I read a lot of mystery/thriller series.  I mean, A LOT!  And over the last couple of years I have had some painful break-ups with some of my favorites.   There are very few things as sad as watching a formerly great character fade into mediocrity.  And I can honestly say that THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!    (See what I did there?)  The new P.J. Tracy book, Off the Grid (coming out August 2nd), is just as full of quirky, loveable characters as the other Monkeewrench books, and the story is just as different and suspenseful.

Off the Grid, the lastest installment in the Monkeewrench series by the mother/daughter writing team known as P.J. Tracy, begins with Grace MacBride sailing in the seas near Key West, spending her days laying in the sun wearing a sundress and sandals.  Anyone who has read any of the other Monkeewrench books knows that this is the most unexpected thing that she could be doing.  After a life of violence and paranoia, Grace has finally allowed herself to relax and feel safe.  But her sense of security is shattered when the violence she fears and expects finds her, even miles at sea.  Someone is trying to kill her friend and emotional savior, John Smith.  A thousand miles away in Minnesota, her former love interest and cop Leo Magozzi and his partner are investigating the deaths of four Somali's with ties to terrorism.  Neither Grace nor Leo know how these two events happening a continent apart will connect them once again.

Grace and her band of super-computing geniuses have been in some sticky situations in the past.  But never before have the stakes been so high.  Each of them is forced to confront something about themselves as they race to uncover a terrorist plot, and that is one of the things that I liked about this Monkeewrench book.  Grace is such a larger than life character that sometimes I feel like the other Monkeewrenchers don't get enough backstory, but that is not the case this time.  Truth be told there is not a ton of exposition in this novel, but the events of the story and the character's reactions to them provide glimpses into the chaotic, painful pasts of the main characters.  Much of the first part of the novel revolves around Magozzi and his partner Gino and their efforts to discover what is happening with the dead Somali's, but I was OK with the focus being off of Grace for a bit.

Other than revisiting these characters, who I love, the story was interesting and different than any thriller plot I've read before.  Sure, I've read stories about terrorism before, but this particular plot had a twist that was new, at least to me.  And the new characters who are introduced, a couple of old Viet Nam vets, are a good addition to the group.  I have no idea if they are going to make an appearance in any other P.J.Tracy books, but I could see them having a place in the off-kilter, gray area, sometimes shady world of Monkeewrench.  Or perhaps their own series.  Either way, I was pleased to meet them.  The book has an emotional punch that made me clench my fists, laugh out loud, and cry openly-quite a feat for a formula thriller.  But just like the cast of characters, the Monkeewrench books are unpredictable enough that you are never sure what you are going to get, other than a really good read.

A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore

A Gate at the Stairs is the story of Tassie Keltjin,the daughter of a potato farmer in rural Wisconsin.  In the days before 9-11, she is a college student At the University of Wisconsin in Troy, Wisconsin.  Like most college students she is cash poor, and so she begins looking for a job to keep herself in clothes and food and heat.  She applies to be the nanny for Sarah and Edward Thornwood-Brink, a couple in the process of adopting a biracial baby.  From very early on Tassie can sense that something is not quite right with Sarah and Edward.  Their manner is just-off from normal, their interactions are intimate and cold at the same time.  Tassie never imagines, however, the secret that will come to affect her life and the life of the little girl, Mary-Emma.  This novel is a strange, uncomfortable coming of age story, one that left me feeling unsettled, and unsure I really got what Moore was trying to convey.

Moore's writing is rich.  Her language shows a depth of thought and a flair for metaphor greater than any other author I've read recently.  There are long passages where Tassie is thinking about her life and events in the story that would be worthy of a circus contortionist in the way they bend and twist, making seemingly random connections into something meaningful.  This was really interesting for the first three quarters of the novel, but over time I found myself wishing for a more straight-forward narrative.  But then, about three quarters of the way through the novel is where I started to feel like the story I thought I was reading was not actually the story Moore was telling.

While most of the story revolves around Tassie's relationship with Sarah and Mary-Emma, there are other, seemingly disparate, stories woven throughout.  Tassie has a secret relationship with a fellow student who turns out to belong to a fanatical Islamist organization.  When he disappears from her life suddenly, I expected there to be some fall-out for her, but he just fades from the story.  When she loses Mary-Emma, I expected there to be some resolution to that storyline, but we never hear what becomes of the little girl.  The loss of her brother is the only one in which we get a sense of how that loss affected not just Tassie but her parents as well-and that is the last quarter of the book.  The theme of loss is the only constant throughout the story, but it is only with that last loss that we see exactly how deeply Tassie feels her sorrow.

One thing that struck me about this book is all of the white liberal-guilt and angst portrayed by Moore through the interracial adoption group that Sarah and Edward become involved in.  The conversations that Tassie overhears while playing upstairs with the children during their meetings are circular, in turns angry and defensive, and probably very authentic, despite seeming stereotypical.  The themes never change, and most of the white parents seem to feel that their adoption of the black and biracial children is under-appreciated by people who question their ability to raise children of color.  Complaints about people's comments on the street, or the advice they get from well-meaning people that end up sounding like back-handed compliments, are all fodder for their insecurity and self-pity.  They bring up issues of race and class, even within liberal communities, that people believe have long been subdued by inclusiveness and acceptance.  Moore seems to be pointing out the naivete of people who believe we have entered a post-racial era, where issues of race have mostly been addressed.