Annie's 2016 Variety Show Reading

I read everything - novels, non-fiction, stories, comics and graphic novels, poetry and essays, journals and magazines, online articles and stories.

I love Science fiction and fantasy and usually a big number of my reading is in these genres. Unfortunately I also love crime and mystery stories, I like horror and historical novels and I like learning new things - so non-fiction shows up a lot in my reading. I have two modes of reading: stick to a topic (and then I would read a lot of books one after another on the same topic or in the same genre) or change genres and topics with every book.

I never make plans for my reading - the few times I did, it did not work very well. I am trying to write at least short reviews of all I am reading (non-spoilery) but I had fallen behind lately - I am not very good with keeping up with my thread - as people that had been in the club the previous years know... Maybe this is the year? :)

I travel a lot for work (which always makes my reading a bit unpredictable). When I am not traveling, I live in Phoenix, AZ - where usually you have enough sun to wish it stop shining that much - not now though - it is cold now :(

Welcome to my thread. Happy holidays and a successful reading 2016!

So where am I at the start of 2016?

I have 3 books started (not too bad actually) which I won't be able to finish before the year changes) - 2 fiction, 1 non-fiction. Chances are that these will be some of the books that I finish first in 2016 - but then you never know:

Fiction:
The Golem of Hollywood by Jesse and Jonathan Kellerman - page 410
Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton - page 152 (and the current Kindle book).

Non-fiction:
First Seals by Patrick K. O'Donnell - page 195

Books, magazines, journals and so on

===JANUARY===
1. The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
2. Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
3. First SEALs: The Untold Story of the Forging of America’s Most Elite Unit by Patrick K. O'Donnell
4. Devoted In Death by J. D. Robb
5. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
6. The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward
7. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
8. Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
9. The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake by Terry Shames
10. The Drowned Boy by Karin Fossum
11. Finches of Mars by Brian W. Aldiss
12. The Undoing by Averil Dean
13. The Innocent by David Baldacci

===FEBRUARY===
14. Badlands by C. J. Box
15. When The Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman
16. The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman
17. The Case of the Sulky Girl by Erle Stanley Gardner
18. The Hit by David Baldacci
19. Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton
20. The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark
21. Justice by Faye Kellerman
22. Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson
23. The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo
24. The Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette
25. The World to Come by Dara Horn
26. The Great Forgetting by James Renner
27. Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum
28. But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens
29. Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman
30. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth
31. The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters
32. Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
33. Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer
34. The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner
35. Death on the Riviera by John Bude

===MARCH===
36. The Robespierre Serial by Nicholas Luard
37. In the Dark by Mark Billingham
38. Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman
39. Flipped For Murder by Maddie Day
40. The Bookseller by Mark Pryor
41. Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen
42. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
43. Too Soon Dead by Michael Kurland
44. The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary by Erle Stanley Gardner
45. The Case of the Demure Defendant by Erle Stanley Gardner
46. Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin
47. The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
48. A Killing at Cotton Hill by Terry Shames
49. The Target by David Baldacci
50. Brotherhood in Death by J. D. Robb
51. Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
52. Gridlinked by Neal Asher
53. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
54. The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge Brussolo
55. Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
56. One False Note by Gordon Korman
57. The Case of the Lucky Legs by Erle Stanley Gardner

===APRIL===
58. Invisible City by Julia Dahl
59. Walking Distance: Pilgrimage, Parenthood, Grief, and Home Repairs by David Hlavsa
60. Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
61. Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham
62. London Falling by Paul Cornell
63. The Pagan Night by Tim Akers
64. The Guilty by David Baldacci
65. Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip
66. The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich
67. Joyland by Stephen King
68. Patchwerk by David Tallerman
69. The Case of the Howling Dog by Erle Stanley Gardner
70. The Case of the Curious Bride by Erle Stanley Gardner
71. There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe
72. Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen
73. The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon
74. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
75. The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt

===MAY===
76. The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
77. The Skinner by Neal Asher
78. Bad Debts by Peter Temple
79. The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis
80. Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
81. The Case of the Counterfeit Eye by Erle Stanley Gardner
82. The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell
83. The Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner
84. Silent City by Carrie Smith
85. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
86. Death of Riley by Rhys Bowen
87. The Broken Shore by Peter Temple )
88. A Talent For War by Jack McDevitt
89. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
90. A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton

===June===
91. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
92. The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner
93. King and Maxwell by David Baldacci
94. The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton
95. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
96. The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
97. The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner
98. Brothers of Earth by C. J. Cherryh
99. The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake
100. The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton
101. Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon
102. Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve Hamilton
103. Thieves Fall Out by Cameron Kay (pseudonym of Gore Vidal)
104. Why Save the Bankers?: And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis by Thomas Piketty
105. The Line of Polity by Neal Asher
106. Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
107. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
108. Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt
109. Black Tide by Peter Temple
110. The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine Di Giovanni
111. Half a War by Joe Abercrombie
112. Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh
113. The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian
114. Hunter of Worlds by C. J. Cherryh

Novels

===JANUARY===
1. (2014) The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
2. (2012) Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton
3. (2015) Devoted In Death by J. D. Robb
4. (2001) Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
5. (2015) The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
6. (2015/2015) Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
7. (2016) The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake by Terry Shames
8. (2013/2015) The Drowned Boy by Karin Fossum
9. (2012) Finches of Mars by Brian W. Aldiss
10. (2015) The Undoing by Averil Dean
11. (2012)The Innocent by David Baldacci

===FEBRUARY===
12. (2015) Badlands by C. J. Box
13. (1985) When The Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman
14. (2015) The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman
15. (1933) The Case of the Sulky Girl by Erle Stanley Gardner
16. (2013) The Hit by David Baldacci
17. (2002) Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton
18. (2015) The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark
19. (1995) Justice by Faye Kellerman
20. (2012/2014) Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson
21. (2013/2016) The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo
22. (1981/2002) The Gunman by Jean-Patrick Manchette
23. (2006) The World to Come by Dara Horn
24. (2015) The Great Forgetting by James Renner
25. (1996/2002) Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum
26. (1986) Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman
27. (2015) The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters
28. (2001) Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
29. (2016) Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer
30. (1933) The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner
31. (1952) Death on the Riviera by John Bude

===MARCH===
32. (1975) The Robespierre Serial by Nicholas Luard
33. (2008) In the Dark by Mark Billingham
34. (2016) Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman
35. (2015) Flipped For Murder by Maddie Day
36. (2012) The Bookseller by Mark Pryor
37. (2015) Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen
38. (2015) The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
39. (1997) Too Soon Dead by Michael Kurland
40. (1955) The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary by Erle Stanley Gardner
41. (1956) The Case of the Demure Defendant by Erle Stanley Gardner
42. (2015) Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin
43. (2008) The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
44. (2013) A Killing at Cotton Hill by Terry Shames
45. (2014) The Target by David Baldacci
46. (2016) Brotherhood in Death by J. D. Robb
47. (2015) Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
48. (2001) Gridlinked by Neal Asher
49. (1992/2016) The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge Brussolo
50. (2016) Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
51. (2008) One False Note by Gordon Korman
52. (1934) The Case of the Lucky Legs by Erle Stanley Gardner

===APRIL===
53. (2014) Invisible City by Julia Dahl
54. (2015) Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
55. (2012) Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham
56. (2012) London Falling by Paul Cornell
57. (2016) The Pagan Night by Tim Akers
58. (2015) The Guilty by David Baldacci
59. (2016) Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip
60. (2016) The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich
61. (2013) Joyland by Stephen King
62. (1934) The Case of the Howling Dog by Erle Stanley Gardner
63. (1934) The Case of the Curious Bride by Erle Stanley Gardner
64. (2001) Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen
65. (2016) The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon
66. (2011) Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
67. (1986/2015) The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt

===MAY===
68. (2008) The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
69. (2002) The Skinner by Neal Asher
70. (1996) Bad Debts by Peter Temple
71. (2009) The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis
72. (2015) Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham
73. (1935) The Case of the Counterfeit Eye by Erle Stanley Gardner
74. (2014) The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell
75. (1935) The Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner
76. (2015) Silent City by Carrie Smith
77. (2002) Death of Riley by Rhys Bowen
78. (2005) The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
79. (1989) A Talent For War by Jack McDevitt
80. (2002) Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
81. (1998) A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton

===June===
82. (2008) Anathem by Neal Stephenson
83. (1936) The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner
84. (2013) King and Maxwell by David Baldacci
85. (2016) The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton
86. (1994) The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
87. (1936) The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner
88. (1976) Brothers of Earth by C. J. Cherryh
89. (2016) The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake
90. (2014) The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton
91. (1941|2015) Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon
92. (2000) Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve Hamilton
93. (1953) Thieves Fall Out by Cameron Kay (pseudonym of Gore Vidal)
94. (2003) The Line of Polity by Neal Asher
95. (2009) Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
96. (1992) The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
97. (1996) Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt
98. (2000) Black Tide by Peter Temple
99. (2015) Half a War by Joe Abercrombie
100. (1976) Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh
101. (2014) The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian
102. (1977) Hunter of Worlds by C. J. Cherryh

Collections

Anthologies

Non-fiction books

=== JANUARY===
1. (2014) First SEALs: The Untold Story of the Forging of America’s Most Elite Unit by Patrick K. O'Donnell
2. (2015) The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward

=== FEBRUARY===
3. (2015|2016) But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens
4. (2015) The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth

=== MARCH===
5. (2015) Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

=== APRIL===
6. (2015) Walking Distance: Pilgrimage, Parenthood, Grief, and Home Repairs by David Hlavsa
7. (2012) There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe

=== MAY===
8. (2014|2016) Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli

===JUNE===
9. (2016) Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
10. (2016|2016) Why Save the Bankers?: And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis by Thomas Piketty
11. (2016) The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine Di Giovanni

Graphic Novels

Collected Comics

Novellas, novelettes, short stories and flash fiction (anything that is fiction and is not a novel basically):

=== JANUARY===
1. (2014) Pinono Deep by Kate Bachus in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 6248 words
2. (2016) Secondhand Bodies by JY Yang in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 5706 words
3. (2014) The Dark Age by Jason Gurley in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 4754 words
4. (2016) Beyond the Heliopause by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 6033 words
5. (2013) A Lunar Labyrinth by Neil Gaiman in Trigger Warning
6. (2011) Chaos in Death by J. D. Robb, novella
7. (2016) The Savannah Liars Tour by Will McIntosh in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 4122 words
8. (1992) Gorgonoids by Leena Krohn (translated by Hildi Hawkins 2015) in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 2640 words
9. (2016) Maiden, Hunter, Beast by Kat Howard in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 2460 words
10. (2010) La Tune T'attend by Peter S. Beagle in Lightspeed, Jan 2016, 10345 words
11. (2013) Taken in Death by J. D. Robb, novella

=== FEBRUARY ===
12. (2015) Wonderment in Death by J. D. Robb, novella

=== MARCH===
None

=== APRIL===
13. (2016) Patchwerk by David Tallerman, novella, 134 pages

===MAY===
14. (2016) 17 Amazing Plot Elements... When You See #11, You'll Be Astounded! by James Beamon in Daily Science Fiction, May 3, 2016
15. (2016) The Hanged Man by Adriana Lisboa in Rio Noir (2016)
16. (2016) Toned Cougars by Tony Bellotto in Rio Noir (2016)
17. (2016) The Cannibal of Ipanema by Alexandre Fraga in Rio Noir (2016)
18. (2016) The Booty by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza in Rio Noir (2016)
19. (2016) The Return by MV Bull in Rio Noir (2016)

Articles

===MAY===
A1. "Let's Go Take Back Our Country" by Stuart A. Reid, The Atlantic, March 2016

Authors statistics (work in progress):

"Come on, write something so I can read it" list:
David Marusek
J. D. Robb - New novel: "Apprentice in Death" in September 2016

"Just short stories left" list:
Ann Leckie
Mark Billingham - New novel "Die of Shame" in June 2016

"Read everything and no new books are possible" list:

"Almost done with reading all novels" list - the unread ones listed below:

Peter F. Hamilton - "The Secret Throne" + short fiction (and the Confederation Handbook). New novels: "A Night Without Stars" in September 2016; "The Hunting of the Princes" in July 2016 in UK
Sebastian Rotella - "The Convert's Song"
Tom Young - "The Hunters" + non-fiction "The Speed of Heat" + novella "Phantom Fury".

=================

Reading Statistics:

January Statistics:

Total: 13
Novels: 11
Non-fiction:2
Stories: 11

February Statistics:

Total: 22
Novels: 20
Non-fiction:2
Stories: 1

March Statistics:

Total: 22
Novels: 21
Non-fiction:1
Stories: 0

Q1 Statistics:
Total: 57
Novels: 52
Non-fiction:5
Stories: 12

April Statistics:

Total: 18
Novels: 15
Non-fiction:2
Stories: 1 (novella - separately published)

May Statistics:

Total: 15
Novels: 15

June Statistics:

Total: 24
Novels: 21
Non-fiction:3

Q2 Statistics:

Total: 57
Novels: 50
Non-fiction: 6
Stories: 7
Articles: 1

H1 Statistics:

Total: 114
Novels: 102
Non-fiction:11
Stories: 19
Articles: 1

1. The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 550 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Mystery/Supernatural
Part of Series: Jacob Lev (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Putnam
Finished: 04 January 2016
Rating:

The idea of the novel is interesting - combine a serial murder spree with a story about one of Cain and Abel's sisters. And if you look at the two stories separately, they actually work (to some extent anyway - the connection points are weakening both stories enough to stop me from saying that the book contains two really good story.

At biblical times, we start following the sister - through times I had read about before and times I had not. In our time, detective Jacob Lev is pulled into a special branch of the police seemingly only because he is Jewish. It takes a while for the real motives to be revealed and it takes a set of serial murders, a trip to Prague and UK and the Golem of Prague to get us there but we do get the answers.

The mix of the genres is not a problem. What really bugged me was that in more than one case it was used as an easy way out of a situation - for example when Jacob was forced to dig his own grave, it was supernatural being that came to save him (with the police coming almost immediately after that). Even if that is a viable way to resolve the issue, it was happening way too often in the novel.

I will probably pick up the next book in the series - despite the lazy writing, there were enough good parts to make me care about the characters. Even when they were behaving as if they had been hit repeatedly on their heads before making a decision...

I am way behind so I will be adding the rest slowly but time to start posting again :)


35. Death on the Riviera by John Bude

Type: Novel
Length: 2760 kindle positions
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1952
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Inspector William Meredith (16)
Format: ARC
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Finished: 29 February 2016
Rating:

When the title of a mystery contains the word Death, you expect a murder to happen pretty soon. Except when it is a British one of course.

Originally written in 1952, "Death on the Riviera" shows its age both in its setting and story line. But unlike some of the other books of that era, this does not make it sound dated... at least not too much.

At the start of the novel, DI Meredith from Scotland Yard and Sergeant Strang had traveled to France, trying to catch a known criminal. In the meantime, Nesta Hedderwick, an English woman that owns a villa on the Riviera, collects a weird set of characters in her house - an artist, a young man that she seems to be favoring for some reason, a young woman who is in love with the young man and a niece (not to count all the help of course). And when Bill Dillon shows up and get invited into the house, things start getting complicated. As with every mystery of that time, noone is exactly what he seems to be.

Meredith and Strang (and a motley crew of French policemen) go after the group that distributes the counterfeiter money and the house affairs finally end up with a dead body (after more than 2/3rd of the book is gone).

At the end, it is the Englishmen that solve the mystery of course (not without going in a few wring directions first). And they take their time telling everyone about it - the good old style of collecting everyone in a room and telling them what happened (this time without the bad guys).

It is an enjoyable story - even though it is the 18th in the series, it is a standalone story and I did not miss any of the backstory. The world of the wealthy English that stay at the Riviera for months is fascinating - and even if when it was written it was just part of the story, today it is a fascinating window to the past. It is not a perfect story by any means - a lot of the coincidences and the things people do not notice to add up at the end. But I would definitely read more stories by Bude - he may not be one of the great masters of the genre but he is a worthy author.

33. Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer

Type: Novel
Length: 404 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Contemporary/Saga
Part of Series: Clifton Chronicles (6)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Finished: 27 February 2016
Rating:

And time for another dose of the Cliftons, the Barringtons and their friends and foes. The sixth installment starts in 1971 and takes us to 1978. If you had not read the first five, that one will probably not work - the whole series is really a chronicle and should be read in order (or you will be left over with a lot of missing pieces - although Archer does make sure that the relevant backstory is mentioned early on). Maybe it can work on its own - but I would start from the first one.

As with all the previous volumes, the cliffhanger from the end of last book is taken care of pretty fast but it does end up having much more influence on the overall history than usual. Even if Alex Fisher finally died late last book, his suicide letter ends up changing the lives of more than one of the characters we had grown to love.

Lady Virginia Fenwick is up to her usual games trying to destroy the lives of Giles, Harry and Emma, Sebastian comes fully on his own both with his job and in his love life (although as always, it does not come easy), Emma and Harry meet their first grandchild, another member of the main set of characters dies (and unlike with Alex, it is a sad affair), the Babakov story is brought to a surprising end and Giles finds love.

This book contains everything - from a trip to India and quick look at the Hindu culture to a drug smuggling operation and another nail baiting trial; from Virginia's (and her friends) machinations (which this time really make you laugh at her ingenuity) to Seb's love stories; from Giles trip to East Germany to the Russian spies in the middle of Britain. And yet, it somehow does not sound too much -- with Giles at the top of the British politics, Emma at the top of the industry and Seb in the banking, the events of the decade come alive easily. And we even see Margaret Thatcher - a few glimpses but enough to frame the times.

Surprisingly, the volume does not end up in a cliffhanger (or so it looks - it does end up with a gun shot and a falling body and I am will not be surprised if there is something more to it but maybe not.

I am usually weary when an author goes for a long story like that one and splits it into 7 volumes. Archer pulls it off - again. The last volume will be out in November and I cannot wait to see where the story will go. But it does not matter really - the sorry is solid and shows England changing -- as much as it is the Clifton story, it is also the story of England - its slow change and acceptance of new things in the later volumes and the pre-wars and wars years in the earlier ones.

If the series (and this book specifically) has a problem it is the treatment of everyone behind the Iron Curtain - all of them are presented as idiots that are there just to be played and of Emma who just cannot do anything wrong. Real life is a bit more nuanced than that. But then it is the Chronicle of England after all - so the simplification is not that unexpected. And Emma... she is used as a vessel to show the change in England - from the early days where she was showing the classes do not matter as much to the later books where she is a woman in a man's world. And the story holds up - but I almost wish she makes something foolish or plain wrong.

2. Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 947 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: SF/Mystery
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Del Rey
Finished: 7 January 2016
Rating:

Welcome to Newcastle in 2143. Even if the setting is the same as some of the earlier Hamilton novels, this is yet another new possible future, unrelated to any previous world.

One family, the Norths, had managed to build their own empire via cloning and interstellar exploration. But as with all big ventures like that, through the years the descendants of the 3 initially cloned brothers had grown apart and the Norths are split into fractions. All descendants are named starting with the first name of their forefather (A, B and C) so knowing which branch they belong to is easy. Unless if they lie - because all of them look the same. Not because next generations are cloned but because the cloning process left the DNA stuck at its form - it keeps all the next generations the same but it also stops the DNA from recovering the broken pieces and mutations keep showing. Which makes the later generation less and less intelligent - to the point where after a few generation, the family makes sure there are no more children being born.

But this is not the story - it is just the backdrop. The story starts in one January day when one of the Norths is found dead. The detective, Sidney Hurst, that is sent to investigate is just returning from a suspension - and he still gets the case. And despite his expectations, he is left to lead the case. Being a North, it should be easy to identify who he is. Except that there are no missing Norths - in any of the lines. And the cause of death is unusual. So unusual that it had happened only once before - when Bartram North (one of the original clones) and pretty much everyone staying in his house was killed. Except that it should not be possible - the killer, Angela Tramelo, is in prison. And for the last 20 years, she kept insisting she is innocent.

And the chase is on - while the investigation is going on, Hamilton shows us the world - with the planet of St Libra that does not have any native sentient life and all the bio-oil that allowed the world economy to evolve and the other human colonies; with the society that had evolved and changed but had remained human. The novel that starts as a mystery turns into a thriller when everyone ends up on St Libra, chasing the elusive killer. And everything you think you know changes again and again. Until the end where things finally make sense and you reevaluate everything that happened through the prism of what really happened. Just as in real life, noone is all good or all bad - regardless if how it may be looking at some times. Maybe a bit too balanced in places.

It is a wonderful novel - with characters that show the maturity that 20 years bring - but also the vulnerabilities that are part of humanity. But it is a Hamilton novel - for most of it the threads of the story look different and unrelated - they start connection and becoming a whole late in the novel. If you do not have the patience for it, Hamilton is just not your author. And it is also an unusual novel - it is closer to the Mandel's novel than to the later space opera series. But it is a more mature novel, with more world details and more grown up and defined characters.

I would love to read another novel in this world - too bad that we probably will not see one. Highly recommended if you like long novels, mysteries and science fiction (and maybe a bit of horror).

36. The Robespierre Serial by Nicholas Luard

Type: Novel
Length: 2595 kindle positions/215 pages according to Amazon
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1975
Genre: Spy
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Kindle/ARC
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Finished: 1 March 2016
Rating:

When you hear about a spy novel written in 1975, you would expect to read about a lot of Russians (or someone else from the Eastern Bloc). This one is different.

A major Arab prince, Samir, is in a position to provide information to Great Britain and change the situation in the Middle East. A long operation is started and the prince is just about to be taken into British hands when things suddenly change and he ends up with the Americans. And they are not interested in sharing their information. So the British Intelligence decides to send a killer after Samir with the orders not to kill him - relying on the fact that this will make the Americans more cooperative - after they realize that they cannot protect him alone. And all might have worked - if they had not sent Carswell, an operative with somewhat checkered past, to monitor the "killer" LeKahn and forgetting to tell him that the plan is to not kill the prince. Add to this an order that amounts to "cut all connections and finish the mission in case something goes wrong" and things go from bad to worse very fast.

The "killer" is killed by the Americans (who believe that he was really trying to kill their esteemed guest, payed by someone in the Middle East), the British get their access to the prince and all seems to be going perfectly well - until they realize that they have an experienced operative that is doing all he can to kill Samir.

And while Carswell is hunting Samir, everyone is hunting Carswell (and his unexpected companion). And despite the fact that this is the main story, somewhere behind the story is another one, the one of the change inside of a man when he meets a woman that goes under his skin.

At the end there won't be a happy end - it is not that kind of a novel. But the way it finishes is unexpected - noone is safe from bad luck and the pure stupidity that led to the whole story.

It was a better story than I expected - the descriptions and the action are well written and readable. The dialogs on the other hand are as cheesy and forced as humanly possible - even for a spy novel. The novel as a whole remains readable although it tends to drag a bit in places - even well written descriptions get tedious when they sound a bit pointless and not really necessary.

I will probably pick up another novel by Luard - I enjoyed it enough for that. And I am surprised that it is almost (or completely) forgotten - it is a good spy novel after all and the genre is rarely known for consistently good writing in that era...

Death on the Riviera sounds good - a British detective story from the 1950's set on the French Riviera; irresistible.

I am also interested in the Peter f Hamilton science fiction novel

enjoying your reviews

>12 baswood: And written in the 50s to boot - which pretty much makes sure that noone is injecting 21st century values in the characters. :)

Thanks bas :)

37. In the Dark by Mark Billingham

Type: Novel
Length: 433 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2008
Genre: Crime
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Harper Collins
Finished: 2 March 2016
Rating:

"In the Dark" is the first novel published by Billingham that is not part of the Thorne series. But that does not mean that it is not a Thorne novel.

At the time when it was written, it probably was not planned to be - Thorne shows up for a minute, mostly to put the story in the same timeline and space. But then Helen Weeks showed up in Thorne's life and things are a bit different. Because this is the story of Helen, her baby and her dead boyfriend - we had heard some things about Paul's death (so some of the surprises in this book are a bit spoiled if you had read the Thorne series) but not all the details. And it does not stop the novel from presenting a few surprises.

The story does not get told linearly - we see the main event at the start before Billingham returns back to tell us how things got there and then when that start moment comes, it picks up the story and continues. In a way, it makes you pay attention to details, wondering which ones will be important although it is not really needed - the linear structure would have worked.

And the story looks pretty straight forward - a boy from the projects, Theo, who managed to escape the bad influence by moving out comes back. And once he is back in the old gang, things escalate very fast - until he kills a policeman: Paul Hopwood. Technically it is an accident - he shoots at a car, the car veers into a bus stop and Paul is hit and killed. But the police is after the shooters - after all a policeman had died.

Paul and his girlfriend Helen Weeks, who also works in the police, are about to have a child when he dies. A phone call and a remark from a friend makes Helen wonder if Paul was what she believed him to be. And while she is following his actions in the last two weeks of his life, she finds connections that cannot be explained. In the meantime the gang that got him killed start having serious problems - and the dead bodies start piling up. And then the truth start emerging - slowly and unexpectedly and every time you think you know what had happened, something new happens and the story leads you elsewhere.

It is a good novel - not as strong as most of the Thorne series but still strong. The lack of Thorne is not really what is missing - it is the rest of his team that makes the series novels shine and that special relationship is missing. But the story itself is strong enough and if you like the Thorne series, I would recommend this novel (and maybe read it before Good as Dead/The Demands.

Warning: It is a dark novel and bad things happen to people. So if you are too squeamish, Billingham is not for you.

3. First SEALs: The Untold Story of the Forging of America's Most Elite Unit by Patrick K. O'Donnell

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 250 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: history (popular history)
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Finished: 2 January 2016
Rating:

It is one of those books that rely on a catchy title to draw people in... and then fails to deliver on it. It is the history of the units that would one day evolve into Seals - but calling them Seals is almost like calling the Wright brothers astronauts - the latter would not have existed without the first but the name is still not exactly correct.

If you ignore the name or do not take it too literally, it is actually a pretty readable story about the maritime units during the Second World War and the science and history that made them possible. But more than that, it is the story of a few men - the pioneers that risked their lives to help. And as with almost everyone in this war, none of them is a conventional hero or someone you would expect to be able to step up. And yet they do - against all odds, against the elements, sometimes against pure stupidity on all sides.

And time after time the chance seems to be on their side - near misses and extraordinary coincidences line up to make up the story of these men; and when you almost see things finally getting a bit more ordered and someone makes a mistake that looks so stupid and illogical that you wonder how people actually survived after that. Thankfully the other side was making at least as many mistakes as the good guys (even when the Italians had better equipment and understanding of the art of maritime and underwater combat).

Patrick K. O'Donnell had talked with a lot of those men that survived the war and had been a friend with some of them. A lot of the stories he tells are probably heard here for the first time. Because this book is not one cohesive story - it is more a string of happenings and glimpses. And as it is the story of the people, it covers their stories through prisons and camps, trips around the world and decision that change the world. It remains too shallow in places- I wish there was more depth to a lot of those stories - but it is an entertaining read for the most part.

If you expect a history book this is not for you - it is more a journalistic account than a historical research. Which does not mean that O'Donnell does not know what he is talking about - but he keeps it light. I wish he had gone deeper but even as it is, it ended up being a pretty readable book.

4. Devoted in Death by J. D. Robb

Type: Novel
Length: 374 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: SF/Mystery/Romance
Part of Series: In Death (41); In Death Story (51)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Berkley
Finished: 20 January 2016
Rating:

The 41st novel (and 51st story overall) in a long series rarely surprises when you had read the whole series so far. And this one does not - it is a solid story, missing a lot of the diverse cast of the series and telling yet another dark story in the future.

Ella-Loo and Darryl are two damaged teenagers that manage to find each other; Ella-Loo even waits for him after he ends up in jail for awhile. And when they are back together, they decide to go to New York. Except a man dies and our lovebirds get a taste for murder. Noone connects the victims to each other - different states, different ways of killing, a lot of them even get classified as accidents. Until they kill someone in New York and Eve start looking.

You know that they will get caught - the only real question is how many will die before that. Add a victim that may be still alive when Eve learns about her and everyone from her team is racing against the clock.

It is not the strongest story in the series and a lot of the team dynamics is a bit subdued. It may be because of the case, it may be just because in real life, such lulls do happen - after all unlike most of the mystery series that cover a year or so per book, the In Death books are spaced a lot closer in the future of Eve Dallas. If you had never read a book in the series, starting here may not work - the backstory is there but mostly as sketches where needed - the full tapestry of the world just cannot be repeated every time. Which is why I like reading series after all - they allow for a lot more details.

38. Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 350 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Crime/ Psychological Thriller
Part of Series: Alex Delaware Novel (31)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Finished: 3 March 2016
Rating:

The Alex Delaware novels have their formula - Milo catches a bad case and calls Alex to consult. This one is a bit different - as a start there is no murder case at the beginning. And when our guys start investigating, it is Alex that calls Milo.

5 years ago Alex was called to consult the son of Zelda Chase, a TV actress, that had been a bit unhinged but functional. Everything goes fine, the boy, Ovid, is returned to the mother and the good doctor does not think about the family again. Until he gets a call from an outpatient clinic where the mother had been admitted and there is no sign of the boy anywhere. Alex starts investigating but the boy cannot be found anywhere - even when Milo start helping. Until Zelda is found dead and Alex is not ready to accept that it is an accident. Milo agrees with him and the two of them are off solving yet another murder (and still looking for Ovid).

And then people connected to the same neighborhood where Zelda was found start disappearing. And the story start unraveling. Family secrets, Hollywood old stories and human greed converge into Zelda's death and the investigation start pulling the threads of old abuse and murders. It is a dark tale with not so many glimpses of hope. At the end of the story, all the buried truths emerge, the bad guys are punished but it is too late for so many people.

It is a pretty solid entry into the series - I wish we had seen some more from Rick who is just mentioned (but then we rarely do) but Robin is presented. The series seems to be pretty settled at his point - the stories are dark as always, the partnership of Milo and Alex is stabilized to the point where it is almost routine. This time Kellerman includes a pretty scathing portrait of an outpatient facilities - both private and federally funded (and it is the latter ones that are really bad apparently). Considering that he is a real psychologist, I tend to believe that part of his stories are really showing the reality.

I checked on the Librarything page and was amazed to find that there are 31 novels in this Alex Delaware series. I have read a couple, but they can be a bit too gruesome for me, but good stories

I used to read the Alex Delaware series in the 90s, but after a while they all merged into each other. Then I read a lot of his wife's, Faye Kellerman's, mysteries, but after awhile they all merged into each other too.

>18 baswood:

I've read most of the latest ones, not so many from the earlier ones. So I am going through the early ones these days. And yeah - they are gruesome for the most part

>19 rebeccanyc:

They tend to do that - all of the long running series do. Read them once a year and they work a bit better.

39. Flipped For Murder by Maddie Day

Type: Novel
Length: 317 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Cozy mystery
Part of Series: A Country Store Mystery (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Kensington
Finished: 4 March 2016
Rating:

Meet Robbie Jordan. Her mother left her small town of South Lick, Indiana before Robbie was born and moved to California. And after her mother's death, Robbie decided to move back to Indiana, open a country store and start a new life.

The book opens at the same time when the store opens - grand opening for breakfast (and then lunch) with no personnel to speak of and with the best food in town. And then someone dies and Robbie ends up being the main suspect.

The answer to the mystery ends up being tied to old secrets, a lost father, a new love and a lot of delicious food. Add the owner of another country store in a bigger town , a mayor that thinks that the world turns around her and a slightly crazy young man that had just lost his mother.

It is a cozy mystery - everything gets better at the end of course - the bad guys get caught, the good ones end up with what they want, there is even a love triangle. It is a good start of another series of recipes and calm mystery - there are a lot of them around and they are a nice palate cleaner between more gruesome books.

40. The Bookseller by Mark Pryor

Type: Novel
Length: 300 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Hugo Marston (1)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Finished: 5 March 2016
Rating:

After years in FBI, Hugo Marston had moved to diplomatic security and after a few different posts ends up as the head of the security in the embassy in Paris.

Marston likes books, especially rare and old books, so being in Paris, he ends up visiting the bouquinistes and becomes a good friend with one of them, Max. And one day he sees his friend being abducted. Lacking jurisdiction, he calls the police and expects that they will look for Max - but the rest of the witnesses claim that nothing bad happened. Add a mysterious journalist (Claudia), Hugo's best friend Tom (an ex-CIA agent) and an old family from the French nobility and the story gets complicated.

The bouquinistes of Paris are being paid to leave their stalls. And when they refuse, they seem to disappear - until bodies start showing up. The books they are selling are not enough to justify all this - there should be something else. And this is where things get complicated - Max was a Nazi and collaborators hunter and there is a possibility that one of the people he unmasked may have found him. At he same time a drug war is brewing in the streets of Paris - between the Pied Noirs and the Romanians (who had lost their leader but seem to be still around -- although it takes Hugo a long time to realize that (for the record, Romanian is a Romance language even if most westerners would think of Spanish or Italian when they hear the accents)).

The stories of rare books, corrupted police, the WWII and of the drug war of now are converging. The story ends up being more complicated than just a simple mix (and less complicated in some ways - the way too many things that happen hide the story for a while). It makes sense at the end, even if I wish Hugo had guessed some of this a lot earlier.

And as a background of the story, Pryor has painted Paris - a Paris that is magical and normal; old and new at the same time. By the end of the novel, there are more bullets in it than before it and some secrets had been uncovered (and some pieces of history had been remembered again) but the city is still there, just waiting to see what else will happen.

The pacing could have been better and Hugo should have seen things faster but despite that, it is an enjoyable story and I want to read more about Hugo.

5. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Type: Novel
Length: 205 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2001
Genre: Epistolary/Contemporary
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
Finished: 21 January 2016
Rating:

Somewhere off the coast of South Carolina, there is an island called Nollop. And the people of that island believe that the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog", found by Nevin Nollop, is the most important thing in the world (and they even named their island after him). A huge statue in the middle of the city has the sentence printed in big letters and one day "Z" falls over. The elders of the island believe that this is a sign that Z need to be forbidden.

The world of Nollop had not lost the art of writing letters and that novel is told in the letters of the different people that lived in and around the town. The main character is Ella Minnow Pea, a young girl that grew up on the island and most of the letters are either to her or from her or somehow related to her. Of course after Z, more of the letters start falling off and the elders keep forbidding them which makes the letters writing a bit... problematic.

I love linguistics and the first 2/3rd of the novel are a great exploration of language and power. Then when the number of letters dwindle, the rules change and people can write "phonetically" - which undoes a lot of the magic of the novel. Rules seem to change just because the author cannot tell the story anymore without changing them. The novel could have just stopped there - without evolving into the end story - it would have been even more powerful.

The end game of course is finding another sentence to replace the first one; proving that there is at least one more that contains all letters of the alphabet. Trying to work it out is not that easy when you cannot type a lot of the letters - and finding a way to pass a message without using them makes that an exercise in linguistics (and makes the last few chapters even worse).

It is a nice novel, marred by the need the author felt to make it longer, but still worth a read.

>23 AnnieMod: It's been a long time since I read Ella Minnow Pea, but your review allowed me to revisit it, and articulated well what I enjoyed about it. Interestingly, the book came to mind recently when I was reading a near future dystopia, Veracity by Laura Bynum. In that future, an increasing number of words became forbidden (and people had a chip in their neck that would zap them if they said any of them) and over time the language came to have, as one might imagine, a limited lexicon. The novel itself didn't illustrate the point as Ella Minnow Pea does, but it brought it to mind nonetheless.

>24 avaland:

It still sounds as an interesting novel though - even if it does not fully succeed - thanks for mentioning it. :)

6. The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 168 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Biography
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Finished: 22 January 2016
Rating:

Dashiell Hammett is a fascinating man. This short biography somehow manages to make him sound almost boring.

In theory it should have worked - Nathan Ward has a readable style, the story has enough interesting tidbits to make a fascinating read. And yet the book is repetitive and shallow - more a sketch than a full-fledged book.

The Pinkerton's years account is problematic because of the lack of sources - it is known that he was one of the detectives but none of the archives survived. Still the story is there. But for some reason the same point is repeated over and over - always seemingly for a different purpose but they do add up.

And then there is the problem of the depth of the story. It is supposed to be the biography of the man, the biography of the ex-detective that turned into the fiction writer. And that transition is almost missing - the chapters are going through the correct time and the actions but what it is missing is the details that could have made it a lot better work. Maybe they are not available; maybe they are just not that interesting. But even then, the book is too shallow and just skimming the surface.

At the end, there was nothing really new in this book (and I had never read a book about Hammett (I've read a few introductions so I knew the base facts)). It still is a well written book and the story is fascinating if you do not expect a deep personal study of the man that became Hammett. And still, I wish it had gone deeper.

41. Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen

Type: Novel
Length: 247 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Cozy Mystery; Historical Mystery
Part of Series: Molly Murphy Mysteries (15)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 6 March 2016
Rating:

December 1905, New York City. The city is full of begging children and pickpockets. Molly Murphy is out with her children (the 15 months old Liam and the 11 years old Bridie which had been sent to her home by her mother-in-law so that the girl can get some proper education) and she hears a strange voice - a 4 years old girl that is huddling at a door and shivering in her threadbare clothes. Something does not feel right to Molly and she decides to investigate.

And that is how the story starts. After all Molly Murphy (not Molly Sullivan) had been a detective and her husband is a police captain (who really do not like her being a detective). The young girl and her brother are not really the usual waifs that line the streets - they talk with proper English accents, they are polite and seem educated. And Molly decides to find out who they are and what are they doing on the streets. And she needs to balance that with the baby in the house, a mother in law that comes for a visit and really does not like her previous occupation and a husband that ends up in a bit of trouble.

It is wonderful story full of interesting characters (which probably are regulars in the series) and unlike a lot of series set in these time, the books feel right - noone is way too modern for the times, noone sounds too 21st century. The picture of both the high society and the streets of New York at the start of the century is fully realized. It is an awful story, one that probably happened way too often in those days. A story that contains way too many horrendous people. But it is also full of hope and the Christmas spirit, almost a bit too sweet in places. But then it is part of the charm. And the final, that would usually sound cliched in another setting, works perfectly here.

I've never read a book from the series before so I was not sure what to expect. Now I really want to read all of the books in the series.

More catching up on reviews:


17. The Case of the Sulky Girl by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 235 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1933
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (2)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Ankerwycke
Finished: 6 February 2016
Rating:

I had heard of the Perry Mason novels and stories. I had read a few of the later ones - but had never read the early ones. And I had never watched the series. For years, I had been planning to pick a few of them and see if they are still readable - and never got around to it. I knew the main premise and I knew the main characters - so I knew what to expect - but style sometimes makes a book hard to read. So when I saw that one in the library, I decided that it is time to try. Now the big problem is that I want to read all of them...

Perry Mason of this novel is an (almost) unknown lawyer that seems to be bending the rules to help his clients. And the client here is a young lady that will get her inheritance as long as she does not marry before she turns 25 (without the approval of the uncle anyway). But of course she does get married in secret, the uncle that has the power to stop her from getting the inheritance is murdered and things start getting complicated - especially when our heroine keep getting caught into lies.

Despite it being an early novel, the main characters are fully realized - Della Street and Paul Drake are complete characters, even if some backstory is showing up here and there. Some of the characters that will show up later - such as the DA Hamilton Burger is not yet around; Drake had not moved into the same building yet. Knowing where the series will go makes it even more pleasurable to read such an early story - when Mason is not known by everyone and can pull quite a lot of stints.

Of course, as any book written in the 30s, it shows its age in the attitudes towards minorities and women. But if you expect something else, you should not be reading classical mysteries.


34. The Case of the Velvet Claws by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 191 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1933
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow and Company; In "A Perry Mason Omnibus"; Cover above is chosen because I like it :)
Finished: 28 February 2016
Rating:

Usually first novels take some time to build the characters and the relationships; to introduce the dynamics. Gardner somehow manages to pull off his first Mason novel without needing it. The story just starts, backgrounds get revealed when needed and the story just happen.

Meet Eva. A married woman that ends up in a bad place at a bad time - with a married man (whom she is not married to) in a semi-public place when a crime happens. Her companion is a politician and finding him there, especially with Eva would have been a disaster (it is the 30s after all - reading from the 21st century, it shows just how much society had moved on). So his (and her name) are suppressed but as at least one person knows, it will never stay a secret. Add a yellow newspaper and things start getting ugly. Especially when the husband of Eva shows up and then dies - and one of his companies ends up being one of the main problems - an ownership noone knew about.

Perry Mason tries to help our damsel in distress - and gets himself accused of the murder. Then things turn to the worse.

And just when you do not see how things may get resolved, a few surprises and a few explanations are provided and Mason wins the case. You know he will - I am not sure if there is any of those books that do not have him winning - but for a while there, I really could not see how exactly.

It is a nicely constructed novel - despite some of the oddities. And especially for a first novel, it is well worth a read, even 8 decades later.

Interesting to see that you are finding those early Perry mason novels more than readable.

It may have been the low expectations - I expected cheesy and badly written but I ended up really enjoying them.

>30 AnnieMod: It's nice to have a surprisingly good read, when expectations are low.

7. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson

Type: Novel
Length: 273 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Contemporary/Classical retelling
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Hogarth
Finished: 22 January 2016
Rating:

Take a Shakespeare play - The Winter's Tale in the case. Take a popular contemporary author - Jeanette Winterson in this case. Change the time of the play to nowadays and you have the premise of the Hogarth Shakespeare series.

All this sounds like a great formula that cannot fail if you are a fan of Shakespeare. But there is a point at which a retelling needs to bring something new to the story. And Winterson fails in doing that.

The novel is well done and if it was not a retelling, I probably would have liked it a lot. But it was so close to the original, missing every opportunity to put the story into the now and here, that at one point I was wondering why. The invented lands of Shakespeare remain invented lands - even if there is enough real places and countries that could have been used. Setting part of the story in USA and not using the locality sounded weird - you could replace England and USA with pretty much any other two countries - and you would not have noticed.

On the other hand, the happy ending of the story that works so well in the original grates here - Leo is so unlikable that it sounds almost as an insult. And most of the characters are over-exaggerated - instead of subtly building the characters, Winterson just makes them so recognizable and in the face that you wonder why. Yes, Shakespeare did something similar but in the story, it works - it falls with the invented lands and the period. In the novel, it grates. Winterson is well known as a big fan of the play - and in a way I think that it is part of why the subtlety in the play is lost - she wants to make sure that the readers understand the story and leaves nothing behind. And for someone that had not read the play often, that may be working better than for a Shakespeare fan.

I will probably check the other books from the series - I like Shakespeare and it is an interesting project. And I really want to see how Winterson writes outside of the frames of a rewriting, so I will give her a chance.

8. Numero Zero by Umberto Eco

Type: Novel
Length: 191 pages
Original Language: Italian
Translator: Richard Dixon
Original Publication: 2015 (Italian and English)
Genre: Contemporary/Historical
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Finished: 23 January 2016
Rating:

The latest novel by Eco (and his death a little while after I read it made it also his last) consists of two narratives - separated by decades but still managing to weave around each other.

In the present (which Eco sets at the early 1990s), a newspaper editor is contracted to create a new newspaper. But it is an unusual paper - instead of publishing real test issues, they are instructed to publish the yesterday's news, with yesterday's date - as if they were writing at the day the news happened but the knowledge and the understanding of the day after that. As can be expected, this allows them to print things that noone had never had a chance to - foreknowledge is important. Noone will ever really publish those issues and it is not very clear why they are done this way - the editor may have an idea, his team is really in the dark.

And when bad things start happening, an old story emerges - the story of Mussolini and the end of the war; a story that may or may not have been. I do not know enough about Italian history to know how much of that story is true and how much is invented by Eco (or other authors) but the story reads as one that could have been, maybe even one that had been.

The story in the 90s is an exploration of the power of news and responsibility of the press. Setting it at these time allows the research and the printing to be based on the old technologies; it also makes sure that there are no blogs and internet sites that publish when the news break - after all this is as close as we are getting to the news written from the future. If you look at this this way, one wonders if this is not what Eco was planning altogether - putting the story in the 90s makes a bit more sense. But it still does not fully succeed - it gets too long and almost boring at places. The Italy of the 90s is coming alive in the text and that helps - but it still is a bit too thin.

On the other hand, the past story is fascinating and for me, that story makes the whole book worth reading. I suspect that I will be revisiting this book in the future - it may not have as many layers as some of his earlier ones but I have a suspicion that I missed some of the ones that are in the book.

I would not recommend that as the first Eco book to read but if you enjoy his style, it is a decent addition to his works.

I'll get to Numero Zero someday. I used to feel like I was falling behind on my Eco, but now I'm glad to have been a slacker.

I read The Name of the Rose (of course) and Foucault's Pendulum and I have several other Ecos on my TBR but they haven't been calling me.

>34 RidgewayGirl:, >35 rebeccanyc:

I had not read a few of the earlier ones - this one just showed up in the library and I could not resist. Need to go back and read the rest one of those days...

Enjoyed your review of Numero Zero

9. The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake by Terry Shames

Type: Novel
Length: 252 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Samuel Craddock Mysteries (5)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Finished: 24 January 2016
Rating:

20 years ago the Blakes closed their older daughter Winona (Nonie) in a mental institution after she tried to kill her sister. Noone had heard from her since - actually everyone believes that she is still there. Until she comes back. And then gets killed shortly after this.

Jarrett Creek is a small town and a murder makes everyone curious (although considering that this is the fifth book in a series, one wonders how surprised everyone is. That is the first book I am reading by Shames and I suspect I missed some of the connections but the book is readable on its own). Finding the killer is important but for the town finding why Nonie came back and where she had been becomes even more important.

And Samuel Craddock, now acting Police Chief again, is the only person that seems to be trying to find the truths buried deep into the town. And the secrets are deadly - people had been killed, people had been almost killed and a family had somehow managed to hide in plain sight for 2 decades - noone seems to know anything and which is more interesting, noone seems to try to figure out the things - highly unusual in a small town.

Add to that the new deputy - not just sent from higher up but also being a woman and Mexican and with an attitude against both the small town and its chief of police - and things start getting more complicated than they should be. Craddock manages to forget her a few times, then sends her to investigate what she thinks as a nuisance (although by the end of the book, she realizes that in a small city, a flower bed is a big deal) but somehow manages to get her on the big case as well - and she proves to be useful.

By the end of the book, the secrets are revealed, the new cop starts understanding that the small town is not really a death sentence for her career, Craddock had learned to trust her (to some extent anyway) and the small town is calm and nice again. Until the next book in the series of course.

And I am off to find the first 4 books and read them. This was a surprisingly enjoyable read.

>37 baswood: - Thanks Barry :)

10. The Drowned Boy by Karin Fossum

Type: Novel
Length: 223 pages
Original Language: Norwegian
Translator: Kari Dickson
Original Publication: 2013 Norwegian/2015 English
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Part of Series: Inspector Sejer Mysteries (11)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Finished: 25 January 2016
Rating:

A 16th month old boy is found drowned. Everyone presumes it is an accident - nothing points to anything else. Except that Inspector Skarre has a gut feeling that something is wrong.

By all accounts the boy Tommy had been a healthy little boy, well cared for by his parents. His Down syndrome had slowed down some of his development but none of the parents seemed to mind that. And yet, the boy drowned. And Skarre really does not like it.

And when he shares his misgivings with Inspector Sejer, the older detective agrees and they both start pulling the threads of the case. And slowly, methodically, the story that everyone believes start to shatter - a lie is replaced by another, a half-truth start to emerge.

When the actual story emerges it is both awful and heart breaking. Old lies and misgivings prove to be the key to the case - and finding what really happened to Tommy.

The book is a later addition to a long running series and the two inspectors back story had become involved and complicated by now. As I had not read most of the previous ones, I had to guess about some of it. But the relevant pieces were mentioned and explained - unobtrusively but well enough to make the book readable on its own.

What I really dislike was the ending - the way in which Sejer finally found his proof and found the way to cut through the lies and reach the truth. Too coincidental, too staged. I almost wish that it was never added at the end - even a bad end is better than this one. And sometimes, even when you have the best detectives in the world and they know what happened, proving it may be impossible. But that probably does not fit into Fossum's plans for her series.

>36 AnnieMod: Foucault's Pendulum. Eco is just having so much fun. It's my favorite, despite having to look things up all the time.

11. Finches of Mars by Brian W. Aldiss

Type: Novel
Length: 187 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Finished: 27 January 2016
Rating:

Years ago, when I was still learning what science fiction is, a Bulgarian publisher decided to translate and make available the Helliconia Trilogy. I loved it. It made me appreciate what Aldiss can do when he puts his mind to it.

Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten how to do that. The story should have been a good one - humanity made it to Mars, made colonies and is surviving. And all would have been great if babies could be born - but all of them die - most before birth, some after birth. But they never survive - and without it, the world really do not belong to the humans.

There are passages that hint at what Aldiss can do and the story is heart-breaking. But far more often, it is disjointed and alogical, sounding more as an exercise or a rough draft. How exactly that could happen in such a novel is beyond me. The saving grace of the whole book are the ideas - they are there, underdeveloped but still visible. And the high expectations for the last SF novel of one of the best authors did not help - a lot of my frustration was because of this - I would have accepted some of it from a new author that is still learning the craft - or at least I would have accepted it a bit better.

I think I need to go and reread the Helliconia Trilogy - I really do not want to have "Finches of Mars" as my last memory of Aldiss.

12. The Undoing by Averil Dean

Type: Novel
Length: 272 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Contemporary?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Mira
Finished: 27 January 2016
Rating:

3 lifelong friends buy the hotel of their dreams and start renovating it. And then the past seems to try to catch up with them - and the bodies start dropping.

Most of the story is said in reverse order - starting with a death and going back to show how things happened. That way of writing works when the back story changes how you see things - a piece of backstory that changes the way you see things from a future scene. And that requires subtlety and careful handling of clues and hints. And Dean does not manage to pull it off - there is nothing really revelatory in the back story - and the few pieces that could have changed someone's reading do not come off as a surprise.

The only surprise comes at the end of the book, when the book moves to the future of the scene from the start of the novel. And that sounds almost as a cheat - it adds up at the end but the clues and hints were not there earlier - it looks as if the author was too worried to give it up too early. Add the over-long and explicit sex scenes which do not help the action and are there seemingly just to shock and it comes off as trying too hard. The author is considered an erotica author so I expected some of this - but the thin line between erotica and porn is making sure that the scenes actually add to the story. At the same time they were particularly well written either...

If the novel was told linearly, it actually could have worked. Trying to pull off the reverse order backfires. And to add to the mess, Dean is too scared to fully try to pull it off - and adds this end instead of leading with it. And the writing is not strong enough to help either.

I doubt that I will try another book by Averil Dean - not for a while anyway.

13. The Innocent by David Baldacci

Type: Novel
Length: 422 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: Will Robie (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished: 30 January 2016
Rating:

Meet Will Robie - his job is to kill people. But he is not a criminal - he is an assassin for the government of the United States. And he never asks questions - an order is to be followed. Until he is sent to kill a woman and he finds her with children and an apartment that does not match anything that he expects. He decides not to take the shot until he does some checks and someone takes it for him. And he becomes a fugitive from his own people.

And while he is trying to escape from them, he starts uncovering the truth. If you are reading the book you expect the high level corruption that will be uncovered. The assassin with the golden hard is an old story and there is not much to make it different from similar stories. And yes, Baldacci manages to find a way - partially by building both the character of Will Robie (who goes by Robie) as a real person, partially by adding a diverse supporting cast - Julie starts as a victim and proves to be anything but, the special agent assigned to the cases manages to see what Robie sees in the world and the Blue Man ends up being an unexpected ally (despite the name). And of course, it is Baldacci - he manages to add a plot after a plot without making it too complex; he puts inside of a single novel more stories than some other authors use to write a whole series.

It is not a perfect novel. It is not a literary novel. But when you need a thriller, there are worse books to find. And there aren't too many authors working today that has the storytelling talent of Baldacci. Time to read more of the books about Will Robie.

===
And this is me being all caught up with my reading in January. Except for the short stories. Which I may or may not review... need to catch up with Feb and March fully first.

January Statistics:

Books: 13
Novels: 11
Non-fiction:2

14. Badlands by C. J. Box

Type: Novel
Length: 278 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: Cassie Dewell (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur
Finished: 1 February 2016
Rating:

I really do not like it when publishers decide to hide the fact that a book is part of a series. I like it even less when they call a series "standalone novels" in the list of books by the same authors. That's exactly how I ended up reading this book. Not that it cannot be read on its own but there is too much backstory (which is explained but is spoiling the previous books). It is technically a second book in the Cassie Dewell books but the first of those was also a third in another series - so for all intents and purposes this is the 4th book in somewhat of a series. I thought for a moment to stop reading, track back and read the earlier ones but I was enjoying the book too much so decided to finish it instead. I just wish the publisher had not blatantly lied.

Cassie Dewell is just moving to Grimstad, Bakken County, North Dakota to take a position as a Chief Investigator. The town is in the middle of an oil fever - with all the problems and challenges that this entails. Add to this the fact that it is the middle of the winter and in North Dakota, this means really cold (as someone that hates snow and the cold, my bones got chilled a few times while reading the descriptions - Box is not shying from showing the brutality of the weather).

And while she is getting used to the new job, things get crazy - drugs somehow get lost and all the local (and not so local) gangs show up in force to try to figure out what happened.

What happened was Kyle - a 12 years old boy with a golden heart. he is a bit slow - due to his mother drinking too much before he was born and things had not improved much for him at home through the years. He ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the bag of drugs end up in his position. He is the invisible boy in the town - everyone sees him, noone notices him. Except Cassie - the new woman in town actually sees him for what he is - not a broken human but a child that needs attention and love. And in the middle of the drug war, one of her old cases, the one she fled Montana for rears its ugly head and the man that had been abducting and killing women for a long time shows up in the vicinity of Grimstad. Add to this the usual case of police corruption (there is no way a new investigator to show up without that becoming a focus for them) and the story should have been too crowded. But it did not.

Between Grimstad, the winter, Kyle and Cassie (and the sheriff), the story packs a lot of important topics - and not all of them are crime related. I hope that there will be more stories about them - and I am planning to read the earlier ones - even though I know where they are going and how they are finishing, I really enjoyed the style and the details.

15. When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 426 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1985
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Part of Series: An Alex Delaware Novel (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Scribner
Finished: 5 February 2016
Rating:

I've read the latest 5 or 6 Delaware novels. I am pretty sure I had read a few of the early ones as well - but in no real order and without the backstory.

That one is the first one in the series, written 30 years ago. But if you ignore the technology (and lack of it mainly), the book is not dated at all. It does not start with the first meeting of Alex and Milo - that had happened in the past. By the time this novel opens, they are already friends - the doctor and the cop, the unlikely partners that would solve so many cases through the years.

And this first novel is unusual in a way - it actually has two cases as its focus - the one that Milo goes to Alex for and the one that made them friends, that broke Alex and almost forced him into retirement. The new case is a double homicide - with a single witness - a non-reliable 7 years old girl that does not seem to be talking. Which leads to Milo calling on the only child psychologist that he knows - Alex Delaware.

It is a very dark novel, not as dark as some of the newer books but extremely dark anyway. Child abuse, an old conspiracy and blackmail are intertwined in a story that makes you hope that this cannot happen in the real world... and chills your bones knowing that it does.

It is a wonderful start to a series that I had grown to really like. I miss the side characters and the more mature friendship of the two men but then as a first book, you cannot expect that. The only reason I miss them is because I know what that brings to the stories. Onto book 2 in the series shortly.

16. The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 364 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Finished: 5 February 2016
Rating:

Once in a while, Jonathan Kellerman decides to write a book outside of his Alex Delaware series. This time though Alex is mentioned, allowing the story to exist in the same universe and making me wonder if we will hear about what happened in this book in later books of the series. Not that we need to - the book is a standalone, it starts a story and completes it.

It's the story of Grace Blades - an abandoned child (with living parents), the daughter of a murderer (which explains the title), the foster daughter of the only woman that ever cared about her (and who got killed), a successful psychologist that uses her own trauma to help people overcome their own. Or so it looks at the surface. Behind the mask of success is a broken woman - the past had left its traces and it makes her take insane risks.

And one day, she meets again a shadow from her past; someone she had met only once - when her foster mother died. Unfortunately Grace meets him first under interesting circumstances - which makes it impossible for her to become his doctor and build up his thrust. And that is what she needs in order to escape her own mind and to glue together the pieces of her own life. Until someone dies. And things spiral out of control.

The story switches between the past and the present, adding more and more pieces to the puzzle called Grace. She is a cold bitch and she is a warm and nice person; she loses herself in the old mystery. The new and the old mysteries converge and mix to form one while - and Grace stays with it until the bitter end.

I did not like the end of the novel - it suited the tone and the characters but in some ways it was the easy way out. It is not sugarcoated and it is as far away as possible from a happy ending in the classical sense but still... something keeps nagging at me and makes me wonder how much better it could have been.

Worth a read as long as you do not expect a Delaware novel or Kellerman's style.

