Mystery2
Bleeding Hearts Susan Wittig Albert Aug 2006
The Hard Way
Lee Child
Aug 2006
Without Fail
Lee
Child
Aug 2009
The Lincoln Lawyer Michael Connelly July 2006
Predator
Patricia Cornwell July 2006
Evil Under the Sun
Agatha Christie
Aug 2006 Audio Book
The Seven Dials Mystery Agatha Christie Aug 2006 Audio Book
The Good Die Twice
Lee Driver
Sept 2006
Audio Book
Booked to Die
John
Dunning Aug 2009
Sign of the Book
John Dunning
Aug 2009 Audio Book
The Bookman's Promise John Dunning Aug 2009
The Bookwoman's Last Fling John Dunning Sept 2009
The Bookman's Wake
John
Dunning Oct 2009
Term Limits
Vince Flynn
Oct 2006
Ten Second Staircase Christopher Fowler Sept 2006
The Bishop Goes to The University Andrew M. Greeley Aug 2006 Audio Book
The Curious Incident of the Dog Mark Haddon Oct 2009 Audio Book
Dead Days of Summer Carolyn Hart Aug 2006
Mr. Paradise
Elmore Leonard Aug 2006 Audio
Book
Edge of Evil J.A. Jance
Trial by Fury
J.A. Jance
Sept 2006 Audio Book
Injustice for All
J.A.
Jance
Oct 2006 Audio Book
Until Proven Guilty
J.A. Jance
Apr 2007
Fire and Ice
J.A. Jance
Oct 2009
Gone
Jonathan Kellerman Aug 2006
Audio Book
Thunder Bay
William Kent Krueger
Oct 2009 Audio Book
Uniform Justice
Donna
Leon Oct 2006
Audio Book
Ambler Warning
Robert
Ludlum July 2006
Vendetta
Fern Michaels
Hide and Seek
Fern
Michaels
Nov 2008 Audio Book
The Afghan Campaign Steven Pressfield Dec 2006 Audio Book
Fire Sale
Sara Paretsky
July 2006
Burn Marks
Sara Paretsky Oct 2009
Audio Book
Tyrannosaur Canyon Douglas Preston Oct 2006
Fleshmarket Alley
Ian Rankin
Oct 2006
Audio Book
Break no Bones
Kathy
Reichs Oct 2006
Cross Bones
Kathy Reichs Oct
2006
Deadly Decisions
Kathy
Reichs Nov 2006
Death du Jour
Kathy Reichs Nov 2006
Grave Secrets
Kathy Reichs Nov 2006
Sullivan's Justice
Nancy
Rosenberg Audio Book March 2007
Are You Afraid of the Dark? Sidney Sheldon Audio Book
Kill Me
Stephen White
Bleeding Hearts Susan Wittig Albert Aug 2006
It is nearing Valentines Day in Pecan Springs, Texas. China and
her friend and business partner Ruby are busy with their stores and
starting up a new catering business with a new partner. Her
teenage son and his (girlfriend?) are secretively talking and the high
school principal asks her to conduct a sensitive investigation.
China's time is getting severely pushed. When she starts
her covert investigation of the very popular high school football coach
she discovers disturbing stories of possible sexual abuse.
All of the disparate threads of the story start coming together around
this investigation. Unlike many murder mysteries she devotes only
a portion of her time to the actual investigation. A large part
of the book describes the ins and outs of running small businesses in
the Texas Hill Country. You feel more like a member of the
community than the fly on the wall watching a murder go down.
Another difference with Albert's mysteries is the timing of the
murder. Usually the murder occurs very early in the story.
With her it may occur 20 year earlier or perhaps not until the
last few pages. She does a good job of changing the rules and
still ending up with an interesting and compelling story.
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The Hard Way
Lee Child
Aug 2006
A Jack Reacher novel. Reacher is in New York having an espresso
in a café, he sees a man walk to a car, unlock it, get in, and
drive away. No big deal. He comes back the next day because
it was a very good espresso. A man comes in, talks to the waiter,
and comes over to talk to Reacher. Reacher recognizes him as a
warrior. They discuss the car and the man invites Reacher to meet
with his boss. It seems that "the boss" is the commander of a
small group of mercenaries. His wife and her daughter have been
kidnapped and the man who walked to the car was picking up a ransom
payment but the wife and little girl have not yet been returned.
Reacher is hired to find the kidnap victims and possibly find the
kidnappers based on his expertise as an ex-military police officer.
He makes some progress and starts to suspect that he doesn't have
all the relevant facts.
Reacher finds an ex-mercenary who once worked for the boss, he had been
left behind and while imprisoned his legs had been cut off. He
had the motive but not the capability of kidnapping the woman and
daughter. Following a lead uncovered by an ex-FBI agent, the
agent and Reacher travel to England and find the kidnapper, the woman,
and her daughter. After suitable amounts of violence and gunfire
the case is solved quite satisfactorily.
