Post #36

Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Quote for the day: "Suddenly each summer on the lake shores of northern Michigan a living truth is rekindled. I have felt its glow all the way around the world, across the continents and across borderlines that let down their barriers only for those who know the universal password.  ...Interlochen is a magic word in the music world." Van Cliburn, 1968


Reviews



Lives Laid Away
by Stephen Mack Jones

August Snow is on the prowl again and that is cause for celebration. The author's first mystery featuring the ex Detroit cop turned sometime private-eye, when not buying and fixing up every abandoned house on his block and making them livable again, was named a Michigan Notable Book and a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Book of the Year. The first novel was also nominated for two distinguished mystery writing awards. Happily, Lives Laid Away meets every expectation readers of the first book looked forward to in the second.

For the uninitiated, Snow's mother was Mexican and his father an African American. He is proud of his ethnic roots and lives in Detroit's Mexicantown where he grew up. He was fired by the Detroit Police Department and sued for unlawful dismissal and won a $12 million settlement. He uses the money to buy and rebuild abandoned homes on his block and finds needy families to whom he either sells the house or gives it to them. The only interruption in this one-man effort to rebuild a Detroit neighborhood is his habit of getting snared into helping right a wrong, sticking up for his neighbors, and working as an unlicensed private detective. All three of the activities usually brings Snow face-to-face with the police department and ex-superior officers that set him up for a fall but instead cost the city $12 million.

The second book, in what is hoped will be a long series, involves Snow in a case as volatile as today's headlines. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau (ICE)  is on the prowl in Mexicantown and when the body of an unidentified Hispanic woman is pulled from the Detroit River the police look to quickly close the case.  The Wayne County Coroner sends a photo of the dead woman to Snow in hopes he can circulate the picture and ID the deceased. 

When Snow starts nosing around trying to identify the body he discovers there may be a rogue element within the Detroit ICE office that is grabbing undocumented females and turning them over to a criminal element who sends them into the underground world of sex trafficking. The plot moves at the speed of light, the characters are authentic, the body count is high, and readers will be hooked right up to the bittersweet conclusion.

Lastly, among the many pleasures of this deeply satisfying novel is the author's intimate knowledge of Detroit and its suburbs that are described with razor-sharp prose that cuts to the essence of today's Detroit and the plight of its under-served and preyed upon inhabitants. The book is a triumph and much more than just a very readable, guns-blazing thriller.  

Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones. Soho Press, 2019, $26.95



Duffy Daugherty: A Man Ahead of His Time
by David Claerbaut

Given its title, this is not the book I expected it would be. What I was looking for between this book's cover was a well-rounded, authoritative biography of one of our state's most iconic college coaches. What readers get instead is a detailed, informative, and interesting game-by-game retelling of Duffy Daugherty's nineteen seasons as head coach of Michigan State University football team.  

The book's first seventeen pages recount his birth and childhood in Pennsylvania coal country and his early career as an assistant coach. The book's last five pages briefly covers his life after coaching but are pretty much limited to writing his autobiography, his regrets that he didn't retire sooner, and his dislike for how the Big Ten administers football. His wife is mentioned two or three times and there is a passing note about adopting a child and that is the sum total of information on his marriage and life away from football.  

Within the story of  Duffy's nineteen seasons as MSU's head coach, there is much said about the clashing of the two huge egos within MSU's sports family-- Duffy Daugherty's and that of the Athletic Director Biggie Munn. Both liked the limelight and there was probably no better speaker and storyteller in football than Duffy Daugherty. He was a literal quote machine and could almost rival Yogi Berra for odd and memorable one-liners like, "I could have been a Rhodes Scholar, except for my grades."

Much has been made of Duffy's tapping into the wealth of Black football talent in the 1960s in the South and bringing many of those players to MSU because they weren't allowed to break the color barrier at Southern universities. I wanted to know more about how Buffy decided to go after these Black players and how he recruited them. Late in the book, Duffy is quoted as saying he hated recruiting but no details are given as to why.  Other than noting and quoting from his many public speaking engagements, there is hardly a word in the book about what the man did in the offseason, how he conducted spring training or arrived at his innovative offensive sets and plays. The players loved him but little or nothing is said about his relationship with those players after they graduated.

