Book Report #19 of 26

Repo Men

by

Eric Garcia

First I saw the movie - loved the movie - then I read the book - loved the book too!

Repo men, the term, brings up images of cars repossessed in the middle of the night; of deadbeats who can't or won't pay their bills; and of the "men" themselves who are not much better than their clients.

Now spin this world into a dysfunctional future where the same thing happens but instead of cars it's artificial organs that are being repossessed.  Oh, yea, you read that right - organs.  Hearts, livers, kidneys, you name it, technology has progressed so far that any organ can now be manufactured instead of transplanted.  Think of just how wonderful that can be.  Now think of it outside of the Canadian and British models of healthcare and think of it in the terms of the for-profit world of American health care.

So, a person needs a new pancreas but has to buy it himself.  He certainly can't afford to just write a cheque for it; these things cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and, even in the future, that's a lot of money.  So he must finance the purchase from the Credit Union which is also responsible for repossessing the organ should the client default on the loan.

Gross!  Right?  But strangely compelling, right?  I mean, how can you do that?  You'd kill the person, right?  How could that be legal?  Who would take the job of repo man?  All of these reactions are natural and the author is counting on you to have them,  I was fascinated to find out what kind of world you'd have to live in for this career to exist. 

Of course there is way more going on than just the "job", that would be a boring book.  The main character, Remy is very good at what he does but circumstances along the way cause him to be on the other side of the job.

The book was well written and very different from the movie.  The author, Garcia, used a rotating structure in the book where Remy is narrating from his present telling short stories about his past in the military and of his five marriages and five divorces.  All these stories add a little bit of insight into Remy and how he got to where he is.  Garcia also keeps the details of how Remy went from repo man to target (or client, to use the term from the book) to the last moment and it all gels together in a very satisfying way.

I must admit that I didn't quite get the final twist at the end.  I was scratching my head a bit there, thinking, "Hmm.  I'm not sure I really buy that but I'll let it go because the rest of it was so good."  

One last thing - just look at the cover of this book!  It's actually the movie poster but it conveys the whole look and feel of the book in one image.  It's dark, (black and white, well blue and white) it's dangerous (just look at that cannon that Forest Whitaker is holding!) it's strange (what's with the weird tattoos?) it's a job (company coffee cup) and it's darkly funny (see the blood on the cup?).  The world Garcia created here was really cool and it was fun to visit for a while but I really would not want to buy a house there.

And one more last thing.  There is a very interesting essay at the back of the book explaining just how it all came into being.  What I liked best about it was the evolution of the title; it started as a thirteen page short story called The Telltale Pancreas which was then turned into a screenplay called The Repossession Mambo then into the movie Repo Men.

I like The Telltale Pancreas best.

Book Report #18 of 26

A Drink Before the War

by

Dennis Lehane

Boy am I glad to be me.  You see, I've never read any of Lehane's novels until now.  I've known about him for quite some time; mostly I know of his movies, or, more accurately, his novels that have been turned into movies.  Think; Mystic River, Shutter Island and Gone, Baby Gone.  The first two movies were adaptations of his two stand-alone novels but the third, Gone, Baby Gone is an adaptation of his fourth novel in the Kenzie and Gennaro series of detective novels.

As I've mentioned before, I love my dark, noir detective fiction.  Show me the underbelly of society and I'm yours.  I prefer the desperate to the depraved; people hard on their luck not sickos.  A crime of passion or opportunity is much more interesting, to me, than some nut-job who kills or tortures for fun.  Through what I've heard of the movies I've always known that Lehane was an author that I wanted to read and I'm in the lucky position to have never read nor watched anything that has come from his mind.  I am determined to read his books in order and to watch his movies only after I've finished reading the book it came from.  Again, I'm glad to be me.

This first book was fantastic.  It took a little while to get hold of the characters and, more interestingly, where they keep their office.  (The bell tower of a church.  Go figure.)  But by the second half of the book Patrick Kenzie and his partner Angie Gennaro came to life.  These are a couple of tough characters who live in the toughest parts of Boston.  They are hired by some powerful politicians to find a cleaning lady who, they say, stole some sensitive documents.  Simple enough, until they find her and discover what is contained in these documents.  Bodies start to pile up quickly and characters who seem to have nothing to do with each other are connected in surprising ways.

All of the twists and turns at first seem wild but then make absolute sense once Kenzie and Gennaro dig into the case.  The book is deeply three dimensional with Lehane's descriptions of South Boston and the relationship between Patrick and Angie.  By the end of the book I had the satisfying feeling of being grateful for having had the experience.

The next book in the series is titled - Darkness, Take My Hand.  

Book Report #17 of 26

Boston Noir

edited by

Dennis Lehane

This is my first brush with Mr. Lehane and I was very interested in what he considered to be noir.

Of the 11 stories I liked every one but one.  These were interesting, taught, dark and thrilling to read.

Lehane had a story in it as well and I liked it as well.  If his novels have the same kind of tone as this collection then I'll be very happy indeed to read his books.

I may be the only person who has never read him nor have I seen any of the movies that have been adapted from his books.  I am a luck reader to be in such a position.

Once I finished the book I quickly picked up A Drink Before the War and so far I'm loving it.  The two detectives are wonderful and there is enough drama all around them that I feel a person can just lose himself in Lehane's world.  It's no all dark and there is humor and some crackling dialogue between the covers.  I feel that I am in very good hands while reading.

Book Report #16 of 26

Perish Twice: a Sunny Randal mystery

by

Robert B. Parker

The second book in the series and the story telling was much better than the first.  Now that all the set-up is done we can proceed with just telling a good story.

I can't get passed the feeling that these stories are Spenser Light; there are so many similarities that I sometimes find that I just wish Spenser would knock on her door to lend a hand.  This story dealt with so many couples splitting up that I felt I was reading a romance novel.  Thank God there were a few bodies around to remind everyone that this was a mystery!

I gave these books a pass when Parker was living and I'm reading them now to honor the man but, I have to be honest, this was not Parker at his best.  Even in the Spenser books I never liked the parts where Spenser and Susan were sitting around talking about their feelings.  It's funny; everybody has conversations like that but, for some reason, I never felt like Parker handled them well.  I can't put my finger on it but these scenes never rang true for me.  With Perish Twice I had nearly a whole book of boo-hoo-ing!  Sometimes I forgot where we were in the investigation!

At this point my advice would be to pass on the first two books.

The next one in the series is called Shrink Rap.

Book Report #15 of 26

Family Honor

by 

Robert B. Parker

After this book I've decided to take a break from reading novels.  But I've established the foundation for two series that I'll concentrate on for the remainder of the year.  The first series is the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly which I wrote about in Book Report #14.  The other is the Sunny Randall series by Robert B. Parker. I chose it because it was a side project for the wonderful Mr. Parker; Spenser is a very long series dating back to the 1970's and I've read most of them (but not all).  There are only six books with Sunny Randall and I thought this would make a nice project for my book reading challenged.

So, Family Honor - well, it was okay.  Once again we are dealing with book one of a series so there is a lot of foundation to set up; who is Sunny, what kind of person is she, who are her friends and so on.  I'd have to say that she is not too far removed from good 'ol Spenser.  She's pretty confident, smart and knows herself very well.  She paints instead of boxes and she's not much of a fighter.  But she can gather the help from her friends who have the skills that she lacks.  I like Sunny but I really need to read more to get an idea as to her character.

The one aspect of the book that simply did not work for me was Sunny's relationship with her ex-husband.  He comes form a "connected" family although he has always professed that he was not part of the family business.  But this was still too much for Sunny to live with and so she separated from him.  Still there is a lot of pent up attraction between them so they keep getting re-involved; usually because Sunny needs something from him.

I can't quite put my finger on what it is with their relationship that I don't like but, somehow, the whole situation comes up flat and just a bit far fetched.  I don't know - I just don't like this relationship.

As always Parker's prose is a relaxed, easy read.  I tended to put the book down and not come back to it for days at a time but I could always jump back in.

I liked the book enough to read the second one.  I do hope the second one grabs me a bit more that this one though.

Book Report #14 of 26

I've been behind in my blog updating lately.

You know how it is - you get in the habit of blogging then something comes up and you get out of it.  So now I'm trying to force my way back into blogging.

Since Maddy has left for Spain I've found that I've spent more time on Twitter and on Facebook than on my own page.  Maddy has been keeping us up to date on her Facebook page and I've been posting little bits of information on there lately.  It's a different audience but I get the same sense of satisfaction of having blogged by posting on those sites.  But this site is the one where I have to sit down and "think" about what I'm going to write about.  It takes a certain time commitment and it's very easy to put it to the side.

