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Cecil Younger #2
The Curious Eat Themselves
When Louise Root, a new client of Cecil Younger, is found murdered, the private investigator finds himself in the middle of an environmental law violation that has deadly repercussions. Cecil finds he is unable to leave behind Root, especially after her ex-lover Hannah asks him for help. On top of it all, Global Mining, the company that runs the gold mine where Root’s body was found, hires Younger to get the dirt on an environmentalist who has a connection to the victim.
In the midst of all this, Cecil’s personal life is fraying as he keeps secrets from his ward, Todd, and tries to keep his drinking under control. In the sequel to The Woman Who Married a Bear , Straley returns with his sensitive, if slightly unstable, investigator.
In the midst of all this, Cecil’s personal life is fraying as he keeps secrets from his ward, Todd, and tries to keep his drinking under control. In the sequel to The Woman Who Married a Bear , Straley returns with his sensitive, if slightly unstable, investigator.
260 pages, Paperback
First published August 31, 1993
94 people are currently reading
303 people want to read
About the author
John Straley
40 books194 followersNovelist John Straley has worked as a secretary, horseshoer, wilderness guide, trail crew foreman, millworker, machinist and private investigator. He moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1977 and has no plans of leaving. John's wife, Jan Straley, is a marine biologist well-known for her extensive studies of humpback whales.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
June 13, 2019
I was taken by this book’s title “The Curious Eat Themselves” as much as by the first book in the series. In this the second adventure of Cecil Younger we return to Alaska. This time Louise Root, who was raped at the Global gold mine where she worked as a cook, hires Cecil to gather evidence of the crime, although she won't tell him who assaulted her.
Several days later, Louise's body is pulled from a river, her throat slit.
Cecil is soon hired by Global Mining's Lee Altman and Charlie Potts, who want to know “everything'' about environmentalist Steven Mathews. They pay in cash, want no written records of the transaction, and warn Cecil to “stay clear of this Louise Root thing.”
Straley maintains the suspense and we learn more about the Alaskan back woods.
Several days later, Louise's body is pulled from a river, her throat slit.
Cecil is soon hired by Global Mining's Lee Altman and Charlie Potts, who want to know “everything'' about environmentalist Steven Mathews. They pay in cash, want no written records of the transaction, and warn Cecil to “stay clear of this Louise Root thing.”
Straley maintains the suspense and we learn more about the Alaskan back woods.
January 24, 2021
'The Curious Eat Themselves' is one of the oddest titles for a book I have ever come across and I've read at least thousands of books! I still don't know wtf it means.
'The Curious Eat Themselves' by John Straley is the second book in the Cecil Younger series. I still don't understand Younger as a character, but at least Younger is sober and more coherent in this book, unlike in The Woman Who Married a Bear, the first book in the series. Being sober, Cecil acts more like a private detective instead of just a drunk stumbling around and solving his client's case by simply irritating people.
The real attraction in the Younger mysteries is Alaska. Cecil Younger is based in Sitka, Alaska, but like most Alaskans, he travels everywhere, and frequently, by boat or plane. For them, getting in a plane or boat and going somewhere is like catching a bus. People live "in the rough" whether they have a house in a town or cabin in the country. Drinking is very much an occupation as is hunting for most. But the author writes of the land with love and of the people with balanced realism. Readers see the towns, the mines, and the oil fields as if looking at a photograph. The characters are people who you'd swear were standing in front of you. Gentle reader, either you will like this series or not depending on whether you can tolerate a realistic depiction of Alaskan people and how they live in Alaska.
I've copied the book blurb below and it is spot on:
P.I. Cecil Younger is in a jam. Louise Root had hired him after she was raped at the Otter Creek gold mine where she was working as a cook. She was the best friend of his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. Louise had come to him for help, and now she's being fished out of the ocean, her throat slashed.