18. The Hit by David Baldacci

Type: Novel
Length: 390 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2013
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: Will Robie (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished: 7 February 2016
Rating:

Remember Will Robie? CIA still does not truly trust him after him going a bit crazy the previous book and uncovering the big conspiracy and saving the world and the president in the aftermath. But he is still the best agent they have and when one of the other killers on their payroll gets crazy and start killing their own people, they send him after her.

Jessica Reel, the second best agent in the agency, is on the run - instead of killing who she was told to, she killed the people that were giving her the orders. It looks like she had become a traitor - the big question is who she is working for and how did this happen - she was/is really good after all. But it is a Baldacci novel - chances of this being the whole story are non-existent.

And of course it is not - Jessica almost kills Robie a few times, he does start genuinely hunting her but the more he learns the more he starts wondering if she really is a traitor. He knows he was not a traitor when he turned on the agency and even if Reel went after them in a different way, there are way too many similar points.

And the game is on - Reel and Robie against the world. And the same way we learned Robie's backstory in the first book, we get the glimpses into Reel's - both of them broken by their families and circumstances, both of them managed to build new lives.

It is another good entry in the series. Julie continues being Robie's only family. By the end of the book, a new team is built and Baldacci pulls yet another tale of an assassin with a golden heart that had not forgotten to be human.

19. Misspent Youth by Peter F. Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 403 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2002
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Commonwealth Universe (0)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Del Rey
Finished: 8 February 2016
Rating:

This is one of those novels that need to be read without any expectations. Knowing that this is the start of the Commonwealth novels, it is hard not to expect another masterpiece - or at least something that connects. The connection that exist is here of course but it is really closer to a prologue than to a full novel; there are glimpses of the technologies to come but it is too early, too undefined. In some cases you can see them only because you know how it all evolved, what comes next in the saga.

It is not a space opera novel as the rest of the saga; without the coming saga it is only marginally science fiction - yes, there are SF elements but at the heart of it is the story of a family. Tolstoy once said: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". And this novel is yer another proof of that old line - because the Bakers were not really interesting until they got unhappy. The irony of course is that what made them so miserable is what was supposed to make them happy.

Jeff Baker becomes the first man to be rejuvenated - and returns to his house to live his life again. The process is very involved and expensive and the only reason he is the first to get the treatment is because of decisions made by him in the past - releasing his crystals with no patents to the world allowing information to be saved in enormous amounts and allows the data society to begin.

But once Jeff is back, things go all wrong. Both Jeff and his son have issues connecting, love triangles start getting built (and Hamilton does not shy away from writing a lot of sex scenes) and old secrets start getting revealed. Just when you think you know what had happened, something shifts and we learn yet another old secret that changes everything.

The misspent youth of the title stands for all the youths that are lost here - the two that Jeff gets to have and the one of his son. They all make their decisions (even the old man that is supposed to know better) which they need to live with. Or not.

The end of the story is heartbreaking and puts all the choices in perspective, showing the lives led in vain.

It is not a great story and without the looming saga coming after it, it is dated - it is set so close to the current time that it get dates very fast. That usually do not bother me but... as much as I was trying to read with no expectations, they sneaked in. It is not a mandatory reading even if you love the Commonwealth novels - but if you have nothing else to do, there are worse way to spend a few days.

20. The Melody Lingers On by Mary Higgins Clark

Type: Novel
Length: 262 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Thriller?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Finished: 9 February 2016
Rating:

Mary Higgins Clark has a distinctive style - beautiful people with a lot of money and even more beautiful people that either deserve money or had lost them meet and fall in love. A murder or 3 are somewhere in the equation and at the end of the story, all ends well for most of the good people and mostly badly for the bad guys. It rarely suits my mood but now and again, I like reading one of her books - they are an easy palate cleaner between more serious and darker novels.

And usually Mary Higgins Clark manages to tell a story that may be stretching one's desire to overlook details but as a whole holds together. Which is why this one really made me mad.

Years ago Parker Bennett died. Or so people believe - there had always been a suspicion that he escaped with the 5 billion dollars that disappeared from his company. He left a son and a wife, both under suspicion of course. And Lane Harmon, a widow with a young child falls madly for the son. And one day the father returns.

And that is where the whole thing falls apart. He manages to build a new identity. He manages to find a new home on an island. What he does not take with him is the number of his bank account. And for 2 years, he had been hiding using a smaller bank account and finally decides to come and get the number of the big account. A man that manages to have a false ID that he even carried at all time(that someone sees but it takes a hypnosis to remember) somehow misses to keep the number of his account. He has a house, a life where people know him as his other identity long before he escapes and he somehow never gets the number of the account with him. Of course, if he had the number, the novel would have never been done. But... this whole thing is so far fetched and so impossible that I almost threw the book across the room. I finished it hoping that Clark somehow gets it to a normal story again - but no, this is what the whole story was hinging on.

Early contender of the worst book of the year for me. I am usually ready to accept even non logical plots - as long as there is a glimpse of logic or common sense or even a hint of a thought behind the plot. That novel misses either.

21. Justice by Faye Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 5986 kindle positions/ 565 pages according to Amazon
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1995
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Part of Series: Decker/Lazarus (8)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: William Morrow
Finished: 10 February 2016
Rating:

That is an unusual book for the series. Marge is on vacation (so Peter ends up working with another cop (unintentionally first); Rina is mostly missing, Cindy is away in college (and making her father anxious because of a rapist on campus), the boys do not even make an appearance and Hannah Rose shows up almost as a background.

But we get to meet Terry McLaughlin - almost half of the book is from her POV - a good student that does not get much love at home. And then she meets Chris - a fellow student, a bit older than her, with a music career that takes him away - which causes him to fall behind at school. Thus Terry finds herself tutoring him - and falling in love with him. The only way she knows how - completely and without reservations.

But unfortunately this is not a happy story. Chris has a dark past and even darker present - between the mafia, murders and past connections, he is as far away as possible from Terry. When a girl is found dead, he is the main suspect - and the dark secrets start unraveling. Decker gets pulled into the case and starts finding connections to older cases - until he is pulled off it and the case is closed with a decision that just does not sit well. It takes him a while to decide that it really cannot sit and he is off investigating again - against orders and expectations. He finds the truth but you get to wonder, is it enough? And what would really be justice in this case.

In a way it is the story of a lost innocence - both Chris's and Terry's; about consequences and choices. It is also a lot more explicit in its sex scenes than I ever remember Kellerman being. Going to jail for the one you love is an old trope but it is done here in a way that breaks your heart. Love does not seem to be enough and yet that is all that Terry and Chris have - even with the murder in the middle of the story.

The ending is almost perfect - anything else would not have really worked - the darkness of the story matches the darkness in everyone's heart. At the end of the day, it is a love story - the love story of two broken kids that never had any choice in anything that happened to them.

22. Hostage by Kristina Ohlsson

Type: Novel
Length: 383 pages
Original Language: Swedish
Translator: Marlaine Delargy
Original Publication: 2012 Swedish/2014 English
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Part of Series: Fredrika Bergman (4)
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Emily Bestler Books
Finished: 11 February 2016
Rating:

I do not like reading series out of order but that one looked interesting enough so decided to try it. I wish I had started from the beginning though - I really liked it and I am planning to read the rest of the series.

Due to things that happened in previous books, the old team had been disbanded and Fredrika Bergman had been reassigned away from the police (where she did not belong to start with). And then terrorists take control of a flight from Stockholm to New York. And just to make the things more complicated, the second pilot on the flight is her old boss's son - and the old boss is leading the whole investigation (or at least is not pushed back). Before you know it, the old team is back together - and the investigation is under way. And unlike most cases, it is time-critical - the plane will be taken down by the Americans if it does not follow directions.

Between two countries that are playing the usual diplomatic games and investigators on both sides of the ocean, there are a lot of egos to be bruised. And the clock is ticking. In the meantime, Muslim connections show up (and get everyone riled up) and more bombs treats are called in - those ones in Stockholm itself.

I loved the book. The ending was handled a lot better than I expected it to be - and the story of the team and their relationships was fascinating. Back to reading the first two and then to wait for the 5th to be translated.

23. The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

Type: Novel
Length: 303 pages
Original Language: Finnish
Translator: Lola Rogers
Original Publication: 2013 Finnish/2016 English
Genre: Science Fiction; Anti-utopia; Parallel reality
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
Finished: 12 February 2016
Rating:

In a parallel Finland, in the near future, the society is split into almost casts - women are bred to be feminine and submissive; men to be powerful and manly. Unfortunately Vanna is not born to be submissive but thanks to her little sister manages to hide it. (A little sidetrack here - I have a younger sister. I would have done anything to stay with her in similar circumstances - so that part really rang true). And even though she is classified as eloi (the feminine women), she grows up as an independent woman - she learns to read, to think, to feel.

Women have no rights - they are the property of their husbands after they are married; their only goal in life is to marry and bring correct children in the world.

At the same time, the government is forbidding substances and anything that may make people think. Or feel. Including hot peppers. And that is what a cult is started around - finding the hottest pepper that can be bred.

It is a frustrating novel - I loved the depiction of the society and the subtle (and not so subtle) changes that made the society so different from ours. It is scary and relevant and so well done. And at the same time, there is the story of the cult and the chase of the hot pepper. And that one simply did not work for me -- and the end of the novel ties that story line. I am not a huge fan of weird stories - I prefer the straight SF. And Sinisalo had always been on the fringes - weird is her thing. But I am still happy that I read the novel - her anti-utopian society is one of the best depicted ones I had read lately.

24. The Gunman ("The Prone Gunman" in older editions) by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Type: Novel
Length: 155 pages
Original Language: French
Translator: James Brook
Original Publication: 1981 French/2002 English (this translation)/ 2015 this edition
Genre: Noir; Crime
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Finished: 12 February 2016
Rating:

I've never heard of Jean-Patrick Manchette before I found this book. Noir is one of my genres so it is surprising that I somehow missed him - and after I read this book, I am not sure if I regret that this was my first book by him or not. Not because I did not like it - I loved it. But that means I have more of them to look forward to - this type of authors, I would have read all of his books in short time if I knew about him in my 20s.

But let's talk about the book. Meet Martin Terrier - a hitman, a very good one. Who is ready to call it quits. His handlers do not really like the idea and convince him to do one more job. But it soon becomes clear that part of the job is for Martin to die. And the chase is on.

It is a very dark novel - the darkness that comes from both actions and hearts that you cannot comprehend; that is so awful that you wonder how it can exist. And yet, somehow Manchette makes Martin likeable - for most of the novel I wanted him to win - despite what he had been doing for a living, despite the fact that his moral compass is really messed up.

The summary sounds almost like a boring and done way too often story. It is the execution, the characters, the setting that make it different. And better. And despite it being 35 years old by now, it does not sound dated - and that is not so easy in this genre - it can be happening here and now.

Highly recommended.

25. The World to Come by Dara Horn

Type: Novel
Length: 310 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2006
Genre: Contemporary; Historical; Crime?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Finished: 14 February 2016
Rating:

A story which starts in Russia and ends in USA, runs a century and involves Jewish history, a family history and the stealing of a painting. It should be a captivating read - all the elements are there - including the real story of Chagall and the world in the 20th century. And yet, the story ended up disappointing.

Actually not the story itself - the multiple time lines and the connected stories of the people and the times are captivating. But the writing is so overwritten, so over complicated that it feels more like an exercise in style than a real novel. It felt as if Horn wrote a sentence, then realized that she missed to add a few metaphors so she added them. Then she added some more. And when she was done with the metaphors, she kept adding more and more pieces - literary connections and elements.

It all starts when a painting is stolen by a man that is usually not a criminal while being shown in the Museum of Jewish Art. The police is sure that one of the curators is responsible and she decides to find the truth on her own. And the story of loss and death and hope emerges - from the Jewish boy camps in Russia through the camps of the WWII and the world's craziness after that through Chernobyl and the changes of the 90s. A story of a family connected with the story of a painting - a story that makes old painful memories emerge. And all through it are the legends of the Jewish (or so they look like), the question of authorship and possession and the always important question of who owns a story.

It's one of those cases where I wish the author had done less - the story was captivating when I did not have to wade through the language. I suspect that I also missed a lot of references and nods. But even if I had not, I would not have liked the novel much more. And this novel could have been so much satisfying.

>42 AnnieMod: Somehow I've managed to never have read a Brian Aldiss novel despite being a big sci-fi fan. I did try to read Super-Toys Last All Summer Long but couldn't get into it, but that was short stories. The Helliconia books sound like they might be worth a try.

>56 valkyrdeath:

I am almost afraid to read it again - some of my rereads had been disapointments with books I previously loved. But still...

Have fun reading it :)

26. The Great Forgetting by James Renner

Type: Novel
Length: 342 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
Finished: 15 February 2016
Rating:

I am still not sure what I am thinking of this novel. Renner gets every fringe theory he could think of, mixes them with a conspiracy that had changed the world so we can be saved from what really happened at a bad time in history (a decision taken by the world no less) and adds some of the unexplained mysteries of the world history. And then hits the mixer and leaves it to run on high for a while.

Jack Felter goes home because his father has dementia. He had fled years earlier when his best friend and Jack's girlfriend had married. Tony, the friend, had disappeared awhile ago and Sam, the ex-girlfriend, is trying to declare him dead so she can collect the insurance. And when a body is found in the nearby late, it seems like the mystery of the disappearance is solved. Except that something is off. And things start getting weirded from there.

Jack ends up chasing the mystery - especially when a young patient in a mental institution connects with him and tells him a story involving alternative realities, changed past and crazy explanations of the current world. It gets too complex and unyieldy very fast. Had it been at least twice shorter, I probably would have liked it a lot more - in the way one likes pulp novels. As it is, it is too long and feels as if the author kept adding more and more oddities just to be able to say that he did.

27. Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum

Type: Novel
Length: 295 pages
Original Language: Norwegian
Translator: Felicity David
Original Publication: 1996 Norwegian/2002 English
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Part of Series: Inspector Sejer Mysteries (2) /Inspector Sejer Mysteries in English (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt
Finished: 18 February 2016
Rating:

When a child disappears in a Norwegian village, everyone is worried. Detective Sejer and his new partner Jacob Skarre are called to investigate and then the girls shows up. But that is not the last bad thing that happens in the village - because the child had seen a dead woman near the lake - and the detectives, albeit not really believing it at the start, need to find out what happened to Annie - the girl that everyone seemed to love but is now dead.

This is one of the first Sejer mysteries (second in Norwegian, first translated into English) and the partnership of the detectives is just starting. It is somewhat awkward but allows for a lot of backstory. I think I will stick to the Norwegian order for the rest of the series - the characters do change a lot while the mysteries progress.

As for the mystery - it is another slow and moody mystery where detectives slowly find clues and stories; the past that keeps its secrets ends up being important for the current case. An old death, a wrong turn in the road and the tragedy was going to happen sooner or later. Although Fossum takes her time to get her detectives to find the bread crumbs that lead them to the solution.

Another good entry in the series.

28. But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 100 pages
Original Language: French
Translator: Sandra Smith
Original Publication: 2015 French/2016 English
Genre: Memoir
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Finished: 19 February 2016
Rating:

Most of the Holocaust survivors wrote their memoirs in the first few decades after the end of WWII. Some new ones had been trickling in since then - some found now, more rarely written now.

Marceline Loridan-Ivens waited 7 decades after she was liberated from Birkenau. She survived the ordeal but her father never came back - and now, close to her end, she decided it is about time to write him a letter. A letter to a man that was with her for a very short time; a man whose fate noone knows.

And the letter is heart breaking. Writing with all the knowledge that she acquired in the decades since WWII, Loridan-Ivens's story does not sound as bright-eyed and optimistic as the older accounts - she had seen the changes failing, the racism and antisemitism raring their ugly heads over and over again. But deep in her heart, she is still the young girl that went to hell and came back - and lost her father. Her recalling the scenes of their last meetings stay with you (and mentioning that these scenes had been told before in other people's stories - for these meetings had given hope to a lot of people); her raw loss and love even that many years later is self-evident.

It is part memoir of a woman, part recollection of times that should have never happened. But it also has her story - because even after the camps, after she came back, being free was not easy; dealing with her mother (who was never sent to a camp) while missing her father opened the wounds over and over.

Even if you are tired of WWII memoirs, you need to find the time and read this letter. An old woman, a young girl, none of them, both of them. It is haunting. And so very well done.

29. Blood Test by Jonathan Kellerman

Type: Novel
Length: 355 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1986
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Part of Series: An Alex Delaware Novel (2)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Scribner
Finished: 20 February 2016
Rating:

The second book in the Alex Delaware series could have been written now - despite the lack of the modern technology and connections - the topic is even more relevant than it was in 80s (or as relevant anyway).

Apparently, some of the earlier novels also have the Milo/Alex partnership reversed - Alex is the one that finds the case here. A boy has cancer - fully curable if he stays in the hospital and is treated. But the parents are reluctant - and Alex is called to try to help and convince them. And when the parents take the boy away and a big amount of blood is found in the parents' hotel room, Milo is pulled into the chase - the boy can be saved but only if he is found on time and the tumors stop developing. The older sister is also missing - which leads Milo and Alex to a madam and a service that had given her a job - snagging the girl from the small town into the claws of the big city. That adds some more possibilities to what happened to the family. As do the cult members that have visited the family before they took off.

Alex and Milo start following the boy and the parents (and the older sister) and finding their backstory. And the backstory is terrifying - what happens when a man loses everything he has due to the weather and turns to his dark side. The last part of the story got a bit too surreal for my taste- it never left the land of the possible but still.

It is a terrifying novel. Very well done, very insightful but still leaving you with your skin crawling - the way that horror never can - because that may actually happen.

30. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 330 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Autobiography
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Finished: 21 February 2016
Rating:

When one of the big authors of thrillers writes his autobiography, there are two ways for it to go - either he has real stories that are at least as interesting as his novels or his life is so normal that he needs to talk about his work in order to have something to say.

Forsyth had lived an interesting life - as a journalist he had been in Africa when the colonial system was dissolving; as a writer he ended up in tight spaces while doing research (part of them because of his connections from the earlier years); as a spy he saw parts of the world that people did not use to back in the days. He grew up privileged, he got more than people usually do without being so rich that it did not matter. And he had the most unusual luck. How much he overplayed his luck in the book will always remain a mystery - even at the worst times, he seemed to always end up the winner. He will leave a job for a dream and somehow get the dream happening; he will go to Africa and make connections and then remain the only journalist on the ground. He will decide to write a novel and despite not knowing how to sell it or anything about the business, it gets published (but then if it was nor Forsyth, that would not have happened). His whole life is another proof of the good old maxim that you can win only when you risk.

Had he overplayed some of the danger, some of his importance? Probably. Everyone writing their autobiography does. But he makes it sounds believable. And some of those are historical records - the fine details may not be that clear. He infuses his story with humor - enough to show that he is so self-important not to see how some of those stories sound, with names and places that get one's imagination flying. In a way, after he becomes an author, his story becomes less interesting and he knows it - so he does talk about the first novels but he still keeps his focus on the non-literary - he is writing about his life, not about his craft.

Forsyth choose to structure his story in small chapters - telling small stories - mostly consecutive but without the need to make it a full story. And it works for the life he describes.

31. The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters

Type: Novel
Length: 227 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Mystery; Noir
Part of Series: N/A (for now)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur
Finished: 22 February 2016
Rating:

When the novel opens, it is the 20s in New York and William Fletcher is one of the best boxers fighting in the ring. But he is black - and that limits his options. He does small jobs for the criminals of the city, mainly working for Bill Storm, a thug that think nothing of abducting a child. After that accident, Storm is on the run and we cut to New Orleans in the late thirties, before the WWII start. In a city that is usually more accepting than others, Fletcher is a private investigator - and the police mostly accepts him (when they do not need to show him his wrong ways of course). And out of the blue, Bill Storm shows up - looking for his daughter - a singer called Zella.

Then Bill Storm is killed. And a war between two crime syndicates start heating up. With our hero in the middle.

The novel has its issues - it has inconsistent moments where Bywaters seems to be forgetting when his story is set and gives some characters almost 21st century sensibilities. Not that people thinking differently did not exist back them but if it was the case, it will be a bit more consistent.

It is a noir novel, a hard-boiled thriller designed based on the novels of the 30s; setting it in the 30s allows for a lot of genre tropes to be acceptable and welcome here. And it actually works. And I am happy that the author was brave enough to leave the novel as short as he did - it is similar to the novels of the era and it suits the text - nowadays everyone seems to be thinking that more is better.

I hope that Bywaters will write another novel about Fletcher - for a debut novel, this one was unexpectedly good. Which may explain how it won the Minotaur Books/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Private Eye Novel Competition of course.

32. Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 818 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2001
Genre: Science fiction; Space Opera
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Orbit
Finished: 27 February 2016
Rating:

"Fallen Dragon" had been called a synthesis of the ideas of the Night Dawn trilogy. In a way it can be looked at this way - but only on the surface. And then you can call that every novel that Hamilton wrote. But each of the novels and worlds is different from the previous ones - and this one is not an exception.

Lawrence Newton is born in the ruling elite of his planet (or better to say to the rulling board - as the planet is owned by a corporation, as is any other planet in the sky) and seemingly has everything - including a woman that he loves and believes to love him. But he dreams of the stars - interstellar ships and new worlds - and this is not what seems to be available in his world. So he leaves the world that grew up on, a world that is turning into a paradise slowly for the big corporations on Earth that still send people to the stars. Of course, it comes after he is betrayed by the people he loves the most.

20 years later he is a mercenary - because the trip to the stars is to collect the bounty from the worlds that the corporation owns. People on these worlds are not very happy about it of course - thus the need for the mercenaries. And now, when he lands on Thallspring, he has another plan - because he had been here before and something made him think that there is something really valuable hidden in the jungle.

But the invasion comes down to the matched mental powers of Simon Roderick (who is a lot more than he looks and is leading the fleet) and Denise Ebourn - a school teacher on the planet that is a lot more than that. What is expected to be an easy job starts getting complicated and turns into a nightmare. And in the jungle, something is waiting for all of them.

Hamilton builds his universe slowly, with a lot of details that make it alive and believable. The aliens, when they show up, are so different from humanity - and when the main characters expect them to believe as people, they get a nasty surprise.

If I had one problem with the book, it was Lawrence's change of reasoning - it comes way too... abrupt. Even the powers of the aliens do not explain that. But despite it, it is a great novel - worth the read. Too bad that Hamilton decided that he wants to write a short novel and stopped after about 800 pages.

And this is February all caught up

January Statistics:

Books: 13
Novels: 11
Non-fiction:2

February Statistics:

Books: 22
Novels: 20
Non-fiction:2

Now back to finish the March ones that I had not reviewed yet.

42. The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

Type: Novel
Length: 450 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Fantasy
Part of Series: The Broken Earth (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Orbit
Finished: 8 March 2016
Rating:

Essun, Damaya, and Syenite have something in common - all three are orogenes - the special people of the land that can control the seismic events of the Earth. But they are different - Damaya is a child, Syenite is a young woman and Essun - Essun in her middle years. And Jemisin tells her reader that they are Essun - running her story in the second face - you this, you that. Which is annoying at first but once you get used to be, it actually works.

The continent, called the Stillness is everything but still - the usual seasons occasionally get superseded by the fifth season - when the Earth gets crazy and sends the world into a nuclear winter - after earthquakes and volcanos decimate the world and almost lead to the end of the world. And yet, somehow, the humanity survives era after era - although civilizations die and leave artifacts. The stonelore remembers most of it - but a lot is also lost.

Meet Alabaster - the most powerful orogene to walk the world - and he is a bit deranged. Despite their powers (or maybe because of them), the orogenes are used and despised - they are tightly controlled and considered evil and in need of reeducation. The most powerful people being considered slaves is not a story that can ever finish well.

The novel starts with a big tremor that can be ending the world; it ends at the same place. It is the backstory of the world and the people - the 3 woment and Alabaster, the classes and the civilizations. The big twist when it comes is not really a surprise if you were paying attention - in a way I wish Jemisin had pulled it earlier so she does not need to hint that much in places -- subtlety did not work very will in some places. It is the journey of a woman who loses everything more than once. It is the story of a world that does not seem to be curious about the world outside of the continent. Which is unusual.

The hint for the moon is there early and its confirmation makes me wonder if this is actually a secondary world. A lot of planets have moons - but the whole hinting and lack of explanations in places make you wonder what else had everyone forgotten and why noone is interested.

It is a perfect novel for a start of a series but it does not stand alone - the story is interesting and complex and goes nowhere. It feels as if Jemisin forgot to tell a real story while building her world. Yes - there is the back story and there is the traveling and so on but... it feels more like a setup than a real story. Still highly recommended and I am waiting for the next one.

43. Too Soon Dead by Michael Kurland

Type: Novel
Length: 247 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1997
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Alexander Brass (1)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Titan Books
Finished: 11 March 2016
Rating:

There are novels that sound better as ideas than when they get written. This is one of them. I am not sure if this is because it did not suit Kurland's style or if it was just never be possible but as a result, the book is uneven and derivative. And thankfully short.

The story is told by Morgan DeWitt - the assistant and sidekick of Alexander Brass - a journalist in 1935 who writes a column about everything and nothing. Brass is a known name with connections everywhere so when some dirty pictures are offered to him, he is interested to understand how they happened to be and why. He sends someone after the gentleman that brought the pictures.... and that someone gets killed. Not good for business - so time to investigate. Add 2 women that could have climbed down from a pulp novel (and not in a good way) and things start getting complicated. The German group does not help either - especially when everyone in it sound like a cardboard type of a person and not as a person.

New York in 1935 is an interesting place. Kurland makes it irrelevant. The few parts where you could say it is the 30s are overwritten - for the rest of the novel it could be anywhere and anytime. Too bad I guess.

44. The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 195 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1955
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (46)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow and Company; In "A Perry Mason Omnibus"; Cover above is chosen because I like it :)
Finished: 12 March 2016
Rating:

Years ago an impossible bank robbery happened. As it happened, obviously it was not so impossible but the circumstances were so unusual that when the robber was found, sending him to jail as an easy thing.

Or so everyone believes. One day Perry Mason gets a call from the robber's daughter - who is stuck on a golf course after someone stole her mobile home while she was suntanning - with all her clothes inside. Perry is intrigued and starts investigating - and becomes a suspect in a murder. And the only way to prove his innocence is to find what really happened during that robbery.

Now, why he did not call the police earlier or asked her to call the police or... pretty much tell the police what is going in is like asking why the series exists. So I won't.

Add to the whole mess a diary (this the novel name) which contain information about the life of the girl and who had been giving her money, some of the money from the robbery resurfacing and the things really start to look bad for Mr. Mason. Who cannot pull his usual shenanigans anymore because everyone knows him. But Drake is there to help - and to investigate for him.

I am not sure that I liked how he got out of that one - it felt like a cheat - I am not sure that we had enough information to figure it out. It made sense but in the "oh, I forgot to tell you this and it is what solves it" kind of way. Still readable and quite enjoyable but with a flawed ending.

The more mature novels are different from the early ones - Mason is a lot more set in his ways, he deals with the same DA, the police is not as incompetent, Drake and Della are always there to help and rescue him. Something from the excitement in the early ones is lost but it is more polished, more clear novel. Or would have been if not for the ending.

45. The Case of the Demure Defendant by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 161 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1956
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (51)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow and Company; In "A Perry Mason Omnibus"; Cover above is chosen because it looked better than most
Finished: 13 March 2016
Rating:

If you admit to murder under the influence of a truth serum, can it be used against you? This is what Perry Mason need to find out if he wants to save his newest client. The biggest problem (or one of them) is that noone considers the death a murder until Nadine Farr admits to it.

The doctor is really worried about that, goes to Perry, Perry decides to investigate and things go the wrong way. The police get involved after a nurse talks when she should not and Hamilton Burger (Perry's favorite DA) is out for blood. Our lawyer is accused of evidence tempering and worse and it is not just Nadine that is in trouble anymore - for even if she does not get to jail, it looks like Perry will.

So it is time for urgent investigation (Della and Drake to the rescue in their respective roles) and the clock is clicking. Mason uses everything he knows to try to save himself but the DA is convinced that this is his chance to take him down and Perry's reputation becomes a hindrance - everyone seem to think that he actually had done something bad.

The end is as satisfying as it can be. It is a tightly plotted mystery, brilliantly executed. If most of the later ones are like that, I will have a lot of fun reading the series.

46. Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

Type: Novel
Length: 347 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015 (2016 in USA)
Genre: Crime; Detective
Part of Series: Inspector Rebus (20), Malcolm Fox (5)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Finished: 14 March 2016
Rating:

If anyone thought that Rebus will stay retired, they probably were not reading the series carefully. Well - in theory he is retired but he gets pulled into an investigation anyway - partially because of his connections with Cafferty and the rest of the leaders of the Edinburgh's underworld; partially because he just cannot stay away and noses his way in.