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Without Fail
Lee
Child
Aug 2009
Jack Reacher is contacted by the woman in charge of protecting the
Vice-President Elect. She asks him to evaluate their performance
over a short period. Reacher hires a past colleague and together
they find three definite places where they could have killed the
Vice-President Elect and one possible. Following his report she
offers him the real job. The Vice-President Elect has been
getting death threats and they have been unable to catch the person
responsible and they believe the threats are credible. Jack and
his colleague begin working with the Secret Service. They begin
developing some leads but none are definitive. They increase the
protection but there is an attempt on the Vice-President Elect and two
Secret Service agents are killed including the woman in charge who dies
in Reacher's arms. Following this Jack begins to zero in of the
suspects and they set a trap for them at the funeral for the dead
Secret Service agent. Jack and his colleague manage to kill the
two suspects.
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The Lincoln Lawyer Michael Connelly July 2006
A Lincoln Lawyer is a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the
backseat of his Lincoln Town Car. Mickey Haller's client list is
not at the top of the social register and he is on a first name basis
with many of the bail bondsmen in the area. It is not a great
living but it is a living. Haller gets a call from a bail
bondsman, he has a possible franchise case. A franchise case is a
potential goldmine for small lawyers and bail bondsman. It is a
defendant who has enough money to afford an expensive defense and a
possibility of being found innocent by a jury. It looks good and
Haller takes the case. The preparation for trial is going well
but then minor little things start cropping up. Haller thinks he
can win but he doesn't like the client. Then major things start
to happen, the worst is that his long time investigator is killed while
investigating an aspect of the case. Without going into plot
revealing details the only thing that I can say about this book is that
I enjoyed it. It keeps you engaged with a number of sub-plots
that mostly work themselves into the main plot. Another one of
those books that keeps you up late because there are only 50 pages left.
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Predator Patricia Cornwell July 2006
A Dr. Kay Scarpetta book. Scarpetta is running the National
Forensic Academy in Hollywood, Florida. Things are not going
well. She and Benton Wesley are not happy with each other, Pete
Marino is acting more like a jerk than usual, her niece Lucy is distant
and only shows up once in a while, she has a small tumor in her brain
and the medication and stress is getting too her. And to top it
off a forensic pathology fellow who is supposed to be helping is
proving to be more of a hindrance than anything else. It seems
that everyone gets involved in a rather nasty series of cases,
kidnapping, torture, and murder. There is an excess of gratuitous
violence, even for a Kay Scarpetta book. It is a fairly long
book, over 400 pages. If the excess violence (it is a murder
mystery, some seems to be required), and all of the angst ridden
emotional details were deleted it might shrink down to a reasonable size. When
I read a mystery novel I want bad guys, good guys, and how the good
guys find out who the bad guys are and bring them to justice. I
do not want to read all about the emotion laden psyches and how one
dysfunctional guy relates to another dysfunctional guy. Sorry,
but I have read Psych books, I was planning on reading a murder
mystery, not a psych book by an amateur. Definitely not up to
Cornwell's earlier standards.
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Evil Under the Sun
Agatha Christie Aug 2006
Audio Book
A Hercule Poirot mystery. Hercule is on vacation at a small
island resort on the coast of England. A beautiful actress is
found murdered. Hercule joins up with the local police to find
the murderers. This may have been the abridging but I was not
happy with the book. It was only a 2 cassette book so it may have
been just cut too much.
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The Seven Dials Mystery Agatha Christie Aug 2006 Audio Book
Another 2 cassette book. Again it may have been abridged too
much. The heroine and her friends are all fairly young people and
the book may have been designed as a juvenile book. Whatever the
case much of the audio book is just plain silly. Much of British
society between the end of the Victorian era and the start of World War
II was rather silly but too much is too much. I kept hoping for
the tape to end.
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The Good Die Twice
Lee Driver
Sept 2006
Audio Book
A Chase Dagger Mystery (http://www.booksinmotion.com)
Your basic murder mystery - jewel theft mystery. What sets this
book apart is the vague reference to Native American culture and
fantasy and science fiction themes of shape shifting and telepathy.
Unfortunately the Native American themes weren't developed enough
to become interesting. The shape shifting wasn't handled very
intelligently, no conservation of mass and only passive use. The
telepathy was used very few times, never practiced, and not used at all
during periods of maximum need. Why have telepathy mentioned
at all and then agonize over the lack of a cell phone when you have it
built-in? A rather pedantic mystery, some rather lame tricks
pulled out when imagination failed. Perhaps the author will learn how to write in the future.
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Booked to Die
John
Dunning Aug 2009
A Cliff Janeway Novel
Cliff Janeway is a Denver cop who has a "thing" going with a punk, they
would both like to see each other dead, but no one has gotten mad
enough to actually do it. A small time book dealer is killed and
Janeway "knows" that the punk did it but he can't prove it. Then
the punk beats up his girlfriend. Janeway entraps him into
violence and Janeway wins. Bad thing for a cop to do, he is
forced out of the department. Janeway opens up a bookstore but
then his assistant is killed. Janeway is back on the job as an
amature, solves both crimes (the punk didn't do it), and the book wraps
up in a rather satisfying manner.
Dunning is a good author and as an ex-bookseller is very aware of the
book business. An enjoyable book and I learned a fair amount
about the used book trade.
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Sign of the Book
John Dunning
Aug 2009
Audio Book
A Cliff Janeway Novel
Janeway's girlfriend and bookstore co-owner comes in to the store and
immediately goes in to dust the back room. OK, fine, she has
something on her mind. It finally comes out that her old girl
friend is accused of killing her husband and has asked Janeway's
girlfriend to defend her (she is also a lawyer). It turns out
that her husband was girlfriend's first "true love". A
potentially valuable personal library involved so Janeway is asked to
evaluate it and also to evaluate the case from the cop perspective.
