The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

“Big Angel was late to his own mother’s funeral.” Yes, readers, that’s the opening sentence of Luis Alberto Urrea’s latest novel. He follows it a few sentences later with another gem: “Mexicans don’t make these kinds of mistakes, he told himself.” Urrea, who was born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and an American mother, pens a poignant, often-times humorous, and always evocative book whose genesis came when he shared the story of the death of his older brother with writer Jim Harrison when he found himself seated next to him at a dinner. In a recent interview with “Time” magazine, Urrea remembered, “Harrison said, “Sometimes God hands you a novel. You have to write it.” Urrea thought to himself, “Marching orders from Jim Harrison–this is good stuff. A kid from Tijuana doesn’t get that very often.” Thankfully, for readers, the kid from Tijuana listened as this over-the-top, wonder of a novel is a love poem to the Mexican-American family that transcends ethnic boundaries to become the universal story of all family relationships.

Big Angel is about to celebrate his seventieth birthday and because he knows he’s dying, he’s planned a massive celebration. His 100-year-old mother, América, dies the week prior so Big Angel sets her funeral for the day before his scheduled celebration as the family already will be in San Diego for the party. Thus, the novel takes place over the two days of the funeral and the birthday party with most of the large de la Cruz clan gathering to mourn the matriarch and celebrate what promises to be Big Angel’s last birthday. Flashbacks reveal Big Angel’s life in Mexico in the 1960s, his love of his wife Perla, the quirks, foibles, and joys of his siblings, children, and extended family while making this reader feel that she, too, was a member of the jubilant clan. Much of the tale is seen through the eyes of Little Angel, Big Angel’s much younger, half-American, half-brother who seems removed from the family in more than just distance. Urrea’s own brother’s death shortly after their mother died inspired the tale and infuses it with realistic, emotional gravitas that transcends pure imagination.

Urrea’s unmatched ability to weave laugh-out-loud humor with universal truth makes the novel soar as in the description of the party.

“Food was appearing all around them. People came through bearing aluminum tubs of grub. La Gloriosa and Lupita and Minnie and Perla had arranged for platoons of barrio ladies and their husbands to appear with party supplies. Little Angel was thwarted in his hopeless search for homemade Mexican food. In his mind, chicken mole and pots of simmering frijoles and chiles rellenos were to be displayed in pornographic lushness. But the reality of the day was folding tables groaning with pizzas, Chinese food, hot dogs, potato salad, and a huge industrial party pan of spaghetti. Somebody was allegedly on the way with a hundred pieces of KFC. He noted Uncle Jimbo at his table with a paper plate heaped with noodles and buffalo wings. Somehow he had acquired bottles of mead.

Jimbo raised his bottle at him and hollered, “Skoal!””

Urrea’s sentences also allow the characters to reveal themselves without his telling us who they are: “Perla sat at a table on the patio and rubbed her aching knees. Her small flock of doggies was scuttling around like animated empanadas on meth. “Ay, qué perritos,” she said. They were Chiweenies. Chihuahua/wiener-dog mixes. La Minnie called them “naked mole rats” since she took her kids to the zoo often and knew these things. Minnie had even been to the art museum.

Perla had only lived in the United States for forty-one years – she couldn’t be expected to learn English overnight.”

Overall, it is Urrea’s celebration of love: love of life and love of family that makes this novel one that will leave the reader satisfied even through the tears.

“Big Angel sighed. Rubbed his face. Thought about how much he’d miss rubbing his face. Everything was precious to him suddenly. Sighing. What a wonderful thing it was to sigh. Geraniums. Why did he have to leave geraniums behind.”. . .

“Angel also loved the rainy days when shadows made their mysterious ways around corners and across alleys. And everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific – it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west. Shopkeepers came from their rooms to stand in the street. Families brought out their invalids on pallets and in wheelbarrows to wave their bent wrists at the madness consuming their sky. Swirls of gulls and pelicans like God’s own confetti snowed across those sky riots.”

Big Angel speaks for us all despite which side of the border we call home. “All we do, mija,” he said, “is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death.”

I’ve discarded over a dozen quotes that I wanted to include in this review so dear readers, please buy this book so you can inhale and savor them yourself.

