MOST WANTED by Lisa Scottoline ****

This was a fast paced read. Story is about woman getting sperm donor cuz idiot husband hasn't got any (he blames her to his parents). So she's knocked up and sees a serial killer on TV that looks identical to her baby daddy.

She is a teacher on leave for the summer so she finds an almost retired lawyer to help the "donor" because he seems so sincere she believes  in his innocence. I heard that 95% of those in jail are innocent. But anyways, she gets him a lawyer, works with the lawyer and goes around sticking  her nose into everyone's business.

I won't blow the ending for you but I have a comment. This other knocked up woman who used the same sperm donor as our heroine Christine (nice catholic name there) goes and tells the guy in jail all about how she is knocked up by donor 3316 and thinks it's him. He then "assumes" Christine is knocked up (he knows this by what....telepathy?) and tells her that he is donor 3316 but reality is that he has no personal knowledge Christine is pregnant. She isn't even showing yet. She doesn't tell him she's knocked up. She just decides he's innocent and goes looking for the real killer or a way to prove his innocence.

That's all I got. If I had to read it again I would but get it at the library. Her husband is a real stick in the mud trying to hinder her or degrading her work and he never really improves in my opinion. I'd divorce the bastard.

8th CIRCLE by Sarah Cain ****

To begin with this had a ton of people (Danny Ryan, Conor, Beth, Beowolf, Michael Cohen, Linda, Andy, Alex Burton, Sean McFarland, John Novell, Tommy Ryan) in the first 15 pages you had to learn all their names because they were pretty much all the people in the story and a lot were related.

In one part of the story the protagonist Danny Ryan (who seems to be related to everyone) gets into bed with a corpse and had no idea she's there. Like yeah ok....sure lady. Not to mention some nitwit who got his mail accidently and kept it until the last chapter of the book and during the entire novel Danny had no idea why people were being killed, his dog was killed, he was threatened because of paperwork, videos etc that the nitwit neighbor girl kept holding onto until last chapter.

I thought the book had a fair/good story line, I didn't like everyone being related by marriage or whatever, it seems like everyone has known each other for 30 yrs YET didn't know each other at all. That was kind of bogus. I think we all know Dante's Inferno and that's what the title is referring to. I guess sexual perversions, snuff films, killing children that aren't missing....that kind of crap. It was ok. I would get it at the library.

UP COUNTRY by Nelson Demille **

Well this book is 700 pages so it takes a really really long time to read. I read between other books due to it being one of the most boring POS I ever read. This guy goes to Vietnam and you have no idea why until probably page 699.

I didn't like the character, or his girl friend he met somewhere along the line. All you are reading thru most of this is where he was when he was in the war as opposed to where he is now and what he's seeing. Boring. Lots of descriptive narrative and I could easily take 500 pages out of this crap. Too many towns, names, boring descriptions of places and I hated it. Now if you fought in Vietnam you might enjoy it but I wasn't there and this was a futile attempt to read about it.

The CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D.Salinger ****

I was never forced in any English class to read this but decided to see what the big deal was. I think at the time all the swears made the book important. Otherwise I don't get the big thrill. It about some nitwit kid Holden Caufield who keeps getting kicked out of expensive schools. This last one he leaves on his own a couple days before his parents are expecting him and moves around in hotels, friends places, thinks he had a pervert after him one night and he contacted his sister who gave him her Christmas money.

I really hated the "old" everyone. Old Phoebe, Old Mr so&so, old this person, old that person the word OLD got so overused it really got old. I hated reading them all must be 25 per page.  There are other words used so frequently it's actually boring-dragging the story along and not accomplishing much. He always says stuff like "you want to know the truth" and other little tidbits like that. It all made the story sound so immature and it was boring to read as an adult. I have no idea what I'd think of it if I was a teen. I would probably think he was a nerd.

He says in the beginning he's the worlds biggest liar and are we supposed to believe his story or not? Personally I don't think he has the temperament to run off on his own. He'd curl up in a ball and cry for his parents to get him, JMO. Well I gave it one star more than I normally would cuz he's so famous and all. Like why I do not know.

LIBERTY'S LAST STAND by Stephen Coonts ***

Quick overview: someone from a Democratic party is president but decides to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution at the end of his second term. Some think it's so he can be a dictator of the US so Texas decides to secede from the states.

This separating Texas from the US causes all kinds of problems which I don't know much about cuz I quit reading this political confusing mess about 1/3 the way thru it. Too many people, names, places just really bored me. I find books like this referring back to the Alamo, wars, politicians etc. opposite of book flap cover: a thriller. My bad. You read it, get it at the library.

The LAST MILE by David Baldacci ****

This was an interesting mystery. A guy gets bonded out of jail on the day he's to be executed. He ends up with FBI, and a cop, plus a few other cops. I had a problem remembering names the author divided them sometimes so only 2 or 3 went someplace then in another section 3 or 4  them went someplace together. There were also too many bad guys which also were thrown together randomly and that became an issue for me trying to keep track. Their personalities are not strong enough except for the guy out of jail Mars, and maybe the lead character Amos Decker. Also it seems names like Decker, Davenport, Montgomery are common book names and it's confusing.

