WICKED APPETITE by Janet Evanovich ***

It just doesn't seem possible this is written for adults. The adults are childlike and immature or speak gibberish, the animals have human qualities and save people. There are magic charms,, flying brooms, lots of carb/sugar products being eaten constantly as if someone IRL is deprived.

I can't buy it's an adult novel-must be read aloud bedtime story? Or teenager stuff? Chicklit? Don't know. It's in the same vein as the Plum series: light hearted banter, meaningless chases from page to page, panting after some lightly clothed male/s.

Either you're an adoring fan who loves it or get it at the library.

The CYPRESS HOUSE by Michael Koryta *****

Much better than the first book by him I read. Strong characters with distinct personalities with a good ghost story in the 1930s so don't expect any cell phones to help anyone. I'm not much of a history buff but that didn't really matter.

Arlen is the main guy; a traveler who has ESP (of a kind) and he has to sort out a drug dealing county and all who's involved as well as saving his friends. Suspenseful and a good page turner.

TOUGH CUSTOMER by Sandra Brown ****

Well compared to the last one, a major improvement. The women are more realistic, altho the peripheral ones are sluts or stupid but it's not as horrifically frightening as the last one. Still undecided if romance or mystery. Sort of; damsel in distress with an old love story thrown in gratis.

It's a good quick read. Take it to the beach; easy to follow, not too many characters and light romance/murder. 

Small towns are small. Most of the time a local cop would be very familiar with who beats his wife unlike in the story with the rich guy/Caroline. Oren, the villain, holds a woman hostage assuming cops will call her, not visit in person. So Oren assumes and cops are obedient. 

DAMAGE by John Lescroart ***

I think this is the first book of this author I've read altho he's got a few. Took me a long time to read even tho it's not a large book. It was slow going. It's very in-depth of all the many characters, and their families - their internal thinking becomes tedious FOR ME. Someone else could love it. I just am not a patient reader. I want nitty gritty, murders, action, movement, propel me thru the story don't drag me.

There was overkill on the lack of evidence throughout the book. I mean only the last 20 pages deals with real evidence relating to any murder. I prefer; less people, more details regarding murder and investigation.

We begin with a nasty killer who gets out on some kind of technicality and it seems no one can pin anything else on him to get him back in jail. That's the tedious part. On and on about how they can't get him for anything. No evidence on Ro's crimes, none on his bodyguard's, none on an unrelated murder, it becomes so unbelievable and not so much a murder mystery as a 'WTF do cops and prosecutors do exactly mystery.' The book seems to have been written to exploit an area of legality where criminals get out of prison and it's not easy to get them back in.

BLOW FLY by Patricia Cornwell *****

 About (but she's not in the story much) Kay Scarpetta the coroner who is now a consultant while boyfriend Benton spent 6 yrs hiding due to a killer. A serial killer is on death row and is still trying to get to her so everyone around her is attempting to get the killer and his brother first. All the little Kay-minions running around in the background smoothing her life's path. Meanwhile lots of people die but the killer who was on death row is still lurking out there at the end.

Killer escapes by bare handedly killing 2 healthy strong armed guards while he only gets to exercise for an hour a month. Plus one of the guards keeps his car key on him when I'm sure they're supposed to keep personal items in a locker. So killer has his car. Of course. But supposedly he's BLIND.

It's an older book I picked it up at a yard sale, I probably read it before. Still good reading.

SLEEP NO MORE by Greg Iles *****

An early book from the author and pretty good read. About a guy with an obsessive past relationship where the spirit of the woman invades his present. Hard to understand why after she was married for many years with 2 kids of her own she'd die and want to come back and bother him. Anyway, mysterious, page turning, intriguing read.

The thing is tho that if the spirit 'knows' the host why doesn't the host 'know' the spirit? Like the spirit had knowledge of each person she overtook but later when it would be beneficial to know the life of the spirit the host knows nothing once she's gone. Lots of sex goin' on here for a non romance.

Also, delving into this aspect of after-life leaves room for a lot more than a little screwing around doesn't it? I would think!

BODY COUNT by P.D. Martin *****

An older book but it was pretty good reading. Typical stuff you expect in a murder mystery. Serial killer, lots of bodies around, cops. Good lead character female FBI Sophie with lots of in-depth of her personality, thoughts and not at all boring, which is a bonus.

Only a couple irritations; one was the killer wasn't really mentioned all that much during the story so when the name came up I was like...who the fuck is that? I thought maybe author used last name all the time and just popped a first name in but that wasn't even it. All along it was being suggested as someone close to the investigation, even a cop or agent so my being so surprised wasn't expected. Next was that in the murder photos all the women's heads were facing 'something' yet never were you told north, south, east, west and how did anyone put that all together and how would the killer even know he was aiming their faces exactly to his kill location? Sort of absurd but o well.

Otherwise it's a good read for mystery buffs. Had some investigation going on, questioning, suspects. Keeps you guessing and turning pages. Nice descriptions, nothing overboard. There were a lot of characters but only on the cusp of 'almost' too many. Worth the cover price IMO.

DEATH ON THE D-LIST by Nancy Grace ***

Murder-lite. Lots of wealthy scantily clad tv stars being murdered by the pool or whatever with Hailey Dean somehow on the case. She was a lawyer, lost a boyfriend to murder in the past, is now a therapist? From lawyer to therapist, now cop? She recently returned to NY after a year in Atlanta where she phone/Skype therap-ied her clients. Sounds a little strange to me but what do I know.

