Teaser Tuesday: Lost Kin by Steve Anderson

As Harry left his mansion Irina ran up to him shouting, arms flailing, her hair in her eyes wet with tears.

Harry's first thought -- my brother is dead.

-- Lost Kin by Steve Anderson. Max and Harry Kaspar reunite in 1946 occupied Munich in Anderson's third Karpar Brothers novel. American Harry wants to find his German brother Max still alive. Max wants Harry to help rescue a clan of Cossack refugees being hunted by Soviet death squads.

This exciting third book follows, The Losing Role, and Liberated. Lost Kin got a great advanced review on Kirkus Reviews, that called it "classic noir" and "a haunting tale" and said, "Anderson deserves a standing ovation for his gritty sketch of postwar, rubble-laden Munich."

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Book Beginning: Lost Kin by Steve Anderson

THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

FACEBOOK: Rose City Reader has a Facebook page where I post about new and favorite books, book events, and other bookish tidbits, as well as link to blog posts. I'd love a "Like" on the page! You can go to the page here to Like it. I am happy to Like you back if you have a blog or professional Facebook page, so please leave a comment with a link and I will find you.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book  Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Harry Kaspar knew he shouldn't be heading into a bombed-out neighborhood with a plainclothes Munich cop he didn't know, not alone, not with night falling so fast.

-- Lost Kin by Steve Anderson.

This is the third book in Anderson's Kaspar Brothers series. Harry Kaspar is the older brother of Max Kaspar, protagonist in the first book, The Losing Role, that takes place in the last year of WWII. We meet Max's American brother Harry in Liberated, right after the war ends. The brothers are reunited in this third book, which takes place a year after WWII, as the Cold War begins.

TBT: Review: The Stories of John Cheever

Throw Back Thursday

This review was first posted on March 24, 2008

Before there was Mad Men, there was John Cheever.

The Stories of John Cheever, which won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1978 and the Pulitzer in 1979, is a chronological collection that spans Cheever’s short story career, from pre-WWII up to 1973. To read this collection – just shy of 700 pages – is to live in Cheever’s head, tracking his artistic and personal development in a way that a single novel or volume of stories doesn’t allow.

These are not happy stories. The earlier pieces are particularly bleak and raw. While the later stories are deeper and more nuanced, they are still pretty dark. Precious few have cheerful resolutions. The best Cheever’s characters seem to achieve is contentment despite imperfect circumstances.

Cheever’s is a world of commuter trains and cocktail parties, where everyone wears hats, has a cook, drinks martinis at lunch, summers, sails, and commits adultery. Not everyone is rich; in fact, money problems are a continuing theme. But the trappings, however tarnished, of a mid-century, Northeast corridor, upper crust way of life hang on all the stories. And that is Cheever at his best. He can bring us so deep into that world that it feels like living it.

Teaser Tuesday: The Blind Assassin

When the policeman had gone I went upstairs to change. To visit the morgue I would need gloves, and a hat with a veil.

-- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

This Booker Prize winner has been on my TBR shelf forever! I was intimidated by the idea of its novel within a novel within a novel, but I shouldn't have been. The structure is not as complicated as it sounds. The narrator Iris is telling the story of her and her sister Laura's lives. But the book also includes an apparently autobiographical novel of Laura's, published posthumously, that fills in Iris's story. And part of Laura's novel is an allegorical science fiction story told by the lover to the novel's heroine. So all three works of fiction combine to tell one story.

OK, so maybe it does sound complicated. But it doesn't feel complicated when you read it. It comes out just as a really good story.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event. Mailbox Monday has now returned to its permanent home where you can link to your MM post.

I got two books last week, and both intrigue me:



Cabal by Michael Dibdin. I've never read one of Dibdin's mysteries featuring police detective Aurelio Zen, but I saw the short BBC series starring Rufus Sewell in the lead role and am looking forward to trying the books. Cabal isn't the first in the series but I found it at a Little Free Library in my neighborhood so I thought I'd give it a try.



The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Müller, translated by Philip Boehm. Müller won 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. This is the new release of her 1992 novel about Romania in the last months of the Ceausescu regime. Mine is an early review copy from LibraryThing and the book is available for pre-order for its May 10 release.