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Summary: A Top Pick that Delivers and Delights
Review: Avid readers of well crafted stories will be delighted with "The Way the Crow Flies". To qualify this statement, I refer to "well crafted stories" to mean more commonly accepted library recommendations, critics picks, and book club selections like "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", "The Time Traveler's Wife", "My Fractured Life", and "The Amateur Marriage."The plot (that revolves around the snowballing affect of lies within a family) is well crafted - interesting but not overly complex. The dialogue is perfectly scripted. And, the characters are engrossingly unique and consistently developing. As one who simply enjoys plain old good writing over high concept shoot 'em ups, I found great favor with "The Way the Crow Flies."
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Summary: This woman can write!
Review: By far, one of the best books I've read in a long time! MacDonald is talented and absolutely brilliant.
Reading this is such a gift!
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Summary: The perfect novel with which to kick off the fall season
Review: Canadian Ann-Marie MacDonald's second novel, following the internationally bestselling (and Oprah's Book Club favorite) FALL ON YOUR KNEES, opens with a powerful scene --- a murder, one whose only witnesses are the crows perched in the branches of the trees above. While both victim and perpetrator are unknown to the reader and the entire chapter takes up less than half a page, it packs an emotional punch and sets the tone for the chapters to come. In the next scene, we are introduced to the happy, near picture-perfect McCarthy family traveling cross-country to a new home and idyllic future. This sudden switch in mood effectively paves the way for the story ahead --- nothing is certain, and surprises are lurking around every corner. The year is 1962, the Cold War is heating up, the "space race" is on, and for the time being optimism still outweighs cynicism. Jack McCarthy, a career officer in the RCAF, has just been posted to the Centralia Air Force Station in Ontario, near the Canadian-American border. His family --- wife Mimi, 12-year-old Mike, and 8-year-old Madeleine --- are overjoyed to be back in their native Canada after an overseas stint at a Germany base. The McCarthys settle in to their new home in the "PMQ" (permanent married quarters), the kids enroll in school, Mimi blissfully immerses herself in domestic tasks, and Jack takes on his first assignment at Centralia --- a secret mission to watch over a Soviet defector who eventually will be smuggled across the border to work on the U.S. space program. When Jack learns his charge is actually a former Nazi who commanded slave labor at Peenemunde (the underground cave and nucleus of the Nazi rocket program) his duty quickly becomes more morally burdensome than he can bear. Meanwhile, 8-year-old Madeleine is keeping secrets of her own. She and several of her 4th grade classmates are being molested by their teacher during one-on-one picnics at a place they call Rock Bass. When one of the girls ends up dead in the field, this seemingly peaceful community is thrown into turmoil. Without knowing it, both father and daughter hold pieces of the puzzle that can solve the crime but neither one is talking. It will take Madeleine twenty years to begin to understand the global implications of her schoolmate's murder and come to terms with her role in the events of that spring day. Rich and complex, full of moral subtleties and ironies, THE WAY THE CROW FLIES more than delivers on the promise shown in FALL ON YOUR KNEES. Playwright MacDonald proves she is a master storyteller with a finger on the pulse of human emotion and conflict. This is the perfect novel with which to kick off the fall reading season. --- Reviewed by Melissa Morgan
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Summary: Rich, exotic storytelling
Review: Fall On Your Knees was so dark it was pitch-black. The Way the Crow Flies may turn out to be ... I'm 350 pages in ... but from the first page it was one of those wonderful books you want to simultaneously rush through ... and savor. I read 30+ books a year and this, so far, is my favorite read in some years. I suspect it will have particular resonance for those with Canadian and military connections, an interest in the Cuban missile crisis, growing up in the 1960s. Even so ... it's a remarkable book. I'm so glad the author is young!
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Summary: Great book...............
Review: Found the first 200 pages very slow. Once I got past that I could not put this book down. I grew up in Ontario/Ottawa so I found the references to particular areas very interesting. I did find that I was frustrated with the father and his attachment and loyalty to the German man he was overseeing. I really felt he was far too honest a man to let a young boy go to jail unjustly.
