relationships

Two damaged thirtysomethings with mysterious back stories return to their Wisconsin home town to lick their wounds and subsequently run into each other at a local gallery open. Flash back to their experience as two high school oddballs assigned to do a science project together. Uh huh, you can predict the ending to this one: awkwardness leads to happily ever after. But not so fast. This suspenseful story has twists and turns that you won’t expect and you won’t really know which narrator to trust, and which version of the past to believe, until the very end.

I've wanted to read this book ever since I first saw the cover and it was just as good, better even, then I thought it would be based on that skimpy criteria.  This is the kind of book I love.  Lots of intertwined characters jumping  back and forth through time from 1960's Italy to present day Hollywood.

In the pre-dawn hours of a summer day, a carful of post-wedding revelers hits and kills a young girl on a dark country road.

An absorbing and thought-provoking read, this novel explores a web of characters whose lives cross paths over the course of four decades, ending about 10 years from now. The two central characters are Bennie, a rock music promoter, and Sasha, his young assistant, but the story is told from multiple points of view and explores the lifelong echoes of chance encounters and the relentless impact of time passing. I'm often disappointed when I finally get around to reading an award-winning, critically acclaimed and popular title, because the work doesn't live up to the hype. Not so in this case.

Another funny, whimsical and thoroughly enjoyable read in this author's Corduroy Mansions series, which is a bit like the 44 Scotland Street series but set in London instead of in Edinburgh. McCall Smith has no peer when it comes to gently yet relentlessly skewering his motley assortment of characters, exposing everyday human failings and foibles. You will chuckle, and wince, and probably recognize yourself a few times.