Sunday, July 23, 2017

SUSPECT by Michael Robtham *****

Picked this up at either yard sale or thrift store. I liked the book a lot, it had a lot of mystery thrown in and red herrings. You aren't sure if the protagonist psychologist Joe is guilty of something or not. He has to pretty much figure out who the killer is and prove it because the killer set him up to be the perp.

It's was a unique idea, I liked reading it, I had trouble putting it down. The characters are well drawn out and there was enough narrative vs dialogue. Was a good read.

Friday, July 14, 2017

CHAOS by Patricia Cornwell ****

As per usual we have Kay, Lucy, Benton the entire family. Lucy and her girlfriend or wife had a transplanted kid who turns out not to be anyone they really know.

So the villain of the story, Carrie, has befriended Kay's sister and has been causing deaths with a pal of hers in town. She electrocutes her victims "somehow' and that's Kay's job to investigate and she finds other previous deaths that are similar and OF COURSE Carrie is out to kill Kay who finds the family in the backyard with her and OF COURSE she saves the day. Yay.

So typical Cornwell story full of a ton of descriptions about the day, the weather, the surroundings, the morgue all sorts of wherever the hell she is. If you've always liked her writing then I'm sure you'll be entertained again. Fast read, easy to keep up with characters unless she throws in some name at the end who was a bad guy.

I think I picked this up at a yard sale, or church sale or someplace.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

The HELLFIRE CLUB by Peter Straub ***

There were so many names in this book it boggles the mind. In one paragraph on page 248 these are the names you should already know by reading this far: Georgina, Lincoln Chancel, Creeley, Driver, Bill Tidy's, Katherine Mannheim, Gingerbread, That's how so many of these paragraphs are written. I also think some of them are sort of difficult reading. I am a constant reader and this book took me an extra long time due to so many similar names: Dick Dirk, Driver, Nora, Norma, Norm, Davey, this also confused the story somewhat. There are more instances but I'm sick of it already.

I'm done reading and what the fuck was it about? I don't really know. Some bitch is looking to find a manuscript that was stolen a very very long time ago and someone named Agnes told Nora that a 'terrible ugly man raped Katherine Mannheim who wrote some crappy book or other that was stolen. Some long dead mistress of Agnes told her she had proof the book was stolen that the mistress made Mr. driver wrote down everything they did and were going to do.

I found it a dragged out novel with pretty much nothing to say other than a manuscript was stolen and a few women raped. Never a punishment going with the crimes.

I wasn't impressed at all but don't let that stop you from trying to sort the entire damn thing out. I did my best and didn't like it even stuck to it until the end. I never knew if I was in the past or present. Time to let his move along.