Category: Authors Page 20 of 116

Catch-Up Quick Takes: Some Audiobooks from Feb. & March 2022

Here are some audiobooks that I’ve listened to in the last couple of months, and I really don’t have much to say about them—all are worth the time to listen to (or read, if you prefer), I just don’t have enough to say to make up a typical post.


Hard RebootHard Reboot

by Django Wexler, Morgan Hallett (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Publisher: Recorded Books
Publication Date:  May 24, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 3 hrs., 57 min.
Read Date: March 14-15, 2022
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(the official blurb)
This just seemed like a lot of fun when it was published last year, so when I saw it on the library site, I had to jump on it. And it was fun.

But it was a bit too shortI know that’s by design, but it felt too abrupt. You got fighting robots on the cover, I want more than two major fights. Sure, the fights we get are pretty cool, but I wanted more.

If this was 20 percent longer, I’d have been happy. As it was? I was satisfied.
3 Stars

Demon Magic and a MartiniDemon Magic and a Martini

by Annette Marie, Cris Dukehart (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: The Guild Codex: Spellbound Series, #4
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Publication Date: April 22, 2019
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 7 hrs., 15 min.
Read Date: March 9-10, 2022
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(the official blurb)
So, um…yeah. This was okay.

For the second book in a row, we get to peel back the mysterious backstory of one of Tori’s new best friends while they’re battling a new magical threat. This time it’s demonsand rival guilds. One of which is pretty ethically challenged.

It was a bit too similar to the previous book for me. But it delivered the same kind of quippy UF action that characterizes the series. It’s entertaining enough to keep going with the seriesand to recommend themI just want to see a little more out of them.
3 Stars

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em DeadFinlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead

by Elle Cosimano, Angela Dawe (Narration)

DETAILS:
Series: Finlay Donovan, #2
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: January 31, 2022
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hr., 20 min.
Read Date: February 25-28, 2022
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(the official blurb)
I was a little worried how the premise would carry over to a sequel, and I clearly shouldn’t havelargely because Cosimano didn’t just repeat the way the first book went. It was very much an “okay, so now with that finished, what comes next?”assuming that Finlay and Vero don’t just wholly abandon their new revenue stream.

We get some important new information about Veromaking a lot of what she did in the first book make sense. Finlay makes some smart romantic movesand there’s some decent movement on the divorce front.

All in all, a solid sequel that shows that this can be a series with legs, not just a quirky one-off.
3 Stars

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the LawFuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

by Mary Roach

DETAILS:
Publisher: Brilliance Publishing
Publication Date: September 13, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hrs., 17 min.
Read Date: January 31-February 1, 2022
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(the official blurb)
So this is about what happens when animals and humans have a hard time co-existingwhich basically means when animals being animals inconvenience (or worse) humans. Was that hiker killed by an animal, or did they die of other causes and become food for an animal? What happens when we put a building where an animal expected to be able to be?

I don’t think it was as amusing as Roach tried to make it. It was interesting, but it went on too long and therefore became less-interesting the longer it went on. I don’t remember anything more specific than thatwhich says something about the book. It just didn’t hold my attention for long.

This is my first Mary Roach bookand maybe would’ve been my last if I hadn’t run into a couple of other bloggers who are Roach fans that were as tepid as I was about the book. Still, I’m going to get a bit more distance between this book and my next.
3 Stars

Murder Under Her SkinMurder Under Her Skin

by Stephen Spotswood, Kirsten Potter

DETAILS:
Series: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery, #2
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: December 6, 2021
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 9 hrs., 40 min. hrs and 40 mins
Read Date: March 28-29, 2022
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(the official blurb)
The circus that Will used to be in is in troubleone of their performers has been killed and another has been arrested. Will’s mentor, to be specific. So she and Lillian Pentecost head down south to see what they can do.

It’s a culture clash (both the South and the circus) for the duoWill learns the hard way that maybe she’s been gone too longas well as a fish out of water kind of thing for Pentecost. Although not as much as Will and the reader might expect.

I enjoyed this one a lot more than the predecessorit’s still a bit too much about Will and her current love interest than it is about Pentecost and the case they’re supposed to be working on. The mystery was clever, the character arcs were solid and Will’s narrative voice is strong enough to keep the reader/listener locked in.
3 Stars

Free BillyFree Billy

by Don Winslow, Ed Harris (Narrator)

DETAILS:
Series: The Dawn Patrol 
Publisher: Audible Originals
Publication Date: 2022
Format: Audiobook
Length:1 hr., 6 min.
Read Date: March 30, 2022

(the official blurb)
This is a silly, fun, and sweet story in the world of The Dawn Patrol (one of my top 5 All-Time books), all our favorites get a quick appearance and we’re introduced to a couple of new characters.

Despite being in the same world as the crime novels that introduced Winslow to me, there’s no crime to be found here.

Which is fineit’s not needed in this short story. It’s just a fun story about one of Boone’s friends. I laughed audibly more than once, and just enjoyed the story as a wholeI just wish it was longer so I could spend more time in this world. The story didn’t require it.