Maddy is doing very well in Spain.  But we really do miss her and I can tell that she's becoming home-sick.  Living out of a suitcase gets old fast and, I'm sure, she'd love to just get back to her old habits of watching her favorite shows and reading her books that make her so happy.

By next Saturday she'll be back and I'll be happy to have my family together again.

--------------------------------------------

So, the 26 books in a year challenge: is going quite well. I've read books 14 and 15 and I'm taking a bit of a break from novels to catch up on some short story collections that I have.  They are still in book form but they can be enjoyed in small bites.

Book 14 was:

The Black Echo

by

Michael Connelly

Connelly is one of my favorite authors, his books are smart, dark and always interesting.

I've read a few of his books before but I've never read them in any kind of order.  This one is the first in the Harry Bosch series and my intent is to read the whole series - in order.

I'm a  big fan of continuity it just makes the small references from previous novels much more satisfying to read.  Plus you manage to form a kind of relationship with a character this way.

Having read other novels further along in Connelly's career I found this one to be a bit stiff.  This is understandable since it was his first published novel.

Harry is a detective for the LAPD and he catches a murder case that, at first, just looks like a drug OD.  When he realizes the body is actually a Vietnam vet that he served with in the war he starts to look into it much more closely.  What looks like an OD is revealed to be a murder and during the investigation Harry uncovers some serious corruption.

Although the story was a bit stiff in the telling there was lots to get involved with; the story of the first case, the story of the witness, the story of a bank heist and the story of uncovered corruption.  There was a lot to chew on in this book.

I liked it and I look forward to reading the second installment - Black Ice.

Book Report #13 of 26 - Fat Ollie's Book by Ed McBain

Fat Ollie's Book

by

Ed McBain

This is a book I've had on the shelf for a while now.  McBain was a prolific writer of over 100 novels.  I don't quite know why I've never really gotten into his books.  He wrote primarily police procedurals and his writing style was very easy to read.

Part of the issue I had with his most celebrated series (the 87th Precinct books) was that he insisted in using a fictitious east coast city called Isola.  Which was New York city and it rubbed me the wrong way from the start.  Then he insisted it not allowing is characters to age.  His main detective Carella is always just around 40 years old.  Interestingly all of his novels were set in the present day so we get the follow the ageless Carella throughout the changes of the 50's to the 2000's.

Put that aside and you have an enjoyable series of novels.  There are all kinds of characters in the form of the cops that inhabit the precinct and the accompanying low-lifer's that inhabit a city.  There are usually two  crimes that are being solved at the same time in each book.

Anyway, straight ahead cop stories that are, usually, pretty good.

I hated the character of Fat Ollie, who is a detective from a neighboring precinct (the 88th) and thank God he's not part of the 87th because I'd have to kill myself.  He is a bigot, glutton and all-around asshole who wrote a terrible novel that is stolen form his police car.  The hard part of the book is that McBain makes us suffer through the text of this book!  But eventually I got into the rhythm of it and could simply laugh at it.

The story of the missing book was pretty fun and the case of the murdered politician was also well done.

Yea, I liked it.  As a matter of fact I'm going to try and track down the first three novels of the series which were written in the 50's and start from there.

Book Report #12 of 26

One for the Money

by

Janet Evanovich

This was a fun book.

Down on her luck Stephanie Plum needs a job and starts working for her cousin Vinnie.  Vinnie is a bail bondsman and Plum has to learn to become a bounty hunter, fast.

This is quite a tonic after reading a Spenser novel.  Stephanie Plumb doesn't know the first thing about bounty hunting or about guns or about self defense.  She just want to pay the rent and she can make $10,000 if she can catch an ex-cop who is wanted for murder.

The book is very funny and is a wonderful way to spend some time with a book.  It turns the whole private eye thing on it's head by making it a fish-out-of-water story and it's very effective.  I felt sorry for Plumb because she made all kinds of mistakes that I would probably make if I were in her shoes.  (Although I'd have my gun out much more than she did.)

If you're looking for a story that feels like a movie by giving the genre a twist - this is a great start.  If you like it well, you're in luck, it's the first book in a series that has run to sixteen novels so far.

I'll be reading the second one very soon.

Book Report #11 of 26

Potshot

by

Robert B. Parker

The late grate Robert B. Parker!

There is only one author that Sue and I truly share in admiration.  The books of Robert B Parker and his Spenser series especially, were one of the first things we shared when we first started dating.

