Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen

The first Mick Stranahan book! Well... who is Mick Stranahan?
Mick Stranahan is an Irish ex-cop, ex-District-Attorney-employee, veteran of five marriages (all to waitresses) and numerous romances. After leading such turbulent and tumultuous life, it is no wonder that he wants a little peace at his very rustic house in a secluded area near the sea which is famously called Stiltsville Village.
But, one day, the peace was suddenly shattered when a hit man attacked Stranahan at his own house. A very unwelcome act, not to mention life-threatening, which was quickly remedied with a quick wit and reflexes and a cooperative marlin wall mount... Days after the incident, Stranahan's life quickly became more interesting with amazing speed.

I read this book after I read its sequel, Skinny Dip. It affects my enjoyment of the book only a little. This book is funny and hilarious too, with Hiaasen's standard fare - the environmentalists, nature's enemies, and a criminal case that pits those opposing sides against one another.

A very refreshing read. I recommend this book for the ones who want or need hearty laugh or just light reading.

Kitab tentang Yang Telah Hilang oleh John Connolly

Aslinya berjudul The Book of Lost Things, seperti yang bisa dilihat pada gambar sampul di samping.
Buku ini sudah lama terbitnya sih, dan saya juga bacanya sudah lama. Tapi buku ini meninggalkan kesan yang sangat dalam buat saya. 
Awalnya, saya membeli buku ini karena tertarik pada retelling cerita dongeng. Saya lemah banget pada iming-iming 'retelling cerita dongeng'. Buku ini terbukti memuaskan. Beberapa cerita dongeng yang di-retelling dan turut membentuk alur cerita buku ini adalah dongeng Rumpelstiltskin dan Si Jubah Merah (Little Red Riding Hood). Keduanya diceritakan ulang menjadi sangat gelap dan kelam. Atmosfir buku ini memang gelap dan kelam, bahkan sejak awal.
Buku ini diawali dengan peristiwa kehilangan yang besar. Kehilangan istri dan kehilangan ibu. Wanita yang meninggal adalah ibu dari David, protagonis utama kita. David adalah anak laki-laki yang biasa-biasa saja, introvert. Hubungannya dengan ayahnya semenjak kematian ibunya cukup dekat, walaupun David selalu merindukan ibunya.
Sampai ayahnya bertemu Rose dan menjalin hubungan dengan Rose.
Ayah David dan Rose lalu menikah (MBA, by the way) dan pindah ke rumah Rose. Beberapa bulan setelahnya Rose melahirkan bayi laki-laki, Georgie. Georgie bukan bayi yang mudah diberi simpati. Dia rewel, dan penyakitan. Hal ini membuat perhatian ayah David dan Rose terpusat pada Georgie. David semakin menarik diri dari dunia dan menenggelamkan diri dalam buku-buku dongeng yang bertulisan nama 'Jonathan'. Buku-buku yang berbisik kepadanya. Di samping itu, semenjak pindah ke rumah baru dan tenggelam dalam dunia buku David sering pingsan dan mengalami khayalan yang seolah nyata. Tetapi ayahnya hanya menganggap David kena ayan.
Relasi David dengan Rose sendiri tidak pernah baik. David tidak suka pada Rose yang dianggap tidak layak menggantikan ibunya. Rose sendiri berusaha mengambil hati David, tapi selalu gagal, walaupun ada satu saat langka ketika keduanya bicara dengan baik-baik. Dalam percakapan ini, David mendapat pengetahuan baru tentang Jonathan.
Keadaan semakin diperparah dengan kedatangan si bayi baru. Rose yang kelelahan semakin sulit mengontrol emosinya dan pada suatu ketika, amarahnya pada David meledak. David, yang sudah menanggung banyak beban baru (kehilangan perhatian, penyakit aneh) juga meledak dan lari ke reruntuhan dekat rumah. Dan pada saat bersamaan, pesawat tempur Jerman jatuh di dekat reruntuhan itu.
David pingsan. Dan ia bangun di dunia yang asing dan baru baginya... Dunia yang mengerikan. Di mana cerita dongeng menjadi nyata. Sayangnya, bukan dongeng yang indah.
Apalagi yang selanjutnya terjadi pada David? Well, seperti para ksatria dalam dongeng, David diuji. Luluskah David dari semua ujian yang ia alami? 
... untuk itu, baca sendiri bukunya untuk menemukan jawabannya :)
Beberapa dongeng yang di-retelling selain dua dongeng di atas:

