Moonraker's Bride

Moonraker's Bride, by Madeleine Brent

Born in a Mission in China, Lucy Waring finds herself with fifteen small children to feed and care for. The way she tackles this task leads to her being thrown into the grim prison of Chengfu, where she meets Nicholas Sabine - a man about to die. He asks her a cryptic riddle, the mystery of which echoes through all that befalls her in the months that follow... She is brought to England and tries to make a new life with the Gresham family, but she is constantly in disgrace and is soon involved in the bitter feud between the Greshams and a neighboring family. There is danger, romance and heartache for Lucy as strange events build to a point where she begins to doubt her own senses. How could she see a man, long dead, walking in the misty darkness of the valley? And who carried her, unconscious, into the labyrinth of Chiselhurst Caves and left her to die? It is not until she returns to China that Lucy finds, amid high adventure, the answer to all that has baffled her.

Aha, so I was actually reading Shiver when this book arrived, and I picked it up and read, like, the first three pages, and decided, eff it, I'ma just read the whole thing in one go.  SO WORTH IT. I think it was that moment when Lucy is like, "I know that I could have one of my hands cut off for stealing, but there is no other way to get enough money to feed my little Chinese orphans.  But Ms. Prothero would be so upset.  WELP, JUST GONNA HAVE TO LIE TO HER, THEN, I GUESS." And then heads out like a boss to go thieving (and gets thrown in jail and has adventures)!  I have decided that I have a new (old) favorite archetype: the lady who Gets Shit Done.  Like, yes, you are in a sticky situation, and everything is going to hell, but you have to keep doing the best you can with what you got.  Lady, I salute you.

So Moonraker's Bride, despite it's terrible 1970s title and windswept cover, is actually pretty enjoyable.  Like, good enough that I did, for a brief moment go, "Would it be cheaper to just pay the library fine than buy it online?" because it is hella expensive.*  But then I would deprive other card members of the glory that is Moonraker's Bride.  But.  I was tempted, is what I'm saying (mostly because I am also hella cheap).

I will admit, Moonraker's Bride is not, like, the Decameron, okay?  Ain't no one going to be writing their thesis on it (I hope, geez).  But it is a stellar example of the romantic suspense category, I mean, you've got exotic settings, mysterious treasures, riddles, uptight English people, and an arranged jail marriage (which is not as gross as it sounds).  And I know this sounds like faint praise, but I thought the book would be super-racist (as many of those era are) and I did not find it to be so (note that more sensitive people may disagree). 

Hand to god, I liked just about everything about it, but especially Lucy - she plays a good martyr, and mostly tries not to rock the boat, but at the same time, when shit needs doin', she gets it done.  There's a scene in which a little boy is lost in a snow-storm, and Lucy is the only one who might know where he is, but her patronizing patron won't listen to her, and does she wail into some nice fellow's waistcoat until he goes out and saves the day?  No, she puts on her big girl pants (literally) and walks through a blizzard to rescue this kid.  Also, words cannot express my delight at the dinner scene wherein she believes that she was brought over to England to be a concubine. 

Brent's books (and I have to admit, I went out and immediately read two more after this one, Golden Urchin and Stormswift (not as good, sadly, but still a fun time)) follow a fairly basic pattern: accommodating, yet stalwart heroine, usually raised or living in a distant and exotic location, is brought back to civilization, i.e. England, and deals with people trying to kill her, romance, and overcomes an obstacle which only she, with her unique background, can surmount.  Also, any extraneous people in a love triangle (whether with the heroine or not) are summarily killed before the book ends, either because the author reeeeeeally dislikes loose ends, or he went through some early high-school trauma that has led him to believe that death is easier than facing rejection.  [Yes, apparently Madeleine Brent is a pseudonym for a Peter O'Donnell, but don't let that dissuade you]. 

So this particular book just hits all the right spots for me - I have a serious weak spot for Chinese orphans and lady missionaries who care for them after watching The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (I know, I'm embarrassed for me, too) and arranged marriages which basically start off as the strangest method of charitable donation ever, but turn out to be true love.  The book did drag a little in the middle (if by drag, you mean mysterious night visitors, feuding neighbor families, bonfires, cave kidnappings, secret butler fathers and snowy rescues) after Lucy tries to accustom herself to English life, but picks right up again after her presumed-dead husband comes back.  Then the book takes a CRAZY turn for the awesome when Lucy and her father-in-law go tramping through China in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion.  I would watch the shit out of the tv-movie, is what I'm saying here. 

Honestly, if you're not already convinced, I don't know what else to say to get you to go out and procure your own copy.  I mean, more for me, I guess.  But if you're looking for some enjoyable escapist literature, I don't think you can go wrong here. 



*(It would totally save me, like $20, but then they might take my card away.  Also, I feel like that behavior is particularly frowned upon when committed by a member of the library's board of trustees.  Whoops!)

Gone Girl

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary.  Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River.  Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge.  Under mounting pressure from the police and the media - as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents - the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior.  Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter - but is he really a killer?

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love.  With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence.  Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife?  And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

I know everyone and their mother, or least I and my mother, has read this book, and I am very late to the game.  I blame the library hold list, and my mother, for not lending me her copy (SIDENOTE FAX: I read this interesting piece (linking to this more in-depth article) which, inter alia, says that English is to blame for all the blame going around - our language prefers the active tense of "My mother took the book" to the passive "The book was taken." THE MORE YOU KNOW.  I can't help pointing fingers, you're the one who taught me English! Also known as the Twinkie defense).  

