Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion
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Barry's October
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agree about the child book- this one was much better which was good since andrew is going to be writing them alone from now on.
Nice month Barry, a good meaty 1,000 page book can be a treat. I am sad we won’t get any more Greg Iles door stoppers. I look forward to both the Reacher and the new Grisham. I read the short Grisham prequel introducing the main character and it sounded good.
Great month! Greg Isles is a great writer. And Grisham is reliably good.
Ann wrote: "Nice month Barry, a good meaty 1,000 page book can be a treat. I am sad we won’t get any more Greg Iles door stoppers. I look forward to both the Reacher and the new Grisham. I read the short Grish..."i still haven't read iles' last book so have that to look forward to
Southern Man: Greg Isles
Part of the Natchez Burning series about life in the deep South. Makes me glad to be in New England, but with the hope the racism and tension he uses as his vehicle is not life as it is. If I ended last month with a 1000 page book, that is how I started this month. I did not want to run out of reading on vacation.
The French Illusion: John Grisham
Kind of new territory for him, and written that almost anything I said would be a spoiler, but the dust jacket gave it away before I read word one. Some smart kidnappers have been taking married couples on their French honeymoon. The commonality is that the mes were all ex military JAG with an attachment to GITMO. The CIA decides a sting is the way to go.
Chain Reaction: Child (Lee/Andrew)
This one gave me hope for the series, the best I have read since the collaboration started. The story has a number of layers as Reacher tries to unravel why some AI coders need to murder people. One of his past flames, Susan Turner, is back, now a general. SHe adds well to the story.
Average books
Blowout:Hagberg/Dorgan
I suspect that David Hagberg did little more here than put his name on the book to get it noticed. So I noticed it and read it, a thriller where the USA is about to make a breakthrough in alternative energy, but the oil powers decide they have to stop that by any means possible. As the book passed the halfway point, I found I needed to read with a fishing pole nearby to retrieve the story from the deep plot holes it kept falling into. I don’t want to spoil it here, and certainly you could do worse, but be forewarned.
Petrified Dreams: Joe Lansdale
Probably the last Hap and Leanard novel, and I shall certainly miss the adventure and malapropisms. (we have the elephant of surprise). These 2 redneck vigilantes with hearts of gold have saved countless helpless and exploited people over about 15 novels. I’ll have to check the backlist and see if I missed anything.
Die Famous: Michael Koryta
A gangster book, nobody is particularly all that good. The device us ti tell the story of the gang and one of its associated families through the lens of interviews and interrogations.
By Any Means Necessary: Jack Mars
You could probably make a checklist for the usual special forces type military thriller, but while a book might hit every category and get a quantitative ‘A’, it stiff might get a qualitative ‘C’. Such a book this was. It hit all the major categories of what I might want in such a tale, but missed a certain ‘je ne sais quois’ that makes a Grey Man novel great. The plot, if you care, was a grand coup to replace the president of the United States.
First Daughter: Eric Van Lustbader
On its surface, this is about the daughter of the president elect being kidnapped, and the effort to recover her. That might be a bit too simple though, as we get introduced to a new series character, Jack McClure, who sees the world differently due to his dyslexia, and is in emotional turmoil due to the death of his daughter,a friend of the kidnapped girl. It does not get any simpler or clearer as the story progresses, but it does eventually resolve.
The Black Marble: Joseph Wambaugh
Probably 50 years or more old, I got this because it looked in the description like a thecho-thriller, but turned out to be a LA based procedural. As with many procedurals, there were an assortment of police with an assortment of skills, a number of minor cases, and the big case, a dog napping.