Sunday 27 October 2019

A Whole Heap of New Books - Part 2

As I watch the Formula 1 race in Mexico, I'll finish my post from yesterday. Below are the remaining books I purchased this past week.

Just Purchased

1. Borderline by Nevada Barr (Anna Pigeon #15). This has been one of my favorite mystery series and I'm slowly winding down with it.

"To list their spirits, Anna Pigeon and her husband head to Texas for a rafting trip on the Rio Grande. The power of the river works its magic- until the raft is lost in the rapids and someone makes the grisly discovery of a pregnant woman caught between two boulders. Soon Anna will learn that nature isn't the only one who wanted to see the woman and her baby dead."

2. Fire Ice by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos (NUMA Files #3). This is one of the Cussler series I've yet to try. I've enjoyed his Dirk Pitt books and also the Isaac Bell series.










"In the heart of the old Soviet Union, a mining tycoon is determined to overthrow the Russian government-distracting the U.S. with a man-made natural disaster using a notoriously unstable compound known as "fire ice." Detonation of this compound could create a tidal wave big enough to destroy a major city. But Kurt Austin and his Special Assignment Team are about to make a few waves of their own..."

3. The Lost Island by Preston & Child (Gideon Crew #3). I've tried Preston & Child's other series. Looking forward to trying this one as well.











"Gideon Crew--brilliant scientist, master thief--is living on borrowed time. When his mysterious employer, Eli Glinn, gives him an eyebrow-raising mission, he has no reason to refuse. Gideon's task: steal a page from the priceless Book of Kells, now on display in New York City and protected by unbreakable security.

Accomplishing the impossible, Gideon steals the parchment--only to learn that hidden beneath the gorgeously illuminated image is a treasure map dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks. As they ponder the strange map, they realize that the treasure it leads to is no ordinary fortune. It is something far more precious: an amazing discovery that could perhaps even save Gideon's life.

Together with his new partner, Amy, Gideon follows a trail of cryptic clues to an unknown island in a remote corner of the Caribbean Sea. There, off the hostile and desolate Mosquito Coast, the pair realize the extraordinary treasure they are hunting conceals an even greater shock-a revelation so profound that it may benefit the entire human race . . . if Gideon and Amy can survive.
"


4. The Japanese Corpse by Janwillem van de Wetering (Amsterdam Cops #5). I've read two books by van de Wetering and like his unique style.

"A beautiful waitress at Amsterdam’s most elegant Japanese restaurant reports that her boyfriend, a Japanese art dealer, is missing. The police search throughout the Netherlands and finally locate a corpse. But to find the killer, the commissaris and de Gier must travel to Japan and match wits with a yakuza chieftain in his lair."

5. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Stephenson is a new SciFi author for me. I've a couple of his books awaiting my perusal. 










"Only once in a great while does a writer come along who defies comparison -- a writer so original he redefines the way we look at the world. Neal Stephenson is such a writer and Snow Crash is such a novel, weaving virtual reality, Sumerian myth, and just about everything in between with a cool, hip cyber-sensibility to bring us the gigantic thriller of the information age. In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra Inc., but in the Metaverse he's a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous... you'll recognize it immediately."

6. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith (Precious Ramotswe #8). Back a few years ago I read the first few books in this series one after an other. For one reason or another, I shifted to other books and series. It'll be nice to revisit this wonderful series. 

"As winter turns to spring across Botswana's red earth and slow green rivers, all is not well on Zebra Drive. Mma Ramotswe has plenty of work, ranging from thefts at the printing works to suspicious deaths at the Mochudi hospital. Meanwhile Mma Makutsi's forthcoming marriage appears to threaten a happy working relationship. But when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni - trying to prove himself as a worthy husband - has to go at a little detective work, disaster looms..."

7. Vicious Circle by Mike Carey (Felix Castor #2). This is a new series for me. I think it's somewhat like the Dresden files books.











"Felix Castor has reluctantly returned to exorcism after a successful case convinces him that he really can do some good with his abilities---"good," of course, being a relative term when dealing with the undead. His friend Rafi is still possessed, the succubus Ajulutsikael (Juliet to her friends) still technically has a contract on him, and he's still dirt poor.

Doing some consulting for the local cops helps pay the bills, but Castor needs a big private job to really fill the hole in his bank account. That's what he needs. What he gets is a seemingly insignificant "missing ghost" case that inexorably drags him and his loved ones into the middle of a horrific plot to raise one of hell's fiercest demons.


When satanists, stolen spirits, sacrifice farms, and haunted churches all appear on the same police report, the name Felix Castor can't be too far behind..."


8. Dead Men's Boots by Mike Carey (Felix Castor #3).

"You might think that helping a friend's widow to stop a lawyer from stealing her husband's corpse would be the strangest thing on your To Do list. But life is rarely that simple for Felix Castor.

A brutal murder in King's Cross bears all the hallmarks of a long-dead American serial killer, and it takes more good sense than Castor possesses not to get involved. He's also fighting a legal battle over the body - if not the soul - of his possessed friend, Rafi, and can't shake the feeling that his three problems might be related.

With the help of the succubus Juliet and paranoid zombie data-fence Nicky Heath, Castor just might have a chance of fitting the pieces together before someone drops him down a lift shaft or rips his throat out."


9. Blue City by Ross Macdonald. I have enjoyed Macdonald's Lew Archer books. I'm looking forward to trying this one.











"He was a son who hadn’t known his father very well.  It was a town shaken by a grisly murder—his father’s murder.  Johnny Weatherly was home from a war and wandering.  When he found out that his father had been assassinated on a street corner and that his father’s seductive young wife had inherited a fortune, he started knocking on doors.  The doors came open, and Johnny stepped into a world of gamblers, whores, drug-dealers, and blackmailers, a place in which his father had once moved freely.  Now Johnny Weatherly was going to solve this murder—by pitting his rage, his courage, and his lost illusions against the brutal underworld that has overtaken his hometown."

10. The Burning by M.R. Hall (Jenny Cooper #6). I first heard of this series when I watched the Canadian version based on Hall's books. It was excellent. I hope the books are as well.

"In the depths of a frozen winter, Coroner Jenny Cooper is called to the scene of a devastating house fire that has claimed the lives of Ed Morgan and his two step-daughters in the isolated hamlet of Blackstone Ley.

The police look no further when they discover the message Ed left for his wife, Kelly, telling her that he set the fire as revenge for her infidelity and that she will never find their infant son.

As Jenny digs into Blackstone Ley’s murky past, she uncovers a history that begs more and questions. What provoked Ed’s murderous rage? How might the other, guarded inhabitants of the village have been involved? And what connects the fire with the unsolved disappearance of a four-year-old girl nearly ten years ago?

Finding herself ranged against forces far darker than she could ever have imagined, can Jenny unearth Blackstone Ley’s secrets before more lives are claimed?"


11. Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley. I've read a few of Findley's books. He's got an interesting style.











"Not Wanted on the Voyage is the story of the great flood and the first time the world ended, filed with an extraordinary cast of remarkable characters. With pathos and pageantry, desperation and hope, magic and mythology, this acclaimed novel weaves its unforgettable spell." 

12. The Godfather of Kathmandu by John Burdette ( Sonchai #4). I've read the first two books in this police series set in Thailand and have enjoyed them very much.










"John Burdett's famed Royal Thai detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep is put to the test both as a Buddhist and as a cop as he confronts the most shocking crime of his career.

A rich American film director has been murdered. It is an intriguing case, and solving it could lead to a promotion for Sonchai, but, as always, he is far more concerned with the state of his karma than he is with his status in the earthly realm. To complicate matters his boss, Colonel Vikorn, has decided to make Sonchai his consigliere in a heroin smuggling operation. Sonchai travels to Kathmandu to meet Vikorn's connection Tietsin, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and falls under the sway of this dark and charismatic guru."


So there you go, book purchases all caught up. In my next post I will get back to reviewing books I've completed and in a few days will do my monthly reading update. Have a great week and enjoy the last week of October. Happy Hallowe'en.

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