Hoofball Reading Log 2015

Hoofball · 03-01-2015 9:19pm #1

1)

Author: James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Title: Private Vegas

Comment: This next book in the Private investigation agency series follows very quickly on the heels on the book based in India. This novel is obviously based in Las Vegas and this suffers from having too much going on. The main plot is quite often playing second fiddle to side plots which was distracting from the main plot revolving around Lester Olsen's business which is teaching young women how to bag very wealthy husbands and how to kill them to inherit and share the money. There is about three side plots as well, one involving Jack Morgans black sheep brother Tommy, a second one about one of his employees on trial and the third is about two foreign diplomats killing women. A decent enough book but should have concentrated on fewer plot strands.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 08-01-2015 10:52pm

2)

Author: Patrick Lee

Title: Runner

Comment: This is the first book I've read from this author and I enjoyed it. Sam Dryden is an ex soldier who goes running at night and on one of the runs an eleven year old girl, Rachel, crosses his path. She is being chased by people and on instinct he helps her to escape. She doesn't remember anything before the previous two weeks but she does have some amazing abilities. They have to escape and hide from a very capable chasing group and also find out what is in Rachels past. This is a great book which zips along nicely. There are some silly twists and at times the plot is quite outlandish but if you suspend belief a bit and take it at face value it's a good thriller.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball · 13-01-2015 3:45pm

3)

Author: Michael Connelly

Title: The Burning Room

Comment: I think this series is starting to come to a conclusion as this book was a bit boring and stale. Bosch has a new partner, Lucy, who has been promoted ahead of other cops waiting for a slot in the robbery/homicide division. They work in the cold case section and they are investigating the shooting of a mariachi band member 10 years previously. Somehow a bank robbery and a fire in a childrens home get tied in and Bosch's new partner was a survivor of the fire. The plot is OK but a bit convoluted and the "villian" is obvious from very early on. I'm hoping this isn't the last in the series as it would be a pity to see Bosch go out with such a whimper. It does seem to be set up for possible one more book. Overall an OK read but nothing special

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 19-01-2015 11:07am

4)

Author: Dwayne Alexander Smith

Title: Forty Acres

Comment: I'm not sure if I liked this book yet or not. It starts off very like a John Grisham novel. Martin Grey is a storefront lawyer in Queens and when he wins a case against a star lawyer Grey is brought into a very small group of America's most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men. This is one of the failings in my opinion, Grey is brought into this group a bit too easily.

There is obviously more to this group than meets the eye and when they invite him for a weekend away with no wives, mobiles, or business he readily accepts. This weekend opens up the whole plot of the novel which is a really good premise but I'm not convinced as it is extremely improbable. Some of the content after this point is uncomfortable to read but given the premise maybe the author was deliberately doing that. Overall this is worth a read and not a bad first effort.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 19-01-2015 11:07am

5)

Author: Michael Robotham

Title: Life or Death

Comment: Audie Palmer has been in prison for over ten years for an armed robbery in which four people were killed. The seven million dollars in unmarked bills that was stolen has never been found and everybody thinks that Audie knows where it is. He endures daily beatings, punishments, and attacks by guards, inmates and gangs but he never says anything.

Audie then escapes the day before he's due to be released and nobody knows why as under Texan law he could get another 25 years for escaping. The pacing in this book is very good and the plot is decent enough. Audie has escaped for a reason and that reason is uncovered near the end of the book. This is the first book I've read from this author and it's worth reading.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball · 01-02-2015 10:37pm

6)

Author: Jeffrey Deaver

Title: Trouble in Mind

Comment: Average and a bit disappointing. There are about a dozen stories in this collection and apparently some of them have been available before but I hadn't read them. For most of the stories the writing is poor and most of the trademark "twists" are fairly obvious. The only one that I thought was any good was the final story in the book, named Forever. The main character is a math genius who is drawn into the police world. The characters in this story are interesting and rounded out well. The plot is good and keeps you guessing and the ending is fitting also. This one gem can't save the book overall though it nearly makes it worth it just to get this one story so avoid if you can.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball · 15-02-2015 10:14pm

7)

Author: John Grisham

Title: Gray Mountain

Comment: The topic for this novel is "Big Coal" and how bad they are. This isn't much of a thriller to be honest and the book just meanders along and I never really cared too much about the characters. It's about a young female lawyer who loses her job in New York and goes and does an internship in West Virginia in the hopes of getting back to New York after a year. She gets drawn into a few cases which plod along but the overall plot really isn't focused enough. A poor effort.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball · 20-02-2015 4:50pm

8)

Author: David Hosp

Title: Game of Death

Comment: A company called NextLife provides their subscribers with the technology to create their ultimate fantasies online. However, one of their clients seems to use the site to practice something a lot more sinister.

This is a fast moving thriller and an enjoyable enough read. Nick Caldwell and his long-time friend and colleague, Yvette, both work for this company and work together to try and stop this client. This book does not rely on tech-speak too much and it's really only used to establish the plot and move it forward.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball · 04-03-2015 9:20pm

9)

Author: Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Motive

Comment: Kellerman has unfortunately followed up last years excellent book with an average one. The plot is a little bit confusing even though he tried to tie it together. Alex Delaware and Lieutenant Milo Sturgis investigate seemingly unrelated murders when another crime scene appears to tie them all together. The same signature raises the possibility of a serial killer on the loose.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 07-03-2015 9:59pm

10)

Author: David Bell

Title: Cemetry Girl

Comment: This had a decent enough premise but the execution let it down. It's been 4 years since 12 year old Caitlin disappeared and her parents are now arranging a funeral service. Her mother Abby is convinced she is dead, but Tom, her dad, won't and can't accept that. A witness comes forward with information on having seen Caitlin recently and then she is found wandering by the side of the road the day after an appeal is run on the television by the police. A suspect is found and arrested and then the plot begins to rapidly unravel. Not a whole lot from the middle of the book makes much sense and there is an overwhelming lack of closure on major points of the plot. The ending is particularly bizarre and it really annoyed me that nothing is really wrapped up.

Score: 3/10

Hoofball · 14-03-2015 11:47pm

11)

Author: Matthew Glass

Title: Fishbowl

Comment: This novel follows a company called Fishbowl which is a social media start-up that was created in a college dorm room and becomes a huge company which leads to the world's biggest ever IPO. Three college friends set up the company which is a meta-networking site that sits above all the other social media sites and gives people the ability to connect with others who have the same interests. This isn't a thriller and just reads like a company history so is a little bit flat. I did like the read but I could see the ending coming from miles away.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 14-03-2015 11:49pm

12)

Author: James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Title: 14th Deadly Sin

Comment: A gang dressed as police officers are on a spree of robberies that more often than not have fatalities. There's a couple of plots going on in this novel and it does feel like it would have been better if one plot was concentrated on. The characters that are focused on in this book are Boxer, the police detective, and Yuki, the attorney. The other two women in the group, the medical examiner and the journalist, are pretty much sidelined for this book. This has the usual fast pace of Pattersons books and the ending feels a bit rushed. Overall it's better than the last effort so worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 31-03-2015 9:10pm

13)

Author: Various

Title: Face Off

Comment: In this anthology some of the biggest names in crime fiction pair off the characters from their main series in short stories. I've read a lot of these authors before and some I haven't so this gives a good (but brief) introduction to their character. As always with short stories some are a bit hit and miss but overall this is a very enjoyable read.

Lee Child's Jack Reacher + Joseph Finder's Nick Heller
Ian Rankin's John Rebus + Peter James' Roy Grace
Michael Connelly's Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch + Dennis Lehane's Patrick Kenzie
Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme + John Sanford's Lucas Davenport
Linwood Barclay's Glen Garber + Raymond Khoury's Sean Reilly
Linda Fairstein's Alexandra Cooper + Steve Martini's Paul Madriani
Steve Berry's Cotton Malone + James Rollins' Gray Pierce
Lisa Gardner's D.D. Warren + MJ Rose's Malachai Samuels
T. Jefferson Parker's Joe Trona and John Lescroart's Wyatt Hunt
Heather Graham's Michael Quinn + F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack
Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child's Aloysius Pendergast + R.L. Stine's Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 06-04-2015 9:42pm

14)

Author: John Connolly

Title: A Song of Shadows

Comment: Private Detective Charlie Parker is recovering from his injuries received in the last book in a small town in Maine called Boreas. He gets dragged into a case that is related to a Nazi experiment camp during WW2 and the Nazis who escaped to the US. As always with Connolly there is a slight supernatural twist to this novel but it is not overbearing on the overall plot. This is a really good read and Connolly still delivers with this character.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball · 13-04-2015 10:46pm

15)

Author: Peter Swanson

Title: The Kind Worth Killing

Comment: A man named Ted Severson meets a woman, Lily Kintner, in an airport bar while waiting for a flight from London to Boston. They start talking and continue for the the flight as they move to sit next to each other. Ted reveals that he believes his wife is cheating on him with the man who is building their new house. He reveals that he wants to kill her and Lily encourages him.

This book has a decent enough plot but is fairly transparent and I could see every single twist coming, including the very end. The book also employs a tectic that seems to be used a lot nowadays, after a certain point the individual chapters start to be told from the perspective of one of the main characters.

An OK read but not really one to recommend. I found it hard to care about any of the characters and some of the twists were just too implausible.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 27-04-2015 9:24pm

16)

Author: Clive Cussler & Justin Scott

Title: The Assassin

Comment: This is a half decent read but this series keeps jumping around in time which makes some of the story a bit confusing, especially with respect to Bell's wife Marian. The story is set in 1905 and the Van Dorn private detective agency is given a contract by the government to investigate a possible monopoly in the oil business. A sniper starts picking off any opponents of the main company which is owned by Rockefeller, Standard Oil. The story takes Isaac Bell all over the world and into danger fairly often. The story sometimes moves a bit too fast and events are sometimes glossed over in a chapter or less. One of the poorer efforts in this series in my opinion

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 05-05-2015 10:13pm

17)

Author: James Patterson & Marshall Karp

Title: NYPD Red 3

Comment: This is the next novel in this series about the Red unit in the NYPD, an elite unit who deals with crimes involving the rich and famous in New York. When Hunter Aldens son goes missing and he is then sent the head of his chauffeur he keeps information from the police. He also gets a call from the kidnapper which reveals that he knows a dark secret from Hunters past which could make him lose everything.

This is an OK book but some of the twists were fairly predictable. The personal relationships of the two main detectives and their own interaction didn't come off too well in this book and could have been done better. Overall a good read but I wouldn't be putting it top of the list.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 05-05-2015 10:14pm

18)

Author: Harlan Coben

Title: The Stranger

Comment: The Stranger is a mysterious man who appears out of nowhere and tells you some information which shatters your world and then he disappears. Adam Price has a seemingly happy marriage with two sons and then the stranger tells him a secret about his wife, Corrine. When Adam confronts Corrine she disappears and then Adam has to find out what is going on.

The novel is lacking Cobens usual tight plotting and once or twice I found myself wondering what was going on. Too much was happening and the main plot device was a bit weak. Not his best book but it would still keep your attention. The ending was unexpected as well.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 15-05-2015 10:03pm

19)

Author: Mason Cross

Title: The Killing Season

Comment: This is the first novel from this author and it's a good read. It introduces a character called Carter Blake and it looks like he will be a series character. When a prisoner called Caleb Wardell, the infamous ‘Chicago Sniper’, escapes from prison weeks before his execution date, the FBI brings in a specialist called Carter Blake. His special skill is in finding people who don't want to be found. The twists in the book are slightly easy to see coming but as it's a debut novel you can leave those go. The second novel needs to expand on the character a bit more as well.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball · 20-05-2015 11:07pm

20)

Author: Rene Denfeld

Title: The Enchanted

Comment: I liked this book even through it's a bit strange. A prisoner is on death row in a maximum security prison and for the majority of the book we never know his name or anything about the crime he has committed. He is mute and he loves reading his books and we see most of the story through his eyes even though he is not really the main character. The essence of the story is about a woman death-investigator who looks into a prisoners past and background to try and find any mitigating factors to try and get the death sentence commuted to life without parole. She is investigating a prisoner by the name of York and is working with a fallen priest who tends to the prisoners religious needs. This isn't a thriller or a legal novel, it's just a story but it worked for me.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 20-05-2015 11:07pm

21)

Author: Simone van der Vlugt (Author), Michele Hutchinson (Translator)

Title: Safe as Houses

Comment: This is a reasonably short book at 272 pages and it has been translated from the original Dutch and the fact that it has been translated is obvious from some of the language used in the book. An escaped prisoner forces his way into a house where a single mother, Lisa, and her asthmatic 5 year old, Anouk, live. This is a decent story but every second chapter is told from the perspective of one of two characters. First from the mothers viewpoint and secondly from another female character called Senta. This leads to a disjointed telling of the story in my opinion and stopped me from getting too immersed in the story. Overall a decent, but quick, read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 06-06-2015 10:38pm

22)

Author: by Lorne Campbell (Author), Peter Edwards (Author)

Title: Satan's Choice: My Life as a Hard Core Biker with Satan's Choice and Hells Angels

Comment: "Lorne Campbell was an officer and enforcer for the outlaw biker club Satan's Choice for over thirty years, before patching over to the Hells Angels."

This is an OK read. Campbell was brought up in an abusive home so quickly escaped onto the streets and went into the biker world in the late sixties. Campbell is unapologetic for what he did and makes no excuses. The one and only regret he has is that he burned down his ex-wife's house. It is an interesting view into the biker life in the seventies and eighties as he was in the Satans Choice club and then the Hells Angels which he only retired from in 2011. He has been in prison for assault and drugs but served no time for a murder he committed despite trying to confess to it. The book doesn't glorify or condemn the biker world but it makes it clear that it's a violent and unforgiving life.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 06-06-2015 10:38pm

23)

Author: James Patterson & Peter De Jonge

Title: Miracle at Augusta

Comment: Someone obviously got to play at some big golf courses when they were "researching" for this book. This is a very ordinary tale of a player on the US Senior Tour and what happens when he starts helping a local youth. This is really only for people who have an interest in both golf and very poor novels.

Score: 2/10

Hoofball · 16-06-2015 10:02pm

24)

Author: Jeffrey Deaver

Title: Solitude Creek

Comment: This is the fourth book in the Kathryn Dance series. She is a detective who is an expert on body language so it's a bit strange that she doesn't use these skills very much in this novel. Dance is demoted back to a civilian role in the department after losing her gun in an interrogation gone bad and she is assigned to checked into a fire at a roadhouse bar. She uncovers some evidence which points at something more sinister and then gets entangled in so many plot points it gets tiresome. There is too much going on in the novel with a few plot strands and I think it would have benefited from cutting out some of the plot that doesn't really do anything and just seem like filler. The twists are present as usual but are nearly too much.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 16-06-2015 10:03pm

25)

Author: Nelson Demille

Title: A Quiet End

Comment: FBI Agent John Corey has been side-lined with the DSG (Diplomatic Surveillance Group) and he is assigned to shadow a Russian diplomat named Vasily Petrov who is a member of the modern day version of the KGB. The pace rapidly picks up when Petrov loses Corey and his team while at a party at a Russian businessman's house. The whole story takes place in less than 24 hours so the pace is quite fast which suits this story. Corey is partnered with a rookie called Tess and they find out that Petrov is planning to explode a suitcase nuke in New York Harbour and they race to stop him. This is a good enough read but is quite short compared to the other Corey novels.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 14-07-2015 10:22pm

26)

Author: James Patterson & Howard Roughan

Title: Truth or Die

Comment: Trevor Mann is the main character in this novel and he is a lawyer in New York who gets a phone call telling him his girlfriend has been killed while being mugged. Claire Parker was a journalist with the New York Times and Trevor believes she was killed because of a story she was working on.

The plot for this novel is a bit too far-fetched and there is very little character development. The book does zip along quickly but this is more due to the usual short chapters that Patterson favours. Trevor tries to uncover the story that Claire had been working on and gets involved in some unsavoury business. Overall this isn't a great book, it's a bit flat and there never seems to any real danger involved. The characters seem too one-dimensional and I didn't get to care for any of them.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball · 14-07-2015 10:22pm

27)

Author: Luke Waters

Title: NYPD Green

Comment: Luke Waters was born and raised in Finglas in Dublin and he always wanted to follow his grandfather and brother into the Guards but he went to New York in the 80's like a lot of young Irish people. He worked as a barman for a few years and then in 1993 joined the NYPD.

He had a bit of luck along the way like getting his citizenship early to enable him to join the police and in getting good assignments in the NYPD. He worked the patrolman beat for a couple of years and worked mostly in Manhattan and the south Bronx in the narcotics and homicide squads and he finished his career as a federal officer working closely with the FBI on organized crime.

This is an interesting book but nothing really special. Some of the most interesting pieces are when he details the characters that he came across during his time in the NYPD, especially towards the end of his career when he was working with confidential informants. It's worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 14-07-2015 10:23pm

28)

Author: Benjamin Percy

Title: The Dead Lands

Comment: This is a post apocalyptic novel set in a future USA which was decimated by a virus and a nuclear war 150 years previously. We start off the story in a place called the Sanctuary which is a walled off section of St Louis. One day a rider comes to to the walls and brings stories of rain, food and survivors. Against the wishes of the Mayor of the Sanctuary, a group led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark sets out to discover what is beyond the walls. This is a half decent story but doesn't seem to be able to quite make up it's mind what it's about. 150 years does not seem long enough for some of the fantastical creatures in the novel to have evolved, such as man sized bats. The language used sometimes is a bit odd to read which took me away from the story a couple of times. Overall I enjoyed the read but it was a bit tough going sometimes.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball · 12-08-2015 1:14pm

29)

Author: Stephen King

Title: Finders Keepers

Comment: This book slightly touches on a theme that was explored in Misery, the obsessed fan. The fan in this case is Morris Bellamy and he breaks into the house of John Rothstein, an author who had created a famous character called Jimmy Gold. Morris kills Rothstein and steals everything in his safe, cash and a load of notebooks containing two more Gold novels. Morris hides the cash and notebooks but then gets locked up for a different crime for 35 years. A young boy finds the buried loot and then must deal with the consequences when Morris is released from prison. The detective from the Mr Mercedes novel, Bill Hodges, returns in this novel and there are a number of coinciding points between the two books. This book is the second in the planned trilogy. There's nothing really new in the book, King has previously done most of the themes in the novel, obsessed fan, prison story etc so it's definitely not one of his best.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball · 12-08-2015 1:15pm

30)

Author: Timur Vermes

Title: Look Who's Back

Comment: This may have lost some (or all) of the humorous satire I was expecting during the translation from its original German. This book explores what would happen if Hitler woke up in Germany today. This would have been better suited as a short story in my opinion as this is just the same joke over and over. Hitler is mistaken for an impersonator and ends up on television. The main thrust of the novel is how he deals with modern life but to be honest that could have been done by putting any person from the 30's into the modern era. A lot of Hitler's beliefs are extremely watered down here to such an extent that he comes across as a doddery old uncle or something. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid and not worth the two weeks it took to finish it.

Score: 2/10

Hoofball · 12-08-2015 1:16pm

31)

Author: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Alert

Comment: The book is the usual fast read but the plot is overly complicated in my opinion and too much happens with not enough focus on each occurence. This is the 8th book in the Detective Michael Bennett series and some catastrophic terrorist events bring New York to its knees. The pace is fast as Bennett and the FBI try to find the terrorists.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball Reading Log 2015

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