He has disappointed Hannah once again, yet suddenly everyone wants Younger's help: his old friend, Doggy, the D.A.; his autistic roommate, Toddy, whose Labrador retriever has disappeared; an image-conscious environmental activist; even the sleazy executives of Global Mining, whose interest in the case is suspicious. This is no longer a simple investigation, but a complicated murder case involving Global's environmentally incorrect waste disposal program and the implications of dumping cyanide into the ground. Dead bodies are piling up faster than Younger can count and he has his hands full just trying to stay alive, tracking down the suspects and some missing documents which could lead to the truth.
The plot begins to twist and turn about half way into the book. Each turn leads Cecil into interesting places which actually exist, or did exist (book was first published in 1993) with some names changed. Prudhoe Bay and its oil rigs exist, for example, one of the more interesting places Cecil finds himself.
I think some of the descriptive writing by the author becomes too abridged and brief in spots, but in other areas he sketches out the action and setting perfectly. Small quibbles. I am enjoying the series despite that I want to know WHY Cecil is such a damaged sad man! Is it really only the drug/alcohol addiction, and the trouble he got into because of that? (Previous book hints at what happened in Cecil's past, sort of.) Anyway, I plan to read the next book in the series.
'The Curious Eat Themselves' by John Straley is the second book in the Cecil Younger series. I still don't understand Younger as a character, but at least Younger is sober and more coherent in this book, unlike in The Woman Who Married a Bear, the first book in the series. Being sober, Cecil acts more like a private detective instead of just a drunk stumbling around and solving his client's case by simply irritating people.
The real attraction in the Younger mysteries is Alaska. Cecil Younger is based in Sitka, Alaska, but like most Alaskans, he travels everywhere, and frequently, by boat or plane. For them, getting in a plane or boat and going somewhere is like catching a bus. People live "in the rough" whether they have a house in a town or cabin in the country. Drinking is very much an occupation as is hunting for most. But the author writes of the land with love and of the people with balanced realism. Readers see the towns, the mines, and the oil fields as if looking at a photograph. The characters are people who you'd swear were standing in front of you. Gentle reader, either you will like this series or not depending on whether you can tolerate a realistic depiction of Alaskan people and how they live in Alaska.
I've copied the book blurb below and it is spot on:
P.I. Cecil Younger is in a jam. Louise Root had hired him after she was raped at the Otter Creek gold mine where she was working as a cook. She was the best friend of his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. Louise had come to him for help, and now she's being fished out of the ocean, her throat slashed.
He has disappointed Hannah once again, yet suddenly everyone wants Younger's help: his old friend, Doggy, the D.A.; his autistic roommate, Toddy, whose Labrador retriever has disappeared; an image-conscious environmental activist; even the sleazy executives of Global Mining, whose interest in the case is suspicious. This is no longer a simple investigation, but a complicated murder case involving Global's environmentally incorrect waste disposal program and the implications of dumping cyanide into the ground. Dead bodies are piling up faster than Younger can count and he has his hands full just trying to stay alive, tracking down the suspects and some missing documents which could lead to the truth.
The plot begins to twist and turn about half way into the book. Each turn leads Cecil into interesting places which actually exist, or did exist (book was first published in 1993) with some names changed. Prudhoe Bay and its oil rigs exist, for example, one of the more interesting places Cecil finds himself.
I think some of the descriptive writing by the author becomes too abridged and brief in spots, but in other areas he sketches out the action and setting perfectly. Small quibbles. I am enjoying the series despite that I want to know WHY Cecil is such a damaged sad man! Is it really only the drug/alcohol addiction, and the trouble he got into because of that? (Previous book hints at what happened in Cecil's past, sort of.) Anyway, I plan to read the next book in the series.
December 24, 2017
The friend who recommended this novel to me said they had mixed feelings about it, and now I understand why. ‘The Curious Eat Themselves’ is a wonderfully titled noir-ish murder mystery set in 1990s Alaska and starring a frankly slapdash Defense Investigator (do these exist in the UK?) called Cecil Younger. I think lists might help to explain my feelings about it.
