Last Known Port: A Southern Mystery

Last Known Port: A Southern Mystery by Sue Anger 276 pages

 

It’s May 1923. Jake Parson and his Labrador retriever, Pilot, have pulled into the port of Beaufort, North Carolina. He is only a week late, and he is eager to see his brother, Wade, who is waiting for him. Upon his arrival, he learns that Wade left a week ago aboard his boat, but never made it to his next port. There are no signs of him in Beaufort except that his dog, Yawg, is there. Jake knows something is wrong; Wade would never leave Yawg behind. Jake begins to do some investigating around town, talking to anyone who knew him.

 

Beneath the surface of Beaufort, things are not what they seem. The idyllic coastal town harbors some big secrets. Jake, a World War I veteran suffering from shellshock, discovers rum-running and smuggling are the biggest trades in the area.

 

As he meets the town’s inhabitants, Jake is drawn to jazz musician Nell Guthrie. Unfortunately, Nell is already engaged, but the two do become good friends. Bottom line is that Jake learns that “local rum runners are piloting small boats in the open ocean to collect illegal booze from ships traveling the “Whiskey Road,” that stretches from Nassau to New York City’s Rum Row.”

 

This novel was more about the booze than it was about finding Wade. He was a secondary plot point. Last Known Port: A Southern Mystery gets 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

 

 

Before she disappeared

 Before she disappeared by Lisa Gardner  383 pgs

Summary from Goodreads:Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will--searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.

A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own--and she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her. 

And here's what I thought: I really liked this story and found the characters believable and easy to envision. Frankie isn't a perfect person, and that's actually the point --- she's not necessarily special or gifted, but she is stubborn and has found her purpose in life. I appreciated that this wasn't a police procedural to find a missing person, but instead a regular person who is just determined and who will try her best to work with the police (or not, actually).  The gritty setting is as much a part of the story as anything else, which I also liked.

Post from April: We are all the same in the dark

We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin   352 pages  (e-galley)

Trumanell may have disappeared a decade ago, but her brother Wyatt still hears her voice.  People in their small town are still looking for her, and suspect Wyatt knows where she is. When Wyatt finds a young girl abandoned in a field, he thinks it's a sign from Trumanell. However, Odette Tucker, the town's youngest cop, thinks this girl is bad news. Desperate to figure out who this girl is, and find Trumanell for once and for all, Odette has to delve into her own dark past.
This is a dark psychological thriller filled with twists and unreliable narrators.  A deep sense of unease threads its way through the story, and it is difficult to know who to trust or what will happen in the end.
Good for readers who enjoy dark psychological suspense, and a general sense of uneasiness combined with a steady pace and compelling characters.

For LibraryReads: Trumanell disappeared 10 years ago, but has left an indelible mark on her small town, her brother, and best friend. When a damaged young girl is found, is there a link to Trumanell?
Good for readers who enjoy dark psychological suspense, and a general sense of uneasiness combined with a steady pace and compelling characters.

 - Jen O. (sent to myself and then missed in my email)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple    330 pages

A whip-smart, hysterical dramedy about a family in crisis after the disappearance of its brilliant, misanthropic matriarch. 

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Hilarious and wild, this book takes you on a journey and I enjoyed every bit of it. There's something about books that are built on the "letters and emails and articles" of its characters. It's a frame tale, told by Balakrishna or "Bee" as she's called, who's trying to find her mother, who has disappeared. She's written a "book," in this case the book you're holding in your hands, which is a compilation of her narrative and the narrative told by others through letters, faxes, emails, and articles. 

I'd recommend it as a vacation read or if someone's looking for humorous literary fiction (I can get so bored by literary fiction because it seems inundated with "serious" stories and it's almost as if life can't be fun while being "literary" - thankfully this book is a clear example that that's not true). It reminds me a bit of Jane Austen - not in its subject matter, but more in its satire of life in Seattle and socialites and rich people. It has the good humor of Jane Austen and the larger than life adventure of Mark Twain novels. Honestly, I'd highly recommend it. 

The Sleepwalker

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian  304 pages

In his twentieth novel, mega-bestseller Chris Bohjalian weaves his most suspenseful not yet (and heck, I didn’t think he’d be able to surpass his previous novel, The Guest Room). This time he tackles the subject of parasomnia, a sleep disorder category that happens between dreaming and waking. I’m always amazed at the topics Bohjalian chooses for his novels. Get ready to stay up way past your bedtime as you won’t want to put this one down.

It’s the fall of 2000. That time frame is established in Chapter One’s opening paragraph is one of the most beautiful he has ever written…and I have ever read.

When Lianna Ahlberg and her sister, Paige, awake that morning, their mother Annalee has disappeared without a trace. Immediately the girls know what has happened. Their father is out of town at a poetry conference and Annalee has parasomnia. They search their home (Bohajalian always refers to it as “the red Victorian”---I loved that) and their neighborhood with no luck. They even head down to the river where years earlier Lianna saved her mother from falling off the Gale River bridge.

A search party combs the nearby woods and the girls’ father, Warren, hurries home. No luck. Liana blames herself; she knows that her mother sleepwalks when her father isn’t home, but she was sure she’d hear her if she had gotten out of bed. Although the police find a scrap of clothing, the search is called off when a body, alive or dead, cannot be located.

One of the subplots develops when the lead detective has a more-than-healthy obsession with the case. Gavin Rikert has a connection with Annalee and is now attracted to Lianna.

I wasn’t quite sure how much time passed in the novel, but that is the only drawback I can make. I do have to talk about the brief, brief passages that occur before the start of a new chapter. While the novel is narrated by Lianna, I was never clear who was narrating these passages. This added to the mystery and suspense, and it came as quite a shock (in a good way) when readers discover who is behind the voice.

The Sleepwalker receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.