INDULGENCE in DEATH by J.D. ROBB ***

This is a sort of murder mystery taking place in the future 2060 which I don't know why because there aren't that many futuristic 'things' that would require moving the date up. So far I noticed an ID thing that you can program or scan someone and ID them, like a dead body. Big deal. They talk of vids, and wrist doodads that have a lot of techie stuff but otherwise can't understand it. People still deal drugs, pay for sex, murder for sport. There are robotic type of people but nothing really stands out for it being futuristic like say Orson Wells or Doug Adams....I tend to look for brilliant creativity when reading about a futuristic society.

This book, while I continued to read it, wasn't overly exciting. In fact there was so much repetition I had to skim thru a lot of the repeat stuff, repeatedly. You got your investigator lieutenant Eve and her doting, adoring, unrealistic husband Roarke who owns half the town. You have Eve's crowd of helpful detectives working in the background. So some rich guys are playing a game of murder trying to outdo each other. Not giving anything away cuz it then takes the rest of the book to get evidence. This takes time. Slowly.

NOW YOU SEE HER by Joy Fielding ***

It's readable but not much of a story considering how many pages it is. Would be better short story far as I'm concerned. About a stupid self deluded woman who doesn't think her daughter is dead, goes to Ireland (for some bizarre reason thinks that's where she is), runs around trying to find an Audrey who she believes is her hiding daughter Devon. When she finds the Audrey and it's not her she is still running around looking for Audrey like a blind mouse in a maze.
No wonder everyone thinks she's frickin nuts. She's so stupid she's practically screwing anyone who says she's attractive. I would say she's naive but at 50 she's really quite beyond an idiot. No murder, nothing remotely exciting. Just continuous sexual references, men complimenting her, moving from hotel to hotel and wow...that's about it so far. Her room gets robbed when one of her "boyfriends" (36yo) takes her out. Not even a suspicion he's involved somehow. Too flattered by his attentions to have a brain. Anyway almost but not quite done. So far not recommending cuz it's so blitheringly boring.  Much ado about nothing.

AFRAID of the DARK by James Grippando ***

It took me a long time to really settle into the book. There were too many characters, too many seemingly disassociated events. Probably half thru the book things started to get clearer and more cohesive but it was hard work getting there. Too often people's names are switched from last to first and it was confusing constantly, and also irritating.

I didn't toss my arms up in frustration so it had a certain amount of appeal to continue. A cop Vince Paulo and a lawyer Jack Swyteck are investigating a murder connected by a friendship of the murdered girls father Chuck. The mother of the murdered girl really deserved to be murdered herself for her involvement. So there's a "Dark" guy who begins killing people who had anything to do with the demise of his sister brain washed into being a human bomb years ago; I guess. Far fetched activities (religious, porn, online video porn, sex slaves, FBI, cell phone listening capabilities) leading to far fetched scenarios (murder, collusion of parent, sex slaves, poison murder, Jamal in Gitmo) and you have to work to keep up with it all.

Really if Andie and her whole stupid FBI story was eliminated it would have made the story easier to follow and less nonsensical. That was a red herring and completely off-the-track bullshit woven throughout the novel. Everything to do with her should have been deleted. Ditto Jamal in Somalia, Gitmo, tortured, foot cut off--he played an important role in the story as boyfriend of dead girl, suspected killer and son of Dark's sister's murderer but just now putting that down in writing is so off the wall. There was just too much of everything. Over kill.

SEIZURE by Rick Oldham

Boy --small book with plethora of characters. Brit writer yet again. First off, fishing charter in Puerto Rico with Flynn and female client and he plans to fuck her. Major topic. Then they find a bunch of immigrants dodging sharks and bring them into the boat. That's over because now we're with some stupid police officers in an English hospital visiting a security guard who got shot and dies, one cop also gets to visit his MUM in there. That's over because now we're back with Flynn fucking the client, back to Henry and Rik two detectives in England then back to Flynn being yelled at by his boss for having a gun on the charter boat, then back to England eating bacon, then Flynn with his new fuckmate bringing the press to interview him saving people. Now Felix Deakin in jail chatting with his solicitor. I'm dizzy from the back and forth. It's all pretty boring and no one has had a seizure yet. (RE: TITLE). BORED BORED.