• Childe Roland
• Sleeping Beauty
• Hansel dan Gretel
• Snow White

Itu saja yang saya ingat. Selebihnya, saya tidak mengenali dongeng yang di-retelling. Dongeng hasil retelling benar-benar sangat berbeda dengan dongeng aslinya. Lebih dewasa dan lebih gelap, dengan pesan moral yang juga lain sekali dengan pesan moral yang tersirat dalam dongeng originalnya. 

Aftertaste yang saya rasakan setelah membaca buku ini adalah perasaan hangat bercampur kesedihan. Perasaan hangat karena ternyata masih ada hal yang indah dan baik setelah melewati segala hal yang mengerikan itu. Kesedihan karena ternyata orang baik tidak selalu mendapat upah yang sesuai dengan perbuatannya di dunia - entah bagaimana dengan upah di akhirat. 

Cocok sekali untuk penyuka cerita fantasi maupun retelling fantasi.

Good job, Mr. Connolly! Sayangnya saya malah belum membaca satu buku pun dalam seri supernatural-kriminal Anda. Kalau boleh menyimpang, banner website Anda sangat saya sukai. Archangel Michael, sedang mengalahkan setan :)

Vish Puri Series

Hello, all! This time, I'll share my opinion about the books in Vish Puri series - namely the first and second books, The Case of Missing Servant and The Case of A Man Who Died Laughing. I decide to review them in one post. I found the existence of these books in Goodreads and decided to give them a shot.

I like this book because it describes the backgrounds and the characters in detail. They gave me good laughs, too. I also love the characterization of Vish Puri. Usually, these warm-hearted detective novels have detectives with, let's say, very minimal power of investigation. Vish Puri, however, is different. Vishwas Puri, affectionately called "Chubby", is a Delhi-based PI in India. He is quite famous, being the only PI that have appeared on a magazine cover. He is a very traditional man who resents the Westernization of India values. I like him immediately. It's quite difficult to find a PI with brain and good personal life - intact marriage, no dark past trauma, etc. Usually either the PI is very brilliant but leads a dark personal life full of past baggage or he has peaceful life but well... minimal power of detection.


The author made me laugh a lot with Indian swearwords - one stuck immediately. It is maaderchod, which definition can be found in the glossary in the end of the book - or with the aid of faithful Google. More laughter caused by the Indian-English dialogues ("She is reverting tomorrow, na?"). No offense, but... They are funny!

These books gave glimpses about life in India. Wow. I think Indonesia is bad enough - sometimes water doesn't flow and sometimes there are blackouts... but India, especially the region where the Puris live in these books is worse. Power outage can be expected daily, and water is precious - although they live in town. The environmental pollution is similar too - Yamuna is no longer a pristine river in Mahabharata and Ramayana epics but a sewer. Even the moral corruption is the same - small bribes to government authorities to grease the wheels of bureaucracy, corrupt babus (the meaning is different from its Indonesian counterpart - the word babu in India means a clerk or bureaucrat), corrupt government members... The people who are relying too much to superstitious stuff and fake holy people... These books paint India in such way that makes me view India as a Hindu version of Indonesia. 

All in all, these books are must-reads, especially for you who enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's works and Nury Vittachi's. 

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Wow. I really like this book. It is a very refreshing read.

