The Best Books I Read This Month: Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara and Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

I could not pick just one best book this month, because I read two stellar mysteries on the heels of last month’s Winter Counts—Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara and Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia. I devoured both, and nothing I’ve read since has quite measured up.

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

Clark and Division tells the story of a Japanese family during World War II, through the eyes of the younger sister as she tries to make sense of the death of her older sister. We see the family’s life in Los Angeles before Pearl Harbor, their internment at Manzanar after, and their struggle to adjust to new lives in Chicago after they are released from Manzanar.

This was a quiet mystery but an intense one. And I learned something about Chicago’s history in the process.

I enjoyed this one so much that I’m now searching out Hirahara’s previous series, about a Los Angeles gardener and Hiroshima survivor named Mas Arai, who solves mysteries on the side.

Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa Afia

Dead Dead Girls focuses on a different time and place—and a different family dynamic. Set in Harlem in the 1920s, the story follows a young woman at odds with her strict pious family as she tries to help police solve a string of murders in her community.

This was a much faster paced story than Clark and Division, and the story a more violent one. But it was just as gripping and just as engaging and it gave me a peek into a community that I wouldn’t otherwise get to experience.

I’ve already put the sequel on my To Read list.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

The best book I read this month was a gripping mystery that I devoured in two days: Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

Set on a Lakota reservation in South Dakota, Winter Counts follows Virgil Wounded Horse as he tries to protect and support his nephew, who has been accused of dealing drugs on the reservation. His efforts bring him into contact with his ex-girlfriend, her family (who hate him), and a Colorado gang associated with a Mexican drug cartel.

I found Virgil to be a compelling narrator. He is aware of his faults and his mistakes, and he cares deeply for his nephew. He wants to do the right thing, but he’s not always sure what the right thing is or whether he is capable of it.

The other thing I deeply appreciated about this book was its depiction of reservation life and Lakota culture. It’s a world that we don’t often see in literature, and I, for one, would like to see more stories told by Indigenous voices and set in Indigenous cultures.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

I’ve been on a nonfiction kick lately, so this month—like last month and the month before—the best book I read was a work about history: The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough. The book is short (for a history book), but it packs a solid punch.

McCullough’s book tells the story of Johnstown, a small town outside of Pittsburgh, and how it was wiped out by a catastrophic flood in 1889. (Don’t worry! Johnstown rebuilt—only to be hit by floods again in 1936 and 1977.) The first chapters meander a bit, as McCullough weaves the tale of the town, its people, and the dam that proved to be their archnemesis. But once McCullough gets to the day of the flood, the story gets much tighter and more powerful. The focus is on the people and towns affected by the flood—the destruction of property, the loss of lives, and tales of seemingly-random survival. It is a tense and emotional tale.

There’s a not-so-implicit statement, too, in this tale, about the ultra-rich and the ordinary joe. The people of Johnstown were, of course, the latter. The ultra-rich were those for whom the dam was built, including Andrew Carnegie—for their pleasure and their leisure. It is hard not to see parallels between the ultra-rich of this story and the billionaires of today and their relationships to the rest of us.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Ravine by Wendy Lower

A bit late in posting, but the best book I read in March was the most disturbing book I’ve read in a long time: The Ravine by historian Wendy Lower.

As the book’s subtitle (A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed) indicates, the book focuses on the murder of a one family during the Holocaust. But it is not the Holocaust of Western Europe, not the Holocaust of concentration camps. This book focuses on the Holocaust as it occurred in Eastern Europe, where it took on a very different character—graveside massacres instead of formal death camps. The most famous of these massacres occurred at Babi Yar in Ukraine. This book focuses on a smaller massacre, one that may have remained invisible to history were not for a single photograph.

The first ten pages of the book were brutal to read. The focus is entirely on the action in the photograph, which shows the murder of one Jewish Ukrainian family at a ravine and is described in unflinching detail. After that, the book’s focus expands to Lower’s efforts to identify the location, victims, and participants in this murder. Her work is as frustrating as it is rewarding, as she encounters obstacle after obstacle. Even at the end, there is no clean resolution for her or for the reader.

This is not a book that one reads for pleasure. It’s not a book to enjoy. But it is a book that is important and worthwhile. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) occurs later this month. Reading this book would be a good way to spend that day.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

I need February to be a couple days longer so I can finish the best book I’m reading this month before the month is over. Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is incredible. It tells the story of Northern Ireland’s Troubles by focusing on the murder of single mother Jean McConville.

I’m finding the reading slow-going, not because of Keefe’s writing—which is clear and easy to read—but because of the subject matter. It’s heavy, so I can only read it in short bursts. Keefe does not flinch from the violence of the events he describes, neither the scope nor the toll. But he also humanizes the events, giving a full picture of the people involved—their backgrounds, their hopes, their lives beyond the conflict. That’s what makes the story he tells so gripping.

I’m at a point in the book where I think I know whodunit, but I’m not entirely sure. There are likely still a number of twists and turns before Keefe brings the story to a conclusion, because very little in this story is cut and dry.