Pam's 3 choices

Pam writes:

Hi Folks,

Happy to host the Between the Covers meeting for July! Bbq will be the cuisine du jour, despite there being no mention of bbq or southern locales in my selections, because well I'm having this in my backyard and I have an awesome gas grill.

Here are some possible dates: Saturday July 18 or Sunday July 19.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Not exactly summer fare, but Swedish murder mystery tells the story about Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. (see description on Amazon here)

“Combine the chilly Swedish backdrop and moody psychodrama of a Bergman movie with the grisly pyrotechnics of a serial-killer thriller, then add an angry punk heroine and a down-on-his-luck investigative journalist, and you have the ingredients of Stieg Larsson’s first novel.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
This is a tale of Balram Halwai, a chauffer to a weathly man in Dehli, who hails from a small village in a backwater region of India. who murders his employer as justifying step out of his low caste system.

"In this darkly comic début novel set in India, Balram, a chauffeur, murders his employer, justifying his crime as the act of a "social entrepreneur." ... He places the blame for his rage squarely on the avarice of the Indian élite, among whom bribes are commonplace, and who perpetuate a system in which many are sacrificed to the whims of a few. Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling."
- The New Yorker

Cloud Atlas (warning: it's 500 pages long)
This novel presents 6 different narratives and among the volume's most engaging story lines is a witty 1930s-era chronicle, via letters, of a young musician's effort to become an amanuensis for a renowned, blind composer and a hilarious account of a modern-day vanity publisher who is institutionalized by a stroke and plans a madcap escape in order to return to his literary empire (such as it is). Mitchell's ability to throw his voice may remind some readers of David Foster Wallace, though the intermittent hollowness of his ventriloquism frustrates.
- Publisher's Weekly