There are several interesting and plausable side-plots and the
book was well worth listening to on a trip to buy a new car. I
have already got the next book by Dunning.
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The Bookman's Promise John Dunning Aug 2009
A Cliff Janeway Novel
Janeway travels to Boston to buy a very expensive book by Richard
Burton. While there he is interviewed on NPR and he reads the
inscription by Richard Burton. After he returns to Denver he gets
many calls and letters concerning the book including one that sounds
like it comes from a crazy old lady. After several weeks he is
visited by a very old but not crazy lady who claims that the book once
belonged to her and it was stolen along with the rest of her library.
She has another book with what appears to be a very similar
inscription by Richard Burton. She asks Janeway to find the rest
of her books and then she dies. This leaves Janeway in a serious
quandry. Janeway starts working on the case but quite rapidly
things get very sticky. Jameway gets beaten up. He beats up
a few bad guys, threats are made, one of his friends dies. It is
a real mess. The mystery gets solved but nobody is very happy.
Well I guess there is somebody who is happy, the readers. A
really riveting book. It was very hard to put down.
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The Bookwoman's Last Fling John Dunning Sept 2009
A Cliff Janeway Novel
Janeway is hired to travel to Idaho to appraise a library. An
elderly man has just died and the butler, companion, assistant hires
Janeway to appraise the books. The elderly man was an extremely
talented horseman and his wife was very rich and a book collector.
She was also allergic to peanuts and died many years earlier.
There are three sons from a prior marriage and a daughter from
the last marriage. The sons are all a little or a lot strange,
the daughter is quite normal and helpful. The book quickly turns
to why the wife died, did she commit suicide, was she murdered, was it
an accident? A number of presumably very valuable books in the
library have been replaced by much cheaper reprints. Depending on
the cause of death and who did or did not kill her leads one down one
of several possible motives for stealing / replacing the missing books.
Janeway goes undercover for a while and works for a horse trainer
who worked for the elderly man. The mysteries just keep piling
up. A very nice book.
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The Bookman's Wake
John
Dunning Oct 2009
A Cliff Janeway Novel
Against his better judgment Janeway travels to the Seattle area to
bring back a young woman wanted by the law in New Mexico. Janeway
gets to Seattle, finds the young woman, befriends her, pumps her for
information, and decides against taking her back to New Mexico.
Then things start to get interesting. He meets her parents
and the survivors of a fire that killed the printers and presumably all
of the stock of a well-known printer of what are now very expensive
books. To solve the mystery, to know how to find the young woman,
and to find the extremely expensive book that she is supposed to have
stolen, Janeway has to solve the mystery involving the 1969 fire at the
print shop and figure out the relationships among the interested
parties since the 1969 fire.
I just finished Fire and Ice, a J.A. Jance novel about Joanna Brady and
JP Beaumont and it also takes place in large part along the I 90
corridor east of Seattle and I kept expecting one of them to pop up.
I was getting tired of the dreary wet Seattle weather and the
pessimism of this novel was starting to get to me. Perhaps it was
this or just this story but I didn't enjoy this book nearly as much as
the other novels.
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Term Limits
Vince Flynn
Oct 2006
The book opens with an assassin planning a "hit". He was a
professional, he had killed many people overseas but this was to be his
first on American soil. We switch to the White House where the
Chief of Staff is busy trying to arrange everything just so. The
President is trying to get his budget passed and is a few votes short
in the House and he is pulling out all the stops, deals, pressure, and
a few compromising photo's. The President calls a young first
term congressman to apply pressure, the congressman hangs up on him.
A few minutes later an Aide from the Speaker of the House barges
into the congressman's office and threatens him. The congressman
almost breaks the Aide's wrist and tells him to never come back - it
seems the congressman is a very recent ex-marine. The next shift
is to late that night and we view the very quick and professional
assassinations of two powerful Senators and the Speaker of the House.
All three are described as being extremely corrupt.
As the facts come out the young congressman fears that he knows who the
assassins are. The story bounces back and forth between him and
his efforts to determine what is going on and the Presidential Chief of
Staff and the National Security Adviser as they attempt to put the
"proper spin" on the news and make sure that they come out on top.
When I got well into the book I started thinking that this author
really doesn't like the current administration. Then I checked
the copyright date, 1997. Now as I rethink the entire book I
don't know which party the author doesn't like. I couldn't find
any evidence for either party. He just doesn't like corruption
and self interest and is writing a sort of cautionary tale suggesting
that you had better watch out who you train to do your dirty work, they
might take their training seriously and decide that they know who the
bad guys really are, and they might be really close to home.
I really enjoyed the book, I found myself bouncing back and forth
between cheering on the assassins and stepping back and thinking, "No,
this isn't right - don't glamorize ex-military personnel who kill
Senators and Congressmen, even though they sort of deserve it." I
will read more of his books.
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Ten Second Staircase Christopher Fowler Sept 2006
A Bryant and May Mystery Arthur Bryant and John May are the
leaders of the London Peculiar Crimes Unit. This unit, separate
from the regular London police is charged with the investigation of
high-profile cases which have the capacity to compound social problems
in urban areas. It was set up in the early days of World War II
and Bryant and May were original members. The date of the story
is undefined but it is the very recent past, late 1990's or early
2000's. Bryant and May are obviously quite old, way past normal
retirement age, set in their ways, and some of their ways are more than
a little unorthodox. They sometimes struggle to follow current
police procedure and sometimes they don't. Sort of, but not
really, Up Yours, CSI. This book would never make it as an
American crime series on TV, much too intellectual. A very good
read, I really enjoyed the book.
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The Bishop Goes to The University Andrew M. Greeley Aug 2006 Audio Book
Someone has killed a Russian Orthodox monk at the Divinity School in The University
(of Chicago). Bishop Blackwood (Blackie) Ryan investigates the
crime. The "locked room" aspect of the mystery is almost trivial
compared to the international aspects. The Russian mob, the
Sicilian mob, the CIA, upper reaches of the Vatican, and splinter
Catholic societies all combine to challenge Bishop Blackie. The
Divinity School, the Catholic Rectory of Chicago, and several people
are shot up, a number of mobsters are deported before Blackie solves
the mystery, forces the Vatican into abrupt action and rescues ...
A very nice little story to listen to. The only time it slowed
down is when we investigated the secret writings of the monk.
That part, although essential, was a little long and covered
elsewhere. It was abridged down to 3 tapes and it moved well
while retaining the features of a good story.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon Oct 2009 Audio Book
The subject of our story is a 15 year old boy outside of London who has
Asperger's Syndrome which is similar to autism. He doesn't like
to be touched or to meet new people, he cannot make small talk and he
hates the colors brown and yellow. He loves math and solving
puzzles with definite answers. When he discovers is neighbors dog
lying in the yard with a garden fork stuck in its body he knows that he
will have to solve this mystery just like Sherlock Holmes would.
The story follows his efforts which completely turn his life
upside down. A fascinating book.
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Dead Days of Summer Carolyn Hart Aug 2006
This is a Death on Demand
mystery. Max Darling is planning on a special present for Annie.
Annie Darling is planning a special birthday present for Max.
They are keeping a few secrets from each other. Max gets a
walk-in client - a young woman who is searching for her brother.
She hires him to accompany her to somewhat disreputable night
spot where the brother has been spotted. She gives Max drugs in a
beer and he wakes up about a day later with a splitting headache,
severe nausea, and blood on his clothes. The young woman is found
dead. Max is found staggering down an isolated road and is
arrested for her murder. Annie and her friends from her Death on Demand
bookstore swing into action. Each friend does the thing that they
do best and they marshal evidence from a number sources and confront
the real killer. He is promptly arrested and Max is freed from
jail. As with the other Death on Demand mysteries it is not a
very demanding book but it is fun and makes for an enjoyable several
hours of reading.
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Mr. Paradise Elmore Leonard Aug 2006 Audio Book
Two roommates, Kelly, a Victoria's Secret model and Chlȫe, a some-times
prostitute and currently paid companion to an 84 year old retired
lawyer in poor health, go to the lawyer's house to cheer on the home
team while the lawyer watches Michigan win a recorded football game.
Chlȫe topless in a blue and yellow skirt and Kelly in a Michigan
sweater and skirt. However the evening doesn't go down exactly as
planned. It seems that a "hit" has been put out on the lawyer but
Chlȫe was there so we have to dispose of the witness. The story
is the tale of Kelly, the police detective Frank Delsa, the man who
paid for the "hit", and the two hit men. It is also the story of
a bunch of overworked, foul-mouthed cops who do a pretty good job and
are lucky, a beautiful, sharp, and sometimes stupid model, and a whole
bunch of extremely violent, sociopathic criminals who are extremely
stupid. Good for keeping you mostly awake while driving but not
much else. The minor detail that the team Michigan was beating
was WSU and I have been associated with WSU for most of my life had
absolutely nothing to do with my evaluation of the book.
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Edge of Evil J.A. Jance
Allison is leaving the studio after completing the 11 o'clock news.
She is informed by the news director that she is to clean out her
personal belongings and leave. She is being replaced by a younger
news reporter. She went home and told her husband, he already
knew but had not told her. Allison was not pleased. She told
her son and he starts a weblog in her name, cutlooseblog.com.
Then she hears that her best friend from high school is missing.
She decides to sue the station for age discrimination and then
hears from her parents that her friend has been found, killed in an
auto accident. She drives to Sedona, Arizona where she grew up,
her parents run a diner, and her friend and her family live. On
the way her husband calls, he tells her to drop the suit. Her
son, who is driving, tells her that her husband has a couple of
girlfriends on the side. She decides to divorce him.
In Sedona the investigation determines that her friend committed
suicide because of despondency on hearing that she had ALS.
Allison doesn't agree. Her blog continues with the two
topics: discrimination against women in the workplace and ALS.
Most of her replies are supportive but some are not, one in
particular is threatening and after the service for her friend that
person attacks her in hopes that she can lead him to his escaped wife.
Allison escapes, the attacker is killed but Allison is beaten
fairly badly. After spending a little time in the hospital she
continues her investigation. She discovers a significant sounding
clue but on the way to check it out ...