The back and forth the inundation of characters- the Brit terminology. WTF happened to all the AMERICAN writers? Why so many Brits? Sick to death of em. Had enough. BYEBYE.

HANDLING THE UNDEAD by John Lindqvist **

Zombie story. One day people die, a few days later worms drop from the sky and awaken the dead. There are several 'families' the writer selects to follow thru their ordeal. What a boring read this was. It kept see sawing from one stupid family with a dead relative to another. The police gather the reliving and not much happens there. No one has a diagnosis. Nothing even mentioning anything scientific happening.

Then people suddenly can read each other's minds around these reliving or read the dead's mind, lost me there. Then black masses come out of the darkness with hooks and I don't know....grab back the worms? So unexplained. Unformed ideas. Leaves you confused or bored or a combination of both. I didn't like it at all. Some girl keeps seeing her own self everywhere WHATEVER THAT MEANS. Foreign writers....AVOID them is my future motto. They suck.

At the end what happens? I have NO CLUE. Worms leave the dead people and either pop or die or turn into butterflies. LOL Author doesn't really have a clue so neither will you.

VENOM by Joan Brady **

I found this barely readable. It's not cohesive, during a meeting with 2 people (him/her) talking about why he and her dad argued then suddenly the author delves into the female's dad going blind, the reasons, theories, then the next paragraph is about London fog, sense of direction, then we FINALLY return to the story of them talking to each other. This crap happens CONTINUALLY. So distracting and brings you out of the immediacy of the story over and over again. There are way too many people involved in way too many conspiracies for my taste. Hard to keep track of them all. Who is good, who is bad, who works for who, hard to figure that out as well. Writer seems to like to keep you confused.

Since the writer is a Brit there are confusing terms to deal with one ex: "All I got to do is put the wind up her a little." WTF is that? Blow her up like a sex doll?

The basic story is absurd, some guy owns bees, their venom cures radiation and lukemia or whatever. That part of the story isn't the meat of the book (I wish). It's mostly about the girl who owns the property of where the bees are (I think) and how companies want the product; espionage, try to kill other people over it, some guy tries to marry her for the patent. It's all pretty ridiculous back and forth with mysterious murders not even delved into. Backgrounds about places you could care less about. Not enough details you WANT to read about. I didn't like it at all. I was confused pretty much MOST of the time. I try to avoid Brit writers they waste my time with stupidity, paragraphs and boring paragraphs of it.

I really would have loved the idea more deeply written about the bees, the venom, the owner. How it works, why it works, why they preferred the beekeeper over other people, a scientific look at its manufacture and the people involved in this work. That would have been more interesting for me. Maybe toss in a few competing companies wanting the product but more more more of the venom. Less of the espionage crap.

ELECTRIC BARRACUDA by Tim Dorsey ****

Must be a guy thing.
A criminal/killer and his friend producing a 'fugitive tour' online or something. Not sure what "online" means as there's really no description of that. Blog? Web page? Including photos? Not specific so don't know.

Lots of chasing, some murder, man-jokes, Florida swamp tours and bars and crap like that. Some cops on the trail, one of whom speaks 1930 language no one understands. He sounds like a blithering idiot. If you want to know more about secret FL hideaways, rumored history, bootlegging, swamps, gators and some sideline murders of like- child molesters- then this is for you. I'm not all that into it. But then I'm not a guy. Some humor here is strictly man-only-funny. Altho I found what happened to the bounty hunter pretty funny...sort of reminds me of....what's his name...think tv ostentatious bounty hunter...

The OMEGA THEORY by Mark Alpert *****

Very good book, great writing, page turning and hard to put down. A physicist wife and Science historian David Swift have to save their adopted genius son Michael who has been kidnapped in order to stop the world existing as a computer run theory. The final theory explains the equations that define the forces of nature and bad people want to stop the world.

Hard to explain it all and it's an intriguing idea, fascinating really and I had a hard time putting the book down because of all the chasing, killing, good vs evil type stuff. Worth cover price.

Books such as this are why I enjoy reading. To see inside thinking and theories of other people. It makes minds fascinating for me.