Ed Harris gives exactly what you’d expect from him in an audiobook narrationnear perfection. I thought his stuff was great.
5 Stars

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase from any of them, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Reconstruction by Mick Herron: A Tense and Cerebral Thriller

ReconstructionReconstruction

by Mick Herron

DETAILS:
Publisher: SohoConstable
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Format: Hardcover
Length: 352 pg.
Read Date: January 21-26, 2022
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Memory plays tricks, everyone knows that: it shuffles the deck, charms the snake, hoists the rope into nowhere. It convinces you you know just where you were, what you were doing, then whap, the detail betrays you. Reconstruction is never simple. Two days from now, a grainy, after-the-event newspaper photo will show Jaime Segura wearing the jacket he’s wearing now, and it’s not a dark green bomber at all: it’s brown, it’s faux-leather; it has long sleeves turned up at the cuffs, and drops to mid-thigh. George Trebor will look at that picture and wonder how much else of what he remembers actually happened, and how much was simply processed by a mind taught, like everyone else’s, to join the dots. Nobody studies events every second that passes. Like speed cameras, we take one picture, then another; and allow the data gathered by experience to fill the gaps.

And, like speed cameras, sometimes there’s no film in the machine.

Oops

I knew I should’ve written this post before I talked about this book on the Barbican Station podcast, I’ve been struggling to write this since—I’ve lost the impulse, having said just about everything I can think of about the book.

But I’m about to run out of renewals at the library, so I’d better get something done.

What’s Reconstruction About?

On the surface, this is a story about an inadvertent hostage situation. A young man, Jamie Segura, is told that if something happens to his boyfriend, he’s to go to a nursery school in Oxford and find a lady there who can help him understand. Which is what he does.

On the way to the school, through circumstances far beyond his control, Jamie picks up a gun. So when he shows up at the school, he gets the attention of those present—one of whom, the teacher, shows a remarkable amount of presence of mind and locks the place down, so that no more people can be stuck inside with him—it’s just the aide who cleans up the place, this teacher and one father with his twins. Louise’s quick thinking keeps the other staff, parents, and students away.

In addition to the instruction to find the lady at this school, Jamie has a name, Ben Whistler. Whistler worked with Segura’s boyfriend, they both are accountants for MI6. Not really the kind of guy you want in a hostage negotiation, but when he’s the one man the hostage-taker will talk to, you make do.

As the novel progresses, we learn what brought each of the people to the school that morning—their motivations, their past, and their very tenuous present are peeled back and exposed (mostly for the reader, but some for them)—while we also see what happens from the time Whistler arrives. This novel is like an onion—or an ogre—each time you pull back a bit and reveal something, you discover there’s a lot more you need to discover. For me, the structure is reminiscent of Hawley’s The Fall but in a more compressed time—and perhaps more effectively told. But now I’m clearly out of things to say describing what happens and have started talking about the book in an evaluative way, so I’d better move on to the next heading.

The Gun

She’d never been this close to a gun—stupid: nobody had ever been this close to a gun; nobody with a normal life and ordinary aspirations. Eliot’s boys were crying, but that seemed a long way distant; much closer was the gun itself, which was this side of the railings now. While Louise gazed into its mouth, the boy holding it—the only one among them on his feet—closed the gate. That, at least, was normal; everything else had rattled free of its holdings, scattering reality around her like spring rain.

One of the things that really grabbed my attention early on was during the hostage situation was that the attention wasn’t on Jamie Segura, but on the gun he was holding. It’s all about the gun—at the moment, Louise probably couldn’t have described him at all, he’s a boy, that much she’s got, but nothing more. She’s not alone there, the others are in the same boat—the gun is what’s important, the gun is essentially personified.

That’s such a great choice. The reader is focused on the gun so easily, just like Louise and the others. Really, at that moment—even the reader isn’t that concerned with knowing anything about Jamie, just what’s he going to do with the gun. Later, once Ben Whistler arrives and starts to get Jamie to open up a little, then our attention and interest shift to him, as they ought. But that’s secondary.

Later in the novel, there are other guns that are important—but that, too, is for later. And even then, they’re not focused on the way this gun is, because we know the people behind them (largely) and what they’re going to be used for.

The Prose/Narrative Voice

‘Are you an only child?’

‘Am I a what?’

‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’

‘What’s that got to do with—no. No, I don’t. Do you?’

‘Second of four. All boys.’

‘Well, that explains your ease with women.’

‘Probably accounts for my competitive nature, too. I’ve never liked coming second.’

‘Is there a point to this?’

‘Something I’ve noticed about only children. They have a tendency to think events revolve around them.’

We meet the narrator of this very early on—at the same time they tell us they’re not going to be around anymore (they might have 2 sentences total where they mention themselves). So we know that this isn’t some sort of neutral or omniscient third-person. There’s a human involved in telling this story, but we know precious little about them. But it does add some color to the reader’s experience.

The novel is told in a wry, detached sort of humor—but there’s nothing funny going on. It’s very strange—it’s not a comic thriller, those contain things you’re supposed to laugh at, actually funny moments. This is told like that without any humor. Individual phrases, sentences, paragraphs—even a couple of paragraphs are funny if you read them out of context. There’s a lot of wit involved in the way the words are assembled. But in context, nothing’s funny. It’s deadly serious, and even the wry narrative comment or three doesn’t relieve the tension–if anything it ratchets up the tension.

I don’t know how Herron pulled it off. I really don’t. I spent time re-reading passages trying to see if I could figure it out. And I just can’t. It’s the kind of thing where I see it in action, admire it and then have to move on.

