#508 A Fine Mist of Blood- Michael Connelly

#508 A Fine Mist of Blood- Michael Connelly

Connely uses his Detective Harry Bosch for this one, the same detective used in many of his mystery novels. This time he’s working a cold case, actually two cold cases. The LAPD has put together a DEATH squad that has digitized all the forensic details of their unsolved cases. Harry gets a hit that links two muders.

Diane Gables was a cursory witness in two old cases, but nothing much came out of either one. When Harry catches her in a seemingly innocent lie, he knows immediately that she was the killer. She falls in his web and it turns out that she is a vigilante targeting abusive men.

This story discusses the fine line between punishment and retribution, revenge versus justice.

Rating: 7-6-7-6 Total= 26

#499 Stone Mattress- Margaret Atwood

#499 Stone Mattress- Margaret Atwood

Verna was wronged deeply by her first “love,” Bob. She was sexually assaulted, shamed, and sent away when she showed to be pregnant. When her child was taken from her, she decided not to return to het family but take control of her life and never let anyone control or damage her again.

“It was Bob who’d taught her that only the strong can win, that weakness should be mercilessly exploited. It was Bob who turned her into—why not say the word?—A murderer.”

She turned herself into a black widow, seducing, marrying and eventually killing her husbands—at least four—ad getting the only thing that has ever given her comfort:

“All she ever wanted was to be protected by layer upon layer of kind, soft, insulating money.”

“She had no regrets. She did those men a favor: Surely better a swift exit than a lingering decline.”

Now all these years later, financially secure, and essentially out of the game, she comes across her old attacker, Bob and sets out on a plan for revenge. This is a good story, violent but not graphic. Very satisfying.

Notable Passage: “When it came to love, wasn’t believing the same as the real thing? Such beliefs drain your strength and cloud your vision.”

Rating: 8-8-9-8 Total= 33

#478 The Dead Hand Loves You- Margaret Atwood

#478 The Dead Hand Loves You- Margaret Atwood

Jack Dace is the revered author of an international horror classic, The Dead Hand Loves You. The story has haunted him his entire life, because of a contract he is bound to.

When he was writing the book he lived with three other housemates, including Irene, the girl he was infatuated with. But he was falling behind on paying rent and they were about to kick him out of the house. So, with desperation and absolutely no foresight, he signs a contract with his housemates. They will forgive his debt for equal shares in the profits of his novel.

“In such ways are devil’s bargains made”

As it turns out his novel was a huge success and his friends kept him to the contract—signed while hung-over at their kitchen table—for the rest of their lives. The issue put a wedge between him and Irene, who married one of the other roommates, and they didn’t speak to each other, except through lawyers for most of following years. Now old, hanging on to the grudge, and a torch for Irene, Jack strikes out to reconnect with the friends he has made wealthy; for reconciliation? Retribution? Reckoning?

I like the story, the concept, although I don’t really feel the love story here at all.

Rating: 8-9-7-8 Total= 32

#474 How We Avenged the Blums- Nathan Englander

#474 How We Avenged the Blums- Nathan Englander

Three Blum brothers have been under steady harassment from who they only call The Ant-Semite. The smallest, Zvi has just been knocked unconscious and left hanging by his underwear from his friends to find him. The police are called, something not all the Jewish families are willing to do, but nothing of consequence happens.

“Our parents were born and raised in Brooklyn. In Greenheath, they built us a Jewish Shangri-la, providing us with everything but the one crucial thing Brooklyn had offered…a toughness. As a group of boys thirteen and fourteen, we grew healthy, we grew polite, but our parents thought us soft.”

With the grudging support of their rabbi and parents, the Jewish children begin a self-defense training program. They not only want to protect themselves but they want vengeance from past transgressions. When the Blum’s mother is attacked, the kids finally spring to action, but really what good did it do?

I’m not sure what message we are supposed to glean from this story. Not only do the children not really learn self-defense, or proper teamwork, but in the end their “revenge” was wrought by a ringer they brought in to help. Zvi did stand up for himself, but that was it, all the other children acted as mere onlookers. I wasn’t expecting a big good-guy-wins type of ending, but I still missed some sort of conclusion.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#412 Superstar- Susan Steinberg

#412 Superstar- Susan Steinberg

Now this is something different. This is a story written in statements only. Each sentence is its own line, its own paragraph. At times it can look like poetry, but for the most part, it is not poetic (exception: the notable passage below). We are getting the inner thoughts of a woman riding in the crowded back seat of her friends car after she has stolen a car radio. It was a revenge theft of a guy she hooked up with.

