greenstreetbks

Read a (very) few more books this last month.

Moonlight Mile — Dennis Lehane
Fever Dream — Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Fatal Error — F. Paul Wilson
Kind of Blue — Miles Corwin

The Lehane is the sixth installment in the Patrick Kenzie-Angie Gennaro series, which in interviews I read Lehane swore he'd never write, that he was writing new things like Shutter Island and so on. But apparently he was wrong. This book revisits the Gone Baby Gone characters 12 years later; what happens after Amanda is returned to her druggie mom Helene. It was an interesting read, but I really thought it lacked the, I dunno, magic of the earlier series. Still, Lehane has basically written an ending for the series should he choose to accept it, and fans will like the closure.

Everything else basically was meh. The Preston/Child was ok, but they really need to drop Pendergast as their protagonist. Over-explored. He's a weird interesting character, but they've basically made him into a supernatural creature at this point, and really we're done. The Corwin wasn't badly plotted, but the writing at times was terrible and cliched and (frankly) racist. He needs a good editor to smack him, I think. And finally the Wilson just made me me grumpy, because I still have one more of these to anticipate and they're getting on my nerves, now. Damned completist brain. Stop it!

Which brings my 2010 total to 30. Whoo! Onward to 2011.

So I can't possibly get caught up for real, writing reviews for everything I read so far this year. But I can at least make a list of everything I can piece together from my Kindle reading. It's possible I read actual books, too, but honestly I don't remember any. I think I spent more time this year organizing and cataloging my stash than actually READING it.

The Atrocity Archives	Charles Stross
A Dangerous Man	Charlie Huston
Caught Stealing	Charlie Huston
Six Bad Things	Charlie Huston
Already Dead	Charlie Huston
The Strain	Chuck Hogan, Guillermo Del Toro
Crossfire	Dick Francis, Felix Francis
A River in the Sky	Elizabeth Peters
Ground Zero: A Repairman Jack Novel	F. Paul Wilson
The Devil's Punchbowl	Greg Iles
The Man from Beijing	Henning Mankell
True Detectives	Jonathan Kellerman
The Reversal	Michael Connelly
Burn: An Anna Pigeon Novel	Nevada Barr
Split Image	Robert B. Parker
Painted Ladies	Robert B. Parker
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played with Fire	Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest	Stieg Larsson
U is for Undertow	Sue Grafton
The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)	Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)	Suzanne Collins
Faithful Place	Tana French
Ice Cold: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel	Tess Gerritsen
Zero History	William Gibson

To me that looks like a whopping 26 books so far this year. I apparently can manage only a book every two weeks! A couple took longer than I'd think, the Menkell, the Larsson, and the French, but hey. Apparently slow is the new me! I am in the middle of something like five or six others. Maybe I can tie last year, anyway. Sigh! I'm sure I'll be reading a lot over break.

A few notes: I really loved the Huston (gritty!), the Larsson (dark!), the Hogan/Del Toro (gross!), and the Collins (dystopian!); the Gibson, Wilson, Iles, Parker, Connelly, Francis, Gerritsen, Barr, Grafton etc. were all pretty much what one expects from these folk; and the French and Mankell were great as always (I cannot stress how good -- if a wee bit depressing -- Tana French is). The Stross was my first Laundry book, and it was fun -- if a bit cobbled together (I intend to now read the others).

Alas, Kellerman has really run his course. I was hoping that the intro of some new detectives would spice things up, but not so much. Easily the worst thing I read this year. Which wasn't THAT bad, just a bit dull.

And that's everything I can think of. Maybe I can start afresh, now!

Only finished 40 books this year. I guess all the moving and whatnot really cut down on my reading time. Anyway! Been reading a lot the last couple of months, so maybe that trend is over. Goals: Read more! Read better! All the usual stuff.

I'm not going to break it down, because I am not sure I've got everything in here, and I really don't remember when I read stuff so monthly totals will be worthless. Glad I got caught up — now I can go forward accurately again!

