Catch-Up Quick Takes: Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz, Simon Prebble; Deadly Assessments by Drew Hayes, Kirby Heyborne

The point of these quick takes posts to catch up on my “To Write About” stack—emphasizing pithiness, not thoroughness.

Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz, Simon Prebble (Narrator) Series: Alex Rider, #3 Unabridged Audiobook, 6 hrs., 57 min. Recorded Books, 2013 Read: August 21-24, 2020 Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

(the official blurb)
So for two books now, we get this outline: Alex does something gusty and dangerous, which transitions into him taking on a case for MI-6 that’s as risky as you could want.

This time he runs afoul of a Chinese criminal organization at Wimbledon before he’s loaned out to the CIA who really needs a teen to sell a couple of agents as a family unit, out for vacation near the Caribbean. They’re actually hunting for a nuclear weapon and some ex-Soviets wishing for a comeback for the USSR.

I honestly found his antics around Wimbledon and that more interesting than the main story, but it wasn’t bad. Silly fun stuff that undoubtedly works better for the target audience (MG readers of a decade ago) than me, but it’s good enough for me to keep going.

Deadly Assessments by Drew Hayes, Kirby Heyborne (Narrator) Series: Fred, The Vampire Accountant, #5 Unabridged Audiobook, 9 hrs., 9 min. Tantor Audio, 2018 Read: August 5-6, 2020 Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

(the official blurb)
Hayes is really getting better at bringing books together as a novel. Still, it’s basically four serialized short stories pretending to be a novel, but this one was a whole lot closer to being a whole.

While Krystal is off doing something to get her released from her prior engagement (Fae contracts aren’t that easy to break), Fred gets a visit from the ruling Council for vampires to see if he and his clan are up to snuff. While they’re at it, their representative is going to fill Fred in on all the stuff he should’ve learned from his sire.

Stuff ensues. Fred learns a lot but doesn’t change fundamentally. He’s still the same mild-mannered guy, even if he’s determined he’s going to have to be a bit more. There’s some really good stuff about his ex-employee, Alfred, coming into his own.

This light UF series keeps getting better.

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