Hoofball Reading Log 2016

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1)

Author: Patricia Cornwell

Title: Depraved Heart

Comment: This was a bore. Number 23 in this series and while there is the nugget of a good story in here, nothing happens except a lot of dialogue and characters acting stupidly. Benton (Scarpetta's FBI agent husband) is becoming a parody at this stage and he if carried on like that in real life there would be a divorce. In this novel Lucy is being investigated by the FBI for a missing firearm but there are other plot points threaded in and it all becomes a bit confusing.

Score: 4/10

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2)

Author: John Grisham

Title: Rogue Lawyer

Comment: Sebastian Rudd is a defense lawyer who fits the usual stereotype of a lowlife lawyer who will take the cases that no one else wants, crime bosses, child murderers etc. But he also takes on cases to help ordinary people. Rudd will do anything to win so long as he won't get caught. Grisham borrows from Michael Connellys Lincoln Lawyer here as Rudd's office is a van as his last office in a building was firebombed. This book is OK but reads like it was conceived as a set of short stories and then Grisham came up with one weak enough plot point to weave it into a longer story. The ending wasn't particularly satisfying either and seems to point at sequels.

Score: 6/10

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3)

Author: Linwood Barclay

Title: Broken Promise

Comment: The main character in this book was familiar to me so I had to double check I hadn't read this book before. This character also appeared in the novel called Never Look Back, published in 2010.

The "Broken Promise" novel is the start of a new series based in the town called Promise falls.

Journalist David Harwood moves from Boston back to his home town of Promise Falls to take up a job with the local paper in order to have more time to spend with his son Ethan. The local paper closes down so he has to live with his parents. His mother asks him to look in on his cousin, Marla, who had recently lost a baby and had a bit of a breakdown but when he gets there he finds that she has a baby with her and there is blood on her front door. David starts to investigate and gets caught up a small town conspiracy that is just a bit too unbelievable. There are too many characters in this book for my liking and it seems like the author was trying to introduce everyone in the first book. It's an OK read though, just a bit too out there.

Score: 7/10

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4)

Author: James Patterson & Marshall Karp

Title: NYPD Red 4

Comment: Detectives Zach Jordan and Kylie McDonald are in an elite unit in the NYPD called RED which means they look after any cases involving the rich or famous. In this book a well known actress is murdered at a movie premiere and a one-of-a-kind diamond necklace is stolen. Then a raft of thefts of major pieces of equipment from multiple hospitals is brought to them by the mayor and they must keep it quiet.

This book really focuses in on the relationships between the main characters and their partners/spouses and that is starting to get a bit annoying. McDonald's husband is a drug addict who is always getting into trouble and it's just a bit stupid that she hasn't kicked him to touch yet. Jordan still seems to hold a bit of a torch for McDonald as well and looks to be screwing up his new relationship with Cheryl as he keeps running to help McDonald with her husband Spencer.

So there are a few plot lines to follow as is usual in these books which means that they are kept at a high level and you never get into any great detail on any of them.

A decent and fast read which would be ideal for a quick plane/train journey.

Score: 7/10

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5)

Author: John Connolly

Title: Night Music: Nocturnes 2

Comment: The first Nocturnes book was released about 10 years ago and this is a follow up collection of novellas and short stories. A lot of the book is taken up by two stories in particular, "The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository" and "The Fractured Atlas". Overall the book is good but nothing spectacular and I didn't get much of a supernatural or spooky vibe from the stories. The Caxton Library is an interesting concept and it also appears in a later story in the book "Holmes on the Range". This library is a home for characters from books who only appear there after their author has died. It was an interesting story to read. The Fractured Atlas was just a little too long for my liking and could have been shortened a bit. The story "A Haunting" was good as well and a bit sad rather than scary. Overall the book is worth a read.

Score: 7/10

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6)

Author: Alex Marwood

Title: The Darkest Secret

Comment: I can't say too much without giving away spoilers here but the blurb from Amazon is a good description: "When identical twin Coco goes missing during a family celebration, there is a media frenzy. Her parents are rich and influential, as are the friends they were with at their holiday home by the sea. But what really happened to Coco? Over two intense weekends - the first when Coco goes missing and the second twelve years later at the funeral of her father - the darkest of secrets will gradually be revealed..."

