Book 75, Country 81 - Canada

No Cry for Help – Grant McKenzie – first published in the UK in 2010

The wife and 2 young sons of Canadian bus driver Wallace Carver vanish from a shopping mall in the USA.  The police suspect him but he is innocent and has no idea why they have been taken.  Wallace is determined to get them back and he enlists the help of a friend and his friend’s relatives.  The book is a real page-turner and the pace rarely lets up.  However I thought the plot was a bit thin and unbelievable.  There is quite a lots of violence and several people come to various sticky ends at the hands of each other and Wallace and his friends.  I found it hard to believe that an ordinary law abiding citizen would have had the skills and mental and physical strength to survive all the events in the book.  6/10

9th July 2012

Book 74, Country 80 - USA

Every Last One – Anna Quindlen – first published in the UK in 2010

The book begins as a story about an unremarkable but reasonably well off family with a teenage daughter who has had an eating disorder and a son who has mental health issues.  Then something shocking and unexpected happens and the whole focus of the book shifts to the mother – Mary Beth – and is then about how she copes with the aftermath.  The New York Times described the book as spellbinding.  I wouldn’t go that far but it is compelling.  7/10

1st July 2012

Book 73, Country 79 - Mexico

The ZigZag Way by Anita Desai - first published in the UK in 2004

Eric accompanies his student girlfriend on her field trip to Mexico but goes off exploring on his own.   He travels to the mining area where his paternal grandfather, a Cornish tin miner, once worked and where his own father was born.   Initially he stays at a hacienda belonging to the mysterious and unfriendly Dona Vera, an Austrian with a dubious past in wartime Europe.  He visits the place where his grandparents lived on the day of La Noche de los Muertos (Festival of the Dead).  The story of his grandparents lives in Mexico and his grandmother’s death in childbirth as they fled from the Mexican Revolution is also told.   At the end of the book Eric has an unexpected and strange meeting with someone, which ties the various strands of the story together.  I enjoyed learning about the history of the Cornish miners in Mexico, which was something I was hitherto unaware of.  Both the hardback and paperback copies of the book have quite scary covers with skeletons or skulls on, which I think give the wrong impression of the content of the book.  6/10

15th June 2012

Book 72, Country 78 - Guatemala

Lies – Enrique de Heriz – translated from Spanish and first published in the UK in 2007

A woman dies in a boat accident in a remote part of the Guatemalan jungle.  She is wrongly identified as Spanish anthropologist Isabel Garcia Luna.  When Isabel finds out that her husband and children think she is dead, she decides not to say anything for a while.  Meanwhile back in Malespina in Spain her daughter Serena is obsessed with disentangling the truth from all the lies she has been told about the life and death of her grandfather Simon.  I felt the story could have been told in a more succinct way and there is rather too much introspection for my liking.  However it is an unusual plot and has some interesting details about death customs and rituals and cannibalism in remote tribes around the world.  6/10

10th June 2012

Book 71, Country 77 - Honduras

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux - first published in the UK in 1981

Allie Fox is a brilliant inventor but he is also paranoid and self obsessed.  He suddenly uproots his wife and 4 children from a comfortable, if unconventional, life in rural America and without consulting them decides they are emigrating to the Honduran jungle.  They settle in a remote place called Jeronimo and at first things go well.  They build a house, plant crops and Allie constructs an ice making factory.  Then unwittingly Allie invites some guests to stay who threaten their security.  Things spiral downhill for the family after this. The story is narrated by Allie's oldest son Charlie.  The book is well written but I vaguely remembered seeing the 1986 film starring Harrison Ford and so couldn't fully enjoy the story knowing that something awful was going to happen.  Allie isn't a likeable character, as he never considers the needs, safety, health or opinions of his wife or children.    7/10

16th May 2012

Book 70, Country 76 - Nicaragua

The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie - first published 1987       

The best thing about this book is that it is really short – even in large print, which was the only version I could get hold of,  it is only 146 pages long.  The author visited Nicaragua in 1986 and talked to people at all levels of society in several different areas of the country.  However I felt it was neither travel writing nor a history but a collection of individuals’ views and personal experiences put together in no logical order.  There is no timeline of events or summary of modern history of Nicaragua, which would have helped it make more sense.  2/10


29th April 2012

Book 69, Country 75 - Costa Rica

Nancy Drew, Girl Detective - Trails of Treachery - Carolyn Keene - first published 2007

This is a children's book but it combines a fast paced thriller with a good description of the Costa Rican countryside.  Nancy's friend George is competing in a coast to coast mountain bike race called La Ruta.   She and mutual friend Bess have come to be her support team.  They make friends with 2 other competitors - Sharine and her boyfriend Derek, who is one of the favourites to win La Ruta.  However someone is trying hard to sabotage his chances of winning and will stop at nothing to ensure that Derek never finishes the race.  Nancy decides to investigate  8/10

13th April 2012