Books - December 2009
Plus: Read the full interview with Featured Author Robert Boswell
Reviewed This Month:• The Shimmer |
Guest Review by Patricia West-Barker
Thriller
The Shimmer
By David Morell
Vanguard Press
352 pages, hardcover, $25.95
There are many mysteries in David Morrell’s new novel, The Shimmer. For example, why did Tori, the wife of Santa Fe police officer and protagonist Dan Page, leave him? Why did she stop in the tiny town of Rostov, Texas—and, even more important, why won’t she leave? And what about the Rostov Lights—glowing orbs that have been appearing on the town’s horizon since at least the 1880s? Are they forces for good or for evil? Do they sustain or seduce the thousands of people each year who make the pilgrimage to this barren land to look for them? Why can some people see the magical lights and others cannot? And, while Morrell is decoding mysteries, just what is happening at the highly fortified, heavily guarded government observatory tucked away on the town’s now-defunct U.S. airbase? Morrell answers all these questions—and more—with can’t-put-it-down-till-the-last-page action and crisp, literate prose
The Santa Fe-based author is something of a mystery himself. A former English professor, Morrell holds a doctorate in American Literature, but is also trained in an unusual mix of skills for a literatus: firearms, wilderness survival, corporate security, and special ops. The Shimmer is the 32nd book in a body of work that began with the creation of Rambo. Sylvester Stallone may have brought the iconic character to the big screen, but Rambo began as the burned-out Vietnam vet who’s the protagonist of Morrell’s First Blood (Fawcett Books, 1972), whom the author named after a Pennsylvania apple and the 19th-century French poet Rimbaud.
In an afterword, Morrell says that The Shimmer was inspired by a travel piece he read in The Santa Fe New Mexican about the Marfa Mystery Lights, which “bob and weave, float and waver, blink and glow, appear and vanish” in the high desert of west Texas. Another inspiration was actor James Dean, who was reportedly mesmerized by the lights while filming Giant in 1956, even as co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson couldn’t see them at all.
In the novel, Rostov police chief Roger Costigan has never seen the lights—and probably never will. Tori Page, on the run from her husband, can see them clearly, and can’t bear to leave them. Among some tourists to whom the lights are visible is a soon-to-be mass murderer who thinks them the work of the devil. El Paso news anchor Brent Loft can see the lights, which puts him in extreme danger while fueling his ambitions.
And Col. Warren Raleigh, head of a clandestine government project to turn the lights into weapons, sees their potential but misreads their power. Police officer Dan Page sees the lights, but can open his heart to his wife’s suffering only after a change of mind.
The way these characters face each other, and the danger that threatens the very survival of the town, is a testament to Morrell’s mastery of the modern thriller genre.
Patricia West-Barker is executive editor of The Zenchilada, an online magazine exploring the food and culture of the Southwest.
Book Briefs by Ashley M. Biggers
Short StoriesLa Ranfla & Other New Mexico Stories
By Martha Egan
Papalote Press
208 pages, hardcover, $24.95
In La Ranfla, New Mexico’s timeless landscapes and distinctive culture form the backdrop for a memorable cast of characters. In the title story, two newly arrived hippies buy a used pickup truck from a neighbor, only to discover that it’s a lemon. They quickly learn to play by New Mexico rules while also learning the ultimate lesson of living in the West: fend for yourself. In “Time Circles,” a woman’s trip to the Navajo Nation inspires her to expand her horizons in the games of both business and love. The dialogue in Martha Egan’s stories is packed with New Mexican slang—ranfla, for example, means vintage car or lowrider—that firmly establishes a conversational tone. In fact, so well does Egan capture New Mexican culture that other readers may feel, as I did, that they know the people on whom this cast of characters may have been based. This collection marks a departure for Egan. An importer and dealer of Latin American folk art for more than three decades though her Santa Fe gallery, Pachamama, as a writer she’s best known for her semi-autobiographical novel Clearing Customs (Papalote Press, 2005), in which a woman faces off with corrupt customs officials; and for Coyota (Papalote Press, 2007), the story of a woman who becomes entangled in a murder by nefarious agents of the DEA.
