Writers Read: Karen Odden

Karen Odden received her PhD in English from New York University and taught Victorian literature at UW-Milwaukee. She is the author of several crime novels set in

1870s London, including her award-winning USA Today bestselling debut, A Lady in the Smoke. Her work has been nominated for the Lefty, Anthony, Agatha, and Derringer Awards, and appeared in Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Odden's new novel is An Artful Dodge.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Odden's reply:

I read a lot for nonfiction to research for my own novels, but as I was putting together this list of “other books,” I realized I’m the reader equivalent of a lemming, easily led! These are some of my favorites over the past few months.

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend (trans. from the Italian)

My friend Filiz recommended this book so highly that I bought it. For a year I took it down off my shelf, read the first twenty or thirty pages, and put it back, several times. I just couldn’t get into it—and then recently, I pulled it down to give it one more try and read it in two days. Some books are like that. This novel, the first of four in the Neopolitan Novels, begins with Elena receiving a phone call that sets her to committing to paper all her memories of her childhood friend Lila, beginning with their childhoods in rough-and-tumble 1950s Naples, Italy. In her own mind, Elena is the more “ordinary” of the two, studious and rather plain; her friend Lila is beautiful, fierce, and fearless. By the end, it becomes clear that Lila views Elena differently. The narrative style is unusual—although purportedly written by an adult recalling her childhood, much of it reads almost like a teenage girl’s journal, almost as if she has slipped back into her teenage self, complete with changeful emotions, dramatic utterances, actions driven by whim, and shifting allegiances. But once I let myself sink in, I was absorbed in the world, with the feeling of shifting ground under my feet and violence always close at hand.

Jacinda Ardern, A Different Kind of Power

In March, my husband and I traveled to New Zealand, and while I was there my cousin Kate texted me, asking if I’d read this book; she’d loved it and urged me to find it. I bought the book in the Auckland airport and read it on the way home. Jacinda Ardern was New Zealand’s prime minister (and its third woman PM, the first to have a child while in office) during Covid. This book is part memoir, part manifesto; it’s frankly and warmly personal as well as thoughtful and serious. It covers her childhood—she grew up in a rural area on the North Island and was raised Mormon—and traces her path to working in government. She also shares her vision for what she calls “a different kind of power,” one based on inquiry, collaboration, and compassion. This was a compelling, intriguing read.

Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game: Why we fall for it every time

For my next book, the sequel to An Artful Dodge, I began researching cons. I wanted to write a book about a series of art heists that happen during one London Season. When I told my friend Libby about my idea, she said I should take a look at this book. (Konnikova has two other books, in part based on her experience as a poker player.) This one outlines the 7 distinct steps to a long con and what suppositions and expectations most people bring to an encounter, making each step a likely success. It was unsettling, for it made me uneasily aware of how there are people out there who instinctively prey on our desires for belonging, for believing, and for not wanting to appear the fool. It was absolutely essential reading for “A Thieving Season.” This is a primer on the con, with psychology thrown in, and accompanied by vignettes about accomplished cons including Madoff and Jim Bakker over the years. Fascinating.

Michael Koryta, Die Famous

This book doesn’t come out until September; I read an advanced copy for review. But I want to feature it here because it’s one of the best I’ve read this year. A historical crime novel set during the Depression, it’s told in three separate stories, that of Savannah Cody, a woman speaking to an FBI agent on the eve of her execution; her twelve-year-old son Alford; and her lover Eddie “Nickel” Terhune. As a young man, Nickel falls in with Al Brady, who fancies himself another Derringer, brandishing guns and robbing banks. After a big hit, Nickel flees to Maine, where Savannah and her father search for Nickel, hoping to find him before the FBI does, and where a chance encounter allows Nickel and his son Alford to see what might have been. The character of Savannah is especially well drawn; her voice is tart and quick, but she shows a growing sense of her own culpability and her own capacity for love. The language is fresh, and though every reader will see heartbreak coming, the pages fly. This is excellent fare for fans of William Kent Krueger’s historical novels, J.R. Moehringer’s Sutton, and Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang.