This book is described as "A little boy witnesses the ugliness of apartheid", which is as good of a description as I can give because it's a very short book and you sort of wonder where Courtenay is going with it since he has so little space. It's set in South Africa, on a farm when a boy is taken away from his mother once she comes down with malaria.
I've never read a Bryce Courtenay before but my mom was always a huge fan. This book allowed me to get a taste of his writing without having to sit down to a 1000 page book. His writing style flows very nicely which makes this book incredibly easy to digest. However, once I came to the end of the book, I wasn't really sure what I should be taking away from it.
First Line: "At the tag end of the Great Depression, the three of us, my mother, Majorie-Ann and I, lived in a single room with a make-shift kitchenette without running water."
Rating:
(3.5/5)
In the second novel of the Jack Reacher series, Reacher finds himself in Chicago, though not for long. He spots a woman on crutches struggling with her dry cleaning and attempts to help her out. The women ends up being an FBI agent, and daughter of a prominent member of government. Just as Reacher starts to help her, three men pop out of a car and abduct the two of them. Reacher and Holly get to know each other as they spend long days in the back of a truck, being transported away from Chicago.
When Molly passes away, her lovers meet at her funeral to remember. There's Clive, a composer that's currently working on a symphony, Vernon, a newspaper editor, and the disliked Garmony, an up-and-coming politician. Molly's husband finds photos of Garmony in compromising positions and hands them off to Vernon to publish them. Vernon doesn't really think twice but does get Clive's opinion. Clive doesn't agree that those photos should be published and the two fight. But Clive isn't lily-white either. While on a hike to clear his mind from his work, he witnessed a man attacking a woman and didn't do anything about it because he didn't want it to impact his work.
Rachel Sexton is a White House intelligence analyst who also has an estranged father running to become president. Her father has based his campaign on NASA over-spending and the need to privatize the space industry. Meanwhile, NASA is ready to come out with their most important announcement ever, something found up on the Milne ice shelf. Third parties have authenticated the find and Rachel is brought up to brief the White House staff. Rachel soon wonders if this is all too good to be true and whether NASA may have manufactured evidence to try to save themselves.
Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter extraordinaire is back for another round of crazy. Two bodies were found in the lot where Vinnie is building the new bond office after it blew up. It's not good for business so Stephanie tries to bring in the last few bonds before there's no business left. Given that she's a pretty bad bond enforcement officer, this doesn't work out too well and eventually, one of them is looking to kill her.
Fiona Cameron is a psychologist that uses data to come up with geographies and theories on crimes. The police regularly call on her for help, though with a recent rape and murder case decided to call one of Fiona's colleagues who ended up botching the case. Fiona vows that she won't work with the Met again. Except they need her help and she needs them when a killer starts to murder mystery writers. Fiona's boyfriend is a mystery writer and she wants to make sure the police catch the killer before anything happens to him.
A five year old girl is orphaned after an earthquake takes her family. Wandering, she escapes a cave lion attack and happens upon the cave people, who are searching for a new cave to live in after the earthquake collapsed their previous home. Iza, the medicine woman, wants to take the child in even though she's an Other, with light blonde hair. Brun, the leader of the tribe, reluctantly agrees but tells Iza she must teach the child the ways of the clan. Ayla, the child, is a free spirit and doesn't really understand the ways of the clan. She has problems conforming, which brings negative attention upon herself although Iza loves her like her own daughter. Broud, son of Brun, particularly hates Ayla because of all the attention she gets despite not being part of the clan.
Dr. Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist that splits her time between North Carolina and Quebec. In this novel, Tempe spends her time in Montreal, with three bodies of girls that were dumped in the basement of a pizza parlour and left there for years. Tempe eventually determines how old, how tall, and which race the girls are which takes them one step closer to finding out who these girls are. When Tempe doesn't get as much help from the detectives as she'd like, she starts to investigate things on her own with the help of her good friend Anne who is in town to take a break from her marriage.
Vikkan Lantry is returning to the music world after taking a leave and mourning the loss of his lover. He doesn't have the desire to be famous, he just wants to play his music. With a famous musician coming to town, a fame-hungry singer asking for his accompaniment, and a friend trying to get Lantry odd music jobs, he is slowly getting sucked back in to the music world. A newly found Schumann is found and competition to sing and play it is so high than two people are murdered. Lantry knows the victims and the music and tries to determine who could do such a thing.
The world is split in to two classes: reds who are the workers and silvers who have special abilities and are the upper class. Mare and her family are red. All of her brothers have been sent to war and Mare is expected to get the same summons when she runs in to a mysterious stranger. Trying to pick-pocket him, he catches her but instead of getting her in trouble, offers her more money. The next day, Mare is wisked away to the summer palace and expected to work as a servant. This is a big change from going to war. Soon, Mare finds out that the person that saved her is the prince. As he tries to find a wife, all the silvers represent their abilities to him: moving metal, creating fire, shifting water. When the last girl causes part of the arena to be destroyed and Mare to fall towards her, Mare realizes she has a power too: harnessing electricity. The royalty puts her in a position representing her as a silver raised as reds even though she is red through and through.
Minutes before his 100th birthday party, Allan Karlsson decides to escape. He's not really interested in the party and he wouldn't mind some alcohol, which the nurse strictly forbids. Allan climbs out of the window and heads to the bus station, where he's asked by a young gentleman to look after his suitcase while he uses the bathroom. Allan makes a split decision to steal the young man's suitcase, hops on a bus, and heads out of town going as far as his money will take him. What he doesn't realize is that he's stolen drug money and now has a gang after him. He meets many interesting characters along the way and they get in a lot of trouble. At the same time, we learn more about Allan's past and world events that he was part of making happen.