What Exactly is Being Reconstructed?

I don’t spend too much time thinking about titles to books, really. I’ll think about “The 2019 X Character book” or “The Y Writer Stand-alone about Z” with a vague idea about when I read it—if I need the title, well, that’s what my spreadsheets and Goodreads are for.

But every now and then, a title will stick in the back of my head as I read a book—this is one of those cases. What could Reconstruction be referring to? The rebuilding of post-war Iraq? The police (or someone else) taking all the evidence around the hostage situation and putting together how it happened? The narrator taking in everything and putting it together in a way the police can’t? or…I have a list of around a dozen guesses. I’m pretty sure at least half of them are defensible. Like the layers of story and character that Herron peels back, there’s a lot to think about in just the title.

So, what did I think about Reconstruction?

…today is either the first day of the rest of your life or the last day of your old one, depending on how things work out. It’s Tuesday, April 3rd. The weather’s set for fair. Sunlight has already reached the bedspread, drawing upon it a range of shadow mountains whose outcrops and valleys exactly match the folds and ridges of the curtaintops. It’s time to get up. It’s time to get up.

The book opens with (almost) all of the characters waking up, going about their normal business not knowing if today is the first day of the rest of their life or the last day…all they know is that they have to get up and do some things. Then The Gun (and the poor, scared young man holding it) show up at the nursery school, and everything changes.

I’ve read and listened to Slow Horses, and while I enjoyed it, I’ve yet to move on in the series (I’m not sure I can explain why). But this book turned me into a Mick Herron fan—it’s going to be one of those books I’m thinking about for a long time to come. (and the more I think about it, the more I like it)

It took me a little bit to settle in—but even before I did, I was loving the prose and narration. Once Herron finished setting things up and introducing characters and starts letting them just do what characters do, I was hooked. From the surprising and horrific image (and sound!) of a car striking a man running out in front of it, through the events at the nursery, to the jaw-dropping last page—and killer last line. This is a great read.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

The Friday 56 for 3/25/22: Payback is Forever by Nick Kolakowski

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done one of these (a streak of books with hard-to-quote or oddly-dull-to-quote 56s), but you can always count on Kolakowski to be quote-worthy.

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice.

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it.

from Page 56 of:
Payback is Forever

Payback is Forever by Nick Kolakowski

Creak-creak-creak-creak.

Miller pictured a lightning bolt shooting from the top of his head, through the ceiling, and incinerating the old man in his irritating chair. Like something a Greek God would do to a peasant who was preventing him from mating with a beautiful swan. Wasn’t that how the legend went? He was a little drunk.

Jill laughed. “You have to admit, it’s sort of funny.”

“Sure, unless I’m trying to sleep.”

Death in the Sunshine by Steph Broadribb: Detectives Hitting “Pause” on their Retirement

Death in the SunshineDeath in the Sunshine

by Steph Broadribb

DETAILS:
Series: The Retired Detectives Club, #1
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: February 28, 2022
Format: Kindle Edition
Length: 319 pg.
Read Date: March 16-18, 2022
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Moira takes one last look towards the park and feels a pang of . . . something. She remembers how it felt when she saw the body, and how she switched from retired lady of leisure, Moira Flynn, back into her old, original skin. It’d felt like she was on autopilot– confident, professional, and knowing exactly what to do and what to say– and it had felt good. So good. Like she was useful again. Like there was a point to her. Like she still had purpose.

What’s Death in the Sunshine About?

Moira retired as a DCI doing undercover work, moved into a retirement community in Florida, adopted three dogs, and started on the next stage of her life—and tried to put everything that happened before retirement behind her. That was her goal, she was done with all that. Until early one morning when she finds a murdered woman floating in the swimming pool.

A neighbor and acquaintance—and leader of the community watch—comes upon the crime scene after the police arrive, sees Moira, and brings her back to his house to find out what’s going on. His wife was a CSI officer back in the UK, and Philip was also a DCI—he and Moira never crossed paths in England, just once she moved in. Philips’s friend, Rick, is a retired DEA agent and is also involved in the community watch.

Philip and Rick see this murder as an opportunity to get back into their old lives and bring some peace of mind to their neighbors—there’d been a string of burglaries recently, and now a murder, in their supposedly incredibly safe and secure community. They take it upon themselves to drag Moira and Lizzie into their impromptu investigation into the murder.

The police have no interest in, or patience with, what these four are discovering. They’ve got a quick and easy theory and solution in mind and are pursuing that—no matter how off-base they might be.

In addition to this murder (and possibly the string of burglaries that have gotten more than a few residents on edge), there are other mysteries bubbling under the surface—some involving the retired detectives, and others around their new home. We’re not going to get a resolution to them all in this book, maybe the sequel. Broadribb gives us just enough to get really invested in them without the reader feeling cheated that we didn’t get a resolution while making sure we’re coming back to see if we get to uncover the answer.

Un-likeable Leads

I’m not one who thinks you need to like all the protagonists in a book as people—but it helps if you like them as fictional characters. Death in the Sunshine gives a prime example of how it’s not necessary to like all the protagonists for a book to work.

I’m going to withhold the names, but I only liked two of these four as people—but all four made compelling characters. One of those I didn’t like, I might end up liking, once I decide how much I can trust them. But the fourth just rubbed me the wrong way all the time.

