. Kitty’s grandson, who apparently inherited his great-grandmother’s genius, had been reading her notes and has disappeared from the energy technology firm where he works. His mother, hopelessly addicted to drugs, has also gone missing after escaping a meth house where her boyfriend is found murdered.

The story moves through time and location – Europe in the 30’s and 40’s; Chicago in the present, but manages to move fairly smoothly through its transitions. Critical Mass is a thriller and commentary on society all wrapped in fascinating historical detail. I loved it.  

CAS

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes

Music fans usually associate specific music scenes with a particular sound and a particular place. Two scenes that come to mind are the sixties British invasion and the grunge music that came out of the Seattle area in the early nineties.  Both of these scenes had bands that sounded the same or at least similar. In Will Hermes’ Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever the focus is much more on the location than a particular sound. Hermes covers disco, salsa, punk rock, free jazz, modern music, and plenty more genres and subgenres.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire covers the music scene in the New York City area from 1973-1977. Hermes chronicles each year, focusing on dates when major musical events, or sometimes events that seemed not so major, took place. For instance, he describes the Talking Heads first show in 1975 and then backtracks to cover how the original three members met. Later on Hermes recounts the addition of fourth member Jerry Harrison and the release of Talking Heads: 77, their debut album.

The book’s constant jumping about from date to date, artist to artist, and genre to genre takes a little getting used to, but I found it gave a fresh perspective to a period in music that often gets boiled down to Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Read Love Goes to Buildings on Fire to find out about some of your favorite artists and you’re likely to discover some new favorites as well.

John