Blood & Whiskey #9
James Kestral, Alafair Burke, Jennifer Haigh, and more - plus cocktails and tunes.
Hello friends and readers…
Welcome to ’22 and I hope the holidays were safe, healthy, cocktail-y, and that Santa added some great books to your stacks. Here are a few I devoured during an annoyingly snowy, icy, rainy, slushy, basement-floody few weeks. (All that wet came during a dry-ish January happily bisected by the two cocktails below.)
Five Decembers (Hard Case Crime) — James Kestral
Oh, man — I loved this one. It hit all the right notes for me: historical, noirish, extremely well written, exotic locales, tense and fast-paced, believably messed up characters and flinty dialogue. The gist: it’s late 1941 as Honolulu detective Joe McGrady investigates a grisly murder whose clues soon lead him overseas, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. I won’t say more, except that it soars beyond the typical murder mystery. War, fate, violence, corruption, love, survival, sacrifice, honor, and commitment… it’s all here, spanning the breadth of WWII. With crazy-good blurbs from Dennis Lehane (“a crime epic for the ages”) and Megan Abbott (“utterly enthralling and deeply haunting”), this is another winner from small but mighty publisher, Hard Case Crime. Read it. Trust me.
Find Me (Harper) — Alafair Burke
I plowed through this story of a woman named Hope Miller, who years earlier had crashed a stolen car in New Jersey and awoke with no idea who she was or where she came from. She’s taken in by the town — New Hope — and befriends the police chief’s daughter, but now wants to move to East Hampton to start (another) new life for herself. And that’s where her mysterious old life finds her.
Burke is a former prosecutor who teaches criminal law. She keeps getting better with each book, and even co-wrote a few with Mary Higgins Clark. (Her father is James Lee Burke.) I reached out to ask a few quick questions about Find Me:
Origins: I followed a case for years of someone with long term amnesia who had to move forward with life without knowing their true identity or anything about their past. The “what if” of someone like that going missing intrigued me. It’s a fresh way to explore the surprising ways the past can work its way into the present.
Mood: Friendship, secrets, power, loyalty and identity — at the beach.
Favorite line: “She was going to find her friend.” Look, it’s a simple line, I know. But it gets to the heart of the story — the friendship between Lindsay and Hope, and Lindsay’s complete commitment to find Hope at all costs.
Risk: I think of Hope as the main character, but she’s the one who’s missing. The reader meets her in the early first pages of the novel, but learns more about her primarily through the eyes of others.
Mercy Street (Ecco) - by Jennifer Haigh (publishes Feb 1)
A beautifully written and timely story revolving around a women’s health clinic in Boston kept afloat by a dedicated staff, including pot-smoking Claudia, and hounded by anti-abortion protestors. “You’re doing the devil’s work,” a protestor tells Claudia, who replies, “So I’ve been told.” On Ash Wednesday they come to the clinic with sooty foreheads, “Like gunshot victims, Claudia thought.” It’s a gritty story all around, but Haigh (Heat & Light) makes us care — for Claudia, the pregnant women she cares for, her pot dealer, and even the pious protestors.
The Eighth Detective (Picador) — by Alex Pavesi
I snagged this debut novel from a Little Free Library, after seeing reviews and raves in 2020. It was clever, for sure: editor Julia Hart shows up on a Mediterranean island to meet with reclusive crime fiction author, Grant McAllister, whose decades-old mystery stories she’d unearthed and wants to republish. In time, we learn that neither is quite who they say they are, and there’s some fun in getting there — Julia reads (as do we) seven of Grant’s stories, then analyzes them, teasing out clues about the author. But… I found myself skipping ahead to get to the punch line. It was a fun reveal, capping off a story that doubles as a treatise on the DNA of crime fiction. Still, there was something lacking in the main characters, who were offscreen much of the time.
What my wife is reading: She’s now hooked Barbara Clevery’s edgy, sexy series, set in 1920s British-ruled Calcutta, starring Scotland Yard detective Joe Sandilands, starting with Cleverly’s debut, The Last Kashmiri Rose.