The first Parker novel I ever read was Crimson Joy  the murders in the story were brutal and I was surprised Sue suggested the book to me.  But what really came through was the character of Spenser; ever confident, strong and funny.  The humor of Parker's books never come out of the plot but always through the dialog between the characters in the story.

If you get in to the Spenser series you will find that, in the end, you won't remember the plots nor will you care about them because what you loved the best was the dialog and the relationships that Spenser has.  His best friend and sometimes partner Hawk is one of the best characters in mystery fiction - ever.

Potshot itself was not one of Parker's best stories.  As stories go, not much really "happens" until the very end.  This book would be a real treat to a serious fan of the series. Parker gathers around Spenser and Hawk all the other tough guys that Spenser has met throughout his long career to help him discover what is wrong in Potshot CA

Give this one a pass until you've read at least 10 of the novels prior to this one.

But was it any good?  Well, it was only okay. But reading Parker is always easy; his words fall right off the page and once you've realized you've read 335 pages you'll swear it felt like a short story of 25 pages.

Save this book until you're really in to the series then it will be much more enjoyable for you.

Book report #10 of 26

The Last Good Kiss

by

James Crumley

Yea, I hated this book.

It wandered around, around and around.  It solved the primary case in the middle of the book and then created more mysteries along the way.

The main character was a drunk who was following a bigger drunk and they became friends and drank all over the West of the US.

Critics have described The Last Good Kiss as Crumley's best book.  That's too bad because I didn't like it very much.  Which means I won't be seeking any other books by this author.

Another apt description of his writing style was a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson.  Mostly the book is about all the drinking these two characters do along the way.

I just didn't like it.

Book Report #9 of 26

Money Shot

by 

Christopher Rowley

Book 3 of the Netherworld trilogy.

Here it is - the dramatic conclusion!

The answer to Taste Imperative is revealed.  The stakes are much higher and the body count starts to accelerate.

Again and again the flaws in this series kept showing up; from some meaningless chases to some clunky sex scenes to just playing one cliche after another to string a story together.  I kept stopping and remembering other stories I'd read or movies I'd watched.  There were bits of Mad Max, Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner and just some goofy situations that just made the whole thing a mess for me.

I enjoyed the last sequence in the secret bunker but the whole thing ended in an eye-rolling steal from Blade Runner!

Did I enjoy the series?  Well, I like the concept of the books, merging the novel with the graphic novel but the story was so weak that, in the end, I kept thinking that I could have read something else.

Book Report #8 of 26

The Bloodstained Man

by

Christopher Rowley

Book 2 of the Netherworld trilogy.

Another fast-paced read. We follow agent Rook and Plesur into the wilds of the uninsured territories of New Jersey still being chased by unknown forces who are trying to kill Plesur and the knowledge that is locked in her brain.  Along the way we pick up two new characters and we get to learn more about the past of this near-future.

The text and art still work well together although I found the story dragged on a bit.  Part of the reason was just the nature of a book 2 of 3.  The second book tends to delve into the background a bit more and the plot usually slows down until book 3.  Learning about the Emergency and how pleasure models came to be was interesting but where the story nearly lost me was in the endless chases and escapes. They felt like they were there just to fill pages.  Because the author had the benefit of an artist he did not have to spend too much time describing the settings which made wading through this second book manageable.

The new characters, the military robots and the use of "ear backs", chips that can be inserted behind the ear to add intelligence, skills and new personalities, were fresh ideas that I liked.  Alas, the situations our four characters find themselves in seemed all too familiar which made for a book that was a bit of a let-down from the first.

Book Report #7 of 26

Pleasure Model (Netherworld book 1)

By

Christopher Rowley

I was first stuck by the concept of this book; published by Heavy Metal Pulp (an imprint of TOR).  It is a science fiction novel with art work throughout, this seemed like a perfect mash-up of the old pulp magazines of the 20's and 30's and the Heavy Metal monthly for grown-ups.

If you liked the movie Blade Runner (and who didn't?) then this will be a nice reminder of why you liked it.  The book has it all; a weary police officer who's seen it all, a murder that is much more than it seems and a witness who is a Pleasure Model, an illegal gene-grown human.  As Rook (our detective) investigates the murder an attempt is made on the life of the Pleasure.  Rook decides to protect her and thus begins his run from the people who are trying to kill them.

