Alls the Ms: Maitland to Makiya

Barry Maitland: Dark Mirror is a Brock and Kolla Mystery, a police procedural/mystery novel set in London. The Brits are rather good at this type of thing–think Catherine Aird but a little more somber. 

Karen Maitland: Company of Liars is a medieval tale or series of tales told as the plague arrives in England (this is the Black Plague of the mid-1300s). The tone and details feel “right” (despite the thankful lack of “forsoothiness” language), like a darker Cadfael. 

R.L. Maizes: Other People’s Pets introduces another dysfunctional family. It’s a genre! This book includes a thief who wants to be a vet because she feels empathy with animals, which struck me as unique. 

Sara Majka: Cities I’ve Never Lived is a collection of short stories, almost entirely in first-person. And it occurred to me that such stories are a type of poetry: first-person stream of consciousness poetry. Which is possibly unfair to poets. But I honestly don’t see the point of something without a narrative arc. I don’t want to read other people’s diaries.

Amit Majmudar:The Abundance strikes me as entirely unique: the story of an Indian wife and mother in the American Midwest dealing with her grown children as she faces a debilitating illness. It sounds depressing but the opening chapter comes across as more real life than angst-filled naval-gazing.

Nathan Makaryk: Nottingham, a Robin Hood tale, struck me as too modern. The issue is not language, especially since I prefer that authors not try to use medieval vocab and syntax. Rather, the mindset seems too modern. I didn’t get past the prologue though the set-up was interesting. 

Andrei Makine: Brief Loves that Live Forever begins in Soviet Russia. It comes across as very Russian–monologues about politics; sparse crisp language; reflections on fleeting beauty; the cold. Without reading more of the author’s work, that assessment may or may not be fair. I remind myself that writers and speakers and everyone else use the “language” (tropes) of their social understanding. 

Kanan Makiya: The Rock is a fictional view of the geographic structure in Jerusalem. It tackles different stories about it. I would find the book more interesting as non-fiction.