Category Archives: books

devil in a blue dress

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Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins #1) by Walter Mosley

From Goodreads :

In Los Angeles of the late 1940s, Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran, has just been fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend’s bar, wondering how he’ll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

My Rating: ⭐⭐

I really struggled to get into this book. The storyline didn’t make any sense, the characters were superficial and hard to relate to and it jumped from scene to scene without much coherence. The author and the character get high praise from readers and reviewers so I’ll give leeway for a first book and probably try the next instalment rather than just giving up.

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northern lights

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Northern Lights (US: The Golden Compass) (His Dark Materials #1) by Philip Pullman

From Goodreads:

Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.

Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want–but what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This is very much a teen/young adult book and I didn’t expect to give it much of a rating seeing as I’m a long way away from the target audience. The characters and storylines are quite simplistic in how they jump around with little development in between scenes but at the same time they are complex enough to challenge a younger reader.

I found the closeness to reality with the society, locations and technology almost like ours but subtly different, a bit jarring. I couldn’t get comfortable with it. In addition the concepts of daemons and sentient polar bears was just way off for me. With both being central to the story I found them both a constant niggle.

Some of the characters were very interesting though. I particularly liked the gyptians (even if the clan style society was a little over simplified) and the society of scholars that raised Lyra in Oxford. Lord Asriel was a complex and dark character that I wouldn’t expect to see in a book for such a young audience.

SPOILER: the plotline of removing the daemons from the children in order to harness the released energy was very original though and really saved this book for me as well as the concept of crossing into the parallel universe to change the current one. I think I’ll probably give the second book a go just to see what happens next.

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the gold coast

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The Gold Coast (John Sutter #1) by Nelson DeMille

From Goodreads:

Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world.

Told from Sutter’s sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille’s captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Yet another re-read for me. Despite this being far away from my normal genres I really enjoyed this story. It’s all down to the quality of the writing and the character creation, especially the two male characters of John Sutter and Frank Bellarosa.

Apparently the author grew up close to the setting of the book and that is very obvious from the detail he provides of the geography, history and cultural background of the area. Combine this with the excellent (if slightly self-destructive) main character of John Sutter and you have a cracker of a story.

Why not 5 stars then? I found the relationship between John and Susan to be very weird. I just couldn’t see what had brought them together or kept them together. Maybe though their particular relationship was required for the rest of the story. The main reason for dropping a star was the irritating constant of being half-told something and then informed that you’ll get the full story later. This happened a number of times in the first half of the book.

It’s quite a long book taking me at least a week to complete (I’m a speedy reader) but the story and characters are more than strong enough to keep the interest strong. There’s no happy ending but it’s a very good ending.

Spoiler: I really loved the scene where John told his father in law:

“You are an unprincipled asshole, an utterly cynical bastard, a monumental prick, and a conniving fuck.”

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grave peril

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Grave Peril (Harry Dresden #3) by Jim Butcher

From Goodreads:

Harry Dresden – Wizard
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden has faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you’re the only professional wizard in the Chicago-area phone book.

But in all Harry’s years of supernatural sleuthing, he’s never faced anything like this: The spirit world has gone postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble – and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone – or something – is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc. But why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn’t figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself….

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The previous books were very much detective stories with a little bit of a fantasy twist. This one is very much a fantasy/horror with a mystery twist. It’s pretty full on with demons, faeries, vampires and magic. I did find it very enjoyable though. I particularly like the way the author treats magic and the magical world with a certain level of contempt. There’s no perception of magic as something wondrous or other worldly, it’s just mundane, slightly above ordinary and something that’s likely to go wrong.

I really enjoyed the depiction of the vampires and especially the various “courts” and how they use different techniques to subdue and consume their victims.

Where I have a problem with this book is the character Michael and the events that brought Harry and him together. There’s a whole back story here that’s missing. I have checked at least 3 times to see if I skipped a book by accident. There is so much missing here and so much that is assumed the reader knows that it makes the story difficult to follow and creates a sense of uncertainty. It knocked at least one star off my rating.

Overall it’s a really good book, I’d just like to have been given a chance to read how Harry and Michael met and came to be working together.

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tokyo

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Tokyo by Mo Hayder

From Goodreads:

Student Grey Hutchins has come to Tokyo because of an obsession. Vulnerable and on the edge, she is searching for a fragment of film supposedly taken during the notorious Nanking Massacre in 1937 when the Japanese murdered 300,000 civilians. Some say the film doesn’t exist.

The only man who can help is a survivor of the Massacre. Immersed in his books and wary of strangers, this man will at first have nothing to do with Grey. Increasingly desperate, she accepts a hostess job at an exclusive nightspot catering for businessmen and gangsters, and it is here she comes to the attention of one particular man.

Ancient, wheel-chair bound and guarded by a terrifying nurse, it is rumoured he relies on a strange elixir for his continued well-being – an elixir others want, at any price …

With its heady atmosphere of overt violence, lurking fear and sexual tension, TOKYO grabs the reader and refuses to let go until its shattering final pages.

My Rating: ⭐

It’s a long time since I gave up on a book without finishing but this was just dire! I really wanted to enjoy it having read so many of the author’s other books but I couldn’t get into this at all. The characters were very unbelievable and I couldn’t relate to them at all, the storyline was disjointed and rambling. What could have been a very interesting and thought provoking story became banal and irritating. I may try another of her standalone books but I won’t ever return to this one.

a small weeping

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A Small Weeping (DCI Lorimer #2) by Alex Grey

From Goodreads:

When a murdered prostitute is found in a Glasgow train station, DCI Lorimer is perplexed by the ritualistic arrangement of her body. It isn’t long before there is another murder and he realises there’s no time to waste if he is to stop Glasgow’s latest serial killer.


A taut, suspense-filled thriller, A Small Weeping takes the reader on a gripping journey from the inner city to the wilds of the Scottish Isles, and far into the darkest depths of human nature.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Much better than the first book by this author but still has a long way to go to live up to the prolific glowing critiques of how good this author is. The storyline is pretty predictable although I did like the introduction of Phyllis and the background of the clinic, that was very original.

I think I will stick with her as the story does show promise. I do hope Lorimer’s marriage doesn’t become a distraction though, it’s a bit odd how it’s being dealt with.

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the way of shadows

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The Way of Shadows (Night Angel #1) by Brent Weeks

From Goodreads:

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city’s most accomplished artist.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly – and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics – and cultivate a flair for death.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This is the author’s debut novel and it feels like one. The characters and storylines are good but they just don’t have the flow and polish of an experienced author. However, it is definitely worth a read and shows promise for more to come.

The genre is fantasy but it’s definitely modern fantasy. There’s a real dark edge with poverty, hardship and abuse and not much of it softened. We also join the story in a lull between conflicts between Cenaria (the country the story is set in) and its stronger and bloodthirsty neighbours. Not much background is given up front so you are finding stuff out as you go along. This very much reminded me of Stella Gemmell’s The City and Stephen Erikson’s series Malazan Book of the Fallen.

The author has received a number of awards for this and a second series so looking forward to seeing how his talent develops and how the rest of the story progresses.

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the black echo

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The Black Echo (Harry Bosch #1) by Michael Connelly

From Goodreads:

For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal…because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam “tunnel rat” who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him.

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Yet another series of books that I’ve decided to read a second time. I’ve recently finished watching the TV series and it has given me the appetite to go back and enjoy the original character and stories. The TV show is very good but the books are fantastic. However, there’s now an added dimension to the books, the character I had imagined in my head has now been replaced by the onscreen actor. Thankfully it fits.

Harry Bosch is a great character. His drive to do the right thing makes for great reading. He’s not afraid to do what needs done and that includes putting himself in the firing line. The stories are pretty grim, there’s a definite dark side and not much happy stuff. However, it’s gritty and realistic rather than depressing.

With the books now being quite old (this one was published in 1992) I really enjoy the much less technological setting and the need for so much grind in the investigation process. There’s no Google, no GPS/mobile phone tracking and forensics is much more basic. Catching the killer involves traditional police work and it’s a great read.

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wit’ch fire

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Wit’ch Fire (The Banned and The Banished #1) by James Clemens

From Goodreads:

From a brilliant new voice in fantasy comes a band of heroes, a world in peril, and an unforgettable heroine whose unexpected gift of magic awakens an ancient, slumbering evil.

On a fateful night five centuries ago, three made a desperate last stand, sacrificing everything to preserve the only hope of goodness in the beautiful, doomed land of Alasea. Now, on the anniversary of that ominous night, a girl-child ripens into the heritage of lost power. But before she can even comprehend her terrible new gift, the Dark Lord dispatches his winged monsters to capture her and bring him the embryonic magic she embodies.

Fleeing the minions of darkness, Elena is swept toward certain doom-and into the company of unexpected allies. Aided by a one-armed warrior and a strange seer, she forms a band of the hunted and the cursed, the outcasts and the outlaws, to battle the unstoppable forces of evil and rescue a once-glorious empire…

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Yet another series that I read a long time ago and have decided to revisit. I was a bit wary of doing so as although I remember the series and even the covers, I couldn’t remember anything about the story or characters. My misgivings were definitely misplaced and once I was a couple of chapters in it started to ring familiar bells and I was really enjoying it.

The quality of writing is really very good. The characters are diverse but very manageable and very well introduced. This first book is all about bringing the band of characters together, showing us their individual stories and setting them up for the main story which is also partly introduced.

This book kind of reminded me of the Dragonlance stories with its mixture of human and non-human characters and with magic at its core. However, while I found Dragonlance quite simplistic and dated this story is much more complex and definitely fits with modern fantasy writing.

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a minute to midnight

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A Minute to Midnight (Attlee Pine #) by David Baldacci

From Goodreads:

FBI Agent Atlee Pine returns to her Georgia hometown to reopen the investigation of her twin sister’s abduction, only to encounter a serial killer beginning a reign of terror, in this page-turning thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci.

FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s life was never the same after her twin sister Mercy was kidnapped–and likely killed–thirty years ago. After a lifetime of torturous uncertainty, Atlee’s unresolved anger finally gets the better of her on the job, and she finds she has to deal with the demons of her past if she wants to remain with the FBI.

Atlee and her assistant Carol Blum head back to Atlee’s rural hometown in Georgia to see what they can uncover about the traumatic night Mercy was taken and Pine was almost killed. But soon after Atlee begins her investigation, a local woman is found ritualistically murdered, her face covered with a wedding veil–and the first killing is quickly followed by a second bizarre murder.

Atlee is determined to continue her search for answers, but now she must also set her sights on finding a potential serial killer before another victim is claimed. But in a small town full of secrets–some of which could answer the questions that have plagued Atlee her entire life–digging deeper into the past could be more dangerous than she realizes . . .

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Having read a few very detailed and involved books recently I needed something a lot easier to read and this fit the bill nicely. Baldacci is pretty much in auto mode with this series. The writing is good, but not great and many of the structures and characters are very familiar to anyone that reads this genre on a regular basis.

I do like to see a strong female character as the lead, in fact there are a number of strong female characters in this one. I’m also glad to see no evidence of man bashing that often accompanies this kind of character. Mrs Blum’s character also felt better this time. In the first story her two personas were just jarring and too disconnected to be believable. This depiction suits her much better.

Overall an easy to read story, with a few little twists and some interesting detail on Atlee’s back story. I definitely like how he’s developing this as we progress through the books. If you can deal with the Scooby Doo style ending then you should enjoy it too.

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