Sunday, December 20, 2015

The BAZAAR of BAD DREAMS by Stephen King *****

Oh yeah these could keep you up at night if you read in bed, not recommended! Scary short stories that were craftily devised by the master of creep himself. The warning he gives is "Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.."

So I would buy or get in library either way you can read the stories more than once but don't read in bed if the hard cover version drops on your head you'll sleep a long time. Very good reading, characters are full of life ... or death if that's called for. Go ahead and get it....creeeppppyyyyy!

Sunday, December 6, 2015

NORMAL by Graeme Cameron **

I forgot to read the back flap and as I began reading about muntjac hooves, cellular repeater and all that English crap and more I realized I picked up another crappy Brit book.

A guy is supposed to be a killer. Problems with that 1) why? What is his motive? He doesn't have sex with them, he doesn't use them for anything. He keeps no trinkets as ALL serial killers do 2) He keeps a girl trapped in a cage in his basement forgetting she's there and she ends up protecting him from cops at the end and acting more of a killer than he was. 3) WTF is the falling in love shit? 4) Either a killer has emotional disturbances or not, this author waffles back and forth one minute the killer is sane the next he acts off the wall.

Personally I didn't like the story line very much. I don't even remember the killer's name, that's how important he was in the story. He was so emasculated it was hard to tell exactly what his issues were. Why did he kill? What the fuck did he do to earn money? Supposedly his mum and dad died. I don't know if he killed them both or not, the story was ambiguous about that. It was actually ambiguous about most things. If you ask me any questions about the novel, the intent of anyone I don't have an answer for you. He keeps killing people but not like a real serial killer. He kills some hookers, he kills a guy who treated a female badly, he kills cops to stop them from discovering his murders. He keeps one alive in his basement cage even while killing a newer girl.

I  DO NOT GET IT. Stupid ass book stupidly written.  All I got out of it was CONFUSED. So I say to you do not bother.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

The GAMES by Ted Kosmatka ****

Since I really liked the last book I read written by Ted I went back and ordered the 2 I didn't read from the library and finished this one today. It's pretty much your standard monster story.

The future has Olympic games with 'lab created' monsters in a pit sort of fight to the death kind of thing and the US has won several games in a row. This sort of weird guy named Evan designed a creature made from ideas he got from various employees working on the same thing but apparently Silas is the boss in charge yet he knows nothing about the creature or what it can or can't do and is shocked to see it growing wings as it develops over the year before the games. Not a very involved geneticist at all far as I can tell. Fortunately for future scientists he's not around to screw up the planet a second time.

This Evan computer genius guy has a kid growing somewhere inside a computer (don't ask me I didn't write it) and it's somehow (don't ask me I didn't write it) connected to the monster. I am clueless how this exists. Anyway it's, of course, doomed from the start. Expected ending was expected.

I will say that the first novel I read was much better than this one. I was only so so into it and wasn't a page turner FOR ME. I sort of had my suspicions about what would happen and duh...I was correct.

Didn't hate it, didn't love it. If i read this one first I wouldn't have been so eager to read more of his stuff, glad I didn't and have the next one waiting at the library hope it redeems him somewhat.

Friday, November 20, 2015

BRUSH BACK by Sara Paretsky **

Large book and it starts with something really stupid. A woman, Stella gets released from serving her sentence for killing her daughter and VI Warshawski is on the case!! What case? Well I'm glad you asked, since everything is over and done with sentence served WGAF?? I don't.

I tried so hard to read this but I just don't care enough about the case. I mean it happened over 10 yrs ago, someone confessed and did her jail time so what? What am I supposed to care about? Wrong person in jail? Then idiot shouldn't have confessed. What else? Hummmmm???? I. do. not. care.

You read it. I couldn't stand it another minute and I got halfway thru the stupid thing.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

THE FLICKER MEN by Ted Kosmatka *****

Very intriguing book. It's a lot of science and quantum theory stuff so at first you feel like it's almost over your head but if you keep reading it gets more uncomplicated and the story flows. You really don't want to put it down once you're turning pages.

This scientist Eric Argus is in  a new job trying to do research but his past work couldn't be finished, he was afraid of the results and walked away from the job. He decided to work on the theory about light molecules splitting up in a box with 2 slits and discovered that some people can see the split and others cannot. No animals can. That meant some people weren't the same as others. The story continues from there. His life becomes endangered, he gets help, loses friends along the way and you get to an ambiguous ending.

Is he in a mental hospital trying to figure out his formula while "crazy" like his mom? Or did he really attempt suicide like his drunk dad? He has a lot NOT in his favor so the ending leaves you wondering what the state of his mind is. It appears he is working again as a scientist but 'where' and what happened in the story is up in the air. Pretty good reading. I would buy the book, you could easily read this more than once.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

PROTOCOL by James Abel ****

Altho I got a little confused about people/names/jobs eventually it turned out to be a pretty good story. The thing I don't understand is DID someone make rabies as an aerosol? No one ever answered that. Plus it was injected with blood product. Rabies was used to kill people and the thought was it would end up in a water supply and kill a lot of people.....BUT....

Rabies only resides in the brain, it can only be caught thru saliva...PERIOD. There has never been ONE case of aerosolized rabies. I did a LOT of research on rabies (I was an animal control officer) and up to now only one maybe two people have survived it thru coma. They were bit by a rabid animal. You cannot catch rabies ANY OTHER WAY. The writer doesn't make clear HOW the rabies was transfered...by what means? It isn't going to survive in blood, nor a few days outside a living host so I don't get it. Otherwise if you ignore those facts it's not a bad story.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

LIGHTLESS by C.A.Higgins **

I'm not a fan of Sci Fi apparently, altho I loved every book written by Douglas Adams, he had a wicked sense of humor. Since then I haven't found the same style of reading material in Sci Fi and this one isn't anything I'd write home about.

Some guys somehow manage to get into someone's space ship, tamper with the computer and one gets captured while the other gets away. Some uppity female is sent to question them, how TF she knows they're on the ship I do not know. That was not explained. There are only 3 people living on the ship and the bad guy escaped thru vents as if....um the occupants one of whom is a computer genius didn't know there were vents?? WTF??? How did the criminal land on a computer managed ship in the first f'kn place?

Ok I read about 50+ pages and tossed it aside. I don't GAS how many awards the author won, she sucks. If you like sci fi, this is your below average fair example of it good luck with that. Me not like.

Friday, October 30, 2015

LOVE LIES BENEATH by Ellen Hopkins ***

Barely readable. Sex is mentioned about every 3 pages and I think I"m being generous. The lead character (widowed/divorced) Tara, is described as "beautiful" even more so than a freaking model. So Ms Gorgeous fucks pretty much anything with a cock, she was a stripper for awhile then she marries a guy who dies skiing (really..Tara?) then gets married again and a divorce and owns a multi million dollar home her ex is paying for even tho she's about to marry Cavin...Cavin without the most important L as in CaLvin. Anyways most women would call her a bitch, cuz she is. She is highly unlikable. I can describe her like this: sociopath, smug, liar, whore, arrogant and conceited.

Now she finds this Cavin guy and his son drops over uninvited one night and helps himself to her wine cellar, then she comes home and the son drops over again...he likes older women cuz they like different sexual positions I guess. So sex sex sex....every editor on the planet is trying to cash in on the crappiest book ever written, crappiest movie ever played 50 Shades of Gray. Suddenly sex sells?? Must we go overboard with every 3 pages mentioning it?

Whatever. So this book is barely tolerable. There isn't much mysterious, the sex is told 'somewhat' but not detailed enough to gross anyone out of the book. Cavin has a HUGE WIDE DICK tho...bet the author likes to hear that...is that your inner wish Hopkins? Huge wide dick? LOL

Not quite done but I would only get this at the library and only if you can't find something better to read. I quit reading it....boring.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

FINDERS KEEPERS by Stephen King *****

Fast moving and addictive, of course. A teenager finds a treasure buried near his home that was put there by a murderer who is in jail but is about to be paroled. Morris is a very cruel man and once he's out the first thing he wants to do after is parole officer visits is to get back his trunk full of money and the writings of a famous author. He is obsessed with reading the final books that had been written but never published about his favorite character in the books.

All kinds of trouble ensues when Pete the teen finds this stash and helps his family out with the money, having no real clue what to do with the handwritten notebooks so he finally sets out to sell them and all hell breaks loose.

Really good reading but many characters that are spaced out so it's hard to remember who some are until you keep reading and remember who they are. Once in a while I got lost with these people, one's a PI ex cop, one is Pete's sisters friends brother. So keep a close eye on the characters and maybe you won't have to search backwards for info on the people. Really liked it, addictive and hard to put down and ignore. I would buy it.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

DEXTER IS DEAD by Jeff Lindsay *****

Really good reading, hard to put down after the first 3 sort of boring chapters. Dex is in jail and his every little boring thought is written down for about 3 chapters, his food, his bedding, his cell....I don't need this information. His brother bails him out and then all hell breaks loose because his brother Brian messed with a cabal of some kind stealing all their money and they are NOT happy.

