A new thriller from an award-winning author, a memoir of confronting epilepsy, and a heads-up about new books detailing the careers of two important Minnesota politicians are just right for summer reading.
(Courtesy of the author)
“The Laughing Dead”: by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer, $16.99)
But I wasn’t a witch. I was a woman who’d been regularly terrorized as a kid and so had sharpened to a razor’s edge the instinct every human possessed. Who hasn’t connected two seemingly unrelated facts to come up with an unexpected truth, or felt a tingle telling them they were being lied to, or had a dream about someone they hadn’t seen in years the night before running into them on the street? — From “The Laughing Dead“
Jess Lourey (Courtesy of the author)
Corpses with twisted grins are at the center of bestselling Minnesotan author Jess Lourey’s fourth carefully crafted thriller featuring BCA cold case agent Evangeline “Van” Reed and her partner, forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck. And a twisted story it is, when the bodies of three teenage girls are found in central Minnesota and dubbed by the press “the laughing dead” for their ghoulish smiles.
Lourey begins with what happened to the three girls who ended up dead in the 1980s. But what the investigators don’t know at first is that there was a fourth teen who lived. That girl, known as Just Judy, came under the spell of a man whom she learned to love and obey as they set up a farm where young girls were kept by the charismatic man who ruled, God-like, over The Mothers and the children. It takes Van and Steinbeck’s team a lot of digging before they realize what happened to Judy and who was responsible for the other girls’ murders. Chapters about Judy’s years running the farm and how women can be in the thrall of a charming but abusive man are interspersed with chapters about the investigation.
The Laughing Dead case gets personal for Van when her old police ID is found at the scene of one of the deaths, much to the delight of a former police colleague who drove her out of the department when he called her a witch because of her uncanny ability to intuit some things. And why does she keep finding red scarves everywhere she goes? As the investigation continues, a secret Van has been keeping her entire life is returning. She is also hiding from Steinbeck important information about the abduction of his sister years earlier, which she learned about when the partners were in Duluth in Lourey’s previous book, “The Reaping.”
Van and Steinbeck are opposites, which makes them a good team. Van is messy, intuitive and ready to take risks. Steinbeck, who dresses like a GQ model, is calm, rational and always there for Van.
Lourey, whose thrillers are sympathetic to women victims of all kinds of crimes, is author of the light-hearted Murder by Month series, Salem’s Cipher thrillers and stand-alone thrillers including the popular “The Quarry Girls.” When Lourey isn’t writing or traveling, she maintains a popular online presence detailing the goofiness of her foster kittens.
(Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press)
“Racing Uphill”: by Stacia Kalinoski (University of Minnesota Press, $19.95)
The one detail I failed to remember was that each of my seizures had repercussions. The hard-fought reality that my worsening memory would eventually make reporting impossible if the seizures continued had not completely set in. Epilepsy had already taken away my personal life and marathon racing, but the possibility of losing my career seemed impossible. I never could have imagined that a seizure could affect so many other people. — from “Racing Uphill”
Related Articles
Book Review: ‘Algospeak’ shows just how much social media is changing us
Fans say new romance bookstores and online groups are giving the genre some overdue respect
Column: Of fighting and surviving, ‘Baddest Man’ is a soaring biography of Mike Tyson
Column: Where are the shows about regular people fighting back?
Amelia Earhart soars back into the headlines in new book ‘The Aviator and the Showman’
Stacia Kalinoski’s involving memoir, subtitled “Confronting Life With Epilepsy,” is an eye-opening look into a neurological condition that affects 55,000 Minnesotans. Kalinoski’s story is so compelling that her documentary about the disease, “Brainstorm,” was broadcast on public television.
After competing in a variety of sports in high school and in marathons at the University of Minnesota, Kalinoski was climbing the career ladder as a TV reporter at stations in Nebraska and Oregon while continuing to compete in marathons, in denial about her continuing seizures and always pushing herself to do better. She was working at the job she loved at a station in Michigan where her understanding boss wrote a plan for the staff to follow if Stacia had an episode. But when she was 29 she regained consciousness on a couch at the station, and this seizure ended her journalism career. (She later won an Emmy for her reporting.)
There was no longer any way for Kalinoski to hide the electrical storms in her brain and the vivid auras preceding them, so she returned to the Twin Cities searching for a cure. Like a good reporter, she weaves her personal story into her interviews with prominent specialists who explain how seizures spread in the brain, steal memories and create mood disorders. They also cause strange behavior that stigmatizes those with the disease, as Kalinoski found out when she was confronted at a gym by a man who insulted her for what he perceived as strange behavior. That’s one reason she shares her experiences now as a motivational speaker.
It’s fortunate Kalinoski lived in the Twin Cities, where help is available to diagnose and mitigate her epilepsy. After numerous tests that included brain mapping and visits to doctors at United Hospital, she had the courage to undergo brain surgery.
Her surgery went well, and now she walks instead of running. In the end, she writes:
“There is no doubt that the determination and resilience I found in athletics got me through my job loss and surgery. One phrase you’ll hear repeatedly from coaches and athletes is ‘Don’t give up.’ But it’s more than that… don’t give up on yourself.”
Lori Sturdevant’s name is on new books from Minnesota Historical Society Press about state politicians. “Perpich: A Minnesota Original” written by Ben Schierer with Sturdevant, is about DFLer Rudy Perpich, the state’s longest-serving governor. The book, crafted from oral histories of influential leaders, traces his story from his youth on the Iron Range to his years globetrotting on economic tours and developing major construction projects. He is also the first governor to have a female lieutenant governor, Marlene Johnson, who tells her story in her recent memoir “Rise to the Challenge” (University of Minnesota Press).
Sturdevant is author of “Martin Sabo: The Making of the Modern Legislature,” about Sabo’s influence on Minnesota state government during his years as DFL speaker of the House of Representatives.
Leave a Reply