At the same time Siobhan and Malcolm Fox work in seemingly unrelated cases - a former judge, now a Lord of the realm is found dead and Siobhan is sent to investigate; after a few rotations, Fox is sent as a liaison to a group of Glasgow cops which are in town because the heads of the Glasgow crime syndicate are on a tour of the country and just arrived in Edinburgh. Rebus gets called in when someone takes a shot at Cafferty - and of course one wonders if that is the Glasgow boys or his local enemies. Or both groups together. Except that he also gets a note that makes no sense - but which will prove connections between crimes from the past and present. But before that can happen, a few deaths need to happen, a few people need to get really annoyed and the dysfunctional family of the police and underworld (because it seems to be one big family way too often) need to get shaken hard from all directions.

When "Exit Music" was published, I really thought that we are done with Rebus. I was not happy but it was a great end of a great series. Then he started popping up in what were supposed to be the Fox novels (after 2 without him...) and seems like the Rebus series is well under way. Not that I mind. Although that forced Fox out from his job of investigating bad cops and into proper CID -- which he always wanted but still... the series was refreshingly different when he was still at his old job.

However - this novel (and the previous 2) highlight the differences and the similarities between Fox and Rebus - yes, on the surface they have nothing in common but if you dig deep, some pieces click. And then there is Siobhan Clarke - another side of the character of the cop in Edinburgh. It makes the novels a lot more diverse than the earlier ones but it also limits them - as all of them need to be there and to have something meaningful to do - the days of the lone wolf Rebus are gone.

Another nice addition to the series. It can be read as a standalone but the background information helps - as always the basics are in the book but not all of the details - and they make the whole series one complete world. Recommended for readers of the series - and if you like crime novels and had never read the Rebus ones, maybe it is time to pick up some of the early ones :)

47. The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan

Type: Novel
Length: 220 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2008
Genre: Children; Adventure
Part of Series: The 39 Clues (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Finished: 17 March 2016
Rating:

There are two types of children series - the more common ones are where the author believes that the lack of knowledge and experience in the readers is the same as them being stupid and the less common ones (but the more visible to the world ones for obvious reasons) where the author acknowledges the fact that the readers will not have the knowledge and experience but that does not make them stupid - they need explanations but they also need a challenge. The first type are forgotten from the readers soon after being read once; the second type remain with them.

"The 39 Clues" had been talked about a lot - being a multimedia experience makes it interesting for the kids. I had been staying away from it - I like children stories but I am not a fan of the ones that require sites and games and whatsnot to appreciate them. Then an author I like (and one of the ones that I am working on reading all their works) wrote a book in the series - so I figured - why not, let's try it. If it is bad, I won't get to his book and will just have to live with not reading it.

And then I opened the first book and... actually liked it. No, it is not perfect and it is naive and weird in places but it is actually interesting. Some of the characters are cartoonish in their badness but even that is ok. Because there also awesome and deep characters such as the lawyer for example and there is a real story hiding under all of that.

The Cahills are a very special family - they had been in the front of history for centuries (think of an important person, he or she were probably a Cahill) and now the matriarch is dying. And she leaves a weird will - go on an adventure based on a clue or take a million dollars and never see the clue. Of course at the end of the adventure, there is something big waiting - which is a surprise. The main characters are orphans, Dan (who has a great head for math) and Amy (who is always reading), favorites of the dead Grace, being taken care of by another aunt that does not seem to like them much. The rest of the family members that choose to go on the adventure range from a Russian woman (assasin?) to a pair of siblings with means beyond what you can imagine, a weird family, some more kids and an older gentleman. And the clue is weird -- it is short and confusing but the race is on.

And off they are - to Paris (after finding money of course and almost dying in the process). It is fun to work out some of the clues before Dan and Amy can - the information is there so if you know your history, some of them are obvious. And people show their true colors - sometimes in the open, sometimes just for the reader. The book is full of odd pieces of history and geography - all of them correct (from what I know) even if some interpretations were a little bent to fit. But if you do not know some of those, I can see kids going and looking them up. And maybe they will learn something. Or not - but if they ever visit Paris, the book may bring some of the story back. Who knows. The best fiction is the one that makes you learn things.

Believable? Not really - you know it cannot happen. But so was the case with Treasure Island. Or Harry Potter. And even if that one is not as good as them, it is highly readable. Even if the writing is not so great - it will not win any literary awards any time soon but it is serviceable and is not making it impossible to enjoy the novel. And I am interested to see where the clue they found at the end will lead them. And as it turns out, just reading the books is enough - the rest are just... additional universe options. I expect that not all books in the series will be strong and that it will have its ups and downs but I suspect I will stick with it.

Lots of fun reading going on here. I haven't read any Perry Mason in years, and you've reminded me that I want to get back to Rebus.. I'm only up to book nine, so I have lots to go. :)

>72 NanaCC: Now I am jealous - as much as I loved the early Rebus, the more mature books in the second part of the series were always my favorite. I have half a mind to go and reread the series :)

Wow, you've added many reviews since I've been here last. I think the Baldacci books go right on my wishlist.

>74 OscarWilde87:

Had been catching up. Has some more of it to do but there is light at the end of the tunnel. :)

>50 AnnieMod: this one really made me mad
I loved Mary Higgins Clark's earliest books and it took far more rounds of feeling the above than it should have before I gave her up. Probably 30 years later now, I'm still sad. To do: find a good suspense/thriller writer.

>76 detailmuse:

Yeah. I like some of her early ones. I like some of the newish ones as well - but that one was... really bad. And I can see people gushing over it and I am wondering how someone may actually deal with a plot hole like that one. Oh well... One more author I am not touching anytime soon

48. A Killing at Cotton Hill by Terry Shames

Type: Novel
Length: 231 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2013
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Samuel Craddock Mysteries (1)
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Finished: 18 March 2016
Rating:

And here is how it begins. Earlier this year I read the latest book in the series and really liked it so I backtracked to the first one.

Meet Samuel Craddock - ex-sheriff, ex-oilman, ex-husband. These days he is taking care of his cows (one of which managed to really wreck his knee awhile back) and his art collection. His wife had taught him and he had amassed a pretty good collection - and acquired a taste for it. Being a widower in a small Texas town (Jarrett Creek) means that most of the unattached women close to his age are trying to convince him that he needs a second marriage. By the time the novel opens, he had managed to convince them that just being friends is better. It is important as the women are an important part of the series - as helpers, as emergency feeders, as just being there to pick up the pieces when things go wrong or just to talk.

And then one of his friends, Dora Lee, is killed. Her live-in grandson, an artist who seems to have real talent, is considered a person of interest immediately. And her family comes back in town - a daughter that she had not talked with for years, a brother in law that is more concerned about money than people and his son. Dora Lee called Craddock the night before she was murdered to tell him about someone that seems to be watching her - and he had brushed her off. Which makes him feel responsible. The fact that the local sheriff is more interested in drinking than in policing does not help much. Or that he is ready to go for the first possible theory and just call it a day.

So when the grandson is detained, Craddock arranges for a lawyer for him and decides to look into it. Secrets start emerging - some of the old, some of them new. For such a small town, there is a lot of secrets.

It is a calm mystery - between the small town and Craddock, it sound old-fashioned. In a good way. All the characters have a lot more depth to them than you would expect from a mystery that starts a series - and Craddock is a very interesting character.

49. The Target by David Baldacci

Type: Novel
Length: 418 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: Will Robie (3)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished: 20 March 2016
Rating:

And after spending the first two books of the series to introduce Robie and Reel (and the Blue Man and Julie), it was time to write a book where noone in their team is trying to kill the two of them (well, almost noone anyway - the director will never be happy with him). They get sent to a training camp where it seems like death may be in the menu - until things go really hairy with North Korea and they need to help their country.

Baldacci does not do subtle when he goes after a country that is an enemy to his characters. And if in the first two books we almost did not see the countries outside of what the agents were doing, we get a good look at North Korea - the camps, an assassin, the way of thinking. I am not sure how exaggerated some of the details are but even if half of it is true, it is a scary country. And when USA tries to stage a coup and they realize it, things go side wise fast. Especially when the president decides that he needs to keep a promise - and that entails sending our pair of assassins to North Korea on a rescue mission.

And in addition to all that, Baldacci manages to get Jessica a closing in her private history (and one very bad band of neo-Nazies is finally disbanded), a North Korean assasin (and her team) that crashes a family vacation. I stopped counting how many times our heroes were about to be killed and something somehow saved them.

Another good entry in the series and I cannot wait to read the next one.

50. Brotherhood in Death by J. D. Robb

Type: Novel
Length: 388 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: SF; Mystery; Romance
Part of Series: In Death (42)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Berkley
Finished: 21 March 2016
Rating:

After so many novels in the series (this is number 42 not counting the novellas), there is little that can surprise a reader. The series is more like an old friend - it is the people that you want to see more of and not really the mystery. Although I must admit that Robb is pretty good at finding new and inventive way for people to be awful so Eve can have something to work with.

In this case, the case hits close to home for Eve - it all starts when Dennis Mira calls because his cousin, the ex-senator Edward Mira, had been kidnapped (and whoever did that hit Dennis on the head). Despite the fact that Eve is a homicide cop, she decides to help - because Dennis is family. And the the body of Edward is found, it becomes her job properly. The details of the death are gruesome, even for this series they are gruesome. And when a second man is killed the same way, a pattern start to emerge.

Because of the previous books, I could see where this was going to lead - the books are becoming a bit predictable. But not the details - and they were stomach-turning. Because the bunch of friends, pillars of the community had been really evil for a long time.

On the personal front - Dennis learns about Eve's past; Dennis is shown to make hot chocolate that is better than anyone had ever had and we finally see Charlotte Mira worried and rattled.

It's a good story in a long running series - not very good as a standalone as most of the backstory is important to make the character fully fledged and complete.

51. Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald

Type: Novel
Length: 392 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Luna (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Tor Books
Finished: 22 March 2016
Rating:

Welcome to the colonized Moon. Once upon a time there were 4 big families that started their empires on the Moon and coexisted semi-peacefully for a while. Then a 5th emerge. When the novel starts the 5 dragons on the Moon live in semi-peace; heralded by the Eagle of the Moon - the man that is the president of the Lunar Development Corporation - the corporation that started it all and is still in command. Until an assassin goes after one of the Corta siblings (the fifth of the dragons) and the peace is shattered. The families start blaming each other and the things get a bit complicated. More attempts follow, people die, we even have a wedding and by the end of the novel, one of the families is almost destroyed. And of course the culprit comes as a surprise.

But it is not just the story of that final conflict - we get the amazing backstory of Cortas - from the sands of Brazil to the dust of the Moon; from having nothing to having everything. And the Moon is not just a copy of the Earth - all 5 families had built their own worlds using their different cultural heritages and built something that feels familiar but is so very different. It's a story of youth and love and hope; it is a story of death and broken dreams. One warning - there are quite explicit sex scenes - which are worked out into the story in a way that did not feel as if McDonald was just making sure they had it.

It is a fascinating world and one of the best built Moon worlds I had seen in a while. Between the story of the dynasties and the corporations, it is a scary world - in a place where you need money to breath, life means almost nothing. And because of that it means everything.

A great start of the story and I want to see where it will go in the next novel - and to see who actually survived at the end.

52. Gridlinked by Neal Asher

Type: Novel
Length: 426 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2001
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Polity: Ian Cormac (1), Polity Universe - Publishing Order (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Tor Books
Finished: 23 March 2016
Rating:

I had been planning to read the Polity novels for years and somehow never got around to it. So now it seemed like the time - and I wonder why I waited for so long.

Meet Ian Cormac - an agent of the Polity, the organization that rules the universe (or that contains most of the planets in the living worlds anyway). It is a human-based - there are no real aliens (well, that is not exactly true but for the most part) although humanity had both evolved and changed itself - mostly to ensure their survival but sometimes just because they could.

At the start of the novel, Cormac is deep undercover with a terrorist anti-Polity group - figuring out how they find weapons and connections. And he decides not to kill their leader which will end up causing issues down the road.

All agents are gridlinked - a way to directly connect into what amounts to interplanetary internet. And Ian had been like that for 30 years, longer than anyone should have been. So when he is sent to investigate an accident that killed everyone on a colony, he is pulled of the grid. And things get interesting. Because he meets an old friend - an alien he had seen before; one with weird reasons for his actions. On top of that, the terrorist Ian spared (and is now half-mad) had found his own half-mad robot and really want to kill our agent. Add to this an immortal man that had survived a nuclear explosion (on our Earth? On a parallel one?) and things get weird. Weirder really.

I actually enjoyed this novel a lot - characters may not be fully developed and it may never get its technology fully explained but as a first novel in a series and a debut of an author it is great. And it is entertaining and absolutely worth reading. On to the next Polity novel - based on the order they were written and published in and not the usually used chronological one.

53. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 1542pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Autobiography; Letter
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Finished: 24 March 2016
Rating:

I do not like reading over hyped books. They usually disappoint. The letter of Ta-Nehisi Coates to his 15 years old son is one of the book that everyone seems to be talking about. And it is an important book in a lot of ways and it contains a lot of passages that will probably be cited for years to come.

But. And there is a but. It also is a bit repetitive. It feels about twice longer as it should have been. Some of his insight into the life of a black boy and man were fascinating and almost scary. But his tendency to put everything through the racial lenses is handled a bit heavily - not liking school is not a prerogative of one race for example. In some ways it feels like he is equating living in a ghetto with being black - and yes, it is often the case but not always.

And I cannot stop comparing this letter with the one that Marceline Loridan-Ivens wrote to her father (which I read a few weeks ago). This one lacks the heart. Yes, they are different and comparing them is not a good idea but I just cannot stop doing it. Not because the have similar experiences; or because they write the letters for the same reason. In a way, the two are opposites. And even as opposites, that one feels too self-centered.

The book needs to be read. Despite my misgivings, it is an important book and there are things that should be self-evident but apparently are not. Too bad that the people that will learn the most of this book will never read it - or if they do. they will completely miss the point.

54. The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge Brussolo

Type: Novel
Length: 196 pages
Original Language: French
Translator: Edward Gauvin
Original Publication: 1992 French/ 2016 English
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Melville House
Finished: 25 January 2016
Rating:

Brussolo had never been translated into English before. I was surprised when I found out - long time ago I read his "Le Carnaval de fer" (The Iron Carnival) and fell in love with his imaginary. The Bulgarian publishers never published anything else; the English and American ones apparently never got around to Brussolo. Until now.

"The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome" has a weird start - in the dream world. Because it is the story of a dreamer, David, in a world where dreamers (for a lack of better word) go into their dreams and bring back ectoplasm - which is considered art. All other types of art had been forgotten and this new one has special properties - it calms and it is different for everyone.

And as fascinating as all this sounds, this is not the story here - it is the background. Or so it feels. The real story is the dream world of David - a place where he is a master thief and where art contains living people; a place that is controlled by his mind, a place that everyone claims not to exist but that seems to be more real to him than the real world is. And the imaginary world of every dreamer is different - David's is the depth of the ocean for example.

In a way, it is the story of every artist in the world. In a way it is the story of the relationship between society and artists; in a way it is just another of those weird stories that Brussolo is so good at. And his explanation of what those dreams are is interesting and logical and sad. And satisfying.

I wish it was longer and we had seen more from both worlds - some elements are just sketched and hiding in the shadows. But you cannot get everything.

55. Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

Type: Novel
Length: 342 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Part of Series: Mercy Thompson (9)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace
Finished: 26 March 2016
Rating:

When the book opens, everyone's favorite pack needs to save their territory from a troll, sent by the Fae. Which almost leads to the war everyone was trying to stop. Mercy and her merry band of wolves, I mean pack, start to run around trying to find a solution to the problem they kinda started (but then they would not have left the troll to kill people no matter what). Add Tad and Zee who show up again after escaping the reservation (and Zee is not very happy with his ex-captors), Baba Yaga makes an appearance (and saves the day more than once) and Adam and Mercy and the pack take in a stray boy (who almost leads to a war with the Fae as well).

Aiden, the fire touched, once was a normal boy. But then he got caught in Underhill and is now a human with the power of fire... amazing powers of fire, not so amazing control. He also escaped the reservation and the Fae really wants him back - not because they care about him but because he is the conduit to Underhill. And they won't stop at nothing to get him. Even when the pack gives him protection.

Throw in another powerful Fae that comes out from nowhere and a bit of the usual angst with Bran and we have a pretty solid Mercy Thomson novel. I was missing Sam and Ariana though (they were dispatched to Europe before the novel and were not back yet by the end).

56. One False Note by Gordon Korman

Type: Novel
Length: 174 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2008
Genre: Children; Adventure
Part of Series: The 39 Clues (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Finished: 27 March 2016
Rating:

In the second novel of the series, everyone is heading to Vienna after figuring out that the clue is about Mozart. Did you know that Mozart had a sister that was as good a musician as he was but did not have a chance to be educated? I did not - I even looked it up to make sure it was not an invention of Korman.

Amy and Dan get betrayed more times than I could count but they manage to make it through and find the next clue at the end (which after all is the whole point). But Vienna is not enough - Venice becomes a big part of the story, so do a few smaller places. And the rest of the players gets fleshed a bit better - not by much, they are still almost cartoonish in their decisions and actions (the Kabras for example order Dan and Amy to be thrown off a boat), there is another explosion and Saladin, the cat, goes on strike for a while.

I liked the writing in its book more than in the first - it sounded more mature and clearer. I did not expect it, considering that the book is written from a less known author, and his style makes me wonder if I should check what he had written outside of the series.

Let's see what will happen in the next book when we all go to Tokyo.

And this is me fully caught up on my 2016 reviews. :)

>87 AnnieMod: Congrats!

>88 ELiz_M:

Thanks. Now let's see how long I will manage to keep it up before I fall behind again :)

Managed to finish one more book before the end of the month :)


57. The Case of the Lucky Legs by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 309 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1934
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (3)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Ankerwycke
Finished: 31 March 2016
Rating:

At the end of "The Case of the Sulky Girl", Mason received a telegram with a girl's lucky legs and signed by Eva Lamont. So when a man shows up and start talking about the case, the lawyer is a bit confused. J. R. Bradbury had just arrived from Cleverdale after sending the telegram, under a different name because he sent it from his office - or so it claims. And the story he tells is sad - a girl from the town had won a contest for best legs which came with a movie contract and the local businessmen had been sold some of the rights of the movie. Except that the movie was never made because the young girl, Marjorie Clune, was not screening well - or so the studio claimed. Her dreams are shattered, the businessmen will never make any money or get theirs back and J. R. really wants to have the man responsible for all that to punished. But the DA refuses to bring charges. So J. R hires Perry Mason to find the missing clues that will allow the prosecution to take the case. And so the story starts.

Then the guy that organized the contest is found dead - and all clues seem to lead to Marjorie. And to Thelma - another girl that had won a contest in a small town - and never had her career. Although it takes a while until everyone sees the connections - and it will take another young lady (not a contest winner), a young doctor (who gets into the frame for the murder as well of course) and J. R. who starts getting weirder and weirder - and start telling Perry Mason what the lawyer must do and to threaten him. Of course Perry does not help himself much by getting involved both in a murder and in the hiding of fugitives but that is to be expected after all.

The person that really shines in this installment is Della Street - especially compared to the other women in the book (maybe except for Mamie but we do not see enough of her). She is competent and self-assured and is an even match for Mason. On the other hand Drake was somewhat of a disappointment - he seemed to be there to antagonize Mason most of the time.

It is an unusual novel in some ways - there is no trial, the DA and Perry are on the same side (trying to get the swindler) and the novel ends with Perry telling the police the full story and pointing the killer at the last moment. It is closer to a classic mystery than the usual legal thrillers that make up the series and it is handled nicely - the clues are there so when the dots start getting connecting, it does not sound unexpected.

==
January Statistics:

Books: 13
Novels: 11
Non-fiction:2

February Statistics:

Books: 22
Novels: 20
Non-fiction:2

March Statistics:

Books: 22
Novels: 21
Non-fiction:1

Q1 Statistics:
Books: 57
Novels: 52
Non-fiction:5

Note to self: I need to read some different things :)

Wow, you read a lot of books. :)

I've never read anything by J.D. Robb or David Baldacci, but their books are all over the place and I've been tempted.

>91 NanaCC:

I kinda surprised myself with the numbers - I suspect that they will start dropping again later in the year but depends on what I read - when I get around to read graphic novels again, the numbers will explode up...

If you decide to go for Robb, pick up the first in the series and start there. Baldacci is more standalone - although I would read in order inside of a series.

58. Invisible City by Julia Dahl

Type: Novel
Length: 295 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Rebekah Roberts (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 1 April 2016
Rating:

The world of mysteries have a lot of awards and in most years, the lists do not match - most of them have their own rules and inclinations and different books fit the different ones better. So when a debut novel seems to be on almost every best first novel list in a year, I take notice. And this time it is well deserved.

Meet Rebekah Roberts. She grew up in Florida with her father after her Hasidic mother, Aviva, left her when she was 6 months old and went back to New York. Rebekah never heard anything from her mother again, became a journalist and moved to New York. And never looked for her mother. Unfortunately, there are not too many opportunities for a young inexperienced journalist so she ends up as a stringer for the tabloid New York Tribune aka Trib. And one day, in the middle of a pretty cold winter, she get the call to go to where a body is found - a usual assignment for her but that one is different. Because this body is connected to the Hasidic Jews of New York, her mother's people. And she meets someone that knows Aviva - Saul Katz - an old friend of both her parents who is a policeman and is called to help becayse of his Orthodox connections and faith.

And it all starts - the police does not seem to be interested because they tend to stay away from the problems inside of the insular community, they even allow the dead woman to be buried without autopsy. And Rebekah and Saul decide not to stand for that and launch their own investigation. Except as expected, not everything is what it seems ad everyone is trying to further their own agenda.

The novel is set deep into the Orthodox Jewish community and the details of it are used as a background - very detailed but without overwhelming the story. And Rebekah is a fascinating character - complex, young in spirit (after all she is just 22) and a complete human being - with her acute anxiety, circle of friends, her sometimes overbearing boyfriend and her almost perfect father.

If I have an issue with the novel, it is the appearance of Saul just when he did - it was too coincidental. But without it, the novel won't be as complete so I am willing to accept it.

The solution proves to be tied to the community of course - both to the parts that accept their lives into it and the parts that rebel. Because we do not just see the community at its best - we also see the people that question their faith and their choices (and lack of choices).

And even if it is a mystery, it is also a novel about the Hasidim. And that makes it stronger - a lot stronger. It is well built and it is using the background to build more of the story - actions that would look alogical work here because of the norm of the society. Add to that the world of the stringers of the tabloids and the winter (because the cold and winter are almost characters here) and it is a wonderful story. Highly recommended.

59. Walking Distance: Pilgrimage, Parenthood, Grief, and Home Repairs by David Hlavsa

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 126 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Memoir
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
Finished: 2 April 2016
Rating:

These days the only memoirs that seem to be published are either those of famous people (for some value of famous) or people that found God (for some value of God) or people living in interesting places. David Hlavsa is none of those. He is just a college theater professor, married to a yoga teacher that just lived his life. And wants to tell his story - a story both lyrical and sad and full of hope. In the first pages we already know that there will be a dead child somewhere in the narrative and a lot of the earlier story being read through that lens is sad.

15 years ago, a late twenties couple (our writer David and his wife Lisa) start wondering if their marriage can be better and what else they can do about it. And when they read about Camino de Santiago, the old pilgrimage path in Spain, they decide to walk it - in order to find themselves and find something else in their lives. This is what drew me to be book - the story of the old pathway that people had walked on for centuries. And the chapters about it are full of trivia - both about the path and its history and about the couple's experience on it. It was the kind of story that combines the human story with the story of an interesting place.

Once they came home, the story got more... pedestrian. It's heart breaking and honest - a story of a lost child and a live child; a story of putting a home and a life together. It may be anyone's story; it is Everyman's story.

Hlavsa uses the play Everyman as a framing device of his whole story - both in the book and in life. In his life he stages the play twice, in somewhat different ways (he is a Theater professor after all); in the book he is drawing connections and comparisons to what was happening to him. Some of those connections are clear, some look as a stretch if you had not lived with the play for as long as he had.

I am not even sure why I picked up the book om the library - it is not exactly my style. I liked it a lot more than I expected - even though I also found it uneven. It may not be the case if you look at the book with different expectations - but I wish it was more about the path in Spain than for the later life.

I will definitely keep my eye out for a copy of Invisible City.

Annie, you've read a lot of books. Enjoyed catching up with all your reviews.

>95 RidgewayGirl: I have the second one coming from my library (in a few weeks from the looks of it). So we will see if she holds it up - reviews seem to say that it does.

>96 dchaikin: Nice to see you in my thread, Dan :)

60. Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Type: Novel
Length: 335 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Fantasy; Supernatural Western
Part of Series: The Shadow (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Orbit
Finished: 4 April 2016
Rating:

Nettie Lonesome had been abandoned by her family and a childless family had taken her in. They claim that it had been like a daughter but it is closer to being a slave and unpaid servant - after all Nettie is half black, half Indian (the Native American type) in a world that does not accept non-white people too well. Welcome to Durango - in the territories where in our world USA was getting formed, in the second part of the 19th century (1870s according to the author but it is not that easy to pinpoint).

And when she is 16 (or close enough), she escapes - and goes to work in the ranch next door. Because she is very good at gentling horses - pretending to be a boy of course. But before she manages to escape, she gets cornered in the barn by a man she had never seen and she manages to kill him, he turns into sand. Which is not normal even in this version of the Wild West. And all would have been fine if that did not end up worse news than just some strange things going pop in the night -- because once she had killed one of the creatures, she now can see them everywhere - hiding as people. Add to this an angry ghost that decides that it is Nettie's work to kill the big bad aka Cannibal Owl that had been kidnapping children from all over the place and Nettie is not a very happy girl. Or a boy.

The first 100 pages or so are an almost classical Wild West story - a ranch, horses, wranglers, a saloon (the vampires there are a bit unusual but...), stealing cattle. A western with some supernatural elements. But then a few people die and Nettie had to run, towards the Owl; away from what she had known. And the world start getting weirder and weirder - shapeshifters and Rangers, death and not-so-much death. And one girl (well... boy on her head) that seems to be finding love among all the danger.

The monsters and shapeshifters are presented as full human beings - bad or good, depending on their upbringing and lives - noone is bad by birth; everyone has a choice. The same way as everyone can decide what they want to be and who to love. Sometimes it feels as if the author is trying too hard to push that message - a little more subtlety will make the text stronger.

A fair warning though - quite a lot of bad things happen to both good and bad people. And a lot of them are described in detail. Added to the crass language that everyone tends to use now and then (most of the novel is Nettie's thoughts even if it never slips into the first and the narrative always remains in the third) may grate on more sensitive people. Sometimes it is just to make a point, sometimes it is part of the story.

By the end of the story a lot more people are dead - both friends and foes. And Bowen finishes in a cliffhanger - with Nettie believing that she had finally figured out who she is and leaping at it. I have the suspicion that she is at least partially right but need to wait for the next volume to find out.

Not a bad start for a series - and I will be interested to see where it goes next.

>62 AnnieMod: Still catching up with threads. Excellent review of Forsyth's The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue. I've always enjoyed Forsythe's books so this is definitely going on the wishlist.

>70 AnnieMod: Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin is another for the wishlist! Although, I have still to read some others in the series preceding that one.

>99 VivienneR: Thanks :)

For Rebus - definitely read them in order (including the two separate Fox novels) - this one is relying on the old ones a lot. :)

>100 AnnieMod: Thanks for that advice. That was my understanding too.

61. Rush of Blood by Mark Billingham

Type: Novel
Length: 387 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Crime; Thriller
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown
Finished: 6 April 2016
Rating:

Billingham tries again to write a not part of the Thorne series - and this time he is a bit more successful in making it an independent story (Thorne does show up for a second but it looks more like an attempt to put the story in the correct timeframe than anything else).

Three British couples end up in the same resort in Florida for their vacation. And being Brits, they stick together - around the pool and at meals. It is a nice and calm vacation until the last night when a girl disappears - a girl that all 6 had met. They all have sound alibis and fly home as planned. And that should have been the end of it. Except that Angie, one of the women, decides that the usual exchange of mails had not been just for form and invite everyone to dinner. And so it starts - 3 dinners in the three homes; and between the veneer over their lives start cracking.

By now Billingham had pulled one of his favorite tricks and had given some of the chapters to the responsible partner. The fact that it is one of the 6 is obvious but he manages to hide well not just who the person is but even the gender. Not that one cannot have suspicions of course - I was pretty sure about the gender because it felt like the narrative was pulling in the other direction. But it could have gone either way.