All the children are kidnapped and Dexter has to save them, with Deb and his brother. That's when everything goes downhill for him. Poor Dex, I'll miss you buddy!

Monday, October 12, 2015

IS FAT BOB DEAD YET? by Stephen Dobyns **

I was reading this and had no idea what was taking me so long but I realized it was the monotonous descriptions of everything. Pg 55 we are uploaded too much information about a bar, it's good enough to say he walked into a bar in Reno. I don't need a full picture of that. Page 60 boring talking about people with names. Not their 'real' names but their nicknames. I don't GAS about nicknames, just call the guy Shorty and stop explaining why he's called that.

Page 84 a lot about some small guy shoveling snow..big whoop more descriptions next page. Lots of characters described, the author thinks he is tongue in cheek humorous but I really don't get that at all. In the beginning some guy riding a motorcycle gets hit by a semi and it seems to be intentional but then it rambles so much I can't stand it. It takes until chapter 5 or so before the head is found. I'm more interested in the police work, not the fact some cop thinks it was intentional. Two cops hate each other and internal dialogue about this is boring as shit. Personally I picked up Dexter is Dead and shoved this book over and today it goes back to the library. Not interested in finishing it.


Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Kill Again by Baer & Greene ****

This story was okay, but there were trouble areas here and there. I don't like an explanation of the environment in the middle of an action scene. Like page 26 Rosa is leaving and I get a description of the elevator, how much time Claire diddles around and some crap about her shoes. Then on page 59 I get a description of how phone triangulation is done and all it's features.  Some things are better left unsaid such as soft guitar music relaxing her amygdala, lol.

So Claire an FBI psychiatrist works with some guy named Nick whose kids she barely knows that "love" her by the end of the story. I don't see how when she's never met them!!

Anyways not a bad read, just mildly confusing. I would get it at the library. It's got action, murders old murder copy cats, her life is in danger as is her boyfriend, daddy Nick's kids...it's a whole kill the bitch's story. I get a little tired of the main characters having killers after them I think all mystery writers do that too. 1-dig up old old murders 2-try to kill off the main character or her family. It's rote.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

BEFORE HE FINDS HER by Michael Kardos ****

This was interesting enough, beginning with a teenager who gets pregnant and begins to wonder where her bio dad is because she had been "adopted" when she was 3 by a couple. I can't say more than that without giving away a lot of the story, but she goes back to her old town to look for her real parents, she knows her mother was killed but believes it was her father who did it and she is under the impression the adopters have kept her hidden all her life so he wouldn't find her.

Not so. Read the book for the info. I thought it moved well, you travel back in time to when the parents were alive and then back to where Melanie is searching. In some places like 215 I got confused when David says the house across the bay is pink his ex wife lives there and "he wasn't going to be the one who moved away from the bay" and Melanie dumb as a rock doesn't know what he's saying ... duh. On page 310 she's talking to her fake dad Wayne and a cop comes to take her to the PD to get grilled by a cop. Meantime NO ONE mentions Wayne being in the room, not who he is or why he's there. NOTHING. That sort of pissed me off like what's he got on the invisible cloak?

Anyways it's worth a look at the library. Moves along well hated the ending. Your turn!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

WHAT YOU LEFT BEHIND by Samantha Hayes *

Barely understandable English writer bullshit. Poorly written, too many characters related to each other, entire families, there is no common thread to follow. Teenagers seemingly commit suicide which you never know is true or not. One dad kills his son for being gay and then kills the guy he was having sex with. Meantime Mr. Hypocrite is screwing a  married woman nearby and ruins their marriage but stays married and has his own bedroom at home. WTF???

There are people with the same first letter in their name just thrown in to confuse you along with some idiot named Gil who's brain is up his asshole. Apparently he draws well and sees "everything" no one else does. What a load of shit. So Lorraine, Lana, Lenny and all the other L's along with the Freddy, Franks and beans I really can't tell you throughout the book who I thought I was reading about. Sometimes it's first person but you have no clue who that is which brings me to the ending.

"Someone" we are NEVER NEVER told WHO ties Freddy (a teen) up like a hanging on top of bales of hay "him" whoever the fuck THAT is. Was it the guy who he ran into after escaping Gil's? Frank? Who? Am I supposed to guess with little tiny snippets of NO information it was the same father who killed his son for being gay? WHAT? I'm stumped. Never never do  you ever know who hung the stupid ass kid up on the hay bales. Is it the same person who writes suicide notes for motorcycle accidents? I don't get it. The girl who was his girlfriend, was that Jo? Was it the homeless girl? Was it Lana? I am so confused. I hate this book, I hate that I wasted days sorting people and trying to get a line on WTF is going on. Bullshit story, bullshit writer and I despise English writers, I'll never pick up another book by one again. This just rips me.

Friday, September 11, 2015

SOLITUDE CREEK by Jeffry Deaver ****

This is the author of the Lincoln Rymes stories but it's about a female cop named Dance. There are multiple over croweded venues where people are panicked and running for exits, like a movie theater a band, an elevator whatever and some guy is making videos of his work.

Anymore story telling on my part is going to give it away. I found some of the scenes with the children tedious. I don't really need pages and pages of some shy teenager's angst. That was pretty much all that irritated me, aside from the beginning which was kind of hard to get into. I spent like 2 days reading and re-reading the first couple chapters to get who's who straight before I outright stabbed the book. After about chapter 4 it seems to glide along like you never had issues. There were about 2 occasions when "she" should have been used instead of "he" or vice versa.

Who ever did the editing pooped out there and someone crossed out the last letter of "seem" and added the M so I don't know what was corrected. Just typo's the copy editor could have easily picked up, seems the readers are! YES you should quit your day job and good luck to you in your next career, haha.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

WOMAN WITH A GUN by Phillip Margolin ***

These are all the names you need to memorize in the FIRST chapter: Wilde, Levine, Barstow, Stacey Kim, Morris DeFord, Bill & Angela from a book she read, Miranda Perez, Kathy Moran; that's 8 pages. Add chapter two: Jack Booth, Elaine Rostow, Teddy Winston, Raymond Cahill, Megan Cahill, Archie Denning, Frank Janowitz. That's up to page 20. You may want to keep a pad handy for learning names because sometimes he uses first names then he uses last names. This character loading in as few pages as possible is caused by writer clogging your brain, nothing is more painful. There are more names coming up so make sure to get that pad and paper. Otherwise, like me, you'll never know who the hell he's talking about unless the names are used constantly.

Aside from the crappy way to introduce characters, not many of them have noticeable characteristics that stand out so you can latch onto that for memory. The only character well developed, and that's being generous, is Stacey Kim the main character who is writing a book about a photo she saw that was taken by Kathy Moran of a bride holding a gun walking towards the ocean. Oh and BTW it's very easy to get famous and make big time money at art galleries with photos. Who knew? With having the originals they can be printed thousands and thousands of times so I don't get that.

Of course little miss writer (Stacey) gets to solve the case all by her lonesome because most cops are the walking dead who can't get a line on anyone for at least 4 murders. Now that sucks cuz I respect the jobs that most cops have to do and they seem pretty dumbfounded in the novel. Oh, someone breaks into her house she whacks the hand on the window frame with a huge golf club, but never notices anyone in the story with a sore right hand. Hmmmm how incredible you ask.....

That's about it, you get some murders, overload of names and fall asleep not knowing what the heck you just read every night but maybe you can use your deep seated anger at the author for doing this to you by getting the damn names straight. GOOD LUCK with that!!!

Saturday, August 22, 2015

THE ICE TWINS by S.K. Tremayne ****

Story line goes something like this: mom, dad, twins. The entire book is a long drawn out short story about how/why one of the twins falls from a second floor balcony. The family is totally disfunctional and the leftover twin is a stark raving lunatic who doesn't know which twin she is. Like that's a reality.

So both husband and mother have cheated on each other, one is forgiving (pops) one is not because it was her best friend but this lady is off her freaking rocker to begin with and when the story is in her voice she's an angry fantasy driven idiot. The husband has his anger issues in check but she doesn't.

Page 78 since this is written by a Brit we have her snug under the rug (shawl?) but they also call rugs on the floor rugs so WTF. We don't do that around here we more or less walk on rugs. They also wear jumpers which in our language is a one piece body suit not a freaking sweater like in the story.

On page 183 one second she's in pjs with her kid asking when her new friend Emily is coming over and the next paragraph, BOOM there she is about 4 hours later with not much of a transition. Very disconcerting and happens here and there in the novel. Could have used a space between paragraphs instead of throwing confusion around like confetti.

I would get it at the library.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

GATHERING PREY by John Sandford *****

Of course this is a great book, once again Sandford pulls off a page turning thrill a minute. I hated having to fall asleep and kept trying to read, when I'd fall asleep the little flashlight I use never got turned off, and the book fell out of my hands without me being able to mark the page. Kept having to buy new 2032 batteries for the light and re-find my place every morning.

This is about a bunch of crazy travelers who move around the US, and they try to pretend on and off to be Juggalos (who knows...whatever!) anyways the crowd Lucas Davenport has to deal with are crazy killers. They stomped someone to death, a friend of his daughter's; Letty. Then everywhere they went they pretty much switched cars killing the drivers or entered homes and killed the owners. Had cop shoot outs, road blocks to get thru and lots of guns, shootings and even some gun armed residents had their shots at the gang.

Near the end Lucas, broadcast on TV, says the bad guy Pilate is a coward who ran when he knew cops were showing up, hides behind women when someone has a gun aimed at him and pretty much steps over all his little disciples at will right up to the very end. Pilate gets a little ticked off. Not giving anything away. Edge of the seat reading and I would buy it. Really great story telling here.

Not a lot about Flowers, which is good cuz I hate his stupid white trash girlfriend who he called "mama". I just can't abide her at all. I'm wondering how many kids he's fathered with her by now. Probably 3 to add to her collection of about 10. The town white trash pump. Not only do I hate Flowers -I learn he's "just a kid" like what is that?? She's got 10 kids so she's gotta be at least 30 and began spewing out babies at 15 or less and how old is Flowers? In his mid 20s? What? I'm so confused but just know that I hate his taste in women and I hate that he's so dumb she's what he thinks a woman is. DUH. Not liking him at all. He should find a chick higher up on the food chain.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

THOSE GIRLS by Chevy Stevens ***

This is a story about 3 sisters and the trouble they get into. Mostly they get raped and held hostage by a couple teen boys for about 4 weeks  or so. Then one is preggers and like an absolute idiot keeps the rape baby. Like I would abort it just because I wouldn't want anything near me that had to do with the rape. I cannot imagine many women raising their rapists' child. It's just crazy.

So anyway after all this rape bullshit and they escape, they have so much help because the world is such a gentle and wonderful place that the first people you run into will take you in, get you all jobs and accept your new identities without asking ONE QUESTION. Right?

So now they live in Canada and it's 17 yrs later when the rapist kid is an adult. One of the crazy ass sisters wants to go kill the boys who raped her. She takes and gun and leaves, teenager follows, both are tied up and gagged and beaten and/or raped all over again. STUPID asshats. This book is not for adults, it's for teenagers. Don't bother reading it if you have half a brain, it's for kids; lesson teaching about stranger danger.

So I was so/so about the book. There were many times the "boys" went out and bought cases of beer they finished off in an afternoon, apparently author is unaware that is 24 beers, they wouldn't be able to stand up or screw anyone or even punch anyone in that condition. The girls could easily overtake them with a kick or punch yet they are hands free raped with guys who probably would not be able to get anything up including their dicks. I think she meant 6 packs but she wants to use the term case and that makes them pretty fuckin' drunk.

So if you're under 21 you may like it, if over 21 walk on by, nothing to see here.

Monday, August 3, 2015

MOTIVE by Johathan Kellerman ***

I liked the basic story and have read many of Kellerman's books, withAlex Delaware and Milo Sturgis. It's not hard to get into the books but once you're involved the names start coming up like wildfire and I not only can't keep up I don't want to.

There are always either discussions or internal dialogue about who might be the killer or killers, this goes on throughout the book, it's kind of off putting because I get so confused about which story I'm supposed to believe and by the end I'm weary of who did what to whom.

Your call, if you like Kellerman you'll probably like it for me THIS TIME. Ho hum.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

SABOTAGE by Matt Cook *

Boring to the max. I actually tried to get thru it in order to know what the story was about but up to page 127 I keep getting blocked by useless information. There are 2 useless chapters 7 & 8 WTF are they doing? Both chapters are long long stupid descriptions of a friggin ship. WHO CARES? Boredom phase II is around where I'm at page 126, long boring sleepable blahblahblah about some scientist who was kidnapped to work for Russia the children were brought up by foster families I think because the mother stayed in case they decided to kill the husband if she left, then one of the kids becomes a scientist and now the long boring discussion between a few people begins about EMP pulses and how power goes down blahblahblah.

I am done. I keep waiting for the "top notch thriller" to emerge and never does it surface. I just don't give a shit anymore about anyone in this book. Everything is so confusing and muddled about people and their roles in whatever the hell is supposed to happen. It's beyond my capability to GAS. BYE BYE.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

BONES NEVER LIE by Kathy Reichs ***

Well, bones lie in the dirt, so that's not exactly true now is it? This is the author who started all the Bones shows which she even mentions her main character Temperance Brenner watching for god's sake. Let us not take ourselves so blatantly serious.

Anyway, the story is about old dead files which are resurrected because there is a new recent case similar to the unsolved ones. Brenner follows lots of blind leads, makes up stories about who could have done what to whom, isn't very friendly with Ryan till the end. There are actually two police stories ongoing, one in Canada, one in the US.

So some teenagers get offed, left lying face up arms by their sides and dead by some drug. One of a female killers victims is the perp and it takes the entire book to figure this out and it's sort of interesting but there is nothing new here. I've read a million books similar with cold cases and I hate cold cases. They call them cold because they're so boring they freeze you from wanting to read them.
So much for that.

The writing is ok, the characters are many, and not nearly diverse enough, the police are basically chasing Dr. Brenner around like puppies at dinner time. Have a go it's not horrid.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

FEAR THE DARKNESS by Becky Maserman

What I truly fear is that I'll be stuck having to read this. I'm on page 20 and it's so boring I keep finding reasons not to read it. Here's a repetitive section for you: "Cops will tell you the ...worst sound is click. (We don't know this part--->) That's the sound a gun makes when it jams. (Now for the crap you need a shovel for) But in relationships I learned that click is good (YaY Becky!!). It's what happens when, in the course of an exchange of two or three sentences, you know you're going to be friends or lovers. HAHA (I dated a guy for 3 months thinking he wasn't going to be THE one but we ended up married 26 yrs till he passed from cancer.)

Then after that boring pile of bull manure we get who she clicked with and her marriage. ALL TELL NO SHOW up to the page I'm done at; 20.  Too much blahblahblah and repetition of crap she already told the reader. I hate it.

People and reviewers on the back cover gave reviews so do NOT read anything by these freaking whackos who gave her good reviews: Gillian Flynn, The Washington Post (who'd she blow for that?), Publishers Weekly-pic of the week (No on there really read it, she paid someone to put that there. PLUS her main character is compared to Clarice Starling...bwahahahahaha) Library Journal, The Boston Globe and Lisa Gardner. If anyone at any of these places actually read the entire book I'll never believe anything they ever say again in this lifetime.

Read at your own peril. Beware SUCKS.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

CONSTANT FEAR by Daniel Palmer *****

I found this book to be hard to put down. It has a lot of action and some weird characters, different than most people in fiction novels. Jake was a baseball player at one time and now classifies himself as a "prepper", someone who prepares for the end of the world. His little fort he has is mostly created from underground passages running from woods to his son's prep school where Jake is the janitor. The hardest part to swallow is all the underground passages and how conveniently they are laid out to the school.

So some kids including Jake's son begin robbing rich people and give money to charities, it seems harmless enough until they stumble on a couple  billion bitcoins which are then stolen from them either by one of them or by someone else. So the game begins, a Mexican cartel leader is the one who had the bitcoins stolen from (unless I misread) and he sends out troops of killers to take out the geek squad including Jake's son Andy. The school is told they have poison gas leaking in there from a truck on the highway nearby but that's a lie from the drug guys. They want their bitcoins back and none of the kids will confess.

Jake finds all this out and sneaks up on the Mexicans taking them out here and there until the grand finale. You figure out who stole the bitcoins, who the owner of the money is, how it all ends. It is a well written story with believable characters you get to know pretty well. I liked it. I would buy it.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

The FOLD by Peter Clines *****

Wow, this book was really good. There were a few items I waited patiently to be explained to me which never was. This is about a secret experiment where time is folded and people pass from one set of rings to another about half mile away. Things are being inspected by a really smart guy for the investor. Lots of things go wrong while he's there and the first thing he notices is that people going in aren't the same people coming back. They are "different". Since this is the case I want to know if the other dimensions had people also building this doorway, what was it like in their earth and how did it differ?

These questions are never answered, I also hated the "ants" in the guys head, it was too distracting. That's his fanciful way of thinking I guess but it went over poorly for me. Also if he's not thinking with ants fighting in his brain he has injuries and the pain is always described as fishhooks. WTF? Who describes any pain at all as fishhooks? So am I to believe the newly discovered 'life' from another dimension inserted fishhooks inside him? Or WTF???? Really irritating. Otherwise if you can sort of try to put that stupid ass stuff out of your head and just go along with the bizarre tale you'll probably like it as much as I did. It's SyFy and I like that type of thing if done right. This was done without enough explanations. Didn't anyone who read for him tell him they wanted more information about where the 'new' improved versions of people came from??? Drove me nuts till the end.

I would still recommend the book. It's pretty good despite what I see as failures to fill in the blanks.

Friday, June 19, 2015

AS GOOD AS IT GETS By Elizabeth Evans

I read up to page 46 and found it pretty pathetic. What the hell do publishers want? This crap? It's so boring and repetitive. Some old friend comes to visit, then we are transported into the past for how long? Don't ask me I can't figure out when she returns to  the present time zone. Aside from that there are hints but never actual telling of any facts up to this point. She apparently cheated with this friends husband long long ago when they were supposedly best friends.

The entire story is exactly like the title this is "as good as it gets" and that ain't sayin' much. It sucks, it's boring, it's dead in the water. I wish I never picked it up.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

HAUNTED by Randy Wayne White ***

There are a lot of books with the same title and I had no clue who wrote it cuz the online library thing wouldn't let me renew it so I was left with 3 chapters to read and had to return it. No big loss. If  I had wanted to I would have renewed it but it wasn't that thrilling for me.

Something to do with a haunted house, with buried old bones nearby and I don't know that anything else haunted happened except some guy kept monkeys and snakes and the main character I think is a cop is a chicken shit crybaby most of the time. She finally did free herself from being bound up then just keeps walking into more trouble.

I didn't like the main character, didn't like the cop side of the story, it was seriously lacking. Didn't care for many of the people in the story, if they all drowned at the end would have been fine with me. That's my take on it. Could care less I didn't finish the book.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

THIEF by Mark Sullivan ***

This book was so so for me. I didn't mind all the macho men but could have seen tougher women, to balance crap out. Meantime all the women are scientists or nuns or wimpy boot lickers.

So every paragraph the guy named (Robin) Monarch is called "The thief" like EVERY paragraph and it gets wearying. I mean come on, the title of the book tells me he's a freaking thief why over and over and over again? What's the point? Think I'm so stupid I am going to forget in the next paragraph when you mention Monarch that I won't know he's the freaking thief? WTF?

Ok, never mind that. A nun who has done much good in the world according to Robin is kidnapped until he finds the fountain of youth which the scientists think they've found in a very remote part of Africa or some other remote place like that. Whatever. Lots of killing, shooting and mindless idiocy until our hero frees the nun and people decide not to interfere in the life of the primitives living over 100 yrs. The end. That about sums it up except for all the death. Wasn't 100% into it. Read it slow, skipped pages accidentally but didn't try to find where I was, lol.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

The ARSONIST by Sue Miller *

I couldn't read it. Too arrogant and condescending, the characters, the writer, everyone. The story is mostly about a town and frogs, woods and all kinds of descriptions of said frogs, woods and town. They have an annual TEA in NH hahahahahaha...as if. Tea, was thrown into BOSTON HABAH for a reason. IT SUCKS.

All the transients that move there for the summer know each other. This woman (from BOSTON no less) hasn't been to small town NH where you live next door to someone for 20 years and only say hi to each other unless she's in some arrogant little private lake cottage area where the same rich people co-mingle their arrogant oversized asses with each other. I suppose all their dogs run loose all over the place as well.

If there's an arsonist I could care less. Let him/her burn down the arrogant little tea party town to the ground. Hate the story. Who would be dumb enough to retire to NH??? I shoveled my roof 4x of 4/6 feet of snow the last winter I was there in quaint adorable little NH.  Anyone there would charge you $500. Not for the faint of heart or retirees unless you hire people all year to take care of your property for you which is probably likely in this wealthy family's case. The RE taxes are otherworldly. Let me tell you that the townies do not like the rich summer influx. No one does they are despised by everyone but themselves.

WHAT LIES BEHIND by J.T. Ellison ***

I got thru the thing but it seemed like it took me forever. It seemed like a HUGE book but it's not. What takes time is separating all the freaking people involved. You got CIA agents, FBI agents, cops, chiefs, Dark Ops, Other Ops, PI's and then you got a serial killer, and you got some other killer running around killing anyone having to do with some virus. It's like Ebola and someone in the "Pyramid" wants to use it as a terrorist weapon so anyone having had anything to do with the original in Africa being tested and then found out has all been killed.

There is a weird sister who is totally a killer without much in the way of remorse, then there's a crybaby FBI Sam (female) who almost needs to be hospitalized when she kills anyone. So it's so many people, so tangled if it was yarn I'd toss it out. I don't know how I finished it except to say that I never bothered keeping track of anyones name unless they cropped up for pages and pages. Otherwise the baby went out with the bath water. TOO MANY PEOPLE for a 400 page book. Way too many.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The DOLL'S HOUSE by Tania Carver ***

English writers, egads. Sentences like this page 383 'Well we've got our murderer. End of." ????
 End of? Okaaayyyy. There were more in the beginning but I didn't tag the pages. So there's a "copper" named Phil who is married (unluckily for him) to a female named Marina. Marina likes her secrets and never in all the story ever, ever did she tell her own DEAR SWEET suffering husband someone used a date rape drug on her and she thought she'd been raped. NEVER. She never told him at all, a friend of theirs told him. So much for trusting your loving mate. He should divorce her before more crap pops out of that closet. Also for some ungodly reason I thought there was a child involved but after you get  past about chapter four the kid entirely, conveniently disappears for the rest of the novel. Hope these married authors never pop one out. They'll leave it in the car during a heat wave and bye bye kiddie.

Only one murderer used a doll house, actually that would be the murdered person had a doll house set up and eventually was killed because being a transvestite was too horrid a life to live I guess. She set up a nice cozy pink room like in the doll house but in another room and got murdered intentionally. Then the killer decides to keep the doll house and put other bodies in there when he kills again but that's only 2x because then he gets offed.

So many to kill so little time. I really liked the part where the wife Marina was held captive and the kidnapper shoved a ball gag in her mouth. She really needed it and I think it should have remained permanent because she never told her own loving husband about the rapist. She's a real a freak show.

I thought it was interesting enough to finish but hysterical in some places that were meant not to be. So have at it.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

SCARLET GOSPELS by Clive Barker **

Usually I enjoy stuff by Barker but this book is really horrid far as I'm concerned. If you're a Christian maybe it'll be interesting to you, for me I could give a shit about hell or Lucifer or anyone wanting to take over hell. The monsters had 40 eyeballs, several mouths, got turned inside out, blood everywhere. Harry, a private detective, for some god awful reason, I think he was following pinhead who had his blind-ghost-seeing female friend and took her to hell with him.

Pinhead was trying to take over Lucifer's place, that didn't go as planned. The entire book was so repetitive, if 3 people went someplace and 3 more people followed he just had to copy/paste the landscape and scenes because it was the same old shit over and over again. Got really fed up with the lack of a real storyline and plot. It was boring me to tears.

So surprised to hate a Clive Barker novel but there ya go. Hated it.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

FIFTY MICE by Daniel Pyne ***

Ok, this one is readable (barely) and short. So there's still some repetitive stuff in it and it has absolutely nothing whatever to do with mice except that was his (Jay's) job yet he was fired-so no more mice? and nothing else about the job or mice were important.  His scientist best friend gets kidnapped by the FBI or CIA or whatever, along with Jay.

So Jay apparently is in a bar with a swimming mermaid, sees something (there are at least 3 to 4 versions of what he saw) and is taken into protective custody because shooting starts in the mermaid bar and he sees stuff thru the glass of the aquarium. Pretty much most of the people he touches end up either in witness protection or dead. I have NO FLIPPING idea what the fuck happened in the bar. He made up so many stories and lies and you can never, never trust a liar. This character is so difficult to explain/understand that you want to toss the book thru a window.

There was a bit of tension, he is housed in witpro with an FBI agent who is tasked with watching a non-speaking 8 yr old also in witpro. Eventually Jay, in witness protection decides he wants this pretend family he's set up with in Catalina hiding from....guess who? Most everyone who is guarding him. Absurd. So this Jay liar wants to live with the female agent Ginger (who BTW shot him) and the 8 yr old girl who only speaks to him at first.

Such a convoluted bunch of material to claw thru. I mean red herrings, mice and their behaviors, mazes, liars, more liars, everyone's life in danger. I couldn't for one second tell what the fuck happened and why he's in wit-pro. If I don't know the real story was reading the book a waste of my time? Prettttyyyyy much.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

CRASH & BURN by Lisa Gardner ****

This was a page turner, but o so confusing most of the time. You have no idea who is who or what's going on. Who do you trust, who is lying?  It's so twisted and involved. I liked the tempo and speed with the tension but the extremely confusing plot was near to impossible to understand or feel any emotional connection.

Never would anything like this ever take place. First a woman is "taking in" foster kids, which the state checks up on BTW then she's buying children to use as hookers. So all that is very unreal, esp. the location. Put it in the  city of Boston, sure maybe it could happen there but he country in a small NH town it surely would be outed right away. Neighbors may not talk to each other much in NH but they sure the fuck know their neighbors business.

So it's a brain injured girl, married to a boy that she met at this house of hookers and they run off but the guilt of running off after committing all kinds of havoc and the recent brain injuries to "Nicky" jeopardize their idyllic (LOL) marriage. I have no clue how either of them could have stood being together for 22 years with that history, that incredible unbelievable history.