Summing it Up: The House of Broken Angels is an exuberant, joy-filled family saga that celebrates what it means to love, to grieve, and to be a family in today’s USA. It’s also a love letter to the Mexican-American family that makes the reader feel -- if only for just a few hours – that they too belong.

Note: Urrea is on a long book tour throughout the US. If you are anywhere near one of his stops, take the time to hear him read and speak. I’ve heard hundreds of authors and he’s one of the best, if not the very best, reader there is. That said, you may want to listen to the audio version of the novel as Urrea reads it himself. I read the novel in print as I wanted to savor his words on the page, but I may still listen to him read it as I know it will be a magnificent rendition.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Gourmet, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Soul Food, Book Club

Publication date: March 6, 2018

Author Website: http://luisurrea.com/

Read an Excerpt: https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/3727/the-house-of-broken-angels#excerpt

Interview with the Author: NPR Weekend Edition with Scott Simon: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/03/590546350/a-family-confronts-life-and-death-in-the-house-of-broken-angels

Interview with the Author: NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/05/590839936/mexican-american-author-finds-inspiration-in-family-tragedy-and-trump

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/luis-alberto-urrea/the-house-of-broken-angels/ 

Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-316-15488-8

Time: http://time.com/5190974/the-house-of-broken-angels-review/

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/a-family-saga-with-bounding-heart-poetic-delivery-and-plenty-of-swagger/2018/03/07/c78c5408-2234-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.cdb1249fa947

Murder in the One Percent by Saralyn Richard

Murder in the One Percent is a winning romp of a mystery. It’s a cozy procedural featuring a clever and determined detective, a cast of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful suspects, and a surprising narrative. As most Americans ponder the widening disparity between the haves and have-nots, this winsome tale highlights those differences as seen via an over-the-top birthday weekend. Despite its sardonic insight into current issues, Murder in the One Percent manages to illuminate today’s consumerist culture without using words that might offend your Aunt Agatha.

The tale begins when Caro Campbell invites her influential husband John E.’s closest friends to a weekend celebration of his 65^th birthday at their rural Pennsylvania estate. Caro’s first cousin, Preston Phillips certainly came by his invitation via his relationship with her as everyone attending the party detests him despite his achievements. The former Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, outstanding athlete, and a man now on wife number four is not someone the other guests look upon seeing with pleasure as they contemplate the coming weekend.

The youngest guests, Libby and Les Bloom and her older sister Margo who was left at the altar by Phillips years previously, can’t stand Phillips. Marshall and Julia Winthrop blame Phillips for heavy losses in their financial portfolio. Vicki and Leon Spiller fault him for the long-ago death of their teenage son. Kitty and Gerald Kelley, he the head of a major Wall Street firm and author of a best-selling book touting the path for “everyone to earn millions,” don’t want to go either. Kitty can’t forgive Phillips for what he did to her dear friend Margo and Gerald opined of Phillips, “It’ll be a miracle if one of us doesn’t wring his neck in those thirty-six hours.”

Andrea and Stan Baker, the Campbell’s next-door neighbors who annually appear on Forbes’ billionaire list aren't looking forward to spending time with Phillips. Andrea, a notable crime writer, doesn’t like his values and was secretly glad that she and Stan weren’t staying overnight at the Campbell estate. Only Phillip’s young wife Nicole seems enamored with him until she has an accident and he ignores her plight.

When Phillips is found dead in his bedroom, Detective Oliver Parrot wonders if it might be easier to determine who doesn’t have a motive to kill him rather than who actually might have committed the crime.  Set among the extremely rich guests who don’t relish his questions, the African-American detective provides welcome relief from the excessive privilege the guests exhibit. When even the former President of the United States begins calling Parrot’s boss to complain that the investigation is taking too long, Parrot painstakingly continues his quest. When the medical examiner finds that a rare poison used in home aquariums may be the cause of death, Parrot shows that he’s far more capable than many of the suspects expect him to be.

Details are what make this mystery fascinating and are also what occasionally slow it down. A litany of fashion labels, vintage wines, and multi-carat diamonds highlights the extreme wealth of the guests. These stand in contrast to the detective’s life of Chinese carry-out meals, late hours, and yearning for his fiancé, a Navy SEAL serving halfway around the world.

