Two recent novels with Michigan sports settings have intriguing similarities but go off in strikingly different directions.
“The Hanging Tree” by award-winning Chicago journalist Bryan Gruley (Touchstone, $15) is the sequel to his highly acclaimed debut crime novel “Starvation Lake”.
It’s set in the same small Michigan town, again featuring Gus Carpenter, a die-hard hockey buff who’s the executive editor of the Pine City Pilot. It opens with the discovery of the body of Grace McBride, Carpenter’s second cousin, dead of an apparent suicide.
Some facts at the crime scene are disturbing to Carpenter. This causes relationship problems with his old girlfriend and current lover Darlene Esper, a deputy with the Pine County Sheriff’s Department.
Carpenter’s been writing articles about Laird Haskell, a wealthy retired attorney who started building a new hockey rink in town, but has run into financial difficulties.
As he tracks down McBride’s past in suburban Detroit, he discovers unnerving facts; his newspaper job is in jeopardy and his life is threatened.
Hockey fans are likely to enjoy the rink action and game flashbacks; dedicated mystery readers will like the strong characterization and small town atmosphere. While the ending seems a bit rushed, Gruley’s latest effort is distinctly memorable.
Lansing author J. R. Kesler’s latest book “Touch No Evil” (CreateSpace, $14.95), centers on a different sport, boxing, with a trip into Dean Koontz territory.
Kesler introduces Joey Scalla, a former boxer, who was shot in the hip by a drug dealer and had to quit. Six years later, he returns to the Detroit area in search of his lost love Katey Endicott.
A chance encounter reconnects the pair, but there’s a catch – she’s married to wealthy businessman Richard Elliot, who’s exceptionally possessive. Elliot’s thugs try to intimidate Scalla; when that fails, Katey’s nasty driver/bodyguard tries to kill him.
Awakening from a coma two months later. Scalla finds he has an unusual power – and uses it to expose Elliot’s dirty dealings.
Expect the unexpected as Scalla gets revenge, tries to win Katey back and return to ring glory. This is an entertaining, unusual tale; prolific Kesler has published five other new paperback books this year. There’s more information at jrkesler.com.
Ray Walsh, owner of East Lansing’s Curious Book Shop, has reviewed Michigan books and crime novels regularly since 1987 and is the driving force behind the semi-annual Michigan Antiquarian Book & Paper Show. The Antiquarian Book & Paper Show is the largest book and paper show in the Midwest, averaging over 70 exhibitors and one million old, rare, and collectible book and paper items for sale. The next sale is set for Sunday October 3 at the Lansing Center in Lansing Michigan.

The following blog post was written by Robin Agnew co-owner of Aunt Agathas bookstore.

Jacobus…was dumbfounded by such a compelling, polished personal performance, unaware of anything else but the music – his own definition of a great performance.  – from Devil’s Trill

“Devil’s Trill” is one of the more traditional mysteries I’ve read in a long while, and I’ve recently re-read books by Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Patricia Moyes.  It’s also a breath of fresh air with a truly interesting main character and a fantastically interesting setting.   Daniel Jacobus is an old, blind, crotchety (he gives new meaning to the word “codger”) violin teacher, and it’s also clear from the novel that he’s a teacher with a rare gift.  Along with his deductive skills – honed from many years as a blind man – his gift to mystery fiction is an insight into the backstage goings-on of the classical music world.

Kicking off his novel is a prologue about the provenance of the so-called Piccolini Stradivarius, a rare violin now used only in competition by the gifted winner of a contest held every 13 years for violists under the age of 13.  The winner of the Grimsby competition the year we encounter it is a ripe old nine year old.  Jacobus, attending the concert and reception, is in a terrible mood as he hates the competition and all it stands for, and when the violin is stolen at the end of the evening, he’s not exactly choked up.

He’s also distracted by a new student from Japan, Yumi, who remains strong no matter the abuse he piles on her, and even better, seems flexible in her thinking and capable of actual learning.  He, Yumi and his friend Nathaniel, who is looking for the eight million dollar violin for the insurance company he works for, make an interesting trio as they canvass New York, mainly interviewing various members of MAP, the group that runs the competition.  The book is at it’s best when it’s firmly within the world of classical music.  The background of the place where these fabulously rare and expensive instruments are sold, the backstage whiff of Carnegie Hall, the infusions of the author’s obvious love for, and knowledge of, classical music, all keep you turning the pages. 

