Book 16 – Gideon’s Sword – Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Book 16 is the latest book from the writing team of Douglas Preston and Lee Child Gideon’s Sword.The book is the first book in a proposed series featuring Gideon Crew. I go back a long way with Preston and Child to the first book in the Pendergrast series Relic published in 1995! Unfortunately, I only read the first book and parts of the second Reliquary. That series is now up to book ten and I have several on my Mount to Be Read pile! Anyway rather than go back and catch up I thought I move forward with the new series! At twelve years old Gideon sees his father killed in a hostage stand-off involving his work for the government. On her death bed his mother his mother reveals that his father was a scapegoat concerning a failed project that left twenty six CIA agent s dead! Gideon sets out to clear his father’s name and does that rather quickly in the book. After revenging his father’s death Gideon returns to his favorite fishing hole and thinks he will just resume his normal life. Soon he is contacted by a subcontractor for the Department of Homeland security and offered an assignment to steal the plans for a new weapon from a Chinese scientist who is entering the country. This plunges Gideon into a whole new world, but he may have the talents for it because along the way the reader discovers that he is a master of disguises and a former Art Museum thief. The action is fast paced with several twists and turns. I enjoyed the read but in places found some events very implausible, but sometimes that in these types of books, so you just suspend belief and go along for the ride. The ride is pretty damn good so check it out! I enjoyed the character of Gideon Crew and along the way I learned a few things particularly about the Falun Gong and the Potter’s Field at Hart Island in Long Island Sound. So again check it out as for me I guess I need to go back and read some of those Pendergrast books! read more

Book 1 – 2011 – Crush – Alan Jacobson

WooHoo! Finally I finished the first book of 2011 – Alan Jacobson’s Crush. It was another book read on the Kindle. I am also reading on the Kindle The Devil We Knew by Robert Baer a book about Iran that we gave to Peter for Christmas, that is really good! Anyway back to Crush. The novel is set in the wine country of California and is the second book in the Karen Vail series. Karen Vail is a profiler who works tracking serial killers. The first book is The 7th Victim, which I saw at Barnes and Noble a while back and made a note on my phone about to look for at the library. But when I got the Kindle I checked out some of the books that I had made notes about and there it was it was for a good price but Crush was a better price FREE! So I’ve read the series out of order! read more

Books 43 and 44 – Davidson and Levine


So 2010 ends with 44 books read down the stretch I finished two books No 43 was “LEAP “What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives” by Sara Davidson. Conducting over 150 interviews from 2003 to 2006 Sara Davidson has crafted a book that explores what us boomers will be facing as we approach the later parts of our lives. From the dust cover ” she explores such questions as:

How does a high powered person learn to walk down the ladder gracefully?

How can women continue to bew sensual and not touch deprived? read more

Track of the Cat – Nevada Barr

WooHoo! So after a month plus of slugging through Michael Koryta’s So Cold the River and only getting half through it, although I was enjoying it, I just haven’t had the time to finish it! I did finish a shorter book Track the Cat by Nevada Barr is book 42 for the year. The book is the first Anna Pigeon novel. Anna is a national park ranger and here’s what it says about her on the back cover of the book:

“The fascinating hero of Nevada Barr’s award-winning series , park ranger Anna Pigeon has brought an unyielding love of nature and sense of fair play to the mystery game. Track of the Cat is the acclaimed  novel that first introduced readers to Anna, as a woman looking for peace in the wilderness – and finding mystery instead….. read more

Moonlight Mile – Dennis Lehane

In the world of Dennis Lehane‘s Kenzie and Gennero, 12 years have past since Patrick found Amanda McCready and returned her to unfit mother (see Gone Baby Gone). Patrick and Angie are now married and the proud parents of a four year four year old daughter. Patrick is hoping to get a full time job at a very affluent security company. One night he gets a call the caller says “You found her before, find her again”. The next morning Patrick runs into Amanda’s Aunt Beatrice who apologizes for the previous night’s late call and then tells Patrick that Amanda, now a straight A student at a Boston prep school and a chance to go to Harvard or Yale, has been missing for three weeks and no one cares! Soon Patrick is sucked back into the world he hoped he’d left behind including drugs and the Russian Mafia. But Patrick has to find Amanda to put the past behind him, the past that haunts him everyday because he did the legally right thing that was actually the wrong thing. Finding Amanda now could help to set things right! read more

Damaged – Alex Kava

Damaged – Alex Kava -(Maggie O’Dell # 8)

Damaged by Alex Kava – Damaged is the eighth Kava novel featuring FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell. It was a fast and interesting read. Like many of her novels Kava weaves few truths amidst the fiction. In this book Maggie is literally sent into the eye of a hurricane!.A sea chest of bodies parts has been rescued from the Gulf of Mexico and Maggie is sent to Pensacola Florida to investigate .

