Finished: Child 44 (Smith) A true page-turner I couldn't put down about a serial killer of children in Russia during the Stalin era...an era when it was illegal to openly recognize that there was such a thing as murder in Russia. Leo Demidov is an MGB (precursor to the KGB) officer who totally believes in the Russian propaganda and has persecuted people who have been arrested before, even if he suspected they were innocent. Once arrested by the State, people were automatically considered guilty and it was just a matter of torturing a confession from them. The people lived in fear of the officers of the State...but the officers of the State also lived in constant fear of failing at their jobs and therefore being demoted and punished themselves. They ALL lived in fear of evidence being manufactured against them, accusing them of being enemies of the State. When the son of an MGB officer beneath Leo is murdered and left by the railroad tracks, Leo's superiors mark it as an accident, saying the boy was fully clothed and sadly killed by the train, playing too close to the tracks. However, the woman that finds his body tells his family that he was naked, with his stomach horrifically cut open, dirt stuffed in his mouth and a string tied around his ankle. The boy's father wants Leo to investigate, and assumes he will as a professional courtesy. However, Leo has to go to the family and show them the report that says the body was found fully clothed and without the other markings. The family is furious, but understands when Leo practically has to bully them into agreeing that it was just a terrible accident. Both Leo and the boy's father know that the entire family themselves can be prosecuted for claiming murder. That doesn't keep the boy's father from terribly resenting Leo, though. Throw in an ambitious, ruthless officer one step beneath Leo, Vasili, who is aching for Leo's job, status and the respect given him by the rest of the MGB force. Vasili sets Leo's wife, Raisa, up to look as if she's a spy! When Leo is asked to investigate his own wife, he actually does it because he's so by the book. However, when his superiors expect him to turn on Raisa and denounce her as a spy, he refuses to do it...knowing that if he does not, that not just Raisa, but he himself and his parents will be persecuted and mostly likely sent to the gulags. It was a huge test by Vasili to see what Leo would do...but he knew what Leo would do all along because Leo was honorable. Leo is kicked out of the MGB and Leo and Raisa aren't sent to the gulags, but sent to a small, cold Russian town where Leo is made to start at the lowest level as a member of the local militia. It's a fate of humiliation and one that Vasili views as being worse than the gulags. Anyway, once in this town, Leo meets his superior at the militia, General Nesterov. Together, they discover that two children have been murdered recently in their area...murdered, stripped, had their mouths stuffed with soil (which really turns out to be tree bark), and had strings tied around their ankles. Leo realizes with huge regret that this must mean his colleague's son back in Moscow truly was murdered like he insisted. They've got a serial killer on their hands! However, since there is no such thing as a good Russian citizen being a murderer, the murders are pinned on a mentally impaired teenager, who just happened to find one of the bodies and cut off a piece of the girl's hair because he liked the color yellow, and a local homosexual who commits suicide when his "abnormal, depraved desires and activities" are outed. Of course, neither one is guilty...but neither one is considered a true, good Russian citizen, so it's OK that they're murderers. Leo and Nesterov quietly travel the countryside bragging about how they caught their amoral killers in hopes that other militia leaders will brag and they'll start to see if there's a pattern of more killings. Pretty smart actually! So...when they get back to their own town they realize that there have been 43 children murdered up and down various towns near the railroad! Leo then points at the map and puts a pushpin in Moscow and says "44...my friend's son was also murdered". From here, the story moves very fast as Vasili realizes what they are up to and is constantly on Leo's tail to arrest him. Meanwhile, Leo and Raisa flee and count on the kindness of Russian town folks, scared for their own children, to hide them while they figure out who the killer is. The killer and how he's related to Leo, of all people, is quite a shocker...but in the end, Leo finds him and kills him....but not before Vasili finds them all! As Vasili makes Leo and Raisa kneel on the floor to be executed, Vasili is killed by the killer who actually saves Leo's life! Leo and Raisa then take Vasili's gun, and at the killer's urging, shoot him dead just as Vasili's officers bound downstairs. Leo is then declared a hero for actually killing the murderer who killed an MGB officer! The MGB write the killer off as someone who had been captured by the Germans during the war and released back into Russia with the "mission" to come and kill little Russian children, thus preventing them from becoming productive Russia citizens, i.e., they still won't admit that a plain old Russian citizen could have become a serial killer. At the end of the book, even though Leo is offered an even higher position in the MGB, he asks instead to head up a new murder investigation task force in case any more people are sent into Russia to cause havoc. Of course, he knows that he'll really be hunting for murderers who are just Russian citizens. During the course of the book, we find out a couple of things about Leo's childhood that are shocking and tie together some of the main characters of the book. The entire thing, despite the horrific luring and killing of the children, was quite fascinating and a fast, good read. :-) I might just have to read the next two books in the trilogy!