The Good
- A really strong sense of place. Alaska and its residents seem pretty messed up, but Straley evokes them very vividly. The details all add up: use of light planes to get around everywhere, absence of entertainment that isn’t food or alcohol, trees everywhere. You can really feel the cold emptiness and inhospitable climate. There’s a visceral sense that this place is hostile to human life and a minor mistake could kill you.
- Some interesting character dynamics, especially Cecil and his housemate Todd. The narrator is most appealing when he’s chatting with friends about topics unrelated to the murder. Most of the background characters are intriguingly idiosyncratic.
- There are flashes of excellent deadpan humour.
- A convincing depiction of the amoral profit-seeking of oil companies.
The Bad
- I liked basically nothing about the central mystery.
- No-one in this book is any good at their job.
- The treatment of women was pretty troubling.
-
The Ambivalent
- I liked that Cecil didn’t carry a gun, then was disappointed when he uses someone else’s later on.
- The detailed descriptions of skinning and gutting animals weren’t very pleasant for a vegetarian. I couldn’t decide whether they really served a narrative purpose.
- The ubiquity of alcoholism was depressing and at times reminded me of David Foster Wallace.
On balance this novel was well worth reading, though, as my previous knowledge of Alaska was entirely gleaned from The Simpsons Movie. None of that conflicts with ‘The Curious Eat Themselves’, although the novel manages much greater depth. I appreciated the insight into a strange and seedy corner of the world, and some of the deadpan narration, without liking the events that transpired.
The Good
- A really strong sense of place. Alaska and its residents seem pretty messed up, but Straley evokes them very vividly. The details all add up: use of light planes to get around everywhere, absence of entertainment that isn’t food or alcohol, trees everywhere. You can really feel the cold emptiness and inhospitable climate. There’s a visceral sense that this place is hostile to human life and a minor mistake could kill you.
- Some interesting character dynamics, especially Cecil and his housemate Todd. The narrator is most appealing when he’s chatting with friends about topics unrelated to the murder. Most of the background characters are intriguingly idiosyncratic.
- There are flashes of excellent deadpan humour.
- A convincing depiction of the amoral profit-seeking of oil companies.
The Bad
- I liked basically nothing about the central mystery.
- No-one in this book is any good at their job.
- The treatment of women was pretty troubling.
-
The Ambivalent
- I liked that Cecil didn’t carry a gun, then was disappointed when he uses someone else’s later on.
- The detailed descriptions of skinning and gutting animals weren’t very pleasant for a vegetarian. I couldn’t decide whether they really served a narrative purpose.
- The ubiquity of alcoholism was depressing and at times reminded me of David Foster Wallace.
On balance this novel was well worth reading, though, as my previous knowledge of Alaska was entirely gleaned from The Simpsons Movie. None of that conflicts with ‘The Curious Eat Themselves’, although the novel manages much greater depth. I appreciated the insight into a strange and seedy corner of the world, and some of the deadpan narration, without liking the events that transpired.
May 19, 2018
I "discovered" John Straley when I took a friend's recommendation and read "Cold Storage Alaska." Since then, I've started on his Cecil Younger series, of which this is the second.
The quirky titles were an attraction, but beyond that, I think I appreciate the sense of place that the reader gets from this collection of Alaskan noir. While not in the same league with James Lee Burke or John Sandford, Straley does for Sitka, Alaska and environs what Burke does for New Iberia and southern Louisiana and what Sandford does for the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota.
I am enjoying getting to know Cecil, learning more about him with each book. Hannah is more of a mystery to me at this point. She was introduced in "The Woman Who Married a Bear" as "the woman who used to love me" and while she is prominent in "Curious", I still don't feel that I know her as well as I do Cecil.
Toddy is the other major recurring character and may be my favorite. His devotion to his lost dog and his simple faith in Cecil, even when Cecil sometimes lets him down, are touching. There's a bittersweet plot line in "Curious" regarding Toddy and his dog.
