wish you a Halloween full of treats and no tricks.

The Best Book I Read This Month: A Dangerous Crossing by Ausma Zehanat Khan

The best book I read this month was A Dangerous Crossing, an Esa Khattak mystery by Ausma Zehanat Khan. This isn’t the first time Khan’s series has appeared in this blog series. The previous installment in the series—Among the Ruins—was also a Best Book I Read.

This episode of the series focused on the Mediterranean refugee crisis and the Syrian civil war, as Esa Khattak and his partner, Rachel Getty, are sent to Greece to locate a missing aid worker—who happens to be a childhood friend of Khattak’s. Khattak and Getty are overcome by what they find in the camps in the Greek islands, and they soon find themselves trying to solve two mysteries: the missing aid worker and a missing Syrian refugee.

The story is gripping and harrowing, with well-plotted twists and turns. The characters of Khattak and Getty are as engaging and sympathetic as always. There are a couple of romantic subplots in the book, one of which works and one of which didn’t (for me). The one that works is one that has been hinted at in earlier installments in the series. With the foundation that’s been laid, the development of the romance here made sense. It felt organic. The other one seems to have come out of the blue. While the characters do have a history, explained in previous books, the romantic development here felt rushed and forced, in a way. I felt blindsided and confused by it. But these subplots are minor and do not overshadow the tension and stakes of the larger missing person mysteries.

The next book in the series, A Deadly Divide, came out earlier this year. Don’t be surprised if I end up writing that one up too!

The Best Book I Read This Month: Description by Monica Wood

The best book I read this month was a writing craft book called Description. Don’t let the title fool you, though—the book is about more than writing descriptions. It talks about point-of-view and dialogue and plot and story. At 168 pages, it is one of the richest craft books I’ve ever read.

Written by Monica Wood, Description is an old book. Published in 1995 by Writer’s Digest Books, it’s now out of print and I had a devil of a time finding it. I’m glad I did, though. The book is a master-class in the importance of word choice in every aspect of the writer’s craft: description, character, setting, point of view, story, and narrative. My highlighter got quite a workout.

So many writing books are either pompous (“To be a real writer, you must do XYZ”) or overly justified (“It’s important that you do this or no one will read your work—or something equally catastrophic.”) Wood’s Description is neither. It is concise and direct. It gives writers the power of choice and provides examples of each type of choice. For example, “Show, Don’t Tell,” Wood cautions, is a common but frequently misunderstood piece of writing advice. She says it’s not about always showing and never telling, but rather knowing when it’s better to show and when it’s better to tell.

Each chapter concludes with a summary of the chapter’s main points, which will prove helpful when I need to refer back to it during my revision passes. It also includes a handy list of additional tips and tricks in the back—something that could easily be turned into a revision checklist.

I have a strong suspicion that I’m going to be coming back to this book again and again as I write and revise from here on out.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Death by the Bay by Patricia Skalka

The best book I read this month was the fifth and latest in Patricia Skalka’s Dave Cubiak Door County mystery series, Death by the Bay. The book is my second favorite in the series, behind Death in Cold Water—the series’ third entry. Like the rest of Skalka’s Cubiak books, it’s a relatively short book, and I was able to read it cover to cover in a single day.

Unlike the previous Cubiak books, this one is based on—or rather inspired by—true events. (I can’t say what events because that would give away too much of the mystery.) It’s a complex mystery, with plenty of twists and turns, and while the solution to the mystery was satisfying, I found the end of the book (the scene post-solution) to be far too convenient. There’s also a point-of-view switch in that last scene that didn’t work for me. But those are my only quibbles with what is otherwise a very solidly crafted mystery.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

I read only one book this month: The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish. It’s a very long book—almost 600 pages—but it really was a very good one. I’m glad I stuck with it. (It’s not cumbersome. I’ve just had a rough July and have not had much focus. In any other month, I would have devoured this book in a matter of days.)

Like Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book (which I highly recommend), Kadish’s novel tells parallel stories, one historical and one modern. The historical story follows Ester Velasquez, a young Portuguese woman who serves a rabbi living in 17th century London. The rabbi is a charity case, blinded in the Inquisition and sent to London to “educate” the Jewish population there. Ester and her brother are orphans he’s taken into his care. The modern story follows two historians—a British historian facing retirement and an American graduate student—as they uncover the details of Ester’s life. Helen, the Brit, is closed off and abrasive. Aaron, the American, is lost but riding on his charm. (Confession: I did not find him very charming.)

Of the two story lines, I found Ester’s far more intriguing and enjoyable. I disliked being pulled out of her story for the next segment of Helen and Aaron’s story. Ester is a fuller, far more layered character than her modern counterparts, who came off as self-pitying more than anything else. Ester, by contrast, brimmed with ambition and emotion and obstinacy. Whereas Helen and Aaron seemed defined by their selfishness, Ester—while also being selfish in some ways—also showed a gift for selflessness in her devotion to the rabbi and her commitment to her friend, Mary.

But please don’t let my dislike of Helen and Aaron dissuade you from reading this book. It’s worth it to get to know Ester.