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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

SPEAKING IN BONES by Kathy Reichs ****

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