And while we are seeing the problems of our 6 characters and they get better and better described and more and more alive, the body of the US girl is found and another girl disappears. This time in UK -- and as both the girls had had learning difficulties so the connection is done fast. And the police start investigating again - a murder cop on Florida (Jeff Gardner) and a trainee Detective Constable in London - Jennifer Quinlan. Except at the start, before the UK girl disappears, everyone is convinced that there is nothing to be investigated in London. Except Jennie - who finds the cracks in alibis. Throw a few more red herrings, a dead girl (dead for a while) and an old arrest and the things get complicated.

By the time the novel start get closing, all seems to become clear. The murders are solved, the killer is found (and Thorne makes an appearance). And then the last chapters turns everything on its head. In a way it is unsatisfying ending. But it fits the story. Underestimating anyone caused issues for everyone and that is what leads to the final reveal.

It is a strange format for Billingham - not just because of the lack of the usual team but also because of the way the characters are built. They all start as normal, decent people and then things start getting revealed. It is similar to the way you learn about people when you meet them in real life. Because of the need of the story, there was too much foreshadowing - some of it annoying.

It's not his best novels but it is readable and once you get through the first 100 pages or so, the story grips you. And does not let you go until the last page. If you expect another Thorne novel (or a novel in the same style), you will be disappointed. But as a thriller, it is decent. And Billingham is a good storyteller.

====
And that is the last of the Billingham novels. Still need to work through his short fiction but for a novel, I will need to wait for another one to be written...

62. London Falling by Paul Cornell

Type: Novel
Length: 395 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Urban Fantasy; Dark Fantasy
Part of Series: James Quill (1), Shadow Police (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Tor
Finished: 10 April 2016
Rating:

Welcome to London where a gang had somehow consolidated the power and is ruling most of the town - without the usual battles and problems. And the police, despite managing to have two separate undercover policemen in the organization, has no idea how Rob Toshack is doing it - he seems to have enforcers that noone had seen or can track and everyone that opposes him seems to disappear. And DI James Quill is leading the operation that is trying to stop Toshack and his ways.

Cornell is writing an urban fantasy and knows it but his characters do not know that they are in one for the first 100 pages. So where a reader can see the supernatural, Quill and everyone else do not. So they try to make logical decisions and find logical explanations - in a world they do not understand. Until Toshack dies in front of Quill and something changes - and the 4 people that will make a new task force, start seeing the other London, the one under the regular one, the one that needs the Sight to be seen. And that world is terrifying. And the novel finally takes off.

Meet Mora Losley, a West Ham fan that has her power grounded in the city and that seems to be responsible for a lot of what is happening. If you know the history of West Ham's stadium and its original name, you will see her roots long before Cornell shows them or any of the 4 members of the team does. Not that it is important for the story itself - but it adds another layer of londonness to the story. But the more important thread is there - the football (soccer for Americans) connection. Urban legends start converging together and start turning to be true which would be scary enough even without the disappearing kids and forgetting parents. And in the middle of all of it is Mora - someone who time seems to have forgotten. And our 4 - Quill and Sefton, Costain and Ross - all have their own connections to the mess - some of them obvious, some not that much. And it becomes a race against time - to save a child, to save a footballer, to defeat the Witch of West Ham.

A lot of the story relies on surprises - things that the team does not know or cannot see for what they are getting revealed all the time and adding to the story. That would make the novel almost impossible to be read again with the same sense of horror and surprise - once you know it is happening, it fits and snaps in place and enhanced the picture. It is a trick that is not so easy to pull off - it is a thin line between hiding evidence from the reader and having it revealed in time without making it look like a cheat. And Cornell pulls it off magnificently - I never felt manipulated with the pacing or the information that gets revealed in specific times.

It is a dark story - with elements that turn your stomach but are part of the story. A lot of the deaths are grisly and even when no death is involved, details tend to stay on the dark side. But that is part of the charm of the story - even with the inevitable low points around the middle of the book, it is a well crafted story that introduces a darker version of our world (or London anyway). And the last pages, the epilogue, set the stage for a series that will need to aim very high if it wants to beat this story.

>103 AnnieMod: Hmm. I like this kind of urban fantasy, and I like Paul Cornell (or at least, I've liked his Doctor Who stuff), but I have less than zero interest in soccer/football. I wonder whether this one should go on my wishlist or not...

>104 bragan:

Soccer is only used as a setting (mainly to provide a reason for the witch to kill people) :) So if you like Cornell's style, give it a chance.

>105 AnnieMod: Witches killing people is definitively more interesting than soccer. :) Maybe I will pop it on the wishlist, anyway, then. Thanks!

63. The Pagan Night by Tim Akers

Type: Novel
Length: 602 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Fantasy; Heroic Fantasy
Part of Series: The Hallowed War(1)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Titan
Finished: 10 April 2016
Rating:

The Pagan Night is a frustrating novel. Not because it is a bad one - it actually is a pretty good one. But it is extremely uneven - and it feels as if some of the less developed parts were added to allow the novel to conform to the standard of the heroic fantasy genre. And the novel drags in the middle - it could have used some cutting. Although if it was cut, I suspect the wrong pieces would have gone.

Years ago the world contained two nations - the South Suhdra and the North Tener, each with their own gods. Then Suhdra decided that their religion, The Celestial Church of the Lady Strife and the Lord Cinder, is the only valid faith and mounted the crusades against Tener. They called it a war, the North called in an invasion. At the end the Northern lords submitted to the new religion, embraced it and changed their ways. And the old religions started to die out. Then inhumans showed up at the door and the two nations united against the enemy. And with a war and a religion behind their backs, things calmed down - the Inquisition is chasing the Pagans that are still hiding in the forests of the north, the old gods manifest as half-crazy gheists that are getting killed and the world seems to finally found its place. Except that the Suhdrans do not really trust the Tenerrans - and the world is about to explode again. Welcome to the start of the novel.

Akers uses words that we know and that bring a lot of backstory and recasts them in another world - the Inquisition and the crusades that we know from the Christianity's history have the same meaning in this world (except that instead of the holy places, these crusades are just going against the pagans); the Pagans are a mix of a lot of religions with some more elements tied together. That is the part of the novel that works perfectly - the two religions are built and executed coherently and completely; without being copies of existing ones. The part that does not really work are the war scenes - they drag. Maybe because I wanted to get back to the real story - the war between the Pagans and the Celestial Church and the minds and lives of the man inside of that war.

The whole story starts with a betrayal, it also finishes with one. It is built on betrayal - every time when you think you can see the lines in the sand, they shift and move. The last betrayal came as a shock - not because I could not have seen it but because I did not allow myself to see it - it made the next novel inevitable but was handled so well that you did not feel as if the novel was ended this way just to have a second volumes - it feels like a whole story split in pieces (and I need to wait a year for the next volume and then another one for the third...)

But it is not just the religions and the wars - it is the people that make the novel possible and highly readable - the Northern families - the Adairs (who are either the biggest betrayers or the only ones that stayed faithful) and the Blakleys (who are the main characters in a way - with Malcolm trying to safe the world from a war and Ian being young and stupid and almost doing all to start a war), the priests - both the main Inquisitor and his pet helpers and Friar Lucas and his vow knight, Sir LeFey (who is one woman that you would like to have next to you) and the southern lords (who are there mainly to be used by the church from the looks of it - except for the few that have enough sense to think for their own).

The novel is full of castles and lists, knights and battle, magic and youthful mistakes. Gwendolyn Adair almost single handedly starts the war - first when she decides to stand for peasants and then when she decides that she can just abandon her post in the war. And Ian Blakley seems to be pulled in all directions at all times - between family and friends, between new and old ways, between love and hate.

At the end of the novel Ian and Gwen are in positions to change the world, half the people we met are dead (or close to that anyway), the war had started and one of the old Pagan gods is back. And way too many people may still have other agendas.

It is a good novel - it won't be to everyone's taste I suspect but it worked for me.

64. The Guilty by David Baldacci

Type: Novel
Length: 418 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: Will Robie (4)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished: 11 April 2016
Rating:

The 4th book in the Will Robie series is very different from the first three. For one - there is no killer that seems to have gotten bad but turns to be good. And there are no treats to the president or new countries to explore.

It starts normally - Robie is out on a mission but when he pulls the trigger, a child dies together with the target. And while he is still reeling, Blue Man tells him that Robie's father is arrested for murder - and then agrees to send our favorite assassin on a new mission immediately. Which ends up as well as expected - a second team needs to step in and Robie goes home to Cantrell, Mississippi.

22 years had passes since the day Robie had walked out from the town and the two men had not talked to each other since. So the wife and the 2 years old son are a surprise. As is the house the Robies are living in now - the old house of Will's sweetheart. And while our Robie is meeting ghosts from his old life and needs to learn some hard truths, his father Dan seem very guilty.

And then FBI show up with a story of a serial murderer. And more people die. And old secrets suddenly come to the front.

I would not say that I was surprised about who the killer ended up being - between the FBI details and Dan's reluctance to answer some questions, it was almost obvious. It was the connection between what else had been happening and our killer that came out of blue field - and stretched the suspense of disbelief. It fit the story but I do not thinking that Baldacci built up the story well enough to make it believable - it felt too surprising, almost artificial.

It is a weird novel for the series - not because of where it was set but also because the usual cast is missing - Julie is nowhere to be seen, Evan Tucker is missing, Blue Man is there as a human google and the person to show up and smooth lines now and then, Jessica shows up in mid-novel to help just when Robie is about to die. Had it been a standalone novel, I may have enjoyed it more actually - it serves as closing the backstory for Robie but it is a filler for the series and just does not fit with the other 3 novels. Still - if you had been reading the series, you should read it - some old stories do get closed and Robie's past get explained.

A warning: the old secrets are the stomach turning type - not that killing people was so nice in the previous novels but that one is more in line with Kellerman's style than the usual Baldacci style.

>79 AnnieMod: Thank you for this review. I listened to the first two on audio and have not returned to this series. I will reconsider that now.

>109 brodiew2: You are welcome. The review of the 4th is just above as well :)

65. Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip

Type: Novel
Length: 346 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Fantasy; Arthuriana
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace
Finished: 13 April 2016
Rating:

Once upon a time, a sorceress decided to take her son away from the king's court and the boy's father and to hide with him, not telling him anything about the court or his father. Until three knights show up and impress our boy - and he is off to the court of the king.

If that did not make you realize that you are in a retelling of the Arthurian legend, the name of our hero (Pierce Oliver), the king (Arden), his queen and other main characters may still tip you off. Or maybe the inn called Kingfisher. Or the quest that sends all the knights of the realms to look for an old object of power, something that can fed a god and never stopped doing it and now may look like a pot or some other vessel.

I like the occasional retelling of the old myths and this one is one of the most elegant ones I had read for a while. The world that McKillip builds is a mix between a high fantasy one and ours - we have a king and knights and tournaments - but they also ride cars and motorcycles and have cell phones (when a god or a forest does not decide to disable them for a while). We have magic and wyverns (and other mythical beasts) but not dragons and basilisks (at least not until a sorceress falls in love or gets angered - then all the bets on those are off). Every time when McKillip reveals another part of the story, a new oddity is revealed - an old ritual here, food made of air there, the queen's lover over there or an old god in a shrine somewhere.

The story itself holds little surprises - Pierce goes south to Severluna to the court to find his father and brother and on the way there he passes by the Kingfisher Inn in Chimera Bay, meets a woman he falls in love with, finds a knife (well... let's call it finding it) and eats a wonderful meal (and sees a ritual that seems to be older than the world). And Chimera Bay is a weird place - between the old Merle and the man that everyone hates, it clearly is the place where the story will finish at the end. But not yet - because there is still a court to be visited, family to be met, a tournament to be won (or not) and a new world to be revealed - when the kings created the kingdom by cobbling together the small realms, a magical one fell as well. And the descendants of that kingdom are still around - and trying to get it back - by magic and tricks, by turning a son against a father.

It is a modern world - anyone can be a knight - male or female (even though we know that back, when the realm was created, that was not the case - or so the ravens say anyway). It is also a crazy world - partially because of the structure of the story (being a myth retelling, the characters remain shallow and just sketched so when they need to be logical, it does not work very well), partially because McKillip just mentions events that another writer will take hundred of pages for.

And the whole novel is held together by its language - flowery where it makes sense, sparse when it does not. It is well balanced and a pleasure to read. And despite the underdeveloped characters, it is a very readable novel. I wish they were more developed, more complete - but in a legend, it is the way.

If someone had never heard of Percival or Arthur, the novel can still work - the Arthuriana adds a layer on top of the story and reveals connections earlier than McKillip does (not by much) but at the end all the connections are there and the novel stands on its own. And that is not that easy to do.

66. The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich

Type: Novel
Length: 205 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Psychological Thriller; Contemporary Novel?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Finished: 14 April 2016
Rating:

It is the winter and the Hamptons are empty - anyone that has another home is back home; just the locals are still around. And one of them is Victor - a dying man who had been just admitted into the hospital while his daughter Elise and her husband Scott are staying at his house and visiting him in the hospital. It does sound like a sad but normal picture, doesn't it? Turned out that it is not.

So let's try a few questions:
1. You find an empty house next door while exploring the area. What would you do?
a) Go home - you are a grown up after al
b) Find a way to get into the house

2. After you went into the house and tell your wife, what would you two do next?
a) Decide to stop behaving like 10 years olds
b) Go to the house and have sex in it

3. If you find a bed covered in blood in the house, what would you do?
a) Call the police
b) Decide that you may want to blackmail the home owners.

If you answered with a) to all of the questions, you are thinking clearly. If you answered with b) on all of them, you are probably Scott - the protagonist and narrator of this novel. And those will be some of your best decisions in the next few months - because Scott makes more and more bad choices.

Victor comes home to die and between that and the house next door, some old secrets start poking their heads up. The story twists and twists and everything needs to be reevaluated based on all the new information (except the evaluation of Scott. He remains an idiot to the end). Murders, sexual assaults, past crimes, present crimes, a brother that seems to be just a phone call away and a big reveal at the end that was so clumsily foreshadowed that it would have been surprising if Marinovich had not gone there.

Add to this some clumsy writing, including one of the worst sex scenes I had read in a while ("her cold thighs pressed tight around my warm ears" being just a part of the mercifully short scene) and the novel leaves you with a "so what?" feeling. The threads of the plot get tied off - we learn all about the house and the blood and so on but something just does not work very well. what is worse is that it could have worked - the setting and the start are serviceable - it just gets downhill fast. At least it was short.

>112 AnnieMod: At least the rest of us get an entertaining review! I've read books like this - where the entire story is based on the main character being an idiot. In one I read, the protagonist voluntarily moves into the home of a man she thinks is a murderer. This was not the least sensible action she took. Are there not editors anymore?

>113 RidgewayGirl:

Between the "protagonist is an idiot" and "a dark secret involving the most innocently looking person" and "everything changes 3 chapters before the end but I am either too inexperienced to foreshadow or I am foreshadowing so much that it is a disaster", the contemporary non-genre (or the ones that identify themselves as non-genre anyway - that novel was genre, even if the author seems to think otherwise) authors are wearing my will to read them very thin. I think I need to go back to the Victorians for a while when I am done with my current batch of library books (that and the SF/F/H of course)

On the other hand writing reviews on their books is easy and entertaining :)

>111 AnnieMod: I love Arthur retellings/spinoffs so this will go on the wishlist.

67. Joyland by Stephen King

Type: Novel
Length: 300 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2013
Genre: Supernatural Crime
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Finished: 16 April 2016
Rating:

King is best known for his horror novels and he excels there. But under that, he is a marvelous storyteller - regardless of the genre, regardless of the topic.

Joyland is billed as a horror novel in a lot of reviews and announcements but it is not - a case be made that it is a psychological horror novel but then we need to classify all noir and dark crime novels there. Yes - there is a ghost or two but that is not enough to shift it into the horror genre - supernatural crime is probably the closest to a genre this novel can be classified into.

Meet Devin Jones - 61 years old and with a career he had always dreamed of. But he is not here to tell his current story or how he got here - he is here to tell the story of Joyland - the story that changed him in 1973, when he was 21, when his broken heart made him take a job in an amusement part and as the old cliche goes, it changed his life.

The first third of the story is exactly this - a memory of Joyland - the hard work and the new friends, the good and the bed. Above everything is a ghost - Linda, who got killed in the park 4 years earlier and her killer was never found. Rumors puts her as a ghost in the place where she died but seeing her is not really happening.

And the world of Joyland is fascinating - from the language to the people, from young love to old wounds. And somewhere along the line, it turns out that the murder had not been an isolated case - more women had died in a similar way. And Dev becomes obsessed with Linda - trying to see her ghost makes him change his plans to go back to school and to stay longer in the park. And chase a ghost. And a murderer. And while this is happening, ghosts will appear - just not where anyone expects them

And that's when a terminally ill kid and his mother show up (or at least enter the picture). And the story changes from the happy summer one to a darker autumn one. And as the seasons change, so does the story - the joy of the summer is replaced by an obsession and then a death. Or more than one.

It is a story of amusement parks and serial killers, growing up and surviving. And hope - because love, friendship and youth linger on top of the story as a fine mist.

If you expect high speed, you won't like the story. If you expect horror, you are in the wrong place. Ir is a ghost story combined with a serial killer one. But it is mostly the story of an old amusement park - in the summer of 1973 when things were so much easier.

I read the illustrated edition and most of the illustrations add to the story - they illustrate exact moments and thoughts. The few that do not match can be considered artistic rendering I guess - even if I find them just sloppy.

Highly recommended - even if you usually do not like King.

68. Patchwerk by David Tallerman

Type: Novella
Length: 134 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Softcover
Publisher: Tor
Finished: 17 April 2016
Rating:

What happens when a scientist invests a machine that connects parallel realities and that machine gets shot - and the scientist is surprised by how the machine behaves? Something not so good obviously.

Meet Dran Florrian. He invented Palimpsest - a machine that can get anything from another parallel world. There is only one rule - no weapons can be brought through - or anything that can harm anyone. Add a psychopath that wants to use the machine as a weapon and Florrian's ex-wife and the story can start. The machine get damaged surprising everyone and instead of exploding or just shutting down, it starts playing protector - it merges reality to save its inventor.

The first time the characters change, I wondered where the editor was. It took a few pages to start suspecting what really is going on, a lot longer for it to be confirmed. Or for Dran to figure it out.

At the end of the day, it is a pretty good novella about parallel realities and hard choices. Not the best I had ever read, probably won't be the best this year even but it was a nice read and it made me think about choices. The parallel realities were different enough to make them interesting (even the small part that we saw of them) and the explanations on why they are was fascinating. And the end is almost perfect - it opens the door for additional stories but it also closes the story that it started to tell.

Novellas are hard to sell - too long for most collections and magazines, too short to be published on their own. I am very happy that Tor started the current line - the novella is a perfect length for Science Fiction and Fantasy. And that one proves exactly what the length can do - it could have been a lot longer and overwritten story but by allowing it to be as long as that, the story is a lot stronger. And it is allowed to have a single storyline instead of the usual multiple stories in a novel.

>116 AnnieMod: I might put this on my 'maybe' list. I wouldn't have thought twice about it two weeks ago, because I don't read horror stories, but I read Mr Mercedes last week and really enjoyed it. It was not horror either, in fact, no supernatural at all.

>118 NanaCC:

Mr Mercedes is straight crime story. Joyland has ghosts - not the scary ones but the nice and helpful ones. :)

>116 AnnieMod: Glad to see another positive review of Joyland. I bought it last year when it was on a Kindle offer but haven't got round to reading it yet. I've enjoyed some of his horror stories but I find it's the ones that are less overtly horror that are when his storytelling is at its best.

>120 valkyrdeath:

Most of the negative reviews are because of expectations if you ask me. It is an almost lyrical story before it turns dark. Not a usual King - and the promotional materials make it sound more sinister than it is. And I agree - his storytelling shines when he is outside of horror (or when he handles it subtly).

>112 AnnieMod: very entertaining review of The Winter Girl!

>122 detailmuse:
Thanks. :) Sometimes bad books are so much easier to review than good ones - after all I know exactly why I really disliked that one and what made me want to shout at the author :)

>112 AnnieMod: I am sure that your review is much better than the book

69. The Case of the Howling Dog by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 3266 kindle positions
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1934
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (4)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Della Street Press
Finished: 18 April 2016
Rating:

Perry Mason is starting to get a reputation for his courtroom behavior so when a new client called Arthur Cartright shows up complaining about a howling dog and asking advice about a will, he is a bit surprised. But he is also intrigued - so he decides to check the case. Complications show up almost immediately - noone else seems to have heard the howling, a will shows up that contradicts what the client had asked about and the client cannot be found by anyone. Add a new building, a Chinese cook who is shipped home, two marriages that seem to be more complicated than they should. And all that before bodies started to drop. And Mason ended with more than one customer.

Paul Drake and Della Street are getting more defined (although Drake seems to be a bit too cocky although Mason is even worse) and the easy camaraderie between them is adding a lot more enjoyment in the story.

I was surprised that Perry did not see where the bodies were earlier but then he did not grow up watching CSI and Law and Order. It was a bit predictable because it is a classic way to handle the story but considering when this one was written, it probably was a lot more surprising. And the end was perfect - it was a lot more a crime story than a courtroom drama and it is stronger for it.

And unlike the usual cases when Perry needs to scramble for a way out of a problem, in this case he has so many proofs and ways to prove his case that he does not even to disclose all of them. It was an interesting twist.

Another enjoyable entry in the series (although you need to ignore the racism and outdated views in places). And I seem to enjoy these old stories a lot more than I expected.

70. The Case of the Curious Bride by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 310 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1934
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (5)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Ankerwycke
Finished: 22 April 2016
Rating:

Meet Rhoda. She claims not to have been recently married although Della thinks differently. And she spins a story about a friend asking about a first husband that had disappeared in an air crash and what her legal status will be (amongst other things). Perry does not buy the story, Rhoda is too proud to admit the truth and walks out and everything should have stopped there. Except that she left a retainer with Della and Perry is bored and curious so he decides to figure out what the whole story was.

And then a man is found dead - a man that had appears to be married to Rhoda. Except that she is married to a millionaire's son now. And she swears she had not killed Moxley and that he was already dead when she got there. The police does not believe her, her father-in-law really does not like her and the things really do not look good for her. Except that she has Perry Mason - who is ready to cheat if needed. Add to this some legitimate investigation from both Paul Drake and Mason and a few just in time remarks from Della and the story is starting to emerge.

I am not sure how ethical the trick Perry pulled - he technically did not break a law or lie but it was a bit closer to the line than I expected. He is a lawyer after all, the line is where he lives. And it was a great cheat anyway.

Another good story in the series. Off to the next one.

71. There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 258 pages + index; notes; index
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2012
Genre: Memoir; Personal History
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Penguin Books
Finished: 23 April 2016
Rating:

It is a weird book. It is not personal enough to be a personal story; it is not objective enough to be a story. It has its good parts but it also has passages that are too dry even for a history book, let alone the type of this story.

Achebe decided to tell his story 45 years after the facts happened and instead of writing a memoir, he went for a mix of a story and poetry - he peppered the book with his poems, the ones that match the times and the story. I am not much for white and free verse poetry and even though I liked a few of the pieces, it just is not my thing.

The prose parts of the story is weird - he shares a few personal stories here and there (more at the start, less and less as the story progresses) and those parts of the story are the bright points in the book. The rest... when he is not reciting a history overview, he is giving so many historical details that the book feels overwritten. I expected a one-sided story - Achebe was part of Biafra and believed in it; he had always claimed that the Igbos were persecuted because of jealousy and were innocent at all times. History is a hard thing - we may never know why some things happened - too many people from those times are still alive and the history is written by the winners (although in this case it seems like not only the winners did write histories).

I read this book almost by chance - after reading Forsyth's autobiography earlier this year, I decided that I want to read his other non-fiction book - the story of Biafra. And when I was looking for the book on my kindle, I realized I have another book about it - Achebe's. And decided to start with it.

I did learn new things from the book - some of the facts I will forget (too many names that ended up irrelevant) and I still will be looking for a more balanced account (Forsyth's probably will not be but I plan to read it). I am not sorry that I read this one - but I think that it was a lost opportunity - it could have been so much more powerful. The few glimpses of story though were enough to convince me to find his fiction - I somehow never got around to it before now.

72. Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen

Type: Novel
Length: 226 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2001
Genre: Mystery; Historical Mystery
Part of Series: Molly Murphy Mysteries (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 24 April 2016
Rating:

What a charming series!

A few months ago I picked the newest in the series and really enjoyed it. So decided to backtrack and start from the start - and the first one turned out to be a real pleasure.

Molly Murphy is living an unremarkable life in her small village in Ireland (well... mostly unremarkable anyway - she got educated with the nobility's daughters), taking care of her father and brothers. Until the son of the land owner's son decides that he wants to have his way with her, she disagrees and he ends up on the floor, dead. And she runs - to the port and from there to Liverpool, hoping to outrun the police. Being red haired, it is not so easy to hide and she is running out of options. And then she meets Kathleen - a young mother that is about to board a ship with her two children to go to New York to join her husband. Except that she will never be allowed on the ship because she has TB - and she convinces Molly to take her place. All seems to be working just fine until a man is killed on Ellis island - and Molly ends up in the cross hairs of the police - first as a suspect, then as a witness. And she meets Daniel Sullivan for the first time and the love between them kindles. More people die, Molly ends up playing detective for a while and things get a bit more complicated before they get better.

The portrait of New York and emigration at the turn of the century is fascinating and believable. Molly is a bit too modern for the times but without grating too much. And the love story is moving a bit too fast - but not entirely unbelievably fast - people can fall in love fast. I want to see how the story continues from here - it is a good start and knowing where it will lead us, it promises a lot of interesting developments.

73. The Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon

Type: Novel
Length: 292 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Commissario Brunetti (25)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Finished: 25 April 2016
Rating:

After 24 previous novels, a reader knows what to expect from a Brunetti novel - a calm mystery, a main character in Venice and its people, corrupted police and administration and a detective with a happy family life. And this novel contains all that.

The main difference is that this time there is no body - instead one of Guido's mother-in-law friends asks Brunetti to find out what happened with her granddaughter 15 years earlier - when the girl, Manuela, fell in a canal and emerged with a brain damage. It starts as a favor but the more he looks into it, the more he realizes that something is wrong.

And there is Venice and Commissario Claudia Griffoni, Signorina Elettra and Vianello, Paola and the kids. They are as much a part of the story as is the crime. And that is the charm of the story - as all the Brunetti's novel - it all is a part of the whole.

The resolution of the story was a bit weird - relying on a coincidence. Brunetti was well on his way to solving the case - and the meeting that led to the ultimate resolution was unnecessary - even if it sped the solution a bit.

And then came the very end of story broke my heart. If only someone had done that earlier, maybe Manuela would have had a better life. Maybe not - but it did make think about choices and what makes people happy.

I am not sure if the story will work for someone that had not read the older stories - the relationships are just sketched, the older books provide the details. But for fans of the series, it is a very good installment. Now the long wait until the next one gets out...

>124 baswood: Thanks Barry :)

I think I might need to add Perry Mason to my pile. :)

I read one book by Rhys Bowen in her Royal Pyness series, and I listened to Evan Blessed a long time ago. I didn't realize they were by the same author until I just looked to see what I had read. Charming would be a good description for them too. I think I'll need to get back to them at some point. Thank you for the reminder.

>131 NanaCC:

Just keep in mind Mason is dated - not enough to bother me in most stories but it is from the 30s after all :) I do enjoy them a lot though - they are filling a void left by not having anymore Agatha Christie's to read I think - old style mysteries that do not sound very PC these days and are not too worried about offending people). And you do not need to read them in order - you can see character growth and so on but they are separate stories after all. :)

I had been eyeing the other Bowen series - I think I will go through that one (up to 16 now from the looks of it so it will take a while) but I am planning to look at the others. As much as I appreciate the noir and the hard crimes, I also need this type of mysteries.

74. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

Type: Novel
Length: 262 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2011 UK/ 2013 USA
Genre: YA Fantasy/Horror
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Finished: 26 April 2016
Rating:

I had been delaying writing this review because I was trying to figure out my own reaction to the book. There is a lot good in the book - the linked stories have just enough subtlety in the connections between them to make them well done and just enough independence to make them work on their own, the reversed timeline is pulled off masterfully. But it also has its weak points - the epilogue does not feel like it belongs to the book and I am still not sure why this is classified as YA - it looks like a cop out to allow shallowly built characters and more coincidences than one would accept in an adult book. And I would not be so unhappy of the latter if the book was not actually pretty good - it could have worked as an adult book with very little change.

