The Trial of Patty Hearst dramatized by Céline Fitzmaurice

I am a big fan of true crime stories, but a dramatized true crime account is nothing to compete with. Listening for 90-minute The Captive Mind - The Trial of Patty Hearst, dramatized by Céline Fitzmaurice and narrated by Sandra Parsons took my back to my time as a child while listening on repeat to various classical stories on vinyl. It was a very energizing experience although the type of story was dramatically different.

Based on archival records, the account is covering the case of the trial of the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, Patricia Campbell Hearst, accused of armed robbery fifty years ago. Kidnapped by Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group in San Francisco, with a life span of two years between 1975 and 1977, she defended herself as acting under duress. 

However, the court proceedings found her guilty, as the ways in which she reacted showed more than a behavior of a ´captive mind´. Was it rebellion against her background? Was it just a weak episode during times of high political and social turmoil in the US and the whole world? It is hard to say and deciphering the mystery of Patty Hearst mind may help understanding similar patterns of behavior of middle and upper class young men and women attracted blindly by ´revolutionary´/anti-social causes.

The Captive Mind is the third installment in the series of Trials of the Century Audiobooks, full-cast audio courtroom dramas from Classic Crime. Count on me for even more such stories, as I love both the format and the topics. 

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Audiobook offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Orenda Books Book Tour: The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir translated by Victoria Cribb Elma, Sævar

With the autumn insidiously taking over the city, I am glad for being able to spend more time indoors in the company of eerie books. This time I amm back to the world of Orenda Books, an edition house I am always honored to feature on my blog. 

The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir translated by Victoria Cribb is part of the Forbidden Iceland series I had the chance to read and review before. Some of the characters, like the team of investigators, are part of the current story this well, which was a great idea giving their character and special way of tracing the crimes.

As usual, the story is following different directions - the terrifying discovery of a mother and an infant, a single woman with her son trying to start anew, the relationship troubles between Elma and Sævar (the investigators team). Through fine psychological observation and turn of events, there is a common denominator to all those directions, that we are invited to discover.

There is an interesting thread underlying the main thriller plot that has to do with family connections and their potential of hope and consuming power. 

The novel is well paced and with a complex structure. From one installment to the other, it only gets better and better, which makes me really curious about what can happen next in the series.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Sleuth by Charlotte Langley

 

Two women, with a completely different background and professional interests - one a local detective, the other a YouTube influencer - are trying to find a killer. The disappearance of a teenager in a very small Scottish town puts into motion a strange chain of events that may reveal not only terrible secrets, but also a secret life of a place where looks like nothing ever happens.

Sleuth by journalist Charlotte Langley is a very engaging and shockingly unexpected with so many social and even sociological details that are intertwined with the purely procedural details. The small village setting is a challenge for the writer, but also allows a lot of creative freedom when it comes to building a very interesting, twists-rich story.

The characters are equally interesting, but clearly the two main protagonists are taking the main stage. Both do have a strong personality and interesting stories and secrets and their interactions are clearly setting the tone and direction of the story.

It was a very tensed and twisted read, and I am really glad for being able to add another talented thriller writer to the list of author of this genre to follow.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the blog tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Der Beamte sagte by Herta Müller

 

I am so sorry for not reading too much Herta Müller. Her creative force makes such a difference, both in term of style and language - as the German language was not creative enough. 

Born in the Banat part of Romania, as part of the German speaking minority, she received the Nobel Prize in 2009 on behalf of Germany. Literature may and does have no borders, but in some cases it plays with symbols belonging to the national register. Müller´s experience as growing up in an absurd communist dictatorship is constantly integrated into her literary experience. 

Der Beamte sagte - The officer (as in public official) said - may keep some of those encounter with the authorties that anyone fears in a dictatorship. They are part of the daily nonsense pushing the borders at the reality at its farest limit. Hence, the joy of reading - in the progression of the collage - a peace for each word - that the ´pheasant is walking barfoot´/Der Fasan geht barfuss. What a welcomed contrast to the dried patriotism of the Beamte...

I love the results of the intersection between visual and wordings and this book is permanently encouraging the mind to trust its borderless power, even if it deals with something so potentially harmful as a bureaucrat.

Rating: 5 stars

Horror Date by Sebastian Fitzek

Fitzek is one of Germany´s most successful thriller writers who also tried his literary hands to other genres, like children books or non-thrillers, a couple of them I had the chance to review on my blog in the last years. 

Some of his - horror - books were turned to the stage and had the chance a couple of years back to watch it, and was pleased with the results. The repertoire of German-speaking  thriller and crime writers is too long to mention right now, but not too many of them are translated into English or other international languages. Hence, few had the priviledge of getting known outside the German-speaking realm - unless you are reading my blog, that´s it!

Horror Date is part of a ´non-thriller´ trilogy, to which belongs also Elternabend, a title I´ve enjoyed three years back (although for me, and hopefully not only for me, Elternabend/´parent-teacher meeting´ belongs to the horror register, but well.... And if you ask me, dating may also belong to the same register, anyway.) 

The Walking Date is an online dating portal for people terminally ill. Raphael and Nala were chatting for few times, about literature and books and philosophy, but the day of their set date, Raphael doesn´t feel well and sends his best friend Julius, few weekends from marrying Jessica, instead. What was supposed to be a joke, ended up in a delirious chain of events, with protagonists belonging to the upper rich and famous Berlin society of Zehlendorf/Dahlem, to which the author himself belongs.

Although the story may lag behind in terms of expectations, I couldn´t stop laughing to the creative events happening, mostly hilarious, and some terminally sad too. Enjoyable, but the absurdity may have an end as well.

A recommended book if you are looking for some funny read with a very pronounced - delirious even - creative touch.  

Rating: 3 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The One Day You Were My Husband by Rosie Walsh

I am no stranger to Rosie Walsh and if I am not mistaken I probably read all her books so far. Her latest, The One Day You Were My Husband, published few month ago, is following the same pattern of suspense and mystery, with unexpected twists keeping the reader engaged and curious.

Carrie, the main character and storyteller used to be a raising surgeon star, intoxicatedly in love with a handsome Swede she married during a ceremony on a beach in Thailand. But as he is brutally arested by the police for alleged drug trafficking few minutes after the ceremony, her world crushed. Few years later, she started a new life with the kind Robin, with whom she has two very active twins. She put her medical career on the side for a while, but she is decided to reclaim her professional life. And as she is about to embark on a new personal and professional path, her past with Johan and Johan himself reappear and there is no way she will not try to understand what happened almost a decade ago. 

The tension is built from the first lines, and until the end of the story we are unable to reach a conclusion. The twists and flow of information is always changing hence any effort towards clarity is vain. Just accepting being taken by the story and accept that anything surprising may happen, but nothing you may predict about.

I´ve enjoy the pleasure of reading this book and it answered by love for psychological suspense focused on wome stories. There were some mishaps in the story though, I couldn´t resist not noticing: like the description of someone as ´smart young woman´  without the mentioned person doing anything smart to prove the description; or the reference to a painting of a ´five-breasted woman´ which I may leave to my honorable reader the option of sharing their thoughts.

Overall, expect a thrilling read, that kept me interested for a weekend and a bit, that I recommend to anyone looking for an escape from the daily hustle, while keeping thinking about honesty, relationships and secret stalkers.

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4 stars

Corylus Books Book Tour: The Butterfly House by Teresa Solana translated from Catalan by Peter Bush

Teresa Solana is one of those surprising literary discoveries that you want to keep close track of her works. Especially for someone so much interested in the intersection of politics, social struggle and individual destinies, following her work is always a pleasure for my brain keen to see patterns and track mysteries.

The Butterfly House, translated from Catalan by Peter Bush, is published by Corylus Books, and as usual, it is always a pleasure and a honor to be part of their literary events. I had the chance to read and review (almost) all of the books they published and I was never disappointed. 

The Butterfly House is a squat building in the district of Vallcarca in Barcelona, where the daughter of a middle class doctor and policewoman is about to fall in love with a nerdy boy in love with science, also escaping his similar - although more ´new money´ social background. But a murdered woman is found challenging the course of love. 

Norma Foster, the main woman character from Black Storms is in a delicate position professionally, as her daughter is entangled with a potential suspect. But for her, the challenges, so elegantly putting the life of almost each of the characters into a different perspective, are of personal nature as well, with her marital loyalty jeopardized by an affair. And she is not the only one facing such questions.

As in Black Storms, it is admirably how smartly Solana is inserting the characters into the social and political entanglement and how many of the current debates in the Catalunya part of Spain are seized through the dialogues and experiences of the characters.

Personally, I´ve felt that the ending was a bit hurried, as I expected more crime riddle delights, but I was clearly rewarded with the concise episodes of the plot and the character development, especially their moral (marital) dilemma. I am clearly in need of discovering more Catalan authors and topics.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Rapatriement by Ève Guerra

Annabella, a Lyon-based student and poet, is estranged for her father for over two years, but his sudden death may request not only an organisational effort on her side - repatriation of the body from France - but also to face her own trauma and conflictual relation to him.

Awarded the Prix Goncourt du premier roman in 2024 for her debut Rapatriement - in my own translation Repatriation - the story is mostly focused on the place of memories and their distortion based on incomplete information and manipulation. Destroying one´s child trust in their parents based on manipulation and lies is breaking the becoming adult´s own trust as well.