Summing It Up: Murder in the One Percent is an engaging procedural with an unexpectedly delicious twist of an ending that will leave readers wanting more of Detective Oliver Parrot. The satirical jabs at the suspects and their “affluenza” deliver a tasty treat of a whodunit.

Note: It's a small world. Many years ago, Saralyn Richard and I lived in the same Chicago suburb and our sons were on a little league baseball team together. She taught at Thornridge High School in Dolton, IL. Find her book launch events (including one in Chicago) here. 

Richard lives in Galveston, Texas where the town is excited about her book. Last night a local restaurant featured this neon tribute. 

Rating: 4 stars   

Category: Chinese Carryout, Fiction, Mysteries and Thrillers, Book Club

Publication date: February 17, 2018

Author Website: http://www.saralynrichard.com

Saralyn Richard on her research for the book: https://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/

Read an Excerpt: https://blackopalbooks.com/murder-in-the-one-percent/

Interview with the Author: USA Today http://happyeverafter.usatoday.com/2018/02/16/saralyn-richard-interview-murder-in-the-one-percent/

Interview with the Author:  http://ronnieallennovel.com/meet-author-Saralyn-Richard-mystery-newrelease/

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/saralyn-richard/murder-in-one-percent/

Some might call Murder in the One Percent an American cozy with nods to contemporary social issues.  I call it a page-turner packed with humorous lines that made me laugh out loud.  Or maybe it’s best to call this delightful mystery a satire about the upper class.  However you describe it, Saralyn Richard successfully delivers a rollicking whodunit that will make you stay up late at night and leave you guessing until the very end.  Move over, Dame Agatha Christie.  There’s a new kid on the block. – Ann Weisgarber, The Promise and The Personal History of Rachel DuPree

The twists unravel, then turn around and bite you. Saralyn Richard’s take on the classic murder mystery is fresh, fun, and deadly. – Bob Bickford, author of Deadly Kiss, ITW Best First Novel Award Winner

The Kremlin's Candidate by Jason Matthews

The Kremlin’s Candidate is Jason Matthews’ third and final book in the Red Sparrow trilogy and it’s just as exciting as The Red Sparrow and Palace of Treason were. You’ll want to read these books in order and, if you can, read The Red Sparrow before the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence hits the big screen on March 2. Dominka Egorova, a rising star in Russia’s intelligence service, formerly a “sparrow” trained to sexually entrap would be foreign agents, is a now also a spy for the U.S. She’s the primary protagonist of all three political thrillers whose emphasis on Russian spying seems more realistic every day. 

Author Matthews retired after serving 33 years in the CIA’s Operations Directorate and his inside knowledge and disdain for politicians and some inside the CIA are on display in his writing. What makes his novels unique is that he builds page-turning suspense and offers word pictures that put the reader into the story. One example occurs when a CIA agent lands in Khartoum. “Outside the terminal, the brakes of the canary-yellow taxi squealed like a pissed-off baboon. Probably the red Sudanese dust on the pads, thought Gable. The shit gets everywhere.”

In The Kremlin’s Candidate, Dominika and her American handler and lover Nate Nash must stop a U.S. Admiral who’s a mole spying for the Russians and who’s on the short list to become the next CIA director. Not only would her appointment disrupt American intelligence goals, it would also endanger Dominika. In addition to several terrifyingly exciting action scenes, the novel also offers a delightful, yet chillingly realistic caricature of Vladimir Putin. The book stays away from portraying or even hinting at any current or previous U.S. Presidents which means that readers of every political bent can enjoy it. This review won’t supply any more details of the story as readers will want to discover them for themselves.

Summing it Up: Read The Kremlin’s Candidate to fall under the spell of political intrigue, spy tricks, great descriptions, frightening characters, and a cast of regulars you’re sure to love.

Rating: 5 stars   

Category: Fiction, Five Stars, Mysteries and Thrillers

Publication date: February 13, 2018

Author Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/JasonMatthewsAuthor/

What Others are Saying:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jason-matthews/the-kremlins-candidate/

Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-5011-4008-2

The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/only-one-sexy-couple-can-stop-a-russian-spy-from-taking-over-the-cia/2018/02/11/95778982-0dcc-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html