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Summary: Too bad
Review: Good book but the references to Nazi war criminals in Canada are unfortunate, for even the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, headed by Mr Justice Deschenes, concluded that the folks making those allegations had "grossly exaggerated" matters (they had). And, since 1987, (when the final report was published) not a single so-called Nazi war criminal has ever been brought to trial in a Canadian criminal court and convicted of wrongdoing during the war. Pity someone of this writer's talents does not focus on how Soviet war criminals and communist collaborators got into this country (I doubt there are more than a few dozen, by the way, but that is several times many more than alleged Nazis). Alas, folks raised on Hogan's Heroes just can't seem to sense that it was Stalin who was the greater butcher than Hitler (not that the latter was anything but a killer himself).
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing but well-written
Review: I am a fan of Ann Marie MacDonald. I loved her first book, Fall on your Knees. I do not think that this one was as good as her previous one however. Her storytelling in the first one was phenomenal. This book is an intense drama taking place in the sixties at a base in Ontario at the height of the Cold War and the space race. The story revolves around the families at the base, most notably that of Jack McCarthy and his family. The story is mostly told through Madeline's point of view as a child and later as an adult. Though it is a dark story, Madeline is able to convey some houmor throughout and still make us feel such sorrow for her shattered innocence. MacDonald looks into the subject of politics, justice, molestation and many others. She has the ability to understand all of these things and write about them in an amazing way. It is a fascinating story and at the end the reader has to reconsider the fact that the past is not always what it seems. Sometimes when you seek the truth, you uncover much more about others and yourself.
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Summary: MacDonald's done it again!
Review: I couldn't agree more with most of the other reviewers here, although I will go so far as to say that the first 150 pages (rather than 100 as mentioned by another reviewer) are a bit slow and difficult to wade through, even so I say it still earns 5 stars. Once this wonderful, destined to be a classic novel gains momentum, you'll be rereading passages just to make it last longer. It is a very long book at just over 700 pages. As in MacDonald's debut novel Fall on Your Knees, she has created characters that you will love, hate, cheer for, jeer at and cry for. Both of her books have a penchant for elicting our emotions. I found myself weeping for the main character Madeleine at several points throughout the book. This is a mystery, a family saga, a spy novel, a coming of age novel, a comedy (though possibly a dark one), a love story, and a horror story. It encompasses all genres in one.
Set amidst the backdrop of the race for the moon, the cold war and a time that was safe and family oriented but rapidly changing.
I loved the depiction of the family of the era, the marriage of Jack and Mimi, who was the consumate wife of the time. The relationships between parents and children, especially that of Jack and Madeleine. MacDonald's use of language and realism is incomparable to most of todays authors.
I just can't say enough about this book, if you are considering it, and you must be or you wouldn't be reading this, consider no more, click on the buy button, you won't regret it. The characters will live on in your memory like old friends forever.
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Summary: Do yourself a favour
Review: I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and have been mulling it over in my head - was it amazing,was it revolting in its descriptions of child molestation, was it a book I wanted to recommend, why did I love it one minute and hate it the next???
Today I have come to the conclusion that I think Anne-Marie MacDonald has an very special story telling gift and that this novel is worth raving about because the "stories" need to be told. The truth about people like Steven Truscott and the 2nd World War after effects are worth being told and worth being debated regardless of the passing of time.
In the words of a couple of great Aussies - 'Do yourself a favour' and read this.
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Summary: It takes you there.......
Review: I first borrowed this book from the library and didn't quite finish it before it was due back. Then I saw the audio version was out and listened to it instead. Anne-Marie McDonald is as mesmerizing a narrator as she is a writer. Yes, the story line is depressing. Yes, I doubt I will read it again. But......every part of this story is essential to make you understand exactly why and how such a thing could happen. It takes you back to 1962 with every sense made aware. I am in awe of her talent.
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