There's not a whole lot of investigation going on, mostly star gossip, money, tv interviews, clothing, back stabbing with a background of stars being shot in the head. Stars with names reminiscent of well known tv stars. However many times it's written in the book how mindless it is for people to be desiring high end clothing, shoes, popularity etc writer is writing/focusing on it. Contradiction?

On page 168 Hailey begins an autopsy with some cop then on page 169...where are we now? She's reading a newspaper no location mentioned. Huh?

Not to be too picky but this happens more than once: flanking him there were two police officers on either side. Redundant?

Not much in the way of mystery, no questioning of anyone, no real evidence aside from some paint chip on a bullet fragment, things just appear as answers without any real work involved and our heroine stumbles into the murderer accidently. Case closed! Light hearted superficial reading. Entertainment. NTTAWWT.

A DEAD MAN'S TALE by James D. Doss ***

It's a western type story by a naive writer. Story is about a guy who thinks he's going to die, knows day/time etc. Absurd as that is the cops actually believe him but leap to the conclusion a gun is involved.

Up to page 50 for me was dreadfully slow. There are more details than I care to read about in this novel. Sort of a smug or tongue in cheek style of writing I don't care for. Just my preference. In general the writing is good, the story moves along very slowly, not much goes on except small town crap like rumors, following people, sticking noses in other's business, cops with not much to do. Lot of internal character's thoughts, writer asides to reader, stupid jokes and singing.

If you like singing, westerns, chatty down home style this is for you. Not me. It's old fashioned stuffed shirt stuff, ghosts, crows talking to people, ESP. I'm more than likely not going to finish this -I got more books yesterday and this one- too boring or immature for me.

The HUMAN BLEND by Alan Dean Foster *

Don't bother. Some sci fi crap where the entire novel is written specifically to define the 'world' and for no other reason. The main character who is a slime ball thief finds a metallic hair that holds information, so he believes. Then he finds a female doctor who also has had an experience with something like it. This unlikely pair go from one make believe comic-like place to another trying to decode it. That's the entire book.

Don't waste your time reading this because for all the chasing around, dead people and absolute stupidity they never find an answer to what's on the hair. So dumb.

This is like listening to someone's long, long boring dream. So people get surgery and are then called melds. Like they have extra arms or eyes built in etc. Now you have that information you don't need to read the book. Some cops are Melds and use the term "melds" as a derogatory term for other melds. How the fuck does that make any sense? About as much as the rest of the book. Here are new words you need to put up with: outown, lod, ampuscated, gentlewhen, airfalls, ident, subists. He incorporates other fairy tale words like: kindred, meted, quarry=victim, truborn, swart-breath. WTF?

The whole thing TO ME was childish, cartoonish and go take a nice long walk instead. I can't believe I read thru the entire boring piece of crap to have no ending. Book=beginning, middle, END. END=story wraps up loose ends and reader doesn't have to get another book to see what happens at the END. END=OVER. DONE. FINIS.

DARLINGTON WOODS by Mike Dellosso

No stars is right. Religious hocus pocus. Not for me. Written as if for stupid people.

EDGE by Jeffery Deaver ****

Sort of a body guard story. The body guard trys to find the primary-person who ordered the hit on someone else. He guards and moves around a family of 6 but the killer is only after one of them. You get a LOT of details about this body guarding business.

Lot of internal angst, or blahblah of the body guard. Some is interesting, other stuff not so much. There are needless explanations of procedures etc that most readers of this stuff would already know. Chapter 37 you are taken for a ride and don't have a CLUE until the next chapter. Irritating. He has the character jump ahead of you. In so many places you are left to wonder WTF until he decides to explain things to the reader.

Personally, I wasn't crazy about it but it's not poorly written or anything. Good novel for someone who likes spy, assassin, body guard, guns etc type stuff. I've preferred other stuff by the same author. Mostly his Lincoln Rhyme stuff.

ANCESTOR by Scott Sigler ****

Edge of the seat reading. Page turner, nightmare inducing.

The first part of the book deals with gene manipulation with regards to a contagious virus and a guy named Paul Fischer from USAMRID who pretty much disappears about half way thru the novel. Why? IDK. It seems like 2 separate novels actually, but instead of Paul's ending you get nada.

Then it switches to a story about a genius obese Chinese nutso scientist implanting cows with embryos and the embryos are monsters. When the first group of people try to escape in a huge plane there is no way to figure out who stayed and who went. It was handled very poorly. I had no clue for pages who was on the plane.

Also on the 'bizarre scale' at 10 was the size of the fetuses. I've seen Scottish Highlander cattle...they're pretty big and I've seen their offspring...smaller than an adult Great Dane but in this book no one wonders how a big cow carries a 200 lb fetus -it's really quite unbelievable. How (aside from eating the way out) is it supposed to be delivered? How do the scientists, who are NOT alarmed, think they are going to come out? How can the newborns run, jump, eat and whatever without ever having moved their limbs before? Most babies are quite helpless (no muscle tone) so you have to discard your brain here. Mostly cuz the scientists don't think of it. Also since implantation occured same day for all of the mommy cows, so must delivery occur same day or thereabouts but these are all over the map.

Before nutso Chinese scientist dies she does SOMETHING, not very clearly explained, to her own eggs. Never explained or dealt with again. So where/what is it? Where is it growing? Then a squirrel is eaten at the end by, which you are led to believe; 2 severely mangled monsters have a baby? They survived winter alone on an island on like Lake Superior? No deer or other food in sight? Now they don't need food anymore? Are these warm or cold blooded monsters?

Toss your common sense and intelligence far away and borrow this one at the library. It's very fast paced and you want to keep reading it. It does have a genetic and science-tampering-with-life reality that's intriguing. Apart from the illogic I liked it.