You surely didn't expect me to say Who dun it!
did you? It's not quite happily ever after, but it is a
satisfying conclusion. The book doesn't have an exceptional plot
and some of the characters are a little too predictable but I had a lot
of problems in putting it down. My tummy got the best of me and I
stopped for dinner. Then I finished it. Even though the
book didn't have Beau or Joanna it is well worth reading.
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Trial by Fury
J.A. Jance
Sept 2006 Audio Book
A J.P. Beaumont Mystery. JP and his partner Peters are called to
investigate the murder of a nude well built black man found in the
garbage behind a Seattle grocery store and when the coroner states that he
was lynched they think that they have a real problem on their hands.
Then when they find out that he is the very successful coach of a
local high school basketball team they are sure of it. There are
several possible suspects, cheerleaders acting badly, a number of high
school teacher who are morally challenged. The guilty party pays
the price for crime, numerous others are damaged along the way.
This is the book in which Peters is injured. This is the
third book in the series. Every time I read (listen to) a Jance
book I am amazed how much better her books are than so many others of
this genre.
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Injustice for All
J.A. Jance
Oct 2006 Audio Book
A J.P.Beaumont Mystery. JP is vacationing, he hears a woman
screaming. A woman is trying to pull a man out of the water.
Beau runs down to help and they pull him out but he cannot be
saved. Beau is catapulted into a murder mystery involving several
members of the State Parole Board. This is the second book of the
series in which Beau has not yet gotten over Anne Corley. Beau
falls in love with the screaming woman. There is an "obvious"
killer but Beau senses something wrong. A very clever, but quite
mad, candidate for a major political office is somehow mixed up in the
affair but Beau has to track him down all over Washington. Jance
started out as a good writer and has only gotten better. She only
made one bo-bo and that wasn't bad, it is not that easy to get a tube
down into someone's stomach and get a liquid down it. Minor
point, she did better research in her later books.
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Until Proven Guilty
J.A. Jance
Apr 2007
A J.P. Beaumont Mystery. Beau is investigating the murder of a 4
or 5 year old girl, she had been thrown in a clump of blackberry
bushes. Beau and his new partner Peters find that the mother is a
member of a small cult. While attending the funeral Beau spots a
stunning woman putting a single scarlet rose on the coffin. He
rescues her from the "clutches" of his nemesis, Maxwell Cole.
Peters reveals that his wife and two daughters have gone off to
live with another small cult in North Central Oregon. The romance
between Beau and Anne Corley is progressing nicely when the mother and
the leader of the cult are found murdered. Peters becomes
somewhat suspicious of Anne but when confronted Anne reveals the truth
about herself and Beau is convinced. Anne and Beau get married
after a week. Another man is killed, the same gun that killed the
mother and the cult leader killed him. Beau follows Anne to
Snoqualmie Falls where she dies. Beau asks Ralph Ames to stop by
the cult compound in Oregon where Peters little girls are to try to
help him regain custody.
The first book of the Beaumont series. Every time I re-read a
Jance book I realize again how much I like her writing.
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Fire and Ice
J. A.
Jance
Oct 2009
JP Beaumont is working on a case where young women's bodies are wrapped
in tarps and burned. Joanna Brady is working on a case where the
caretaker of an ATV recreation area has been run over and killed and
the security system has been destroyed. The farther we get into
the story the more they become related. It turns out that a
drugs, sex, etc. smuggling gang has been importing drugs, girls, etc,
from Mexico into Arizona and shipping them to the Northwest. The
girls that don't "work out" are disposed of discretely. The story
ends up involving many members of the Cochise County Sheriff's office,
JP and his new wife Mel, Feds, and several other law enforcement
agencies in Washington, Arizona, and California.
The book is written in a rather odd fashion, it jumps back and forth
between the settings without any warning and when you are thoroughly
engrossed it can be a little confusing until you realize what has
happened. There is very little interaction between JP and Joanna
but considerable between them and other members of the law enforcement
community. Jance keeps getting better and better.
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Gone Jonathan Kellerman Aug 2006 Audio Book
Two "students" from an acting "school" are abducted. It turns out
to be a hoax and the woman is sent to Alex Delaware for evaluation
before trial. The case is later dropped which is what Alex
expected. Later she is found dead. Alex tags along when
Milo investigates. The case is unsettling, a lot of things just
don't make sense. The owner of the school is clearly wacky, one
of her brothers is marginally retarded, the other brother seems
reasonable but still things are a little off and they are going nowhere
in their investigation.
Instead of giving up they decide to further investigate the three
siblings and the business they own. Other unsolved murders with
similar MO's are evaluated, their most obvious suspect is killed but
when his sister arrives to take the body she sheds a whole new light on
the case.
We end up with several dysfunctional people doing crazy things but I
guess that is to be expected when the main character is a clinical
psychologist. Of course they solve the very gory and unusual
crimes (they solve a number of previously unsolved crimes). Not a
bad book, not great but OK for a 6 hour road trip.
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Thunder Bay
William Kent Krueger
Oct 2009
Audio Book
Cork O'Connor runs a small diner in Aurora, Minnesota. He as been
a Chicago cop and a small county sheriff. He gave them both up
for the joys of a slower life. However with his daughter ready to
go to college Cork needs another outlet. So he took out a license
as a private investigator. His first client is an elderly Ojibwe
medicine man who needs help in locating his son whom he had never seen
in the 70 years since he last saw his son's mother.
