book reviews

Ian Rankin, Black and White. I first heard of Rankin, and his detective, John Rebus, when I saw the BBC version starring John Hannah. The show was interesting, so I picked up a Rankin book next time I saw one. On the opening page, Rankin quoted James Ellroy, so I figured we were in like Flynn. But as I got into the book, I found it overall disappointing. It wasn't a waste of time to read - the dialogue was witty, the glimpses of Scottish life interesting - but it just didn't grab me. Let's face it - alcoholic detectives living on the very edge of respectability are a penny a pound. At the end of the day, Rankin's wasn't much different from the next guy. At least, not enough so to make me curious about what happens next. I believe this will be the end of my literary relationship with DI Rebus.

C.R. Athearn, Boston in Seven Days. This was a Christmas gift from my brother-in-law, and I thought it was an interesting idea - reading what's essentially a guidebook from 1920s Boston. It's an account of a man guiding a young couple through town, a different part of the Boston area each day for a week. Unfortunately, it didn't really live up to my hopes. A bit too wordy, a bit too preachy, too much exposition and not enough description. The end chapter was on Plymouth, and I found it so short and meatless I was bitterly disappointed. A nice idea, but not so exciting in the follow-through.

Sy Montgomery, The Good, Good Pig. This tale of life raising a pig from runthood to his eventualy death at age 14 was reasonably interesting. (It was a book club selection, one of the more enjoyable ones.) The narration was a bit all over the place - stories stuck in randomly here and there, characters introduced and written out in a matter of pages without any sense of how they continued to fit into the life of the pig and his owners, lots of jumping around in time with supporting characters while attempting to give a fairly linear account of the pig's life. A good tightening could have done wonders. In the long run, an enjoyable book, but not really a keeper.

Charles B. Haydon (Stephen W. Sears, ed.), For Country, Cause & Leader. Now, I've read a fair number of Civil War journals. But this one, for breadth and depth, thoughtfulness and narrative, is head and shoulders over all of them. (Including Robert Hale Strong's A Yankee Private's Civil War, the book that really launched my interest in the era.) Haydon was a thoughtful and articulate young man who had put his entire heart and soul into the cause of soldiering on until the war was over. His descriptions of camp life, discussions of the lower echelon of rank's view of the big picture, view of the machinations involved in what to do with various regiments and their officers, and commentary on other soldiers' actions was some of the most interesting Civil War-related reading I've ever done. Which is saying something. Definitely a keeper, and I suspect one I'll be referring back to over and over.