The book has the look, feel and tone of Blade Runner it is quickly paced and the artwork enhances the story.  I always feel good that I've imagined something very much like the artwork shows.  Perhaps I got used to the visuals of the interior art but I never found it distracting.  There is a satisfying conclusion to the first book but in no way does it leave you thinking that you don't need to read on.  You don't read book one unless you are prepared to read book three and the first volume leaves you at a natural break point in the story; not in the middle of the action.

I've already started book two and will let you know how it read in two weeks.

You might be wondering what happened to The Dark End of the Street listed on the right.  I'm about half way through it and so far I'm not digging it very much.  The editors picked a wonderful premise and they went to two distinct types of writers to contribute to the volume.  They tapped the shoulders of mystery / crime writers and literary fiction authors.  So far I've only liked the ones written by the crime writers.  And I've hated, yes hated, the stories from the literary mob.  Literary fiction - where nothing actually happens and characters gaze at their navels and mope.

So I've put the book aside half read.  I'll pick it up again from time to time and read one or two stories until I've finished it.  I'll keep it up there to motivate me to read it.  At some point I'll get sick of looking at the cover on my blog and I'll finish the book just to change the art.

You may be wondering what the cover of the second book in the Netherworld series looks like so here is a picture for you.

Cheers!

Book Report #6 of 26

London Boulevard

by

Ken Bruen

Another good read from an Irish crime author known for his violent and dark novels.

In this book Mitchell is released from prison.  He then walks a fine line between is old life and the new one he's trying to create.  He does not want to go back to prison but his old life keeps tugging at him; dragging him into situations that he barely has control over.

Much of his past is revealed to be not like he thought it was and once the body count starts we are lead in one direction only to have the whole story take a tilt that is surprising and satisfying.  In many ways the ending gave a real feeling of just what Mitchell was dealing with all along.  His revelations through out the story were not all that surprising to the reader, because we've read some of it before but the twist ending gave a real sense of how all of the previous surprises really felt to him.

It was a very satisfying read.

Book Report #5 of 26 - The Bobbly Gold Stories by Anthony bourdain

The Bobby Gold Stories

by

Anthony Bourdain

This was an interesting novel suggested to me by my sister Janick.

Anthony Bourdain is a world-famous chef.  He's been on the Food Network and now the Travel Channel and is best known for eating outrageous foods from around the world.  He's very charismatic and, I'm sure, pisses many, many people off.  He's obviously very intelligent and self-confident to the point of arrogance.  But he's also very compelling to watch.

My sister told me, a few weeks ago, that he is also an author of crime fiction.  "You've got to be kidding. He's a cook!.  What could he possibly write about?"  I already knew that he'd written a few memoirs but fiction is another kind of writing. 

The Bobby Gold Stories is his third novel. It could easily have been published by Gold Medal Books if this were the 50's.  The book is short, 165 pages, and the first two chapters will grab you by the throat and shake you around the room.  The pacing is lightning fast and the atmosphere is so authentic you can hear and smell the locations the book is set in.

Set in modern times, in New York City, the book follows Bobby Gold from prison to being an enforcer for a small-time crime boss named Eddie Fish.  Fish owns a night club that Bobby runs security for, Fish is also a loan-shark and Bobby has to sometimes "encourage" payment from his customers.

Bobby Gold is good at what he does, even though he doesn't like the job as much any more.   But Bobby's life is about to change when he meets Nikki; a cook in the night club.

The story is fun, the dialog jumps off the page and the story is interesting in that it does not go where you'd expect.  One of the things I like about the book is what it leaves out; you can be in the middle of an action scene and Bourdain just fades out and skips ahead a few months.  This has the combined effect of keeping you reading to find out how things ended up and you get the feeling that Bourdain was thinking, "You know how this goes, blah, blah, blah.  Let me tell you what happens next."  But the effect was a good one; the story was told in a fresh way which I enjoyed.

The best moment, for me, that set the tone of the whole book was chapter 2.  Oh my God!  That was tense.

Book Report #4 of 26

Kiss Her Goodbye

by

Allan Guthrie

 Wow! 

This was N-O-I-R. 

Nice and dark; filled with interesting characters.  

Joe Hope is an enforcer for a loan-shark named Cooper.  The phone rings and Joe's world turns upside-down when he hears that his daughter has been found dead, an apparent suicide.  To make maters worse, on the heels of this news, he is also framed for a murder.

Joe must find out who did this to him and why and he'll do it on his own terms.

