Sister - by Rosamund Lupton

"Sister" is one of those books that you've never heard about, may never have picked up to read, but are extremely glad you did.  Beatrice is the "older sister" who lives in New York (having moved there from England), and who constantly "takes care of" her younger, artist sister who still lives in London.  Beatrice receives a phone call that her sister is missing - and returns to London to find her.  She eventually finds her - dead in a restroom at a park.  While her sister's death is ruled a suicide, Beatrice doesn't believe it, and sets out to figure out why her sister was killed, and who did it.

Thus, while at bottom the story is a murder investigation - the premise is interesting.  The story is told as if Beatrice is writing a letter to her dead sister.  Much of the story is Beatrice recounting a conversation she's having with the prosecutor in the case, after she's solved the mystery and has become their star witness.  As it's a letter to her sister, there are many parts that detail the relationship between the two sisters, as Beatrice realizes how much she didn't know about her sister - and how much she did know. 

Not many books have parts that make me actually cry.  While no tears ever escaped my eyes (I'm too manly for that - I'll admit), there was one moment, while reading on the recumbent bike at the YMCA, where I was glad my face was sweaty so if a tear did escape it wouldn't make me look less manly to the other folks lifting weights around me.  It was that good.  I heartily recommend this one to anyone.  You don't have to like detective/mystery novels to like this one.  It was good enough that I've already got her second book on hold at the library.

Before I Go to Sleep - by S.J. Watson

Another from the 2011 Amazon list.  If you've ever seen the movie "50 First Dates" with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (and several hysterical supporting characters!), you know the back-story to this book.  Basically, the main character Christine wakes up every day thinking she's an early-twenties college student.  In real life, she's in her '50's (or so), having had severe amnesia for most of her life.  The book describes her discovery, with the help of a friendly psychiatrist (who wants to use her as the basis for an article or book about her condition), of how she became who she is, and the background of her life.

With the help of the psychiatrist, Christine starts keeping a journal of her "discoveries" every day.  As she reads the journal each morning (after the doctor calls her to remind her of it), she starts remembering more and more.  As she remembers more, she eventually discovers how she got the amnesia.  While there are a lot of good "discoveries" that she makes throughout the book, I'd suspected the ending after getting about half-way through.  In interesting book, though, full of insightful information about the relationships we may have, and what we'd do if we suddently lost them.

The Time in Between - by Maria Duenas

This is another one from the Amazon 2011 list.  Sira is a simple seamstress from Madrid, Spain, who falls in love with a man.  The book follows her life from Madrid to Morocco, where she is betrayed by the man, finds herself in a heap of trouble, starts a new life as a dress-maker, makes a ton of friends and gets her mother to Morocco as well.  This all occurs while Spain is going through a civil war (just prior to WWII - when Franco first came to power).  Some of the characters that Sira meets and befriends are real historical figures.

At this point, Sira is persuaded to return to Madrid as a spy for the British intelligence - in an effort to "keep an eye" on the spanish leadership and Nazi's who were working on gaining Spain as an ally.  Some of the later parts of the book seemed a little far-fetched.  However, overall I really liked it.  It took a little bit of time to get into the book.  However, the author does an excellent job describing her characters, and making you really care about what happens to them.  She also does a good job of interweaving the historical events and characters with what happens to Sira.  I didn't know if I was going to like the book going into it (a historical novel about a seamstress?!) - but I was pleasantly surprised.  If anything, you learn a good bit of culture about Morocco and Spain during the pre-WWII era.

Devil in the White City - Erik Larson

This was the second book I've read by Erik Larson.  The first was "In the Garden of Beasts" (which I wrote about earlier).  This one was actually written previously by Larson, and is immensely better than the Beasts.  Larson's M.O. is to take a historical event/invention and merge the that story with a historical crime that intersected with the event/invention.  Here, the event is the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The crime is a series of murders that occurred in conjunction with the Fair.

The "White City" was the series of buildings built specifically for the fair.  Having not heard much at the Chicago fair, but always enjoying any time I spend in Chicago, it was an interesting read just for the historical aspect.  Larson really brings to life the various architects/builders that put the fair together, showing the struggles they went through, as well as the innovative things they did for the fair.  (They were trying to "out-fair" Paris, who had previously done a World's Fair, where they introduced the Eiffel Tower.)  That part of the story was engrossing.

At the same time, the "Devil" was a shyster who had moved to Chicago to take advantage of the single ladies who were moving there in droves to get away from the country named Holmes.  Holmes purchases some land near the fairgrounds, and constructs a hotel on the property.  He installs a kiln in the basement, as well as a sound-proof torture/gassing room.  Without going into graphic detail of the killings (which there wasn't a ton of evidence of, anyway), Larson lets you come to your own conclusions of what Holmes used the property for.  Some estimates say he may have lured and killed nearly 200 people with the hotel.

Well-written, well-paced and informative; this was a very good book.