I can’t believe how many times I grumbled about Character X in my notes. I understood a lot of what made X act in the ways that made me dislike them so much, but that doesn’t excuse the choices they make throughout—that could have easily put the kibosh on their whole investigation.

Is it possible that Broadribb will change my mind about X in the next book? Absolutely. But I kind of hope she doesn’t, as long as I can keep liking the other two.

Pet Peeve

It’s been a bit since I’ve grumbled about this, but if a UK-based writer is going to write American characters, they really should get an American Beta reader to focus solely on making sure they sound like people who grew up and live here. I assume the experience for me is similar to someone from London listening to Dick Van Dyke’s Mary Poppins accent.

Now, I will say that it’s not that bad in this book, it’d take me only a little browsing through my archives to find worse offenders. But I expect a bit more out of Broadribb. She did make a wise move, I think, by having three of her four leads be from the UK, though.

So, what did I think about Death in the Sunshine?

Is that what this investigation is about? Is he trying to rekindle his old life? He misses it bad; misses it like a piece of him was amputated on the day he retired. If he’s honest about it he misses it as much, and maybe even a bit more, than he does his own children.

You start this thing having read the description, and you think this is going to be The Thursday Murder Club with different accents and a less amatuer-ish feel. This assumption lasts maybe two chapters before crashing headlong into the sharp rocks of reality.

It’s a wholly different setup, wholly different tone, with wholly different kinds of characters, and a wholly different relationship to the local police. This is a grittier kind of feel, with characters that feel like they could’ve stepped from the pages of other series right into this one.

Broadribb does a pretty good job of balancing the point-of-view characters, but I thought we could’ve gotten a little more of Rick, the ex-DEA agent, but that might just be me. Some of the supporting characters were a lot of fun, too—hopefully, they’re around in the sequel(s).

I particularly enjoyed the way Broadribb had these four reflect on what got them into investigating this case, and what it brought back for them. I’m years away from having to think about what life’ll be like when I leave the workforce, but there’s something about their reactions that spoke to me.

Strong characters and settings that we don’t see a lot of in Crime/Detective Fiction, some voices/perspectives that we could use more of, neck-deep in a case that should satisfy most genre fans. Now that Broadribb has established this world and characters, I’m expecting things to get better from here (and they’re pretty good where they are).

Jump on board this train while you can, readers.


3.5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire: It’s Always the Last Place You Look, Right?

Spelunking Through HellSpelunking Through Hell:
A Visitor’s Guide to the Underworld

by Seanan McGuire

DETAILS:
Series: InCryptid, #11
Publisher: DAW
Publication Date: February 28, 2022
Format: Trade Paperback
Length: 267
Read Date: March 14, 2022
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If Thomas is there, if he’s still alive and waiting for me to find him, I can’t make him wait because I’m finally stopping to worry about my own neck. My neck doesn’t matter. My neck made a lot of choices, and none of them said ‘hey, it would be fun to survive a long, long time.’

What’s Spelunking Through Hell About?

Alice Price—grandmother to the primary protagonists of this series—has spent the last fifty years jumping from one dimensional reality to another, seeking her husband who has been taken from her as part of the deal he made with the crossroads. Alice has sacrificed just about everything—her health, almost every waking moment, her children’s childhoods, and her relationship with them, for starters.

Now, given some information Annie was given as she defeated the crossroads recently, Alice knows that the clock is running out, she’s going to have to take some risky and dramatic moves in a last-ditch effort to bring her husband home. Assuming she can find him, that he’s still alive, and interested in coming home, that is.

Alice calls in markers, gets help from several allies, and takes some big—possibly fatal—risks to follow her last theory about where to look.

Hopefully, it’s worth it.

Quo Vadimus

The first five books in the series, while interconnected, felt very stand-aloneish. Then we got Annie trilogy—which started out as something in the same vein, but then shifted into something else, something else that ended up informing this book—and then we had the pretty intense duology about Sarah. Now we have this one, which feels stand-aloneish again, but is also the consummation of things that go back to the beginning.

That’s how the series struck me as I read it, anyway—although between what McGuire has said and a little bit of thinking I’ve done in the last day or so, maybe it’s not the best way to think of things—easier to say from this vantage point. At any rate, this book sure feels like a turning point in the InCryptid series.

So where does the series go from here? Well, it can go back to the whole Covenant of St. George vs. the Prices (and all Cryptids in North America) conflict. Maybe touching base with things in Australia, along the way? It’d be nice if we saw Alex and Shelby again. Maybe there’s more fallout from Annie’s Crossroads takedown or Sarah’s adventures to deal with, too. Or something that seems out-of-nowhere but that McGuire’s been planting seeds for since at least the second book—I put nothing past her.

I realize it’s silly to speculate, but when a book is where a series has been heading for a while, it invites theories about where the series might be going next. Knowing McGuire, the answers are somewhere online already, but I’m going to wait until Book 12 to see.

So, what did I think about Spelunking Through Hell?

The last couple of books just didn’t do as much for me as the earlier books in the series did, I was so glad to get back to the previous levels here (sorry, Sarah!). There’s just so much to commend about this book, and so little to complain about. There was at least one point in the book that was a “Eureka!” moment for me—I couldn’t believe McGuire had tied X into this book. Thirty seconds or so after I got that surprise, I realized I should’ve been expecting it. I’m glad I hadn’t taken the time to think about things so that I would expect it, it’s more fun to get the Eureka.