The book is set in modern times, it's not a reprinted pulp from the 50's but a contemporary thriller set in Edinburgh, Scotland.  

At the final climax of the story my heat was racing and I had to put the book down for a few minute, make myself a pot of coffee and catch my breath before I could finish the story.

This book was a lot of fun and you can bet I'll be looking for my from this author.

Book Report 3 of 26 - Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin

Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am fascinated by peak oil.  My dad lived in fear of losing his job, I fear the decline of oil production and how that is going to effect everything!

The book is sobering but still has and under-current of optimism.  Rubin believes that we will find a way to live with expensive energy and food prices by going local.  He predicts the end of globalization which was only possible with cheap oil.

I thought he did not spend enough time discussing what life would look and feel like post-oil and I thought he could have expanded on alternative sources of power.  But he's not a social scientist or an expert in alternative energy, he's an economist, so he stuck to writing about what he knows.

After reading the book I went downstairs and unplugged the deep-freeze which sits nearly empty nearly all the time.  A tiny reduction in my carbon foot-print.

The book is not all gloom and doom as most other books on the subject are.  It's the first one that has taken the time to look at what life would be like after we reach the oil production peak.

The other consequence that he neatly left out of the book is the possibility that we won't get off the oil bus in an orderly fashion.  The basic assumption he takes is that everybody will simply shrug at higher fuel costs, leave the car in the driveway and either take the bus, bike or simply walk to work.   But the very real possibility is that countries will go to war over access to oil reserves.  Society could easily turn into a pack of wolves fighting over a bone.  But that's another subject.

If you've never thought about the subject of peak oil then I would suggest reading this book.  It's very informative and hopeful.

Mulholland Books

There's a new publisher that I'm really excited about.

Mulholland Books will start publishing crime and suspense fiction in the spring.




They have a wonderful blog at:

http://www.mulhollandbooks.com

And they've recently teamed up with a short fiction website called Popcorn Fiction.

There is a story there that I really like that I want to share with you. It's called "Here I sit, broken hearted" by Sam Reaves.


It'll only take you five minutes to read, trust me.

 Go here to read it:

http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/popcornfiction/stories/Here_I_Sit_Broken-Hearted_by_Sam_Reaves.html

Sent from my iPhone

Book report 2 of 26 - Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

 

This is the first book to spin off of the Castle TV show and I recommend to read it first (not something I did) as the second books' tone will make more sense.

In any case - I enjoyed the book for the same reasons that I enjoyed Naked Heat; you have the "character"of Richard Castle writing a fiction based on the characters in the TV show.  Confused?  Don't be just start watching Castle on Monday nights - you can jump right in the show at any point.

I just wish I knew who is the ghost writer for the series - it's a lot of fun.

Next up - Non-Fiction.  Yikes!

Book Report #1 - Naked Heat by Richard Castle (1 of 26)

Click HERE to buy it on Amazon.ca

Hey, I met my first deadline early!  I gave myself plenty of time to get into the swing of things; my target date was the 28th.  I really had to focus on getting the book read, it's amazing just how many distractions there are in a day.

I'm a big fan of the ABC show "Castle" which starts Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic.  On the show Richard Castle, played by Fillion, is a famous mystery writer who gets himself teamed up with Detective Kate Beckett, played by Katic.  He follows Beckett and her team around for inspiration for a new book series that he is writing.

With many successful TV shows and movies you can eventually find what are known as tie-in books.  Which are usually just extra stories starring the characters form the show.  What makes this tie-in different is that the book is actually in the show itself.  There is no actual Richard Castle; Fillion is a fine actor but I'm sure he's no author, ABC is keeping the lid on who is actually doing the ghost writing but, to the shows' credit, the books are becoming best-sellers in their own right.

In the show, Castle bases his characters on the people of the NYPD that he is shadowing.  If you're a fan of the show these books (there are two, this being book two) are a fun read.  You get to see why some of the characters on the show are upset with what he writes.  It's a wonderful twist on a tie-in.

If you're not a fan of the show you won't have as much fun with it because the book relies on you having some exposure to the relationships of the TV characters.  But it does stand on it's own as a decent read.  I would suggest watching the show because it is first rate to begin with.

A Reading Challenge

It's been nearly a month since my last post and I can happily say that nothing has happened.  For weeks now the only exciting thing that's been going on is the weekly grocery shop.  I can't tell you how nice it feels knowing that I'll not starve for the next seven days.

