The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins *****

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins is a study of gaslighting (manipulating someone to question their own reality, memory, or perceptions). Both the victims and the reader fall under the spell. Rachel is the girl on the train who observes two houses on her commute. Twenty-three Blenheim Road houses her ex-husband Tom and his new wife Anna and their daughter Evie. Before the divorce, Rachel lived in this house with Tom. The other house is fifteen Blenheim Road where Scott and his wife Megan lived before Megan disappeared. What happened to Megan?

The third man is a therapist, Kamal Abdic. Before Megan disappears, she goes to Kamal for marriage counseling and other problems. After Megan disappears, Rachel goes to him for counseling about her issues around the divorce and her brother Ben who died young in a motorcycle accident.

Rachel is an alcoholic. Much of the mystery is hidden behind her blackout drunk episode on the evening Megan disappeared. In addition to Rachel’s drinking problem and her brother’s sudden death, she also could not get pregnant.

This is a story about sex and violence. The men are sexual predators and violent, while the women are promiscuous. The characters are well written but placed in stereotypical roles.

A marvelously constructed and written story of murder and abuse.

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Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen (#1/17) *****

Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen is the first of at least 17 Molly Murphy historical cozy mysteries. What would you like to know about Molly Murphy? First, she can take care of herself. When an English landowner’s son threatened her honor, he ended up dead and Molly went on the run. Second, Molly has the luck of the Irish, so with barely enough money for the train to Belfast and a boat on to Liverpool, she ends up in New York City. When she arrives on Ellis Island, O’Malley is murdered (throat slit) and Molly and her friend Michael Larkin are the prime suspects.

Molly is undaunted as she follows clues to Hell’s Kitchen, the Bowery, and various ethnic neighborhoods. She doesn’t let the street toughs, or the powerful Tammany Hall slow her down. She escapes imprisonment at a brothel and talks her way into the household staff of her prime suspect, a powerful alderman named McCormack. While she is a suspect for two murders, she convinces NYPD Detective Sullivan to support her. Just off the boat, and only twenty-three, Molly proves herself capable of surviving in the big city.

Molly is not only fearless and lucky, but she is also well-educated. “Read Shakespeare, write Latin,” is the way she says it. She’s also proud. “My mother always used to say I had too much pride.” This made it difficult for her to find a job when only “fish gutting and prostitution,” were available. Her pride also threatened her undercover position as a parlor maid.

A delightful romp through 1900 New York City, as fearless, brazen Molly Murphy solves murders and learns about life in the big city.

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The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates *****

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates reminded me of Fredrick Douglass by David W Blight, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is set in the pre-Civil War south and concerns the lives of the enslaved people. With a mixture of history and fantasy Coates tells the story of Hiram Walker, son of Howell Walker, the plantation owner, and Rose, who was sold away when Hiram was nine.

The story unfolds in three parts: growing up on the plantation, living as a free man in Philadelphia, and returning south. A view of plantation life with reasons to leave and to stay.

Hiram Walker’s life is divided between the fact that he is enslaved and the privileges he receives because his father owns the plantation. He also has two superpowers. He can remember everything from people and stories to playing card and conversations. He also has the power of CONDUCTION (a.k.a. teleportation), though this capability is more difficult to access and control.

His circumstances give him empathy for the Tasked (the enslaved workers) and the Quality (the masters). The result is a story with both sides represented. The third class in this society is the Low whites, “a degraded and downtrodden nation enduring the boot of the Quality, solely for the right to put a boot of their own to the Tasked.” Hiram Walker had little compassion for the Low whites, but he understood the weakness of the Quality. “My father, like all the masters, built an entire apparatus to disguise this weakness, to hide how prostrate they truly were.”

Both this book and Uncle Tom’s Cabin feature the horror and brutality of breaking up families.

Both this book and The Underground Railroad use fantasy to represent the voyages of people escaping the south.

A powerful and subtle view of plantation life pre-civil war.

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