In our continuing effort to let you know about great beach books that are smart and engaging — in other words, books that aren’t so fluffy that you forget what you’ve been reading before you get back to your rental — here are three current paperbacks. We’re even including a nifty system of grades for each book, so what more do you need? Head to the ocean, settle in, and start reading.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Vintage).
One of the unexpected hits of 2008, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is quite a ride. It features a disgraced Swedish financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who is given a chance to redeem himself when ancient industrialist Henrik Vanger hires him to find out what happened to a beloved grand-niece who disappeared 40 years ago. Blomkvist enlists the help of Lisbeth Salander, a tattooed, multi-pierced, genius mega-hacker with a laundry list of personal problems, and together they begin to uncover decades’ worth of stunning corruption and cruelty. Larsson’s pace is relentless, the writing is sharp and strangely lyrical for such a powerful mystery, but it’s the main characters’ interactions — often complicated by Lisbeth’s inner struggles that mirror the pair’s investigative findings — you’ll remember weeks later. FYI, this is the first book of a trilogy. The author died in 2004 after handing in all three books.
Works the cranium (on 1-10 scale): 8
Gripping-tude: 9
Best thing about: The gradual, parallel revelations about both the disappearance and Lisbeth’s past.
Only drawback: A little long, but worth it.
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi (Grand Central).
When author Douglas Preston moved to Florence, he became obsessed by an unsolved series of horrendous murders, one of which had happened on the property of his new home. From 1974 to 1985, a murderer called the Monster of Florence had stalked lovers’ lanes in the countryside around Florence. The killer would wait until the lovers’ “most intimate moments” and then kill and mutilate his victims. Theories in Florence about the murders ranged from a satanic cult to an aristocrat to anyone who’d be good with knives, such as a doctor or butcher. Preston met crime reporter Mario Spezi, who fancied himself a “Monsterologist,” and the two soon began to work together to solve the crimes. The problem was that Italian police had already arrested other suspects, who were then acquitted or released from prison on appeal. The police didn’t want to be shown up by a couple of amateurs, so they arrested the pair for obstruction of justice — and followed that by charging Spezi with being the Monster himself. We won’t give away the rest, but suffice it to say that the reader gets a panoramic view of Italian, ahem, police work, as the mystery of the Monster killings becomes more involved and complex. This is a fascinating, at times riveting, twisting tale. Although the book would have been better served by livelier writers, Preston and Spezi are “good enough,” as the story itself is the real attraction.
Works the cranium (on 1-10 scale): 7
Gripping-tude: 8
Best thing about: The picture Preston paints of ineffective, vindictive police and prosecutors is priceless.
Only drawback: A fantastic story such as this one deserved a stellar, irresistible writer; Preston can be clunky at times.
The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carlton (Harper Perennial).
Carlton’s only novel has been a word-of-mouth favorite since the 1960s, although it has been inexplicably out of print for over 20 years. Originally published in 1962, it became a best seller and was instantly ghettoized as “women’s fiction,” which is like saying that Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is “a book about a funeral.” A rich family saga of life in rural America during the 1950s, the novel tells the story of retired teacher Matthew Soames, his wife, three adult daughters and a grandson, who gather for a summer at the family farm near Renfro, Missouri. Each character is developed fully as the book progresses toward revelations of the family members’ secrets and conflicts. It’s a beautifully written book, full of honest drama, personal struggles and characters that seem so real they virtually walk off the pages into your living room (or onto the beach, as the case may be). It was high time for this masterpiece to be rediscovered, and for its author to be revisited as one of the greatest one-book-and-out novelists, on a level with Harper Lee and her To Kill A Mockingbird.
Works the cranium (on 1-10 scale): 8
Gripping-tude: 7
Best thing about: Carlton’s culturally accurate portrayal of life in a different time and place.
Only drawback: Cannot honestly think of one. In fact, of these three books, I recommend this one the most.
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2009.
