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"Twenty-five years ago, Dave Boyle got into a car. When he came back four days later, he was different in a way that destroyed his friendship with Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus. Now Sean's a cop, Jimmy's a store owner with a prison record and mob connections, and Dave's trying hard to keep his demons safely submerged. When Jimmy's daughter Katie is found murdered, each of the men must confront a past that none is eager to acknowledge. Lehane tugs delicately on the strands that weave this neighborhood together, testing for their strengths and weaknesses; this novel seems as much anthropological case study as thriller.
By turns violent and pensive, Mystic River is vintage Lehane. How good is it? You may go in missing Angie and Patrick, but after a few pages you won't even realize they're gone. Lehane's noir is still black magic."
She's also a fan of Richard Russo and brought along a copy of Empire Falls, also one of Amazon's Best of 2001: From Publishers Weekly:
"In his biggest, boldest novel yet, the much-acclaimed author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man: A Novel subjects a full cross-section of a crumbling Maine mill town to piercing, compassionate scrutiny, capturing misfits, malefactors and misguided honest citizens alike in the steady beam of his prose....Even the minor members of Russo's large cast are fully fleshed, and forays into the past lend the narrative an extra depth and resonance. When it comes to evoking the cherished hopes and dreams of ordinary people, Russo is unsurpassed."
Mary also has a taste for political books and offered the latest work by John W. Dean, Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches. For any youngsters or oldsters with failing memories, Dean was the Nixon White Counsel who gave Tricky Dick the bad news that Watergate was a cancer growing on his presidency (see The Watergate Decade and The Watergate Story (washingtonpost.com). Nixon repaid the favor by trying to make the fall guy and Dean turned state's evidence. Dean has made a second career of ringing the warning bell about the excesses of the right wing and the disastrous Bush administration in particular.
Last Mary suggested one of my favorite biographies, Theodore Rex (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Edmund Morris. TR was an amazing character and Morris makes him spring to life. Dee-lightful!
"From Publishers Weekly. The second entry in Morris's projected three-volume life of Theodore Roosevelt focuses on the presidential years 1901 through early 1909. Impeccably researched and beautifully composed, Morris's book provides what is arguably the best consideration of Roosevelt's presidency ever penned." See also NPR - Morning Edition - Edmund Morris: Theodore Rex.
Morris also wrote the story of Roosevelt's early years The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Modern Library Paperbacks), which may be even better than Theodore Rex. Morris was supposed to write a final third volume, but hasn't yet. He did write a poorly received book about Ronald Reagan into which 'history' he inserted a fictional character!
Roosevelt's personal life was rich in tragedy and it just about destroyed him when his son died in World War One. However, his daughter Alice became one of the benefits of his rather dysfunctional for the rest of us. She went from the Princess in the White House to the doyen of Washington society. She had a famous pillow that read "If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me." I recently picked up the new and highly regarded biography, Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery.
BTW, I happen to know that not all of Mary's literary tastes are quite so, well, literary. She's been seen with T is for Trespass (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) by Sue Grafton. Hmm, that actually likes an interesting read, too...
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