Finished: Everything I Never Told You (Ng) Well, that was a depressing book about the death of a teenage girl whose parents pressured her so much, her mother to become a doctor and her father to fit in and have friends, that you think all throughout the book she's killed herself. Of course, she does have those feelings of despair at times, but that's not what she has resolved to do when we finally learn the real truth of her death at the end. Lydia is the nearly 16 year old daughter of a Chinese father, James, and a Caucasian mother, Marilyn, who fall in love and get married in the 60's. Marilyn's mother disapproves and never speaks to her again. Marilyn is determined NOT to be the stay-at-home, baking, homemaker that her own mother was, out to only find a good man for a husband. Marilyn wants to be a doctor and is smart enough to do it. When she falls in love with James, though, she puts those dreams on hold when her first two children, Nath and Lydia are born. When the kids are 7 and 5, Lydia can't stand being "just a mom and wife" for one more second, so she leaves her young family without so much as a word or a note, finds an apartment near a college in another town and begins her studies again. It's devastating for James and the children who have no idea what happened. Not until three months later when Marilyn faints and realizes she is pregnant with her third child, does she go home resigned to never fulfilling her dreams. The children have been painfully traumatized and all little Lydia can think is that she'll do whatever she has to to make sure her mother never leaves again. She will say yes to anything her mother suggests. Of course, Marilyn comes home and gets the bright idea that if she can't live out her dreams, then Lydia shall! She begins coaching and drilling Lydia at the age of five in Science and Math. Instead of regular birthday gifts, Lydia always gets Biology or Anatomy books. On the flip side, as Lydia gets older, her father tries to keep both her and Nath from being the shy unpopular, unaccepted Asian kid that he was. He constantly talks about how having friends, being accepted, being social, going to school dances is the most important thing. Poor Lydia is doomed from both sides! She and Nath are the only two Asian kids in the high school by the time they get there and neither has any friends. Lydia pretends though...so as not to cause anything in the family that might make her mom leave...Lydia sits on the phone chatting into the dial tone for hours to the friends she doesn't have. I probably don't have to even mention the fact that the third child born, Hannah, was basically ignored by her mother and her father. Lydia was their light! Nath discovers space and the moon and an interest in being an astronaut at a young age (while his mother is gone), and his father is so disappointed that he's not good at sports and that he's more introverted, that he snaps at him to be quiet about that space stuff. Poor Nate. He watches all his life as his parents dote on his younger sister. And, he knows it's tough on Lydia as well...that she can't stand it. Even when Nath gets into Harvard to study aerospace engineering it takes second place to the fact that Lydia has a D in physics. Anyway...the morning that Lydia is discovered missing, and then later dead in the lake, neither of her parents can figure out who in their town would hurt such a gifted, smart, popular girl. The story quickly becomes about how the rest of the family fails to cope, falling apart at the seams, as it pieces together what really happened to Lydia...which is really just a tragic accident. I came away from this story with such a bad taste in my mouth for both of these parents who were each so caught up in their own unrealized dreams that they couldn't see their children just longing for their love right before their eyes! Just a terrible, terrible set of parents. Maybe I shouldn't say that because I know bad things can happen to the best of us, and none of us are perfect parents, but sheesh...they were pretty bad! I picked this book from one of those lists that said," Ten Books to Read if You Liked Gone Girl", lol. I'm just glad to be finally done with it. I can cleanse my pallet and move on!

Finished: The Buried Giant (Ishiguro) The "buried giant" being long put away vengeance and discord, this book grabbed me and moved me, but in a subtle, "aha" way. The story of Beatrice and Axl, an elderly "Briton" couple just a few decades removed from King Arthur's reign, takes us on their journey to leave their home and visit their son in a distant village. What we find is that neither can seem to remember much about their lives together....as if a mist hangs in the air and takes away their memories. They don't really remember the good times or the bad times, just that they exist day to day. They don't even really have a clear memory of their son. What's more, this mist seems to affect all the people around them. As Beatrice and Axl make their journey, it's clear they have been married a long, long time and are devoted to one another. They come across a Saxon warrior on their way, Wistan, who has been sent by his king to slay the she-dragon, Querig. Wistan has taken Edwin under his wing, an orphan boy of twelve who had been kidnapped by ogres and bitten before he was rescued by Wistan. The superstitious town he lived in wanted to kill him, because they believed him being bitten by the ogres would turn him into one. Wistan fights the town down and rescues the boy, teaching him along the way his warrior ways. Edwin had been bitten though, but not by an ogre...by a baby dragon! Wistan recognizes the mark and one of his motivations for taking Edwin under his wing is that he knows that once bitten by a dragon, Edwin will feel the pull of the dragon and lead him right to her. Even though on opposite sides of the horrible wars from King Arthur's days, Axl, a Briton, and Wistan, a Saxon, develop a mutual respect. With the aid of an old monk, they realize that the dragon is responsible for the mist of the memory forgetting. Beatrice and Axl would like for Wistan to slay the dragon so they can get all their memories back, good and bad. Meanwhile, Beatrice is not in good health and it becomes clear that her journey may be towards death and the great beyond more so than towards her son. As they meet a boatman who takes people one at a time over to an island where you can "live out the rest of your days", they also meet some