Alice shares the same quippy attitude as her grandchildren, the same stubborn streak and aptitude for violence—which isn’t that surprising, really, where did I think the kids got it? Still, as has been the case for the other four narrators in the series, while there’s a family resemblance, there are individual distinctives so that you don’t confuse her with the previous narrators.

Inside the crunchy candy shell of quips, magic, trans-dimensional travel, and people fighting for their survival, there’s a chewy center of a very sweet love story. I have no problem with the crunch shell, but like with a Tootsie Pop, the center is what makes it all worth it. The dénouement may be better, however—I know I didn’t get through it with dry eyes.

This is not the book to jump into this series with. Yeah, I’ve said it feels like a stand-alone, which seems like it’d serve as a jumping-on point, but it’s really not. Go back at least to Magic for Nothing, but you’d be best served going back to Discount Armageddon. Just know that when you start (and you really should if you haven’t yet) at one of those points, you’re in for a heckuva ride when you get to this book.


4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Bullet Points about Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith: A Clever Mystery Hidden in a Bloated and Problematic Novel

Troubled BloodTroubled Blood

by Robert Galbraith

DETAILS:
Series: Cormoran Strike, #5
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: September 14, 2020
Format: Hardcover
Length: 927 pg.
Read Date: February 23-March 2, 2022
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I’ve jumped on each book in this series, but this book sat on my shelf for 16 months after its release. Now that I’ve finally tackled it, I’m afraid that it’ll take me 16 months to write this up the way I normally would.

So, I’m just going to offer some brief thoughts about the book. But first, let’s start with:

The Offical Description

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough – who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974.

Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one forty years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on. And Robin herself is also juggling a messy divorce and unwanted male attention, as well as battling her own feelings about Strike.

As Strike and Robin investigate Margot’s disappearance, they come up against a fiendishly complex case with leads that include tarot cards, a psychopathic serial killer and witnesses who cannot all be trusted. And they learn that even cases decades old can prove to be deadly . . .

Things I’m Not Going to Develop into Paragraphs:

bullet The Acknowledgments start with, “My thanks, as ever, to my superb editor David Shelley…” Why? What did Shelley do? I cannot be expected to believe that anything was cut, trimmed, or compressed. 900 pages is too long for a P.I. novel.

There’s very little that I can think of that Shelley or Galbraith should’ve cut, but that’s not my job, I’m just the reader. Those two get paid to eliminate the wasteful portions of this book.

bullet Two things that I think could’ve been slimmed down, if not eliminated were: the cases non-Bamborough cases that Strike, Robin, and their contractors were on. We could’ve just used passing references to them, we didn’t need all the space devoted to them.

bullet There’s a storyline involving Robin and a contractor that took too long, and I get why Galbraith included it…but I have to keep arguing myself into accepting it.

bullet A lot has been made of the way that the serial killer suspected of Bamborough’s killing sometimes disguised himself as a woman. Given the public stances that Galbraith’s alter-ego has taken lately, this aspect of the character has come under fire. Which is understandable, and likely justified.

However, had Rowling not been embroiled in this controversy, or had anyone else written this character, I don’t think this character’s practice would’ve been controversial—it really comes across as his way of muddling witnesses and gaining the trust of a victim.

But she is the one who wrote this, and she is the one out there making those statements, and it’s hard to believe there’s no connection.

bullet I learned about a new philia while reading this book, and I really wish I hadn’t. It’s part of one of Strike and Robin’s other cases. I hope I don’t come across another reference to this in fiction or reality anytime soon so I’ll forget about it.

bullet Troubled Blood contains the only Matthew storyline that I liked in this series And it took until the end of it (or maybe Robin’s thoughts about it after the end of it) for me to reach that conclusion. He’s really one of the worst characters I’ve endured in the last decade.

bullet Similarly, we got another Charlotte Campbell story. I could barely put up with that story. I did like Strike’s actions at the end of it (I’m only now seeing the parallel, which makes me realize that I hadn’t organized my thoughts too well before this), but I wish Strike had gotten there a book or two ago. Or that Galbraith had used less space for it here.

bullet On the other hand, the story about Strike’s family (not his father and half-siblings, the family he was raised with) was fantastic.

bullet Outside of a few scenes in each previous novel, this was the best display and development of the friendship between Robin and Strike. It’s also the most extended, which helps (this is actually not a reference to the length of the book).

bullet The Bamborough mystery was just great. The strengths and weaknesses it showed in both Strike and Robin were worth the effort getting through it all. Seeing them make mistakes and recovering from them—and seeing them make breakthroughs—this is the kind of thing that attracted me to the series in the first place, they’re both works-in-progress and it’s great to see them grow as investigators.

You cut out everything else in the book and just give us this? I’m raving about it. Period.

bullet Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know…you need subplots, character growth, etc. But really…

bullet Did I mention this was too long?

bullet This ultimately worked for me. But there are so many qualifications, disclaimers, bet-hedging, allowances, and so on to that evaluation, I’m not sure it’s worth much. Die-hard fans of the series will find reasons to like this. I don’t think this would bring on new fans—it’s definitely not a place for people to jump on to this series.

bullet I said it last time, I’ll say it again, I hope the next book is leaner. But I doubt it will be.