But let's go back to the story - somewhere out there, there is an island where a special flower is grown - a flower that can extend people's life but it also makes them forget things. The 7 stories in the novel go back in time in the lives of two lovers - they died in their first life but always find themselves - sometimes as lovers, sometimes as friends. There is a ghost story and an archeological dig, a picture and a magically hidden part of the island, vampires and vikings. One story leads into another and the connections are built with a mastery that makes me wonder why it was not extended to building the characters as well. We follow an archeologist finding a bomb and a grave, in the next stories we learn how they ended up there; we will see a picture and then we will see it painted and then we will see how the actual scene happened. It starts with a sacrifice and it ends with one - despite the centuries between the two, it is one and the same. Time makes a full circle and one wonders if it will be just one.

The start of the novel is mundane - a journalist is sent to an island that seems to be weird and special; an island where he will meet a woman that seems to be his destiny. He needs to forget and he needs to remember. The end of the novel, without the epilogue is lyrical and fitting. The epilogue is useless and although it seems to be built to tie the stories together, it manages to sound condescending and totally out of style.

The prose weaves between simple (even simplistic) and lyrical. I can see why it won awards for YA novels but I also wonder what could have been if Sedgwick had written it as a proper novel - it could have stood as one. And I am not sure how fair it is to have this kind of a mish-mash called YA - it has the same issues as most of the YA books but it also has elements that put it on top of them.

At the end, it is a readable novel - somewhere between YA and adult literature. A lost opportunity in so many ways despite the awards it had won - it's not YA except by name but it does not get to the level of a good adult fiction either.

75. The Hercules Text by Jack McDevitt

Type: Novel
Length: 354 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1986 (original)/2015 (revised edition)
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ace
Finished: 30 April 2016
Rating:

Just when everyone got convinced that there is noone out there and that we are all alone in the universe, a signal is picked up - from a place that noone expected - the Hercules system. And the signal is weird - it looks as if someone manipulates pulsars - and then it stops. Of course, it is a USA laboratory that picks it up and of course, there is an administrator that needs explanations so the scientists need to explain in a plain language what happened. It is a good way to do that actually - and considering that the novel was written 30 years ago, it is a standard way.

Politicians get involved, careers almost get ruined due to the secrets and it looks like this initial transmission will be the only one. Until it starts again. And the team is assembled to try to understand what they are sending.

Most first contact novels end up with the aliens coming to Earth or humanity bumping into them somewhere among the stars. McDevitt went for the much more likely scenario - we get a transmission that had been sent millions of years ago - that reach us, with no possibility to actually meet them. And while dealing with the message is, the novel deals with how it influences the world - both the people that know what had happened and the ones that can only rely in rumors. I wish he had expanded the focus and looked more at the outer world but that would have made the novel unwieldy. Instead McDevitt uses a Monitor between the chapters - with articles and headlines from the newspapers of the time. It works - it takes a while to start connecting the dots and to get the novel going but once you get used to the style, it is a page turner.

At the end, it is a story of humanity - the Altheans (as they call them) and their message are just showing what we are. The scientists that did not look at a test because they knew what would see so missed to see that this star is not like any other; the president that is more concerned about defense than clean energy; the arrogant scientist that decides to experiment without understanding what he is doing; the pastor that causes a death because he does not realize what it will cause. And the human greed - the pure greed that had caused so many troubles in the past. McDevitt does not leave the church out of it as well - because such a message, the existence of aliens would influence the religions more than anything else. And his portrayal is sincere - both the parts that want to close their eyes and the ones that admit that they cannot do that anymore.

When McDevitt decided to have the book reissued in 2015, he decided to revise it. And that weakened the book - I am not sure how extensive were the changes outside of the political views (past presidents and the big bad of the times) but it is uneven - in parts it reads as a 1986 novel set in the start of the 21st century; in places it reads as a thriller set in the time of writing. And that is annoying. I am not going to track down the old version - it is the same story after all and I did not like it that much - but I suspect that even if it had dated references and motives, it was more coherent. Especially when you expected to read a 1986 novel.

And that will be all for April:

April Statistics:

Total: 18
Novels: 15
Non-fiction:2
Stories: 1 (novella - separately published)

Totals for the year:
January-April:
Total: 75
Novels: 67
Non-fiction:7
Stories: 13 (1 published separately; 12 online or in collections/magazines and so on)

Somehow I seem to be reading a lot more longer works (novels and non-fiction books) than usual - and almost no stories or articles. And no comics since the beginning of the year. But I also seem to be having a good reading year so far.

Good to see that Donna Leon's Venice novels are still reading well.

>136 baswood:
I had not read some of the early ones and I am planning to get back to them but I still enjoy the series. It is a calm and nice series - I really look forward to a new book every year. :) Never been to Venice but it feels as if I know the city - Leon's Venice is the character that makes it special (that and the fact that Brunetti is not the usual freak of a detective - not that I do not like these but now and again someone normal is a nice change)

76. The Quiet War by Paul McAuley

Type: Novel
Length: 439 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2008
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Quiet War (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Pyr
Finished: 1 May 2016
Rating:

By the 23rd century, humanity had managed to populate most of the moons and planets in the Solar system. But it had not managed to stop the petty squabbles - some time in the past a group of humans threw a comet at another group; Mars's colonies had been obliterated to teach everyone else a lesson and the humanity had split into Outers and the ones from Earth (and even that is not completely true because the different nations on Earth are still around and in disagreement). Climate changes had not help matters and as a result of a really bad event a few decades earlier, Earth had lost most of its bioforms. And now the gene wizards are working to restore what was lost on Earth and to build anew in the new worlds. And you would have thought that this would keep the world busy. But it being humanity, nothing is that easy.

The Greater Brazil is controlled by the families and it wants world domination. But the families, especially the one that seems to be in charge (Peixoto) are divided between wanting a war and wanting a coalition with the Outers. Things get a bit worrisome when the people that support the alliance start dying and when one of the biggest projects, a biodome that was supposed to be built as a sign of the cooperation, is targeted and sabotaged. Add to this some clones (although they spent 3/4th of the book doing pretty much nothing and barely being mentioned, the book opens with them and they become pretty important later on), pilots that had been changed to feel their spaceships, genetic and other cuts (anything from genetic manipulation to plastic surgery) and a diplomat who seems to be always getting in the right place at the right time to cause mischief.

The book moves from very technical to character driven and back and the sections are uneven. Most of the technical parts are dry - the style is getting better as the book is going (or maybe I got used to it). It drags a bit during the big battle at the end and then it ends... with all the major characters either dead (or are they?) or running or spinning their own stories. It feels like a part one of a book, not as a complete book.

It takes a while to start caring about any of the characters - any time you think you know on what side everyone is, thing shift. Betrayal and second chances run through the story and change the idea of what is really going on. And in some cases the motives are a bit unbelievable - a man starved for love risks everything he had worked for a woman, a woman almost sacrifices her child chasing a professional success. And the whole war starts because an overreaction. But once it starts, there isn't too much anyone can do about that.

It is a dark novel about the future. But there is also hope somewhere there. I will be reading the next novel to see what happens to everyone and I will be interested to see any other stories in this world. I just hope that the technical parts will be a little less dry.

Time to read some of the magazines that had been accumulating around here. Chances of me finishing a magazine any time soon are not very good so I am going to be posting about articles and fiction as I read them...

A1. "Let's Go Take Back Our Country" by Stuart A. Reid, The Atlantic, March 2016
read: May 3, 2016

At the end of 2014, a group of Gambians who had fled the country through the years return to try to set a coup. It fails of course and Reid's article examines why it failed and what really happened. He does not presume that you know anything about the Gambia so we get a history of how the president that our heroes are trying to topple got to be a president and his transgressions since. And Reid also follows the conspirators while they start almost innocently and slowly manage to build a plan, as weak as it ends up being, and set off to execute it. At the end most of them die, the ones that survive are facing jail (in USA mainly) and the dictator is using the unsuccessful coup as an excuse to tighten his own regime.

Reporting after the facts, even with interviews and the ability to visit the country and to talk to a lot of people is always tainted with the knowledge of what is about to happen. Reid manages to tell the story in a linear way, without spoiling the details of the actions to come. If you know the history of the coup, you know how it ends and the article fills in the details. If you had never heard of it, it is a great way to learn about it.

>137 AnnieMod: I have stayed in Venice three times and I have never had a good meal there, which is strange because a Highlight of Donna Leon's books is the Venice cuisine.

>140 baswood:

In Brunetti's house - cooked by his wife or during official dinners sometimes. She talks a lot about tramezzini and things like that but I do not remember real meals being talked about.

On the other hand, I was also underwhelmed from the cuisine in Milan when my sister lived there - I think that Italian cuisine have a good reputation but it is true only in special places. :)

77. The Skinner by Neal Asher

Type: Novel
Length: 474 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2002
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Polity: Spatterjay (1), Polity Universe - Publishing Order (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Tor Books
Finished: 3 May 2016
Rating:

In the first Polity novel we saw a universe populated by people - minimal aliens (although some rules around preserving local life was mentioned, it was more about the life than intelligence). There are aliens of course but it sounds like a human universe with some aliens. Asher never claims it though - I just presumed based on what we saw. The second novel needs less than 20 pages to show you how wrong that assumption was.

Welcome to Spatterjay - a planet outside of the Polity where the locals had found an agreement with the Polity but without becoming part of it. Where there are multiple life forms that can be considered intelligent and where humanity and the local life had started to exist in a symbiosis that is verging on horror. And just to make things more complex, there is also another intelligent race on Earth - a hive based one. And no - not the bees. Or the ants. It is the hornets. Add to this the Pradors (which even led a war with humanity) and that universe is a lot larger than you would have thought.

Part of the beauty of the story is learning what really happened while you are reading the story - learning about the war and the 8 criminals, about the reifs and the hornets plans and practices. The novel opens with three humans arriving on the planet - except that none of them is really a nornal human - Erlin had been here before and the virus is in her blood; Sable Keech had also been here 700 years ago but he was alive back then; Janer is visiting for the first time but he is a messenger if the hornets and the race is now coming for the first time here. They seem to be here for different reasons but their paths will connect so many times that at one point it will become one and the same.

There is of course the Warden than is taking care of the runcibles and is monitoring the island. And there is a few drones with sense of humor that makes you laugh even in the darkest parts of the novel. There are the Old Captains and their crews. And there is the local life - the virus that binds them together, the sails and the leeches, the marine life and the leeches (and no, I did not add it twice by mistake - you really need to be careful about them. Actually the first rule on Spatterjay is "do not fall in the water". Or you won't live to hear the second rule).

Sable Keech is here to hunt the last of the 8; Janer is here because the Hive want him there; Erlin is there looking for her Captain and to reconnect to an old life. And it is Keech's return to the world that triggers what follows - because not all that are thought dead are really dead - and he cannot really complain about that being dead for 700 years himself after all. And just like that the Pradors are back (not looking for a war this time, just to murder some people), old secrets get unburied and we see the world of Spatterjay.

In the first novel Asher used the beginning of the chapters to give us information about the Polity and the people; here he uses it to tell another story - the eat and be eaten story of the seas of the world. And it works - the world is in equilibrium - bigger eats smaller until the smallest eats the biggest.

And at the end, the novel leaves the world changed - with the big bad 8 finally out of the way (or so it looks... again) and the local intelligence starting to realize that they need to step up. And with an unlikely hero saving the world for a second time - last time he was payed by being almost killed (and only the virus saved him); now noone besides Janer knows that what actually happened.

The novel is just between science fiction and horror - some of the actions can turn your stomach in a way a horror novel cannot. I am not sure what is more horrific - the sick minds of the humans or the leeches and the local life. It is a cruel world in a cruel universe and I really want to read what happens next.

Long series have a lot of internal orders - do you want to read based on publication order or chronological order is a question of taste. I prefer publication order - it allows you to see the world in the way that the author published it. And in this case, had I read the earlier novels chronologically, a lot of the surprises may not have worked out as well. Yes - there is a book for the Pradors but it was published after this one - so we get the tease for the war here; we will be back to reading about it in a later book.

The first two books create a fascinating world. I am planning to read the next one as soon as I can - I am interested both what happens in the lines of those two but also in the universe as a whole. The series may not be for everyone - it tends to get too gory at times but it works for me - and even if I am sorry that I did not read it earlier, I am happy that I still have more of it to read. Ah, the problem with good books - you want to read them but you also want to have them in your future :)

78. Bad Debts by Peter Temple

Type: Novel
Length: 318 pages
Original Language: English (Australia)
Original Publication: 1996
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Part of Series: Jack Irish (1)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Finished: 4 May 2016
Rating:

Meet Jack Irish - a lawyer, a gambler, a cabinet maker (in training) and an enforcer when needed. Once upon a time he was a criminal lawyer. Then he lost his wife and things went downhill - he still does some legal work now and then but he is mostly dealing with horse races - both setting up schemes around them and gambling.

Until one day he gets a call from a man he represented once (not that Jack remembers it) and the next day the man turns up dead. Racked by guilt Jack decides to find out what happened and ends up in the middle of a few more murders, a corruption scandal that goes to the top of the government and old secrets. That description will fit a lot of the thrillers written in the last decades. What makes that one special are the setting and the character of Jack Irish.

The setting is Melbourne, Australia (although we also see a few more cities - Ballarat and Perth make an appearance for example). The city is not described in any particular details but you can feel it in every page - it is exotic and different. And as the story is told by Irish, we do not get the long winded explanation on things - it presumes you understand why things are the way they are and you recognize the names of TV stations or radios. And Jack Irish is a fascinating character - he has a dry (and occasionally black) sense of humor that makes you chuckle now and then and his decision making abilities need to be questioned more often than not. No, he is not stupid. And he does not sound unbelievable - he can be called naive in places, he can be called delusional in others but he also realizes when he makes a mistake pretty fast.

Add a new love (which he almost manages to screw up), a few other memorable characters (Cam and Henry and the old guys in the bar for example) and the cast is complete. And there are the horse races. I had never been interested in that sport so I was not sure how much I will like the novel. Especially when they started talking in terms I had only heard about in my English classes. But it worked - at one point I realized that I actually enjoy these exchanges - mainly because of the humor of all participants - I still do not care about the horse racing. And you can call the book predictable - the plot twists were more likely to happen than not but when you realize that the book was written in 1996, you realize that it is not using the standard cliches -- it is building them. There is a reason why some of those became cliches after all - and I can imagine most of the twists being really surprising 2 decades ago.

One thing that needs to be noted is the language in the book - it is very Australian which made it hard to read in places. Thankfully for me, I read quite a lot of Gary Disher's books last year (if you had not, you may want to try him) so after a few pages things clicked in and I did not need to stop and think what they are talking about.

I will read the next books in the series - I liked that one enough for that. And the setting is fascinating.

I'm going to check out Bad Debts. It sounds good.

79. The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis

Type: Novel
Length: 156 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2009
Genre: Children; Adventure
Part of Series: The 39 Clues (3)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Finished: 5 May 2016
Rating:

Peter Lerangis gets writing duty for the 3rd installment of the series and we see Dan, Amy and Nellie ready to board their Japan-bound flight after sending the cat and the swords as cargo. Until the siblings' tickets got stolen that is anyway. And the chase is on.

This is the weakest installment so far - the story is enjoyable as a whole but the writing is too childish in places (and yes, it is a children series but still). And the plot does not hold together as well as the previous ones - taking risks to make sure the swords make it to Japan with them and then just ignoring the fact that they are there made me scratch my head. And then there is the clue for the next stop - earlier in the book three cities are mentioned as important, 2 of them where the siblings had been already, the third one being a new one. I was sure that we will end up there sooner or later - but to happen in the same book was a bit of sloppy writing - and the clue was not even connected to the reasons why the city was mentioned in this conversation. Not to mention that major dependency of the plot on the ability of someone boarding an international flight with tickets in someone else's name - all passports are always checked during boarding and the book had been written at a time when everyone was even stricter than now about that.

On the other hand, we learned more of the family history and how the hunt for the clues started, we learn more about what the other members of the family know (and the fact that they know some of the clues, including the one that was found here) and we get a bit of a history lesson about Japan (using the real Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his actions and putting them through the prism of the Cahills of course) and Korea.

Add to that the usual appearances of the cartoonish Holts (I am not really sure why they are kept on that level...), the Kabra siblings (which make Amy and Dan look even better than usual), Irina Spasky (who continues to be a blank image with checkmarks on it (KGB? Check. Female? Check. Russian? Check) and Alastair Oh who seems to have changed his mind about things - at least for now. New alliances and new betrayals add more the complicated mess that is the Cahill family tree. And we finally find out who the Main in Black works for. And the obligatory explosion of course - we cannot have a book with no explosion, right?

One of the strengths of the story remain the real history element - even an adult can learn new things from the books - I spent half the evening after finishing the book reading about Toyotomi Hideyoshi. But I do hope that the writing picks up.

Off to Egypt in the next adventure.

80. Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham

Type: Novel
Length: 344 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Legal; Crime
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Finished: 6 May 2016
Rating:

Rogue Lawyer is not a standard Grisham novel - they usually involve a single big case and a lot of court drama. The court drama is here - but there is more than one case. Some of the cases have a reason to be in the story but some of them feel as if they were needed to add the number of pages - they show us something about the lawyer but it could have been done in a lot of other ways.

Meet Sebastian Rudd. He used to have a promising career until things changed and he turned into a rogue lawyer - the guy who get called to defend the cases noone wants. Which makes him less than popular with the cops. Or with the newspaper. Or anyone in any level of government. The novel opens with Rudd defending an innocent man, then it continues with a case of someone that is not just guilty but also believes himself above the law. It is part of what you need to do when you are in Rudd's profession but still it makes you wonder where Grisham is going with all this.

And then a man, somewhat close to Rudd, kills in front of a crowd and Rudd decides to represent him. And that turns his hardest case - his client is not listening to him, the family is doing all the wrong things and just to add to the madness, police officers kidnap Rudd's child and an old client wants his money back. In short - just another day in his life. With a bit of complications.

That case becomes the center piece of the novel and it feel like Grisham wrote that one and decided to add a few more sidestories after that - some of them connected to that one (marginally or not), some of them not so much. It works as a novel that explores the cases of Rudd - different than the usual fare of Grisham but still a good one.

And this is not the only unusual thing about the novel - Grisham's novel had always contained civil commentary but that one sounds in places as an excuse for Grisham going against laws, SWAT teams policies and police practices - some of them easily traced to what had been in the papers in the recent years. Not setting the novel in a recognizable city allows things to be brought together in a way that does not point to a specific police department.

I hope that Grisham will use that book as a start of a series - Rudd is a fascinating character, his friends and family are interesting and the world of a rogue lawyer can be a great setting. We will see. In the meantime, it may not be his greatest novel but it is a very readable story. And it may even be interesting for people that do not like Grisham usually - it is an unusual novel.

81. The Case of the Counterfeit Eye by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 3584 kindle positions
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1935
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (6)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Della Street Press
Finished: 8 May 2016
Rating:

It all started with an eye. Perry Mason gets a weird visitor - someone with an artificial eye who believes that the eye he had lost will be used to frame him. And before he leaves, a second case shows up - a guy that had embezzled almost 4 thousand dollars and a sister ready to pay them off - as fast as she can. Before long a murder is committed, an eye does appear and a woman disappears. And Perry Mason ends up in the middle of it. As usual.

This time though most of what he is accused in is not true. He does play a few of his tricks but not the ones that the district attorney believes him to have done. And talking about the DA - this is the novel in which Hamilton Burger is introduced - the DA that will stick around for most of Perry's career and that will become his nemesis through the years. The first meeting between the two men is strange for anyone that knows the story to come - Burger finds Perry honorable and believes that he is not crossing lines. That does not last long of course.

And back to the case - it is one of the more straight forward ones - despite the missing witness and her backstory, despite the mounting number of coincidences that start to mount. A man is dead and the killer is obvious if you forget for all that - and Perry gets to prove that. And make both the judge and Burger looks like idiots in the process. Which does not bode well for him in the long term of course but then when had he cared about this. We see a lot less from Paul Drake this time as well (and he does end up almost look like an incompetent guy) or from Della Street (who is there of course and takes a few more risks than she should have but she does not feel like always being there as in previous books.

Another good story in a long running and enjoyable series.

82. The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell

Type: Novel
Length: 401 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Urban Fantasy; Dark Fantasy
Part of Series: James Quill (2), Shadow Police (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Tor
Finished: 9 May 2016
Rating:

With Mora Losley dead and the Smiling Man nowhere to be seen, our favorite team of policemen are learning to survive while being able to see the darker corners of London. And just when they start wondering when they will find a new case that will allow the unit to keep existing. And the case finds them - a man is dead and there is no way it happened in any natural way - eviscerated on the back seat of a car with only his driver presented. And the chase is back on.

It was inevitable that Cornell will tackle the Jack the Ripper story - a series set in London and dealing with things that had existed for a while just cannot skip that topic. Most of the authors would have gone for the easy options - the topic lends itself to enough interpretations. Cornell ends up naming Jack but by the time it happens, we do not really care - it is irrelevant to this story. Jack is a center figure and at the same time just a side character. And the whole story is upside down - from the victims being all male and mostly affluent to the killer being a ghost (or something).

By the end a lot of people will end up dead, something very old will be discovered again and Neil Gaiman will become a side character, rooting the story in the now and here and making so many small connections between imagination and reality. It could have been anyone but just the name of Gaiman is bringing thoughts of impossibility and danger ("Neverwhere" is not just mentioned but also referenced). It was a nice idea and I loved the execution of it - it is subtle and even though we see him only a few times, he feels real.

One of the biggest issues in the contemporary fantasy (and comics) is that noone stays dead. And usually there isn't enough back history to allow you to see the dead man coming back. Cornell does the opposite - by the time we have a dead body we care about, it is well established that there is a way to get someone back - only once a century. It is a nice setup (and way too many people end up needing it) and it works at the end - both because we really do not know what will be done (although it is not so hard to guess) and because we are know that someone will turn up alive.

The first novel was paced a lot better than this one - the last chapters here are deliberately slowed down with time jumps in all directions in an attempt to keep the story surprising to the end. But combined with a man outside of the normal world and it sounds in places as a way to go around tying up loose ends - so much easier for someone to just feed the information to someone than someone to discover it.

Cornell's London is still fascinating and I will love to return to it - for the city, for the team that found themselves changed by thee end of the novel, for the Smiling Man. And I cannot stop wondering of the ultimate villain's profession here was not a commentary on our world. All of the dead men professions as well come to think of it.

83. The Case of the Caretaker's Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 302 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1935
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (7)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Ankerwycke
Finished: 10 May 2016
Rating:

Della Street is really worried about her boss and is trying very hard to send him on a vacation. So when a guy shows up to ask Perry to help him save a cat, Perry decides not to give the job to one of his helpers and instead to handle the case on his own - and even Drake is involved.

Chances of that being an easy case are not too high of course and it does not take long for the bodies to start falling (none of them being that of the cat). And by the time it becomes clear that things are a lot more complicated, Mason has way too many clients in the game, his own tricks had been played and replayed and Sergeant Holcomb and DA Hamilton Burger are really sure that they finally caught Mason in the act. In the meantime, Della and Perry go on a vacation (well... let's call it that), more bodies appear and people end up where they are not supposed to be.

At the end, the solution ends up a trick that is considered a cliche these days but it worked here - eliminating all the impossible choices left only assumptions to be reexamined. And in a somewhat strange for these early books end, Mason ends up telling the whole story from the witness chair. Although 20 pages before the end I was really wondering how he will manage to pull it off this time.

I am having a lot more fun with this series than I expected.

84. Silent City by Carrie Smith

Type: Novel
Length: 296 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: N/A. Maybe Claire Cordella (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Finished: 11 May 2016
Rating:

There are authors that have no capability to write good books. There are plots that just cannot work. And there are books that should have never been written. When you read one of those, when you see a plot like that, when you meet an author like that, you are sorry for losing your time on a book and you just move on.

And then there are the books that have a good plot for most of the book, with an author that manages to keep it tight and readable for most of the book and still manages to make you really dislike the book. And these are the most annoying ones - it could have been a good book and it just did not work. This one is one of these books.

A mystery set in New York usually uses the town to its advantage - New York is such a diverse place that you can use it to help you build the story, to add an accent to something, to show something instead of telling it. Carrie Smith's New York is unrecognizable - even Broadway sounds like "Main Street, Somewhere else". We know we are in New York - she tells us often enough but we could have been in "Anyplace, Anystate" and nothing would have changed in the story.

I could overlook that if she had not proceeded through the checklist of what a story must have - a rookie gay detective that is picked on by the department bullies but manages to ignore them and prove he is better both as a person and professionally, a recently transferred female detective that is hated in her new department (where everyone is lazy and she is really so much more intelligent than all of them), ex-partners that are in love but not admitting it, you name it, it was probably there.

The plot showed promise - the principal of a not-so-well doing school is found dead and Claire Codella is called, on her first day back on the job after surviving cancer to deal with it. The principal's body is staged to look crucified and everyone in his life seems to be keeping secrets - his boss, his coworkers, his neighbors. Add to that a software company that tries to make a big deal with the New York School system and there are now both money and personal feelings involved (and way too many people cheating on someone and feeling guilty because of that). So for most of the books, we follow Codella interviewing suspects:
1. Ask a question
2. Person answering lies
3. Codella leaves.
4. Someone else says something during their interview and Codella realizes that the person lied
5. Meet the same person again to ask them why they lied.

Every single person she talks to follows that pattern - noone tells the truth from the start. Some of them more that once.

Somewhere around there, a second body shows up, more secrets and lies are discovered and by the end we learn who was the killer, I really did not care. There is no foreshadowing, no links and pointers - out of the blue one of the people that was a suspect but was never really that visible or problematic shows up with a gun and a partner - we never get the explanation of the staging, motives are somewhat clearer but still pretty sketchy and most of what happens in the book remains irrelevant.

In the meantime,we also need to deal with the detective and her personal life. From behaving like a 10 years old when her partner kisses her (transferring to a new department and then not talking to him even while dealing with cancer) to getting a call in the middle of a murder investigation and going in alone, the "intelligent" detective sounds everything but (but then the plot cannot move if that does not happen). And then just like that, after months of not talking, it takes 2 minutes and they are falling into each other hands - badly handled, badly executed and absolutely abrupt.

Disappointing. It has some good parts but overall disappointing.

>150 AnnieMod: Sounds like a non event

85. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 81 pages
Original Language: Italian
Translator: Simon Carnell and Erica Segre
Original Publication: 2014 Italian/2016 English (2015 Copyright of Translation)
Genre: Popular Science
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Finished: 12 May 2016
Rating:

Physics used to be one of my disciplines in high school - it was easy for me to understand, it was interesting and there was always something new to learn. Then after I finished school, I moved to other things and had not touched a Physics book since. So when I saw this one, I figured out that it may as well be my way back on the field. It did not end up working out exactly like that but I am not sorry that I read it.

Rovelli published the 7 lessons as newspaper articles (in the culture section of an Italian magazine). Because of that they had to be short and being designed for someone with no background in the science, they tend to be on the shallow end. Except when he gets a bit excited and dives head first into the topic and things get very technical.

The book's 7 lessons can be easily classified in 2 groups - the actual Physics articles and the musings of a man that are just marginally connected to Physics and are instead about climate change, the human brain, humanity and whatever else he managed to connect to them. Thankfully there are 6 from the first type and just one from the second - but that one is the last one so the book ends up in a bit of a jumble.

But before this, the first 6 are short, shallow and yet pretty good high level overviews of relative theory, quantum physics, the structure of the cosmos and of a particle, thermodynamics (and somehow we manage to lose time around here - Rovelli explains very concisely but also very clearly why time does not really exist) and the theories of how the universe came to exist, how it looks now and his own theories for some of those (after all he is a Physicist and part of the creators of one of the theories.

The articles are part history, part science. They just scratch the surface of their concepts but the thing that is there is the progression and the connections that led to the discoveries. Nothing was discovered in a vacuum and without cooperation and that is what the book shows clearly.

And then comes the last essay. Which was rambling, disconnected and just did not fit the book. At all. I really wish they had kept it out - it drags the book down.

I still would recommend the book to anyone that can take some science (and that is not a scientist). It won't teach you the science but it is readable, brief and will get you the basics and the connection between them. And that is more than most people know about the topic.

>151 baswood: Nope. And it could have been a good one. I may decide to stick to authors I know for a bit - or at least ones with more than one book.

>152 AnnieMod: As I said on the What Are You Reading? thread, glad to know Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is good.

>154 rebeccanyc:

I think it depends a lot on expectations - if you expect to learn Physics in 80 pages or something similar to the Very Brief Introduction books, you will be disappointed. It has its problems but it is readable and informative and that is what matters with popular science books.

