The Last Dark Place (Abe Lieberman #8), Stuart M. Kaminsky. Mysterious Press/Open Road Media (ASIN: B00AYRI5DI), 2013 (originally published in 2004).
Summary:Who ordered the hit on the hitman? That’s what Lieberman, who was transporting him back to Chicago tries to figure outas he tries tohead off a gang war and pay for his grandson’s bar mitzvah.
Over thirty years ago Abe Lieberman’s prayers at shul were interrupted by Connie Gower, seeking to avenge his brother, who Lieberman, then a young cop had killed. Lieberman escaped that situation. Now, a much older Lieberman sits in the Yuma airport, along with a local cop, handcuffed to Gower. He’s bringing him back to Chicago to stand trial for a “hit.” Gower has made a career of killing people for hire.
All hell breaks loose when an elderly airport worker opens fire on Gower, killing him, getting badly wounded by the local policeman in the process. The worker survives but won’t give Lieberman much. He tells him he was paid by a man with a darkened thumb, money that would go to a granddaughter’s college fund. Now, Lieberman returns to Chicago to find the man who ordered the hit.
He faces far more than this on his return. Two ethnic gangs, one Latino and the other Asian, are on the verge of an all-out war. Meanwhile, an obsessed Falun Gong cultist is stalking his partner Hanrahan’s pregnant wife, who is Asian. And Hanrahan is under pressure to quickly find three youth who raped a rising Black detective’s wife. The detective is on the mayor’s shortlist for a top police slot. No one want’s that detective to find those youth first. And while all this is happening, a disillusioned sign painter is plotting to kill a country star who has disappointed him, thinking that for a moment he will be a hero. Just another week in Chicago.
While Lieberman cherishes his family, homelife is a challenge. His wife is zealously guarding his diet because his cholesterol is high. His daughter blames her failed marriages and troubles in life on Abe. Yet she wants his help with her son’s bar mitzvah, including financial help, stretching his detective’s salary further. And his responsibilities at the synagogue keep calling. The only thing that mitigates any of this is the deep fellowship and banter with the alter cockers, the men he prays with, and eats food forbidden by his wife, at the local deli.
This is my first Abe Lieberman (yes I know I’m reading out of order!). My son introduced me to Kaminsky’s Russian detective, Porfiry Rostnikov. I loved those stories and so downloaded this to my Kindle when it came up as a bargain. And what a treat to discover this veteran, street smart and self-deprecating detective. He show compassion for the men of his shul and for his wayward daughter, even while he mentors his grandson as he makes an important life passage. The book is a quick and engaging read that gives one sympathy for the personal and professional challenges facing any policeman in one of our major cities. Abe Lieberman, whatever his faults, navigates these pretty well. I have a feeling this won’t be my last Abe Lieberman story.
I recently finished Louise Penny’s The Madness of Crowds, the seventeenth in her Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series, and the most recently published. [Updated 12/13/2022: Number 18 in the series, A World of Curiosities has been published and a review for the book has now been added.] For the moment, there are no more Gamache novels to read, unless I go back and re-read the series. This has quite simply been one of the best series I’ve read. While Penny’s books are often favored by women readers, I’ve found myself drawn by the strong male characters, especially Armand and Jean Guy. Particularly, I want to grow up to be like Armand! Equally, I find myself deeply appreciating the strong and diverse female characters–Reine Marie, Clara, Myrna, Isabelle Lacoste, and of course, Ruth (and Rosa!). Like so many readers, I want to live in Three Pines, or foster the kind of Three Pines community where I live (perhaps one of Penny’s hopes). I also have been provoked to thought, and not a little self-examination, by Penny’s insight that a murder often begins many years before with a nursed grievance allowed to fester. Finally, there are Gamache’s four sentences that lead to wisdom:
I don’t know.
I need help.
I’m sorry.
I was wrong.
The older I get, the more I find myself saying these things and I find myself looking back at my younger self and wish I’d learned this wisdom sooner.
I thought it would be fun to create a page with all my Gamache reviews. While I try to avoid spoilers in the reviews, those of subsequent books may give away plot details you’d rather discover for yourself if you haven’t read the previous ones. But if you are like me and want to go back and remember, this might prove helpful. I’ve just included publication info, a brief summary, and a link to the full review.
Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache #1), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2005.
Summary: The suspicious death of Jane Neal a day after her painting is accepted into an art show brings Gamache and his team to Three Pines, and to the grim conclusion that someone in this small community is a murderer.Review
A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Gamache #2), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2006.
Summary: An unliked but aspiring author comes to Three Pines and is murdered in front of a crowd at a curling match yet no one sees how it happened.Review
The Cruelest Month (Chief Inspector Gamache #3), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2007.
Summary: Gamache returns to Three Pines to solve a murder during a seance at the old Hadley House while forces within the Surete’ (and on his team) plot his downfall to avenge the Arnot case.Review
A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Gamache #4), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2008.
Summary: The Gamache’s getaway to a peaceful lodge is interrupted, first by an unloving family reunion, and then by the death of one of the family, crushed under a statue. Meanwhile, the naming of a child forces Gamache to face his own family history.Review
The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache #5), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.
Summary: The body of an unknown man is found in the bistro of Gabri and Olivier, and Olivier is the chief suspect!Review
Bury Your Dead (Chief Inspector Gamache #6), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2010.
Summary: Gamache and Beauvoir are on leave after an attempt to rescue an agent goes terribly wrong. As each faces their own traumas they get caught up in murder investigations in Quebec City and Three Pines.Review
A Trick of the Light(Chief Inspector Gamache #7), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2012.
Summary: The vernissage for Clara’s art show is a stunning success with glowing reviews only to be spoiled when the body of her estranged childhood friend is found in her flowerbed.Review
The Beautiful Mystery(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2013.
Summary: While solving a case involving the murder of a prior in a remote monastery, Gamache must confront his arch-nemesis Chief Superintendent Sylvain Françoeur.Review
How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Gamache #9), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Press, 2013.
Summary: The murder of the last Ouelletquintuplet, a former client and friend of Myrna’s brings Gamache back to Three Pines which serves as a hidden base of operations as Sylvain Francoeur’s efforts to destroy Gamachecomes to a head.Review
The Long Way Home(Chief Inspector Gamache #10), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur, 2015.
Summary: Gamache’s peaceful retirement is interrupted when Peter Morrow fails to return as agreed a year after his separation from Clara and they embark on a search taking them to a desolate corner of Quebec.Review
The Nature of the Beast(Chief Inspector Gamache #11), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.
Summary: A young boy from Three Pines, prone to fantastic tales, reports seeing a big gun with a strange symbol, and then is found dead, setting off a search for a murderer, and an effort to thwart a global threat.Review, Second Review
A Great Reckoning(Chief Inspector Gamache #12), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2016.
Summary: Gamache returns to the Sûreté as Commander of its Academy, and finds himself at the center of a murder investigation of one of its corrupt professors.Review
Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Gamache #13), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.
Summary: A mysterious figure robed in black, the murder of a woman found in those robes, a confession, and a trial, during which Gamache has made choices of conscience that could cost lives and save many.Review
Kingdom of the Blind(Chief Inspector Gamache #14), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.
Summary: Gamache, Myrna, and Benedict, a young building maintenance worker who hopes to be a builder are named as liquidators of the estate of a cleaning woman while Amelia Choquet, caught with drugs, is expelled from the Academy to the streets as a powerful and lethal drug is about to hit. Review
A Better Man(Chief Inspector Gamache #15), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019.
Summary: Gamache, Beauvoir, and Lacosteare together again, searching for a missing girl amid rising floods and a flood of social media attacks against Gamache and the art of Clara Morrow.Review
All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2020.
Summary: A family visit of the Gamaches to children in Paris suddenly becomes an investigation into the attempted murder of Stephen Horowitz, Armand’s godfather, and the murder of a close associate, and will put the Gamaches in great peril.Review
The Madness of Crowds (Chief Inspector Gamache #17), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2021.
Summary: A Christmas assignment to provide security for a professor proposing mercy killing leads to a murder investigation in Three Pines.Review
Summary: The arrival in Three Pines of a sister and brother involved in a murder case that brought Armand and Jean Guy and the opening of a sealed room and the strange painting found within confront Gamache with two of his greatest fears.