ANYWAY, I read it and I really liked it.  It's a basic beach read, actually, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.  This is formulaic (that formula would be, more or less, (The Bad Seed + The Good Son) x (Drew Peterson + Jennifer Wilbanks) + Elvis Costello's Watching the Detectives and a dash of War of the Roses - the 1989 movie, not the Plantagenet fights in the 1400s - Mix well, let simmer for four hours and serve), but even though it evokes all manner of associations, it never feels tired.  Flynn has created an entirely distinct body of work, one which still manages to seem (sort of) plausible, even given the outrageousness of the story.  It's suspenseful in the right parts, and manages to build through somewhat increasingly crazy plot twists without coming off as totally unrealistic. 

There really ain't no way to talk about Gone Girl without mentioning spoilers...a lot of spoilers.  So beware, all ye who enter here. 

I was (possibly more than I should have been) extremely gratified to find out that my early supposition was correct: Amy is a lot smarter than Nick.  While both are obviously fairly morally deficient, Flynn does a good job of making you root for both characters: because they're both so reprehensible, you get a thrill each time one of them gets one over on the other.

The first half of the book ("Boy Loses Girl") really draws you in - although it's much slower paced, as it details both the first days following Amy's disappearance, as well as diary entries dating back years.  You're presented with Nick, beginning to flounder in the face of his spiraling lies, and you feel not just suspicion, but also contempt.  Regardless of whether Nick did or didn't do it, you begin to think, he's behaving so stupidly he almost deserves what's going to happen to him.  That feeling is assisted by Amy's diary, which manages to juggle an almost impossible variety of goals: from Amy's perspective, the need to create plausible and yet completely fake entries, ones which tie in both what we the reader (and by proxy, the police) know and believe of Nick, and from Flynn's perspective, creating a vision of Amy which both allays suspicion against her and makes her unlikeable - and not just unlikeable, but unlikeable in such a way that it is believable and yet distasteful, and even though you kind of hate the diary-Amy, you still wouldn't want her to die.  I mean, she might be kind of a self-centered shrew in disguise, but at least she's not a mope like Nick.  And yet, that is exactly the goal of Amy herself - to make you sympathize with her, even while she admits her own faults.  I think this is one of Flynn's strongest areas, creating a layered story-line that holds up to alternate views without collapsing (even if the layers aren't all that complicated, it still took some fine maneuvering).  

I was actually sort of falling asleep in the first half of the book (it was past my bedtime) and  I have to say, once you get past that point at the end of the first half (you'll know the one I mean) the rest of it goes down like (okay, I was going to make a joke about diarrhea here, but let's just leave that to the imagination).  Smoothly, let's put it at that.  I found myself siding with Amy even more, at least while she played her cards right.  I can't resist a nice, competent, get-shit-done lady!  Even when she's a sociopath, I guess.  The tide begins to turn when she reneges on her original plan (never go back, Amy, you planned so well!) and makes two - no, make that three* - crucial errors.  Then you're back on Nick's side, hoping that he'll come out on top against his malevolent wife.

Niggling complaints:  in any mystery, there's going to be points at which you go, well, what about THAT plothole, huh, because it is much easier to criticise than to create.  Here, there's a couple of details that I'm still wondering about, since everything else was done so expertly:  How was everything purchased and delivered to the woodshed?  $200,000 of things comes to quite a bit - did Amy buy it all online, and, if so, how was it delivered?  Couldn't the UPS man have testified that he delivered a package a week to Amy alone, and never saw hide nor hair of Nick?  Or if purchased in person, wouldn't Amy have had to sign for it? Was she an expert forger, too?  So that's out there.  Another is why wouldn't they have found traces of sleeping pills in Desi?  His mother certainly seems like someone who could have put up enough stink to get an inquest, and if so, how would Amy have explained slitting the throat of a drugged and comatose man?  [On the other side, it's possible that with a "burning bed" defense argument, Amy would have successfully passed a trial anyway, and Flynn decided to skip it for narrative purposes, but it seems sort of sloppy in a book where everything else is plotted out meticulously]  And finally, Nick's decision to stay with Amy for the sake of the baby is asinine, since I'm pretty sure that living with Amy is going to screw that kid regardless of whether or not he has Nick playacting as a loving husband in the background.  CUT YOUR LOSSES AND RUN, NICK!  But he doesn't, and in the end you think that much less of him.  Gosh, you think, after you finish the last section, Nick's going to find himself six feet deep in six months, and I can't bring myself to feel bad.  Maybe Amy had a point, after all.  I hope it's not too much of a spoiler to say that even though he never does, the ending is still satisfying, since, after all, if Nick has made that bed, then he damn well better lie in it, and he does. 

Oh, and also?  Not following through on your plan to commit suicide and thus ensure that your husband goes to jail forever in some gigantic "Fuck you" which you wouldn't even be alive to see happen anyway?  Weak. I like my sociopaths to really go all out, Amy.




*Falling in with Greta and Jeff; allowing herself to get caught by Desi; falling for Nick's televised pleas; although frankly, the first is the only one that she doesn't manage to make lemonade out of lemons.  And given how Gone Girl ends, you could argue that everything wraps up just as she would want it to, anyway.