50. Shut Your Eyes Tight - John Verdon

Dave Gurney #2
2011, Crown Publishers
509 pgs.
Goodreads Rating 3.88
My rating:  I liked it a whole lot (4)

First sentence:  "He stood in front of the mirror and smiled with deep satisfaction at his own smiling reflection."
Setting:  Contemporary New York state, in the Catskills near Albany.

First impressions upon finishing:  Another great, complicated mystery from John Verdon. It did seem a little extra long (509 pages), and the weird tension in Gurney's marriage is a little difficult to picture. High-level vocabulary, especially at the beginning kept me on my toes. I've definitely become a John Verdon/Dave Gurney fan.

Dave Gurney, retired NYC homicide detective, is pulled into his second "consultant" investigation since his retirement at age 48.  This does not please his wife, Madeleine, who wants him to stay completely retired.  However, he has an uncanny ability to sniff out the questions that need answering and putting pieces of weird, seemingly unsolvable puzzles together.

This weird, unsolvable puzzle begins with the murder of a brand-new wife, beautiful Jillian Perry, at her own wedding reception.  The wedding was at her new husband, Scott Ashcroft's, lavish country estate.   She went into a small cottage on the premises to encourage their gardener, Hector Flores, to attend the reception.  When she didn't reappear her husband entered the cottage and discovered his decapitated wife sitting at a small table with her head staring back at her body.  

The investigation takes Gurney back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth once again between his own home in Walnut Crossing to the site of the murder in 
Tambury, into Manhattan, and to meetings with police and the DA in Albany.  

Complicated, interesting, and thought-provoking.  It took me a lot of 30-40 page sittings, but was very worth it.  One word I can associate with this author: CLEVER!!

17. Think of a Number - John Verdon

1st in a series:  Dave Gurney, Retired NYC Homicide, Upstate NY
2010, Crown Publishers
BC Library
418 pgs.
Just wonderful writing and storytelling (5)
1st sentence/s:  "Jason Strunk was by all accounts an inconsequential fellow, a bland thirty-something, nearly invisible to his neighbors --- and apparently inaudible as well, since none could recall a single specific thing he'd ever said."
Setting:  Upstate NYC, somewhere in the Catskills near Cooperstown, winter.

This is John Verdon's first book, ever.  It looks like he was a big wig in an advertising firm in NYC, which doesn't even sound like it might be related to homicide investigations.  Well, I don't know what he's best at...intricate, clever storytelling, or writing beautiful prose.  He even used a couple of words that were new to my word bank!  He's created a fascinating protagonist and allows the reader to get completely into his head.  There's an element of psychology in the story that I usually wrinkle my nose at, but this was fascinating.  I couldn't wait to curl up with this story.

Dave Gurney's old college friend, Mark Mellery, discovers that they live fairly near each other in the Catskills of upper New York state and comes to visit him with a perplexing problem.  He's been receiving weird poems in the mail - poems that are threatening and ominous.  Gurney is a retired police wiz from New York City who has an uncanny knack of putting clues together. His relationship with his wife, Madeline, is a bit rocky.  She's ready for him to retire, not be pulled back into his old life, where is becomes obsessed with his cases.  They're only in their late forties, and do seem to love each other.  There's background "stuff" though - a previous marriage with one grown son for him and a son who died in an accident at three years old for the two of them.

The mystery is complex and fascinating! 

The second book in the series, Shut Your Eyes Tight, has already been published and the third, Let the Devil Sleep, will come out in July.  Can't wait to read them.

55. Eleven - Patricia Reilly Giff

Audio read by Staci Snell
Random House Audio, 2008
5:30, 5 unabridged cds
Rating: 4.4
176 pgs.

While looking in the attic for hidden gifts for his 11th birthday, Sam comes across a locked box with a newspaper article sticking out of it. Hampered by an enormous reading disability, he needs someone to help him decipher what the papers in the box say, so he makes friends with the new girl in his fifth grade class. Caroline warns him that she will not be in the town long, her father is an artist that moves the family many times each year. However, they become great friends and solve Sam's story together.

Sam has been raised by his grandfather, Mack, in a three-apartment complex that sits above three stores. These are Sam's family, the people who have raised him. After he starts thinking about his past he begins to have nightmares about a boat, a children's home, a storm, a mean lady. He begins to wonder whether he IS Mack's grandson. His reading disability makes him feel stupid, but his exceptional gift of woodworking, so like his grandfather's, helps him feel better about himself.....as do the things facts he discovers about his background.

There are many layers to this story. They work together beautifully. I'm glad I discovered this book. The narrator was excellent, and I was sorry when it ended.