BOOK BITES | Rumaan Alam, Joël Dicker, Gregg Hurwitz

Entitlement

Rumaan Alam, Bloomsbury 

**** (4 stars)

This book was pegged as: “A novel of money and morality from the New York Times best-selling author of Leave the World Behind”. A gentle warning to prepare to encounter some uncomfortable and disturbing issues. I would describe it as a book about race, class, gender, and privilege — only not in the way you expect. It’s a unique story where a very attractive young black woman (adopted daughter of a single white mom) blatantly and overtly uses her race, class, gender and lack of privilege to her advantage. Main character Brooke gives up her boring, poorly-paid teaching post after landing a job giving money away for an octogenarian philanthropist. She befriends the elderly man who takes her on as a protégé — prompting her to work things to her advantage. She cannot see why she doesn't deserve the same luxury lifestyle as her unemployed friend who lives lavishly off a trust fund. Brooke's actions get progressively worse and more extreme as she treats the people in her life badly and bends the rules because “why am I not deserving?” Brooke's unearned sense of entitlement makes her intensely dislikable. And as the imminent train wreck looms, it's impossible to stop watching. — Gill Gifford

The Alaska Sanders Affair

Joël Dicker, MacLehose

**** (4 stars)

This is my first Joël Dicker novel and it took a while to get into this prize-winning Swiss author, who is translated from French. It's an interesting novel with a distinctive style of storytelling that has the air of the traditional police procedural. The protagonists, best-selling writer Marcus Goldberg and detective friend Perry Gahalowood, wander in from the pages of an earlier Dicker book to investigate the 1999 murder of beauty queen Alaska Saunders in a sleepy American town. The search for the real murderer (as opposed to the guy who is in prison) creates such a maze of twists and turns I had no clue who dunnit until the end, all credit due. Perhaps Dicker's popularity says it all — books translated into more than 40 languages, and 15-million books sold worldwide, making him one of the French-language world’s most popular authors. — William Saunderson-Meyer

Nemesis

Gregg Hurwitz, Minotaur Books

*** (3 stars)

Evan Smoak is having an existential crisis. Fitting at this time of global crisis. But his prolonged reflections on what’s right — dictated as commandments during his black ops training — at times delay the unfolding of the plot, to which his friend and weapons supplier Tommy Stojack is central. Nevertheless, with characters like Tommy and genius techie Joey (Josephine Morales) adapting to college life with her dog, the story was entertaining and easy reading. There's an unexpected plot twist as the story winds up, proving that Hurwitz delivers more than the standard skop-skiet-donner thriller — even on the 10th book of this series. While his brand of vigilante justice overlaps with characters like the popular TV serial killer Dexter, Smoak is a more compelling anti-hero who brings his readers back for more. — Claire Keeton