Peyton Place by Grace Metalious *****

 Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

In 1956, women had ambitions and desires. Men who didn’t respect them died. Who knew? And all in a small New England town. Peyton Place. The book was banned, but the ideas exploded into the women’s liberation movement. Not the book you were told it was.

The rich men from the old families ran Peyton Place. They had big houses and controlled the town. The poor mill workers lived in tar paper shacks without plumbing. However, Constance, an unwed, single mother, owned the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe, a successful, expanding business. She raised her daughter, Allison, and provided opportunities for other women in town. Leslie Harrington owned Cumberland Mills. He employed the people living in the shacks and controlled the town selectmen and the bank. In the end, he lost everything.

Nothing is sugar-coated. Lucas Cross lives in a shack, drinks, beats his wife, and rapes his daughter, Selena. His wife commits suicide, but Selena prevails. Leslie Harrington is responsible for Kathy Ellsworth losing her right arm. No Peyton Place jury would go against him, but she also prevails.

Leslie raises his son, Rodney, to be a spoiled bully. Rodney dodges the World War II draft but gets his comeuppance in the end. The town doctor, Matthew Swain, performs an illegal abortion, but it turns out fine. Throughout the book, the 1956 status quo is subverted. Peyton Place was named for a runaway slave.

People have many opinions on this book. I like to think that the author, Grace Metalious, and the protagonist, Allison MacKenzie, are opening new vistas for the women of Peyton Place, but others read the book differently. The version I read had a long introduction by Ardis Cameron (ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1555534004).

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Fractured by Karin Slaughter *****

 Fractured by Karin Slaughter

 

Abigail Campano discovers her daughter Emma brutally murdered. She is attacked by Adam, a teen boy, but she defends herself and strangles him. Thus, begins the next case for Will Trent. A thriller.

 

Emma wasn’t murdered. She was abducted. Abigail wasn’t attacked by Adam, but she really killed him. Another girl, Kayla, was the one murdered. That was still in the first chapter!

 

Will Trent was raised by the state, no parents. He has dyslexia. He can barely read or write. Regardless, he is observant and intuitive. He is a great detective. His boss at the GBI tries to micromanage him while also respecting his skills.

 

Will is paired with Faith Mitchell from the Atlanta PD. She can’t figure out Will, while appreciating that he isn’t misogynistic like everyone at the APD. She works hard and is a good detective.

 

The book is about sex abuse, abuse of minors, and torture. However, most of the action is reported, not shown.

 

A fast-moving story.

 

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The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown ****

 The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown

 

When Mr. Webber dies in Kellner’s Books, he leaves The Book of Doors to Cassie Andrews. With that book, “Any door is very door.” Cassie can teleport anywhere in space and time. She has many adventures with this and other magic books. A clever and confusing book.

 

The magic books include Illusions, Shadows, Joy, Control, Matter, Safety, Pain, Luck, and Memories. The books are worth millions to collectors. Librarian Bernard Fox wants to preserve them. The Bookseller was to auctions them off for her 40% cut. Dr. Hugo Barbary wants them for their power. Cassie is on the side of good against evil.

 

The illusions make it difficult to follow the convoluted plot. Characters that appear to be in jeopardy (or even dead) often are part of an illusion.

 

“There are two ideas about time travel. There is the open model of time travel and the closed model, ja? In the open model, you can travel into the past and change events so that your present is consequently changed also. This is what you see in science fiction stories.” This book uses the closed model. Nothing can change what has already happened. The plot makes many interesting uses of this.

 

This book is a clever battle between good and evil using time travel and magic. Occasionally, too clever.

 

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