There wasn’t a murder until late in the proceedings, and though it kicks the narrative engine into gear, it almost doesn’t matter.  Things wind up in Japan, another fascinatingly explored venue (you’ll want to fly over and take a bath after reading this book). The touchstones of the novel are the character of Daniel Jacobus, and the music that he loves.  In the second novel, “Danse Macabre”, the book opens with the murder, and the narrative pace is the richer for it.  Instead of a figure who Jacobus hated, as in the first novel, the victim is a friend of Jacobus, a renowned violinist well loved all over the world, and his spectacularly gruesome death is even more drenched in celebrity when his musical rival and former protege, BTower, is convicted of killing him.

The meat of the story takes place two years later: BTower is on death row, waiting a quickly approaching end, and he’s been put there mainly by testimony given by Jacobus at his trial.  Of course who is recruited by BTower’s lawyer to actually prove his innocence: Jacobus. Adhering closely to the classical rules of mystery story telling, of course it’s a given that BTower is innocent, and that his innocence will not be proved until the very last second.  The mystery part is Jacobus’ path to the truth; he’s again accompanied by Nathaniel (while Yumi makes a couple appearances, she’s off on a concert tour).  The love of music infuses this one as much as the first, but some of the story telling kinks have been worked out, and the result is a smoothly told story that will have any reader flipping the pages to get to the end.

Each book is threaded together by one piece of music – in each, the title piece.  I wasn’t familiar with the piece in the first book, but the piece in the second, which Yu-Na Kim used in her skating routine this past season, was familiar to me and it’s probably hauntingly familiar to many of you, you just may not know it.  My lack of knowledge of classical music is fairly vast, but reading these two novels made me feel I had learned a bit.  At the very least, I benefitted from Mr. Elias’ obvious passion, an asset to any novel.

The author who now lives in Union City is especially popular with teachers who she lionizes in her books. Her most recent book “The Junkyard Wonders” is based on her actual experiences growing up as a learning impaired student unable to read or do simple math calculations until that special year when she was 14. Polacco’s parents divorced when she was young and she spent the school year in California and summers with her father in Williamston.

At 14, Polacco stayed in Williamston for the school year and a very special teacher, Mrs. Petersen, came into her life and transformed her and other student’s lives. That forms the basic premise of the new book. A few years ago, Polacco told me in an interview that because she learned to read and write later in life she turned to visual communication which has served her well. She now has illustrated and written more than 70 books. Polacco who still has trouble reading and putting words on paper went on to receive a PHd and became an art restorer before turning to writing and illustrating.

In her book ” The Junkyard Wonders” she follows the escapades of a “special ed” class” who are transformed through the efforts of Mrs. Petersen. Polacco is outspoken about education politics and it doesn’t take much to get her going on the topic. She has set several of her books in Williamston and typically runs into old friends while visiting the city. Tuesday Books is located at 137 W. Grand River in Williamston.

1. “Zeitoun” by Dave Eggers (shown at left) is a must read on the 5^th Anniversary of  Hurricane Katrina. Eggers matter of factly follows Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun New Orleans residents who find themselves in a human maelstrom when Abdulrahman refuses to leave the city and ends up in jail despite his heroic efforts to save those who were left behind. Eggers forces readers to confront xenophobia and the lingering racism of a post 9-11 world. The book has become even more timely as we confront the Ground Zero Mosque debacle. The incoming MSU Freshmen class is reading the book as part of the One Book, One Community Program. The Zeitouns will visit MSU on September 19 and Eggers will kick of the program August 29-30 with two events open to the public. All these events are free. 

2.”Threatened Species” by Michigan author Jeff Vande Zande – It’s a glorious Michigan rendition of “A River Through It” by Norman Maclean. VandeZande will put you in the north woods and knee deep in its streams and rivers in this story about a father and son who are being split up and their last trip north.

3. “Bad Blood” by John Sanford is not a sleeper, but Sandford will be at Schuler Books & Music Okemos September 29. “Bad Blood” is a Virgil Flowers’ book and it takes you deep into a chilling murder in the Sanford tradition.

