Mystery | Book Chatter

The Abominable
By Dan Simmons
(Little, Brown and Company, Hardcover, 9780316198837, October 2013, 672pp.)

The Short of It:

Armchair travelers, rejoice. The Abominable has it all, adventure, mayhem and a little bit of mystery.

The Rest of It:

A group of mountain climbers, hired by Lady Bromley head to Mount Everest in 1925 to find her son who never made it back from his trip to the summit the year before. Jean-Claude, Jake and Richard are hand chosen for their skills but when Regina “Reggie” Bromley-Montfort is foisted upon them as part of the expedition, the men aren’t sure what to think. The summit is not place for a woman and Richard makes his feelings known, but the funding for the trip is dependent upon her inclusion so the men adjust accordingly.

Turns out, Reggie is quite skilled, as is her escort Dr. Pasang. Not to mention her dealings with the Tibetan government which enable them to make the climb in the first place. Grudgingly, the other men accept her, but what they don’t realize is that there is a reason why Lord Percival went missing and when they find out, they are at the top of the summit and it’s too late to turn back.

If you’ve never read Simmons before, you really must. His knack for research and his ability to fictionalize just about anything is what makes me eager to pick-up his books as soon as they come out. He’s an AMAZING storyteller and with this one, I really felt as if I was up there on the summit, using my ice axe and tying off ropes with the best of them. The story is epic and a chunkster at that. At over 650 pages, you are asked to suspend your disbelief for quite a long time, and I did so willingly until the very last pages.

I won’t lie, the title, the blurb and the marketing of the book in general lead the reader to believe that it’s about one thing, but hundreds of pages in you realize that it’s not what you think. After reading another book by him, The Terror, I believed I knew the path this story was taking, but I was way off. At first, this angered the heck out of me. But after finishing the book, I do believe that the path the story took was even more horrifying than what I first expected.

In the end, I ended up liking the book quite a bit. It plucked me right out of reality (what I so badly needed at the time) and took me on an adventure like no other. There is a lot of technical jargon relating to climbing, but having no experience in climbing myself, I had no trouble picking up the terminology.

If you read to escape and like to travel from your armchair every now and then, you’ll appreciate this one. Grab a blanket though because this one left me literally freezing with its sub-zero temps and unpredictable weather. It’s THAT realistic.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Shining Girls
By Lauren Beukes
(Mulholland Books, Hardcover, 9780316216852, June 2013, 384pp.)

The Short of It:

A time-traveling serial killer is not someone you want to mess with.

The Rest of It:

It’s 1974 and Kirby is outside playing with a bumblebee. A stranger with a limp approaches her and after tearing the wings off the bee with his bare hands, gives her a toy to remember him by. The toy, a small plastic horse, is something that the girl instantly takes a liking to, but this isn’t a toy she can find just anywhere because it’s from the future. Harper Curtis, time traveler, serial killer and all around creep, finds girls that “shine” and then murders them in cold blood.

The catch? He doesn’t do it when they are young, no…he comes back for them later, when they are old enough to feel the life pouring out of them. His attacks are gruesome and involve dismemberment and evisceration. Kirby is a lucky girl because she survives his first attack, but now grown-up and working as a journalist, her mission is to find the killer. Little does she know how difficult it will be to track a killer through time.

My feelings are all over the place with this one!

I’ve read books where Jack the Ripper goes back and forth through time and this book was sort of like those but without the period setting. This was more of a contemporary take and it had some high points but it had many low points as well.

I liked Kirby. She was spunky without being annoying. Her inquisitive nature and her interactions with her colleague, Dan…were often endearing and sweet. I felt that the author could have gone a little deeper with her character but overall, she was pretty well-written.

On the other hand, Harper was a bit of a disappointment. Here you have this serial killer who has the potential to be a real bad-ass but instead, he’s this wimpy, gimpy guy zipping back and forth through time. He’s not particularly interesting and his killing isn’t all that creative. I mean, if I am going to read about a serial killer I want there to be a little variety. His attacks are gory and bloody but I never really felt his “need”. He talks of the shine, that he needs it to live, but it didn’t come across as being all-consuming, you know? And the shine and what it is, isn’t fully explained. Did these girls have riveting personalities? Did they exude too much confidence? Was there something about their aura that literally made them shine in Harper’s eyes? Not sure.

Overall, I wasn’t all that impressed with the book. I think it could have been a lot stronger had there been a little bit more about Harper. More back story, less gore. Psychologically, it was lacking.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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