Book Review: The Diamond Lane by Karen Karbo

The Diamond Lane

Author: Karen Karbo

Publisher: Hawthorne Books and Literary Arts, Inc.

Date of Publication: September 23, 2014 (Re-issue, Original DOP 1993)

Pages: 377 (e-book edition)

    This is a re-issue of Karen Karbo's 1993 "New York Times" Notable Book in trade paperback and e-book editions.  Twenty years after its initial release, The Diamond Lane still succeeds as biting satire and an indictment of fame, celebrity culture and the shallowness of modern life.

     On the surface this is the story of two sisters, Mimi and Mouse Fitzhenry, products of the Los Angeles suburbs who took very divergent paths following high school.  L.A. is described by the author as "a world where the unexpected happened and the expected didn't."  Mimi chased the Hollywood dream, working as a secretary in a talent agency while trying to find acting jobs and taking classes in "How to Write a Blockbuster."  Mouse goes to film school and then abandons the traditional movie scene to make obscure documentaries in Nigeria.  They are reunited following sixteen years of separation after their mother suffers a freak accident (she is struck in the head by a falling ceiling fan at an "all you can eat" buffet).  

     The sisters' adolescent love/hate relationship picks right up where it left off sixteen years before.  This involves typical sibling rivalries, guilt trips, ex-husbands, boyfriends and competition for everything from Mom's attention to movie contracts.  The title refers to the high occupancy vehicle lanes on the California freeways where everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere.  This metaphor runs throughout the novel as each character is constantly in helter skelter motion, most often without a defined destination.  The last half of the book also involves a scathing indictment of the trappings surrounding modern weddings, including flowers flown in from Europe, gold engraved invitations, etc...

     My only criticism of the book is the way the author handled Mouse.  Midway through the story Mouse's character turns from a counter-culture artist unconcerned with fashion or modernity to a self-conscious, self-obsessed consumer.  This seemed like a fairly radical switch for a central character.  That criticism aside, this book succeeds as a very funny social satire that, despite being technologically dated (allusions to "box phones"), rings true today as much as it did when it was first released in 1993.  Enjoy The Diamond Lane.  It is a fun read. 

Book Review: The Crime of Julian Wells by Thomas H. Cook

The Crime of Julian Wells

Author: Thomas H. Cook

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Date of Publication: August 7, 2012

Pages: 288

    This novel by previous Edgar Award winning author Thomas H. Cook really has it all.  The author has created terrific, sympathetic characters, a clever serpentine plot and describes locales with atmosphere galore. The book has a surreal quality to it with an atmosphere of mystery that is hard to actually pin down.  The basic story is fairly mundane:  A writer of non-fiction novels about grotesque serial killers commits suicides and leaves cryptic clues as to why.  His sister and his best friend from college begin a quest to discover what drove him to his desperate act and what, if anything, either of them could have done to prevent it.

     Philip Anders is a Julian's slife-long friend and book critic.  He explores Julian's books for clues to his madness and constantly revisits a post-college trip that he and Julian took to Argentina.  During that trip they met a lovely young lady named Marisol, assigned by the American embassy to them as a guide. Marisol disappeared during their visit, a turn of events which disturbed Julian greatly.  One of the clues that Julian left behind was a map of Argentina onto which he had circled Marisol's hometown.  This leads Philip on a quest to ferret out the cause of Julian's despair. Philip and, eventually, Julian's sister Loretta travel to Paris, Slovakia, Budapest, Russia and finally Argentina.  The thread connecting the dots in this quest is Julian's work: his documentary writing about sadistic serial killers.  Cook goes into much detail of these true horrific and macabre killers' stories which lends an even more dreary tone to an already dreary story.

     The resolution of the story and Julian's true motive come as somewhat of a surprise and illuminate the sometimes strange twists and turns in Julian's life which Philip and Loretta discover during their travels.   The disappearance of Marisol and Julian's complicity in that disappearance are the keys to the whole plot which don't become apparent until the very end.   This is a very good book with all of the elements of a good mystery, but also with well drawn characters, expert description of locale and a steady tone of unease throughout the entire story.  I recommend it very highly.