4. “The Etiquette of Freedom” by Jim Harrison and Gary Snyder. Harrison “walks” beat poet Snyder through his long career as a writer. Read a short summary on Mittenlit.com 

5. “Rich Boy” by Sharon Pomerantz from Ann Arbor Michigan is written in the tradition of Tom Wolfe and its strong narrative style is captivating. Pomerantz follows a young man’s quest for success into adulthood that spans three decades. 

6. Tom McGuane’s newest book “Driving on the Rim” is a dark comedy set in his adopted state of Montana. His protagonist, Dr. I.B. Pickett, get himself in and out (mostly) out of numerous jams as he confronts life, death and small town nosiness with lust thrown in for good measure. 

7. “Detroit Disassembled” with an essay by Pulitzer poet Philip Levine and photos by Andrew Moore is a coffee table book which tells the story of a city on the rocks through photos of abandoned buildings and other decaying scenery. 

8. “Charlie Chan: The Life and Times of a Chinese Detective” seems like a great companion to “Zeitoun”.  The author Yunte Huang, a Chinese American who was active at Tiananmen Square and forced to leave his country, is inspired by a Charlie Chan paperback he finds at a rummage sale. He delves into racial stereotyping and the Asian American cultural experience from the perspective of how Charlie Chan is seen by different groups. 

9. “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe of Super Athletes and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” by Christopher McDougall is one strange story of a runner looking for greatness and his search for the secrets of the Terahumara Indians of Mexico who hold the answers. Long known as the world’s best ultrarunners, the Terahumara look at running as a pleasurable experience and the author wants to know how they do it.  

10. “The Michigan Murders” by Edward Keyes has been reprinted with a new prologue and epilogue by two Michigan True Crime writers. The book comes on the anniversary of the conviction of James Norman Collins who was responsible for the murder of at least six women in the late 1960s in the Ann Arbor area. The book set new direction on True Crime writing and the book will be released at the Kerrytown BookFest September 19 in Ann Arbor Michigan. 

Depending on how things go other books which are likely to make it on this list are: “the Whole Earth News”; “The Confederacy of Dunces”; and Vince Flynn’s “American Assassin”.

The evening takes a strange turn when one woman’s sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man-an Iraqi war vet-leaves the club. Days later, the woman is shot outside the club. She dies in V.I.’s arms, and the police move quickly to arrest the angry vet.

A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V.I., who is hired by the vet’s family to clear his name. As V.I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.

Sara Paretsky is the author of 16 books, including her renowned V. I. Warshawski novels. Her many awards include the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers’ Association. She lives in Chicago.

Majher, who did much of the research for an exhibit she assembled for the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Fame in Lansing while assistant director there before accepting a job as the Editor of the Michigan History Magazine, has helped fill in a lost piece of Michigan history.

For more than 100 years women helped protect ships on the Great Lakes while “defying gender expectations of their times.” Their stories range from Eliza Tuckey who guided sailors at the Marquette Lighthouse while her husband was fighting in the Civil War to Elizabeth Whitney who served at the Beaver Island Lighthouse and the Harbor Springs lighthouse for 41 years.

The book is illustrated with 20 black and white photographs of the female keepers. This book should be quite a popular item in the cities along the Great Lakes of Michigan boasting lighthouses.

Read more about the book at the U-M Press website.

In announcing his resignation, he said the organization is being transformed to “provide the benefits and services that are most important to you (members) and also be an effective advocate for the industry”. The announcement for the position is posted on the GLIBA website.The fall trade show is set for October 8-10 at the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn and is one of the organization’s most popular events for booksellers and authors. A complete list of authors attending the event is on the GLIBA website.

Kittle is well loved by book clubs for her themes which consider often controversial aspects of life such as gay marriage and child abuse. Her newest book ties divorce, gay marriage and animal abuse into a tight package for her readers.

Animals and their amazing ability to live in the now is what attracted Kittle to weaving them into her new book. She shows how animals can help us survive terrible circumstances. In one particular poignant scene of an annual blessing of the animals Kittle makes it clear that is the animals who should be blessing us. Kittle is the author of  “Travelling Light”, “Two Truths and a Lie” and “The Kindness of Strangers” which was the winner of the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction.