Meet Moist von Lipwig (pronounced Lipvig, thank you) a.k.a. Albert Spangler, incorrigible con man with a face so unforgettable that his mother once brought home a wrong kid from school. And he would hang tomorrow... But an angel came, an angel who would come only once for every man.
Thus, Mr. Spangler was hanged. He was dead. But immediately he got a new life as Moist von Lipwig and even got a job as a Postmaster. A unenviable job, because four Postmasters before him had been dead in unexplained circumstances... And not only that. By accepting that job, he found himself became a rival of clacks company, Grand Trunk, which was headed by a dangerous man.

This book is fast-paced. I find Moist to be a charming character. He thinks fast, and talks even faster. His falling in love with Adora Belle Dearheart, a girl who could see who he was through-and-through is funny and sweet. Ms. Dearheart's name is bound to give a wrong impression - bear in mind that she was nicknamed 'Killer' and 'Spike'. Affectionately, of course.
The concept of clacks is interesting. Clacks is equivalent to the Roundworld telegraph, but I feel that Sir Terry describe it as the more modern invention - the Internet. The description of its operators remind me to Google and Apple and Microsoft employees, you know, that type of people. 
The application of clacks and stamps can be seen as successful attempt to modernise Ankh-Morpork. It pleases me when an author continues to improve the city he creates. Because of it, Ankh-Morpork feels real. An ever-changing, dynamic city.

I've also watched a part of the movie adaptation, and I must say...
...that it disappoints me. I wholly disagree with its description of Moist. The movie Moist is too easily angered and too moral. I cannot imagine the Moist von Lipwig in the book haunted by his past doings, of people he has conned. Adora Belle's portrayal is fine - Claire Foy is suitable for portraying Adora. The other thing that disappoints me is a standard issue in movie adaptation - the omitting of the book parts. Because of these reasons, I cannot finish the movie - I cannot stand seeing Moist being made like that. 

Ten stars for the book.
Six for the movie.

The Summer of the Ubume

I first knew this book's existence by browsing my 'Recommendations' in Goodreads. Here is the short summary from amazon.com:

In Japanese folklore, a ghost that arise from the burial of a pregnant woman is an Ubume. 
The Summer of Ubume is the first of Japan's hugely popular Kyogokudo series, which has 9 titles and 4 spinoffs thus far. 
Akihiko "Kyogokudo" Chuzenji, the title's hero, is an exorcist with a twist: he doesn't believe in ghosts. To circumnavigate his clients' inability to come to grips with a problem being their own, he creates fake supernatural explanations--ghosts--that he the "exorcises" by way of staged rituals. His patients' belief that he has vanquished the ghost creating their problems cures them.
In this first adventure, Kyogokudo, must unravel the mystery of a woman who has been pregnant for 20 months and find her husband, who disappeared two months into the pregnancy. And unravel he does, in the book's final disturbing scene.

Whoa. Let me list the things that hooked me immediately. 20 months pregnancy? Check. An exorcist who doesn't believe in ghost? Check. What kind of exorcist has no belief of the existence of the very thing he meant to exorcise? A seemingly supernatural case with logical explanation? Check. A ghost that I hear for the first time? Check.

And this is what I felt after finishing it.