The writing and descriptions are well done. The story line is interesting enough to keep me reading cept one cop was kidnapped for no reason, no ransom, no demands to get her back. Who the F* knows what that was all about, got me! It was almost the last page they get her back for a trade. I don't think the author made enough mention of her, where she was, why kidnapped, what was happening to her etc. Just left her to wallow in her own misery I guess.

Recommend get it at the library.

HIDDEN BODIES by Caroline Kepnes ****

I think the storyline was ok, at first this guy Joe Goldberg is a killer until he falls in love. That's the basic story line but in the end he's in jail thinking he's going to get away with all the dead bodies all over the place from before he moved to CA.

There are a lot of people in the book and after awhile when you don't hear about them for a few chapters you tend to forget who the hell they are when they pop up again, esp. at the end of the book. It could have gone, "Mr. so&so, the FIRST COP to try and get him jailed" but there is sort of a reminder about him that wasn't relevant like "he cried like a baby" which most of his victims OF COURSE do.

There are elements of Joe that are not consistent in the context, he thinks he is not a sociopath, he just goes about killing people who have found out stuff about him, left him, or otherwise stepped on his ego until he's close to love, marriage and having a child. A guy he wanted dead, ends up dead for no reason having to do with him altho he worked on killing him and didn't realize he wasn't dead.

Since he's a 'writer' we never get a clue when that's going on. Like all his time is spent with his girlfriend or chasing other people around, I have no idea when he wrote anything or helped anyone else write anything. That was not part of his life altho you are led to believe it is.

I would get it at the library and don't expect normal criminal-type behavior nor your everyday kind of murder  mystery cuz it's not.

Some people spend their life writing books, self publishing them, with a writing background and still don't get noticed, I suspect this author had a life of luxury, she was special and had entitlements but I really don't know-I just suspect so (grew up on Cape Cod? yeah..).

ASHLEY BELL by Dean Koontz *****

This book was about Bibi who was dx'd with brain cancer. The story is told in a very different manner than most and you don't get the truth until you're almost at the end. I'm not going to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say this kept me fighting sleep every night to read more.

I would buy it or get it at the library. Great as usual, reading.

TIME OF DEPARTURE by Douglas Schofield *****

This was a very interesting book that at first I thought was following a murder script but turns out to have some Sci Fi involved. This lawyer meets up with a guy 30 yrs her senior but he seems to know her very well. Claire has been working on an unsolved case with missing women but no bodies have been found until recently.

While she is busy trying to find the killer, her new friend Marc Hastings is helping her but continues to know more and more about her without being told. She can't figure it out until she gets on a train and is in an accident. The accident throws her back about 30 yrs and it takes her awhile to figure out it's truth. Once there she meets Marc. So how does this end you wonder. She is from 30 yrs in the future. But in the future he is 30 yrs older than she is. I never could figure out his age.

Many intriguing twists and turns for the heroine. Some areas are hard to figure out about what gets changed in the future due to her knowing who the women killer is. It's a struggle that if you take time out of reading you have trouble imagining what the hell happens when she is "reborn" and live to the time she meets the old man Marc.

I would buy it. Very interesting premise.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE by Joyce Maynard ***

This was intriguing (for me) only for the fact the writer used to write about her home life for the Concord Monitor in NH. She screwed her way into JD Salinger's life -I'm sure long enough to piss off his wife all the while (I'm sure) thinking of herself as a young female temptress of a retiring, shy man who had little use for her interference. Then she wrote about it, doesn't believe in kiss and not tell.

Most people don't see her actions that way. They are mostly disappointed in her fame-fucking & bragging. She doesn't believe in keeping things to herself.  She was looking for an easy piece of ass to boost her career and since she wrote about her tryst and sells books, I'd say she was a successful fucker.

This novel isn't a mystery. It's about some dumb bunny Helen with a kid (Ollie-horrid name) who drinks away her child in a divorce then goes to AA and falls in with the wrong type of people. Wealthy getchu-anything-honey type of people. Then she finds out they're fake. WOW biggie news story there. O hell ya, rich people don't really GAS about the peons in the world. Surprise!! Pretty much nothing goes on at all during this story. Not a thing worth reading.

So this was disappointing. No murder, no excitement whatsoever. Even the accident was a let down here I was suspecting child rape but nope. Even Helen's boyfriend Elliot is steadfastly boring and she finds herself attracted to that at the end. Boring is now her middle name and life in general- all good wishes from Joyce, it must be how she sees other people.

And BTW the book wasn't all that and a bag of chips. I would get it at the library or not even bother. Watch the movie To Die For instead. Much better story about murder and it had some amusing on screen moments. Unknown if she wrote the movie script but the book wasn't all that wonderful for me either. When I read her stuff I feel her arrogance, her disdain for most of the characters in her stories-which I translate to people IRL. That may be why I'm not crazy about her writing style.