Most of the characters in this novel are completely despicable and utterly contemptible, so much so that they veer towards the silly. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the plot goes along with some hypotheses from recent missing children cases. The book tells the story with the chapters interchanging between the funeral and what happened 12 years earlier. This made it a bit more of a labour to read in my opinion. The twists in the book were signposted from early in the book and were obvious to spot. The ending in particular was quite frustrating and for a reason that will become apparent to anyone reading it made me quite annoyed at the loose ends but I suppose that's the way it quite often is in real life. So overall an OK book and worth a quick read on an airplane to pass away 4-5 hours (it's a quick read).

Score: 6/10

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7)

Author: Lisa Gardner

Title: Find Her

Comment: This is the 8th book in the D.D. Warren series but I can't really remember any of the others. Flora Dane is a 27 year old woman who was kidnapped from a spring break holiday and kept captive for over 450 days before being rescued. She get's caught up in another murder and then disappears. Detective Warren, who is supposed to be on desk duty after a serious injury, goes into the field to try and find Flora. This is a half-decent book and you would wonder if it's plausible but then you think of all the recent cases in the US where women are found months & years after being kidnapped.

Score: 7/10

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8)

Author: James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Title: The 15th Affair

Comment: As the title suggests this is the 15th book in the Womens Murder Club series. A group of female friends help each other to solve crimes, although in this novel the cop does most of it. Four bodies are found at a hotel and Detective Lindsay Boxer's husband Joe goes missing and seems to be involved. This plot is a bit convoluted and some elements are never explained which makes it look like they were thrown in just to be red herrings. An OK read but nothing special

Score: 6/10

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9)

Author: Sarah Lotz

Title: The Three

Comment: There are four plane crashes all on the same day and there are single survivors found on three of them, all children. But, a fourth is eventually found as well from the fourth crash. The novel is read like a report being made as it seems to take from interviews and accounts with some narrative as well. There is a lot of fluff in the book which could have been taken out, it goes on a bit too long. I was also expecting a bit more when I read reviews saying a great new horror novel. Nothing much happens to be honest and the ending just seemed a bit empty to me. OK but not great

Score: 6/10

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10)

Author: Jonathon Kellerman

Title: Breakdown

Comment: This is the 31st book in this series and I still like it. Kellerman is one of my favourite authors and it was good to get another good story with Dr Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis teaming up. Alex first meets the actress Zelda Chase through her son Ovid who was five years old and the case was over and done quite quickly. Zelda comes back into Alex's life when he gets a call from a mental institution where she is being held. He visits her but doesn't get any sense out of her and he realizes that her son is missing. Not long after her release, Zelda is found dead in the garden of a large house in Bel Air and Alex and Milo investigate.

Score: 7/10

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11)

Author: Harlan Coben

Title: Fool Me Once

Comment: This isn't one of Cobens best novels. Maya is a former special ops soldier whose husband is murdered in a robbery gone bad in Central Park. Not long after the funeral she is given a secret nanny cam in a photoframe by her friend and on checking it one night she sees her husband playing with their daughter. She starts digging into her in-laws family and into other deaths that had occured over the years. This plot is fairly paper thin and seems non-existent until near the end. Some of the twists are ludicrous and the ending is far too unbelievable. Overall a poor effort but a fast read luckily.

Score: 5/10

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12)

Author: Sarah Lotz

Title: Day Four

Comment: A cruise ship suddenly loses power and is stranded at sea. We are introduced to a cast of characters and Lotz gradually builds the tension which was a good read. With no electricity and no phone signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. A body of a woman is discovered and it becomes clear that there’s a murderer on board. Lotz does a good job of describing how the ship goes rapidly downhill but we never find out what happened to the boat and the ending is a bit confusing. I still don't get what happened.

Score: 5/10

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13)

Author: Gregg Hurwitz

Title: Orphan X

Comment: This looks to be the first novel in a new series about a man called Evan Smoak. He was an orphan who was taken by a clandestine arm of the US government and trained to be a killer. He is given the codename Orphan X and is led to believe there are others like him. He became disenchanted with the group that he is in and disappears. He now helps people who are given his number only by the previous person he helped. But then after answering one call he himself is targeted. This is a decent read but it's a bit formulaic and nothing new

Score: 6/10

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14)

Author: Clive Cussler & Justin Scott

Title: The Gangster

Comment: This is the 9th in the Isaac Bell series which is based on an early 1900's detective agency. Per the description on Amazon: "It is 1906 and in New York City the Italian crime group known as the Black Hand is on a menacing spree: kidnapping, extortion, arson. Detective Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn Agency is hired to form a special "Black Hand Squad," "

This is a decent read but Bell does just seem like an early 1900's version of Jack Reacher with strong punches, almost superhuman fighting skills etc etc. I like this series though and it's a good read but nothing special

Score: 6/10

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15)

Author: John Connolly

Title: A Time of Torment

Comment: This is the 14th Charlie Parker novel and it's a worthwhile read. A man named Jerome Burnel was a hero who prevented an armed robbery by killing two of the criminals. He is then later locked up for crimes he commited himself but was he framed is the big question. He hires Parker to look into his case but then he disappears. Parker still investigated and gets drawn into a problem with an area of Plassey County called the Cut which is home to a separatist group of people. This is quite a dark book but has less of Charlie/Angel/Louis than usual. Not the best in the series for sure

Score: 6/10

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16)

Author: David Baldacci

Title: The Last Mile

Comment: This is the second book in the Amos Decker series from Baldacci. Decker is a ex-cop who was seriously injured in his one and only professional NFL game. He suffered a bad head injury which gave him the ability to remember every single thing that happens to him. In this book Decker is now a part of a special FBI team who will take on unusual cases that have gone cold.

One such case is that of a man called Melvin Mars who has been on Death Row for over 20 years. He was a college football player and a future star player until he was convicted of his parents murder. Melvin was saved in the final seconds before his execution because someone has confessed to the killings and Decker starts to investigate.

This book was decent enough and a good read. Decker is a likeable character and the plot is just about believable.

Score: 7/10

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17)

Author: Jeffrey Deaver

Title: The Steel Kiss

Comment: This is the 12th novel in the Lincoln Rhyme series but you don't need to know any of the background from the previous 11 books. There's a few plot lines going on in this book which means that the pace is a bit diluted. Rhyme has retired from the police so is taking on private cases. He investigates a case whereby a man is killed in an accident with an escalator.

His partner Amelia Sachs is investigating another case and Ron Pulaski is also running off on a side plot. Some of them do cross over but it takes a while to happen. The plot was a bit too unbelievable but the book is an OK read.

It seems like Deaver is starting to shoehorn in twists where they are not necessarily needed just for the sake of it.

Score: 6/10

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18)

Author: Stephen King

Title: End of Watch

Comment: This is the final book in this trilogy and is probably the weakest of the three. You can't read this as a standalone novel as you really need to have read the previous two books. In this book the supernatural twist appears near the start and for me it took away from the books in that the previous books were all "normal" but now it changes. The twist is also a bit ludicrous and a huge stretch.

In this final book the retired Detective Bill Hodges returns and he is suffering from a terminal illness. His computer genius sidekick Holly also plays a large role in the plot and Jerome appears as well but he seems forced into the story. They have to tackle the attempted mass-killer Brady who is known as Mr Mercedes. The problem is that he is in a non-responsive state in a hospital since he tried to blow up a concert arena.

Score: 6/10

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19)

Author: Michael Griesbach

Title: The Innocent Killer

Comment: This is a book that covers two different crimes that Stephen Avery was accused of, firstly the assault of Penny Beerntsen (on which the Making a Murderer series is based) and secondly the murder of Teresa Halbach. The first half of the book was reasonably good and laid out all that went on in that first trial (I hadn't seen the tv series) but the second half regarding the Halbach murder was not very comprehensive and seemed quite rushed. The author is too fast to accept without question the prosecution side of things. There are probably better books out there to be honest.

Score: 5/10

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20)

Author: Christopher Ransom

Title: Beneath The Lake

Comment: I thought this book was going to be better than it was, the premise and build up were good but it turned into a bit of a mess towards the end and just got confusing. Ray Mercer is called back to the old family vacation destination (a lake) by his dying father. For some reason Ray brings a waitress from his restaurant with him. This will be the first time he has been back to the lake since he witnessed a strange and violent encounter when he was 8. This was never spoke of again by his family. This has a supernatural slant to it so I expected some weirdness but it just became too confusing and not a lot is explained.

Score: 5/10

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21)

Author: Emma Donoghue

Title: Room

Comment: Jack is a five year old boy and he lives in a locked room with his mother and he has never seen the outside world. This book is written from the childs perspective so the narrative is a bit jarring and does get annoying at times. I did like this book and thought that is was a decent story pulled from the headlines. The use of Jack as the narrator does lend itself to us seeing what the mother is trying to do to protect her son and he is oblivious to it as he knows nothing other than what is in that room. Well worth a read

Score: 8/10

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22)

Author: James Rollins

Title: Black Order

Comment: This is a novel from the Sigma Force series featuring Commander Gray Pierce. The plot is based around a group trying to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin. As Pierce investigates, he is caught up in a conspiracy that goes back to World War 2 and the Nazis and a powerful mystical weapon they were trying to develop. This is an OK read but totally unbelievable plot

Score: 6/10

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23)

Author: Steve Cavanagh

Title: The Plea

Comment: This is the first novel I'd read by Cavanagh and I enjoyed it. An ex-con artist called Eddie Flynn has become a lawyer but still has a lot of connections into the world of the con artist. David Child is a technical genius who is the owner of a huge company, and he is a major client of a corrupt New York law firm. Eddie's wife works for this law firm as well. Child is arrested for murder and the FBI drag Flynn into the case to try and force him to testify against the company. The FBI have incriminating files on Eddie's wife so he has to work with them.

Score: 8/10

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24)

Authors: James Patterson & Mark Sullivan

Title: The Games

Comment: This was an OK read and is the latest in the series featuring the detective agency "Private". As per the description on Amazon: "Two years ago, Jack Morgan was in Rio consulting on security for the World Cup. The tournament went without a hitch. Until a man died in one of the executive hospitality suites during the final, and the autopsy showed the cause to be a rare and deadly virus. The story was kept from the media to avoid causing panic, but Jack feared that the death was no freak occurrence. Now the eyes of the world are once again turned towards Rio for the Olympic Games, and Jack is back in Brazil’s beautiful capital. It’s not long before he uncovers terrifying evidence that someone has set in motion a catastrophic plan."

This is a quick read as is usual with these books but it is obvious that the bits of the book written about the football were done by an American as the terms used are not the usual, such as overtime, zero-zero etc. One or two bits of the plot are even more unbelievable than usual and this spoilt it somewhat.

Score: 6/10

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25)

Author: Wendy Walker

Title: All is not Forgotten

Comment: An experimental treatment is used to try and eradicate bad memories for an ex-solider suffering PTSD and a teenager who suffered a long drawn out rape and assault. The main character in the novel is the young girl and she was brutally attacked at a high school party after she ran into nearby woods. However the whole novel is narrated from the perspective of her psychiatrist and this in my opinion takes away from the impact of the story. The descriptions of the attack and the injuries suffered are fairly graphic and are mentioned several times. We get to see what the impact is on the teenager and her family and also on the people around them. Overall an OK read but it does move quite slowly.

Score: 7/10

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26)

Author: Alan Glynn

Title: Paradime

Comment: Danny Lynch was a chef working for a contractor in a US army base in Afghanistan when he saw something he shouldn't have and is now back in New York having been let go from the job. After some drifting around he gets a job in a restaurant after meeting a mysterious man outside his former employers office. He can see a corner of the restaruant dining room from his prep area in the kitchen and one evening he sees a man who looks exactly like him. Danny becomes a bit obsessed with the man, Teddy Trager, a billionaire who runs his own company and starts to shadow him. You have to suspend belief for a lot of this story but it was an interesting tale. It tries to make a bit of sense of it all near the end but it's still a bit out there. An OK read.

Score: 7/10

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27)

Authors: James Patterson & Robert Gold

Title: Hostage

Comment: Hmmm, I'm not sure on this new concept from Patterson, Bookshots, which seems to be a fairly transparent way to get even more money from people. If he is going to start churning these books out non-stop as well then his own novels are going to suffer in my opinion. The blurb from
Amazon for these books is: "BookShots are short, high-impact stories by James Patterson and other writers that can be read in one sitting. Each and every one is fast-paced, 100% story-driven; a shot of pure and satisfying entertainment. Available as compact paperbacks, ebooks and audio. "

These books just feel like his usual co-authored books with a lot of the filler removed and are just purely plot driven content. Even though I've often thought it would be good to get the filler removed from a book, it does help the pacing of the story. These books feel rushed and incomplete.

This one is about the opening a new grand hotel in London and a lot of VIP's are gathered for the event. However, one of the VIP's is murdered by a vicious killer and all of the VIP's are in danger. The hotels head of security, Jon Roscoe, has to try and catch the killer before anyone else
is killed. This is an ok read - 144 pages.

Score: 7/10

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28)

Authors: James Patterson & Rees Jones

Title: Private Royals

Comment: This is a bookshot based on an existing series set around the Private Agency. Jack Morgan is visiting the London branch of the agency and he receives a call that the daughter of the Duke of Aldershot, Abbie, has been kidnapped. Jack races to try and rescue her and gets caught up in more than he bargained for. Morgan seems to be a Bond-like figure in the books now and it doesn't really work. This is again a bit too fast paced and a lot seems to be left out. Really only for die-hard Patterson fans I fear.

Score: 5/10

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29)

Authors: James Patterson

Title: Cross Kill

Comment: I wanted to get a decent Cross book and this one half delivered. I'm not sure where this will fit into the overall Alex Cross series but it surely has to given some of what happens in this book. If Patterson choses to ignore the storyline here in his next book then it will make these short books a complete joke. Along Came a Spider killer Gary Soneji has been dead for over ten years. But Alex Cross has just seen his shooting at him and his partner Sampson. How is Soneji still alive?

This book ends on a cliffhanger and it better be dealt with in the next Cross novel.

Score: 7/10

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30)

Authors: James Patterson & Lee Stone

Title: Break Point

Comment: This is one of the weaker of the Bookshots I've read so far. Tennis superstar Kirsten Keller has match point in the final of the French Open but she suddenly runs off the court and doesn't return. She has been getting death threats and she hires a bodyguard who is an ex-police officer called Chris Foster to protect her at Wimbledon. As she progresses in the tournament the stalker gets closer and closer. Again the pace is fast in this book and it was just a bit odd how fast the two of them fall into bed. Surely a bodyguard would be a bit more professional than that.

Score: 6/10

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31)

Authors: James Patterson & Candice Fox

Title: Black & Blue

Comment: I liked this book and it looks to be setting up a new series for Patterson. The blurb in Amazon is: "A beautiful young woman is found murdered on a river bank, and Detective Harriet Blue is convinced she's the next victim of the worst serial killer Sydney has seen in decades. But the more Harriet learns, the more she realises this murder is not what she first thought. And her own life might be tangled up in the case."
Harriet is a likeable character in a way but we have to be given her whole identity and meaning in a fast pace and it detracts a bit from the story. There is a twist at the end of this book but I saw it coming right from the very start so it's that much of a surprise.

Score: 8/10

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32)

Authors: James Patterson & Max Dilallo

Title: Zoo 2

Comment: This was an OK read. The virus spread in the animal kingdom in the first novel, Zoo, is now being transferred to humans. Again the plot feels rushed here and parts seem skipped over. This finishes on a cliffhanger as well and I'm not sure if we will get any resolution in a further book.

Score: 7/10

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33)

Authors: N.J. Fountain

Title: Painkiller

Comment: Monica suffers from chronic pain and she is in constant agony. Due to all the medication she is taking her memory of everything since her accident is all a blur. One day she finds a suicide note, seemingly written in her handwriting, but she doesn't remember writing it. She starts asking her husband and friends about the past and uncovers secrets that she didn't know. This book is decent enough but took a while to get through

Score: 7/10

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34)

Authors: Laurence Rees

Title: Their Darkest Hour

Comment: From Amazon: "Award-winning documentary maker and historian Laurence Rees has spent nearly 20 years wrestling with these questions in the course of filming hundreds of interviews with people tested to the extreme during World War II. He has come face-to-face with rapists, mass murderers, even cannibals, but he has also met courageous individuals who are an inspiration to us all. In Their Darkest Hour he presents 35 of his most electrifying encounters."

This is an excellent book but for each story I was left wanting to know a lot more as we only get a cursory introduction to the person telling the story. For quite a few of them I would have liked to read a lot more on them. Some of the stories are quite hard to read and it's hard to imagine how these people did what they did.

Score: 8/10

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35)

Authors: James Patterson & Candice Fox

Title: Never Never

Comment: This is the follow up novel to the bookshot called "Black & Blue" featuring Detective Harriet Blue. After the events of the novella she is sent to a mine deep in the Western Australian desert, to investigate the disappearance of three people. She is given a new partner to work with who she doesn't trust fully. I enjoyed the read but the villian was fairly obvious from the start and the twist telegraphed.

Score: 7/10

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36)

Authors: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Chase

Comment: This is a bookshot from the Detective Michael Bennett series. I enjoyed this story about a man falling to his death from a hotel roof but it turns out that he has a false identity and it wasn't suicide. His fingerprints match a man who is already supposed to be dead. We don't see much (if anything) about the big Bennett family in this novella, it's all about the story. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

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37)

Authors: James Patterson & Max Dilallo

Title: 113 Minutes

Comment: Molly's 15 year old son died after taking some drugs in school and she is out for revenge. The family farm is also about to be taken by the bank so she comes up with a fairly elaborate scheme. I did enjoy reading this one and there are a couple of twists in there to keep it interesting.

Score: 7/10

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38)

Authors: James Patterson & James O. Born

Title: Let's Play Make Believe

Comment: This is one of the better bookshot books. Two divorced people meet up and gradually start to play "make-believe" games until things take a sinister turn. I have to say I didn't see the major twist coming in this book so it was a nice surprise. This one is well worth picking up.

Score: 8/10

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39)

Authors: Beck Weathers

Title: Left For Dead

Comment: I thought this book would be a lot better than what it was. The incident on Everest from 1996 (where 8 climbers died over two days) is dealt with in the first two chapters and then the rest of the book is a biography and family history of Weathers and what seems like a very drawn out apology to his family for being obsessed with climbing. There are definitely better books out there about the Everest disaster in 1996 such as "Into Thin Air".

Score: 6/10

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40)

Authors: Dee Brown

Title: The American West

Comment: In this book Brown explores the battles and dealings between three main groups in the American Wild West, the settlers, the native Indians and the cattle ranchers. This is a very good and easy read to get a decent introduction and high level view of what happened in the West of North America in the late 19th century. Quite a bit of the story could make people surprised at the carry on of the white settlers and what was effectively the attempted genocide of the native people on the plains of the West. This is an excellent read and could change some peoples understanding of how the Wild West was conquered only 120 years ago.

Score: 8/10

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41)

Authors: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Bullseye

Comment: This is the 9th in the Detective Michael Bennett series and it's a good addition. Most of this book is focussed on the plot and not so much on his family, in fact the only plot line involving his family seems just tacked on. Bennett receives intelligence that there is a plot to assassinate the US President in New York. It's a race against time to prevent it and everything seems to point at Russia being behind the plot. A fast moving story as usual and worth reading

Score: 8/10

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42)

Author: Shari Lapena

Title: The Couple Next Door

Comment: A couple go for a dinner party to their neighbours house and leave their 6 month old baby in the house on their own with just an audio baby monitor to mind them. They check every 30 minutes but when they go home at 1.30am the baby is missing. Even though it moves a bit slowly the plot still holds the attention. Some of the plot was a bit telegraphed but still well written

Score: 7/10