Jack’s Books: The Family Business

My best friend gave me a book I would never have picked up myself, and it was a joy.

Make your next vacation or airplane read this one: “The Same Bright Stars” by Ethan Joella (2024). Jack Schmidt is a third-generation restaurant owner on the Delaware shore, whose business is draining him physically and emotionally, to the point that he will sell out to a shadowy conglomerate. What he (and we, the readers) come to realize, is that as much as he needs time to take care of himself and his relationships, he also needs the work, and his work family needs him. When he gets a shock from his past, things start to move quickly, and Joella’s light storytelling touch and plotting sneak up on us. I truly loved this book.

Also in recent weeks:

“The Keeper” by John Lescroart (2015) In this author’s SF city politics/legal universe reside fantastic characters like attorney Dismas Hardy, his ex-cop best friend Abe Glitzky, and many others who now feel like family to those of us reading the series. This one starts when a woman goes missing, and her husband’s work secrets start spilling out.

“Gorky Park” by Martin Cruz Smith (1981) (reread) I couldn’t remember if I had liked Cruz Smith’s debut Soviet homicide detective thriller when I read it in my youth. I found that I didn’t care for it as a grown-up, which is disappointing, because he wrote so many after it. I won’t be following the adventures of Arkady Renko—for me, too many characters, too much plot.

“Calypso” by Ed McBain (1979) One thing you can say about McBain’s “87th Precinct” series—they’re simple pleasures. The case begins with two musicians cut down by a gunman while walking back from a gig, and then a prostitute is killed. Same gun. Connection? In a mere 250 pages, you’ll know.

“Working” by Robert Caro (2019) Sort of a down payment on what the historian and author hopes will eventually be a memoir, “Working” is a sort of guidebook to, well, how he works. Fascinating background on his groundbreaking reporting on Robert Moses, the imperious father of modern-day New York, which will illuminate anything by Caro that you may have already read, or inspire you to seek out.

“Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann (2017) I knew nothing about the phenomenon of the Osage people,  who became incredibly, suddenly, wealthy off of oil rights in the early part of the last century. It brought every kind of depredation, and a string of murders that looked unrelated, but couldn’t be. When all other manner of law enforcement failed, an upstart federal agency made its reputation working the case, in a way that would not surprise us now, but was groundbreaking at the time.

“Playing With Cobras” by Craig Thomas (1993) Thomas wrote a series of spy thrillers set around Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde of MI6. I recommend them all, but this one with a little less than the usual enthusiasm: the action is turgid in places and the plot bogs down. Hyde goes into India, where a fellow agent is being held in the death of his mistress, a politically-connected Bollywood star.

“The Case of The Careless Kitten” by Erle Stanley Gardner (1942) When the Perry Mason TV series got its hands on this novel, they butchered it in terms of characters and premise. Here, in the printed form, it’s a very clever case of a missing man, his estate, his miserably-abandoned wife, a house full of intrigue and a kitten whose floury footprints lead our favorite lawyer to a surprising solution.

As always, what did you think of any of these you read? Please let me know: [email protected]