If you're looking for a complete and thorough biography of the man, look elsewhere.  On the other hand, if you want to be regaled by Duffy's great sense of humor on the banquet circuit or in press interviews that are interwoven within a game-by-game and often a play-by-play history of his nineteen seasons as the Spartans head coach the book will not disappoint. 

Duffy Daugherty: A Man Ahead of His Time by David Claerbaut. Michigan State University Press, 2018, $29.95 pb.

All books reviewed in this blog can be purchased by clicking your mouse on the book's cover which will take you to Amazon where you can usually purchase the book at a discount. By using this blog as a portal to Amazon and purchasing any product helps support Michigan in Books.



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Post # 35

Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Quote for the day: "...(Elmore) Leonard's nine Detroit books form as good a portrait of life in this city during the past 20 years -- its unwritten codes and attitudes, its views of the world, its excess and eccentricities -- as we'll have."  Neely Tucker. Detroit Free Press Magazine. March 29, 1992.

Happy New Year! When I began this blog in August of 2017 I never considered its life expectancy. So it is with some surprise and a degree of wonder that this is the second ringing in of a new year for Michigan in Books. This endeavor takes up far more commitment and time than I imagined. But, I still enjoy reading and spreading the word on Michigan books and authors. Evidently there are a gratifying number of you out there who find the blog worth your time. You spur me on.  Thank you for your interest and readership.

Reviews


Raylan Goes to Detroit
by Peter Leonard

I went out of my way to choose the above Quote for the Day to leadoff this post because the first book reviewed herein was written by Elmore Leonard's son. At the time of his death, Elmore Leonard was widely recognized as the best writer of crime novels of his day. When I saw that his son had picked up the pen dropped by his father and was also writing crime novels I stayed away from them. I thought the son was just setting himself up for failure and a painful literary comparison to his father. Then along came Raylan Goes to Detroit and I couldn't resist temptation. The character of Raylan Givens, a U. S. Marshall, was created by Peter's father and was the basis of a long-running and popular TV series entitled "Justified."

I never missed the show on Thursday nights on Fox and I wasn't going to miss this book. It becomes abundantly apparent from the first few pages that Elmore Leonard passed down his writing genes from father to son.  Every page showcases a natural born storyteller with great timing, memorable dialogue, unforgettable characters, and a plot as sleek and fast as a Lamborghini.

As is often the case Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens crossed a superior in the Kentucky Marshall's office and is transferred to Detroit's fugitive task force hunting down escaped prisoners, fugitives who failed to appear in court or have outstanding warrants. Raylan and his partner Bobby Torres follow a tip that leads them to Jose Rindo, a drug kingpin, and a ruthless killer. After arresting Rindo and jailing him Rayland and Torres cross swords with Nora Sanchez, a no-nonsense, by-the-numbers FBI agent who wants Rindo for the murder of another FBI agent.

Rindo has as much respect for prisons as Raylan has for superiors and the drug lord escapes from jail even before he has a hearing and heads to Ohio. Raylan and FBI Agent Sanchez are not pleased when they are ordered to Ohio to transport Rindo back to Detroit after he is recaptured in Columbus. Neither one wants to spend several hours in a car with the other. The duo brings the fugitive back to Detroit and survives a running shootout with Rindo's gunmen who attempt to free him. It proves much harder for the two to survive each other's company.

That Ohio trip sets the table for a long, deadly, cross-country pursuit of Rindo by Raylan and Sanchez when Rindo escapes yet again and heads for Mexico.  This novel of pursuit is thoroughly enjoyable. The action comes quick and violent, the two law officers relationship produces more friction than a set of disc brakes, and like his father, Peter Leonard can write scenes that not only hold the reader spellbound but in timing, tone, setting, and surprise twists are gems of perfection.  Peter Leonard joins a handful of authors who could write anything,  including a description of eating Haggis, and I'd read it.

Raylan Goes to Detroit by Peter Leonard. Rare Bird Books, 2018, $26.95




Stuck in Manistique
by Dennis Cuesta

I liked this book almost as much as all the memorable time I've spent over the years in the Manistique area. It takes the book's two main characters a few days to warm up to this small, Upper Peninsula town on Lake Michigan's northern shore. And Manistique doesn't take but a few days to alter the course of their lives.  

