Hoofball Reading Log 2015

Hoofball

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

32)

Author: Jeff Lindsay

Title: Dexter is Dead

Comment: This is supposedly the last novel in the series and like the tv series it goes out with a bit of a whimper. Dexter has been arrested for the murder of three people (which he didn't do) and is also accused of other crimes. I won't mention the details as it would be a spoiler for the previous book. He is sprung on bail after his brother hires a high powered attorney to get him out, but the detective who arrested him, Anderson, keeps after him and becomes more desperate in his attempts to have Dexter locked up. This wasn't a great book and I have to say I didn't really enjoy it. The plotting was poor and the ending a bit silly.

Score: 3/10

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33)

Author: Kathy Reichs

Title: Speaking in Bones

Comment: Dr Tempe Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who is approached by an amateur detective called Hazel Strike who says she has identified a set of remains from a cold case. Tempe gets dragged into the case when she becomes intrigued by what the amateur has found. This is the 18th novel in this series and it is still somewhat interesting although the relationship with detective Ryan is starting to get really annoying. The plot is decent enough but the ending seems completely rushed.

Score: 5/10

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34)

Author: David Baldacci

Title: Memory Man

Comment: This is the introduction to a new character from Baldacci called Amos Decker. The plot is fairly far fetched but it did keep my attention and was a good read. Decker is an ex-pro american football player whose career was ended in his first game by a massive tackle. That trauma affected his brain and gave him a perfectly eidetic memory with complete recall of every single thing from that point onward.

He joined the police force and one night he arrives home from work to find his wife, daughter and brother-in-law murdered. Decker falls apart and fifteen months later is living rough. He gets pulled back into police work when there is a mass shooting in a local school and there is a connection found between that incident and the murder of his family.

The story was a massive stretch and there were a few too many tenuous connections made but it was still enjoyable to read.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

35)

Author: Claire North

Title: Touch

Comment: This isn't a very easy read and it is sometimes a bit difficult to keep track of what is happening. A man called Kepler has the ability to switch bodies with anyone that he touches and has been doing this for over 200 years. Sometimes he spends a long time in a body, even years, and other times just spends a few seconds. It was a very interesting premise but the plot let's it down slightly in my opinion. I never quite got why the people like Kepler were being chased and there is a lot of repetition in the book. It was still a good read though.

Score: 7/10

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36)

Author: Paula Hawkins

Title: The Girl on the Train

Comment: Be forewarned - make sure you read the chapter headings. I was about 6 chapters into the book and wondering what the heck was going on when I realised that each chapter is being told from the perspective of one of the three main female characters. There is nothing in the writing itself that would make this distinction for you. The book is an OK read but is an average first novel. Rachel is an alcoholic who has lost her job and is living with a friend after losing her marriage and home. She still travels by train in and out of London every to keep up the pretense that she is still working. She passes certain houses every day on the train and she watches for a couple who usually sit on their patio at the back of the house. She makes up a fantasy in her own head and names the people and imagines what their life is like. Rachel also passes by the house she used to live in with her ex-husband Tom which is just a few doors down from the fantasy couple. Tom and his current wife Anna are now living in the house. Then one day the woman who she used to see on the patio disappears and Rachel is drawn into the whole scenario. A lot is explained and comes together in the last couple of chapters which is good. This is still worth a read.

Score: 6/10

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37)

Author: Ben Coes

Title: The Last Refuge

Comment: This is a series featuring Dewey Andreas, a former Navy Seal special forces operative. An Israeli special forces commander called Kohl Meir is kidnapped on a quiet street in Brookly. Dewey owes his life to Kohl so goes to rescue him from one of the worlds most secure prisons, in Iran. This is a fast paced thriller and a good read overall. The main character is a bit larger that life like every other hero but he is an interesting character. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

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38)

Author: Adam Brookes

Title: Night Heron

Comment: A man escapes from a hard labour camp in the depths of China. He makes his way to Beijing and finds a city that has changed a lot in the 20 years he was in prison. His difficulty is that he was a British spy before being sent away for an unrelated crime and he now needs to make contact with his old handlers. He passes a message to a British journalist called Philip Mangan who is on assignment in Beijing. This book is a decent first novel but the action tails off after a fast paced start. It was hard to get to care about the characters.

Score: 6/10

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39)

Author: Lee Child

Title: Make Me

Comment: This is the 20th book in the Reacher series and it's becoming a bit repetitive now. Reacher gets off a train at a stop called "Mothers Rest" as he likes the name and wants to find out why it is called that. Normally you would read these books quite quickly but this one took some effort to complete. It seems like this series has run out of steam as it's not a very good book. Cliched characters (even more than usual) and a lack of a plot until more than halfway through the book and the ending is a bit strange. For fans of the series only.

Score: 6/10

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40)

Author: Kyle Mills (& Vince Flynn)

Title: The Survivor

Comment: This is the 14th book in the Mitch Rapp series and the first one released since Vince Flynn passed away in 2013. Flynn had started this book before his death and Mills was selected to complete it. This book picks up where the last novel ended, the CIA is under threat from outside due to a traitor releasing top secret information about informants and agents. Rapp needs to hunt down and stop this flow of information. This was a good read and there were only some subtle differences in the writing styles between Flynn and Mills but there were enough to notice. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

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41)

Author: James Patterson & Kathryn Fox

Title: Private Sydney

Comment: This is the 10th book in the Private series and a return to the Private office in Australia that was also featured in book 6 (with a different co-author). There are two main plots in the novel, one featuring surrogacy and a missing baby and the second plot line is about a CEO from a multi-billion dollar company who suddenly disappears one day. This has the usual short chapters you would expect in a Patterson novel but I'm not sure why he has the two unrelated stories in the same novel other than to have tension as the hero, Craig Gisto, has to balance the two cases. As is usual in these books the Pricate agency has everything at it's disposal, even more than the police. Overall it's an OK book but this series in my opinion should start focusing on the main office in the US rather than going around the world, although we already know that the next two books are based in Paris and Rio.

Score: 6/10

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42)

Author: Linda Fairstein

Title: Devils Bridge

Comment: This is the 17th book in this series featuring Alexandra Cooper, a DA in New York. Fairstein takes an unusual approach to this book as Cooper disappears after a night out quite early in the story and then the rest of the novel is from the perspective of NYPD detective Mike Chapman as he hunts for Cooper and as recently revealed in earlier books there is now a personal reason for him to hunt for her. I think the book lacked some of the usual punch that this series has due to the fact that Cooper is not in it for most of the novel and the interaction between her, Chapman and Mercer is therefore absent. I'd give Fairstein a big plus for trying something different to liven up the series and to keep it interesting though.

Score: 6/10

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43)

Author: James Patterson

Title: Cross Justice

Comment: This is the 23rd book in this series and is as weak as the last one. For the first time in the series, Alex Cross goes back to his hometown when his cousin is accused of the brutal murder of a young boy. There are two plot lines intertwined here and they seem quite rushed and contrived. Cross uncovers a family secret that shocks him but it's a bit of a yawn.

Score: 5/10

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44)

Author: Michael Connelly

Title: The Crossing

Comment: Harry Bosch #20. Bosch has been drummed out of the LAPD cold case squad after the events of the last book. He helps out his brother, defence lawyer Mickey Haller, on a murder case and has to deal with the consequences of crossing over to the defence side of the fence. The plot is a bit of a stretch and the plot device of the watch is a bit odd. Overall it's not a bad book but it's hard to get to care about any of the characters.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

45)

Author: Graeme Cameron

Title: Normal

Comment: Normal is the first book from this author and is a decent enough read but could have been better. It is written from the perspective of a serial killer who kidnaps and murders young women. He also has a special basement built with a cage in the center of it to hold his victims. We never get to know the killers name or his motives for what he is doing. There are also some other plot holes such as how does he have so much money when he doesn't appear to work. Things start to unravel for him when his latest victim, Erica, gets into his mind and starts to affect him. The author also tries to show a "normal" side to the killer but it just gets confusing to try and keep track of Rachel/Annie/Erica and to figure out what is going on. Overall it's worth a quick read, you should get through it in a few hours.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

46)

Author: Stephen King

Title: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Comment: There are 20 stories in this short story collection and as usual there are some hits and some misses. Unfortunately there are more misses than hits in my opinion. A few of these stories have been released before in different formats such as Blockade Billy, Mile 81 and UR. A running theme through this collection is the notion of getting old and what happens, this is becoming a more prevalent theme as King himself gets older. He also has included some details before each story telling how he got the idea or something about how the story was created and this is an interesting addition. A few of the stand out stories for me:

Batman and Robin Have An Altercation. This is a bittersweet story about what could happen when you are with an aging parent in a road rage situation.

The Bad Little Kid. This is a strange tale and the ending is a bit unsettling as we never really know the full story.

Obits. A hack discovers that when he writes obituaries for people they come true. This was an interesting idea.

Drunken Fireworks. This was a good tale but it does kind of peter out at the end.

Summer Thunder. The last story is about the end of the world, and is a sad one. This was just about my favourite.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

47)

Author: David Baldacci

Title: The Guilty

Comment: Will Robie is an agent working for the CIA and he has some issues on a mission when he kills a little girl by mistake. He then gets a call to tell him that his father has been arrested for murder. The wrinkle is that he is now the local judge in their hometown.

Will and Dan Robie are estranged and have been for a long time so there is no love lost between them. Will gets dragged into a conspiracy in this deep south town and needs to find out if his father really murdered this man or is he being set up.

This is a good addition to the series but not the best that Baldacci has written

Score: 6/10