EXPOSURE by Therese Fowler **

So far I've been bored into reading 50 pages. Really slow, overly detailed and bogged with misc. crap I don't care about. Teenage love from someone it seems is unfamiliar with the male point of view, maybe even teen love in general.  I mean the boy sounds like a girl. Meanwhile the rest of the story isn't compelling enough for me to continue. Girl's (almost 18) dad files charges against boyfriend for lurid pix or whatever so I'm about done and library on Weds.

Somewhere on back it says what a page turning story this is...and it's NOT by any means.

DOUBLE PREY by Steven F. Havill **

Geez one kid of a family tips his ATV over and dies and it's pages and pages of following his boring ass trail to nowhere. Something about a skull, an old gun, a bullet. First the whatever an  'undersheriff' is goes out there herself, then with her boss (under him, under covers?), Gastner who demeans her by calling her sweetheart all the time, then she goes out again with a photographer, then the kids dad. BORING. Over and over and detailed repeat crap. Not only that but some secret information is supposed to be found in some old guys frickin 1916-36 diaries no one seems to have time to read, which coincidently will have pertinent info on this case. In actuality this had NOTHING to do with the story and went nowhere.

If I have to read about going on that trail one more time I'm going to vomit. As it is I'm going to skip over most of this chapter with daddy along cuz why do I want to revisit after being there 2x?? WHY? Extremely repetitive and tons of characters to memorize. Sheesh. Good sleeping material here. Also weird terminology, like Casey girl; Padrino, a father who calls his son, "you found the boy." The boy. Not Freddy or my son or whatever.

If you like wild west rambling dull characters who can bore the skin off a cat this is for you. Now idiot (dead happily) son was going out on this trail to shoot prarie dogs or DOG DOGS, not sure. Still reading and merrily skipping over pages and pages.

The TAKING of LIBBIE, SD by David Housewright *****

Hooked from the first page and hard to put down. I ate, drank and fell asleep trying not to miss anything. An ex cop McKenzie gets kidnapped to Libbie, SD; a case of mistaken identity but he remains in town to solve all the crimes that then are committed during his stay.

There's an unhappy-lover murder, a town robbery, bullys, lots of action packed adventure. The characters are all distinct and mostly likable. Got no complaints about nuthin'. Worth the money if you buy it and a great catch at the library.

TRIPLET CODE by BB Jordan ***

A Dr. Celeste, does biology type stuff and publishes papers and apparently there's a lot of competition in the field for publishing results of experiments and findings. Meanwhile as that is boring you, male scientists are murdered during traveling, conferences, speeches, dinners and other truly boring background material.

There's a touch of romance nothing very inspiring or hot, more clinical, for ex: her and the boyfriend talk minimally about marriage and have only been dating about a month, altho known each other longer. Anywho they screw and wake up engaged. It just seems unemotional and forced. Like someone said in order to make this mystery more interesting add some stress to her life (her tenure dilemma) and throw some sex in. The murders and solving it are as dry as the rest of the story. I don't know what "triplet" and "code" have to do with the basic story line either.

The OTHER LIFE by Ellen Meister ****

Story about Quinn, a sort of bimbo who can't decide if she wants her old writer boyfriend or to stick with her husband. She has either an ability to travel to a parallel world in chimney cracks and join her ongoing old life with the writer or she's delusional. She can't seem to live without her deceased mom, don't know how she got to mid 30s without mommy hanging off her every egotistical word.

She has 2 men who love and over protect, dote on her (haha so lifelike) and found out she's pregnant with a girl fetus that has a brain issue so she may die before birth, during birth, after birth or cost the health care system billions of dollars and she won't entertain abortion. Better to have a disabled child with no sense of self.

Not a murder mystery but sounded intriguing. It would really be so much more entertaining if she traveled to somewhere other than another stupid ass relationship. It's hard for me to care about long dead mommy, deformed non-viable baby and her obsession with these men. Maybe it's just that she's so provincial it turns me off. Like really...worse shit can happen to people than losing mom when you're a teen. Also about the baby, should have had the abortion before naming and waiting for all these tests...geez not like she can't get pregnant again and again and again, waffle-head. Lets go over this realistically: Fetus is BRAIN DAMAGED and DISABLED. I'm guessing the "other life" is escapism from her horrific tragic pregnancy. Was hoping for better story line than that. Still not bad for a library book. I continue to read it and am interested in finding out how it ends. I am way too pragmatic to appreciate the "dilemma".