Kittle will also discuss the first installment of her new young adult series which is based on a mysterious death. Sara Gruen who is the New York Times best selling author of “Water for Elephants” said the book is “A must-read not only for animal lovers, but for anyone who has found the courage to come back from heartbreak and find love again, without reservation, without fear.”

The following review first appeared in the Lansing City Pulse.

Two words are in the back of the mind of every author after the debut novel is published: sophomore slump.

The above photo is by Kim Krova Gruley’s sister.

At a book signing and reading last year at Schuler Books & Music in Okemos, mystery author Bryan Gruley was asked by a former co-worker from The Detroit News if the thought ever crossed his mind that he had only one book in him.

“He asked that question very innocently,” Gruley said, “but that very afternoon I had turned in the manuscript for my second book to my editor. We both knew it sucked.”

Gruley who won the prestigious Strand Magazine Critics Award for mystery writing and was nominated for the Edgar Award for his first book “Starvation Lake” did what he had to do: He threw out the second manuscript and started over.

“I had my sophomore slump,” he said, “but you won’t get to see it.”

For readers, that was a great decision. Gruley’s second book, “The Hanging Tree,” is a masterpiece of detective fiction, with the right amount of blind alleys that leave the outcome always in doubt. The author, who is the Chicago bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, has topped his first book while capturing the essence of a hockey-crazy Michigan small town.

Gruley retained his “Starvation Lake” protagonist, Gus Carpenter, a small town newspaper editor and now amateur detective, who returned to his hometown to regroup after a major league scandal at his former news job.

Gruley said what was missing in the discarded manuscript was “heart,” and he set out to find it by rereading his own book and then two books by noted mystery writer Dennis Lehane (“Gone, Baby, Gone,” “A Drink Before The War”). Gruley, who is also a dedicated amateur hockey player, d i s c o v e r e d from his reading that he had forgotten to tell stories.

In his “real” second book he details the tragic story of Carpenter’s second cousin, Gracie, a hometown girl who leaves for the big city, returns home 20 years later and then, six months later, ends up hanging from a tree. Was it suicide, or was it murder? For Carpenter, who was like a brother to Gracie during high school, solving the mystery becomes a personal mission.

Along with the dramatic tension, Carpenter’s love life is cranked up a bit in this second book, His rekindled relationship with his high school sweetheart, Darlene, also a deputy sheriff, is complicated when her estranged husband, a hockey nemesis of Carpenter, shows up to reclaim his wife.

This isn’t the only new development in Carpenter’s life: A newspaper story he wrote about a proposed new hockey rink in Starvation Lake divides the town and threatens his job.

Although the hockey action takes something of a back seat in his second novel, there’s enough on-ice and off-ice chicanery (and an appearance by the Zamboni) to satiate hardcore fans. But the unraveling of Gracie’s life and her untimely death on the community’s hanging tree is center ice.

Gruley said an actual “Hanging Tree” — covered with twisted shoes, boots and tennis shoes — on U.S. 131 near Kalkaska was the inspiration for the story. He first saw the tree while on assignment for The Wall Street Journal.

Although Carpenter does take one detour downstate to piece together Gracie’s former life, Gruley deftly creates a sense of place of the northern Michigan he knows and loves. Not only does Gruley’s father still have a cottage in the region, but early in his newspaper career Gruley worked at an Antrim County Weekly newspaper.

Starvation Lake may be a fictitious place, but it fits the description of hundreds of towns and cities in northern Michigan. And when Gruley focuses on the people who inhabit Starvation Lake he is at his best. He puts you in a seat at the local diner right alongside all the characters who inhabit it.

The book tour for his new book starts next week, and Gruley is looking forward to it: “I love good questions and I love talking about the book.”

Gruley is an accomplished writer both in his day job and in his new fiction career. He led a team of reporters on a post-Sept. 11 Wall Street Journal feature that won a Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category. His 2003 feature, “War Stories,” was an alternate finalist for the feature writing Pulitzer.

Gruley won’t be in the Lansing area for awhile, but he is sharing a panel with two other “Northern Noir” writers — Steve Hamilton (“A Cold Day in Paradise”) and William Kent Krueger (“Heaven’s Keep”) — at the Kerrytown BookFest in Ann Arbor on Sept. 12.

´The Hanging Tree´ by Bryan Gruley (Simon & Schuster) In stores Tuesday, Aug. 3 www.bryangruley.com www.thehangingtree.com