59. Lost Girls: The Maine Murders by Jon Mills

Ben Forrester series, but I don't see any more yet
Listened on Audible
narrated by Peter Kenyon
Unabridged audio (6:18)
2018
391 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 4/5/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.23 - 1133 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting:  Contemporary Mount Desert Island, Maine

First line/s:  "For the last two years, Ben Forrester had lived in a small beach house on Mt. Desert Island."

My comments:  I was delighted to begin this murder mystery knowing that it took place in Maine, but was more-than-pleasantly surprised when I discovered it was set on my own Mount Desert Island.  However, the author did some really weird things with some of the facts and locations.  He changed the name of Bar Harbor to Eden Falls, keeping Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont the other three towns, correctly.  Unfortunately, the narrator was never told how to correctly say Tremont.  Oh well, he did nail Bangor, thankfully, which is a huge pet peeve of mine though it shouldn't be.  But Mr. Mills added and changed other things that disconcerted me.  He kept saying Acadia Park (leaving out the National, which isn't done) and added Acadia National Forest, WTF?  He put Blackwoods Campground in Bar Harbor/Eden Falls jurisdiction, when it's in Otter Creek (never mentioned) which is part of the town of Mount Desert and in their jurisdiction.  He gave huge, crazy numbers to the amounts of park rangers at Acadia.  Had cabins and log homes dotted here and there throughout the "forest," which, because it's largely in Acadia National Park is definitely not allowed and therefore nonexistent.  All of this bothered me quite a bit     why change some insignificant details when sticking to the truth would probably garner more positive reception?  It definitely put me off.  The story was okay, to be sure.  I usually, as a rule, dislike stories when the protagonist's family are kidnapped, and this was one of those.  It was also incredibly grizzly - and I can usually take some grizzly, but, spoiler alert!!! I think I've got to draw a line with taxidermy being done on human bodies.  I'll give this one a three, although I will certainly try out any others if Mr. Mills decides to continue this as a series.

Goodreads synopsis:  A serial killer is terrorizing a coastal town…
          When renowned FBI agent Benjamin Forrester suffers a devastating loss while trying to catch an elusive serial killer, he quits the bureau. Years later, after a similar series of gruesome murders trigger an investigation in the coastal town of Eden Falls, Maine, Ben is called upon to assist the rookie police detective, Dakota Woods.
          He soon learns he's being lured into a deadly game of cat and mouse where the only way to stop the murders is to confront his past and face his worst fear.

37. Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

read on my iPhone/Kindle

2013, William Morrow Paperbacks

304 pgs.

YA/Adult CRF/HistFict

Finished 6/15/14

Goodreads Rating:  4.08

My Rating: 4.5/Super story

Setting: 2011 MDI, Maine and 1929 (+) Minnesota

1^st sentence/s:  "I believe in ghosts.  They're the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind."

My comments:  4.5  I love books that flip back and forth in time, as this one does.  One orphan in 1929 Minnesota and another in 2011 Mount Desert Island, Maine.  (What a hoot reading about Somesville OneStop, Bar Harbor, MDI High School, and even the Island Explorer bus).  Which town is Spruce Harbor - Southwest Harbor I'm guessing.  I couldn't put this down - such trials and heartbreak each of these protagonists have endured.

Goodreads Summary:  The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

     Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.
     Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.
     The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.
     Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are

10. Small As an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson

2011, Candlewick Press
$15.99 TPPL
278 pgs.
Rating:   It was okay

Setting:  Contemporary Mount Desert Island, Maine - Seawall, Bar Harbor, then Trenton, Lamoine, Ellsworth, Bucksport, Searsport...
OSS:  And 11-year old is abandoned in Maine by his bipolar mother and has to figure out how to find her so that the DSS doesn't find out and separate them.
1st sentence/s:  "Elephants can sense danger.  They're able to detect an approaching tsunami or earthquake befofre it hits.  Unfortuantely, Jack did not have this talent.  The day his life was turned completely upside down, he was caught unaware."

What a delightful treat to know every single place that Jack visited - whether it was Ben & Bill's on Main Street in Bar Harbor, or the sight of Fort Knox in the distance, or even the long expanse of road between Ellsworth and Bucksport, the author gets every detail down perfectly. That's my home, my tromping ground for 30 years, and it was pretty cool to relive it all in a book that I know children will read and enjoy.

Jack has to figure out what to do.  He has to find his mother, he has to make sure she's okay.  In between the delightful experiences he's had with her throughout his life, he's also had to deal with her "spinning times," when she would spiral out of control and sometimes disappear.  But she has never disappeared like this before, he has always had his home in Jamaica Plain to wait for her.  And he knows that if he goes to the police, the DSS will become involved and he will be separated from her...and this time, she might even have to go to jail!

The entire book is paralleled with his intense interest in all things elephant.  He loves elephants, studies elephants, knows the differences between them and all sorts of stories, facts, fictions related to them.  All this is liberally shared in the book.  Each short chapter begins with a new and interesting fact or story about them.  A small elephant in his pocket helps calm him, and the thought of seeing a live one down the road keeps him going.  My problem....I could care less about elephants.  I didn't like all the extra elephant information.  I'm betting it added great interest for most kids, but.....I'll admit it....I either didn't read or skimmed these parts.

So all in all what did I think?  An 11-year old on the road all by himself for over a week?  As a kid I think I would have loved this premise.  What a great plotline.  Of course, a great setting.  But somehow, I couldn't wait for the book to be over.  I'm thinking it was the elephants.....