Mark, a Chigaco investment analyst, is surprised to learn that his Aunt Vivian, a member of Doctors Without Borders, has died and left him her house in Manistique. The request comes as a surprise because he hardly knew Aunt Vivian even though he was her last living relative. Mark has no idea where Manistique is even located.  Vivian's lawyer has to tell him how to get there. When Mark does make it to Manistique he is in for several additional surprises.

Dr. Emily Davis, fresh out of medical school, is driving north for an assignation with her lover, a married doctor and her teacher, on Mackinac Island. After crossing Big Mac she decides the affair must end and instead of catching a ferry to the island she heads west on US-2. Outside of Manistique, she hits a deer, or as she insists, a deer hit her car and shattered the windshield. The garage in Manistique has to order a replacement and tells her it will take a day to repair.   Asked where she can stay the night, she is sent to the Manistique Victorian Bed & Breakfast.

Mark hasn't finished his first look at his aunt's house when he answers a knock at the door and finds Emily, a suitcase in hand, asking if he has a room for the night. Mark is dumbfounded and wonders if there is a strange UP custom in which one allows strangers to spend the night in a spare bedroom. He is shocked to discover his aunt was running a bed and breakfast and although he permits Emily to stay the night he doesn't want anything to do with running a B & B. And so two stranger's lives slowly become entwined in the world above the bridge that, like Brigadoon, is a world unto itself.

Emily discovers "a day to repair" can mean a week in the UP.  Mark keeps answering more knocks on the door and reluctantly turns into a bed and breakfast proprietor. Over the course of a week, Emily and Mark become fast friends, play host to an entertainingly oddball number of guests, re-assess their lives, and deal with the emotional damage of past mistakes. Dennis Cuesta's first novel is a pleasing and entertaining mix of humor, the power of friendship, life in the UP, and self-forgiveness. Ah, what I wouldn't give to be Stuck in Manistique again!

Stuck in Manistique by Dennis Cuesta. Celestial Eyes Press, 2018, $24.



Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit
by Lisa Ludwinski

One has to only flip through a few pages of this beautiful book of recipes, from a bakery whose reputation has grown well beyond its location on Detroit's west side, to realize this book is unique. Before opening Sister Pie in a former beauty shop the author trained in New York and sold pies from a stand at Detroit's Eastern Market. Curiosity and word of mouth might account for many first time visitors to the Sister Pie but its the taste and the creative mind behind the pies that bring people back.

The recipes are strikingly original and adventurous. Where else will you find recipes for Peanut Butter and Paprika Cookies, Minted Peas and  Potato Hand Pies, Sweet Beet Pie, Sweet Potato Coconut Pie, and, my personal all-time favorite strange name for a pie, Sweet Corn Nectarine Streusel Pie! How I wish I had made that for Christmas and served it to my grandchildren. As a lover of pecan pie, I can't wait to blow what little diet I adhere to on Brandy Pecan Pie which includes not only apple brandy but, maple syrup, honey, turbinado sugar, cornmeal, and not a lick of heavy corn syrup.

There are also chapters on salads and breakfast recipes. The latter includes three recipes for Fat Tuesday Paczkis. I'll have a Maple Coffee Cream Paczki, please. And if I don't sleep in too long, one New Year's morning I've got to try and make Roasted Asparagus, Potato, and Chive Waffles topped with a medium-boiled egg.

Each recipe has clear and precise instructions and each is usually preceded with a note on how the recipe came to be. The book opens with a short autobiographical sketch that includes the mission and culture of Sister Pie. A second short chapter contains tips on baking and a discussion of ingredients. 

This is a great, one-of-a-kind cookbook and after simply reading it I'll have to put in a half-hour on the exercycle. 
Sister Pie: The Recipes & Stories of a Big-Hearted Bakery in Detroit by Lisa Ludwinski. Lorena Jones Books, 2018, $25.


All books reviewed in this bog can be purchased by clicking your mouse on the book's cover which will take you to Amazon where you can usually purchase the book at a discount. By using this blog as a portal to Amazon and purchasing any product helps support Michigan in Books.





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