3.5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

March 11, 1952 – The Birth of One Hoopy Frood

Douglas Adams

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet where seventy years ago today, Douglas Adams was born.

When the Towel Day Facebook page posted about this anniversary this week, I thought about doing a big tribute post today. But I really didn’t have the time to do a decent job of it.

Instead, I’m going to do something uncharacteristic of me—I’m going to keep it brief. Douglas Adams was a formative writer for me. It’d take very little time at all to see how formative, he’s probably in the Top 5 authors I’ve mentioned on this site. His humor, his imagination, his point of view, his style was a gift that has been influencing writers and readers for decades, and likely will continue to.

In honor of this anniversary, tonight I’m going to have a gin and tonic* in his honor, read a few sections from his books (likely a little more than that), and be grateful we got his creative output.

* see The Restaurant at the End of the Universe‘s discussion about the beverage.

Light Years from Home by Mike Chen: A Tale of Three Siblings

Light Years from HomeLight Years from Home

by Mike Chen

DETAILS:
Publisher: Mira Books
Publication Date: January 24, 2022
Format: Hardcover
Length: 345 pgs.
Read Date: February 11-18, 2022
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For Jakob, it meant days where time had no meaning, one lifechanging revelation after another. Were there aliens? Yes, there were so many aliens, a number so overwhelming that even now he still didn’t know the name of every species working under the Seven Bells flag. Were there bad aliens? Yes, and it turned out that Dad’s sci-fi shows got some of those traits right—plus mechs from the few years when he indulged in anime—along with holographic displays, faster-than-light speed, smart communication tech that quickly adapted to English, and other things.

It was all of that mashed into one overwhelming reality, something that made him question if he hadn’t taken the best/worst drugs of all time.

Fifteen Years Ago

Evie, her older twins, Kass, and Jakob are on a camping trip with their father. When Jakob and his father step away for a private word (Jakob’s thinking of dropping out, and their father is giving him a talk).

Then everything changes. Jakob and their father disappear. Three days later, their father reappears, disoriented and confused. But there’s no sign of Jakob—he’s eventually declared dead, and the family is shattered.

Evie

Evie’s following their father’s theory, Jakob was taken by aliens. She’s moved away from the family and joined up with others convinced that aliens have visited the planet. They research reportings, scientific phenomena, and do a webcast.

When her group notices phenomena in the area near where Jakob disappeared that matches the same strange readings from that night, Evie can’t contain her excitement, so she scrapes together enough money to fly across the country so she can look into it first-hand.

Kass

Kass had the opposite reaction, her brother’s always been a ne’er-do-well, he has no commitment, no follow-through—always getting by on his charm. She assumes that Jakob found some people to hang out with, leach off of, and was off having a great time while the family fell to pieces.

She stayed home, finished her degree, and is now taking care of their mother in the earliest stages of dementia while working as a therapist, helping others do for their families what she couldn’t do for her own.

She’s not thrilled about her sister’s impending arrival—Kass can’t believe Evie’s wasted her potential with this nonsense and has abandoned her family to do so. She wants nothing to do with it, or the inevitable request for financial assistance that comes with any visit with Evie.

Jakob

Jakob actually was taken by aliens—his father was accidentally taken up in the same transporter stream. He’s serving in an intergalactic war—he’s hiding briefly on earth until he can get some vital information to his side.

Or at least, that’s what he tells his sister when he returns. Kass has other ideas. She keeps using words like delusions and psychosis.

A Family Affair

The book hops around, being told from the perspective of each sibling—we get to know them, what they’ve been up to for the last fifteen years, and how they relate to each other. Whatever outlandish story Jakob is telling, what evidence and theories that Evie has about him, and whatever their mother is going through, the focus is the family—particularly on the siblings. The hurt they’ve caused the others, the neglect they’ve shown towards one another, the utter lack of trust that exists between any of them.

But they can’t fight the pull toward each other—to help each other, even as they’re proclaiming their disgust and disappointment.

Chen’s known for writing family drama, and to date, none of his families have had as much drama as these three.

Yes, there’s the FBI running around, accusations of fraud (and possible terrorism), and some pretty intense action—laced with SF goodness (as you expect from Chen). But the story is at it’s core, a story about these three siblings trying to find some healing. Or at least a definitive way to say goodbye.

So, what did I think about Light Years from Home?

I thought it was a great way to tell this story, I thought the characters were interesting and the situation was very compelling—bringing in their mother’s deteriorating condition was a wonderful addition (in terms of storytelling, I’m not saying I find dementia entertaining).

Yet, I had the hardest time getting involved with the story or characters. I thought it was a great read, but I just didn’t care. Or I didn’t think I did. But I found myself on the edge of my seat at the right moments and getting misty at the end. Without my noticing, Chen had wormed his characters into my heart—including the one, I’d easily have said the book didn’t need.

I’ll note that I just talked to a friend, who had an entirely different reaction to the beginning of the book (hasn’t finished it yet, but I can’t imagine he’ll disagree with what I said about the ending). This suggests, as I imagined, this is a Me-problem, not a Chen-issue.