Perhaps it's because I just read Sandford's latest, and no one matches him for catchy dialog and excellent pacing of the action, but I found my progress through Straley much more plodding. The atmosphere is as gloomy as I imagine southeastern Alaska to be, and Straley's prose is vaguer than Sandford's and not quite as poetic as Burke's. But using those two as standards is probably unfair.
Give Straley a try. I've found him to be worth it.
The quirky titles were an attraction, but beyond that, I think I appreciate the sense of place that the reader gets from this collection of Alaskan noir. While not in the same league with James Lee Burke or John Sandford, Straley does for Sitka, Alaska and environs what Burke does for New Iberia and southern Louisiana and what Sandford does for the Twin Cities and southern Minnesota.
I am enjoying getting to know Cecil, learning more about him with each book. Hannah is more of a mystery to me at this point. She was introduced in "The Woman Who Married a Bear" as "the woman who used to love me" and while she is prominent in "Curious", I still don't feel that I know her as well as I do Cecil.
Toddy is the other major recurring character and may be my favorite. His devotion to his lost dog and his simple faith in Cecil, even when Cecil sometimes lets him down, are touching. There's a bittersweet plot line in "Curious" regarding Toddy and his dog.
Perhaps it's because I just read Sandford's latest, and no one matches him for catchy dialog and excellent pacing of the action, but I found my progress through Straley much more plodding. The atmosphere is as gloomy as I imagine southeastern Alaska to be, and Straley's prose is vaguer than Sandford's and not quite as poetic as Burke's. But using those two as standards is probably unfair.
Give Straley a try. I've found him to be worth it.
December 14, 2015
The naysayers here are missing the point. This is not a garden variety police procedural (although there's that here, too) but a literary novel, using the genre as a starting point. Think James Crumley transplanted to Alaska, not Montana, with the added advantage of an intriguing and complex cast of characters dealing with the complex fate of trying to be good, and survive as well, in what may be the last vestige of the wild, wild West.
July 25, 2014
This is a well written mystery set in Alaska, but the way characters run into each other with little rhyme or reason got on my nerves after a while. Alaska is Not that small a place! What concerned me more, though, is that I found it to be just too dark for me.
March 21, 2017
I have a hard time following the story sometimes but I'm still enjoying this series. The setting in a hard life part of Alaska and the hard drinking people surviving there is way different than the sugary view we often get. Lots of twists make it a good read.
February 11, 2017
Straley is the best at writing about life on the edge in Alaska. The mystery is a good one but his evocative writing brings Alaska alive for the reader and makes this worthwhile.
February 10, 2022
I read about this book in a newsletter from the NYT. Very fast paced—great images of Alaska.
July 17, 2024
Straley is becoming a fast favourite for me. I'm not often the type of reader who pauses to enjoy the small descriptions or metaphors that authors use, but so many times I was captured by them here. I love the way that nobody really solves anything, no genius detective work is done, and the characters are truly human.
February 9, 2009
Straley takes a long time to build his stories; he's not into flashy action or minimizing his character's thought processes for the sake of moving the narrative along quickly. That's a compliment - I don't care for the James Patterson school of thriller. Cecil Younger is a character with hidden depths, and you read along feeling that Straley is never going to give you all you want to know about him. I love the setting of these novels - Alaska - and Straley's poetical, sometimes brutal, descriptions of the landscapes and wilderness. (Brutal in the sense of harsh and realistic, not in the violent sense you might associate with a mystery/thriller). This one took me quite awhile to finish, but it was worth it & I look forward to the next installment. Straley is gifted in his use of language.
October 16, 2010
My second of John Straley's Alaskan murder mysteries, and even better than his first. The strange title is a quote from Theodore Roethke--two characters argue about where in his poetry it appears, but they don't give a context, enticing a certain kind of reader (me) to look it up. I hoped that surrounding lines in Roethke's poetry would help with the significance of the title for the novel; but it turns out that the line stands by itself in a short section entitled "Proverbs of Purgatory." There is no context. Nevertheless, even though I only have inklings of the significance of the title, the novel is excellent and I'm looking forward to the next one.