86. Death of Riley by Rhys Bowen

Type: Novel
Length: 274 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2002
Genre: Cozy Mystery; Historical Mystery
Part of Series: Molly Murphy Mysteries (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 13 May 2016
Rating:

Molly is now in New York and it is July 1901. Still in love with Daniel Sullivan (even though he seems to behave weirdly) and now looking for a job. Except that she does not seem to be able to find anything that suits her. Sullivan's idea that she becomes a companion is first dismissed (and anyone knowing Molly would figure out why) but then accepted. Until she realizes who the lady actually is - or at least this is as good excuse as any after Molly meets Paddy Riley - an old PI that she decides can teach her how to be a PI - after all that was her dream. But of course that being Molly, there is a dead man soon and things go downhill from there - she meets a writer and some other interesting people, moves to a new house and gets in the middle of a conspiracy to kill the president.

Bowen chose the beginning of the century so using the historical events make sense - although it ends up making the story a bit too far fetched. Molly sounds a bit too modern in places - not bad enough to grate but enough to be noticed.

From a series perspective, we meet Sid and Gus for the first time (the two women that will become such a big part of her life), Miss Van Woekem (giving her access to the high society) and she moves to her house next to the two of them. The story is ready to unfold. And Molly is well on her way to become a detective.

I miss the charm of the first book - not that this one does not have a charm of its own but it is too overcrowded and too restricted from the known end. It is worth a read but I hope that the next one will be back to the charming innocence of the first one.

87. The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

Type: Novel
Length: 350 pages
Original Language: English/Australia
Original Publication: 2005
Genre: Crime/Mystery
Part of Series: Broken Shore (1)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Finished: 15 May 2016
Rating:

Meet Joe Cashin - ex-homicide cop, now chief of the 4-members police station of Port Monro, Victoria. He had been injured as part of his previous career so now he is taking care of his dogs and the house that his grandfather once built - and almost destroyed. Until a very wealthy man dies and everyone seems to be happy to pin the murder on local boys.

On the surface the novel is a mystery - it revolves around a murder. But Temple uses the format to tell us a story about Australia - its people and its culture; its problems and its struggles. The boys that everyone wants to be the culprit are Aboriginal; so are a lot of people in the Daunt, the area at the edge of Cromarty (the bigger city closest to Port Monro) which is a ghetto in all but name. But Cashin is not convinced and start following the leads he finds and old mysteries start to get to the surface.

The mystery solution is almost cliched - it is a story we had read a lot of times. It is the setting and the world of Australia that makes the book different and unique. It is different from Temple's earlier Jack Irish books - while there the detective was the main character, here Victoria is the one that takes central stage - the setting is the book in more than one way. Combined with the storytelling abilities of the author, the book is engaging and one of the better mysteries I had read lately.

88. A Talent For War by Jack McDevitt

Type: Novel
Length: 310 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1989
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Alex Benedict (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ace
Finished: 28 May 2016
Rating:

Alex Benedict had made his career in trading archeological objects. Until one day he learns that his uncle is dead - the ship he was on never came back from Armstrong space. And before he got on the ship, he left a will that asks Alex to go back to his birth planet and try to close a case. Gabe Benedict had been an archeologists - going after the planets where civilization had disappeared long enough to make them archeologically old.

Welcome to the Confederacy - the organization of the human worlds some time in the future. It as forged in the shadow of a war with a race of telepaths that brought humanity together for the first time by giving them a common enemy. And whatever Gabe had been looking for seems to be pointing to that era, 200 years earlier, when the war was in full swing and humanity was struggling - most planets were not even part of the war effort and it was a group of rebels that ensured that humanity will continue to exist.

Before Alex even leaves for Rimway (his birth planet), someone breaks into the house. And things go downhill from there - Gabe seems to have been after a 200 years old story that seems to be oddly relevant in the current times.

McDevitt finds a way to tell us the back story of the world without spending half the book in the past - he makes Alex read (well... actually experience) the past - after all not everyone knows the history in details and Alex does not. Add to this AIs, the aliens and a few dead bodies and the story starts pointing to a mystery that noone wants to be discovered.

The novel is a blend between mystery and science fiction. For such a short novel it packs a lot of world building. It's the brevity that is a bit of a problem - it takes 200 pages to get the story going and then it needs to be wrapped up fast. Not that it is not done well - but I wish we had spent some more time in the story itself and not in the past - Alex is just a sketch, his pilot is developed even worse. But the world building is exquisite.

The story starts with a Prologue that does not make any sense or shows any connection to the novel until the Epilogue. Then it snaps back into focus to make the story almost tragic.

I really enjoyed this novel - I really like the world building and the story telling - even if I am missing the characters development.

PS: The guy that is writing the back cover blurbs in Ace needs to find another job - if you have a 310 pages novel, you do not put on the back cover a surprising development that happens around page 200 and a fact that takes another 50 pages to actually happen.

>138 AnnieMod: I see you have read McAuley's The Quiet War and I enjoyed your review. I read this also, quite some time ago now, and went on to read the second, but not the third (I suppose I thought I'd not remember who was who...). I have enjoyed a lot of McAuley in the past. There was a period where he wasn't published here and I had to chase down his books by other means, but I am glad to see him available now on the shelves.

>157 AnnieMod: I also very much enjoyed The Broken Shore but was less enamored of the second Peter Temple I read, Truth. Certainly the crime/crime-solving was interesting, but I don't think I have ever read a more bleak crime novel (and who would ever want to visit Melbourne after reading that book). But, that said, Michael and I have just been watching the television adaptation of his "Jack Irish" series and have enjoyed it.

My favorite Aussie crime writer is Garry Disher. I like his Challis/Destry series, but have read a few of his others.

>159 avaland:

Disher is the author that led me to Temple in a way - after reading all 6 in the Challis/Destry series last year, I started looking for other Aussie crime authors :)

Truth is coming next week so will see how it feels - I do not mind bleak actually so it may work. And I have the TV series lined up after I finish the novels series (read the first one earlier this year).

McAuley (and a lot of the British authors) are pretty weird case (same as the Aussies I guess). No translation needed - they just need to get the rights and still they are always months and years behind.

I am planning to read the next in the series and some more by McAuley later this year - will see when though.

89. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

Type: Novel
Length: 516 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2002
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Takeshi Kovacs (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Del Rey
Finished: 29 May 2016
Rating:

In the future the problem of overcrowded prisons is solved by just downloading the person into the stack and storing their body. Once your sentence is over, you may get your body back - if you can pay for it. In the meantime, if someone pays, they can walk into your body. And if you are really rich, you can just keep downloading yourself into new bodies - and keep living.

Until one day one of the oldest and richest men in the world, Laurens Bancroft, dies. Not really - he gets a new body but he is really concerned about why and how he died - the police thinks that it was a suicide, Laurens does not think so. So he hires a private investigator - from a planet away from Earth, a man that had never been to Earth and one that cannot say no - because he had been on the stack for a while after some not so great choices. Add to this that Takeshi Kovacs (read with -ch an not -ks at the end) had been an Envoy (an elite military group created specifically for warfare across the stars which included a lot of new bodies and a lot of waiting time to get downloaded somewhere) with what looks like PTSD and Mrs Bancroft who seems to have more secrets than she wants to share and the novel already sounds interesting enough. Add a semi-deranged hotel AI, illegal cloning and the fact that the body that Kovacs gets turn out to be of an ex-policeman, who had a relationship with the main detective on the case and the fact that bodies start dropping is not really surprising.

It gets a bit convoluted in places and it is way too gory in places. The mystery is interesting on its own but it is the world that is fascinating and that takes center stage. It is a dark and brutal future - full of sex (some of it almost too graphic). It won't be for everyone but if you do not mind the darkness and the adult themes, it is a marvelous read. And I cannot wait to read more about it.

90. A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 277 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1998
Genre: PI
Part of Series: Alex McKnight (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 31 May 2016
Rating:

Once Alex was a policeman in Detroit. Then he got shot, leaving one of the bullets close to his heart and he retired to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, close to the lake and tending the cabins that his father built once upon a time. Somewhere along the line, he got convinced to work as an investigator for a lawyer, making the previous investigator a bit unhappy. Despite that, things are going just fine - until a body shows up.

It would have been a regular case for the police except that some of the clues point to a man that is in jail. A second body and even more clues in the same direction make the police actually look at Alex (not surprising - almost a standard for a start of a PI series). But despite being expected, it works - the story is different enough, the backstory is fascinating. And the sense of the locale is handled masterfully.

It takes a while for the story to start pointing to what really happened and when it does, it took me by surprise. But looking back it is logical and it works. It is a good start of a series and Alex is a fascinating character. However - the end allows for it to have remained a standalone. And I want to see how Hamilton will continue the series.

And that is all for May (at least the finished ones - some more reading gets closed in June).

May Statistics:

Total: 15
Novels: 15

91. Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Type: Novel
Length: 1005 pages (Kindle)
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2008
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover/ Kindle (changed formats in the middle due to travel)
Publisher: William Morrow
Finished: 1 June 2016
Rating:

There aren't too many authors can combine philosophy, mathematics and science fiction in a novel and pull it off. Stephenson manages to do exactly that here.

If you expect to read a fast moving story, you will be disappointed. It is a slow novel, more ideas than action (even when everyone goes on a big adventure or when the aliens show up). You do not need to understand the math or the philosophy but if you do, it is part of the pleasure to figure out what is the equivalent on our world. Because everything is named differently but the ideas are the same. The first 100 pages are hard to read - between the invented language, the terms and words meaning something different and the whole idea of the concents and people never seeing the world for a year, or ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, it is very hard to get into the story. But I am happy that I pushed through it - because once you get the hang of it, it is a fascinating story.

However - writing a review is actually not that easy. Part of the charm and the beauty of the story is figuring out the things on your own. There is a fascinating world that looks so parallel to ours but almost in reverse - scientists are locked down and hidden, anyone that seems to have a brain gets also locked into the concents (which are like the convents of Earth), there is a starship that shows up from somewhere, there is a huge adventure, there is a boy that does not know the world and learns the world. And that is one of the strong points of the story - we see the story through the eyes of Erasmas - a boy that had been cloistered when he was 9 and now sees the world again for the first time 10 years later. And through his eyes we learn about his life and the world and what really is going on. And for being so different, he is also so similar to any guy that age - full of friends, first love and curiosity.

At the end, the explanation of why everything is so similar and yet so different is handled nicely. It is such a clear science fictional concept, so cleanly executed and done that it made me really love the story.

It won't be for everyone - it is too long in places, the action is moving at a snail pace sometimes. But it is just the way of the story - the pace suits it; the long explanations feel right. By the end I wished that there is more - the sedate pace lures you into a story that makes you stop and think. And one that stays with you for a very long time - because it is just one of those novels - full of ideas and light; full of adventures and concepts.

>160 AnnieMod: I don't mind bleak either, and it seems I might have been more generous than my memory suggests I was. I did give it 4 stars and a fair bit of praise, but I ended the review with this paragraph: Temple's vision of Melbourne is exceedingly bleak, with little, if anything, of redeeming value. There's a bit of a glimmer in Vallani's introspection, but not much. The dialog is wonderfully done, the prose more literary than most procedurals. Temple introduces us to a huge cast of characters, so many that I began to keep a list to keep them all straight (I should note here that there are no female characters of any real significance, a bit regressive, imo). I like how Temple has once again used nature to reflect what's going on in the story. This truly is a complex, thoroughly entertaining book, albeit bleak, bleak, bleak. And because of the latter, I think his previous book is the better of the two.

I'll look forward to your thoughts.

>165 avaland:

Interesting. I have on my current library pile so I will be reading it soon-ish - I will expect the bleakness then. :)

>146 AnnieMod: Hello AnnieMod. I quite enjoyed Rogue Lawyer and am glad to hear that you did too. I had the same thought about bringing Rudd around more often. Admittedly, I listened on audio and, at least through that medium, I found all of the case well woven together and entertaining.

I see that you have a couple of Jack McDevitt books here. I have only read one, Eternity Road. I enjoyed the post apocalyptic landscape and the use of literature as sacred text. I have never returned to the author, however.

I hope your day goes well.

>167 brodiew2:

There is a short story about Rudd out there - I need to get around to it.

McDevitt is one of my "read the author's books (roughly) in order" projects these days - my reading of a lot of authors had been very fragmented through the years, in 3 different languages and with very different mindset and understanding between books even in the same series (reading a book at 15 is not the same as reading them in my 30s) - not to mention that most series had been read in a random order. So if you keep an eye here you can see some more of those being mentioned.

92. The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 4859 kindle positions
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1936
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (8)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Della Street Press
Finished: 3 June 2016
Rating:

Peter Kent is walking in his sleep and had received a divorce after almost killing his wife with a knife while sleepwalking. And all would have been fine if the ex-wife had not decided that she can actually win more by declaring him incompetent and getting control of his money. Peter and his niece disagree so Perry Mason is hired to prove that Peter is sane. Of course nothing is as straightforward - neither his hiring, neither the story itself.

Of course someone dies. And Perry is just in the middle of it - and have to solve it because it seems like his client is responsible - and it just does not make sense. Add a knife that disappears from a locked drawer. There is also a wedding and a plane crash; a lot of money and a patent. And too many people lying and hiding the truth - and Perry needs to find what is going on - or lose his license.

The solution is one of the most logical in the series so far - it is a lot closer to a classical mystery than the usual legal thrillers that are the Mason novels. Not that there is no trial of course.

93. King and Maxwell by David Baldacci

Type: Novel
Length: 419 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2013
Genre: Thriller
Part of Series: King-Maxwell (6)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Finished: 4 June 2016
Rating:

Michelle Maxwell is still recovering from her injuries from the last case although she claims she is fully recovered. She and Sean King are driving in a pretty severe storm when they almost hit a teenager. The boy is distracted because he was just told that his father died in Afghanistan and our favorite pair of private detectives decides to escort the boy home and to confiscate his gun just in case - the gun he had been waving around when they almost ran him with their car.

And then things go really weird - Tyler gets an email that cannot exist, King and Maxwell are warned to stay away in no uncertain terms and we see the father alive and well in Afghanistan - with everyone trying to find him. And the chase to discover the truth is on - even Edgar shows up a few times. And everything start pointing towards another huge conspiracy - while Tyler is trying to prove that his father is not a traitor, the father tries to stay alive and Maxwell and King try to stay alive and free.

I've missed the pair of detectives and the novel was as full of suspense as the rest in the series. But by now they have so many helpers and they get lucky so much that you know nothing will happen to them. Nothing changing their life/dead status anyway. Which makes the novels a bit less exciting - not that the other characters do not get in enough problems though.

94. The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 288 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Thriller; Crime
Part of Series: N/A for now
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Finished: 5 June 2016
Rating:

Meet Nick Mason. He grew up in the hard parts of Chicago and after one too many mistakes ended up in prison - for a very long time (25 years). His wife left him, he had not seen his daughter for 5 years and there is not much he can hope for. He has the ability to live between the groups in prison - and does not get beaten up. Too much anyway.

Until Darius Cole takes an interest in him and offers him a deal - leave the prison, conviction overturned but for the next 20 years Nick needs to do what Darius tells him to. Of course he takes the deal and his second life begins.

Welcome to Chicago - almost everyone is crooked, almost everyone can be bought, a great cop has destroyed his own career to get Nick out and Darius seems to be everyone - for life in maximum security prison and still commanding the street. And Nick is his killer and enforcer. He never killed a man before he went to prison - and now he needs to in order to survive.

And Nick's transformation starts - reluctantly and struggling but inevitably. Men die. Bad things happen. And Nick tries to stay the same while changing.

It is a dark tale of transformation and corruption. Chicago comes alive and becomes one of the characters in the novel in the way good noir tales can make their locales memorable. And despite his mistakes, despite being a killer, Nick remains a character you want to root for (especially when he struggles with his new destiny).

I really hope that this will be a start of a series from Hamilton.

95. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 366 pages/ 404 pages with notes
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Journalism?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Crown
Finished: 6 June 2016
Rating:

I've never had troubles making money for rent - my life had worked out this way. It may have been a mix of choices and luck but I've never really thought about being evicted and what people go through when it happens.

The people in this book are in that situation all the time - getting evicted because they have no money and either getting rejected for another home because of the eviction or getting worse and worse places. Some of them have children, some of them have drug issues and being kicked out does not help much, some of them had always lived in this vicious cycle. Which does not mean that they are blameless - it is hard to say what was the initial problem and what led to the other - poverty or drug abuse; homelessness or the loss of any hope.

Desmond moved into one of the worst sections of Milwaukee in order to observe and try to understand homelessness and evictions. The story shifts between a few of the families that he met and all of them are broken people. Most of them actually have families but either do not want to burden them or are too ashamed to ask for help. And their stories are heart-breaking - even when they are to be blamed for the next part of their saga, it is still hard to read. And it is as hard to read the two stories of the renters that we get - there is greed but there is humanity (occasionally). And together with the personal stories we also get some analysis and history of the evictions in the United States.

I am not sure that I agree with all the conclusions in Desmond's but it still need to be read. It is a story of a cycle that is very hard to break and in which once you enter, it is almost impossible to get out - a single eviction disqualifies you from a lot of options. There are also some chilling stories - a local law that existed well into the 21st century that allowed a landlord to evict a woman legally for calling the police when she is abused (now that law is thankfully changed) or the fire that killed a baby because everyone was too busy doing... nothing. And they are just part of the everyday life of people that are already vulnerable.

As hard as it is to read some parts of this book, its story is important. Even if you think that people should pay for their own choices, eternal punishment should not be part of it. It is reporting from the front lines of an undeclared war - the war of poverty and hopelessness. Choices (especially bad ones) cannot be excused but it is not always all about choices. Throw a side dish of racism, discrimination and human greed and the situation gets even worse.

Highly recommended.

96. The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt

Type: Novel
Length: 419 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1994
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: The Academy: Priscilla Hutchins (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Ace
Finished: 8 June 2016
Rating:

Humanity had managed to discover FTL and from there the universe. And as soon as we started looking, we started finding other races - one that had left monuments all over the place but is nowhere to be seen, one that we seem to have missed just for a few centuries, one in the middle of Civil war and at least a few more. Archeologists have new careers - amongst the stars. The Academy had been formed in order to study these alien world and humanity is going further and further away. Unfortunately Earth is not doing that well and a group of rich people wants to terraform one of those worlds that had supported alien life. The problem of course is that in order for that to happen, everything left from the previous inhabitants will get destroyed. And the archeologists are now thrilled about that. And just when it looks like they will need to live with it, they find something that may be the key to the history of the universe.

Enter Priscilla Hutchins - a pilot sent to pick up the errant team of scientists and bring them home before the planet is flooded. She picks up a passenger on the way there - an old friend (who happens to be an archeologist - which is why he goes with her after all). Let's just say that things do not go very well - people die, people screw up and somewhere in the middle of that there is a big secret, a killer amongst the stars that explains everything that had been found.

Add to this a few more planets and the usual corporation/science war; add a lot more death and suffering and by the end the truth is as strange as anyone could have imagined (although it does take them a lot longer than it should have to figure out the pattern).

McDevitt uses a leaf of his own book and brings back the Monitor at the end of chapters in "The Hercules Text" and uses the sections at the end to show news from the time, diary records and other historical elements. It adds to the story and to the understanding of the world without needing a real story to tie them up. I liked it when he did it before, I liked it here as well.

It is an entertaining story that may have been planned as a single story (and it can as well had remained so) but by now there are a few more books about Hutchins. Onto the next book by McDevitt.

97. The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner

Type: Novel
Length: 276 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1936
Genre: Mystery; Legal Thriller
Part of Series: Perry Mason (9)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Aeonian Press
Finished: 9 June 2016
Rating:

Can a bishop stutter? Both Perry Mason and Della Street have their suspicions when one that does stutter show up and talks to them about an old murder, a very rich man and a girl that may or not be a heiress. Things get just more complicated after that.

Years ago a marriage was dissolved after a murder charge was leveled against a woman for what looks like an accident. Two girls claim to be the heiress of a huge estate. And then the man that owns it and that plans to give it to one of them gets killed. And our favorite lawyer is in the middle of the whole thing.

Old secrets, detectives that are not bothered to cheat their clients (unlike Drake and his men) and the usual clever thinking by Perry save the day - as usual. But the story makes a lot more tweaks and turns than usual and at the end that is one of my favorite stories so far in the series - everyone seems to be trying to either frame someone else or lie about something (and occasionally kill someone).

>172 AnnieMod: Oh good, Evicted was a five star read for me, too. An extremely important look at poverty and the role of eviction (including the difficulty of making a living and raising children without a stable home), and Desmond makes some worthwhile suggestions about what we can do to positively change a bad situation. I hope it garners a lot of readers.

>175 jnwelch:

Yeah, I disagree with him on some things but I cannot fault his research or the fact that he is trying to actually look for ways to break the cycle. And I agree - it needs to be read. I had been looking at some of the negative reviews over at Amazon and was starting to wonder if they had read the same book (or if when they say "read", some of them don't mean skim actually). It is an important book - I won't be surprised to see it winning a few awards next year.

>176 AnnieMod: Agreed. He supports what he says and explains the research well. I'm curious as to what you disagreed with, if you feel like describing any of it. I won't be surprised to see it win a few awards either. I'll have to look over on Amazon for the negative reviews, as on Librarything what I've seen has all been positive.

>177 jnwelch:

The whole voucher system that he likes so much. It has its place but it is not a solution on its own. I know that his explanation is more nuanced than just saying that this is the solution but it just was pushing too hard (while showing how they are exploited). Not that I have a better proposal - it just does not feel right. And personal choices are a bit more important than he is ready to admit - I know it is a tough life and so on but sometimes people need to take responsibility for their actions (and from his research subjects, some do, some don't and he is ready to excuse them all more or less).

Bulgaria has a minority (gypsies although these days I think we call them Roma - they get offended if you call them Roma though) which in a lot of way got hit badly by the changes when they happened. Some "experiments" had been done through the years to try to integrate them and it never caught - sometimes because of themselves, sometimes because the rest of the people could not accept them.

I have a complicated personal history when home ownership is involved - my parents are from the generation that had to have their own home no matter what, I am from the generation that never had their own place - hyperinflation ate all the money collected for decades for a home within months (the practice was that as soon as you are born, an account is started for you which can be used only for a home purchase basically). So for me renting is not a way of life that I grew up with - and a lot of the issues that people had seen never even crossed my mind.

But I also grew up in the last years of the big social experiment in the Eastern Block and the following crazy years after that. Which makes me doubly mad that this all can happen in a country that technically won the Cold War. And that should know better. You know, the longer I live here, the more I see the rifts and separations that are not visible when you are outside.

Sorry for rambling. :)

>178 AnnieMod: That was a good ramble, thanks. :-)

What an interesting background you have to give you perspective on this. I thought the vouchers might be part of what bothered you, and I've seen that idea as a universal solution criticized by others, too. ( I did go over to Amazon, and, on a quick look, that was one complaint from some low-raters. The salty language was another). As you say, his proposals are more nuanced, and he does invite discussion and proposals rather than saying his way or the highway.

I agree it's frustrating to see the rifts and separations and inability to effectively address problems like this in this country - and I grew up here. I'm not sure what the best solution is either, or whether it would have to vary from state to state - one Amazon commentator, a landlord, said it's much harder to evict in Connecticut, and potentially more costly to the landlord, as activist groups are permitted to sue over evictions. (I don't know whether that's true or not, but it suggests the kind of difference we might see in places other than Wisconsin, where Desmond's book is set).

To me this is an important, well-researched book about a problem we haven't sufficiently focused on - the difficulty of building a satisfying, productive life without a stable home. His personal touch helped me understand the problem better, and he strikes me as someone with integrity. He was very careful to back up what he says.

>179 jnwelch:

That's part of the problem, isn't it? Things are done here only if someone gets sued (or not done if there is a chance for someone suing if done)... It's a peculiarity of the system that does not help matters like that. I think it is not even state to state, it may be better off to go down on the counties level - simply because USA is not a homogeneous system and trying to solve social problems as if it was is doomed to fail (even in somewhat more homogeneous countries (Bulgaria say), what works in the capital is utterly irrelevant in the small town where I grew up and incomprehensible in the village where my parents grew up).

I cannot say enough good things about Desmond's research. He was backing it up at all times. He was careful also to note every time when he was reconstructing a dialog. He even explained the process of vetting and verification that was done from someone else before publishing. It is the way journalism need to be done (I know he does not call it that but that book reminded me of the way magazine articles used to be written by the good journalists). :)

You know - my mother had lived in the same place (we expanded a bit and added a second apartment in the same block but it is still the same place) since they day she got married. It was the way to do things after you got married - you either live in a multi generational home (and they add a new floor for you where possible) or you got your own and stayed there once you got married and/or found a good job. Her place will always be home for me but we had had a lot of disagreements through the years because I was refusing to buy an apartment even when I was making enough money to afford a mortgage and it was very likely that the mortgage would have been even cheaper than my rent. :)

Good thoughts, thanks. Maybe it's not universal vouchers, but I'd love to have some idea or ideas that at least could be widely adapted and applied. I do think remedying, or ameliorating, this problem could have a significant "trickle up" effect - a stable home would make the types of differences for kids and their parents that he describes.

Yes, "it is the way journalism needs to be done." Agreed. In some ways, that may have been the aspect that impressed me the most.

Interesting to hear about your mother's place and the way things were done - but not by you. :-) I was glad to go from a renter to an owner with a paid-off mortgage, but I can see the advantages on the other side.

>181 jnwelch: "but I'd love to have some idea or ideas that at least could be widely adapted and applied"

:) No disagreement here. And forcing people to look for worse and worse places just because they have an eviction record is so clearly the wrong thing to do that I am not sure how it is still standing. That always gets me - once you mess up, you are stuck with it for a very long time. Not that actions should not have consequences but in that case, that is adding to the problem. Case by case is always harder than making a rule and sticking to it...

And I agree that solving the homelessness (or effective homelessness) will allow the other issues to start improving and allow them to be tackled next. You cannot overestimate the influence of a stable environment - it is not everything but it is a base for pretty much everything else. :) Of course the biggest problem is that the people that really need to read the book either won't or won't understand it. But such is life.

98. Brothers of Earth by C. J. Cherryh

Type: Novel
Length: 246 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1976
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: The Hanan Rebellion (1), Alliance-Union Universe: Publishing order (1)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Nelson Doubleday / Book Club
Finished: 10 June 2016
Rating:

That was the first novel that Cherryh sold but the second to be published. So when I decided to start reading all her books in order, I wondered for a bit where to start. And as the two are not relate, it ended up with starting from the one I could find first.

Meet Kurt Morgan. He is not the luckiest man in the universe - he was on a ship fighting another ship of the Hanans (both sides are human - just good old human on human war amongst the stars being led for 2 000 years - and noone remembers why anymore) when his ship manages to destroy the enemy one - but not before jumping after it to a star he had never seen and allowing one last charge of their weapon - that is coming to destroy Kurt's ship. Ship explodes, Kurt evacuates and he has not idea where he is, how to get home or if there is where to crash. Well - maybe he is lucky after all - a planet that he can breath on is just in range and he lands - with no chance to ever get back home. And he is not alone.

The planet is the home of the Nemet - a non-human (but humanoid) race living in a society that looks like the Middle Ages with honor and family being at the top of the list. There is also another human - a woman... and Hanan. To say that things do not go very well will be an understatement.

It is an old style adventure on a new planet - there are pirates (of a type) and a girl, a big adventure and a revolution, death and almost death, loss and hope. And if you come to this novel expecting that, it is a pretty good one - it is not perfect and it has the issues of the SF novels of the time - it is a boys tale in a world that looks like a boys' dream (it is kinda amusing that it was written by a woman). It has female characters - although besides Djan (the second human), all other women are subordinate and to some extent just there - the adventures happen only to the men, the decision are taken by the men (although there is always a matriarch in the family that seems to be as important as the patriarch for some things).

That novel started what will become one of the big and well known series in the world of SF - the Alliance-Union universe. Kurt and his planet are part of the Alliance - even though the tale is set way ahead in the future.

It is a fascinating world and the Nemet are an interesting race. If I was rating just the world building, it would have been 5 stars. But the story does not hold that well for an adult book - I am happy I read it but unless if you want to read the whole set of the Alliance novels, it can be skipped.

99. The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake

Type: Novel
Length: 315 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Historical?; Contemporary?
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Finished: 10 June 2016
Rating:

Japan in 1947 is not an easy place to be - the war is felt everywhere, the local population had lost everything, there are a lot of ex-soldiers still missing and the Americans are still there, controlling the town and trying to get some order back into the country. It is a period I had read a lot about - but never about Japan.