This book is completely scary. It covers both fields of fear - the irrational (ghosts) and the rational (all the psychological twists and dramas). 
The book starts with lines that commonly found in mystery books - lines that spoken by someone we don't know. Sometimes we dismiss it, but later in the story those lines are found to be important. Such lines.
The story starts innocently enough. A poor journalist, Sekiguchi, visited his friend, Chuzenji 'Kyogokudo' Akihiko who was an owner of a used-books store in order to share a controversial story.
However, it was soon revealed that one of the person involved in the story was none other than their high school friend, Makio. After knowing that fact, Sekiguchi decided to further investigate the story. In doing it, he asked for help from his friend who was a private investigator, Enokizu and Kyogokudo's sister, Atsuko. By a strange twist of fate, Enokizu got a new client who was another key player in the weird story, Kuonji Kyoko, the sister-in-law of Makio.
And this is where the book begins to ride the crazy train.
The narrator - Sekiguchi - became more and more unstable along the story. I really want to shake him real hard or give him a good slap. CAN'T YOU BE A LITTLE BIT SANE, PLEASE. And grow some backbone. Buck up, man! At some point, I wonder which ones are crazy/ unusual. Is it Kyogokudo and Enokizu? Or is it Sekiguchi? I think it's the latter.
There was a long lecture about the nature of memory, brain, consciousness, subconscious, ubume, and quantum theory which I found to be a little bit tedious but interesting enough. Because I've watched Moryo no Hako before, those seemingly-out-of-topic lectures didn't bother me too much. I skimmed through some parts of them though - sorry, author. They were appropriate additions to the book.
The solution was a bit unbelievable. I can't imagine how a pair of eyes can thoroughly fooled their owner by unseeing something that was clearly there. I can understand if it just happened to one person. But three? And one of them didn't have any ties with the other two? Erm. I'm having a hard time to imagine, let alone believe, that such thing can happen.
This is a very noir book. It leaves a taste that needs to be cleaned fast, without delay. I don't recommend you to read another heavy or dark book after reading The Summer of the Ubume.
Nine stars. Deducting one for the solution.

Books I Will Buy

Hello, I'm back again! I'll try to write more regularly. 

This is a list of books I'll DEFINITELY buy. Check it out! 

1. Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce #5) - Alan Bradley
   Eleven-year-old amateur detective and ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt, and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such thing as an open-and-shut case.
2. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (Flavia de Luce #6) - Alan Bradley
   On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train’s arrival in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test. Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself. Surrounded by family, friends, and a famous pathologist from the Home Office—and making spectacular use of Harriet’s beloved Gipsy Moth plane, Blithe Spirit—Flavia will do anything, even take to the skies, to land a killer.
   
   WHAT!!!??? The return of Harriet? MUST. HAVE. The suspense is killing me already!
3. Thankless in Death (in Death #37) - J.D. Robb
   In the latest suspense thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series, the year 2060 is drawing to a close in New York City and loved ones are coming together for Thanksgiving. But sometimes the deepest hatreds seethe within the closest relationships, and blood flows faster than water…
    
   Lieutenant Eve Dallas has plenty to be grateful for this season. Hosting Roarke’s big Irish family for the holiday may be challenging, but it’s a joyful improvement on her own dark childhood.
    
   Other couples aren’t as lucky as Eve and Roarke. The Reinholds, for example, are lying in their home stabbed and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Those who knew them are stunned—and heartbroken by the evidence that they were murdered by their own son. Twenty-six-year-old Jerry hadn’t made a great impression on the bosses who fired him or the girlfriend who dumped him—but they didn’t think he was capable of this.
    
   Turns out Jerry is not only capable of brutality but taking a liking to it. With the money he’s stolen from his parents and a long list of grievances, he intends to finally make his mark on the world. Eve and her team already know the who, how, and why of this murder. What they need to pinpoint is where Jerry’s going to strike next.
   
   I've read the excerpt in Calculated in Death and it makes me extremely curious. How can you keep your readers interested when you've revealed the murderer, the method, the motive, and the next victim, all in one excerpt? You make me extremely curious, J.D. Robb.
4. Concealed in Death (in Death #38) - J.D. Robb
   The incomparable J. D. Robb presents the latest moving and suspenseful novel in the #1 New York Times–bestselling Eve Dallas series.
    
   In a decrepit, long-empty New York building, Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband begins the demolition process by swinging a sledgehammer into a wall. When the dust clears, there are two skeletons wrapped in plastic behind it. He summons his wife immediately—and by the time she’s done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved.
   
