Carrion Comfort: Dan Simmons

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For two months of that now distant summer, no party was complete, no excursion adequately planned, and no occasion considered a success unless we four merry pranksters were invited and had chosen to attend. With inadequate resources at his fingertips, and his boss breathing down his neck to wrap up the case quickly and without embarrassment to the force, Strang must pick his way through the minefield of the local relationships and resentments of the sleepy village community. Both gentlemen showered attention on her and while Charles never failed to show the primacy of his affection for me, it was understood by all that Nina Hawkins was one of those young women who invariably becomes the center of male gallantry and attention in any gathering. Nina's Feedings had always run to Park Avenue suicides and matrimonial disagreements ending in shots fired from expensive, small calibered ladies' guns.

The color made her complexion seem even more perfect than usual and brought out the blue of her eyes. Nor did Roger seem to mind the good-natured jesting since he was soon joining in the laughter with his peculiar haw-haw-haw.As each member of the group presents their recent exploits, such as the murder of John Lennon, a tension and unease between them is revealed as a kind of truce. I'm not sure what kind of expectations I had for this book before I started on it, but I can't say that I was disappointed in any way.

Even when Saul and Natalie “win” — and they don’t really since Melanie escaped — it doesn’t feel like a win or a victory, more like a survival. Our happy dominance of the youthful social scene was so pronounced that Cousins Celia and Loraine wheedled their parents into leaving two weeks early for their annual August sojourns in Maine. Gentry is one of my favorite book characters in a long time because he was so darn heroic, fun and and dare I say, chivalrous.

Because that is violence — that is the mind vampires Simmons talks about in real life and through his fictional book — whether on an intimate level and/or a global level: Violence is generational, with millions of echoes.

Miss Kramer took that as her cue to leave, but Willi's two pawns stood uncertainly by the door, shifting from foot to foot and glancing at the crystal on display as if their mere proximity could break something. Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events. On the day he was killed, Charles Edgar Larchmont had been my beau for precisely five months and two days.Eventually, all is revealed, but you do need to stick with it to begin with until it shakes itself out. If there are any drawbacks, they are rather minor such as the central mystery being slightly oblique and also a bit dragged-out.

I remember Charles and his mercurial swings of mood—the bouts of humor, periods of black anger, and the tears and kisses the night before the duel.

Such are the moral questions Saul raises throughout the novel, often to the consternation of Natalie who doesn’t have time or patience for it.