March's Best Reads

Spring training brought some baseball-themed reads. None of them disappointed. The non-baseball-related book kicked ass, too.

Nasty Cutter, Tim O’Mara. Raymond Donne is back in school for the fourth book in the series. He’s the kind of teacher I like to think I would have been had I stuck with it: no-nonsense but with a soft interior. Having taught in a city school myself, I know O’Mara has the feel and atmosphere just right. He also handles the “amateur sleuth” problem as well as anyone currently writing them. Donne has the background to come by the skills he shows honestly and the position to have opportunities thrust upon him. The supporting cast provides both input and resources without reaching for anything. This is a well-written solid series that deserves a lot more attention than it gets.

The Kid From Tomkinsville, John R. Tunis. I first read Tunis’s Brooklyn Dodgers books when I was a kid. Now I fully appreciate them. Young adult sports fiction in the 1940s was typically Frank Merriwell stuff. Tunis was the first to put an edge to them. Yes, Roy Tucker comes out on top in the end, but not before a freak injury endangers his career, the team’s manager dies in a car wreck, and the star pitcher gets his drunk on and almost throws Roy out a window. Much darker stuff than was typical of the time, and now I’m old enough to appreciate the writing as well.

Tomato Red, Daniel Woodrell. Starts out more like a Charles Portis novel than Winter’s Bone, which is fine. I love Charles Portis. Then an unexpected but not unreasonable plot twist comes out of left field and everything changes. Woodrell has a gift for creating less than sympathetic characters and still elicit the reader’s empathy. Maybe it’s his ability to show they’re not bad people, but they can’t catch a break and have a tendency to act out at inopportune times to become their own worst enemies. Whatever it is, he lays it out in beautiful prose that never draws attention to itself and places you in the Ozarks and the story. A wonderful writer.

Moneyball, Michael Lewis. I assumed he had a gift for explaining unnecessarily arcane subjects like Wall Street from The Big Short and Flash Boys, though I could only guess at how well I understood because I knew so little about the topics going in. Baseball is something I know quite a bit about, and he crushed this one, too. Lewis knows exactly how much context to supply and where to put it, and a writing style that is conversational but never sloppy. People who know me well will wonder how it took so long to get to Moneyball. It’s because I do know some baseball and Lewis had to convince me he wasn’t just some dilettante slumming in the sports world. I’m well and truly hooked now. There are lessons well beyond baseball here.  

Best Reads, August and September

September hit the ground running with some personal business that could not wait, so here are my best reads for both August and September. (Because I know, deep down, you were disappointed when I skipped the August recounting.)

Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell. As good as I’d hoped. Woodrell has the gift of underplaying everything in such a manner it increases the effect. His writing has a backwoods poetry that distills the personalities of the characters and defines the good and bad of the clannishness found in this part of the Ozarks. (“working in the hot fields from can to can’t;” “nobody thought he’d live to see noon until he did.” Both of those are on the same page.) Writes female characters as well or better than any male writer I’ve read, and better than a lot of women. The ending is perfect, and leaves an opening for what could be a wonderful sequel, should Woodrell feel so inclined. The kind of book I wished was longer. Not because it seemed to be in any way incomplete, but because I didn’t want to stop reading.

Difficult Men, Brett Martin. This one got its own review several weeks ago. It’s worth a second mention.

The Way of the Warrior 1, Bernard Schaffer. A brief, quasi-memoir from a retired Philadelphia area cop that is not what one might expect. Schaffer is not an advocate of the increasing police “us versus them” mindset, and makes some compelling arguments for how policing and community relations can be improved. A quick and worthy read.

The Right Madness, James Crumley. I almost took this off the list because I read it a month ago and didn’t remember the story. I read a review and remembered what it was that moved me to put it on the list in the first place. Crumley’s books aren’t really about the plot, as he tends to get carried away and lets things circle back onto each other until the reader is left scratching his head. Doesn’t matter. Crumley’s plots are primarily scaffolds on which to hang the characters, dialog, and writing, all three of which are in fine fettle here.

Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler. Chandler’s masterpiece, at least until I re-read The Big Sleep or The Long Goodbye. My favorite of the three is almost always the one freshest in my mind.

Crime Always Pays, Declan Burke. A more detailed review is coming. For now, imagine Elmore Leonard telling a story devised by Donald Westlake, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of how much fun this is. Burke has as much or more range as anyone currently writing in the genre.