   The place once housed a makeshift shelter for troubled teenagers, back in the mid-2040s, and Eve tracks down the people who ran it. Between their recollections and the work of the force’s new forensic anthropologist, Eve begins to put names and faces to the remains. They are all young girls. A tattooed tough girl who dealt in illegal drugs. The runaway daughter of a pair of well-to-do doctors. They all had their stories. And they all lost their chance for a better life.
   
   Then Eve discovers a connection between the victims and someone she knows. And she grows even more determined to reveal the secrets of the place that was called The Sanctuary—and the evil concealed in one human heart.
   
   Hey, it's J.D. Robb - I don't have any other reason for wanting this book!
5. Snuff (Discworld novel - Sam Vimes) - by Terry PratchettAt long last, Lady Sybil has lured her husband, Sam Vimes, on a well-deserved holiday away from the crime and grime of Ankh-Morpork. But for the commander of the City Watch, a vacation in the country is anything but relaxing. The balls, the teas, the muck—not to mention all that fresh air and birdsong—are more than a bit taxing on a cynical city-born and -bred copper.Yet a policeman will find a crime anywhere if he decides to look hard enough, and it's not long before a body is discovered, and Sam—out of his jurisdiction, out of his element, and out of bacon sandwiches (thanks to his well-meaning wife)—must rely on his instincts, guile, and street smarts to see justice done. As he sets off on the chase, though, he must remember to watch where he steps. . . . This is the countryside, after all, and the streets most definitely are not paved with gold.
   
   It's a Vimes novel, I really want to have it.
6. Raising Steam (Discworld #40 - Moist von Lipwig) - Terry Pratchett
   To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear.
   
   Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work - as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital... but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don't always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse...
   
   Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi' t'flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he's going to stop it all going off the rails...
   
   Good God. Finally, another meeting with our favorite Patrician Lord Vetinari, the incorrigible racketeer Moist von Lipwig, and of course our dearest most adorable character, Adora Belle Dearheart. Looking forward for it!
   

Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

Finally I met another book that makes me hooked.
It's been a long time since I read a book almost non-stop. It's even been longer since I found a book that makes me wants to re-read it immediately after I finished it.
I found this gem hidden among old tattered books at the book sale at Gramedia. I was curious because one of my group reading choices is another book by the same author titled Bad Monkey. I haven't read Bad Monkey at the time I purchased Skinny Dip - I just started it now because I like Skinny Dip so much. I had some reservations before purchased it (never read any works by this author, can spend the money on other things), but all those reservations gone BAM after I read this sentence:

I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.

Those words are enough. I was owned immediately and brought this book to the cashier and paid it without hesitation.

And boy, it's worth every rupiahs I spent. Absolutely no regret. My thanks to the original owner who was willing to depart with this precious book so someone else can enjoy this refreshing reading.

The book is fast-paced and exciting. The author manages to tell us, his readers, about big bad environmental problem without using too much technical lingo. Neither does he make us yawn. Bravo. He successfully keep the issue from being lost along the storytelling, because the issue itself is an important part of the story. So it keeps echoing from the first time it was mentioned until the ending.

The characters feel original for me. I rarely sympathize with female character who is rich, smart, beautiful, getting true love, and likes to shopping branded things, but this is one of the rare moment. I don't know why, but I find Joey Perrone is extremely likable. All the protagonists are likable.

The antagonists themselves have some qualities that make them less fearsome and disgusting. They are admittedly not likable. But they are laughable. Especially Chaz Perrone. Gosh. This is the first time I see a man as shallow as he is and a biologist that hates nature as he does. A biologist that litters, runs over snakes with his expensive Hummer, and hates nature? LOL. He is everything that every biologists (or soon-to-be) I know are not.

I highly recommend this book for anyone feeling that he/she can use a good laugh and biologists (or biologists-to-be) so they can be more dedicated to their work, using Chaz Perrone as reflection of WHO YOU SHOULD NOT BECOME.

Perfect ten stars.