Photography
Darfur
By Lucian Niemeyer, Foreword by Bill Richardson
University of New Mexico Press
104 pages, hardcover, $45
Santa Fe-based Lucian Niemeyer travels the world photographing the human condition. For his newest work, he took as his subject the humanitarian crisis in war-torn Darfur, the westernmost region of Sudan. In a foreword, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, writes, “Lucian Niemeyer understands that to truly tell the story of the turmoil in Darfur and Sudan one must understand the history and root causes that brought Sudan and its people to this situation. His breathtaking photographs and compelling narrative tell the definitive story of the conflict and will help readers across the globe understand the true nature of the genocide and the people caught up in it every day.” The photojournalist-style images in this collection are striking both in their composition and in their ability to capture the reality of life in Darfur, be it heartbreaking or hopeful. Niemeyer is the author of New Mexico: Images of a Land & Its People (UNM Press, 2004); Africa: The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan (UNM Press, 2006); and Desert Wetlands (UNM Press, 2005). He exhibits his work at Niemeyer Fine Art Photography Studio, in Eldorado, near Santa Fe. For info:
www.lnsart.com
Mystery
Earthway: An Ella Clah Novel
By Aimée & David Thurlo
Forge Books
336 pages, hardcover, $24.99
For fans of the Ella Clah series, sitting down with Earthway will feel like catching up with an old friend—if that friend happens to be a Navajo Tribal Police special investigator with a strange knack for attracting drama. In Earthway, the 14th entry in the series, Ella finds herself at the center of a controversy involving a nuclear power plant on the reservation. Because the uranium mining of previous decades has contaminated their lands and sickened their people, many Navajo see the plant as inherently dangerous—an issue solidly based in debates outside this novel’s pages. In this fast-paced fictional account, a group of activists uses assault and sabotage to stop the plant. When, in the first explosive pages of the book, a fellow officer is hurt in an attack aimed at Ella’s boyfriend, the ever-mysterious Reverend Bilford “Ford” Tome, she vows to bring the domestic terrorists to justice. As always in Clah novels, Navajo traditions and ceremonies are seamlessly woven into Ella’s character and her ability to unravel the case. In this instance, she must use every bit of her trademark leadership and ingenuity to stop the terrorists before anyone else is injured—or worse.
Fiction
Christmas Cake
By Lynne Hinton
Avon
304 pages, trade paperback, $13.99
In Christmas Cake, the third novel in Lynne Hinton’s series following a hodgepodge of middle-aged church ladies who become fast friends, we join the residents of Hope Springs, North Carolina, who are in
the midst of preparing their church’s annual cake cookbook. With Margaret once again battling cancer, the cookbook has taken on
special significance as a project to brighten their ailing friend’s spirits. But the cookbook is put on hold when the group road-trips to fulfill Margaret’s Christmas wish: to visit the New Mexico town where her mother grew up, and reunite with Charlotte, their friend and former pastor. Of course, as with any girlfriend getaway, they experience a few scrapes along the way, but through it all, they’re bound together by camaraderie. Hinton perfectly captures the intimacy and humor of women’s friendships in a lighthearted, pleasurable story that’s just in time for the holiday season. And, in the vein of Diane Mott Davidson’s best-selling series of Goldy Schulz Culinary Mysteries, the plot of Christmas Cake is complemented by recipes—the one for Aunt Maymie’s chocolate-syrup cake looks particularly scrumptious. Hinton lives in Albuquerque and is pastor of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, in Rio Rancho.
Fiction
Race for the Dying
By Steven F. Havill
Thomas Dunne Books
336 pages, hardcover, $25.99
Best known for his well-received mystery novels set in the fictional New Mexico county of Posadas, Steven F. Havill tries his hand at historical fiction in Race for the Dying—and plays that hand well. Set in Port McKinney, Washington, in the late 1800s, the novel follows Thomas Parks as he arrives to begin practicing medicine with the town’s established physician, the distinguished Dr. Haines. But within hours of his arrival young Dr. Parks has a near-death experience, and his painful convalescence sidetracks his career plans. As he waits for his fractured hip, ribs, and scalp to heal, he discovers that Dr. Haines is not what he seems. Is the elder doctor indeed a skilled, conscientious physician, or is he a schemer involved in a mail-order diagnosis fraud? Matters are only complicated by the connection between the young Parks and Haines’s beautiful and surprisingly forward daughter, Alvina. Although the Ratón-based Havill isn’t known for historical fiction, his abilities to artfully depict realistic characters, capture the subtleties of human relationships, and engage the reader from beginning to end—as he does in his mystery novels—manifest here as well. Havill fans will likely find themselves at ease with Race for the Dying, while those unfamiliar with his writing will find this book a worthwhile introduction.
Mystery
The Widow's Revenge: A Charlie Moon Mystery
By James D. Doss
St. Martin's Press
304 pages, hardcover, $24.99
Charlie Moon again takes center stage in author James D. Doss’s 14th mystery featuring the no-nonsense rancher and sometime Ute tribal investigator. In The Widow’s Revenge, widow Loyola Montoya swears a brood of witches is lurking on land nearby her property, threatening her with a foreboding goat carcass left on her front porch. But when she takes matters into her own hands, she meets disastrous results. Moon takes up the case, which leads him from Montoya’s ranch to his own, the Columbine, where the mystery hits home in a gun-slinging climax. Doss unravels this intricate mystery in his signature, multi-perspective style and a good-ol’-boy tone, in which a phrase such as “Meanwhile, back at the ranch …” fits perfectly. He also weaves into the narrative Ute tribal culture—from Moon’s aunt and shaman Daisy Perika’s battle with a pesky pitukupf (leprechaun), to Ute death omens. Doss divides his time between Los Alamos and Taos.