Aya had just been "returned" to Japan with her father from Canada - after spending most of the war in one of the camps for Canadian Japanese. Fumi grew up in Japan during the war and all she wants is to find her sister. The two girls are thrown together when they are asked to sit on the same desk at school and even though they are very different, sometimes just being 12 is enough to make a bond. Or maybe it is the fact that Aya knows English and can write a letter.

The sister is doing what she can to help the family - which means becoming a dancer - and being lured into the world of vice. Add to this Matt - the American soldier that serves as a translator after spending the war in a camp for Japanese Americans, learning that his brother died for America (and even then not allowed to leave the camp - instead the army people came to the camp to tell him) and the girl that had to register as part of her Japanese family so she can eat after being stuck in Tokyo when the war started and that led to her loosing her American citizenship; the teacher that tries to survive and the father that gets into trouble while trying to survive.

It is a heartbreaking story about what the war did to the Japanese people - both the ones that stayed in Japan and the ones that had made their lives in North America before that. It's a chapter of the history of that war that everyone had tried to forget - I was never taught about it in school despite having a pretty extensive coverage of the war in class; there isn't too many books talking about it either (more show up these days but not that many existed in the preceding decades).

The story weaves between present and past, showing the camps of Canada and USA and the streets of Japan. When the choice is to sell yourself in order for your family to eat or to do nothing and see them struggle is it really a choice? The story is full of small details and views from the country.

It is not a perfect novel - the two girls are 12 years old because they need to remember the war and the times before that but they need to be less mature in order for the story to work. They both had to grow back and maybe when the war was over they regressed to try to live their childhoods - but it still feels like they are a lot younger in their reactions and actions. Having such a long war to work around, it was inevitable - but it weakened the story. And then there were the constant coincidences - we almost did not see anyone outside of the core group of characters - somehow they were always where they needed to be, meetings were happening just when they had to be in order for the story to work, newspapers with the needed news just showed up in a big pile of them.

Despite that, I would recommend this novel - it has its issues but it is a fascinating view into a time and place that feels alien to most people.

100. The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 614 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Chronicle of the Fallers (1), Commonwealth Universe (6)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Del Rey
Finished: 13 June 2016
Rating:

If you had not read the first 5 novels in of the Commonwealth, close this book, find Pandora's Star and start from there. If you fell for the "chronological order" and had not read the 3 Void novels yet, do the same and go read them before you come back for this book. Not that technically it cannot be read on its own - but you will miss the connections and the nuances - and most of the characters will annoy you without their back history.

With this out of the way - let's talk about the story. In the Void novels we learned that Nigel made it into the Void but we never heard what he learned there. That is the story of that trip. The time is the time when Inigo released his first dreams (and there is again part of the story that we never heard about before). And in a standard Hamilton style, he spends half the novel setting the different storylines. A ship gets lost in the Void, a revolution happens on a planet and Nigel somehow manages to be in the middle of everything. We ever get to see Paula Myo again.

The Raiel help Nigel to get into the Void and he expects to land on Querencia where there is a Raiel ship. It is a perfect plan - except that it turns out that there is another planet in the Void and Nigel ends up there instead. SO much for the plan - so he needs to find another way to destroy the Void. And this being Nigel, the new plan is grand and ambitious and absolutely crazy.

Hamilton tells two parts of the story in separate parts - instead of moving the stories in parallel he first tells one side of it, then the other. It makes the first one very annoying - you understand later why it was like that but that does not make it less annoying or long.

Aliens trying to kill everyone on the planet, a revolution handled almost as if it is a game, some very powerful weapons and the usual case of power changing people form the middle of the story. Add to that the usual amazing world building (this time with all we know from the Commonwealth enriching it). And we finally learn who the Skylords are and the story of the Void get really complicated.

And then things change - and the novel finishes. As with every other of Hamilton's series, this one is a long novel split in two. I cannot wait to see what will happen in the second part and where this whole story will lead.

101. Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon

Type: Novel
Length: 169 pages
Original Language: French
Translator: Will Hobson
Original Publication: 1941 (French)/ 2015 for this English translation
Genre: Mystery
Part of Series: Maigret (47)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Finished: 13 June 2016
Rating:

I had not read a Maigret novel since my teens - not because I decided not to but because I had not seen any of them. So when I saw this in the library, I decided it is time to get back to the good old inspector.

It is one of the unusual books - it is not set in Paris - instead Maigret is asked for a favor and goes to a small village where the a man had died a few weeks before. It had been ruled as an incident but now rumors are everywhere that it was actually a murder. It would have been an easy enough investigation except that in the train Maigret sees and old colleague, now a PI, that had been kicked off by the police and who had always been a rival of Maigret.

Things do not go exactly as expected, it seems like noone cares about the truth and if his adversary was not there, Maigret probably would have left. But with him there, he pushes to find the truth and we see the life in a small village in France in the 40s - split between the rich and the poor and with more secrets than you would expect in a small village like that one (but then most of the classic mystery novels are like that).

Penguin seems to be publishing the full series in new translations so I think I am going to catch up with the ones they already did and then follow them. Even though they are publishing them in some weird order.

102. Winter of the Wolf Moon by Steve Hamilton

Type: Novel
Length: 296 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2000
Genre: PI
Part of Series: Alex McKnight (2)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Finished: 15 June 2016
Rating:

The novel opens 3 months after the previous book with Vinnie (the Ojibwa friend of Alex) convincing him to play some hokey. The game takes a weird turn and before Alex had realized what is going on, there is a woman at his door asking him for help. He allows her to stay in one of his cabins and in the morning she is missing. And despite not wanting to be a PI, Alex just need to find her.

The second novel in the series is set in the middle of the Michigan's Upper Peninsula winter - in the cold and the snow. And they become a major part of the story - not as a setting but more as another character. So does Canada and the bridge between USA and Canada - they are integral not just to the story but to the life of everyone living there.

And Prudell is back (remember the old PI?) and the local and county police. So are Jackie and his bar. It is a community - with its wrinkles and warts. Somewhere along the way a house looses a wall as well but that is just an accident of course.

As for the case? Alex get beaten a lot, almost qualifies for the regular's discount in the hospital, some very bad guys show up and somewhere along the way, Alex even get arrested for a bit. The truth emerges, not before things get a lot more complicated of course.

Another great entry into the series. And even though it is June in Arizona, it made me feel cold - Hamilton is that good in his craft.

Phew. Now I am fully uptodate with my reviews :) Now let's try not to fall behind again

>188 AnnieMod: Congrats on catching up, you're at 100+ books and the year isn't at the halfway point yet!

I've seen powerful, positive reviews for Evicted and appreciate yours, and the conversation here.

103. Thieves Fall Out by Gore Vidal as Cameron Kay

Type: Novel
Length: 237 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1953
Genre: Pulp, Adventure
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Finished: 17 June 2016
Rating:

An ex-soldier from WWII, ex-small time criminal (maybe ex anyway) washes up in Cairo, spending the days in doing nothing. Until one day he gets robbed and the American embassy is not in any hurry to help him. So Peter Wells needs to find his own way - and a job that just appears out of nowhere seems to be the answer to his hopes.

Vidal's novel, written under a pseudonym, is called a pulpy novel by the publisher that brought it back and the description is pretty accurate. Peter manages to get himself in the middle of a grand adventure (with a bit of stealing on the side) in Egypt - and somewhere along the way he meets a woman that he falls in love with (and she falls for him), another woman that thinks she has him around her small finger, a corrupt policemen, a group of locals that really want to kill our guy, a few other people that seem to have the same designs on him and more lies than you want to count. Add a revolution and a few more interesting characters and the book ends up as a lot better novel than I expected. It is cheesy and it is wonderful; it shows its age and it is still a very readable book.

We live in the age of the reprints - a lot of books that had not seen the light of day for decades are getting reprinted. And this one should have stayed in print - it may not be even close to the usual Vidal books but it is still a great adventure story - a bit naive, a bit racist, a bit unbelievable. And still - a book I really liked.

>189 detailmuse:

I know, I managed to surprise myself with the numbers - apparently being busy at work causes me to read more (mainly as a way to calm down before I can sleep)... A lot less stories and magazines than usual - which probably explains the numbers a bit...

Evicted is the kind of books that have to be talked about. I will be interested to see what you think about it if you get around to reading it.

Catching up Annie. I really enjoyed your review of Anathem. I own this and at one time really wanted to read it...then drifted off to other directions. But I think I would enjoy it. I also appreciated your review of Evicted. I'm on my libraries waiting list for an audio version. Cool that you are starting to read Cherryh, in order. And I love you Perry Mason trail, the reviews are great fun.

Welcome back, Dan :) Anathem is a an unusual book in a lot of ways. I think you would enjoy it - even when it get very SF-inal (ninjas in space had been used as a description for certain scenes - it is kinda accurate on the surface - and vastly incorrect if you had actually read the book) :)

Cherryh is one of the masters in the genre - I was looking for a female author to work from the grounds up and she was kinda logical choice. Will see how it goes.

104. Why Save the Bankers?: And Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis by Thomas Piketty

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 207 pages
Original Language: French
Translator: Seth Ackerman
Original Publication: 2016 French/2016 English
Genre: Economy; Politics; EU
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Finished: 18 June 2016
Rating:

Piketty starts this book with a preface explaining what this book is exactly - 48 articles written between 2008 and 2015 for French newspapers, unedited in any way. As a result the book tends to be repetitive - the same argument over and over, sometimes in more than 10 articles - due to a different trigger or due to some change in the French policies or the world of finance.

As these were published for the French public, the short articles are written for people the follow the news and who are interested in the local politics. The translator, Seth Ackerman, added short prefaces to a lot of the articles to explain some of the background and history involved. These short sections complement the articles perfectly - and make the book relevant and readable even if you have no idea how EU is built and what happens behind the scenes; they are even more important for the purely French articles.

Most of the articles boil down to essays and writing on the topic of inequality in EU(and why it is bound to grow instead of decline), the problem with the euro (having 17 (and later 18) countries with one currency but separate debts and tax policies can never work - separate government cannot use their most powerful weapons - inflation and devaluing currency - when they do not own the currency and at the same time, the ECB cannot protect their debt from huge interest hikes) and the passive role of France despite being at the front of the EU summits and decisions. The title is provocative by design - some articles do treat the bailouts of Ireland, Greece and Cyprus of course but even they are in the light of the euro/debt conversation.

The rest of the articles on the USA monetary politics (and how they managed to escape the crisis faster despite being in a worse position), a couple of article for Asia (Hong Kong and Japan), one for Latin America (using a novel as a start) and internal French politics ones. This latter group is less cohesive and does not contain that many repetitions - and as a result are easier to read in quick succession.

It is almost funny to read the reminder of France and Germany's debts being dealt with after WWII and having the same two countries telling all the countries in Southern and Eastern Europe that they need to pay their debt to the euro and they cannot do anything to bail out of it. Yes, there was no war this time (for most of the involved countries) but still, it is a bit cynical. And it is even worse when you look at the interests rates - 2% or thereabouts for Germany, 5% or so for Italy for example - and Italy cannot do anything to protect itself while on the euro.

I lived in one of the newest EU countries until late in 2010. Some of those early stories I was painfully aware of - Bulgaria was not (and still is not) in the Eurozone but our currency is tied to the euro by an IMF mandate after the hyperinflation almost 2 decades ago. The fact that the institution cannot survive in its current form was obvious and still is and the lack of desire from the strong countries to deal with the problem will continue being the reason for the Eurozone still struggling. Piketty, despite being an economist and not a politician, says the same more than once. Maybe one day, someone will be brave enough to try to solve the issue; or maybe EU or the euro will fail.

The book is worth reading - just not in one sitting. The repetition does grate badly in places - and you know what is coming as an argument. But it is the kind of books that is needed more than ever - and if it shows the non-European readers what is really happening in the EU, maybe the repetition is worth enduring. You do not need to agree with everything he has to sau in order to understand that there is a lot to be done. And I really need to pick up Picketty's other books.

105. The Line of Polity by Neal Asher

Type: Novel
Length: 663 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2003
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Polity: Ian Cormac (2), Polity Universe - Publishing Order (3)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Night Shade Books
Finished: 20 June2016
Rating:

If you liked Gridlinked, you will want to read this book. If you had not read it, you better go and read it before you continue with this one - not that the story does not stand on its own but a lot of details are too sparse if you did not have the backstory.

The first novel in the universe showed us the Polity. The second showed us the life on a planet so alien and different that it was almost as if it was not in the same world. This one is set on the line between the Polity and the non-Polity world - a line drawn between the stars and constantly shifting. The Polity always follows its rules - it never invades a planet unless if the people on it ask for it or if things are going really badly.

Welcome to Masada. The planet is not inhabitable really but due to a symbiosis people are able to live on the surface. The planet is ruled by a Theocracy and the only ones actually on the surface are the workers (which are more similar to slaves than anything else), everyone important lives in cylindrical worlds in orbit around the planet. As with any similar setup, the slaves have something of a resistance organized which does not have much of a chance but still exists. And the revolution is close.

It sounds like yet another revolution in space story until you account for a few other things - a crazy scientist that managed to find some Jain technology and got even crazier (and really do not want the Polity to know about him), another part of Dragon (the second sphere) and a space station called Miranda that gets destroyed. Get the survivors of all disasters that all this can cause and throw them at Masada. Then add Ian Cormac and his merry band - Mika and Skar, Gant and Thorn. Account for the fact that Masada is John Stanton's home world and he is coming back to help the revolution (with Jarvellis and her ship) and things cannot be boring. Add to all this a cyborg, a boy from Miranda, a girl that used to be a slave, some genetic engineering on a huge scale and a local life on Masada that is more nightmarish than anyone really can imagine and the story starts feeling overcrowded. The emergence of a new race and a new species of... things almost gets lost in the shuffle.

Asher's imagination keeps surprising me - both in his world building and his description of the technology in the universe. Although the story is a bit too long around the fighting scenes and does sound a bit repetitive. On the other hand they brought us character like Mulat - who is a pure comedic relief in otherwise dark novel - not because he is funny or does anything funny - simply because of what is happening to him. And somewhere amongst the revolution, humanity proves to be the same everywhere.

I really enjoyed this entry into the universe - it was a bit annoying that every time when someone needed a special change in order to live, they got it almost by miracle but none of it was really surprising - it came as part of the story.

>194 AnnieMod: interesting review. I don't know enough about American economics, much less that of Europe.

>195 AnnieMod: with a name like Masada, I was waiting for some kind of mass suicide.

106. Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson

Type: Novel
Length: 190 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2009
Genre: Children; Adventure
Part of Series: The 39 Clues (4)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Finished: 20 June 2016
Rating:

4th book in the series, the stronghold of the 4th branch of the family - and a great adventure in Egypt. This installment is stronger than the previous ones - partially because Watson does not try to fit all of the competition (he mentions everyone but we see only Irina and Alastair (and Jonas for a bit). But we also see an old friend of Grace and we learn more about Grace - the woman that started the competition and who had been mostly a ghost in the story. We get to meet an old friend and the kids receive a message left for them a long time ago.

Egypt is a fascinating country and as all the previous books, this one contains a lot of history - the moved temple of Isis and the numerous tombs; the streets of Egypt with all the bad and good. I was in Egypt with my mother 8 years ago and I saw in person most of the places and monuments that they were talking about. In some cases I was waiting for it to happen, knowing where it leads. There is also the usual Cahill fun of course - attempts for assassinations, name dropping and a lot of running around (and I start wondering if Nellie was really where she was at the start of it by chance).

At the end Amy and Dan find their clue but do not find a new clue - so it is not clear where we are going next. Which is unusual. On the other hand we are out of branches of the family so we will see where that leads. And noone knows which branch the siblings belong to. And that is the real mystery of the series - the stories are fun and finding the clues is interesting but I do not really care what they find at the end - we know it is a recipe, they just need to track down what goes inside.

Before this book, I was wondering if I want to continue reading the series but I am back on board.

>196 dchaikin:

Dan, I really laughed when I read your comment about Masada :) I never thought about it - everyone was too busy killing someone else.

As for the economics - it is not my discipline but I read about it occasionally - does not make me an expert and I might be wrong but at least I can read an article and understand what they are saying most of the time.

Very interesting review of Why Save the Bankers

Thanks Barry :)

107. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

Type: Novel
Length: 482 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1992
Genre: Thriller, Crime
Part of Series: Harry Bosch (1)
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Finished: 22 June 2016
Rating:

Meet Harry Bosch - an LAPD detective, recently transferred to the Hollywood Division after being part of a very messy and public case that stopped the LAPD from kicking him out from the force. He is not very happy with that - but he is doing the best he can. And one day he is called at the scene of a murder - and recognize the dead man as one of the people that were in the tunnels of Vietnam with him.

The novel is written at the time when the war in Vietnam was the last war for the USA and the survivors (one way or another) of that war are a big part of the story. The murder leads to an older crime, one connected to Vietnam in more that one way. And Harry needs to solve it - because of the connection he feels and because it is his job.

More people die, some diamonds make an appearance, FBI muscles in on the investigation and somewhere along the line, betrayals happen - both old and new. Just when Harry believes he finally got to the bottom of it, something happens and all needs to be reevaluated.

So many twists and turns should sound gimmicky. But Connelly has a style that somehow works - and this ends up one of the better thrillers that I had read lately. It drags occasionally - some of the scenes could have been a lot shorter - and I could have lived without the two IA detectives but despite that, it is still a pretty good book.

Highly recommended.

108. Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt

Type: Novel
Length: 371 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1996
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Ancient Shores (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Finished: 23 June 2016
Rating:

When you are turning the soil on your farm you expect to find rocks. Or some trash. What you do not expect is a yacht - complete with sails and rigging. And when the yacht leads to more artifact, everyone in the country start wondering what all that is - especially when it turns out that the boat is made from an element that cannot exist.

McDevitt constructs the novel around these discoveries - with the whole paranoia and craziness that it entails - all happening on a Native American land does not help matters much. The scientists have their own ideas of how to handle things but politics and economy get into the picture. That's a part of the story that SF authors do not cover that often - the story of how we discover things is always fascinating but what happens to humanity at the background is even more fascinating.

McDevitt chooses an interesting way to show us what is happening - introducing characters for a page or so and never mentioning them again; using newspapers' and books and TV segments to show what happens outside of the story. And all that adds up to a background that allows you to see what is really happening.

I am not sure how much I liked the end - it felt almost like deus ex machina - it was an interesting way to wrap things up but I wish that things were actually resolved inside of the novel, with everyone involved.

The novel blends a lot of social issues - from private property and race relationships to religion and beliefs (and both things are not the same thing). And under the whole story is another one - about responsibility and trust and who has the right to make decisions about something that influences humanity.

109. Black Tide by Peter Temple

Type: Novel
Length: 356 pages
Original Language: English (Australia)
Original Publication: 2000
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Part of Series: Jack Irish (2)
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Text Publishing Company
Finished: 24 June 2016
Rating:

Jack Irish is living his life as he usually does lately - part time carpenter, part time lawyer, part time horse racing syndicate member (or lawyer for one anyway). A big part of the story revolves around this - it is what makes Irish who he is.

Until a friend of his father comes to him with a plea for help - his son is missing, he is about to loose his house and he has noone else to turn to. And he has stories - of the father that Jack does not remember, about the first meeting of his parents, about the old days. Jack decides to help - and gets himself in a middle of a really big mess. And then decides not to listen to the number of people that are trying to warn him off. He survives at the end of course but not for lack of trying to get himself killed.

It is another very Australian novel from Temple. Jack Irish is a fascinating character and the language and setting are so Australian that in may be hard to read if you are not used to the terms. It is an author I really like - despite the bleakness of his characters and settings (because even Jack is not the most positive character in the world and most of the others are not even close). Betrayals are just part of the story - both personal and as part of the case. Jack finds love again though - despite the one from last book ending not so nicely.

PS: Reading the first one before this one helps a lot with the setting and characters.

110. The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria by Janine Di Giovanni

Type: Non-fiction
Length: 172 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2016
Genre: Journalism; War Reporting
Part of Series: N/A
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Liveright
Finished: 24 June 2016
Rating:

War correspondents have one of the hardest jobs - go where the bombs and bullets are flying and report about all the misery and pain. And Jeanine Di Giovanni is one of the veterans in that.

I've never read a book by her before although I know that I had seen a few of her articles. She had been everywhere - and that gives her a unique perspective at the first year of the Syrian war. And she uses it to write this book - and show that things do not change. Way too often when she describes a situation she compares it to what happened in Bosnia. Or in Iraq. It is heartbreaking to see the same mistakes happening again - and realizing that people are people no matter where - evil and good exist in every war, in every country.

The book is a mix between personal stories and official reports. It makes it a bit repetitive in the first part of the story - but then the style settles and gets very readable. The horrors and the misery and the hopelessness leak from every page - people are tortured sometimes without a reason, sometimes for what they believe. There is no winner in that first year of the war - the author ends up riding both with the Assad forces and with the Free Army - seeing the conflict from both sides. But she does not just report the war itself - she reports the lives of the ones that are the most vulnerable - the children, the women, the people that cannot defend themselves. In a culture where being a virgin is the only way to have a future, the men, the same men that will require virginity from their brides, are raping, ensuring that they are destroying lives even when they are not killing.

It is a hard book to read - a lot of the torture descriptions are graphical and you can hear the voices behind them. So are the stories of ruined lives and deaths - both of locals and of other journalists. It is not a book you want to read and yet it is a book that needs to be read. Because humanity is doomed to repeat the same mistakes until everyone realizes that this cannot continue.

111. Half a War by Joe Abercrombie

Type: Novel
Length: 362 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2015
Genre: Epic Fantasy; YA Fantasy
Part of Series: The Shattered Sea (3)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Del Rey
Finished: 25 June 2016
Rating:

And that is how the story of the Shattered Sea ends. Or at least the one that Yarvi started in the first book.

As with the previous two books, Abercombie has a teenager in the middle of the story - the princess Skara from Throvenland - who loses the last of her relatives, her grandfather to one of the killers employed by the High King. And with his death, there are only two lands remaining in the uprising against authority - Gettland (lead by Uthil) and Vansterland (lead by Grom-gil-Gorm). Except that Skara is not ready to give up and abandon her land and her people.

Between her hatred for the man that killed everyone that she ever knew and cared about and Yarvi's oath to avenge his father, the three nations somehow manage to find a way to work together. It takes betrayals and deaths, elf's weapons (and if noone had yet realized that elves are actually the humans of our days - the world of the Shattered Sea is a post-apocalyptic Earth, that book makes it clear without spelling it), a lot of old friends - Koll and Brand, Thorn and Skifr, Ryn and Blue Jenner.

At the end, the book is weaker than the first 2 - it needs to wrap up the story and tie all the loose ends. Because of that we end up seeing a lot more betrayals and a lot more bad actions performed by the good guys than ever before. While the first two installments in the trilogy mostly toyed with the idea of any of our heroes being evil. This book toes and crosses the line - everyone seem to be capable of everything.

At the end the trilogy as a whole is worth reading - it is a coming of edge story and it is a coming to power story; it is a quest and it is one of the better examples of epic fantasy created lately. And the world, before or after you recognize it for what it is, is built masterfully. In a way it being revealed to be Earth is part of the mastery.

The series is categorized as YA but it lacks the usual problem of the genre - characterization is well done, people get to make hard choices. And that is what makes it not just a nice read but a great trilogy.

112. Gate of Ivrel by C. J. Cherryh

Type: Novel
Length: 194 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1976
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: Morgaine (1)
Format: Mass Market Paperback/Omnibus
Publisher: DAW
Finished: 27 June 2016
Rating:

Clarke's third law says "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". I rarely read books that remind me of it but "Gate of Ivrel" did. The first book published by Cherryh (although the second sold one) starts a trilogy, unrelated to her long series. And it reads a lot more like a fantasy than a science fiction - and if the prologue was not there, I would have called it magic (and the book fantasy) and been done with it.

An old race had built the Gates - portals through space and time. They had kept pushing forward, knowing that this is safe. Until one day someone decided to go backwards and time wrapped. Badly. The race disappeared but the gates remained. And a team of scientists is sent through them with a single mission - go and close them after yourself until there are no more gates left. And this is just the backstory - because our story opens with the last remaining member of the expedition (or maybe a descendant of one) and her quest to save a world.

100 years ago, Morgaine stepped on the planet and convinced the locals to help her going against a ruler that uses the Gates for his own means - filling the world with beasts that do not belong and ruling the world in despair and misery. And then she disappeared, along with most of the warriors, leaving Thiye in power. That is a story that Vanye had heard since he was a baby - and when he gets kicked out from his family's halls after killing one of his brothers and maiming the other, the last thing he expects is to meet her. But that is exactly what happens - and due to the oaths bound society, he ends up attached to her. And they are off - to the Gate of Ivrel so Morgaine can close it - with her special weapons and even better sword; with her not carrying about anything but her goal. And while they travel (and travel), we see the world and the clans, the harm from the Gates and the stupidity of men. There is a lot of horses riding and people getting beaten and not too much action outside of it.

The story itself is the standard one for sword and sorcery books - there is a quest and things just happen on the way there. Except that now it is sword and science (at least from Morgaine's point of view; for Vanye is may as well be magic). It is the kind of book that is more involved with the path and the journey than the end. The end opens the door for the sequel - with the surviving characters moving to a new world and ready to start over.

It is a nice novel if you know what to expect - the world building is exquisite even if the language is a bit clumsy; the journey is worth reading. But if you expect action and fast moving plot, that novel won't suit you.

>204 AnnieMod: So depressing

113. The Devil's Workshop by Alex Grecian

Type: Novel
Length: 383 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 2014
Genre: Historical Mystery; Crime
Part of Series: Murder Squad (3)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Finished: 28 June 2016
Rating:

The Devil's Workshop is not a complete novel - it does have something of an end but none of the big storylines actually get closed. That would not have been a problem if the novel had managed the strong points of the first one. Unfortunately it does not.

The idea is interesting enough - Jack the Ripper's story is about to get a closure, a secret society acting in London and a prison escape, all of them connected in a weird way. And if it was an individual novel, I would have liked it a lot. As part of the series, it missed the mark - neither the atmosphere, nor the characters.

At least we see March for a while. I am not sure I liked where his character went but it was needed for the story I guess.

I will read the next novel, I really want to see what happens in this story after all. And I really hope that Grecian will return to the style that sounds like 1890 - because in this one, there is nothing that puts it in the correct timeframe - the Murder Squad could have been pretty much any police department or a detective company, the time could have been any time really.

Note: The previous novels were dark enough but that one contains a lot more torture scenes and overall darkness.

114. Hunter of Worlds by C. J. Cherryh

Type: Novel
Length: 206 pages
Original Language: English
Original Publication: 1977
Genre: Science Fiction
Part of Series: The Hanan Rebellion (2), Alliance-Union Universe: Publishing order (2)
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Nelson Doubleday / Book Club
Finished: 30 June 2016
Rating:

And for the first time in my read through of Cherryh's novels, here is a real SF novel, with no fantasy hiding behind the scenes. It is her 3rd novel and second in her long running Alliance-Union Universe although it can as well be considered a separate and non-related one - maybe a later novel will tie the lines together but it has no connection at all to the first one.

Somewhere across the stars, humanity had moved away from a whole system, leaving it to the locals - the kallia and the amaut and the iduve). There are some humans remaining and they do not fare very well - the amaut use them as slaves and everyone more or less despises them. Enter the iduve - a secretive race that lives on its ships and controls any race that they come into contact with, taking them as something similar enough to slaves - both the kallia and the amaut are taken into the ships and bred there - the kallia for servants, the amaut for soldiers. The iduve had been away for a bit and now they are back and they seem to be here to stay. A family matter makes one of the most powerful of them, Chimele, go for something unheard of - join together different races.

The iduve have a technology, that allows different people to be joined mentally in a way that makes them feel the same as the others - memories, feelings, fairs. And usually it is done with members of the same species. Chimele joins 3 of them - a human, Daniel, a planet born kallia, Aiela, and a slave-born female kallia, Isande. Half the novel is taken by the story of that joining and them getting used to it; the other one is resolving the family matter (which almost causes the destruction of a planet).

It is a novel about the different - everyone is forced to live in a world that is not their own, amongst people that are not their own. Cherryh builds 3 complete races and make them believable - with their languages and psychologies and their social norms. Her world building is as good as ever and this novel makes me look forward to her next novels even more.

And that would be all for June:

June Statistics:

Total: 24
Novels: 21
Non-fiction:3

Q2 Statistics:

Total: 57
Novels: 50
Non-fiction: 6
Stories: 7
Articles: 1

H1 Statistics:

Total: 114
Novels: 102
Non-fiction:11
Stories: 19
Articles: 1

Moving to a new thread for H2 :)