I think this book worms its way into the SF/Speculative Fiction genre differently than Chen’s previous works. And maybe that was my hitch—maybe. I think it’s great that his works are so stand-alone, that there’s not even a Mike Chen-template like so many other stand-alone authors fall into.

With Mike Chen, you never know what you’re going to get beyond: interesting and fresh premise and emotionally satisfying ending. Light Years from Home lives up to that and has me eagerly awaiting his 2023 release to see where he’s going next.


4 Stars

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The Goodbye Coast by Joe Ide: A Phillip Marlowe for Today (a follow-up to last week’s post)

The Goodbye CoastThe Goodbye Coast

by Joe Ide

DETAILS:
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Publication Date: February 1, 2022 
Format: Hardcover
Length: 301 pg.
Read Date: February 12-15, 2022
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“Reassembling the past, reconstructing relationships, trying to link someone’s words with the facts at hand or facts yet to be discovered. You overlay a hundred different constructs over the exact same information and you’ll come up with a hundred different theories. Everyone sees, interprets and understands things differently. Everyone has their own aspirations, anxieties and fears. It’s what they call human nature.” Basilio paused to search his molars with his tongue. “Don’t get me wrong, kid. I’m not saying it’ll all be mundane. There are things inside people so vicious and depraved you’d think their breath would smell like roadkill. They’re out there, Marlowe. Every vile infection, mutant species, every simmering brew of psychopathic evil are waiting for you right outside the door.” Basilio unwrapped a toothpick and continued the search. “Sure you’re still game?”

That was ten years ago and yes, Marlowe was still game.

This is a follow-up to my post last week, where I blogged about what I thought of the first third of the book for a Book Tour. I will be re-using some of what I said then, for the record.

My Faulty Assumption

When I heard that Joe Ide was going to do a Philip Marlowe novel, I assumed it was going to be in the same vein as his South Central Sherlock Holmes novel, IQ-this time with a Marlowe-esque figure in a contemporary L.A.

Nope. This time out, Ide isn’t messing around with something inspired by one of the greats. He’s it’s a full bore re-imagining. We’ve got Philip Marlowe in his tenth year of being a P.I. in a 2020-is L.A. The question is, will this work?

What’s The Goodbye Coast About?

An aging star of Rom-Coms hires Marlowe to find her stepdaughter, a 16-year-old runaway, Cody. Cody’s father, Terry, was a director who had one mega-success and a series of flops. He appears to have fallen in with a group of Russian and Albanian gangsters as a way to secure funding for one last attempt at saving his career. Sadly, he was murdered in front of their home. That was six weeks ago. A month later, Cody runs away, stealing the housekeeper’s car to do so.

It’s been two weeks, and no sign of her has been found. Kendra James hires Marlowe, not to look into the murder, but to track down Cody. Something doesn’t sit right about this with Marlowe, but James is paying a ridiculous amount of money, so he takes the case. Marlowe definitely doesn’t like James, the way she treats her staff, or spends her money. But that doesn’t mean he can’t some of that money.

Naturally, Marlowe ends up looking into the murder, and the questions surrounding it, the victim, and Marlowe’s client start to add up.

While in the middle of this investigation, Marlowe is approached by a British woman looking for her son—her ex-husband has abducted the boy and flown home to L.A. as the lastest step in their bitter divorce. She’s spent pretty much everything she has to get to L.A., and after a series of rejections from Private Investigators who expect to be paid for their efforts, she’s been referred to Marlowe.

Emmett Marlowe

Marlowe’s father, Emmett, is a 17-year-veteran of the LAPD. Currently on leave, following the death of his wife from cancer and the drinking (both excessive and habitual) he turned to after that.

The relationship between father and son is strained, and the closest they get is when they work together—Emmett is essentially Marlowe’s partner in some of his cases, unofficially using LAPD resources in the service of the case.

The emotional core of this novel is the relationship between Emmett and Marlowe. There are a lot of ups and downs just in these three hundred pages, and it’s clear that this is nothing new—all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again. I’m not sure what they have could be love—it really doesn’t seem to be affection—but they’re family.

Phillip Marlowe, Really?

I’m really not sure about this part. How Phillip Marlowe-y is this guy? Do we need Marlowe in the 21st Century? I wondered about that as soon as I finally understood what Ide was doing in this book a few weeks ago, and I still have questions about that.

One thing that I stumbled over is Ide’s use of the third person. Chandler’s Marlowe is notably a first-person narrator—and his narration served as the template for so many P.I.s that followed. Ide is about to work in some touches that make me think of Chandler’s narration but it’s not the same and takes some getting used to.

There are plenty of similarities between the two author’s take on the character, a similar attitude, aptitude, mannerisms, and likes. On the other hand, Ide’s Marlowe’s backstory and the involvement of his father are significant divergences. That’s his prerogative, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that—but at a certain point, if enough tweaks are made, is it Phillip Marlowe?

I cannot stress enough—I would have absolutely no qualms about this character if he had any other name under the sun. But tagging him with Philip Marlowe means something, right? I’m not prepared to say that Ide gave us a version of Chandler’s character for the Twenty-First Century. For me, I think I have to think of Ide’s Marlowe as some guy who by some crazy, random happenstance shares his name with a P.I. from the same city in the 30s and 40s.

So, what did I think about The Goodbye Coast?

