Two More Books for December

1) Something Missing by Matthew Dicks. This was a book chosen by one of my book groups for our December meeting. I found the concept intriguing! It is the story of "A career criminal with OCD tendencies and a savant-like genius for bringing order to his crime scenes." Martin has been stealing from people for years and had never been caught. The twist is that he only steals from the same people over the years. They are considered his "clients". Martin does very thorough inventory of everything in his client's homes, then only steals what he think that they won't miss. And he usually only steals things that he needs. For example, he might steal a couple of cups of laundry detergent, two or three rolls of toilet paper, etc. Once in awhile, if he comes across something of value, he will monitor his client's use of the item for several months and if it is something that they rarely or never use, he will steal that and then sell it on EBay. Things get complicated, however, when one day he sees someone else leaving a client's home and follows the burglar and finds out who he is. Martin then determines that his client may be in danger. But how to deal with this? He has never met his clients face-to-face and to warn his client would give himself away.

This was a really fun book to read and as we discussed at book group, it started us thinking about how one often can't find something or thinks that they have more than they do of something...do we have our own Martin?

2) Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.  I was a bit disappointed with this book, but some of that disappointment is due to my expectation of the book because it was about an Irish girl.  I love all things Irish (my Murphy heritage, I guess).  Eilis Lacey was born and raised in a small town in Ireland.  One day, her family informed her that she is to go to America, sponsored by a priest who had been in their town visiting.  The priest arranged for her passage to Brooklyn and located both a job and housing for Eilis.  Eilis did not want to leave Ireland and her family, but felt as if she had no choice.  The book does a good job describing her passage over to the US.  When she arrives in Brooklyn, she began work at a large department store and fell in love with Tony.  One day, tragic news arrived and Eilis had to make some hard decisions about her future.  It was kind of a simple story and was actually well-written.  I guess I just wanted a little more from it.