The BEACH HOUSE by James Patterson/De Jonge *****

His stories are always an easy read, A few assumptions I wasn't happy about one was "the break in last summer at our house I figured whoever had caught up with Sammy was looking for the pictures."
HOW THE FK DOES he come up with that out of thin air? Nothing to prove anything in that sentence, just made up spur of the moment.

Aside from characters making assumptions out of thin air I thought the writing was good, characters drawn as well as can be expected (there were a lot of them), he writes in a crisp terse manner with as little frivolity as possible. Good summer read on the beach, heck beach is in the title so go for it.

Patterson has written so many books and adds new writers frequently enough to almost be a ghost writer, trimming other newbies work to a bearable reading size. So I liked it, and if you like Patterson you'll like it too.

THE BROKER by John Grisham ****

Basic storyline: Guy is in jail 6 yrs for (not really positive) trying to sell software that hacks into a Chinese Satellite? The hackers are all dead the guy in jail was put there so the gov't (outgoing pres.) who could care less about him, watch to see who kills him first after pardoning him. The choices are Israelis, the Russians or the Chinese or our own country. I have NO IDEA why all these countries want to kill him. None whatsoever. No one even knows what's on the disks he has, it's all RUMORS about hacking a satellite.

Also this guy's American court lawyer ends up dead too. Joel Backman figures he's next. He also knows the gov't is waiting to see who'll kill him over the disks. He went to jail so he could avoid being killed but now he's tossed into Italy and has tutors teaching him Italian. He meets his second tutor a female and of course we all know 6 lonely years in prison can make the nastiest ugliest female into a princess which Joel decides in  the end to return to.

Mostly a lot of moving around, disguises, trains, walks. Half the time he has no idea he was being followed but he learned to duck into little side streets and find his way home. and loses some followers quite easily.

Pisses me off: what happened to the stolen briefcase? I think I remember it had nothing in it anyway but it's talked about quite a bit. Why would 3 countries who have no idea what he was trying to sell them (I assume) before he went to jail think he had anything they'd want? I don't get that. And I don't get the part where America has his son's house bugged and heard the names of  hotels at the end where he could meet his son YET I don't know which one he didn't mention cuz no one showed up anywhere that I know, even the wrong place. Never wrote that in.

So there some aspects of the novel that obviously needed a better explanation. I did get lost here and there with the idea of 3 countries trying to grab the software they had no idea existed or what it consisted of. I was ticked off 3 hackers were killed before I even knew what they did. I doubt they knew either. I think it was a bit above fair but not by much.

Q IS FOR QUARRY by Sue Grafton ****

Back in the time machine to solve an old dead case file on a Jane Doe. So apparently this is a cold case because the murderer called in to say this person wasn't missing so investigation of intelligent police officers BELIEVE that and don't find the killer until like 18 yrs later when Millhone is on the case so it follows she'll solve it.

Yay another case closed from 18 yrs ago. Why do writers pick old crappy murders to investigate, I really prefer mine CURRENT time. Well written about a B- for plot skills.

LIONS, ELEPHANTS & BEARS by PK Foster *****

This is a great story with humorous, not so humorous stories of an Animal Control officer working for a town of 6,000 people and more animals than people. In the country of NH...mountains, rivers, fall colors and of course disabling snow.

The officer begins with her first training jobs and finally is on her own. She kept a NH law book about animals with her so she could do the proper thing in most circumstances. She enjoys her job and you can tell she has an affinity for animals.

She picks up odd animals, a dog that keeps jumping into cars at the video store, 2 pygmy goats in her 5 run kennel attracted a lot of attention from people going to the dump which is where the dog shelter was built. There was a nice dog walking path a few yards away and instead of ignoring the dogs she picked up she walked them 2 times a day.

Lots of compassion for animals and so many difficult situations she handles with finesse. I would highly recommend this novel.

THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown *****

Good storyline, characters well done. There were times I wondered why the bad guy had so much information but had to read the whole story to get the answer to that.

So in D.C. with symbologist Robert Langdon entering the scene only to find his friend's  hand sitting on the floor. Just a hand. Sucks you in the first chapter. Lots of symbology in the novel, makes you wonder what the hell all the old presidents and important people were up to back then, planting crap in South Corners of new buildings. The Washington Monument is the star attraction in here but at the end all gets seen.