I waited a good month or two before I could read it, was it worth it? Sure at times but the premise was very twisted and difficult to swallow. I mean really really out there. It was better than average. Get it at the library.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

BEAUTIFUL YOU by Chuck Palahniuk **

Small and quick reading but some areas are wicked boring. The premise is some guy named Maxwell develops sex toys that no woman can withstand. So he seems to randomly pick some no girl-nobody fits her out with designer clothing and uses her as a sex subject to test his crap on. Well most books nowadays are either about vampires, zombies or sex. So this one has about one orgasm per page, or so.

The girl, Penny eventually finds some guru up in the mountains where Max learned all his sex tricks and invented nano bots so he could use a gameboy-like hand held machine to manipulate populations of women into having orgasms anytime he wants (every man's wet dream, much?) oh yeah and he can make them have such powerful sexual orgasms they can die. Ohhhhkaayyy.

Men are useless objects of meat and if they stick their member into one of these sex toy nano bot women they are likely to have their member dismembered.

Not a fan of sex in my novels. I hated Shades of Gray and this book IMHO isn't worth the time to read. I have no idea why it's published over some authors who spend their lifetime trying to get really good books published. It's a shame really. I skimmed over the last few chapters because it was repetitive and wore me down.

Monday, May 18, 2015

LACY EYE by Jessica Treadway ***

I was almost going to drop this at the beginning because of several reasons. 1) the entire thing is practically all narrative, mostly TELL and no SHOW. 2) It was sort of boring with all the background crap 3) An adult child, with a drivers license no less, still calls her mommy,  'mommy'. WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT? A manipulative child who wants to flatter mommy. But does mommy recognize this? Of course not. Just like she doesn't recognize much of anything having to do with daughter Ding Dong Dawn.

When things get a little interesting; OFF we go on a tangent like on page 49 "After I got off the phone blahblah I thought back to when Joe and I were first married, and the little apartment blahblahblah." I hated that going backwards and remembering the past crap. Just waste my valuable time, dear.

This mommy is as delusional as any one can be, why she wasn't in one on one therapy is beyond my understanding. Dawn gets a boyfriend who steals from the family, Dawn denies it, as does scum bucket boyfriend Rud and the next night they both come to kill the parents and beat the poor little mutt dog with a cricket mallet. They beat Daddy to death with it and then mommy but mommy survives. She kept forgiving Dawn for things like forging her name for loans, being wanted in other states for burglary and owning a Corvette when she has no money and says she is forced to move home. According to Dawn she needs to find a job but sits on her fat ass doing nothing and dear mommy does the same.  Never confronts her at all. Dawn meanwhile begins questioning what mom remembers of the first murder when daddy was killed. Mom has no CLUE why. It's cuz Dawn will have to kill her if she remembers anything of that night.

Finally the only thing that can convince mommy that Dawn is an evil bitch is when Dawn confesses for 50 thousand bucks to a journalist and mommy dearest reads the details of what Dawn and Rud did to them the night of the murder. Dawn ripped the phone cord out of the wall, she stopped dad from getting his inhaler. She was as evil as can be. Mom is still at the end trying to blame everything on 1) baby Dawn not getting enough air at birth 2) Dawn being dumb 3)  Dawn being innocent and easily mislead by her boyfriend.

Mom has no balls at all. Not surprisingly she moves in with the older daughter at the end because she's too wimpy and stupid to live by herself. She is quite the dissembler. Have at it. I hated the stupid mom, the evil daughter, her manipulative dangerous boyfriend and most of the people in the entire book. Honestly all the people were kind of the same; easily manipulated stupid dumb asses.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

The GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins ***

This book isn't too much of a mystery but there are a ton of red herrings tossed at you while you're reading. This girl, Rachel, was married to Tom. Tom had a girlfriend and cheated on Rachel eventually divorcing her. Meantime Miss Absolutely Gorgeous Blonde, Anna, marries him cuz she's pregnant and feels just wonderful about tossing out the first wife, revels in the house and everything she stole from her. She is bored most of the time, she hires a girl up the street named Megan who begins fucking Tom.

So now of course all of these women are tall blonde goddesses and Rachel the first wife either  couldn't get pregnant or didn't want to cuz she had a misfortune with her first baby so she drinks and gets fat. Normally people who drink don't really eat  much and they get thinner. So don't ask me why she happens to get fat.

Meantime the husband of Megan (Scott) is very controlling and jealous finds out about her screwing Tom, who is a pathological liar. All these people with their stupidities are swirled together until bad things happen. The write NATURALLY is from friggin London. I hate weak stupid women and this book is pretty  much loaded only with weak stupid women. I'm not a fan but the story was ok. I had to wait MONTHS to read this book due to it's popularity and I have no idea what the big deal was. I've read other much better books. Two dangerous controlling men and three stupid ass blondes. It all comes out exactly as you think it will.


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The WONDER OF ALL THINGS by Jason Mott ***

This is a story about a teenager, Ava, her sort of boyfriend Wash and her healing powers. She was at a crash site and saved Wash's life, he had been punctured by a steel rod or something and  all the world at large heard the story and came a-begging for her to fix something or someone or other. All anyone wanted was something from her.

Her dad, a cop joins a cult, do not ask me what the reason behind that was. Apparently they all thought (Dad included) that it was her responsibility to save other people even if it meant her own death. Which it did and which she died saving Wash again and her half sister. Because all anyone really cared about her was that she was capable of healing them. Everyone but Wash that is. He didn't want her to die by fixing his illness but she did it anyway and died.

So I really have said this so many times in the past, I do NOT LIKE RELIGION in my fiction novels. If I want to read religious crap I'll go read it. You want to put fiction in my novel I pretty much am not going to like your book. Could have had more stars if the stupid ass preacher didn't talk the stupid ass father into joining his stupid ass church and swearing to kill his daughter to save others. What is the sense in that? How is that a protective father? Or a protect the flock preacher? Or even the step mother knowing it would kill Ava beg her over and over to save her baby if anything was wrong with it.

Let me say this to believers: If god made a sick baby then that's how he wants it. SICK. If he makes a child with a fatal disease then he WANTS that child to die of that disease. How does changing what YOUR GOD has created make you religious? It does not. It actually makes you NON RELIGIOUS. So go figure that out instead of eating fast food and watching sports on tv.

Monday, May 11, 2015

The BLACK ROAD by Tania Carver ***

Well apparently the USA is unable to appreciate their own authors and every book I pick up is from some English writer. This one has coppers, wonder if they're made of pipes, anyways some psychologist on the force has her house and a car burned down, her husband (a copper) is in the hospital so injured he can't help her find their kidnapped child Josie.

Such an involved and bizarre storyline. One innocent guy goes to jail for no reason, he was a half brother when his mom married the other 2 kids (boy/girl) and the 2 children had sex with each other and beat the crap out of the new kid-the names are so mixed up that it's hard to even explain it. The innocent guy gets out of jail, the woman with the kidnapped kid is being blackmailed to say the guy from jail is not mental so he can collect the inheritance of the stepfather, while one of the children (now adults) had been shot by her brother while he killed the parents and she is so disfigured she doesn't really have much to do in the story but make up a name for herself. I mean names and keeping people sorted out shouldn't need mapquest but yah here ya do.

Anyways kid is returned in the end, the daddy wasn't hurt so bad as first thought just enough to stay out of the story for the entire time. Since Marina (ya as in a marina where you keep your boat) tries to remember the case of the innocent kid in jail she thinks and always has that he was innocent. SO WHERE'S THE GUN RESIDUE on his hands for example? What proof did they use to convict him aside from him admitting guilt when he is semi retarded? WTF?

Also Miss Copper Marina sees two dead Rotties and upchucks, some frickin cop she is! LOL
Ok done. Gave it 3 stars cuz I read it all mostly out of boredom and it wasn't horrible. Just so-so.

Friday, May 8, 2015

DEAD OUT by Jon McGoran ****

This was an interesting story with a bit of mystery. It's mainly about bees and how they'r dying off from mites or chemicals. There's a cop on vacation with his on again off again relationship who pretends to be severely allergic to any toxins. As if you can breath outside without inhaling some kind of toxic crap or other.

Anyways rich people on Martha's Vineyard have some 'regular' bees and other companies want to kill them off and make GMO type bees so the real bees are offed and the new bees are too aggressive and kill people if they feel threatened. Interesting stuff to learn about hives, bee keeping and stuff like that. It wasn't bad at all. There were quite a few people but easy to ID them. Went quickly thru the book and that's a sign of liking it a lot. Very good writing and nice story line.

I would get it at the library. If not there it's worth buying.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

FALLING FROM HORSES by Molly Gloss *

I'm on page 50 and aside from some guy who wants to be a cowboy in movies nothing is going on. He rode a bus, unhappily I had to read every mile of the ride. It's so fricking boring I am trying to figure out the point. Is it to tell a history lesson about old cowboy movies? WHAT? I don't know.