Meanwhile Dr. Benjamin Platt is called to Pensacola assist in discovering why young soldiers are dying after successful surgery to repair war injuries. Maggie met Platt, while being treated for exposure to the Ebloa virus in the book Exposed.. They now have a quasi-relationship. Added to all this is the threat of a Catagory 5 hurricane bearing down on Pensacola!! read more

Ice Cold – Tess Gerritsen


So I finished Book 37 for the year like I wrote early between naps and then staying up until 12:25! The book was Tess Gerritsen’s new novel Ice Cold. This is the eighth Rizzoli and Isles book and the first that appeared after the debut of the TV show that has been one of the biggest hits this summer! This book is a little different from some of the others in that there are no murders to solve, or serial killers to chase and it focuses on Maura. The novel opens with Maura attending a pathologist conference in Wyoming where she meets a colleague who went to college with and lusted for Maura from afar. Soon Maura is impulsively (not at all like her) on her way with the doctor and his friends and daughter. An accident on a mountain road leads them to a cult village Kingdom Come, where they find shelter and also find that all of the residents have vanished! Soon events transpire that will test Maura’s mettle and change her life forever! What happened to the residents and soon it becomes why are people trying to kill me!! read more

True Evil – Greg Iles

Greg Iles is one of those authors that when I read one of his books I have one of those “What was I thinking?” moments for not reading his books as soon as they come out!! (Can you say too many books, too little time!) Anyway True Evil has been sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read for a long while and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it and at 637 pages it should count as two books! But like all of Iles’ books those pages just flew by!

In this book FBI agent Alexandra (Alex) Morse is called to her home of Mississippi when her sister Grace is struck down by brain hemorrhage. On her death bed she tells Alex that she was murdered by her husband and asks Alex to save her son from his father. Soon Alex, who is having one of those when it goes bad it goes bad all at the same time periods as her father was killed in a robbery attempt gone bad (Dad the ex-cop and now PI), her mother’s dying of ovarian cancer, and she has been demoted at the FBI from her position as a top hostage negotiator when a hostage situation went bad leaving her face scared and a fellow FBI agent dead, sets out to find out how her brother-in-law killed her.She soon finds that Bill Fennel had visited a divorce attorney in Jackson, who seems to be providing a service whereby clients seeking a divorce are saved losing their money, or children by having their spouses mysterious die of cancer! Alex enlists the aid of Dr. Chris Sheppard whose wife Thora has visited the same attorney and Alex is convinced Sheppard is the next victim! read more

Vermilion Drift – William Kent Krueger

It’s been a busy day at the College of William and Mary a nice luncheon on the grounds near the Wren Building and the President’s House and then a rout of Villanova that turned into a nail biter that ended ok as W&M won 31-24! So there was not a lot of time for music, but I did finish Book 35 last night William Kent Krueger’s latest Vermilion Drift. This is one of my favorite series. The books all ways have much more than just a mystery in them as Krueger explores the complexities of life through Cork O’Connor. The story opens with Cork being hired by Max Cavanaugh the owner of  Vermilion One a mine that the government is considering as a nuclear waste deposit site, hiring Cork to find his missing sister Lauren. Cork has also been called in by the mine officials to investigate  threats against the owners of the mine. Soon forty year old bodies are found in the Vermilion Drift (horizontal mine shafts)and they lead back to The Vanishings that occurred on the reservation forty years ago and the solution to the murders leads Cork to explore his past! read more

Virgin Heat – Lawrence Shames

ok so I picked out some new names and listened to a couple of tracks from several albums but never got to listen that much to any of them. A slow connecting computer coupled with a good Phillies game and finishing Book 34 Virgin Heat kept me busy tonight! The artist that I started to listen to included: Mark Scott LaMountain and the Blue Thunder Band and their album Guitars, Gun and Southern Women, J.J Grey and Mofro’s album Georgia Warhorse, Jay Gaunt a blues harp player whose new album is on the Roots Music Blues Chart but Rhapsody only has some earlier albums and the one I was ready to listen to was Blown Away. The last thing that I previewed today was Charlie Musselwhite’s new album The Well which sounded pretty good. So I will listen to these albums tomorrow and we’ll celebrate Blues Wednesday on Thursday! read more