POINT OF ORIGIN by Patricia Cornwell ****

Well I couldn't believe this was written in 1998. I've been reading all the Kay Scarpetta novels without any clue how old they were. I suppose everyone knows about Benton then.
I wasn't really happy with the NEVER meeting up with either killer so who knows who was in the helicopter when it blew up. Supposedly Carrie Grethern and some Newton Joyce guy but it's really difficult to know because one never sees the other point of view.
Having no idea how even Kay or Lucy know anything besides a helicopter went down with people in it.

There was nothing really connecting the killers to the novel, they were distant and unknown. That part I was unhappy with. I also had trouble believing Benton died, are there more Kay novels out? Guess I'll find out in another 20 years or so.

MAGIC CITY by James W. Hall

No stars. Got bored to death after 2 chapters and ditched it. It has something to do with Cuba, the 60s, bombs, Kennedy, Cassius Clay, Sonny Liston and I'm done right there.

T is for TRESPÅSS by Sue Grafton ****

Kinsey Millhone has a few things she's dealing with. One is that she has to serve a cease and desist order to someone to vacate an apartment and of course at the end she never finds them cuz they've run out and tear the place apart before they go.

Also her neighbor is a frail old guy who dislocates his shoulder and needs a companion. The niece is in a big hurry and hires the first idiot to apply but this wasn't your garden variety idiot. This one had stolen someone else's name and copied her personal info from the last job because she thought they looked similar and she got away with it for almost a year nearly robbing the old guy blind, her nasty adult son unable to speak clearly probably has autism beats the old man.

The woman Solana finds and sells his dead wife's jewelry, robs his savings account, pays herself in the thousands of dollars and has "someone else" in charge of his estate which was just an alias she's used before. The aunt asked Kinsey to "check out the references" of the hired LVN who wasn't even an LVN she was nothing but a maid previously. Kinsey drops the ball and only searches so far then quits which was all the niece wanted but crap she's a PI and couldn't go out of her way for a neighbor by doing a better job of seeing he was taken care of. Every time she  tries to visit him, Solana says he's sleeping, he's tired, he doesn't want to see her and STILL DOESN"T CATCH ON. She really doesn't care about this neighbor as much as she thinks. Like watching your neighbor's dog out in the winter snow and 30 below zero and you just say "poor dog" instead of calling a cop or ACO.

L is for LAWLESS by Sue Grafton ****

I picked it up at a library sale for a buck. The storyline was ok, Kinsey gets caught up with a criminal who is looking for another guys money from a bank robbery about 4 of them carried out when they were teenagers and are now mid 60s.

So this guy Ray went to see his daughter Laura (a bitch) who was black and blue from her boyfriend, who was one of Ray's pals who pulled off the bank heist and he was a traitor, liar and girlfriend beater. There are some scenes that are pretty boring, right after something good happens you get this life long description of the area where they are what is forward, behind them and all around them and if they're wet or hungry or have to pee. All the descriptions were page filler, easy to tell.

So the 90 yr old landloard's 94 yr old brother was marrying the restaurant owner down the street and she barely makes it to the wedding. I just finished Evanovich and both have so many similarities. Both live nearby old men they think are attractive. I'm 65 and boy I can't find ONE guy I'm attracted to so much for that. They both are PI's they both live alone or with a pet, neither cook well, both aren't great at their jobs, someone is always trying to kill them or harm them or whatever.

There must be collusion or I swear same person writes em both. So anyway Kinsey gets out alive but beaten with a baseball bat by Laura the bitch she gets to the wedding on time. If someone cracked me as hard in the head as it sounded she got hit I wouldn't wake up for days if not never. Who can get hit hard in the head with a baseball bat and go to a wedding in 2 days? Must have a steel skull.

HARD EIGHT by Janet Evanovich ****

It's easy fast reading with some comedy involved. Beach type reading or before falling asleep. The thing is that once you've read one of these Stephanie Plum novels you've pretty much read them all. The only thing changes is the 'trouble' factor.