It has a cruel direct poetic way - the author is also a poet, like Annabella - to cope with trauma, by describing the details of its installments. There is no reflection or critique on this, just the facts that adds on. The prose is taking non sequential turns with poetic notes reminding on the memory flow. 

Rapatriement is a story of daughters and fathers, with a very fine eye for the traumatic impact on mental wellbeing and life decisions. More than any other books, it helped me to better understand its impact only through the dialogues and external observation of the main character, without no further extranous explanation needed.

I felt though that it ends too fast, leaving me with the desire for more - words, story, character development.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Femme du ciel et des tempêtes by Wilfried N’Sondé

After reading and reviewing my first book by N´Sondé, which was very close from home because based in Berlin, I promised myself to read another one by this author, Femme du ciel et des tempêtes. I was interested for two reasons: one in the case of books in French being always the pleasure of reading something in French, the other of opening up the covers of a book without having any idea what to expect.

What I really liked about this book is the elaborated plot, with many fine tensioned episodes. An ancient mummy of an African queen is discovered in the Siberian tundra, leading to a conflict between local tugs interested in post-Soviet merciless economic expansion and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers called in by a local.

There is a lot going on, with various political and personal entanglements, and I loved the political thriller episodes. There is also a magic philosophical train of thought that is shared in the story, which I´ve found less convincing, nevertheless adding some interesting accents to the story.

It was clearly a slow read but well written, with some good thoughts about life and historical responsibility.

Rating: 3 stars

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

 

Esther Perel belongs to a world of cultural rafinement and relationship knowledge hard to replicate. I´m following her on various social media channels, I receive her newsletter and I will always think about her wise advice. 

Wise doesn´t mean conform though, as the recommendations she shared to the couples portrayed in Mating in Captivity - the 20-year edition, I had access to in the audiobook format, read by the author herself - demonstrate. It shows the power and the limits of the therapist, as well as the freedom that we may not be aware of that we own in overcoming our own limitations while expanding and honestly acknowledging our desires and uniqueness. 

I think this is a book not only every couple should read and discuss about, but also people looking for a meaningful relationship or at least for understanding why some relationships are simply not worth believing in. 

Relationships are always very hard work, and what we don´t see behind the smiles of a happy couple it´s a lot of work, on yourself, on your own values and personal and couple aims. Sometimes it´s impossible to overcome the differences - hence the need of a couple therapist - sometimes we are too selfish to look deep into the other person needs. But it´s always worth trying a bit more. 

Mating in Captivity may answer many questions but will also let yourself search for the honest answers.

Rating: 5 stars

Heute ist Mittwoch by David Albahari, translated into German by Mirjana and Klaus Wittmann

One of the biggest downsizes of my many literary intersts is that I often ignore the literary realms that used to mean so much to me long time ago. Authors from the Balkans is one of them, alongside with Hungarian authors.

But, step by step, this year I am trying to correct these omissions, aware nevertheless of the amount of literary information I have to catch up - while nurturning my relatively easy interests. 

My latest read - that happened earlier this July - was a short read by David Albahari, Heute ist Mittwoch - Today is Wednesday in my unrelated English translation - translated into German by the duo Mirjana and Klaus Wittman, who are translating from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian into German. 

Wednesday is the day when the son is taking his ailing father to the checkup for Parkinson´s disease. Once an influencial member of the Yugoslav local administration, a dictator at home, the father is facing his mortality. It is a nostalgic and slow read, with a human perspective, and a philosophical take. It is nothing to like or don´t about this book, it has such a relatable human touch. 

I´ve read somewhere that for Albahari, who died three years ago, the family was the starting and ending point of understanding a society. I haven´t read anything by him - but would love to - and this take is clear in this short book as well. I may agree with it, especially when it comes to social and political interferences, although in other realms, this may not be necessarily true. 

I am having for a very long time a high interest in understanding at what extent we cannot escape the social and political causality, in democratic and non-democratic societies and I am not ready yet to provide a straightforward answer. Books like Heute ist Mittwoch helped me to advance my thoughts about it though.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Random Things Tours: For Best Results Follow Instructions by Alastair Puddick

 

My friends and sometimes I too, we use a lot AI for daily decisions lately: when to buy, what to buy, is your life experience matching the job you want to apply, what colours are in fashion this season, where to spend vacations, what to do while on vacation...you name it. It feels safe and predictable having AI on your side, saving you from the trials and errors of late times. 

I am not a frequent reader of science fiction, but our times require a different literary approach. I´ve recently read that most of the AI minds nowadays do love science fiction, hence the futuristic take of our daily lives. Hence, my decision to also delve a bit more into the ambiance of this genre. 

For Best Results Follow Instructions by Alastair Puddick, an author I had the chance to introduce to my readers before, offered me a wise combination of thriller and AI excitement, against a philosophical background. 