The most recent novel in this series envisions what it is like to emerge from the pandemic. One thing I would say is that this series has been one of the things that got me through the pandemic. My review of the first volume was posted on April 2, 2020, less than a month after the world locked down. The most recent posted June 13, 2022, a bit over two years later. Pandemic has morphed into endemic and the new normal is a scarier world of war in Ukraine, inflation, gun violence, and political discord stretching from Sri Lanka to the United States. Amid all the murders (both in the real world and the books), the Gamache series reminds me of the goodness that remains, a goodness worth fighting and resisting for as well as celebrating in our daily lives. And there is one more goodness, at least…Louise Penny is still writing and book 18, A World of Curiosities, is expected in late 2022. When I get the chance to read it, and any subsequent numbers, it and they will be added to the list!
[Updated 12/13/2022: The review of book 18, A World of Curiosities is now included in this list.]
I began the month with the notorious RBG and ended with poetry from the island of Iona. In addition to Ginsburg, I read biographies of Siggy Wilzig (read the review for Unstoppable to find out who that is) and Henrietta Mears, who influenced many of the major figures of early evangelicalism, as well as Simeon Booker’s memoir of covering the civil right era for Jet. Wendell Berry’s The Hidden Wound is classic Berry from 1968 which I followed with a contemporary work on mixed ethnic identity. I’m up to book eight in the Inspector Gamache series. For once the murder is not in Three Pines, but a remote monastery. Other fiction included a collection of short stories by Ursula Le Guin and a strange post apocalyptic book involving battles between people able to ride clouds and build thunderheads. The most theological of the books were ones on election, ethics, and preaching Jeremiah with practical theology on what we can do when it is “not our turn,” the practice of tentmaking and on ministry to the disabled. Rounding out this months list was an Erik Larsen non-fiction thriller.
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Irin Cardmon & Shana Knizhnik. New York: Dey Street Books, 2015. A profile of the Supreme Court Justice, centered around her dissenting opinions read from the bench but also tracing her career, her marriage, work out routines and more, liberally illustrated with photos and images. Review
Unstoppable, Joshua M. Greene. San Rafael, CA: Insight Editions, 2021. The biography of Siggi Wilzig, an Auschwitz Holocaust survivor who arrived in the U.S. with $240 and built a fortune in both the oil and banking industries while speaking out against the Holocaust. Review
Mother of Modern Evangelicalism: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears, Arlin C. Migliazzo, Foreword by Kristen Kobes Du Mez. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2020. The first comprehensive biography on Henrietta Mears that focuses on her early life, her Christian Education ministry at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, and her national impact on a nascent evangelical network of leaders, on Christian publishing and retreat ministry. Review
The Hidden Wound, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2010 (Original edition 1968, with Afterword 1988). An extended essay on racism in America, our collective attempts to conceal this wound upon American life, and its connections to our deformed ideas of work. Review
Mixed Blessing, Chandra Crane, Foreward by Jemar Tisby. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020. The author describes her own challenges and blessings of being a person of mixed ethnic and cultural identity, and how the Christian can affirm and include the growing number of mixed identity persons. Review
God Has Chosen, Mark R. Lindsay. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020. A survey of the development of the doctrine of election throughout Christian history, including discussions of human freedom, those who are not of the elect, and the status of Israel as chosen. Review
The Beautiful Mystery(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8), Louise Penny. New York: Minotaur Books, 2013. While solving a case involving the murder of a prior in a remote monastery, Gamache must confront his arch-nemesis Chief Superintendent Sylvain Françoeur. Review
It’s Not Your Turn, Heather Thompson Day. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. When everyone seems to be moving ahead while we are standing still, chosen for jobs while we are runners up, the question is how we should live while we wait our turn. Review
Shocking the Conscience, Simeon Booker with Carol McCabe Booker. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2013. A memoir of Simeon Booker’s career as a reporter, much of it during the height of the Civil Rights movement from the murder of Emmett Till to the busing battles of the 1970’s and beyond. Review
