My Once-a-Year Break from Mysteries

Mystery lovers: sorry if you've returned to this blog lately and been disappointed with the lack of new reviews. I promise they'll start again very soon.

Here's my excuse: Once a year, I try to read a non-mystery, just because I feel like I ought to.  This year's choice is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's the story of Henry VIII's dumping his first wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. I'm finding it really slow going. Mantel uses far too many pronouns, when a proper noun or two would make her story clearer. Her text is so dense that I find it hard to wade through. Often, she'll have a long paragraph about the weather or scenery, and end with a sentence that is crucial to the plot. Mystery writers know how to showcase those important sentences so that we rarely miss them.

I feel very self-righteous for reading it, and that's worth a lot!  But it's slow going, and is keeping me from blogging. I generally knock off a mystery in about three days, while Mantel's historical novel has taken me over two weeks. What this annual exercise always shows me is how much I love mysteries. I never tire of them.

But I'm almost done, and then it's back to the good stuff! Thanks for sticking with me. I'll be back soon.

The Exceptions, by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing; $24.99)

The Bovaro family’s mantra is no loose ends. One of the most powerful mob families in New York, they know that much of their influence comes from their enemies knowing that the family will ultimately get their revenge, no matter how long it takes.

When the McCartney family of Montclair, New Jersey, decided to go out for an early breakfast, they had no idea that it would change their life. Mom, Dad, and pretty little Melody entered Vincent’s restaurant in New York’s Little Italy just in time to see Tony Bovaro slit the throat of Jimmy “the Rat” Fratello. The McCartneys drove off, but not before 10-year-old John Bovaro caught sight of their license plate number. John was captivated by the little girl, so when the cops came, he asked them if they knew whether the girl was alright. That tipped the cops that there were witnesses; they found the McCartneys and put them in the witness protection program. Mom and Dad testified at the trial, the case was thrown out, and killing the McCartneys—all three of them—became the Bovaro family mission.

Fast forward some 20 years. John Bovaro—now Jonathan—has gone almost respectable. He owns a trendy New York restaurant, although his family uses the place to launder money. Assigned by his family the task of killing Melody McCartney, he has a Justice Department employee with a gambling addiction on his payroll, providing Melody’s current identity and address in exchange for debts being covered. Jonathan hunts Melody down wherever she is, telling his family he’s planning to do the hit, while telling himself that he’s protecting her.

And here’s where the book got creepy.  Under the guise of some weird unrequited love for Melody, Jonathan became her stalker. He decided he would become “Man in Produce Section and Stranger on Cell Phone and Jogger in Park” in order to keep an eye on her. He finally makes contact and lets her know how long he’s been watching her—decades, at this point. It wasn’t the tragic Mob version of the Capulets and Montagues that I think Christofano wanted to portray. Instead, this was just sick. Had I been Melody, I would have run as fast as I could the other way, although admittedly, her options were limited. But I really, really didn’t like Jonathan. His behavior gave me the jim-jams even when he was trying to seem normal and heartbroken.

The Exceptions just didn’t do it for me.