Almost 80 years before, after their children had be sent to white
schools an Indian couple dies. Their son runs away from the
school and comes home. There he meets his uncle and lives with
him and learns from him. After several years the young boy is
hired by two prospectors. He also meets the daughter of one of
the prospectors and they fall in love. Then 70 years later the
now old man has had a vision that his son needs him. The rest of
the story concerns the story of the trip to find Henry Meloux's son and
what happens after they find him.
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Uniform Justice
Donna Leon
Oct 2006 Audio Book
A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery. A young cadet is found
hanged in an elite military academy. The authorities in both the
military academy and the police are firmly convinced that it is
suicide, Commissario Brunetti is not convinced. Not a very
pleasant book. Both the boys father and Brunetti feel that they
know the truth but they cannot prove it and the forces arrayed against
them are two powerful. A well paced book, it kept you focused and
trying to anticipate events. A very anti-military book. It
took a little while to feel comfortable with the book as the characters
and setting are in Venice, Italy. I would be happy to read or
listen to another book by Leon.
Ambler Warning Robert Ludlum July 2006
Hal Ambler is being held in a top secret government asylum for the
insane of the Virginia coast. He is being kept sedated and
watched 24/7. Each day before he is forced to take his
"medication" he has a short period of lucidity. He is very
confused. Then one day a friendly psychiatric nurse helps him,
she gives him Tylenol instead of his psychoactive drugs and tells him
that there will be an emergency calling for a lockdown later. He
brilliantly escapes, avoids capture, determines that all record of his
existence has been erased, and finally turns to the nurse for help.
Then things get interesting. A secret, "wet", branch of the
State Department, the CIA, the Chinese, and at least one private agency
is looking for him. He makes contact with a shadowy far right
group who offers him an assassination job. Ambler is very
suspicious of everyone except the nurse. He travels to Canada,
France, and then to Switzerland following the job and the clues.
He finally determines who he is supposed to kill but he refuses
to do it. The Good Guy is saved, bad guys are caught and
disgraced. Lots of double, triple, etc. crosses, many killings in
various bloody ways. The clues to the primary "bad guy" were a
little too obvious but by in large a good book, if you judge a book by
the body count a very good book. A reasonable amount of political
content but since I agree with the politics that helped.
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Vendetta Fern Michaels
After her daughter is killed before her eyes a mother (Myra) goes into a
decline. Then she sees another woman on TV shoot her daughter's
killer. Her life gains meaning, "I will punish him!" She,
her other daughter, and 5 more women who have been violated but the
legal system has failed them form a "Sisterhood" dedicated to punishing
the men who got away with murder or torture.
This is the third in the series. It is Myra's turn, she and her
"sisters" capture her daughter's killer in China, bring him back to the
US, cane him, and take him back to China. There are a few
problems with her other daughter's ex(?) boyfriend but that is taken
care of quite handily. I get a little tired of women all good,
men all bad, any thing woman does is good, etc. Her series is
getting less and less believable. I was a rural volunteer EMT for
25 years. In that time I can only remember 5 domestic violence
runs (my count, the lawyers can count it their way), of the victims, 3
were men, 2 were women. Definitely not statistically significant
but enough to convince me that women have just as much capability of
this sort of violence as men. How many men do you know who would
admit that their wife (girlfriend) just beat them up? Definitely
a problem in reporting crimes here. I certainly don't condone any
such violence, but it is definitely more than just wife-beating.
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Hide and Seek
Fern Michaels
Nov 2008 Audio Book
A Sisterhood novel.
The Sisterhood has been expanding, growing internationally, and getting
more ridiculous. This time the "bad guy" is the assistant
director of the FBI. He is running out of options when his boss,
the director, is killed in an automobile accident. He sees his
opportunity, the sisterhood slightly changes their plans, and he is
brought down. Two of the members go off to a private love nest
(with appropriate boyfriends) in Montana and the rest fly back to the
top of their mountain in Spain
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The Afghan Campaign Steven Pressfield Dec 2006 Audio Book
The tale of a soldier in the army of Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.
While listening I kept wondering if it was supposed to be a
cautionary tale related to our activities in Afghanistan and Iraq or
was it supposed to be just a story about life in the army of Alexander
as told by a soldier. I still don't know. Whatever it was,
it was a good story. As with all historical novels, if you are
not knowledgeable in the specific area you are dependent on the author
for authenticity. If Pressfield knows what he is talking about,
our future in Afghanistan and Iraq is going to be short and painful,
just like it was for the British and Russians.
The story was gripping. As with many audio books, I listen to
them while driving. It seems that most have half a CD to go when
I get home. Do you park outside the house and listen to the rest
or grab it out of the car and go in and put it in a CD player and
unload the car later. Oh, the problems we face in life. I
hate good books, they cause so many problems.
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Fire Sale Sara Paretsky July 2006
A V.I. Warshawski Novel. Vi's old high school basketball coach
asks her to come back to her old South Chicago school to coach the
girls basketball team while the old coach has cancer surgery. At
first Vi refuses but when she finds out that her old coach is probably
dying, Vi says yes. When she gets there, Vi finds a group of
poorly equipped group of gangbangers, fundamentalist Christians,
and teenage moms who represent several ethnic groups. She gets
involved with the girls, some of their parents, their working
conditions, and especially two families. One of the families is
extremely rich but owns a series of discount stores (think Wal-Mart)
whose employees and suppliers work in terrible conditions and one whose
single mother works in a small factory with two teenage daughters, one
with a child.