It may sound like whining but really it's not.  Nothing happening means that everything is working out like it should.  It might be a bit boring but that's what TV, movies and books are for, right?

To that end; this is where I'm deleting the 52 Movies In 52 Weeks campaign.   I achieved the goal a long time ago but Sue is proving a tough nut to crack.  She'd just rather NOT go to the movies, unless it's really compelling to her.  So instead of trying to bend other people to my will I've decided to set a new challenge for myself.

BOOKS!

I love to read, but I just don't have the time and when I do, it's usually in bed.  So now my brain associates reading with sleep and whenever I sit down with a good book I fall asleep!  This can't go on.  I buy far too many books and I never get to reading them.  So, my challenge to myself is this:

26 books (cover to cover) in 26 bi-weekly periods! 

Okay, it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue but I thought 12 books in 12 months to not be enough of a challenge and 52 far too many.  I get paid every two weeks and that should be a comfortable length of time to read a book

I don't know what I'm going to do about discarded/abandoned books and how that effects the two week deadline but I will list them with a reason as to why I stopped reading the book.

To link my reading with my paydays I'll say that I have to get my first book read by November the 26.

So that's it.  Nothing keeps happening so in order to make "something" happen I'm starting a reading challenge.

Cheers!

Blood Work by Michael Connelly - Book Review

This morning I finished Blood Work by Michael Connelly (one of my favorite authors). 

This novel was made into a movie back in 2002 which I missed completely.  I'll have to chase down the DVD of this one. 

The story is about an ex FBI agent who finds out a terrible truth about the heart transplant he's just gone through. 

Nearly 500 pages long it moved like a book half its length.  I really liked this one.

Recommended.

Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx by Max McCoy

I dusted off my copy of  Indiana Jones and the Secret of the Sphinx by Max McCoy.

This was a good one; the book started right in the middle of a discovery and just keep going.

 Indy is in a race to find the Omega Book an artifact that tells the destiny of every human being.  Powerful stuff if it winds up in the wrong hands. 

It felt like it could have been a movie.

Home is the Sailor by Day Keen

Home is the Sailor by Day Keene first published in 1952 and re-printed, by my favorite publisher, Hard Case Crime in 2005.

It's the story of a sailor who retires and wants to settle down.  He meets a nice woman who then gets him to do things he would never have been capable of in the past.

I kept wondering just when he would wake up and see what was going on.

A pretty good read.

Hunt: Beyond the Frozen Fire by Gabriel Hunt

Here's a run down of what was read and seen for the past couple of days

Wow!  A modern day Indiana Jones!  There were even evil Amazon Nazi women in a hidden valley of Antarctica complete with a Nazi dooms-day machine pointed at Washington, DC!

Too bad it was still boring.

This is the second book in the Hunt series, that I've read, and the second one that I found dull beyond words.  I would have stopped reading both books but I want to believe in the publisher and so I keep reading right to the end.

I have one more book on the shelf but I'll wait before I try this series again.

Sanctuary by Ken Bruen - Book Review

As you know I love my crime fiction.  Make it dark, make it mean, but don't give me psychopaths or insane serial killers. 

One of my favorite authors is Ken Bruen who lives in Galway, Ireland.  His Jack Taylor series is set in Galway and is steeped in Irish culture.  There are currently seven books in this series and Sanctuary is the latest one.

This one breaks my "no serial killers" rule but this killer is different and not killing for the fun of it.  Plus it clocks in at a thin 223 pages which is my kind of page count.

Ken Bruen

Book Review - Queenpin by Magan Abbott

Books are a passion for me, which is interesting considering how long it can take me to read one.  If only I could be like Maddy and blast through one in a weekend.  Man, I'd be reading all the time!

I will stick with a book though, I can't think of many that I've out-right quit reading.

The buzz in the crime fiction world these days is all about Megan Abbott.  She writes neo-noir with these wonderful painted covers, just like in the hey-day of trash paperbacks.  Abbott won the 2008 Edgar award for her book Queenpin.  It won in the Best Paperback Original category.  So I was pretty confident that I'd enjoy it.

I am sad to say that I never really got into it and I can't understand why.  It had everything going for it; from the period to depiction of life in organized crime, there's even a gruesome murder in it but I found it never explored the *crime* that surrounded the main characters.  Abbott kept the characters too distant from me, I never really got into their heads and so the book felt really flat to me and the plot kind of wondered around with out any convincing reasons for why certain events happened at all.

I was disapointed.