I don't like it, not a murder, no mystery, no action, just boring internal thoughts of some dope in Hollywood from a farm out west someplace. Nothing interesting here. Move along.

HACKER by Ted Dekker *****

This was really interesting. It involved a girl who'd been in a car accident with her family, the dad and son were killed, the mom in a coma and she was the only surviver. She is a hacker with a friend named Austin. Austin figured out a way to hack his own brain, shutting it off so he could "see" reality sort of in an unconscious level by drilling holes in his head. When the girl Nyah finds this out she wants to go under as well and get her mom out of the coma.

The FBI are after her, a best friend was killed for information they stole off their company computers when she was hacking it to get a job at the company. They sure didn't like that and sent killers after her and her other friend. Took them a long time to find Nyah. Anyways compared to the last two boring novels I was starting to think it was me. It's like if you meet a person who's an asshole it's probably them, if you meet two people who are assholes it's probably them, if you meet three people who are assholes it's probably you. Well I was getting depressed about trying to read unreadable crap books and thought there was a mis fire in my brain. NOT SO!!

Really liked this book and I found it intriguing and futuristic, almost a sy fy type of story and I would buy the book. It's pretty good if you understand computers at all even if you don't it's well explained.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

UNCLE JANICE by Matt Burgess *

Everything you need to know is in the title pretty much. Some girl named Janice is an undercover cop tasked with buying drugs, she has or is sometimes a "shadow' who reports to the other cops waiting nearby to arrest the seller. I got to page 100 or so but the repetition with buying, selling, the weirdos the busts and pressure to bust just became too boring for me. Very little action scenes mostly it's about uncles (cop buyers; WTF are they called Uncles?) and sellers and the cops. Didn't ever change, no murder, no excitement nothing to hang my interest on.

Got pretty sick and tired of the same old same old. Very much not my type of reading material.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

The PERFECT WITNESS by Iris Johansen *

I spent my time (wastefully) reading this book. I only made it to 50 pages. There is never ending repetition like you're a stupid idiot reader who can't process information and retain it. It's about some kid who could read people's memories and she's about I think 16. So her mom screws a "don" and gets anything she wants cuz she's so fucking beautiful. So the kid is saved by a mysterious stranger and they discuss ad nauseam about her stupid ass power of reading people's memories. I mean this is 50 pages of going over it and over it and over it. You can just tell this guy who killed 3 men to save her is about 40 and at some ridiculous point going to marry her in the future.

I don't like this book I stopped reading at 50 pages cuz it bored the crap out of me. If you're under 25 you probably will like it. If you're over 25 you probably will think it's boring.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

STONE COLD by C.J. Box ****

I sort of liked that there was a lot of action scenes. There were easily distinguished people even tho there was an overwhelming amount of them. Some hunting guys, in a hunting type town are all into each other's pockets, the judge, a cop, a bunch of rich people and they pretty much spent their lives in the town not getting caught for their injustices. They hunt illegally, they kill people and most are deadly dangerous.

So Joe is sent by some congressman or someone to see what's going on and of course sticking his nose in all the way gets him in trouble. Some of the "bad" guys end up helping him so they can stay out of jail or not get as badly punished. That said, on a scale of 1-10 I'd give it a 6 following is the reason:

People will not read Backyard Dog, or other animal books like Marley and Me because they are scared they will cry. What the fuck is that? So C.J. Box is a NY Times best seller and there are mounted animal heads in every room of everyone's house or hunting cabin. They kill animals for sport and some bad guys follow the game warden to see where he frees pheasants so they can go slaughter them later having a bloodbath of feathers and dead birds. Anyone crying yet? No? Well you'll enjoy all the other animals slaughtered and massacred during the story without crying because it seems people are discriminatory about what sort of dead animals are ok and which are not (dogs). This so much pisses me off. THERE ARE DEAD ANIMAL CARCASSES THROUGHOUT THE NY TIMES BEST SELLER BOOK!!!!  Um...DUH.

So why does Box get so much attention and there's even proof that the meat cutter blended HUMAN meat into the carcass sausages. GO READ THAT and NOT CRY. Ya bunch of sissies. Rant over.


Friday, April 3, 2015

The HUSBAND by Dean Koontz ****

I got so pissed that every book on library shelves are by foreign writers that I resorted to the back part and selected books from Dean that I haven't preread or remember reading.

This is an early book and it's about a husband who's wife is kidnapped and he needs a couple million to get her back (not a lot of money nowadays) so he goes to his brother who is wealthy (he has no idea how) and the brother was sort of expecting this scenario. The brother doesn't GAS about the wife, let them kill her he says. The husband isn't on that team.

He figures out a way to get his wife returned even if it means his sociopathic brother dies. I read it 2 weeks ago, forgot to write it up and can't remember everything. Not bad, he always writes books I enjoy reading.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

VERTIGO 42 by Martha Grimes *

Sorry she shouldn't even get ONE star but I'm feeling generous. She bored me to death. Ok, almost to death, I'm not quite dead yet good thing I put the fucker down.

English Brit writer, I never read her crap before so was unaware and read back flyleaf to see where she lived and it said won Mystery Writers blahblah of America so I thought she was American. WTF does the Grand Master Award allow ANYONE other than an AMERICAN to win anything they have by the way of contests. This shit bored me. There's so much Brit crap English, no slang, idiots drinking tea. All the men sound like they're gay. NTTAWWT but I was sick of it before  page 30 or so. Dropped in frustration. The Vertigo 42 is a club. Some idiot who's mother named the poor kid JURY went there to meet someone and I don't know what else it has to do with the story.

They find a dead woman dressed up fell or pushed (pushed of course) off a tower of some kind. Then with the dogs and rescue groups blahblah I couldn't stand it anymore. If you like Grimes so much YOU go read it.

The HUSBAND by Dean Koontz *****

Very early Dean, I couldn't find any books by American authors that I wanted to read at the library, they all sucked. I am not going to read fantasy, vampire, queens of anywhere, faeries, other godly worlds WTF is that all about?

I went into the back of the library where older books are kept and found some Koontz's I either don't remember reading or didn't read. This was one of them. He had a simple story line, guys wife is kidnapped he has a specific time to get her returned for a couple million. It was expected by the kidnappers that he would ask his rich brother for the money, he did and realized that all the time they wanted to blackmail the brother figuring this was the easiest way to do that. He finds out pretty quickly that his brother is dealing with child porn, and doesn't give a shit about his brother's wife. Not giving anymore away, read it. Worth it. Good story.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

BROOD by Chase Novak **

Very terribly slow moving piece of crap. I have no clue what the "brood" is, someone takes her niece and nephew in to their redone home where their parents "committed suicide" after being in a fertility clinic. Some people come out ok, others not so much.

The aunt is way way too thoughtful. Am sick of being inside her miserable head. Street kids talk like they never heard English before, duh stupid. People are drinking their blood for hard-ons. Very stupid idiotic idea. I can't take the narrative bullshit anymore. Have a go yourself. I found it way less than biting my nails for entertainment.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

SONG FOR THE DYING BY Stuart MacBride

I read the back fly cover and missed the fecking part where he comes from Scotland. Abortion. Some stupid idiot cop is in jail suddenly without reason broken out by the cops to help with a case. No rhyme or reason. Topics shoot from the moon and back again. Just when you think you know what's going on you are forced to watch a movie in some dumpy crummy apartment, unless the movie has the dumpy crummy apartment I can't tell. Not one writer has ever forced me to watch a movie and not know I'm watching a movie. Goes from one chapter to the movie.

Hated the goddam thing. Get the bloody crash kit I'm out of here dickwad.

Friday, March 13, 2015

LIFE EXPECTANCY by Dean Koontz ****

I went over to the old books section at the library to find books by writers I like that I may have missed. This was one of them.

There are 2 babies born (Punchinello, Jimmy), one ends up with a psychotic clown father the other with a nice family but now their lives are forever intertwined. I'm not giving anything away but there are a lot of twists and turns, lots of revelations and some scary stuff for a family of bakers.

In one spot on page 185 Jimmy and his wife are on the way to the hospital (having a baby) and since Jimmy has bad days predicted in his future he BRINGS A GUN with him while they travel to the hospital. They have a run in with Mr. Clown Beezo and at no time did Jimmy even think of his gun. Not once. He never pulled it out to save himself or his pregnant wife because on page 232 he certainly had opportunity.

Apparently Dean Koontz has had several run ins with circus people and finds them to be somewhat angry and deadly. At least in this book they are. Aside from that blunder of writing in which Jimmy should have either forgot to bring the gun or didn't own one the book was easily readable, sometimes intense and edge of the seat. I liked it, would recommend buying it or library. Whichever.


Friday, March 6, 2015

SAINT ODD by Dean Koontz *****


Because this is the last Odd Thomas story I want to downgrade the stars but that wouldn't be fair because I was entranced throughout the novel. The thing about Koontz's writing is he does so much descriptive, narrative, inward thinking of the characters that sometimes I have to put the book down so it doesn't drive me crazy. I do tend to skip some of it but always afraid I'll miss something when I do that.

