Review: The Missing Ink

The Missing Ink by Karen E. Olson
3.5 stars

Reasons for reading: I wanted to read a book set in Vegas on our trip there

Synopsis: "Brett Kavanaugh is a tattoo artist and owner of an elite tattoo parlor in Las Vegas. When a girl makes an appointment for a tattoo of the name of her fiancé embedded in a heart, Brett takes the job but the girl never shows. The next thing Brett knows, the police are looking for her client, and the name she wanted on the tattoo isn't her fiancé's..."

First line: "I've made grown men cry."

My thoughts: I like Brett as a protagonist much better than I did Annie Seymour in Olson's Sacred Cows. She's still got some edge, but she's more likeable. The tattoo shop setting was very cool, too.

It was really neat to read this book while visiting Vegas over Christmas. One of my favourite lines compared the length of traffic lights on the Strip to James Cameron's Titanic - something we found to be true whether we were walking, in a cab, or driving. And her descriptions of Vegas, such as where things are are accurate, too - for example, while I was in the Venetian, I could imagine her shop, The Painted Lady, in the Grand Canal Shops. And there's other great cheesy Vegas stuff, like all-Elvis karaoke!

The mystery is a pretty good one, lots of twists and turns and bodies turning up. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Review: The Chili Queen

The Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas
3.5 stars


Reasons for reading: Sounded good and won the Spur Award; Western for the Genre Challenge and Profession title for the What's in a Name? Challenge


Description: "Life may have been hard on Addie French, but when she meets friendless Emma Roby on a train, all her protective instincts emerge. Emma's brother is seeing her off to Nalgitas to marry a man she has never met. And Emma seems like a lost soul to Addie-someone who needs Addie's savvy and wary eye. It isn't often that Addie is drawn to anyone as a friend, but Emma seems different somehow. When Emma's prospective fails to show up at the train depot, Addie breaks all her principles to shelter the girl at her brothel, The Chili Queen. But once Emma enters Addie's life, the secrets that unfold and schemes that are hatched cause both women to question everything they thought they knew."


First line: "As the train pulled into the shabby station at Palestine, Kansas, the pinch-faced farmers and their wives in their rusty black-wool best lined up along the tracks like the teeth of a rake."

My thoughts: I don't think I'd ever read a Western before, so this was a new experience. I thought it was really cool to read a Western written by a woman - I always associate them with old guys like Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey.

The book is told in four parts, one for each main character - Addie French, madam of The Chili Queen; Ned Partner, bank robber; Emma Roby, a mail-order bride; and Welcome, a former slave turned cook at the whorehouse. It's the 1880's and most of the action takes place in New Mexico. I liked this device - it was an interesting way to reveal more information about the characters and what had really happened. Because things aren't always as they seem in this story, which makes for a few twists.

The tone of the story is a bit confusing - it's mostly quite light ("zesty" as one reviewer described it) but it also contains one of the most horrible descriptions of rape and murder I've ever read, as well as a few other grisly scenes. While they helped to shed light on the characters' past lives, it was a bit jarring to come upon these terrible things in what seemed like it was going to be rather a bank-robbing romp.

The verdict: Despite the tone issue, I think I'd read another book by Sandra Dallas (isn't that the perfect Western-author name?). Yee-haw!

Review: Millions

Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce
3.5 stars

Reasons for reading: have been meaning to; 2004 Carnegie Medal winner for Book Awards Challenge

Description: "Two bothers, Damian and Anthony, are unwittingly caught up in a train robbery during Britain's countdown to join the Euro. Suddenly finding themselves with a vast amount of cash, the boys have just one glorious, appalling dilemma how to spend it in the few days before it becomes worthless. Torn between the vices of buying a million pizzas and the virtues of ending world poverty, the boys soon discover that being rich is a mug's game. For not only is the clock ticking the bungling bank robbers are closing in. Pizzas or World Peace, what would you choose?"

First line: "If our Anthony was telling this story, he'd start with the money."

My thoughts: What a very different book! It has one of the strongest, sweetest, oddest narrative voices I've come across in a long time, in either adult or children's fiction. Damian is a very strange, smart, different, loving boy - he's obsessed with saints to the point that he's visited by them and tries to emulate their lives and he always tries to be very good because he's worried that his father will leave if he's not (after his mother died, people told him to be good for his father and this planted a terrible seed of abandonment in him). His older brother Anthony seems to be a much more practical boy - his obsession is real estate and commerce in general.

The general message of the book is pretty obvious - money can't buy happiness and can actually cause misery. As the boys try to spend the money but keep it a secret from their dad, they basically devalue the pound on their school playground as they give away cash for favours and possessions. They can't enjoy the stuff they buy, because they have to hide it. And, of course, all kinds of people come out of the woodwork looking for it, including the man who originally stole it. Damian also has to learn the hard lesson that you can't help everyone, no matter how much money you have and how hard you try..

The story of the 3-man family trying to put itself back together while grieving, Damian's visions and strange behaviour, and the brothers' relationship fleshes out the story well beyond the initial message. The saints' visits often help Damian, though he doesn't always understand their cryptic messages. An appearance by St. Joseph at the nativity play is a highlight. Through Damian's eyes, we see every new dilemma in a naive, hopeful, and clever-in-his-own-way light.

I think I'd like to see the movie based on the book, directed by Danny Boyle. I hope they got a great kid to play Damian.

The only thing that I can't quite get past is that I can't figure out if the central plot point - that the British government burned hundreds of thousands of pounds - is in any way true. As far as I can tell, the pound is still very much legal tender and I can't find anything online that would indicate it actually happened. Still, even if that part's fictional, it makes for a great what-if story.