VERTIGO 42 by Martha Grimes *

Sorry she shouldn't even get ONE star but I'm feeling generous. She bored me to death. Ok, almost to death, I'm not quite dead yet good thing I put the fucker down.

English Brit writer, I never read her crap before so was unaware and read back flyleaf to see where she lived and it said won Mystery Writers blahblah of America so I thought she was American. WTF does the Grand Master Award allow ANYONE other than an AMERICAN to win anything they have by the way of contests. This shit bored me. There's so much Brit crap English, no slang, idiots drinking tea. All the men sound like they're gay. NTTAWWT but I was sick of it before  page 30 or so. Dropped in frustration. The Vertigo 42 is a club. Some idiot who's mother named the poor kid JURY went there to meet someone and I don't know what else it has to do with the story.

They find a dead woman dressed up fell or pushed (pushed of course) off a tower of some kind. Then with the dogs and rescue groups blahblah I couldn't stand it anymore. If you like Grimes so much YOU go read it.

The HUSBAND by Dean Koontz *****

Very early Dean, I couldn't find any books by American authors that I wanted to read at the library, they all sucked. I am not going to read fantasy, vampire, queens of anywhere, faeries, other godly worlds WTF is that all about?

I went into the back of the library where older books are kept and found some Koontz's I either don't remember reading or didn't read. This was one of them. He had a simple story line, guys wife is kidnapped he has a specific time to get her returned for a couple million. It was expected by the kidnappers that he would ask his rich brother for the money, he did and realized that all the time they wanted to blackmail the brother figuring this was the easiest way to do that. He finds out pretty quickly that his brother is dealing with child porn, and doesn't give a shit about his brother's wife. Not giving anymore away, read it. Worth it. Good story.

BROOD by Chase Novak **

Very terribly slow moving piece of crap. I have no clue what the "brood" is, someone takes her niece and nephew in to their redone home where their parents "committed suicide" after being in a fertility clinic. Some people come out ok, others not so much.

The aunt is way way too thoughtful. Am sick of being inside her miserable head. Street kids talk like they never heard English before, duh stupid. People are drinking their blood for hard-ons. Very stupid idiotic idea. I can't take the narrative bullshit anymore. Have a go yourself. I found it way less than biting my nails for entertainment.

SONG FOR THE DYING BY Stuart MacBride

I read the back fly cover and missed the fecking part where he comes from Scotland. Abortion. Some stupid idiot cop is in jail suddenly without reason broken out by the cops to help with a case. No rhyme or reason. Topics shoot from the moon and back again. Just when you think you know what's going on you are forced to watch a movie in some dumpy crummy apartment, unless the movie has the dumpy crummy apartment I can't tell. Not one writer has ever forced me to watch a movie and not know I'm watching a movie. Goes from one chapter to the movie.

Hated the goddam thing. Get the bloody crash kit I'm out of here dickwad.

LIFE EXPECTANCY by Dean Koontz ****

I went over to the old books section at the library to find books by writers I like that I may have missed. This was one of them.

There are 2 babies born (Punchinello, Jimmy), one ends up with a psychotic clown father the other with a nice family but now their lives are forever intertwined. I'm not giving anything away but there are a lot of twists and turns, lots of revelations and some scary stuff for a family of bakers.

In one spot on page 185 Jimmy and his wife are on the way to the hospital (having a baby) and since Jimmy has bad days predicted in his future he BRINGS A GUN with him while they travel to the hospital. They have a run in with Mr. Clown Beezo and at no time did Jimmy even think of his gun. Not once. He never pulled it out to save himself or his pregnant wife because on page 232 he certainly had opportunity.

Apparently Dean Koontz has had several run ins with circus people and finds them to be somewhat angry and deadly. At least in this book they are. Aside from that blunder of writing in which Jimmy should have either forgot to bring the gun or didn't own one the book was easily readable, sometimes intense and edge of the seat. I liked it, would recommend buying it or library. Whichever.

SAINT ODD by Dean Koontz *****

Because this is the last Odd Thomas story I want to downgrade the stars but that wouldn't be fair because I was entranced throughout the novel. The thing about Koontz's writing is he does so much descriptive, narrative, inward thinking of the characters that sometimes I have to put the book down so it doesn't drive me crazy. I do tend to skip some of it but always afraid I'll miss something when I do that.

Story is about (if you know Odd you know about his gypsy ticket w/Stormy) the end or death of Odd. Now due to the card saying something like 'together forever' he's been without Stormy for about 2 yrs and when he dies they are rejoined but what is death according to Koontz? Strange for a start and that's about all you get is a start, at least he's not as freaking strange about the horrors faced after life as S.King and what he did to me after I read Revelations. Scared the bejesus outta me. So thank you Dean for making death seem a-ok.

Some cultists Odd dealt with in the past are back seeking him out and trying to destroy the world. Odd gets stabbed in the left hand but in the end a bullet has his name on it. It's all very strange due to the red herring water dream. Other people with ESP talents and gypsys, carnies, tattooed people and other odd things for ODD.

I was an animal control officer once upon a time and I had the police kill a rabid fox in town. I read up on rabies on the internet and found that no one ever, ever died from aerosolized rabies, one case of a person inside a bat cave may have been the only person dying that way. It's a possibility if it's from the brain or saliva directly. So I asked the officer to shoot the fox in the heart not the head because it was my responsibility to keep everyone safe. The premise in the book isn't really described in much detail but rabies cannot live outside brain/saliva product for a good long minute or so. Keeping it on a knife or whatever and stabbing someone would be total fiction...ok so this is total fiction.

Anyways the other way to kill hundreds or thousands of people by infecting a town with aerosolized rabies isn't exactly going to work being passed from person to person as described by the CDC it would be "extraordinary circumstances". I still can't go with aerosolized as a spray rabies. It would need to be extracted from brain fluid or saliva but NOT blood product. Altho rabies can survive in humans for years before becoming deadly, it's rare. It's a strange unpredictable disease. This story is based on the rabies collection from rabid bats. It would be so, so difficult to get enough rabies from bats it would take years and much research to perfect any spray. Rabies cannot survive for long in air. Again, I accept the fact I'm reading fiction and most readers don't have this much knowledge.

Liked it a lot withholding my disbelief. Bye Oddie. :( you'll be missed.

BLACK LIES, RED BLOOD by Kjell Eriksson *

I can  barely get into the beginning and started to concentrate to figure out why. He does not have a main character in the beginning so it's hard to get into. You get dragged from person to person or scene to scene without a warning. That stupid asshole who wrote Shades of Gray has prompted all fucking asshole publishers to insist on invading every book written with descriptive sexual bullshit.

On chapter three (par example)  there is a person-WTF, who is it? Where is it? And why the fuck do I care if someone at her desk has a throbbing stomach clench, shades if gray here, (it's the clitoris morons) when she won't stop obsessing about the dick that just slid out of her. I have no idea what her name is until the last page of the chapter, don't know what desk it is, where, cop station? People are asking if she has a fever for shit's sake. From reexamining her every sexual move? Or his? Look, bad enough the writer is frickin Swedish I despise foreign writers, should I say NON writers? How does this MOVE the story forward? Every word should MOVE the story forward yet I'm stuck in this bitches day dreaming about her dripping sex parts and being licked under her armpit for an entire chapter. DONE. No more for me.

Bye bye.

SLEEPING BEAUTY by Phillip Margolin ****

This book was given to me by a friend printed in 2004 so you have to look to find it. I thought most of it was pretty good. The characters were well rounded out and the scenes of action were good. The only thing is the ending. One main character Maxwell began as a writer had a one hit wonder then he did proofing for others for extra money. He hit a writers block and couldn't write well after that. He described some murders down to details withheld from the public and everyone thought he was a serial killer.Apparently and coincidentally he and the real serial killer were in the same towns at the same time. How odd right?

Anyway as the story progressed around Ashley she runs away to hide from the killer who killed her dad, then her best friend and was after her-she believed. She finds out she was adopted and that became a reason for a serial killer chasing her OR so she thought.

The end left me confused because I think EVERYone knows a plagiarist would never be offered a contract for a book. Once a liar always a liar. No one would touch him with a ten foot pole yet this guy who stole someone else's novel is very successful after the stuff was over. Highly doubt that would happen.

Otherwise well written, interesting characters, not a bad premise and all around would get it at the library.

The GOLEM of HOLLYWOOD by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman ***

This book is very big, if you fall asleep reading, it could fall and knock you out. There are several stories at the same time.

Murders of women with ligature marks, having been sexually abused are found and the alcoholic detective Jacob Lev is on the case. The victim's heads turn up here and there without provocation and Lev is trying to figure out who the killer is. There are 3 killers, he finds 2 heads and it takes awhile to realize there are 3 killers. So he runs off all over the globe trying to figure out where they were and what cases he can pin on them globally.

Meantime back in the dark ages we have a golem made from weird materials and (it was a she now a he) he goes around killing people deserving of death to protect the Jews being killed and stop the massacres. You're supposed to think that from way way back in history when this female jumps off a tower with a guy she supposedly hates becomes a golem and at the end she must have told someone she would love (whoever it was) forever (I have NO CLUE who this is) and so she is a beetle that can burrow into people when she's not a clay copy someone created for her to live in instead of the stupid cabinets she started with. I don't get any of this so don't expect a very coherent analysis.

So the golem girl/guy saves Jacob and turns out there are like 23 people on earth God put here to protect the Jews and Jacob's father happens to be one of them. Very likely. Then this rabbi type guy hid the mom away in a mental institution without telling his own son, Jacob.

Let's see a wrap up: no one tells Jacob much of anything A golem is in love with him? He's never gotten a good look at her except when her 'clay' body turned real he saw her once. Then the dad is a secret member of the Jews protection squad, and the mom is nuts. There, I tried to make it an easy puzzle to solve but forget it. Worth reading but you may want to take notes. The alcoholic cop (cliche) gets really tedious after a few chapters.

LIONS, ELEPHANTS & BEARS by P.K.Foster *****

This book is written and self published by a former animal control officer and dated 2002, the author's first year doing the job. There is a wealthy couple in town owning the lion and elephant so this makes for a nice title and her territory in a small New England town is loaded with bears.

All the stories are written from her daily diaries from the job and are real and/or fictional situations she incorporated to keep the story busy and interesting. The sisters have a good relationship despite their age difference. There are a lot of German shepherds and dog behaviors described. As an ACO she takes her job seriously and helps out all the animals she can legally.

There is a disclaimer on the back "anyone assuming they are in the book of stories are making assumptions that may not be true. All names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty. It all happened a long time ago and is mostly forgotten."

There are 3 more diaries to be written if sales justify the year it takes to write one.
From a description of the book:" There was a Manx kitten, black and white. Her name was PK.
Poor Kitty had no name, no home and no tail. She found a home and a name but is still without a tail unless you consider this her tale." This book by PKFoster is a blend of fact and fiction. It is an exciting year for Lexi and her sister Ruby when Lexi gets a job being an animal control officer. She has some interesting cases, repeat customers, a German shepherd Al Capone, runaway horses, frisking female prisoners, so much more and her love life, having been a joke before this year, is almost a reality. Who the heck kidnaps animals for a couple weeks and returns them?

Digital and softcovers HERE: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/BackYardDog 

Read 2 FREE CHAPTERS HERE:http://sneakpeeks4books.blogspot.com/