Story is about (if you know Odd you know about his gypsy ticket w/Stormy) the end or death of Odd. Now due to the card saying something like 'together forever' he's been without Stormy for about 2 yrs and when he dies they are rejoined but what is death according to Koontz? Strange for a start and that's about all you get is a start, at least he's not as freaking strange about the horrors faced after life as S.King and what he did to me after I read Revelations. Scared the bejesus outta me. So thank you Dean for making death seem a-ok.

Some cultists Odd dealt with in the past are back seeking him out and trying to destroy the world. Odd gets stabbed in the left hand but in the end a bullet has his name on it. It's all very strange due to the red herring water dream. Other people with ESP talents and gypsys, carnies, tattooed people and other odd things for ODD.

I was an animal control officer once upon a time and I had the police kill a rabid fox in town. I read up on rabies on the internet and found that no one ever, ever died from aerosolized rabies, one case of a person inside a bat cave may have been the only person dying that way. It's a possibility if it's from the brain or saliva directly. So I asked the officer to shoot the fox in the heart not the head because it was my responsibility to keep everyone safe. The premise in the book isn't really described in much detail but rabies cannot live outside brain/saliva product for a good long minute or so. Keeping it on a knife or whatever and stabbing someone would be total fiction...ok so this is total fiction.

Anyways the other way to kill hundreds or thousands of people by infecting a town with aerosolized rabies isn't exactly going to work being passed from person to person as described by the CDC it would be "extraordinary circumstances". I still can't go with aerosolized as a spray rabies. It would need to be extracted from brain fluid or saliva but NOT blood product. Altho rabies can survive in humans for years before becoming deadly, it's rare. It's a strange unpredictable disease. This story is based on the rabies collection from rabid bats. It would be so, so difficult to get enough rabies from bats it would take years and much research to perfect any spray. Rabies cannot survive for long in air. Again, I accept the fact I'm reading fiction and most readers don't have this much knowledge.

Liked it a lot withholding my disbelief. Bye Oddie. :( you'll be missed.

Friday, February 27, 2015

BLACK LIES, RED BLOOD by Kjell Eriksson *

I can  barely get into the beginning and started to concentrate to figure out why. He does not have a main character in the beginning so it's hard to get into. You get dragged from person to person or scene to scene without a warning. That stupid asshole who wrote Shades of Gray has prompted all fucking asshole publishers to insist on invading every book written with descriptive sexual bullshit.

On chapter three (par example)  there is a person-WTF, who is it? Where is it? And why the fuck do I care if someone at her desk has a throbbing stomach clench, shades if gray here, (it's the clitoris morons) when she won't stop obsessing about the dick that just slid out of her. I have no idea what her name is until the last page of the chapter, don't know what desk it is, where, cop station? People are asking if she has a fever for shit's sake. From reexamining her every sexual move? Or his? Look, bad enough the writer is frickin Swedish I despise foreign writers, should I say NON writers? How does this MOVE the story forward? Every word should MOVE the story forward yet I'm stuck in this bitches day dreaming about her dripping sex parts and being licked under her armpit for an entire chapter. DONE. No more for me.

Bye bye.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

SLEEPING BEAUTY by Phillip Margolin ****

This book was given to me by a friend printed in 2004 so you have to look to find it. I thought most of it was pretty good. The characters were well rounded out and the scenes of action were good. The only thing is the ending. One main character Maxwell began as a writer had a one hit wonder then he did proofing for others for extra money. He hit a writers block and couldn't write well after that. He described some murders down to details withheld from the public and everyone thought he was a serial killer.Apparently and coincidentally he and the real serial killer were in the same towns at the same time. How odd right?

Anyway as the story progressed around Ashley she runs away to hide from the killer who killed her dad, then her best friend and was after her-she believed. She finds out she was adopted and that became a reason for a serial killer chasing her OR so she thought.

The end left me confused because I think EVERYone knows a plagiarist would never be offered a contract for a book. Once a liar always a liar. No one would touch him with a ten foot pole yet this guy who stole someone else's novel is very successful after the stuff was over. Highly doubt that would happen.

Otherwise well written, interesting characters, not a bad premise and all around would get it at the library.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

The GOLEM of HOLLYWOOD by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman ***

This book is very big, if you fall asleep reading, it could fall and knock you out. There are several stories at the same time.

Murders of women with ligature marks, having been sexually abused are found and the alcoholic detective Jacob Lev is on the case. The victim's heads turn up here and there without provocation and Lev is trying to figure out who the killer is. There are 3 killers, he finds 2 heads and it takes awhile to realize there are 3 killers. So he runs off all over the globe trying to figure out where they were and what cases he can pin on them globally.

Meantime back in the dark ages we have a golem made from weird materials and (it was a she now a he) he goes around killing people deserving of death to protect the Jews being killed and stop the massacres. You're supposed to think that from way way back in history when this female jumps off a tower with a guy she supposedly hates becomes a golem and at the end she must have told someone she would love (whoever it was) forever (I have NO CLUE who this is) and so she is a beetle that can burrow into people when she's not a clay copy someone created for her to live in instead of the stupid cabinets she started with. I don't get any of this so don't expect a very coherent analysis.

So the golem girl/guy saves Jacob and turns out there are like 23 people on earth God put here to protect the Jews and Jacob's father happens to be one of them. Very likely. Then this rabbi type guy hid the mom away in a mental institution without telling his own son, Jacob.

Let's see a wrap up: no one tells Jacob much of anything A golem is in love with him? He's never gotten a good look at her except when her 'clay' body turned real he saw her once. Then the dad is a secret member of the Jews protection squad, and the mom is nuts. There, I tried to make it an easy puzzle to solve but forget it. Worth reading but you may want to take notes. The alcoholic cop (cliche) gets really tedious after a few chapters.

Monday, February 9, 2015

LIONS, ELEPHANTS & BEARS by P.K.Foster *****

This book is written and self published by a former animal control officer and dated 2002, the author's first year doing the job. There is a wealthy couple in town owning the lion and elephant so this makes for a nice title and her territory in a small New England town is loaded with bears.

All the stories are written from her daily diaries from the job and are real and/or fictional situations she incorporated to keep the story busy and interesting. The sisters have a good relationship despite their age difference. There are a lot of German shepherds and dog behaviors described. As an ACO she takes her job seriously and helps out all the animals she can legally.

There is a disclaimer on the back "anyone assuming they are in the book of stories are making assumptions that may not be true. All names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty. It all happened a long time ago and is mostly forgotten."

There are 3 more diaries to be written if sales justify the year it takes to write one.
From a description of the book:" There was a Manx kitten, black and white. Her name was PK.
Poor Kitty had no name, no home and no tail. She found a home and a name but is still without a tail unless you consider this her tale." This book by PKFoster is a blend of fact and fiction. It is an exciting year for Lexi and her sister Ruby when Lexi gets a job being an animal control officer. She has some interesting cases, repeat customers, a German shepherd Al Capone, runaway horses, frisking female prisoners, so much more and her love life, having been a joke before this year, is almost a reality. Who the heck kidnaps animals for a couple weeks and returns them?


Digital and softcovers HERE: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/BackYardDog 
Read 2 FREE CHAPTERS HERE:http://sneakpeeks4books.blogspot.com/

BATHING THE LION by Jonathan Carroll **

I read the entire smallish book. It's described as 'residents all share exactly the same dream and realize they are aliens leading normal lives' until they meet up and shake hands letting loose their life experiences or some such b.s. For one thing not one of the dreams has a beginning where someone falls asleep in a bed. I have NO IDEA when any dream existed. Not a clue.

Next you meet one person then they are with someone else, so you follow along with the new person until that person meets someone else and so on. Very confusing and non coherent. Too many characters to keep track of. I really had trouble figuring out the mess in this author's mind. I have no idea where I was led by reading this, why I was led there and what information was exchanged or how it helped/didn't help mankind.

What was the POINT?????? I don't understand what the point of the novel was. I read a TON of books and under normal circumstances I can tell you what the book is about. This one is a no brainer, meaning has no brain. It says on fly leaf, "from the dream they learn they came here from  another place, somewhere unimaginably distant where they once worked to determine the fate of every single thing in the universe.' WTF??? Also it reads "now they're being called back" which you think means a disappearance of some sort. NOPE they are happily going about their old lives as if nothing happened and will have no memory of what happened, just like ME.

And.....who fucking bathed a lion? What the hell does that mean??? Either too obtuse or meaningless made up name picked from a hat of titles. No bathing. No lions so don't go looking for any.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

SEEDERS by A.J. Coluci ****

This was an interesting idea, plant fungus taking over the world one mind at a time. Which makes it a bit unreal because it takes awhile to work on a brain/person and other people unaffected wouldn't necessarily put up with it. But that's why they call it fiction.