December 27, 2014
Although I haven't read Straley's Cecil Younger series in order, that's okay.
I really liked this mystery.
Cecil Younger continues to make hay for himself as a small-town private investigator. Straley captures Sitka and Alaska with a keen eye.
Taking on corporations and those dedicated to profit at the cost of the environment, as well as to avenging unwarranted death, Cecil doesn't find himself so often drunk, or so often under other people's clouds.
He forges a way to truth - always at a price.
Good book.
I really liked this mystery.
Cecil Younger continues to make hay for himself as a small-town private investigator. Straley captures Sitka and Alaska with a keen eye.
Taking on corporations and those dedicated to profit at the cost of the environment, as well as to avenging unwarranted death, Cecil doesn't find himself so often drunk, or so often under other people's clouds.
He forges a way to truth - always at a price.
Good book.
August 15, 2008
THE CURIOUS EAT THEMSELVES - NR
Straley, John - 2nd in Cecil Younger series
Cecil Younger is a defense investigator working out of Sitka, Alaska. Though most of Younger's clients are defendants, this one is the victim of a crime. Louise Roots wants Younger to break through corporate cover-ups and police apathy to find evidence against the man who raped her in an isolated mining camp. Before she can tell him the details, her throat is slashed.
Could not get into the characters.
Straley, John - 2nd in Cecil Younger series
Cecil Younger is a defense investigator working out of Sitka, Alaska. Though most of Younger's clients are defendants, this one is the victim of a crime. Louise Roots wants Younger to break through corporate cover-ups and police apathy to find evidence against the man who raped her in an isolated mining camp. Before she can tell him the details, her throat is slashed.
Could not get into the characters.
March 5, 2009
I only got to page 71 of this book so it may not be fair to give stars. Perhaps it gets better later, but I found I just could not go on since I didn't care about the characters. I really enjoyed an interview with the author on our local public radio station (Jefferson Public Radio). He had a lot of interesting real life stories to tell, but this mystery was not a good vehicle for telling them.
March 14, 2016
Gret description of orcas eating seals and people hunting deer. Straley loves Alaska--its cold, wetness, and distances. He isn't so hot about big energy, air travel and drop-in environmentalists. He doesn't mind the thrown-together feel of the cities. The book digs in on you as you read. And you shiver a little wondering why are some people so bad and others so good. But if you made everyone middling muddlers what kind of mystery would you have?
June 20, 2011
Read this this weekend while camping. A good yarn. Centered around the "new" gold mining techniques and the post-Valdez Alaskan drama. This guys titles kill me. This one was someone's tatoo and I don't have the slightest idea how it relates to the story? Lots of action in Juneau, Anchorage, Sitka... etc. The body is pulled out of Creek Street in Ketchican!! (That's page 1!)
December 1, 2015
I read The Woman who Married a Bear back when I was living in SE AK. So it was fun to remember Cecil Younger. He struggles but never stops looking for answers. Great descriptions of life in that part of the world. Makes me NOT miss flying in float planes or having to get somewhere by water in a wind/rain storm!
August 2, 2021
This was… not a good book. It’s weird because I kept seeing glimmers of a really good story and interesting propulsive plot, but then the author would just drop those story lines. There was WAY too much going for a 260 page book. It’s like the author kept trying to distract you with shiny things so you wouldn’t notice how bad the plot was.
February 29, 2012
it made me very nostalgic for alaska.enjoyed the descriptions of alaska geography and sourdough life. it kept my interest, but gave me no real connection to the characters who were not well developed--except for the autistic man. .
September 1, 2014
Straley's writing deliciously captures the dismal, foreboding atmosphere that much of Alaska exudes, while Investigator Cecil Younger and the cases he takes on fit right in with that dark, mysterious world.
