So, let's see. I've completed 2 books in November thus far. I'll provide my reviews and also the synopses of those I've started since. I'll also update on any new books I've added to my bookshelves. I'm going to try and be good until the end of the year, not buying any more books unless as gifts. We'll see if that promise lasts. LOL.
Just Finished
"Boy's Life by Robert McCammon ranks up there with books by other authors; To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. All great coming of age books that draw you in, tug at your heart, leave you emotionally drained.
This is the story of Cory Mackenson, a young boy growing up in Zephyr, Alabama. It's basically a year in the life, commencing when he and his father (a milk delivery man) see a car drive into Saxon Lake. Jake's dad jumps into the 'bottomless' lake to try and save the driver and discovers that the man is not only dead but handcuffed to the steering wheel and had been beaten up.
This incident with haunt both Cory and his father throughout the book. Cory will try to discover who murdered the man. His father will be haunted by dreams of the man. We follow Cory and his friends, Johnny, Ben, and Davy Ray as they go to school, get involved in boyhood adventures and deal with many traumas.
It's a fascinating, rich, tense, excellent story. McCammon draws you into Cory's life and grabs your heart strings and also keeps it pumping when things get tense. There are normal events that many of us experience growing up, but it is also a very gritty story, with violence and ratcheted tension that will strain Cory, his friends and his family. Lovely characters make the story even richer, with my personal favorite being The Lady. There is too much going on to get into any real detail. Just know that you will fall into the life of Cory and be somewhat bereft when the story ends. But still glad that you got to experience it. (5.0 stars)"
"Many years ago, I read and enjoyed the first five books in Jack L. Chalker's Well World series. The Well World (Hex World) is such a fascinating place. If you enter from the outside, your physiology is transformed depending on what hex you land in. I loved the imagination of the series and the adventures. Later on, Watchers at the Well trilogy. I don't remember enjoying it as much but it's probably because it had been a number of years since I'd enjoyed the first books. The Watcher books involved those that actually created the Well World(s). Recently I discovered that Chalker wrote two final books in the Well World series, so I decided to finish the series off. The Sea is Full of Stars is the sixth and penultimate book in the series.
It does take about half the book to finally get to Well World. We start on a space voyage where a small group of people meet Jeremiah Wong Kincaid, a man hunting down a planetary mass murderer responsible for the murders of his family. The others get drawn into the hunt. The ship is taken over and Ming, Ari and Angel are kidnapped and find themselves on another planet where Ming and Angel become playthings for Ari's uncle, not a nice guy. The computer system on the planet incorporates itself into their very beings... At the halfway point roughly, the planet is invaded by interplanetary police forces and the group find themselves transported to the Well World, each with their own new bodies. This group is drawn into the schemes of Josich who wants to take over the Well World, destroying the peoples of the various hexes in the process.
It's a slow developing story and I found myself at times wanting to get to the Well World. But the initial character and story development is important as it sets up, I imagine, the finale of the 7th books. The action gets hot and heavy over the past quarter of the book as the endangered races of the Well World, especially the Ochoans, prepare for battle and maybe defeat by Josich's troops.
It was nice to get back to this series. The characters are definitely unique, and the situations are well-crafted. I think it's worth being patient to see how everything is developed and worth waiting for everything to come out in the wash. Of course, now I do have to finish the final book and see if that ending will happily resolve itself. I'm looking forward to it with some trepidation. (3.5 stars)"
(An aside - I have to say that spell check does like to throw a comma in when I don't use them. I bow to its better knowledge of English grammar. 😜)
Currently Reading
"Cult classics in the UK since their first publication there in the 1970s, Kyril Bonfiglioli's wickedly fun mysteries featuring the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai—degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and general knave-about-Picadilly—are favorites of Stephen Fry and Julian Barnes, among others. Charlie's back in After You with the Pistol, along with his new bride, Joanna, and his thuggish manservant, Jock. He’s also still drinking too much whiskey—and anything else he can get his hands on—which makes it all the more difficult to figure out what the beautiful and fabulously wealthy Joanna is up to when she tries to convince Charlie to kill the Queen. Suffice it to say, Joanna is not quite what she seems. Don't miss this brilliant mixture of comedy, crime, and suspense."
"Jana Matinova entered the Czechoslovak police force as a young woman, married an actor, and became a mother. The regime destroyed her husband, their love for one another, and her daughter’s respect for her. But she has never stopped being a seeker of justice.
