Book Reviews

Book Review: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I didn’t read this book when it was first published as for some reason, I thought it sounded a bit boring and sciencey – I couldn’t have been more wrong !! It is a captivating read – sad, funny and uplifting all at the same time.
It is set in the early 1960s and is about Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist, but owing to the dreadful sexism of the time, she is unable to fulfil her potential as a scientist and ends up presenting a cooking show on daytime television which has surprising results.
It is a story of love between men and women, between parents and their children and between humans and dogs. There are unlikely friendships and coincidental connections. It has a delightful piece of karma where past wrongs are righted and which bring the book to a most satisfactory conclusion.
I am envious of anyone who has not yet read this book as they have the most wonderful treat in store.
Chris D

Book Review: Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

 “They buried Joe three days after his murder” – now there’s a way to start a story!

Joe is the oldest son of the wealthy Burkett family, who’d been shot and killed while in a park with his wife Maya. Maya had been on active service as a combat helicopter pilot in the Middle East until she’d been advised to take an honorable discharge from the military after an operation to rescue some US soldiers near  the Syrian-Iraqi border had gone wrong and a number of civilians, including a child, were killed. Joe’s death is the second the Burkett family have had to face in a comparatively short time as his brother had fallen overboard and drowned when he, Joe and some friends were out sailing. Maya’s sister, Claire, had also inexplicably been murdered in her home which led someone to remark that “Death follows you around Maya”.

Given a ride home from the funeral by her friend Eileen, Maya is surprised she is presented with a ‘nanny cam’ disguised as a digital picture frame, Eileen telling her that, as she’s working so much, training pilots, she needs to be able to keep an eye on her daughter, Lily, at home even though their nanny, Isabella, has served the Burkett family for many years. The nanny cam uses a CD card which can be removed at the end of the day, connected to a computer and the day’s events viewed. The trouble starts when looking at a day’s footage she sees what appears to be Joe, her dead husband, sitting there playing with Lily. Failing to get any clarity from Lily, she accosts Isabella when she arrives for work, even playing the video for her but, throughout, Isabella denies that anyone had been in the house. It all gets very fraught, and Maya goes for a glass of water at which point she is pepper-sprayed by Isabella who runs off, having first, it transpires, taken the CD card with her. These events start her thinking, wondering if there’s any link between the three deaths and she determines to find out.

Throughout the book, NYPD homicide detective Roger Kierce, keeps turning up to ask more and more questions of Maya, who he is clearly suspicious of, and it seems will never leave her alone. Maya is also shocked when she realizes that her car is being persistently followed by the same red Buick Verano.

The short version is that the story takes two threads at this point. In one, Maya discovers more and more about the Burkett boys’ lives and the lives of their friends which gives rise to more questions and more following-up including interviews with families and friends from their schooldays and their high school Principal. She also tries to contact Tom Douglass, the Coastguard officer who’d responded to the accidental drowning of Andrew Burkett, but without success. According to his wife, he was always away somewhere or out on business. She finally confesses that he’s been away for a long time and she has no idea where he is or why.

The second thread concerns the guy in the red car which has been following her. When she forces him to stop and talk to her, she finds out that he is Corey Rudzinski, aka ‘Corey the Whistle’ (think WikiLeaks and Julian Assange). He had released the video footage of the event in the Middle East which led to her leaving the military but for some unknown reason had not followed up, as Maya had expected, with the audio recording of that event. Maya now leans that her sister, Claire, had gone to Corey with information that the Burkett family were behind EAC Pharmaceuticals, a company that was selling fake drugs in third world countries, India in particular, as a result of which people were dying. He’d recruited her to get more information and more solid facts and that, he believed had led to her death.

As the story goes along, more facts are revealed and the real course of events become clear, including the reason why Tom Douglass could never be found and an explosive end to the story comes when Maya confronts the Burkett family at their home.

And, oh yes, there is a happy ending, but not perhaps one you’ll have seen coming. Enjoy the read.

Phil L

All of these books and many more are available to borrow now at Blackfen Community Library. Come along, sit and have a read at our community hub and enjoy a fresh coffee from Rooted Coffee House, our in house coffee shop.

To enquire about the availability of these books you can login via your membership login or pop into the library and ask our team.