Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion

Average books

Scorpion Strike: John Nance
Nance typically writes aircraft based disasters, and so it was again, this time as an elite military strikes go very badly leaving planes crashed, troops behind enemy lines, and a savage bioweapon in the wrong hands.

Philippa Flynn's Year of Panic and Piracy: Jacqueline Firkins
Burned out college prof decides to change her life by becoming a romance author (amazon first)

Pressure Depth:Clancy (Stewart)
Jack Ryan jr deep in the ocean trying to stop the Chinese from detonating a doomsday weapon the Russians had abandoned on the sea floor. The book does not quite explain why they would want to do such a thing, but I guess there is a base assumption that they are just evil.

Don’t Lie to Me: Donald Westlake
No question that Westlake is a prolific author, and this is the first I have read wit Mitch Tobin as the protagonist. While most of his stories are capers, this seems more of a plain hardboiled PI type of book. Not badly done, and a quick summer read.

The Adventurers: Harold Robbins
My BFB for the month, at about 1000 pages. What do we expect from Robbins? Sex, power, sex, betrayal, sex, money, sex, privilege, sex, war, and last but not least, sex. The book covers a boy born in a fictional South American country, and follows him about through the Korean War.

Second Death: Jeff Kerr
Small town deputy works at solving a complicated murder. Mostly likable characters, and suitably stupid bad guys. Just not stupid enough to solve quickly.

Trust me on This: Donald Westlake
I was surprised to find this a 400 page book,most of Westlake’s stuff hovers just over 200 pages and are quick beach reads. True to form though, this was a farce about a National Enquirer type newspaper, with a sympathetic female reporter who becomes less sympathetic as she learns her trade. There is a nice murder mystery embedded in the tale though.

Kill Your Darlings: Peter Swanson
Some whiplash to this one, as it jumps back and forth in time to set the stage and then execute both love and murder.

All She Fears: Molly Black
This one is probably near the bottom of “average”. PI teams up with FBI to find a serial killer.

an average month - could be worse lol
you're due for a good month in october with the books you have on your library hold list

Barry, here’s hopes for a better than average October. The two Westlake’s sound like enjoyable reads and the BFB Robbins must have taken up a good bit of your time.
Lately for me the usual bad guys trying to blow up the world are less hypothetical and less enjoyable to read about.

The bfb was for vacation, and rainy days sped it along. I followed it though with another bfb, and better weather.

BarryP wrote: "Average books

Scorpion Strike: John Nance
Nance typically writes aircraft based disasters, and so it was again, this time as an elite military strikes go very badly leaving planes crashed, troops ..."

Your contrast between the two Westlake books caught my attention: a straightforward hardboiled investigation in one, and a newspaper farce with a murder embedded in it in the other. Did the mystery and farce work together in Trust Me on This, or did one side provide most of the pleasure?

Trust me was different, but still showed Westlake's capacity for farce. I think I preferred his stepping out of role as it gave him a much better slate to work with than his usual crop of characters.

BarryP wrote: "Trust me was different, but still showed Westlake's capacity for farce. I think I preferred his stepping out of role as it gave him a much better slate to work with than his usual crop of characters."

A fresh cast giving Westlake more room for farce is an interesting reason to prefer the departure from his usual characters. It sounds as though the change opened up possibilities for him, rather than simply putting familiar routines into a newspaper setting.

Ann wrote: "Barry, here’s hopes for a better than average October. The two Westlake’s sound like enjoyable reads and the BFB Robbins must have taken up a good bit of your time.
Lately for me the usual bad guy..."

I can understand why the usual world-threatening plot might feel less like escapism at the moment. A smaller mystery can still carry plenty of tension without asking you to spend more time with that scale of danger. Are you finding yourself drawn more to character-focused crime stories?

I seem to swap between character based crime and military/spy thrillers. Occasionally I go for grand conspiracy, but few of those are truly written well.

BarryP wrote: "I seem to swap between character based crime and military/spy thrillers. Occasionally I go for grand conspiracy, but few of those are truly written well."

The conspiracy has to make sense at a human scale for me—who benefits, who keeps quiet, and why. Otherwise the size of the threat can start doing the work of the mystery.