This is thick with male-female power dynamics. She steals the radio because she wants to own this man completely. Then when she gets into a small fender bender with a guy, he treats her like shit calling her names like only a man can call a woman.  Then comes guy #2 who comes to her rescue and is condescending like only a man can be condescending to a woman.

It’s not something I want to explain.

If you have the parts you understand.

As for the rest of you.

Just know I knew it was good to be a woman.

Meaning it was very bad to be a woman.

This is a very good, powerful start for this collection, Spectacle.

Notable Passage: “A sound I can’t describe.

                                    A Sound that was more like a color.

                                    A Color that was more like a pain.

                                    A pain that was more like an answer.”

Rating: 8-9-10-9 Total= 36

#318 The Package- Kurt Vonnegut

#318 The Package- Kurt Vonnegut

Earl Fenton just sold the plant he spent his life building and after spending months traveling the world, he comes home to his brand new state of the art home, the whole package.

He wasn’t always rich however, he was the poorest of his college fraternity brothers. He wasn’t “exactly behind the door when they passed out looks and brains.”

“No—but when they passed out money, they handed me a waiter’s jacket and a mop.”

So, he has got a bit of a chip on his shoulders. When he gets a call suddenly from one of his wealthier Frat brothers, he sees it as a great opportunity for a little bragging. But as he starts showing off the opulence and grandness of his life, he doesn’t get the satisfying jealousy and envy he wished for…and that deepens the resentment he has unfairly held for Charley the last forty years.

It turns out that Charley isn’t exactly the person Earl thinks he is, but that chip on his shoulder is hard to remove after all these years.

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#116 The Revenge of Hannah Hemhuff- Alice Walker

#116 The Revenge of Hannah Hemhuff- Alice Walker

This story has been dedicated: In grateful  memory of Zora Neale Hurston. This story uses the common curse-prayer that was printed in Hurston’s Mules and Men.

Hannah was a proud woman, and like most proud people that lived through the great depression, her pride, dignity and humanity were challenged greatly. Her children starving and on the brink of death, Hannah went against her strong beliefs and went down to the food line to beg for assistance. Unlike the other black families that wore their worst and dirtiest clothing to garner sympathy, Hannah dressed in her finest dress, albeit still ragity compared to those in the white-only line, and was refused. Not only was she denied assistance, she was laughed at by the “the little moppet” of a woman judging her case.

Her children soon died, her husband left her and her will was steadily worn away.

“My spirit never recovered from that insult, just like my heart never recovered from my husband’s desertion, juts like my body never recovered from being almost starved to death. I started to wither in that winter and each year found me more hacked and worn down that the year before.”

All that was left, was the will for revenge.

Notable Passage: “As for happiness, it is something that deserts you once you know it can be bought and sold.”

Rating: 7-7-8-9 Total= 31

#98 D’Accord, Baby- Hanif Kureishi

#98 D’Accord, Baby- Hanif Kureishi

 “All week Bill had been looking forward to this moment. He was about to fuck the daughter of the man who fucked his wife.”

When I started this one and read the first sentence, I was in for a tough read. But this story isn’t about that infidelity or the steamy details of a lurid tryst. It’s about a man going through a midlife crisis coming to grips with what’s truly important.

“How could a man have come to the middle of his life with barely a clue about who he was or where he might go?”  Up till now that crisis manifested itself in a furious attempt to read all the great works of literature and memorize the salient passages. When a real life crisis, namely the ruin of his marriage materialized, his other pursuits became less important:

“And yet when he considered his ambitions…to travel overland while reading Proust…he felt a surge of shame.”

There is a theme of Bill living in the past, the books, remembering old slogans of the rebellious past, etc. Well crafted story.

Notable Passage: “There was comfort in the rain. He put his head back and looked up into the sky. He has some impressions that happiness was beyond him and everything was coming down, and that life could not be grasped but only lived.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32