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Reading: November 9: I just finished four of the five books in the "Chet the Dog" series by Spencer Quinn:
- Dog On It - Spencer Quinn
- Thereby Hangs a Tail - Spencer Quinn
- To Fetch a Thief - Spencer Quinn
- The Dog Who Knew Too Much - Spencer Quinn
The books are told from the perspective, and in the voice, of Chet, who considers himself a partner of Bernie Little in the Little Detective Agency. I wasn't too excited about reading them when I first heard about them--I wasn't sure about reading a series told in a dog's voice, but when I started the first one, I loved it, and raced through the other three. They get a little repetitive when read back-to-back, so it might be better to let a little time pass between installments, but I found them really enjoyable, particularly the fourth one, The Dog Who Knew Too Much.
In this one, Chet and Bernie take on the case of a boy who has gone missing from a wilderness camp. Everyone--the boy's mother, his father, the camp ranger, the other boys, and even the sheriff--seem to know more than they're telling, and it's up to Chet and Bernie to figure out what's really going on.
I'm looking forward to reading "A Fistful of Collars" and hope that there are more installments of Chet's story.
September 2: I'm currently reading "Shelter," by Harlan Coben. It's his first young adult novel, and concerns Mickey Bolitar, the nephew of Myron Bolitar, Coben's usual protagonist. I'm only about a quarter of the way through it now, but I'm really enjoying it. I like Coben's writing quite a bit, and since the Myron Bolitar books deal mostly with sports figures (Bolitar is a former basketball player who is now a sports agent), that's saying a lot. I mean, I wouldn't normally choose to read a book dealing with sports in any way, but I've read all of his.
I just recently finished Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues, by Diana Rowland, the second in a series. The protagonist is, well, a white trash zombie. She's trying to turn her . . . "life" around. She's got a good job with the coroner's office, which gives her a paycheck and easy access to brains. Bonus!
July 24: I've been kind of at loose ends since finishing the Loon Lake books, but I've read a few.
- "Shoot to Thrill," a Monkeewrench book by P. J. Tracy (a mother-daughter writing team) that I discovered I had missed, so I read that in anticipation of a new one coming out in September, "Off the Grid." Monkeewrench is a software company whose members get involved in helping Minneapolis detectives solve crime.
- "Alpha," by Greg Rucka, a book about a Delta Force soldier who is hired as the security chief for a Disneyesque theme park called Wilsonville. The government know that something is going to happen, but they don't know what or when, so they're hedging their bets. Something does happen, of course--terrorists announce that they've planted a dirty bomb in the park, and the race is on.
- "Getaway," by Lisa Brackmann, a story of a recently-widowed woman who goes ahead and takes a Mexican vacation that she and her husband had planned before he died. It is set in Puerto Vallarta, which I loved, since I have vacationed there also. She kind of ambles along, not paying a lot of attention, and gets involved with a man who turns out to be something other than what he purports to be.
- "The Last Minute," by Jeff Abbott. This was a sequel to "Adrenaline." I didn't like this one as much as Adrenaline, but it was pretty good. In this one, Sam Capra is looking for the newborn son he has never seen. I didn't find it as suspenseful as the previous book, but I did enjoy it.
- "Chasing Magic," by Stacia Kane. This is the fifth in the "Downside Ghosts" series. I'm a definite fan of Stacia Kane, and I loved the previous four books, but I'm a little ambivalent about this one. It has to do with the relationship between Chess and Trouble, and I won't write about it here since it would be a spoiler, but some of the things that happened made me uneasy, and I didn't like it. However, I will definitely continue reading this series, and the book ended well, I just didn't like it as much as the others.
June 24: I discovered Victoria Houston's "Loon Lake" mystery series a week or so ago, and have been devouring them. I just finished the fourth one and started the fifth. Most of them are on sale for $1.99 in the Kindle version (update: I think the sale ends today, unfortunately), and I think the latest one is free right now.
The books are set in a small town in Wisconsin, and center around a female police chief and a retired, widowed dentist, their families and neighbors. Like the protagonist of most cozy mysteries, the doctor finds way more dead bodies than one would expect. The doctor and the police chief have a slow sometime-romance, and the doctor has a nutty, yet philosophical, neighbor.
They also do a lot of fishing. I know enough about fishing to recognize the terminology, even if I don't do it myself, and the area she describes sounds much like a lot of the fishing spots I've been to with Bob. Also, they're set in an area close to where he fishes in Minnesota once a year. I'm enjoying them a lot, but they're really making me want to live at the lake . . .
- Dead Angler
- Dead Creek
- Dead Water
- Dead Frenzy
- Dead Hot Mama
- Dead Jitterbug
- Dead Boogie
- Dead Madonna
- Dead Hot Shot
- Dead Renegade
- Dead Deceiver
- Dead Tease
May 27, 2012: Greyhound by Steffan Piper. I had noticed when this book came out, but never read it. It was the Kindle Daily Deal today, for $.99, so I got the sample, and before I even finished the sample, I went and bought it. It's a story about an eleven year old boy whose mother needs to get rid of him so she can keep her current boyfriend, so she puts him on a bus from California to Pennsylvania, where he is to live with his grandmother. The story is about his adventures on his cross-country bus trip. It's written in first-person in the boy's voice.
While the story sounds like it might be grim and depressing, it really isn't. Sebastien, the protagonist, is a resilient little guy, and he isn't a pushover. He meets a young Black ex-con on the first leg of his journey, and he (Marcus) becomes Sebastien's protector and friend. Sebastien grows up a lot on his journey, and it has a happy ending (something I always want, or at least hope for).
Listening:
May 28, 2012: I'm currently listening to "Sacrificial Magic," the latest in Stacia Kane's "Downside Ghosts" series. I read the book in Kindle format a month or so ago, and was waiting for it to come out in audio. This is the fourth book in the series. I think I got the first one as a free (or very cheap) Kindle book, but it took me awhile to read it. It didn't sound all that appealing--the series is set in the near future where the Church is the ruling government, having come into power through saving the world from a influx of ghosts. The protagonist, Chess, is a debunker, a "churchwitch." Her job is to investigate hauntings and determine whether they are real or not--if they are real, the church is responsible for making a payment to the citizens, since the church promises to protect the citizens from ghosts.
Chess is a drug addict, and that is the part that wasn't really appealing to me, but once I started reading the books, and found out her backstory (years of foster homes and abuse), the addictions seem to make more sense. She's a pretty flawed character, but you can't help but feel for her. The books are very well written, and I've loved all of them. The audio books are very well done, narrated by Bahni Turpin, who, like Johanna Parker and Sookie Stackhouse, has become Chess to me.
May 20, 2012: I'm currently listening to "Deadlocked," the latest of Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series, the series that became the "True Blood" television series. I just finished "Dead Until Dark," the first book in the series, while I was waiting for the new one to come out, and was reminded again how wonderful Johanna Parker's narration is. She is Sookie to me. And I'm reminded again how wonderful these books are, every one of them. If you enjoy audio books, and you're looking for an absolutely wonderful performance, start with Dead Until Dark and listen to them all. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