Tom signs up for a AI Life coach that may help him have an easier life, as the artificial intelligence may take the most important decisions for him. It may be easy, indeed, and taking decisions doesn´t always come smoothly. But what defines us as humans better than our capacity - free will, some may say - to take decisions? In Tom´s case, the situations gets a bit more complicated, as it seems that the AI solution he was so much endeared to may actually act against his very interests.

I´ve got lost in the thoughts about a trend that I signed to willingly and by intellectual laziness. I loved how this book - through thrilling action and humour - may gently remind us about our human conditions, limited, indeed, but still operating within parameters of freedom. Unless, we willingly decide to limit our freedom. 

A recommended book if you are looking to think about AI and its consequences from a literary perspective.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Honey by Imani Thompson

That women can kill for fun, due to boredom or as a revenge, or all at once, it is no scientific wonder. Women can be as good or as bad as the male counter-parts and there is no need of feminist revolution or revelation to acknowledge that. But...it doesn´t mean that one gender or the other is supposed to enjoy a priviledge to kill. In real or literary life. Or that just killing is enough to make life more enjoyable.

Yrsa, the main character of Honey, the debut roman by Imani Thompson everyone is talking about, is initially starting to kill men for the sake of testing her PhD premises. She is a young Black woman, from a middle class family, studying to Cambridge, enjoying brunch with her girlfriends, no pressure to work menial jobs. Some of the men she is killing are exes, men who disappointed her or someone else, random dates. 

As an avid crime reader I would have expected some extra details about really preparing the crimes, and how she fails by being considered a main suspect. The writing flows, with some ideological intersectional snippets I may happen to feel where they are leading, but which I refuse to accept, from a simple non-ideological point of view.  Three years and I am sick to my stomach to digest the idea of ´those who we think are oppressors, are the legitimate tarket of individual violence´. IYKYK.

Seven years ago I´ve read My Sister, the Serial Killer and loved it for the sake of the story, without any ideological embellishments. This is how I love my fiction. 

PS: The cover is from the German edition of the book, and although I´ve read the book in the original English, I couldn´t resist to use this deliciously decadent image. 

Rating: 2.5 stars

My First Book in Portuguese!

Since several years I promised myself to finally advance my Portuguese, this year really happened. This time, I was not only watching some random movie or playing some random Duolingo or eventually advancing my pronunciation via Rosetta Stone, but I´ve succeed reading a book - with the help of a dictionary. 

My random choice - completely random, from a local library - was a very short book by a very prolific author and comedian, Ricardo Artur de Araújo Pereira featuring some random thoughts and anecdotic encounters happening during the pandemic. 

Ideias concretas sobre vagas - which I clumsily translate as Concrete ideas about job openings - is a collection of short chapters with or without a character, with a bit of humour, unequal in the degree of novelty. From my point of view, it was important to be able to read is step-by-step, trying to understand the context and sometimes translating word by word. 

One of the lessons learned from reading this book, from the perspective of language learning, was for the beginning - A2 to B1 - to rather focus on short stories, nonfiction, allowing to understand the short installments, instead of aspiring to read novels without properly following the plot. The relative success with this book encouraged me to continue with the reading, although I still have a lot to improve - the grammar, vocabulary and first and foremost the pronunciation - which right now is horrible, a combination of falsely accented Spanish and Italian intonation; but promise to improve it somehow...

In any case, I can only be proud of myself that this year, I finally kept my promises in terms of language improvement. With few more months from this year left, I can only wish myself to continue with my consistent progress. 

Récits de certains faits by Yasmina Reza

 

I love reading essays because this art of nonfiction is rooted in the literary life of the authors as well. And if those essays to have some drops of true crime, count me in for a long read. 

French playwriter, novelist and actress Yasmina Reza spent time in courts across France, assisting to trials of convincted murderers. With precision and high attention to detail, she focused on the human aspects of the crimes - well, the crimes always involve a human aspect, but in this case it dealt with the deep psychology of the stories - such as the relationships between the victim and criminal, as well as the tremendous role of childhood trauma. 

Récit de certains faits by Yasmina Reza - which I´ve read in the German translation, Die Rücksteite des Lebens, translated from French by Claudia Hamm - is partially an account of those experiences. The rest includes personal stories, memories from Venice, literary encounters. 

Clearly, the crime-related part was the most interesting, in terms of writing and intensity of the story and thereafter thoughts - how prevalent is the evil ? (as in ´evil doing´), how one can explain it? - , but the other accounts do have their own merits as well. 

Personally, I find the idea of taking part to murder trials, and trials in general, very appealing, and as I am writing, I already think about what possibilities are available for outside audience to attend such meetings - given the very strict German personal data protection laws. 

This short collection is a very interesting intimate exploration of human psyche, but don´t expect anything ´mild´ and ´sweet´ about it, but a lot of darkness.

Rating: 3.5 stars