A PI didn’t have to produce evidence that held up in court. A PI speculated, deduced and conjectured until a theory formed that felt right to an experienced investigator. Marlowe could never replicate [redacted]’s thinking or [their] individual moves. The best he could do was ask himself, How would you do it, Marlowe?

It took me no time at all to get hooked by this—and hooked solidly. If it weren’t for prior obligations (like, say, work), I’d have eagerly stayed up all night reading.

Everything about the Cody/Terry/Kendra case is murky—the more time that Marlowe and his father spend on it, the worse it gets. Every time they or the reader think they’ve gotten to the bottom of what happened, and to the depth of the depravity involved, within a few pages they’re proven wrong. By the end, you see that Ide has fully embraced the noir ethos of Chandler’s detective and runs with it.

I’m not sure I liked much about the father taking the child story, the resolution was satisfying enough, though. But what I appreciated about it was the way it brought the child’s mother, Ren, into the novel. She played a significant role in the Cody story in several ways. Also, the best bit of dialogue in the novel comes from the first conversation that Mom and Marlowe had. I’m a sucker for banter, and Ide nailed this one. If there is a sequel to this, I’d love for Ide to come up with some excuse to bring Ren into it.

Speaking of the dialogue, as a whole it’s crisp, snappy, and witty. The characters leap off the page, and it didn’t take me long to get invested in the whole thing. This version of L.A. shares a lot with Chandlers, too—the collision of an abundance of wealth and a dearth of ethics/morality helps to create a dynamite setting for a P.I. novel. Between the narrative voice, dialogue, and frequent Chandler-esque similies, this is the most entertaining writing from Ide yet–I’m talking the technical bits, not the character or plot (nothing against them, I’m trying to distinguish things here).

I got the impression this is intended as a stand-alone, but I could be wrong. If there’s a sequel, I’m there in a heartbeat. I can see this Marlowe rivaling Isaiah Quintabe in my eyes. P.I. fans—go get your hands on this.


4 Stars

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All At Sea by Chris McDonald: Adam and Colin on a Cruise with an Inevitable Bother

All At SeaAll At Sea

by Chris McDonald

DETAILS:
Series: The Stonebridge Mysteries, #6
Publisher: Red Dog Press
Publication Date: February 17, 2022
Format: eBook
Length: 96 pages
Read Date: February 17, 2022
Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org

Why Would They Say This?

It’s been 6 months since Christmas and Adam and Colin haven’t had the opportunity to show up the police since then. They even think about their crime-solving in the past tense.

Still, when circumstances put the two of them on a cruise to Italy before Adam’s wedding, his fiancé makes him promise to stay out of trouble. Adam says it’s his goal on a couple of occasions. It’s said so often that I could hear Toby Ziegler shouting:

Toby: You want to tempt the wrath of whatever from high atop the thing?
Sam: No.
Toby: Then go outside, turn around three times, and spit. What the hell is the matter with you?

Of course, Adam and Colin don’t have a fictional White House Communications Chief yelling at them and trouble finds them.

The Trouble

On their first night onboard, the duo attends a dinner for first-class passengers where they meet some of their fellow travelers, including an art dealer; a B-List film star (maybe a C-lister); an eccentric elderly woman traveling with a classic painting; and a young man in his early 20s who may not be as well-off as he seems.

Late that night, Colin finds the woman after she’d been attacked in her room and her painting had been stolen. Colin’s always been the more considerate of the pair, but given his profession, he seems more driven to help this victim. He promises they’ll find the painting and he spends the rest of the cruise concerned about her well-being.

Adam’s a little torn between looking for the thief and keeping his promise to Helena and staying out of trouble—naturally, curiosity (and the realization that they really have nothing better to do with their time on the ship) wins out and Adam gets in way over his head with the search for the painting. The fairly dynamic duo’s hunt takes them all over the luxury ship as well as to the streets of Barcelona and Lisbon, new territory for them, but in the end, their tenacity and cleverness help them as always.*

* Their habit of accusing almost every suspect until something sticks doesn’t hurt either.

A Theft? That’s What They’re Investigating?

Easy now, don’t worry. There is a murder, it just shows up far later in the book than we’re used to.

I was actually enjoying the lack of a corpse and was hoping we’d get all the way through a novella without one. If only for the sheer novelty. But once the body was discovered, I enjoyed what it meant for the plot—and it just felt strange to read a Stonebridge Mystery where everyone was alive.

So, what did I think about All At Sea?

I was excited to get the email yesterday morning with the link to my pre-order, so I could dive into this (no pun intended, but hey, I’ll take it). Any day spent with Adam and Colin is a good one in my book and this entry in The Stonebridge Mysteries did not disappoint.

At 96 pages, there’s not a lot to be said about All At Sea, beyond recommending it. This novella contained a couple of my favorite sentences by McDonald, some great characters in the suspect pool, and the most dangerous moment this series has had yet.

Would this work as a jumping-on point? Yeah, it’d work. I think you’re better served by starting from #1, especially as these are so short that it wouldn’t take much effort to catch up. But if you’re not up for that, you’ll get into the groove just fine from here. I’ll warn you—once you start with these, you won’t stop. Adam and Colin are addictive.


4 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.


My thanks to Red Dog Press for the invitation to participate in this reveal and the materials they provided.

Red Dog Press

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