Roger's Reads

Author & Book Reviewer

Review of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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27833670 SY475I recently read and loved “Recursion” by Blake Crouch, so I immediately wanted to read some of his other work, and I heard some great things about Dark Matter. So I picked it up and was not disappointed. What was fun was that I went into this almost completely blind, so I had no idea what was coming. Now, this was published in 2016, so I guess I’m a bit late to the game here.

So this is more of a techno-thriller that follows a university professor named Jason Dressen, who is married to the love of his life Daniela and together they have a son named Charlie. One night, Jason is walking home from a bar after briefly joining a friend for a celebratory drink when a stranger wearing a mask and wielding a gun kidnaps him, though, for the life of him, Jason cannot even begin to fathom the reason why.

The man leads him to a warehouse where he then injects Jason with some sort of drug, causing him to pass out.

When he awakes, he’s in a lab, strapped to a gurney and a man – someone he’s never seen before — says to him, “Welcome Back.” Jason plays along and at the first opportunity, escapes. Soon he learns that in the world to which he’s awoken, he is not married nor ever has been.

He has no son nor ever has had one, and he is not a university professor but rather an award-winning atomic physicist. So the question is: which is actually his life? The one in which he finds himself now or the one he remembers?

He also learns pretty quickly that someone is hunting him down.

So what we have here then, is a gripping, action-filled mind-bending thriller that has Jason trying to make sense out what in the hell happened to him. I appreciated the fact that one didn’t need a Ph.D. in physics or mathematics to understand the concepts present in the story.

Though the author introduces some complex scientific theories such as quantum physics, string theory, and game theory, they are explained in terms that an average Joe like myself can easily comprehend.  It’s also quite thought-provoking as it invites some serious contemplation about reality, family, about, about who we are vs. who we want to be, about what matters most in our lives, the choices we make, and about the road not taken.

This novel asks some pretty deep philosophic questions that made me sit back and think about my own life and my own ideas about reality.

This is a super twisty and zigzaggy book as Jason digs himself in deeper and deeper. The short paragraphs — averaging two to three sentences each — really added to the feeling of ever-growing urgency and desperation that hung throughout the story.

This is one of those books where unexpected twists and chilling revelations lurk around every corner, but I dare not say too much more to avoid the risk of spoilers. I will say, however, that the surprises are expertly executed at just the right time and just when you think you may have figured out the rest of it, everything changes.  This is also a powerful and ingenious story in which the tension never lets up.

So that being said, I found Dark Matter to be a profound, exhilarating, and thought-provoking journey with a relatable heart-warming and multi-faceted protagonist. This book took my breath away. Wow, what a story! It’s a clever, mind-bending, whirlwind of a book that I absolutely loved.

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Review of The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor

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35356382 SY475The Chalk Man is a book whose premise intrigued me right from the get-go, especially the Stranger Things vibe that the story had.

So this follows Eddie Adams (aka Eddie Munster) and his group of friends: Hoppo, Fat Gav, Metal Mickey, and Metal Mickey and the narrative jumps back and forth between two different timelines, both told from Eddie’s point of view.

In the 1986 timeline, Eddie is 12-years old, and the kids spend their day riding their bikes around town leaving little chalk stick figure messages for either other — messages only they can understand. But things change for Eddie and his friends when one day, a stick figure leads them to the dismembered body of a young woman. This, however, is only one of the tragedies that tore the community apart that summer for Eddie and his friends. Lots of bad things happen that summer and the small town where Eddie lives is filled with secrets, lies, hypocrisy, and some pretty nasty characters as well.

Thirty-years later in 2016, Eddie is fully grown. What’s interesting about this timeline, is that we get to see how the events that took place 30 years earlier affect Eddie and his friends in the present.

Now as for Eddie, he’s single, a teacher, lives with a rather odd roommate, drinks too much and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he receives an anonymous letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure and as it turns out, his friends got the same letter. They assume it’s only a prank until one of them turns up dead. It becomes clear, then, that it’s not a prank and that the past has come back to haunt him. Eddie soon finds himself thrust into a 30-year-old mystery.

I thought the author did an excellent job of juggling the two timelines. This method doesn’t always work well in novels, but Tudor managed to expertly pull it off in a perfectly-paced narrative. She also managed to give us a fantastic set of characters in a convincing small-town setting to both fascinate us and distract us. I enjoyed the curious references surrounding the mysterious “chalk man” thought the story, which added to the plot’s intrigue.

This is definitely one of those stories where you should assume nothing and trust no one, one of my favorite tropes. This results in an addicting and unique story with captivating situations, but also some great twists along the way. The fast-paced storyline kept me utterly engaged until the climactic ending.