Now, as a commander in the Slovak police force, she liaises with colleagues across Europe as they track the mastermind of an international criminal operation involved in, among other crimes, human trafficking. Her investigation takes her from Ukraine to Strasbourg, from Vienna to Nice, in a hunt for a ruthless killer and the beautiful young Russian woman he is determined either to capture or destroy."
Four men and a woman...The Most Dangerous Group in the World the Cabal!
These aliases can be found in Interpol TCID Criminal-records, but the Cabal are outside the law-they make their own laws. They are brilliant lethal, feared-and virtually indestructible.
Pinball is on the run from the doffers, hiding out in a derelict area of Soho with the rest of the Cabal unable to contact him. Solitude and depression lead him to the final act of self-destruction but through the curtains comes the vision of Woo...
Answering her call, pinball jumps time and space to discover sanctuary with one fatal drawback-a virulent cancer to which even a member of THE CABAL is not immune."
Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So, he told them about Chocky—the person who lived in his head."
Ottoline lives in a stylish apartment in Big City with a small hairy creature called Mr. Munroe. Together they look after the Brown family's eclectic collections - and dabble in a spot of detective work. So, they are the first to the scene of the crime when a string of high society dognapping's and jewel thefts hits Big City. Ottoline (who luckily has a diploma from the Who-R-U Academy of Disguise) and Mr Munroe go undercover - and expose an ingenious scam masterminded by furry feline crook, the Yellow Cat."
Max and Leon are re-united and looking forward to a peaceful lifetime together. But, sadly, they don’t even make it to lunchtime.
The action races from 17th century London to Ancient Egypt and from Pompeii to 14th century Southwark as they’re pursued up and down the timeline, playing a perilous game of hide and seek until they’re finally forced to take refuge at St Mary’s – where new dangers await them.
As usual, there are plenty of moments of humour, but the final, desperate, Battle of St Mary’s is in grim earnest. Overwhelmed and outnumbered and with the building crashing down around them, how can St Mary’s possibly survive?
So, make sure the tea’s good and strong…"
Beatrice Baynes was the sort of interfering, overbearing, hateful woman a lot of people wished dead. The goddaughter she tormented wished it. The nephew she could disinherit too easily wished it. The young teacher she had disgraced wished it. A host of old Meldon School classmates wished it. But since wishing couldn't make it so, someone picked up a blunt instrument and bashed her head in."
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| Laurie R. King |
When Russell learns of Holmes’s own secret friendship with Kim some thirty years before, she knows the die is cast: she will accompany her husband to India to search for the missing operative. But even before they arrive, danger will show its face in everything from a suspicious passenger on board their steamer to an “accident” that very nearly claims their lives. Once in India, Russell and Holmes must travel incognito—no small task for the English lady and her lanky companion. But after a twist of fate forces the couple to part ways, Russell learns that in this faraway place it’s often impossible to tell friend from foe—and that some games must be played out until their deadly end."
"Gentlemen, we are at your service." Thus, Holmes greets the two travel-grimed Arab figures who receive them in the orange groves fringing the Holy Land. Whatever role could the volatile Ali and the taciturn Mahmoud play in Mycroft's design for this land the British so recently wrested from the Turks? After passing a series of tests, Holmes and Russell learn their guides are engaged in a mission for His Majesty's Government and disguise themselves as Bedouins--Russell as the beardless youth "Amir"--to join them in a stealthy reconnaissance through the dusty countryside.
A recent rash of murders seems unrelated to the growing tensions between Jew, Moslem, and Christian, yet Holmes is adamant that he must reconstruct the most recent one in the desert gully where it occurred. His singular findings will lead him and Russell through labyrinthine bazaars, verminous inns, cliff-hung monasteries--and into mortal danger. When her mentor's inquiries jeopardize his life, Russell fearlessly wields a pistol and even assays the arts of seduction to save him. Bruised and bloodied, the pair ascend to the jewellike city of Jerusalem, where they will at last meet their adversary, whose lust for savagery and power could reduce the city's most ancient and sacred place to rubble and ignite this tinderbox of a land...."
As the company starts rehearsals in Lisbon, the thirteen blond-haired, blue-eyed actresses whom Mary is chaperoning meet the swarm of real buccaneers Fflytte has recruited to provide authenticity. But when the crew embarks for Morocco and the actual filming, Russell senses ominous currents of trouble: a derelict boat, a film crew with many secrets, decks awash with budding romance—and now the pirates are ignoring Fflytte and answering only to their outlaw leader. Where can Sherlock Holmes be? As movie make-believe becomes true terror, Russell and Holmes themselves may experience a final fadeout."
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