Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein - Kyle loves to play games of any sort but he's not much of a reader. When he wins a place in the overnight lock-in at the new library in town, he doesn't know what to expect. Then the stakes are raised and Kyle and his friends search for a way out of the library. A children's book full of the usual stereotypes.
2 stars
Monday, August 10, 2015
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Aug 2 - 8, 2015
Brush Back by Sara Paretsky - the 17th V.I. Warshawski novel. V.I. is asked by an old friend to exonerate his mother of the murder of her daughter after she has already served her 25 year sentence. This leads to a convoluted tale of Chicago political corruption, old neighborhood hatreds, and Russian mobsters. Round and round we go with about 100 pages too many. Language.
3 stars
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Silent Creed by Alex Kava - the 2nd book featuring Ryder Creed and his search and rescue dogs. He's searching for bodies or survivors after a landslide buries several houses and a gov't medical research facility. While I liked that part, the whole thing was rather disjointed, going back and forth between people and places. I find political cover-up stories irritating and it was pretty cliche-ish. Too many sneaky people, not enough dogs.
2 stars
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The Swede by Robert Karjel - a Swedish secret policeman is asked by the Americans to determine if an imprisoned terrorist is also Swedish. A very convoluted tale involving the Thailand tsunami, art theft, hate groups, and secret torture. I'm not sure what I think about this one. I set it down many times, thinking I was done. While I don't recommend it, I found it strangely compelling. A very ambivalent.....
2 stars
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The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths - the 7th Ruth Galloway novel. A buried WWII airplane is discovered with the pilot inside. Evidence shows that he was murdered and that his body was not always in the plane. Mystery surrounds the Blackstock family and the ghost fields of old airfields. Ruth isn't quite as whiny, and Cathbad, her druid friend, proves to not be infallible. In fact, he's not very prominent, which I found a welcome change. Although it takes awhile for things to get going, the ending has enough twists to be interesting. I like the way the minor characters are developing.
4 stars (which may be just because it was nice to read something I really enjoyed)
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro - an elderly couple in a time long ago set out on a journey to visit the son they can barely remember. Along the way they're assisted by a Saxon warrior and his orphan companion and an old knight. Although this is called a fantasy, and had fantasy elements, I found it to be more about relationships and memories.
4 stars
3 stars
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Silent Creed by Alex Kava - the 2nd book featuring Ryder Creed and his search and rescue dogs. He's searching for bodies or survivors after a landslide buries several houses and a gov't medical research facility. While I liked that part, the whole thing was rather disjointed, going back and forth between people and places. I find political cover-up stories irritating and it was pretty cliche-ish. Too many sneaky people, not enough dogs.
2 stars
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The Swede by Robert Karjel - a Swedish secret policeman is asked by the Americans to determine if an imprisoned terrorist is also Swedish. A very convoluted tale involving the Thailand tsunami, art theft, hate groups, and secret torture. I'm not sure what I think about this one. I set it down many times, thinking I was done. While I don't recommend it, I found it strangely compelling. A very ambivalent.....
2 stars
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The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths - the 7th Ruth Galloway novel. A buried WWII airplane is discovered with the pilot inside. Evidence shows that he was murdered and that his body was not always in the plane. Mystery surrounds the Blackstock family and the ghost fields of old airfields. Ruth isn't quite as whiny, and Cathbad, her druid friend, proves to not be infallible. In fact, he's not very prominent, which I found a welcome change. Although it takes awhile for things to get going, the ending has enough twists to be interesting. I like the way the minor characters are developing.
4 stars (which may be just because it was nice to read something I really enjoyed)
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro - an elderly couple in a time long ago set out on a journey to visit the son they can barely remember. Along the way they're assisted by a Saxon warrior and his orphan companion and an old knight. Although this is called a fantasy, and had fantasy elements, I found it to be more about relationships and memories.
4 stars
Sunday, August 2, 2015
July 26 - Aug 1, 2015
Guardians of the Night by Alan Russell - the 2nd in the Gordon and Sirius series, Gordon being the cop and Sirius his dog. Together they're the only members of LAPD's Special Cases Unit. A man claims he saw an angel being murdered and of course that leads to a series of more deaths. Gordon is too wise-cracking for my taste and there are a lot of extraneous facts thrown around.
2 stars
2 stars
Saturday, July 25, 2015
July 19 - 25, 2015
As I was reclining in my La-z boy recliner, a name that implies the owner is of a slothful disposition, and disinclined from manual labor, I realized that I was not enjoying my perusal of the classic Moby Dick. And in fact was having trouble getting Ishmael to Nantucket so that he could begin his adventure in whale hunting. Too. many. words. And I read it once in junior high.
Sunday, July 12, 2015
July 5 - 11, 2015
The Reluctant Matador by Mark Pryor - Hugh Marston takes time of from his job as head of security at the US embassy in Paris to hunt for a missing girl in Barcelona. There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency (although that's stated many times), to me it felt more like a travelogue of Barcelona. More exciting towards the end and then just peters out. I've really enjoyed previous books in this series, this was a disappointment.
2 stars
2 stars
Sunday, July 5, 2015
June 28 - July 4, 2015
The English Spy by Daniel Silva - just as Gabriel Allon is getting ready to take over as head of Israeli security and his wife is to deliver twins, he's asked by the head of MI6 to track a terrorist suspected of killing a royal. Quite a trek through secret alliances. The story seems to move slowly but I found it quite compelling. I always wonder how much the author really knows about all these agencies.
4 stars
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Cold Betrayal by J.A. Jance - this is the author's Ali Reynolds series. It's been awhile since I've read one so some of the back story was a little blurry to me, not enough to affect the enjoyment of the story. A young girl is injured trying to escape from a polygamous cult and someone is threatening Ali's daughter-in-law's grandmother. These two plot lines do not converge and the ending is somewhat unrealistic.
3 stars
4 stars
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Cold Betrayal by J.A. Jance - this is the author's Ali Reynolds series. It's been awhile since I've read one so some of the back story was a little blurry to me, not enough to affect the enjoyment of the story. A young girl is injured trying to escape from a polygamous cult and someone is threatening Ali's daughter-in-law's grandmother. These two plot lines do not converge and the ending is somewhat unrealistic.
3 stars
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