So a woman, her 2 sons, a girl they're "fostering" all end up on an island her grandfather left her when he died. She left behind her domineering cop husband who didn't approve of the trip. There are found "bodies" with plants growing in them, about everyone on the island except Isabelle is overtaken and murdered. Even main characters, which I didn't really like  because the people were well enough described that you sort of cared about their outcome and none of them faired well at all.

Then stupidly after more biologists over flow the island to kill off the fungus she returns,god only knows why, after all her family is dead or gone because of the island. But there she is getting overtaken by the fungus once again. She's a weak character-not as described but as a character. She would never have survived as long as she did on that island, enough to walk away she's too easily manipulated and controlled.

I thought it was so so but worth a library visit.

Monday, February 2, 2015

The MAGICIAN'S LIE by Greer Macallister ***

I want to give more stars but there are too many troublesome spots for me. For one thing, she hesitantly falls for a guy while working as a maid. She ran away from home cuz her mommy didn't really care that the new step brother Ray was threatening to rape her and hurt her and animals disappeared around him, he drove spikes into a horses hooves etc. Then becomes a doctor. Haha. Yeah right.

Second, the guy she falls in love with, Clyde sort of asks her to marry him for some reason like a job or money I forget and she is insulted by the fake proposal and runs off to join the circus. Oops, I mean the train-traveling magician female named Adelaide.

Third, she gets arrested for killing someone during her ax hacking magic trick yrs later but she claims she's innocent. Fourth she tells her life story in narrative form (often boring and deadly dull) from time she left home to time of arrest for murder including hair brushing, underwear, wigs, all the employees etc. Apparently, Clyde, who proposed for money from his family reappears in her life and I gotta say this, the author has no clue how to write love stuff. The protag Arden barely trusts him, refuses to marry him yet screws him every night until Ray shows up and locks her in her train room. Then somehow or other ends up back on the stage with her old boyfriend Clyde (nice name) and Clyde kills off Ray (finally) and they all live happily ever after.

I hated the narrative driving you more and more away from the action and the moments that weren't happening right then. Only time that kind of closeness happened was when she was being interviewed by the only cop arresting her. He feels sorry for her or some shit and lets her go, sort of accidently.

I don't like the presumption that book group readers are going to buy this and she has questions for them at the end. Like WTF does the title have to do with anything? What's the fucking lie? That she can't get out of handcuffs? That she's not the killer? What? I don't get the title. Has nothing to do with her. Never saw a lie in there she didn't explain away. No lie convicted her. No lie was important. I wasn't exactly crazy in love with the book. Arden never completely trusts the only guy in her life she has sex with. Never really forgives him. EVER. So I don't like that part of it either.



Friday, January 23, 2015

The BEES by Laline Paull

Ok, some stupid book about what it's like to be a bee but the author isn't very good at putting you in the story. She's completely oblivious to a reader who needs to understand what the fuck she's writing about. This one bee named Flora goes from one part of a hive to another. Crap happens around her and for some reason she's either blamed for it or part of it, or something I have no clue. That's what is unexplained.

Someone has crumpled wings so the bee police are looking for this nasty bee and Flora does what? I have no clue but she wakes up in some other part of the hive. She keeps moving around in places she's not supposed to be either with permission or not I have no clue about that either.

Sounds like someone's poorly described dream in which you just can't wait till they finish so you glance at your phone, pretend someone is calling you and run like hell before the dream ends.

Did not like. I think this author thinks she's imitating Richard Adams who wrote Watership Down but um...NO.

SISTER'S GRAVE by Robert Dugoni *****

This is a pretty good page turner. I read during commercials it was so good. Lots of tension going on. Tracy's sister died about 20 yrs ago and someone recently found her grave. She had to have been placed there when the area was flooded intentionally.

Tracy is a cop now, her mom and dad I think are both passed away.There is evidence that has been fabricated and it put this guy Edmund House in the slammer for the twenty years and her ex-boyfriend is a lawyer who gets him off on the fabricated 'evidence' and no one in town will talk to Tracy about what happened or why.

She feels vindicated getting the 'innocent' guy out of prison but things start to change and as she searches for the real killer most of the townspeople keep their mouths shut which makes her even more suspicious.

Lots of twists and turns in the book, the ending is a nice surprise I recommend buying it if you like murder mysteries.

Monday, January 19, 2015

THE ESCAPE by David Baldacci ****

Some guy got framed and he worked for the gov't. He was some kind of genius and his brother wasn't local at the time and couldn't help him. So anyways, I don't really know how he is/was connected to this terrorist scheme a bunch of other gov't employees had going on. That's about what the book is about. Lots of personalities to read about, tons of moving around and asking people questions cuz the jailed guy killed his killer and escaped prison which no one has done before in this particular prison.

I personally wasn't invested in the storyline. I don't really care much about gov't employees and where they go or what they do or where they eat and sleep and what their houses look like. I'm sure there are some people who are spies working for the gov't, this book mentioned Snowden who's a squealer living in Russia now. Good for him hope he likes electric blankets.

Without some spying going on no one would trust anyone else and all hell would break loose I suppose. This isn't really a type of book I'd reach for but it was on the best seller list so thought I'd give it a shot. Not one of my favorites.

Monday, January 12, 2015

The GOOD SUICIDES by Antonio Hill **

I can't say much about it because it was so slow going and monotonous with the character descriptions, narratives and boring backstory of everyones life I only read up to 100 pages and can't imagine it gets any more exciting than catching a fingernail on something.

Boring, I never cared what good suicides vs bad ones was all about I guess god doesn't like suicide no matter what reason and author is setting up examples of why some suicides are good? Yeah don't ask me cuz I'm clueless.

Friday, January 9, 2015

SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn ***

This one is a real mystery or full of confusing psychological idiots. It's basically about a little girl killer, that strangles and poses 13 yo's bodies yanking teeth. The tooth fairy? LOL There are never any clues, you are not invited into the police world at all. There's some weirdo main character named Camille. She lost a sister when young, now her mom remarried and there's this totally obnoxious pampered little bitch named Amma. Mr. Dad has nothing to do with family, he's just a warm body with no personality whatsoever. He has no role in the novel.

Camille isn't just a 'cutter' which would make her bipolar, she's psychotic as the rest of the crew in the novel. She carved words all over her body with a razor or whatever and is now ashamed of herself for it. There is no background on the WHY of this b.s. I guess it makes the bitch an oddball choice of a main character with words carved all over her body. She's wishy washy and stupid in most places. I mean really dumb. She doesn't solve anything and when her mom gives her stuff to drink and she suspects it's poison she drinks it. Like WHAT THE F*CK? She's dumber than a rock. She hasn't lived at home in years so why such an easy target for bad mommy?

She fucks a reporter with clothing on, then fucks some kid who lost his sister to the recent killings who is 10 yrs younger than she is and let HIM see her naked with the scars of words all over.

All the teeny boppers are druggies with pills and drunks as well. They're all under 13 with huge mature breasts and are provocative probably sexually active morons with blonde hair.

If Camille is in therapy for the cutting you'd never know it by reading this book. Everyone in the book is a potential moronic killer. Dumb as rocks. Most of them are off the charts nutso.
Didn't get it, didn't really like it much. Lots of dying people in here. I wrote a book (Backyard Dog) with animals telling their life story and so many wussy crybabies won't read it but they'll read this garbage with dead children. Contradiction much? Obviously she's a friend of S.King cuz he did a quote on the back of the book.

GRAY MATTERS by John Grisham ***

Time travel back to 2008 and Samatha is a big time broker for the stock market. She loses her job and goes from NY to a country law practice becoming a lawyer for people who have no money with a few others in the practice. 90% of the time you do not stop hearing how much she HATES the job DESPISES the small town.

Her new boss is married so she has a fling with his younger jailbird brother. This is in Appalachia and has tons of info on coal mining and black lung disease. It's information in that regard people against neighbors selling out mountain tops for strip mining, which causes slurry which causes cancer in the drinking dirty water which washes down onto the town during heavy rains.

So does Samantha decide to go back to NY where she's more comfortable and has normal type frieds or does she prefer the Appalachia inbred alcoholics? The ending is puzzling. There is a lot of boring narrative spots here and there, esp. when she's walking someplace.

I would borrow it. Not an edge of the seat murder mystery or anything altho people do die you know who did it throughout the novel. Probably fact based in some areas. Not my reading preference so only 3 stars. You may like it better if you like Grisham and Mt. Peoples.

Friday, January 2, 2015

REVIVAL by Stephen King ****

Ok, reason not a 5 star is due to religion all throughout the book. For some reason horror novels always end up religious--good vs bad. This one was sort of an eerie afterlife so it wasn't all what most religious crap is about, it gives a different perspective. After reading it you sure don't want to die. LOL

He makes the books easy reading most of the time, people have character and are different which isn't easy to do. I don't know why the main character believes he was fated to become attached to this older reverand but I guess that's what makes this a King book. I don't think anyone in real life thinks that way. I sure don't want to have S.King's dreams. No thanks.

I would get it at the library but if too many people have it reserved I wouldn't hesitate to buy it if you like King.