I honestly don’t know why I keep following Entertainment Weekly‘s book recommendations when it almost always ends in disappointment. Three of the books below were read because they were “must-read” books (or at least touted that way), and the other two are by a couple of my favorite authors, both of whom had a misstep this time out.

BOOK REVIEW:  Shaker by Scott Frank opens with a hitman arriving in Los Angeles after a devastating earthquake. He’s supposed to remain undercover, do the job, and get out. But he gets caught up in a local politician getting killed by a gang and winds up on the evening news. Soon, a hit man is after him. Sounds good, right? But the story is dragged down with flashbacks, the importance of which is only evident at the end, and too many ancillary characters creep into the mix in the second half. Give me a hero I can root for throughout the entire ride, and I’ll be a fan forever. But this one gets Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  I’ve been reading Michael Chabon since his first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and I’m pretty sure Telegraph Avenue is his weakest effort. It follows a couple of guys running a record shop in San Francisco and their struggles with someone who wants to buy out their shop to put in a mall…or something like that. We’re also forced to follow one of the owner’s wife’s problems with her job as a midwife. But all of it is rather dry because I never really felt connected to any of the characters. True, this is Michael Chabon, who is a gifted writer, but when he threw in a 15-page section that was all one sentence, I found myself annoyed rather than impressed. Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbo seems to be another one of those short books that he puts out to kill time between Harry Hole books. Blood on Snow, his last short book, was a more entertaining read than this one is…although it’s not terrible by any means. A hitman is hiding out in a cabin in northern Norway. He befriends a single mother and her son, and–you guessed it!–they fall in love. What happens is anybody’s guess, but if you’re like me, you’ll probably just find yourself between the sparse action scenes just asking yourself, “Where’s Harry?”  Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  Keep Calm is a first novel by Mike Binder. It has trouble getting started, and trouble finishing…but the middle is a fun read. An American is invited to give a presentation at 10 Downing Street in London. He’s handed a package to bring to the meeting and–wouldn’t you know it?–the package contains a bomb, which goes off. Soon, he and his family are the subject of a manhunt. That part is the fun part. But the book is weighed down by ancillary characters I didn’t care about, a lesbian relationship that didn’t ring true and seemed unnecessary, and an ending that just takes way too long to get to. Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW:  If you’re a believer in reincarnation, The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin might be the book for you. It concerns a boy who begins exhibiting signs of adult memories he should have no reason to possess at the age of four. His single mother takes him to a doctor (and, of course, they fall in love), who then analyzes the boy for evidence of past lives. Soon a murder mystery from his past life is uncovered, and by book’s end, solved. It’s a good tale, well told…but with just problem. The author cites work from Jim Tucker, who wrote Life Before Life and Return to Life, including passages from those books as if to support her story. The problem lies in the fact that the real stories from those two non-fiction books are far more compelling, and it leaves you wondering why you’re not reading those books instead. Three Stars.