Now speaking of the ending, though surprising, I couldn’t quite buy into it. It felt just a bit too much over the top for me, resulting in a badly needed eye-roll. So though I enjoyed the story and the characters, the outrageous ending caused me to knock off a star. But still, I found The Chalk Man to be a thrilling and engaging tale with plenty of surprises. It was dark and sinister, with gobs of creepiness and secrets.

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Review of Permanent Record by Edward Snowden

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46223297It’s actually kind of funny how I stumbled on this book. I was searching my library database for another book with the same title — Permanent Record — and when this one popped up, I requested it straight away. I had heard quite a bit of conversation surrounding this book, so I was eager to delve into it.

Now I realize that some people regard Edward Snowden — one of the most infamous whistleblowers of our time — as a hero, whereas others consider him a traitor. Still, regardless of your stance on Mr. Snowden, his story is fascinating. So Ed Snowden is the person who risked everything to expose the US Government’s enormous system of secret mass surveillance that has the ability to pry into the private lives — including every single text message, phone call, GPS whereabouts, and email — of every single person on earth.

So in Permanent Record, Mr. Snowden tells his story, including his part in building this surveillance system as well as what prompted him to expose it to the public. We also learned about the events leading up to his current exile in Moscow.

I loved the story of his beginnings as a low-level IT working and was amazed at how much his path paralleled my own (I also ran a BBS back on the ’90s and was so excited when I got my blazing fast 2400 baud modem (which means it was capable of transferring a maximum of 2400 bits of data per second. My first modem was 300 baud).

Now there are some parts of the book — especially in the beginning — that may seem overly technical for someone without an IT background. But it’s worth it to stick with the book because his story ends up to be utterly engrossing and quite readable (or at least I thought so).

It was riveting to get the inside scoop from someone who worked in these massive surveillance data centers and to watch the months of careful and meticulous preparation he took before arriving at the day where he let the cat out of the bag.

I also loved the fact that he delves into the subject of how we can protect our privacy — or at least limit the amount of data collected on us. This kind of reminded me of another book entitled “The Art of Invisibility” by Kevin Mitnik, which I consider an essential book for anyone wishing to protect themselves and their privacy while online.

Mr. Snowden also provides a compelling and important response to the all too common reaction of, “I don’t care about privacy. I have nothing to hide.” He clearly illustrates why we should care about our privacy and what it could mean for us if we don’t.

This book touched upon so many different themes: corporate surveillance, government surveillance, our freedom, the role of national security, the role of the press, the NSA, and whistleblowing. So yes, I ended up loving this book, and though I hate to use a cliched term, I do feel that this is an important book for our contemporary society — and not only for those living in the US.

I always find it difficult to rate non-fiction books, especially memoirs, but to me, this one for me is deserving of 5 stars.

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The Rattled Bones by S.M. Parker

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32033642 SY475The Rattled Bones is a super-atmospheric ghost story that follows a young woman named Rilla Brae who has recently lost her father and is struggling with her grief as well as her uncertain future. The story takes place in a small Maine fishing community and visible to the town is a mysterious uninhabited island.

One night Rilla sees the apparition of a ghostly girl floating over the nearby island and her haunting yet familiar song reaches Rilla, beckoning her.

The ghosts pull grows stronger until intrigued, Rilla boats over to the island. There she meets a young man named Sam, a university student who’s excavating the island and searching for clues about the island people who were evicted from the island 80 years earlier.

Now, this is news to her, as Rilla has never heard of anyone living on the island, and she is determined and excited to investigate the island’s history. Bit the bit, the island’s horrifying past — and a tragedy that has been kept secret – finally comes to light — a disaster that has a strong connection to Rilla’s own past.

So there’s a lot going on with this story: long-held secrets, grief, and loss, there’s a mystery to solve, there’s the struggle between tradition and moving forward, the connection between the past and present, there’s the horror of racial prejudice and even a touch of romance. And given that this is a ghost story, there’s a delightful creep factor to it as well.

It was so much fun journeying with Rilla, and she began to uncover the island’s strange and unsettling past and discover herself in the process. It’s also an excellent example of how an unnerving and distressing past can resound right into the present in a variety of ways with the uneasy suspense building page after page.

One of the things I loved most about this book was the way the author developed the mystery and then slowly weaved together its strands, bringing the characters closer to each other in the process. This is an atmospheric book that is vibrant with life, rich in culture, and yet, is followed by haunting shadows that make your spine tingle.

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Review of The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

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39863482 SY475The Night Tiger takes place in Malaya in the town of Ipoh during the 1930s and opens to a scene in which Dr. MacFarlane, the employer of an orphaned Chinese houseboy named Ren, is about to die. Before passing, the doctor makes one final request of the boy: that he find his missing severed finger lost years ago and reunite it with his body. Now there’s a strong sense of urgency here as Ren only has 49 days to complete the task; if he fails, his master’s spirit will roam the earth forever, unable to rest. Ren then arrives at the home of less-than-respectable surgeon William Acton with a letter of recommendation from MacFarlane, who told Ren before his death that he believed Acton will still have the finger that was amputated during an exploration years before but he needs to find the finger on his own and must not mention it to Acton.

