Markus Zusak
Lent to me by my book-loving friend who periodically exchanges books with me, I had not known the author before and started to read without any expectations other than it should be good, since so far everything I have borrowed from this friend has met my taste.
It turned out that I really, really liked this book, for various reasons. The setting is - unusual for me - Australia, in a part of town that has seen better days. Not that the Australian factor is over-emphasised, but it is unusual for me to read of a "typically hot November day" or Christmas spent in shorts and t-shirt and drinking cold beer in the shade of the porch.
The main character is Ed, a 19-year old cab driver, flanked by a cast of quirky characters like his three best friends, one of whom he is deeply in love with while she keeps saying that he is her best friend and therefore she doesn't want to spoil their friendship. There is also Ed's Mum and memories of his late Dad. The other love in his life is his old dog, very much a character in his own right.
With an unqualified, low-pay job and no real perspective or ambition for more than playing cards with his friends, walking the dog, occasionally visiting his Mum, Ed's life could go on like this for years and years.
But when he and his friends are accidentally caught in a bank robbery, and equally accidentally Ed manages to stop the gunman, everything changes.
After his unwilling 15 minutes of fame, Ed starts to receive playing cards in the mail, with cryptic messages on the back, sometimes more, sometimes less difficult to decipher. In any case, he has to act on them, and act he does.
I am not going to spoil things for you by telling you what he has to do and about the people he meets along the way, but by the end of the book, loose ends are tied up and Ed - as well as the reader - learns what it was (and is) all about.
An unusual story, quirky characters and the language to match - I can recommend this if you want a story that is mysterious but not a mystery as such (no murders, detectives or crime-solving), not a historical drama or family epos and neither romance nor comedy, but with elements of both.
More about the author can be found on wikipedia.
As you know I don't often read fiction, but this book sounds interesting! He also wrote "The Book Thief" and even I know that one!
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