Two for One Reviews
Thanks to Shelf Awareness for my review copies of both books.
The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man
W. Bruce Cameron garnered a following with his lively novels
A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey, and his latest novel,
The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man, will appeal to those readers. Ruddy
McCann, former Heisman Trophy winning football player, has settled back into
his hometown as co-owner of The Black Bear bar and supplementing his income as
a Repo man. McCann’s colorful boss Milt tells Ruddy he has the requisite
“nerves of stupidity” to legally steal cars back from their owners in default
of payment.
McCann faces several challenges: he is hearing a voice in
his head of Alan Lottner, a man claiming to have been murdered in a nearby
town, an inept nephew of Milt’s who Ruddy is expected to train, a mystery
behind checks a series of checks being sent to his foolhardy friend Jimmy, and numerous
attempts to reclaim a car from the wily Albert Einstein Croft. While unearthing
the truth behind Alan Lottner’s disappearance, Ruddy falls for the late man’s
daughter Katie.
The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man, Tom Doherty
Associates, LLC. New York
Available in October, 2014. $24.99
Who is Martha?
96 year old Luka Levadski learns he has terminal cancer, and
he is surprised “the intimation of his imminent demise hadn't allowed him to
die on the spot, but had instead stirred up a lot of dust was an enigma.” Levadski
decides to leave his long term apartment in Ukraine and venture back to Vienna
where he lived as a child. Since he is dying, he goes on a shopping spree and
stays in a first class hotel, where he befriends his butler Habib and an eighty
something gentleman named Mr. Witzturn. Having lived in the same place for nearly
his lifetime, working as a professor of ornithology, the reclusive Levadski catches
up on social changes in the twenty- first century. In the interim, visual,
musical and other sensory cues play tricks on his aging mind, flooding him with
skewed memories from his ladder of years.
It is surprising how an author as young as Gaponenko, born
in 1981, captures the authentic voice of a man nearly a hundred years old.
Who Is Martha? Marjana Gaponenko (Arabella Spencer,
tr.) New Vessel Press. New York. Available October 14, 2014, $15.99
Happy Reading.
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