FINAL TARGET by Iris Johansen ***

The story line was ok, 2 sisters get involved with the president's kid as babysitters and I think she's 7 or so. Author only mentioned age about 3/4 way thru the book. The girl witnesses murders and withdraws into herself in a comatose condition. AND YET she is never fed. Not thru the entire novel. Only one time it was  mentioned that someone brought her food. HOW DID THEY FEED HER? She's comatose for cryin' out loud. Never could deal with that aspect of the story. She should have starved to death less than half way thru the novel. No liquids either. No IV. NOTHING.

Otherwise we have girls with double S names; CaSSie, MeliSSa, JeSSica. How the hell did that happen? Trippin'? I think writer was on something when the book was written JMO.

One of the double S girls dies  (Jessica), she has a sister, (Cassie) who takes over watching the kid named of course Cassie. They seem to communicate mentally while the girl is unconcious throughout the novel. Plus one of the guys can also do the same thing. It's kind of a trippy novel if you ask me.
Serious meds must be involved.

I was soso on the book. Of course girl gets strong and takes over everything and handles a gun like a pro saving her boyfriend. They fly off in a helicopter (thank god she's not flying it) and end of the story pretty much.

President gets his kid back not in a coma, he's kind of a dirty rotten scoundrel wheeling and dealing with killers and people like that. He's not a GOOD guy in any sense of the word. If she didn't write it in 2001 I would immediately think tRump. But not.

PRIOR BAD ACTS by Tami Hoag ****

The story was plotted well, liked the characters and dialogue sounded real enough. The banter between cops was kind of typical.
A judge made a decision to not let previous convictions interfere with a new charge against someone so he got off. Lots of people are pissed cuz someone killed a mom and her two kids. Most believed this guy was the doer.
With all the people around the area want to see her killed she gets kidnapped twice. Once by the guy who got off cuz of her--he wanted to play mommy with her, then a cop gone bad takes over her kidnapping.
It was mostly kind of strange for people going after a judge and a court appointed attorney but I guess that's the story. If you start off not liking it you probably will end up the same.
I thought it was an ok read.  Nothing special about it.
Apparently there are long running characters like the cops Liska, Kovac etc. He seems to be falling for her.She married a real winna....loves porn sites, calls himself a film maker and makes porno.  Good for her...not.

P is for PERIL by Sue Grafton **

I read this kind of large book. It has way too many people in it and I could never remember who was related to whom or married to what or any relationships or ages. I don't even know (and I read to the end) who or why this doctor was killed. I presume it had to do with either his divorce or money.

There was no closure of 2 smarmy killers one of whom kept pestering Kinsey for dates. 

Names like Fiona, Crystal, Dowan, Purcell, oddball names. I don't know the ending. I wasn't going to reread 30 pages to get the answer but I suggest you pay close attention to the last 2 chapters unlike me and maybe you'll get the end. I'm lost. Don't care.

POINT OF ORIGIN by Patricia Cornwell ***

This is the book I missed between the last 2 I read. It's where Benton gets killed supposedly by Carrie, Lucy's first lover.

Some guy named Sparkes has his home and barn burnt to the ground. Ask me why. I. Do. Not. Know.  No explanation for all his race worthy horses to die of fire while screaming in a barn that was burning down Except for one young black male horse. What the fuck does this have to do with any freaking thing else in the book? NONSENSE. Red Herring? Idiotic writing?

So apparently Lucy and Kay Scarpetta are in a helicopter when another follows them, this is at the end of the book. Supposedly the white copter had been seen elsewhere and it was believed that a guy named Newton & Carrie were in it. NOT PROVEN.

So the end was somewhat quickly dealt with, in a hurry and not much information forthcoming.
Didn't really appeal to me for the above reasons. Esp. the dead horses. WTF is that all about?

TOXIN by Robin Cook *****

This was a fast page turner and I hated putting it down for any length of time. It's about a doctor, his wife and child Becky, who contracted E Coli from eating a burger at a fast food restaurant.

WARNING: If you read this book you may become a vegan. Not kidding, the meat industry is disgusting right from the nail gun to the head of the cow to the mixture of frozen into fresh and other mixes of meat to create what come packaged out of the slaughterhouse. The spinal column often gets included in the food chain and that is what causes mad cow disease so it's in your hamburg whether in a supermarket or fast food place.

Dr. Kim's child Becky contracts a serious rare bacterial E coli and as she's dying he tries desperately to save her in the ER by hand massaging her heart but the heart is so far decomposed there isn't really anything to do for her and she dies. He removes his hand with bits of decomposed flesh from her heart on his gloved hands. He is horrified by what the E coli did to her body. It turned everything inside her to mush. He became furious enough to look into it with a USDA girl who ended up murdered and he found her head in the same place cow heads go. He figured her body was ground to hamburger.