Watching: Station Eleven (based on Emily St. John Mandel’s wonderful post-pandemic novel — amazing); The Tender Bar (loved that book — and the film is better than the reviews make it sound); The White Lotus (I’d bailed after half the first episode, thinking “I don’t want to spend time with these people!” but am glad I gave it a second chance. The characters have stayed with me.)
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Other Book Bits:
New books out and on my TBR pile from Jami Attenberg, Jonathan Evison and David Guterson (each featured in the NY Times Sunday Book Review); plus Benjamin Percy, Lisa Lutz, and Antoine Wilson.
Seattle bookseller/author Tom Nissley profiled in the Seattle Times, HERE.
Seattle mystery writer G.M. Ford, who’s been on my to-read list for years, died last month at 76. From Shelf Awareness: “Ford's first novel, Who in Hell Is Wanda Fuca?, introduced the irreverent Seattle private eye Leo Waterman … His work also included the six-book Frank Corso mystery series and several stand-alone novels. His wife, author and photographer Skye Moody, said that ‘he will live on in his many books and in our broken hearts.’” As someone committed to telling and championing stories, I can’t think of a better way to be remembered. I also loved this NY Times obit of decades-long Strand bookseller, Ben McFall, ‘the Heart of the Strand.’
Which leads us to…
Cocktail of the Month…
I made it halfway through Dry January before I had to come up with a drink for this month. (Occupational hazard.) Instead of one, I made two — both delicious…
Hanky Panky*
2 ounces gin (the Death & Co. Modern & Classic Cocktails book that I adapted my version from calls for Fords Gin; I used Aviation)
1 ounce red vermouth (Death & Co., the East Village neo-speakeasy, calls for a half ounce of Contratto Americano Ross and a half ouce of Carpano Antico Formula. I just used Dolin rouge)
1/2 ounce Fernet Branca (D&C suggests 1/4 ounce, but I love Fernet. So.)
shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass; garnish with orange peel
*(the Hanky Panky was created in 1903 by bartender Ada “Coley” Coleman at the American Bar at London’s Savoy Hotel. Wikipedia has a good enough version of the story. And the New York Times has a slightly different take on the drink.)
La Rosita
1-1/2 to 2 ounces tequila (reposado works well)
1 ounce sweet vermouth (some recipes call for sweet and dry vermouth, a half ounce each)
1/2 ounce Campari
dash of Angostura bitters
shake with ice and strain into a coupe glass; garnish with lemon, lime, or orange peel (I used lime, for kicks)
Playlist of the Month…
Back in the age of CDs, each Christmas I’d make an annual mix for family and friends and gift away copies. Though my friend Blaise insists CDs are “making a comeback,” I realized I hadn’t dipped into my stacks in ages, thanks to the ease of Spotify. My New Year’s project has been to sift through my CDs, get rid of those I don’t really need (harder than it sounds) and to re-experience some oldies. So…. this month’s playlist is a mixtape of that process — some tunes from old X-mas mixes (like the classic, “Put the X back in Xmas”) and other re-discovered gems from my CD collection (assorted 80s, 90s, 00s). Enjoy?
And here’s a bonus from my longtime pal and mixtape exchange partner Blaise, father of two amazoningly talented musicians, who creates an annual faves list:
My sixth book, The First Kennedys, is coming to a bookstore near you on Feb. 22, and I’ll be hitting the road for an actual BOOK TOUR — with events planned in WA, MA, NJ, DC, NC, MS and more. I’ll share more updates next month. Meanwhile… might you consider preordering? My book and I would be grateful.
“This is not just the story of the Kennedys; Thompson paints a picture of life for many Irish immigrants. History buffs should pick up this book immediately.” —Booklist
Housekeeping: not that anyone’s keeping track, but this month’s newsletter is coming a week late (I usually send it mid-month), and over the next 2-3 months things may be more sporadic and abbreviated as I hit the road for my next book.
Till then…
-Neal
Find me on Instagram; sometimes on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads
And it's a battered old suitcase
To a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on
An old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey…
-Tom Waits, “Tom Traubert’s Blues”