Vi does her thing, gets injured several times, escapes killers, puts
serious strain on the men and women in her life, and of course
discovers the murderers and even though justice will have to wait a
long time, puts the court system on their trail. Things will
never be perfect in South Chicago but with Vi on the case they are
starting to get better. I was a little surprised to find so much
of the books in the Politics section reflected in a murder mystery
novel. I guess that Sara Paretsky has gotten fed up with our
current political-economic system and just had to say something.
I enjoyed the book immensely and found it very hard to put down.
Even though it is over 400 pages it moved along very well and
kept my interest up.
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Burn Marks
Sara Paretsky
Oct 2009 Audio
Book
A V.I. Warshawski Novel.
It is the middle of the night and a loud banging is heard on Vi's door.
It is her crazy aunt Elena. She has just been burned out of
her residential hotel. Later one of her aunt's friends is found
dead of a drug overdose in a building under construction. Vi is
hired by the insurance company to investigate the fire. She
notices something strange about the secretary to the owner of the
burned hotel. Then the secretary is murdered. It would seem
that the employer of the secretaries daughter is trying to purchase a
number of buildings in downtown Chicago in order to buy them up
cheaply, demolish them, and sell the property for new construction.
There were a number of red herrings which thoroughly confused the
issue until they all either resolved themselves or were linked into the
major plot. A fairly old book, 1990, and is somewhat dated but it
fits in well with her early novels.
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Tyrannosaur Canyon Douglas Preston Oct 2006
Stem Weathers, dinosaur hunter extraordinarre, has made a big find, the
biggest find of his life. He has entered all of the data in his
notebook and he has entered all of the data in his notebook. He
will finally be able to help his daughter like he has never been able
to before. He is shot. Tom Broadbent (we have met the
Broadbents before, in previous books) is close, riding his horse.
Tom finds Stem, tries first aid but it is too late. All Tom
can do is to promise the dying man that he will take the notebook to
his daughter.
There are many contributing side plots: the effort to find the
daughter, the effort to decode the notebook, the effort to find the
killer, the killers effort to find the notebook, a venal researchers
effort to claim the dinosaur fossil for himself, and the efforts of a
covert and unmonitored government group to control (read that kill) any
citizens who learn anything about some strange features found in the
fossil. Not a bad book. Some of the plot elements are
either a little hard to believe or further explanation would be
required to make them realistic. Preston, along with his
sometimes writing partner - Lincoln Child, as well as a number of other
writers have been attempting to marry science fiction themes with
general literature, Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Most are so-so, this is one of the so-so books.
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Fleshmarket Alley
Ian
Rankin Oct 2006
Audio Book
An Inspector Rebus Novel. The book is set in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The reader evidently knows his accents very well and used them
very effectively. Unfortunately I don't know lower class Scots
accents and can't translate them well. When you are driving
through the mountains of North east Oregon you can't really focus
entirely on a book, and when you are listening to a CD you can't let
your eye jump back to the previous paragraph. Consequently I
found the book entirely mystifying and just gave up on it. Unless
you are quite conversant in lower class Scots I would recommend that
you read this, and perhaps other books by Rankin, instead of listening
to them.
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Break no Bones
Kathy Reichs
Oct 2006
Reichs is one of 56 Board Certified Forensic Anthropologists in the US
and Canada. Unlike previous books where she takes most of her
inspiration from a single case, this book uses elements from several
cases she has worked on.
Our heroine (Tempest Brennan, Tempe to her friends) is in Charleston,
South Carolina teaching a student "dig" when one of her students
uncovers a recently buried body. Tempe contacts the coroner who
is an old friend. Together they finish the excavation, examine
the remains and notice some unusual marks on the bones. Then when
several more bodies show up, all with similar marks, the investigation
becomes more serious.
They have stumbled onto an "organ harvesting" operation where
vulnerable and unlikely to be missed clients of a charity clinic are
killed and their organs removed for shipment to a Mexican "health spa"
where they are implanted into rich recipients who do not qualify for
regulated organ donations. An interesting book. I will
definitely read more of her books. Her books inspired the "Bones" TV series. www.kathyreichs.com
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Cross Bones
Kathy Reichs
Oct 2006
A Temperance Brennan Book. Tempe is called on to help investigate
the murder of a Jewish man in Montreal. She is handed a
photograph of a skeleton during the autopsy. This leads to an
international mystery, bones dating back to the time of Jesus,
skeletons taken from Masada which fell to the Romans in 73 AD, and a
tomb which may have belonged to Jesus' family, possibly containing
Mary, three of Jesus' brothers, and his two sisters.
A fun book, not too much as a murder mystery, more religious espionage
and the tracking down of historical evidence with a great deal of
interest to Jews and Christians. This book is based on the
research of James Tabor, a personal friend of Kathy Reichs. His
book, "The Jesus Dynasty is covered in the Book Report under Politics.