One post for the five-book series: Trading in Danger, Marque and Reprisal, Engaging the Enemy, Command Decision, and Victory Conditions. Space opera. Main character is Kylara Vatta, thrown out of the Slotter Key space academy for helping a fellow cadet, moved into captaining a ship for her family's interstellar shipping company. Much stuff happens, mostly involving a band of intergalactic pirates who want to control the known universe. Ky has to take them on singly and in bunches, with varying levels of success, and involving various members of her family.

I hugely enjoyed these. Interesting action, clever plotting, strong female characters. If you like space opera, you'll like these!

Ok, fine. I read it. It was pretty much as bad as you'd expect. The plot was contrived and basically read like a movie script, and most of the "tension" was ridiculous. My favorite sarcastic quote from one of the movies — "thank god, the symbologist is here!" — pretty much sums it up.

Oh yeah: noetic science, superstring theory, and Apotheosis of Washington, freemasons, etc. There. That's the plot.

Another grim Irish mystery. Dublin Murder Squad detective Cassie Maddox from "In the Woods" is the lead in this one, and it's set about a year after the last. She's left the murder squad, and thinks she doesn't miss it. But when a girl is found murdered in an abandoned cottage who is Cassie's virtual twin, she's suddenly pulled back in. The most fascinating part of this, for Cassie, isn't just that this woman looks exactly like her, but that she's also using Cassie's old undercover identity. Lexie Maddox is in a graduate program and living in a beautiful house with four other students.

Can Cassie infiltrate the house? It seems likely that one of the other four is either her murderer or can help to find the murderer, but they're a closed unit, not willing to help the police. The situation seems weird, and Cassie really wants to work out the relationships.

What follows is a complex psychological thriller, with convoluted relationships and motivations. Her prose is detailed and lovely, but it's a little dark. I got to the end and was pretty relieved it was over, but I was completely involved the entire time I read it. French is a real talent.

Harry Bosch gets involved in a case that seems to lead to Chinese triads and protection money. He gets warned off, which of course he ignores, but then is sent a video of his 13-year-old daughter who has been kidnapped. He flies to Hong Kong where she lives to try to rescue her. The case is much more complicated than he thinks of course, but he's very motivated.

Much better than the weird third book. Not so much Dexter chatting with the Dark Passenger, but since he's now married a bunch of having to tip-toe around the wife to get his killing fix. Starts out in Paris, on his honeymoon, and poor Dexter hasn't had the chance to explore his proclivities in months. Upon return there's a new odd killer in town, posing bodies with fruit in their stomach cavities like macabre welcome arrangements.

Suddenly he's made a couple of mistakes, and his family is in danger, and he's worried he'll be caught. And his sister is wounded and in the hospital. And he starts to suffer from something he's never felt before: self-doubt. Where is our cheeky, confident Dexter? Will he get his mojo back?

Odds are good.

Andy Carpenter has taken on another canine client. This time it's Waggy (no, really), whose ownership is to be determined by the court after the murder of his owner. Waggy is a pure bred Bernese mountain dog, and is being fought over by his owner's widow and his owner's son. Soon the widow dies, and Steven, the son, is arrested for her murder.

The plot is convoluted and involves SCIENCE! but as always Andy is fun to watch. Laurie, his girlfriend, gets shot, and for a while it's touch and go. But hey, she's the love of his life and this is a lighthearted series. What do you think happens? A good read.

The third collaboration between father and son feels a little more together and nuanced than the first two.

Ed Talbot is a bookie; he sets up at racecourses and takes bets. He's got a couple of employees, and he does ok. His main problem in life is his wife's mental illness. She's been hospitalized off and on for months at a time, and while he still loves her he is worried that he won't be able to care for her when she comes home again.

There's more, of course, involving his family, some thugs, some cheating, and murder. He's got to get to the bottom of it before more people die.