So then we meet a young woman named Ji Lin who, though she has dreams of becoming a nurse, works instead as an apprentice dressmaker to adhere to her oppressive and abusive stepfather’s demands. Because of her mother’s gambling debts, however, Ji Lin also moonlights as a dancehall girl to help pay them off.

One evening, Ji Lin dances with a man and accidentally takes a small container from his pocket, only to discover later on that the object is a test tube with a shriveled severed finger inside. So we can only assume that this is the finger Ren must find and that now her fate will be linked with Ren’s. Desperate to get rid of it, she enlists the help of her step-brother Shin to help get it to its rightful owner.

There is also the fact that a tiger is prowling the town which is blamed on the several bizarre deaths that occurred in the village recently.

There are some who believe that the creature is, in fact, a were-tiger, a creature of Chinese superstition that has the ability to shapeshift into human form. It’s kind of the opposite of a werewolf because here we have an animal that shifts into a human rather than the other way around. At some point in the story, all three of their lives intertwine – the boy, the girl, and the tiger, creating danger for our two main characters. It’s also interesting how Ren and Ji Lin’s lives become linked through dreams and the events in the story.

This was such an atmospheric book with beautiful imagery, and the author has a knack for sucking you right into the story. There were several other interesting motifs as well, such as the repeated theme of the five Confucian virtues as well as the theme of actual twins.

I thought this was a lovely adventurous Asian-inspired fantasy steeped with mythology and it was a blast to read, with its blend of historical fiction, magical realism, mystery, possible murder and even a touch of romance, though the romance was a bit strange, to be sure.

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Review of Cemetery Road by Greg Iles

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40604810 SY475This is my first Greg Iles novel, and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read it. Holy. Freaking. Moly. What a tale! The story sucked me in right from the opening lines:

“I never meant to kill my brother. I never set out to hate my father. I never dreamed I would bury my own son. Nor could I have imagined that I would betray the childhood friend who saved my life, or win a Pulitzer Prize for telling a lie. All these things I have done, yet most people I know would call me an honorable man.”

Cemetery Road follows Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Marshall McEwan, a man with a somewhat dark and painful past, who has recently returned to Bienville, Mississippi, to take care of his ailing alcoholic father and provide support to his mother. Once in town, he connects with his former lover, Jet, who has married Paul Matheson, Marshall’s best friend.

But when Buck Ferris, who has been a father figure/mentor to Marshall, is found dead, Marshall is convinced that it was no accident and that foul play was involved. Moreover, he suspects that a The Poker Club, the group of rich, powerful, corrupt, and ruthless men who pretty much run the town, is connected.

Marshall suspects that Buck may have made a discovery that could put the kibosh on the new paper mill that is close to opening — a deal that could bring in a billion dollars to the town and greatly enrich the Poker Club members.

Marshall and Jet join forces to figure out what really happened to Buck Ferris and who was responsible.

In so doing, they draw the attention of The Poker Club who doesn’t hesitate to bully, intimidate, blackmail and threaten anyone who stands in their way, especially once Marshall and Jet begin to unearth their dangerous secrets that could no doubt lead to more murder, especially once they uncover Marshall’s own dark secrets.

Cemetery Road is a gritty story with many, many twists, as well as layers upon layers of deception, treachery, and corruption, and the surprises come fast and furious. The author certainly has a knack for making the reader care about their characters, probably because they are so well-fleshed out and fascinating.

I love how multidimensional they all were. They were also all very much flawed — including Marshall, the main character – and as we quickly learn, nobody is what they appear on the surface.

The writing is evocative and atmospheric, which lent a richness to the story, as did the complexity of the plot and had me hypnotized from the outset. Though the plot is complex and the prose eloquent, it is not at all difficult to follow.

The author has spun here a genuinely creepy and unsettling crime and mystery tale full of dastardly characters and a setting where nobody can be trusted, and I found the characters and their motives utterly enticing.

This is quite a lengthy novel — almost 600 pages of dense prose — but it’s well worth the effort because I feel that the story is phenomenal.

The author leads us on an unforgettable journey and in the process, explores numerous themes such as courage, betrayal, grief, family, shame, corruption, murder, greed, friendship, trust, secrets, injustice, and the power of wealth.

The intoxicating combination of an atmospheric setting, morally ambiguous main characters, dangerous secondary characters without scruples, complicated personal relationships, and the overall unpredictability of the tale serves up a genuinely compelling narrative that refuses to leave your mind long after you have finished.

All in all, a diabolically clever saga of murder, corruption, and deception and a solid five star read for me.

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