August 2, 2018
This is the second Cecil Younger book I've read and although I've never been to Alaska, I feel like I can see it when I close my eyes. The mystery is good but the characters and the locale will keep me coming back for more.
July 30, 2017
I read Straley like I eat ice cream. It goes down fast and smooth. I enjoy what he does with the flaws of the protagonist. He underscores what it is to be imminently human.
March 31, 2011
sordid alaskan alcoholic, could not get into
February 7, 2020
Of the John Straley novels I've read so far, I think this one is the best--though not my favorite. But the construction was really well done, the mystery took some exciting and unexpected turns, and the characters felt much more personable and fleshed-out than before. It's a good progression all around, which makes me optimistic for the next book and the rest of the series, for sure.
Still, this and the other books aren't super great with handling women (especially victims of rape), neurodivergent people, or people of color. A woman is referred to as "a negress" pretty early on in the story, and it left me bracing myself through the rest of the novel, waiting for another microaggressive shoe to drop--it didn't, and I didn't think there was anything much worse than that (but also there were no other explicit Black people in the story, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Which, ultimately, I think is my issue here; there isn't anything particularly offensive or horrendously demeaning, but the terminology seems super dated. And hey, maybe that's just trying to be authentic to the setting, as they're set sometime in what I think is the 90's? I dunno, it's just very confusing to see this wording used when the narrative itself seems pretty strongly opposed to the sort of meaning behind them and the impact they cause. There's so much tenderness and compassion in describing, say, Toddy, and especially his relationship with Cecil (and the way Cecil gets it wrong sometimes but tries very hard to get it right most of the time is one of my favorite things about his character); but then someone goes and uses the r-slur or something and it's just bewildering enough to throw me out of the story and, again, leave me bracing for some kind of terrible impact.
Anyway, I'm gonna be pretty careful about recommending these books to people, but I'm still going to keep reading them, because the mysteries have so far been really interesting and kinda fun, and because I just really dig Straley's writing. His prose has this really sparse, almost bleak thing going for it, but that's interspersed with these really gorgeous, almost-lyrical descriptions of people and landscape, and the juxtaposition really does it for me.
Still, this and the other books aren't super great with handling women (especially victims of rape), neurodivergent people, or people of color. A woman is referred to as "a negress" pretty early on in the story, and it left me bracing myself through the rest of the novel, waiting for another microaggressive shoe to drop--it didn't, and I didn't think there was anything much worse than that (but also there were no other explicit Black people in the story, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Which, ultimately, I think is my issue here; there isn't anything particularly offensive or horrendously demeaning, but the terminology seems super dated. And hey, maybe that's just trying to be authentic to the setting, as they're set sometime in what I think is the 90's? I dunno, it's just very confusing to see this wording used when the narrative itself seems pretty strongly opposed to the sort of meaning behind them and the impact they cause. There's so much tenderness and compassion in describing, say, Toddy, and especially his relationship with Cecil (and the way Cecil gets it wrong sometimes but tries very hard to get it right most of the time is one of my favorite things about his character); but then someone goes and uses the r-slur or something and it's just bewildering enough to throw me out of the story and, again, leave me bracing for some kind of terrible impact.
Anyway, I'm gonna be pretty careful about recommending these books to people, but I'm still going to keep reading them, because the mysteries have so far been really interesting and kinda fun, and because I just really dig Straley's writing. His prose has this really sparse, almost bleak thing going for it, but that's interspersed with these really gorgeous, almost-lyrical descriptions of people and landscape, and the juxtaposition really does it for me.
April 6, 2020
One theme of my reading is to learn more about the nature of the places I travel by reading crime or mystery novels that are based in these locations. I have previously learned much about Southern California and the Florida gulf from reading T. Jefferson Parker and Randy Wayne White. What these author write about - the seedy underside of life and cultural history of the area -never shows up in tourist guides.
