Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The BONE BED by Patricia Cornwell ****

Your typical Cornwell novel. Petty jealousies, someone wants either Kay really bad or her husband. To the point of insanity, near rape...whatever. They are just so desirous and enviable.

So while that goes on in the background there's a murder to solve, or more than one. One body has old buttons on her clothing and seems like an old timer type person, whom we have no idea whether she put the old buttons on her clothing or the killer did. Apparently the killer doesn't like old ladies and we never find out what that's all about. It can't be cuz he doesn't like his auntie, killing? Cuz of his aunt? WTF? Mystery forever.

Meantime a male named female agent is convinced a man who gets off his murder charge is responsible for all the murders. And also she is viciously in love with Kay's husband Benton, then ends up dead -why? I don't know. I don't know how the killer is in so many places in such a small amount of time. I don't know why he kills the way he does with different MO's for each murder. Was the agent an old lady? Where is the missing dog? Apparently Kay fits his modus operandi by being an old lady to murder cuz she's on his hit list. She must be old as death by now.

Lastly, I have no idea who this killer was throughout the story. Do not remember him being mentioned AT ALL. Not once. And in his vehicle are suitcases with forensic tools so WTF is he? I don't know. I tried fanning pages to see where he was mentioned previously and couldn't find him.

Didn't think it was as coherent as most of her other novels but of course a NY Bestseller! Nobody asks any questions I guess. Read it and STFU, I suppose.

Monday, November 26, 2012

The NIGHTMARE by Lars Kepler ****

I found this one a little strenuous to get into. The foreign names are confusing at first and there are many of them. Then the premise of the story is so difficult you need a roadmap at the end by the author to figure out all the ins/outs and whyfores.

I understand there are gun deals happening in countries where they shouldn't be but money makes that happen. This is pretty much about a gun deal that threats were used and people killed due to not keeping their part of the bargain or opening their mouth or something. I thought some of the people who were killed were done so for no reason I could see. They fulfilled their part of the bargain yet still were killed.

So a couple cops are trying to save a girl. Her boyfriend found a photo sent secretly to her with arms dealers celebrating and why he even thought it was worth trying to blackmail anyone is beyond me but he did and started a big mess of killings. His girlfriend's sister is killed, he is killed and the girlfriend (without much help from the cops) is left to fend for herself.

Many times I wanted to strangle the cops for being so stupid. The killer is so brilliant he's everywhere at once killing randomly all over the world. So he's pretty much superman with many killing talents.

There are some pretty weird characters in here. I liked it but it was a job processing info. Get it at the library and persevere.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

PLAY NICE by Gemma Halliday *****

This was a page turning spy thriller with lots of action. Anna working at a dog shelter used to be a killer and has thrown all the people who hired her in the past off her tail by pretending to be dead in a car explosion.

She gets found out, spies are all over trying to kill her, the ways she avoids them, the life she has now after 15 yrs without killing make it difficult for her to get out of the previous life because after all this time they found her and want to use her again to kill a senator.

Find out yourself how it ends up. Good story telling, action adventure novel. Very good writing and I liked it enough to buy it.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Mr. MONK on PATROL by Lee Goldberg *****

After the last thought provoking and intense book I was happy to throw a Monk novel in to lighten the mood. His old cop buddy Randy Disher married Sharona and he found so many theives in the old city's leadership he practically had to fire everyone and took over temporary Mayor, plus is Chief of police.

He calls Monk and Natalie to fly to New Jersey to help him since he's very low staffed, soon to be even lower staffed. Monk has all the qualifications to be a patrol officer but Natalie will need more schooling if she likes the job and decides to pursue it as a career.

So of course they both travel there to help Randy out. Since Monk has discovered who murdered his wife he has calmed down a teensy bit and is a little more accepting of things around him altho whenever he's in town he measures people parking their cars to be sure they are all equally separated and threatens warning tickets for non compliance.

There were some areas I actually laughed, one was when he said 'today you need an aspirin, tomorrow you're a crack whore". There are a few other pretty funny Monkisms in there to keep you amused.

The ending leaves you wondering what is next for Monk and Natalie because they both have no reason to return home and things have been going rather well in New Jersey. Good, light reading, easy to follow and amusing.

PS If Mr. Goldberg would be so kind as to give me a review on Amazon for Backyard dog which is kindle ready or digital for $5. I'd sure appreciate it.
:) Good luck with your writing.

Friday, November 16, 2012

The DOG STARS by Peter Heller *****

Don't read this if you're a wussy crybaby. That's the first thing people whine at me about my book Backyard Dog, "is it gonna make me cry?" For shit's sake if you go inside someone else's head for awhile reading an author's vision and version of life who knows where it's going to take you. Maybe you'll cry, so what, will it kill you? Probably not.

Books are meant to take you out of YOUR comfy little life into some special meaningful other world inside the writer's head. If you're scared to cry don't read books.

So the world had a catastrophic illness and most everyone died (you may now begin to cry) and this man Hig, his dog Jasper and a guy Bangley hang around living in a fortified airport area. They pretty much kill anyone stepping foot in their territory and have lots of guns and grenades etc. (keep crying wussy asses). There's some boring areas about day to day chores, how they live, and what Hig thinks about stuff. But his wife and unborn baby got sick and died (go on...boo hoo) and passed away before this story starts but the deaths are still inside him and make him deeply melancholy. Actually Hig is like me with a terrible hole inside no one on earth can fill or fix.

So as Hig, Bangley and little old Jasper run around scrounging and being pals and sleeping under the stars at night and killing everyone who moves...the wittle doggy dies. (Oh my you widgets -are you crying again?) This makes his sadness even deeper because now he has no reason to care or live and has a deathwish that Bangley will accidently shoot him when he returns from hunting someday. Bangley believes in shoot first - don't ask questions.

