Reader’s Notebook, 9/3/26

After completing nine books in July I totally slacked off and read just seven in August. Embarrassing. Adding insult to injury, my last two books of the month were both strange and unsatisfying.

The Unveiling – Quan Barry
This was included in the 2026 Tournament of Books, which is generally a harbinger of a good read.

The book focuses on Striker, a site scout for TV shows and movies. Her latest job finds her on an Antarctic trip with a bunch of regular folks, or I should say “regular” folks. They can all afford a trip to the bottom of the world so I’m not sure they are truly normies.

While on their first kayak excursion of the trip something bizarre and terrible happens. Barry never makes it clear what occurred – rogue wave, submarine surfacing, nuclear war? – but the group’s main guide is killed and their entire party scattered about. Striker brings the group back together and leads them to land to attempt to make sense of their situation.

Things keep getting stranger from there. Time literally does not move: the sun remains fixed in one spot in the sky, their phones and watches are all stuck at 12:14 PM. There are more strange deaths. The group stumbles into a century-old shelter which is filled with more horrors. Out of nowhere, a sail boat cruises by. When Striker and two of her compatriots explore it, it is both abandoned and all its radio equipment destroyed. As the story progresses we learn more about Striker’s past and an affliction of sorts that plagues her.

Eventually the book gets flat out weird. I wasn’t sure what to make of the final quarter. Was this sci-fi? Fantasy? A psychological thriller? A case study of mental illness? I couldn’t tell you.

Striker is a compelling figure, for the most part, and there was a lot of cool stuff in the story. It was all just too bizarre for me, though.

My Name Was Gerry Sass – Tiffany Hanssen
This, on the other hand, was just kind of boring. The bones were solid but I don’t know that the author did enough with them.

Gerry Sass is a low level hitman for the mob who lives in an isolated part of Iowa when he’s not murdering people in Chicago or Las Vegas. One day two other hitmen take him out. Strangely enough, they put the bullets into his body underneath a deer blind on Sass’ property. A deer blind the local priest just happens to be hiding in. Said priest is left to drag Sass’ body out of the woods and begin informing people of his death.

From there the priest’s life slowly unravels through a series of misunderstandings, bad decisions and terrible luck. We also follow Sass’ college-aged daughter as she first evades the hitmen who come to her home, and then tracks them, hoping to earn a sort of revenge. Along the way she witnesses them murdering her estranged mother as well.

In parallel we learn about Gerry’s life via flashbacks his soul in purgatory experiences. Not sure I’ve read a book that partially takes place in purgatory since I tried to read the Inferno decades ago.

Anyway, all the parts come together near the end that was clear from about the book’s midway point.

There was the opportunity for a good story in here. Sadly, Hanssen missed taking advantage of it.