Bright Shining As the Sun

Bright Shining As the Sun

by John Farrow 

This is a novel of contrasts. Shabby Park Avenue in Montreal against elegant Park Avenue in New York City. French language and churches against the English-language glass towers of high finance. The lifelong criminal against the ageing, ailing Sargeant-Detective Emile Cinq-Mars. 

 

A novel of Hells Angels' violent expansionism layered with psychological, even philosophical, suspense.

It’s also history, both of old school policing and old style biker warfare between the Rock Machine and Hells Angels that only ended after 150 bombs, uncounted shootings, and gang leadership on both sides imprisoned or entombed. 

 

In some ways, it's a retrospective of the long history of the Emile Cinq-Mars novel series.

Yet for all that, a person can pick this book up knowing nothing about the characters or the series, and to be drawn in by the strange request of a suspect in a biker bank massacre for a conversation with a retired cop now recovering from a gunshot wound. Once you're in, you may well find yourself going back to the earlier novels to learn how our wounded detective became this complex individual attempting to orchestrate a just solution to a whole symphony of criminal activity.

The external settings change as the evolving plot demands, but the internal landscapes of these men - the main suspect, the detective, an imprisoned biker leader, and a low level hitter with unsuspected connections - are more deeply explored. Can Emile unravel these criminals' business, emotional, and psychological links to make sense of the growing spiderweb of crimes. Can he settle this complex business before one of them, or their minions, catches up with his own wife while he is helpless to protect her?

This quote from the novel may be the best summation: 

 

“a good story, a good metaphor, a strong mythology that appeals to the imagination, that’s a way to interpret the world and keep us yearning, going forward forever. Revealing the intricacies of the trick has to await its time.“

The novel draws readers from the early, strange request and keeps us immersed through layers of investigation and excavation, through ethical and legal conundrums, to the final reveal. Storytelling in the hands of a master.

 

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Alice Rue Regrets... or does she?

Alice Rue Evades the Truth

by Emily Zipps 

“While You Were Sleeping” meets the 21st century, with better diversity representation and more complex relationship questions than just which potential mate will give her a happily ever after. Better still, if that’s all it was - a gender queer retelling - it would still be a worthy read because of Alice's inimitable voice: first person energy in a third person POV, which makes it easy to keep turning the pages, even when it’s late at night and you should be sleeping. 

After all, Alice isn’t sleeping. Between her first experience of performing CPR and fielding paramedics’ questions, and watching the hottest, richest crush of her entire adult life being shoved into the back of an ambulance, it’s not exactly her typical 4 AM.

And two hours later, her boss is trying to fire her when her crush Nolan's whole flaky family stops by on the way to the hospital, talking nonstop amongst themselves and with Alice, all yearning to learn what happened and whether Nolan will survive.

There is definitely more sexy chemistry than there was in that movie with Bill Pullman as the home-grown handyman sibling of sleekly handsome Coma Man. And yet it’s all tastefully done, easing Alice and Nolan's sibling Van believably closer by the day, with all the accompanying guilt feelings and a bit of obligatory cookie-baking. The comedic impact of the giant dog and cuteness factor of the adorably messy preschoolers adds a lot of heart to this tale of true love not running smooth.

True love isn’t the only thing at stake here either. Because Alice has some some trauma in her past to work through, and Van has some related issues that definitely trigger her, a HEA is far from guaranteed. There's unexplained tension between some family members and a bit of very polite homophobia that has to be managed. All in all, Alice faces a very real possibility that she is going to rue the day she ever met this family, especially as she keeps hurting the one member she most cares about.

Moral complexity, personal growth, issues of creating one’s own future place in the world, all raise this novel above its sweet and charming holiday rom-com inspiration. And it is way more thirsty than the sanitized for TV. Bill Pullman and Sandra Bullock story. 

 

Fun and heartwarming and touching in so many ways. And did I mention thirsty? If you yearn for a plaid-wearing, cuddly, sexy girlfriend this holiday season, this is the book for you.

 

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