Working Abroad with Purpose, Glenn D. Deckert, Foreword by James Lundgren. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2019. A concise handbook on the practice of tentmaking, explaining the concept, offering practical tips on a number of aspects of working abroad, and recounting the author’s personal experiences. Review
Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. Le Guin. New York: Library of America, 2016 (originally published in 1976). A collection of eleven short stories set in the fictional eastern European country of Orsinia taking place between 1150 and 1965. Review
Talking About Ethics, Michael S. Jones, Mark J. Farnham, and David L. Saxon. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academics, 2021. An approach, which after a chapter of laying out different ethical approaches, applies these through fictional conversations between three students, friends, and classmates discussing various contemporary ethical issues. Review
Thunderstruck, Erik Larsen. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006. The intersection of the lives of Guglielmo Marconi and Hawley Harvey Crippen occurs on a trans-Atlantic voyage with a Scotland Yard detective in pursuit. Review
Preaching Jeremiah, Walter Brueggeman. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2020. Bruggeman takes the framework of Jeremiah as a model for preaching, both in its structure of introduction, ending(s), and body, in its bringing a message of beyond, that both confronts the denial of God, and the grounds for hope that outlasts despair. Review
Disability and the Church, Lamar Hardwick, foreword by Bill Gaventa. Downers Grove: IVP Praxis, 2021. An eloquent and theologically grounded plea affirming the value of persons with disabilities and the steps churches can take to welcome and fully include them. Review
Balcony of Fog, Rick Shapero. Half Moon Bay, CA: TooFar Media, 2020. In a post-nuclear world, a laborer and a fugitive from a vengeful lover inhabiting a thunderhead meet up, transform to cloud-beings and eventually engage in a climactic battle. Review
Iona: New and Selected Poetry. Kenneth Steven. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2021. Summary: A collection of poems connected to the island of Iona, the spiritual home of the author. Review
Best Book of the Month.Mother of Modern Evangelicalism is an exceptionally well-researched account of Henrietta Mears, a Christian education director in a Hollywood church that influenced a number of film stars as well as early leading lights in evangelicalism. She formed a publishing house, Gospel Light, to publish high quality, biblical-based materials for all ages. The biography stands out from earlier ones in tracing her early life in Minnesota and training as an educator. She did all this as a single woman at a time when cultural and theological strictures would discourage the leadership she exercised and a fascinating aspect of this biography is how she worked around these strictures while never openly challenging them.
Quote of the Month: Wendell Berry makes an admission many find challenging to accept even in the America of 2021. He wrote this in 1968:
“If white people have suffered less obviously from racism than black people, they have nevertheless suffered greatly; the cost has been greater perhaps than we can yet know. If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of the wound into himself. As the master, or as a member of the dominant race, he has felt little compulsion to acknowledge it or speak of it; the more painful it has grown the more deeply he has hidden it within himself. But the wound is there, and it is a profound disorder, as great a damage in his mind as it is in his society.
This wound is in me….I want to know, as fully and exactly as I can, what the wound is and how much I am suffering from it….”
It leads me to ask how “fully and exactly” do I want to comprehend this wound?
What I’m Reading. I’ve just finished Imago, the final book in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. I found myself wondering why she did not carry the series on further. I alsohave awaiting review The Problem of the Old Testament, an exploration of how Christians ought read the Old Testament including the issues of continuity and discontinuity, how we read prophecy “fulfilled” in the New Testament and how we think of Israel and the church. I just began Who Created Christianity a festschrift for David Wenham with contributions from N.T. Wright, Stanley Porter, Alister McGrath, Michael Bird, Craig Blomberg, and Greg Beale among others. Victor Davis Hanson’s A War Like No Other is his account of the Peloponnesian War. I’m in the middle of another Ngaio Marsh, Final Curtain, featuring both Roderick Alleyn and his wife, an artist. An Impossible Marriage is the story of a “mixed orientation” marriage and how the seemingly impossible has been possible for them. Finally, 40 Patchtown is a novel by Damian Dressick, a first time author, of an Appalachian mining town and the challenges of standing up to big coal in the early twentieth century.
Hope you are able to find a cool place, a cool drink and a good books to read during the lazy, hazy days of summer!