So that is what drew me to this book. It begins with the discovery of the body of a young murdered woman under a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, a place I visited a few years ago with friends. I have art work in our living room depicting exactly this place. I bought the book along with the art work, put it away when I returned, and forgot about it until recently. It was a very good read and it revealed so much about Alaskan culture that I saw only on the surface in my visit and previous reading. I'm going to pass it along to the others I traveled there with, and hope they enjoy it as much as I did.
So that is what drew me to this book. It begins with the discovery of the body of a young murdered woman under a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, a place I visited a few years ago with friends. I have art work in our living room depicting exactly this place. I bought the book along with the art work, put it away when I returned, and forgot about it until recently. It was a very good read and it revealed so much about Alaskan culture that I saw only on the surface in my visit and previous reading. I'm going to pass it along to the others I traveled there with, and hope they enjoy it as much as I did.
June 27, 2019
I'm liking some aspects of this series so far, it can be a little gruesome but overall, Cecil is an interesting character. He's got alot of flaws and traveled a very rough road - all his own choice (drugs, drinking, being a failure) Straley paints beautiful Alaska with a brush that exposes all of it's dark, uglier flaws and you can actually feel the dismal, trapped feeling alot of the poorer people there undoubtedly live with. Stories like this also remind me, just how dark and alienated one can feel when they don't have Jesus. Instead of being grateful for what they do have and looking UP instead of at what everyone else has, alot of these characters are like anyone you meet in impoverished communities - hopeless, dreary, drugs and drink numbs all of these things. Lack of God in their lives also opens the door to all kinds of crime, which of course, is what this series is all about. Good writing all the way.
February 15, 2023
I’m very glad I picked up the first of these last year, and I think I’ll continue to take my time making my way through the series. I love Straley’s sparse prose, I love the non-procedural but still genrefied nature of these stories and the oblique distance Cecil keeps from his own perception of events. I love the intimate characterization of the Alaskan wilderness that can only come from living in it. And I absolutely fell in love with Hannah in this book.
This one is coming back around to being quite timely if you are thinking a lot about charismatic celebrity “environmentalist”-technocrats and the far-reaching implications of human-made disasters from Exxon-Valdez to the East Palestine derailment.
“Loyalty is the cup that holds my desire.”
This one is coming back around to being quite timely if you are thinking a lot about charismatic celebrity “environmentalist”-technocrats and the far-reaching implications of human-made disasters from Exxon-Valdez to the East Palestine derailment.
“Loyalty is the cup that holds my desire.”
September 12, 2018
Cecil Younger is back for his second adventure. But this time there is just too much going on.
Younger was hired by a young woman to investigate her rape at a mining camp. But before he can do anything, she is murdered.
The victim was close to Hannah, the woman who used to love Cecil. So he begins to look into the case.
But while the first book in the series was full of well-written descriptions of Alaska and its people, this time there are so many subplots and so much time spent in airplanes that there just isn't enough of what made the first book so good.
I'm eager to see if the series returns to its roots in book three.
Younger was hired by a young woman to investigate her rape at a mining camp. But before he can do anything, she is murdered.
The victim was close to Hannah, the woman who used to love Cecil. So he begins to look into the case.
But while the first book in the series was full of well-written descriptions of Alaska and its people, this time there are so many subplots and so much time spent in airplanes that there just isn't enough of what made the first book so good.
I'm eager to see if the series returns to its roots in book three.
May 12, 2024
The guy can turn a phrase. I liked reading about daily life in Alaska. I wanted to like Cecil but I didn’t understand him, maybe because I jumped into this book not knowing it was a series. There were random occasional tender and striking insights, followed by large stretches of largely emotionally disconnected actions. I can appreciate it I guess. The crime plot was fine, but I didn’t care about Louise Root and I feel like reading with an emotionally visceral crime involving her was ultimately a let down. 2 stars for plot and character investment but 3 stars for sentences like “Her throat had been cut deeply so that the trachea flopped out like a rubbery white radiator hose.” Spectacular.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews