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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