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Deadly Decisions
Kathy Reichs
Nov 2006
A Temperance Brennan Book. Tempe is working in the lab on a
Saturday. A new body comes in. Her name was Emily Anne, her
ears were pierced with tiny gold loops, her forehead was pierced by two
slugs from a Cobra 9-mm semiautomatic. She had been on her way to
a dance class, she was collateral damage in a biker drug war, she was 9
years old. Tempe had been trying to piece together the remains of
two bikers who had gotten themselves blown up in the previous
engagement of this war. Several days later she goes out to assist
in the search of a biker gang headquarters. There had been a
report of buried bodies. The area is searched with ground
penetrating radar and the bodies get found, however a smaller
disturbance in the signal yields additional bones, a skull and two long
bones of legs. The bodies are exactly what they are supposed to
be, two dead bikers who had been executed for offenses against the
group. The other bones turn out to be of a young girl and Tempe
manages to track down her identity. She had been reported missing
a number of years earlier in North Carolina.
From then on the story gets more complex. If you are looking for
a moral I guess it would be: Bad biker dudes do bad things. There
are too many bodies to accurately say that she gets her man but the
population of bad biker dudes gets reduced by quite a lot. She
receives a lesson about what she should do about personal investigation
but whether or not she learns anything on it is a subject for another
book. The local library has several more of her books. I
will be busy for a while, so many books, so little time.
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Death du Jour Kathy Reichs Nov 2006
A Temperance Brennan Book. The book starts with Tempe digging in
an abandoned church outside of Montreal for the bones of a nun being
proposed for sainthood. Then we switch to a burned out chalet
where two, then three, and finally seven bodies are found. Next
switch, off the North Carolina coast where two more bodies are found.
Then back to Montreal for the conclusion. Tempe shows a
remarkable lack of good sense in chasing bad guys and there are a few
too many coincidences for my taste but it was a remarkably hard book to
put down.
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Grave Secrets Kathy Reichs Nov 2006
A Temperance Brennan Book. Tempe is in Guatemala helping to
identify bodies dumped in a well during the civil war in August 1982.
Two of her colleagues are attacked and one is killed. Then
Tempe is asked to assist in the recovery of a body found in a hotel
septic tank. The police fear that the body is one of four young
women who have recently disappeared. We have three plot lines
weaving around one another, army officers afraid of having their
complicity in massacres of the 1980's discovered, current day illegal
activities, and a couple of misguided girls getting in deeper than they
should. Tempe again displays her inability to keep out of harms
way.
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Sullivan's Justice
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Audio Book March 2007
Probation Officer Carolyn Sullivan is a top interviewer. She gets
the really tough cases. This one, a serial killer who adds babies
to his list really scares her. However when her brother, her
lover, and her brothers lovers, both of them, get involved in the case
- things really get screwy. 10 CD's, so it is a long book,
luckily it was a long trip. I didn't particularly like the
editing of the book, sometimes it tended to drag with a lot of
extraneous details. The sex scenes seemed a little forced, like
the author wasn't going to put them in but the editor/publisher wanted
some extra spice. Betrayal - yes, murders - yes, but the explicit
sex just didn't fit in with the rest of the book. She also got
carried away with the religious scenes. They also seemed forced.
They just didn't fit in with the characters in the rest of the
book. One series error in fact - I really don't think that they
award the Nobel Prize after the person has died. It seriously
pushes credibility when a high school math teacher solves a major
unsolved problem in mathematics. Impossible - no, likely - no.
The whole scene surrounding this episode is very improbable and
doesn't add anything to the book.
The book is OK for long boring car trips, that is about it.
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Are You Afraid of the Dark? Sidney Sheldon Audio Book
Four scientists are found dead, plus another several years before.
The wives of two of the men escape several attempted murder
attempts and the sister of another is badly burned and left for dead.
All of the scientists worked for or were recruited by KIG, a
large think tank. After many improbable escapes and equally
improbable life histories I began to wish that the performance had been
the abridged version. It was really quite sad, Sheldon is
generally quite a good author - he certainly doesn't show it in this
book. Errors in facts, incorrect inferences from scientific
facts, incredibly lucky escapes, totally improbable characters, police
who appear quite intelligent just seem to drop off the face of the
earth, etc. I was very disappointed. I was expecting much
more from a Sidney Sheldon book.
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Kill Me Stephen White
An extremely rich man is skiing in the Bugaboo Mountains of British
Columbia and stops on what he doesn't realize is a snow cornice.
It gives way and he is almost killed. A few minutes after
he is rescued his friends hear that another friend, who was scheduled
to go on the skiing trip has been seriously injured in a diving
accident and it in a permanent vegetative state. In later
discussions with one of the friends who helped rescue him, he hears
about an organization, he calls them the Death Angels, that will terminate
someone humanely if they have a life threatening ailment and no chance
of recovery. Recalling his friend, he investigates and signs up
after specifying his terms for termination.
Needless to say, this is a novel, sometime later he develops such a
condition but he has unresolved personal business to complete.
This is the story of his life before his decision, why he made
the decision, his feelings and actions after he learns of his medical
condition, and his efforts to delay termination
until he has wrapped up his personal business. When I first
realized what was going on I thought that this was a really dumb
premise for a story. After I got into it I changed my mind.
The book starts out slow and confusing but steadily builds to the
rather unexpected conclusion. I really got interested in the
problems of the hero and kept wondering just how he was going to evade
the next attempt on his life and complete his goals in time. I
really enjoyed the book and it kept getting harder and harder to put
down.
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