In the end he and his ex wife connect, he gets a job at the killing warehouse and is literally sick to his stomach at what he sees. His job is to sweep the blood, guts and gore from the floor into a grate. The USDA officials that are supposed to be inspecting are up on a catwalk joking around on the job site NOT doing their job. The USDA is part of the problem and something needs to change in order for us to be eating real clean beef. One of the heads of the cow fell onto the disgusting floor of the slaughterhouse and that's likely how the E coli was passed into the meat. The head is used in hamburger as well as every part of the body; they even scrape the bones and get a greasy grey slime they add to the hamburg. Good luck with that vision.

Not eating hamburger anymore-- you can if you like but read the book first if you're so tough.

AT RISK by Patricia Cornwell ****

Off the Scarpetta track we have this awful novel. She sometimes uses first names, or last names this is VERY confusing. Lots of characters, cops, victims, suspects. In the end I really am confused who killed who and why.

A cop lets some female off at the end and she probably killed someone but her tits must have been huge and the male cop let her go free far as I can tell. No justice.

The novel was slow, boring at times,confusing and if there was a mystery 20 yrs ago I'm mystified who done it. It's all tangled up with other murders, or copy cat killers. I didn't get it. Don't want to get it and don't bother getting it.

DEAD ON ARRIVAL by Matt Richtel ***

Ok, this is a confusing book to say the least. Most of the characters are well drawn, story told ok, descriptions fine, but the storyline is dysfunctional. It begins with a plane full of people who look dead--the answer is still out on that one. The (pilot, copilot & professor) land to a hangar with no communications and everyone looks dead-again the answer is still out on that one.

The professor, Dr. Lyle, is a PHd world class specialist of infectious diseases but what is going on is NOT related to a virus or anything infectious. It's our phones and radio towers seeming to have this super power to knock everyone on the planet into a knocked out stasis until some will awaken after this Jackie moron pretends she can put them all to sleep and awaken them even if in a car driving and they fall into the drool stasis. She is insane and in love with the professor who is desperately trying to figure her out and stop her.

She puts people into a catatonic state but you never ever find out if they come out of it, how they come out of it, why EVERYONE is affected by radio waves even if they don't own iphones etc. I don't really understand this theory. How can people be knocked out if radios are turned off or they don't own a phone, or the phones are turned off? HUH?

I would love to ask the author these bothersome questions cuz I am confused and head is spinning like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. I'm not puking green.....yet.

So...WTF???

Y IS FOR YESTERDAY by Sue Grafton *****

I'm always up for reading Sue, like the pace, the murders etc unless they're old cases. I hate old cases. This one was an ongoing one. The thing this time was a lot of characters to learn, 2 of them named for flowers, Poppy and Iris. I guess naming characters has it's moments when you can't come up with something and there on the desk is a flower book. Go Sue. Other names were pretty common and not easy to remember but that's probably just my own pet peeve.

The storyline was good, ok for summer at the beach reading. Better writer than most too.

EXPOSED by Lisa Scottoline ****

This was a real page turner but had a lot of filler. I could have cut about 3 chapters out of there. It got overboard with relatives at the bedside of some kid you never meet who needs a bone marrow transplant.

So Bennie & Mary work together as lawyers, Mary just made partner and she gets hired by a whistleblower who has no idea he was a whistle blower and it's his daughter in bed needing the marrow. Then his dad has a heart attack and he gets arrested for murder, it become Mary's mission to exonerate  him which puts her and Bennie in harm's way.

Not a bad storyline, kind of a new one from the rest of the novels that dig up 100 yr old cases and beat them to death like a dead horse. Was a good pace, people were well defined and I liked it.

ENIGMA by Catherine Coulter ***

Some people have unique genes and some mad scientist wants to keep them and test them all their lives, using their DNA to keep young.
That's the basic storyline as I could figure it out. The book is otherwise kind of dragged out. Lots of names it took me awhile to get first and last together, then some had similar names like Savich, Sherlock, Liam, Cam, Cabot and I'm not fond of introductions all around in the first chapter. Give me room to breathe PLEASE. So I don't know exactly what the ENIGMA was all about. There wasn't a proper description in the book. Clueless.
What made these people enigmas? Why did some asshole breed people who were drugged to produce a baby they think they can steal from the hospital. Mom didn't seem properly fkng crazy having the kid stolen. She just cried a bit. Whoopee.
I think this was written in a hit or miss style and mostly miss.