very upset widows who have been promised by the "deceitful" boatman that they would be ferried over right after their spouses, but have spent years waiting. Beatrice and Axl are told by the boatman that most people who make it over to the island wander the rest of their time alone, not knowing the other souls who are there with them...but that on rare occasion, if a couple is truly devoted to one another and loves each other no matter what, that the couple can spend the time together, not alone. This makes it more imperative to them that they recover all their memories so they can answer all the boatman's questions honestly when they come back. Meanwhile, as they travel on, they come across Sir Gawain, an old, old knight and nephew of King Arthur. He was charged years ago by Arthur with slaying Querig, but has been unsuccessful. He has traversed the forests and mountains for years in his quest. Gawain immediately recognizes Axl as another of King Arthur's knights....one who brokered a huge peace treaty between the Britons and the Saxons during the war...but Axl has no memory of the war, only a faint tugging at his memory. When Saxon women and children had been slaughtered during the war, breaking King Arthur's promise to not kill innocents, Axl had apparently berated Arthur and quit the knighthood. So...as the unlikely quintet of Axl, Beatrice, Wistan, Edwin and Sir Gawain continue on, sometimes running into each other on the same path, and sometimes splitting off...it becomes clear that they are all headed to the same place....Querig's lair. Sir Gawain is insulted and can't believe that Wistan wants to slay the dragon rather than let him do it. Axl and Beatrice side with Wistan, though, and Gawain finally, reluctantly gives in. It suddenly dawns on Axl that Gawain has actually been Querig's protector all these years and not his persecutor. He admits that truth and explains why. Right after King Arthur's Britons defeated the Saxons, Arthur had Merlin put a spell on the dragon which would remain in place as long as the dragon was alive. The spell caused the dragon's breath to create the memory loss mist that enveloped the land. Arthur never again wanted the people to remember why there had been a war, or to live with vengeance in their hearts, and wanted the Britons and Saxons to live together as friends and neighbors. For some reason, Wistan was impervious to the mist and this is why he was chosen by his Saxon king to slay Querig...not to kill a monster...but to break the spell. The Saxon king WANTED his people to remember the slaughter and devastation instead of living in the hazy peace. The Saxon king was going to start a new war and ravage the Britons as soon as people began to get their memories back. Wistan somewhat wistfully shares his beliefs, though he hates the thought of people being thrown back into the chaos of vengeance and the perpetuated duty to hate one another. However, Wistan does his duty and slays the dragon. He must first go through Sir Gawain, though, who has protected the dragon, and thus the peace, all these years. It's a very respectful fight, but the younger, stronger Wistan does win out and kills Gawain. After the dragon is slain, Axl and Beatrice begin to make their way on towards their son and they both remember that while Axl was away at war, Beatrice had been briefly unfaithful to him, and their teenage son had been privy to their fight when Axl returned. Angered at both his parents, he had left home vowing never to return, only to be killed by the plague that ravaged the town he moved to. Remembering this together, Axl and Beatrice don't hold any animosities towards one another, but both share the blame and their love holds strong. They realize, as Beatrice gets weaker, that their son in on the island that the boatman will cross them to. At the end, they meet a very compassionate boatman who realizes instantly that they'll be a couple who stays together on the island. However, he insists to Axl that he must take Beatrice first and come back for him next. Beatrice convinces Axl that she trusts the boatman, and that is how we are left...with the very weak Beatrice crossing over and Axl still back on the other shore. :-( A very nicely written book. It's hard to explain how it sucks you in and makes you think and care. I've read Ishiguro's great book Never Let Me Go...and now I think I might go back and read his Remains of the Day!

Finished: The Stranger (Coben) Hmm, well I normally love my Harlan Coben books, and this one was another page-turner, but I wasn't pleased with the ending! Anyway, I'm sure I'll continue to read every Harlan Coben book that comes out. This one was about a married couple,  Adam and Corrinne Price, living the "American Dream" in a small New York town with their two teenage boys. One day a stranger approaches Adam and tells him that his wife faked her third pregnancy and miscarriage two years before and there is proof on a website of her purchase of fake pregnancy stomachs, ultrasound, pregnancy test, etc. When Adam confronts his wife, she panics and disappears asking for some time before she explains. In the meantime, the stranger approaches other people...a mom whose college daughter is prostituting herself for tuition...a father whose football star son has begun taking steroids right before recruitment, etc. Adam and the boys get increasingly worried about Corrinne. With the help of a police chief friend of the now murdered mother of the college prostitute, Adam uncovers the blackmailing group that the stranger belongs to...and it turns out....they have no idea where Corrinne is. Instead, Corrinne has been set up by a family friend and co-lacrosse board member, Tripp Evans. It turns out that Tripp is in dire straights for money and he sets it up to look like Corrinne embezzled money from the lacrosse organization. He even hired the stranger's company to find out something about Corrinne's past to blackmail her with. In the end, it ends up that Tripp has, in fact, killed Corrinne and buried her in the woods. It's so sad. :-( Usually the protagonist ends up saving the day in the Harlan Coben books, but this one left a husband in shock and two teenage boys who adored their mom motherless. Oh, and there was the weak explanation that Corrinne faked that pregnancy two years before because she felt her marriage was slipping away, when it reality it was not! Sigh, just a bit disappointed. I always look forward to the HC books coming out!