Now, since they live in an airport hangar, figure out anything yourself yet? Yes! Hig can fly a plane and has an operable one. So after Jasper passes away he just wants to go. Anywhere. No particular reason. Someplace he's destined to run out of gas; for the hell of it. He dreads living without anyone meaningful in his life, he already lost his family and now his dog. Who can lose a dog without wanting to die with it??

On his air travel he then meets some people and the rest you read for yourself and cry your wittle tears to sleep at night. I loved the story minus the boring areas and think you should be forced to read it. Don't forget your tissues. Weak-kneed, spineless, losers. At least all wussies die in the story from the illness no WAY weak-kneed crybabies survive, hahahahahahahha.

I would pay for this one. Loved it. It made me cry more than once.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The CONVICTION by Robert Dugoni ***

I wasn't real into the premise of the story. 2 kids get into trouble, one is a real asshole so when Jake ends up incarcerated (illegally somewhat) I was rather happy about it. I didn't mind anything else that happened to the little bastard while in there either but his friend TJ certainly didn't deserve being along with him and he showed no character by following him like a little sheep. IMO they both needed counseling. Anyways turns out this isn't your normal kids jail. It's a torture boot camp with masochistic leaders and a couple of really psycho kids.

Turns out to be a money laundering operation with several greedy towns people involved and they don't want anyone to know...hushhush. So there are twists and turns in the story, escapes, murders, death and destruction here and there.

One father of the boys is a lawyer the other a cop. You'd think they could swoop down some CIA choppers and wipe these assholes off the face of the planet. A chopper for SURE was needed during the long trek to finding out what was going on in the woods but no one mentioned THAT little detail. Could have found everything they wanted with couple days sweep of the area. Lets just pretend there are no choppers. Hell half the town kids are in this fake jail-torture chamber you'd think the parents would be somewhat TICKED OFF about it but no one seems very disturbed except the people running the jail.

It was something to read, I kept turning pages sometimes I skipped a few paragraphs because there is a somewhat guess-what's-next formula to it all. Ok library find. Reads well, quick, not too many characters to learn. Didn't hate it.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

VIRAL by James Lilliefors ***

For me this wasn't something I'd look to read. It was sort of MAD magazines Spy vs Spy and you are always confused about who is on the good side and who is not-which keep switching BTW.  I was totally overwhelmed with people, names, different organizations with evil intention and off the wall leaders.

 There are probably 5 people in the story that you can follow as "helping" the side for good. Everyone else belongs to one of about 5 different bad 0rgs. Even the govt, a wealthy man, Arabs, you name it they're in it.

Basically what I "think" is some people want to destroy and rebuild Africa with an airborne disease. A large nation with the most people who are poor, no water, no jobs, no economy, no farming, nothing really for them to do to attain a country on their own. So if Africa is decimated by intention anyone supposedly can come in and make a re-do of the entire people and economy. That's the premise of the story but there are so many factions at work in this I couldn't keep pace with it. You need a map of each org and who is in it to get any successful understanding of WTF is happening.

So in essence it was readable to a certain extent but barely understandable TO ME. I just was lost with so many different groups trying to kill so many different people. Too much for me and I don't have the patience to sit back and figure out who is who belonging to what.
Didn't like it.

Friday, November 9, 2012

BORN TO DARKNESS by S. Brockmann ****

The first more than half the book is a romance type novel with some other stuff happening between the fucking they all do to each other. So lots of fucking sucking and getting it on, and the little story that unravels is about a drug that makes people go crazy, which the author nicknames "jokering" which is highly amusing way to call crashing or having a bad trip or whatever.....jokering. BWAHAHA. It's just very funny to me. You can tell she has no background in pot or anything to do with street drugs. DUH.

So onwards the sex goes from gay to normal and sometimes you hear about little snippets of young girls with ESP talent being kidnapped and tortured for their blood. The torture lifts the pheromone levels which makes the drug more powerful. Some people take it and once they do they're supposedly permanently addicted to it but get benefits like healing powers, or anti-aging powers or the ability to knock down walls just like these ESP geniuses and a few joker which mean have a bad trip and usually die.

A couple of kids are involved Anna and her sister Nika. Nika is a kidnapped kid and Anna was taken by these ESP stars to save the day. Most of the novel was about saving them, and each other's true love. If you like romance with a little story background this is the book for you. Not quite my style. Way too much fucking and sucking going on but it's way better than that 50 Shades crap.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

SIMPLE by Kathleen George ****

There are some things I liked, others I didn't. Writer called all men by last names, all women by first. One guy's last name was Christie so you keep thinking it's a female one female's name is Fredricka or Fred so geez confusing in that regard.

Then there are the phones, the killed girl has a phone everyone knows her phone number all they have to do to find it is GPS it. But do they ever? Nope. Otherwise they'd have found it buried where the killer put it or even caught it on his person before he buried it.

This is about a guy running for I think governor and all the people around him kill his girlfriend so Mr. Married Gov doesn't get a bad rep for screwing her and all the girls he's screwed. Besides that the wife is cheating too and they barely tolerate each other for the most part.

I didn't like the plethora of names, people and back and forth. At one point I'm reading along having no clue who the hell I'm reading about. No name till like the next page. Very irritating.

Very early on they arrest some "slow" guy and send him to jail for awhile until the other detectives don't think he did it. The original guys who put him in jail do not get demoted or kicked off the force and they had virtually no evidence against him. They questioned him to death and to get food and sleep he says yeah he did it. Coerced confession. Not good police work IMO.

So not too bad a storyline, told herky jerky back and forth from one scene to another yanking you around but basically ok for a library find. Feel bad giving 4 stars, it's between 3-4. The writing is ok, the jerking me back and forth I hated.