The Innocent by Harlan Coben

The Innocent by Harland Coben
Thriller

Matt Hunter tried breaking up a fight as a college student and unintentionally ended up killing another kid. He does his time in jail but comes a changed man. Eventually he finds himself a girlfriend and marries her. They purchase a home in Matt's old neighbourhood and his wife, Olivia, becomes pregnant. Everything seems to be going well. That's until Olivia leaves for a business trip and Matt gets a picture and video from her phone with a strange man in it. Matt investigates and wonders if his wife is cheating on him but it ends up being much more than that. There are multiple murders, a stripper connection, and many law enforcement/FBI become involved.

This book started off as quite a thriller however once the first twist came, which was about half way through, I felt that the book lost some steam. I'm not sure why but I think I would have enjoyed the book more if Coben had held off on the large plot twist for a bit longer. The remaining plot twists were pretty insignificant following that so I didn't care as much about them as the first one.

First Line: "You never meant to kill him."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Living Dead in Dallas

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Paranormal


Sookie Stackhouse is a telepathic cocktail waitress in small town Louisiana.  Her boyfriend, Bill is a vampire.  Sookie is in love but has a fight with Bill and leaves in a snit to wander in the woods and encounters a maenad.  To save Sookie, Bill takes her to the head of the vampires in the area, Eric and it takes several of them to give her their blood in order to survive.

Eric then loans her out to the vampires in Dallas who need to find one of their own who is lost.  This leads to the Fellowship of the Sun which is a fanatic Christian-based vampire hate group.  Hate, murder, werewolves, pain, injury and all sorts of nasty things happen as Sookie follows the leads to find the missing vampire.

A sub-plot is the murder of the cook of the bar where Sookie works.  The two stories seem totally unconnected and it feels a bit like it was a filler to round the book out.

My comments about Bill:  what a sleaze.  He is cold but he is however a vampire.  Eric is also a vamp but he seems so hot.  Bill seems to want sex whenever Sookie is hurting.  Lots of compassion there.  NOT!  Bill is definitely not one of my fav characters.

I felt this book was better than the first in the series.
Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Brass Verdict

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly
Mystery
L.A. lawyer Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch have teamed up in this book. 

Jerry Vincent, a somewhat friend of Haller is murdered and Haller inherits all of his cases.  Haller has just returned from rehab.  He was injured in The Lincoln Lawyer and became addicted to pain meds.  One of his cases is the high profile double murder of Walter Elliot's wife and her lover.  Bosch is the cop whose investigates Vincent's murder.  Is Vincent's murder connected with Elliot's case?

Haller and Bosch seem at odds and do not trust each other.  They are however wanting the same results.  Connelly has written a clever mystery where the reader sees the case from the court and police view.   Of course Haller's conscience kicks in and he wants to give Bosch some answers that as a lawyer he can't give.

This is a great mystery with not only good twists and turns but also fantastic character development.  I sure hope this is not the last I read of Haller.


Rating:
(4.0/5)

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst
Fiction/Literature

Paul Iverson calls home one afternoon from work and a police officer picks up his phone. He hurries home to find that his wife has fallen out of the apple tree and died. The only witness is their dog, Lorelei. Did Lexy fall or did she jump? The police mark her death as an accident but Paul isn't so sure. He takes a leave of absence from work as a linguistics professor to see if he can teach Lorelei to communicate what she saw.

As Paul works with his dog, he also explains how he met, fell in love with, and married Lexy. We also learn about her darker side and the moods that would grab her. Paul's friends start to worry about him, with good reason because he's become reclusive and obsessive about getting Lorelei to communicate with him.

This novel does a great job of explaining how loss can affect both man and animal. I found it quite interesting that at the start of the book, when Paul was grieving the most, Lexy was painted in a more positive light than later in the book as Paul works through his grief.

While I enjoyed the story telling through grief and loss, there were some decisions by Paul that made absolutely no sense to me and seemed to only be added to the book for shock value. I think the book could have made do without that.

First Line: "Here is what we know, those of us who can speak to tell a story: On the afternoon of October 24, my wife, Lexy Ransome, climbed to the top of the apple tree in our backyard and fell to her death."

Rating:
(4/5)

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Fantasy

This book is far too large (807 pages) and has far too many characters (close to one billion) to give it a proper description. If you don't know anything about A Game of Thrones, all you need to know is there is a land with seven kingdoms where summers last for years, but winter is coming and so is war. The current King overthrew his predecessor and when he dies, there are multiple claims to the throne.

This book has love, war, deception, humour, death (lots of it), birth, magic, dragons, and so much more. Don't be put off by the magic and dragons if you aren't usually in to that, these elements in the book are minimal. The book reads like historical fiction and Martin makes you believe that this time really could have existed. Really, there's no other way to describe the book, and I'm sure the entire series, as epic.

First Line: "'We should start back,' Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them."

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Mortal Causes

Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin
Mystery
It is the end of summer and the Edinburgh Finge festival is on. The tourists are out in full force and the festival is threatened by terrorists and bombs. Under the old city lies another from medieval times and this where a young man is tortured and then shot 6 times.

Inspector Rebus is seconded to a terrorism squad which is very much to his liking because he has the freedom to investigate and wander where he likes. Rebus even ventures into the Gar-B, a housing project even the police have little control over.

Rebus' nemesis, “Big Ger” Cafferty is back. Rebus follows all his leads even to Ireland. A book full of thugs, big-time criminals and really bad man there is also some time for Rebus the man. A female lawyer wants Rebus' attention so badly she is willing to break the law to get it.

This is a dark book with wonderful characters and enough twists and turns to satisfy the reader. On to the next in the series!

First Line: "He could scream all he liked."

Rating:

(4.0/5)

A Thread of Grace

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Historical Fiction
  A Thread of Grace starts with the Italian surrender to the Allies during WWII. Claudette Blum and her father are Jewish refugees intent on crossing the Alps from France in order to find freedom. What they find instead is more Germans.

This is a story of the German occupation of Northern Italy. Roman Catholic priests and nuns saved many Jews from the Germans who were intent on finding them and sending them to the concentration camps. Even though the Germans were fighting and being hit by air attacks daily they were still diligent about rounding up the Jews in the area.

Italians hid and helped the Jews. The Italian resistance fought the Germans. This novel is a historical fiction depicting the actions of the people in Northern Italy.

The characters in this book are wonderful. Renzo is a rogue who seamlessly flits between the Germans, the resistance and the Jews. Claudette is the tragic character caught up in an awful war. Schramm is the uptight scumbag German obeying his orders and fighting his conscience afterwords.

I loved this book and learning about all about this area during the war. So many people helped others at great peril to themselves.

First Line: "This is what everyone would remember about his mother: her home was immaculate."
Rating:
(4.0/5)

Chosen Prey

Chosen Prey by John Sandford
Mystery
This time the serial killer is art history professor James Qatar. He is fixated on young blondes.

This is a great Prey book. The reader knows the killer and gets to watch as Lucas Davenport and his team stumble their way through the clues.

Davenport is back with Weather and a marriage is being planned and maybe even a child. Davenport seems to have settled down somewhat and even grown up a bit.

Loved the book and the development of the characters

First Line: "James Qatar dropped his feet over the edge of the bed and rubbed the back of his neck, a momentary veil of depression falling upon him."
Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
Mystery/Thriller

Cotton Malone used to be a US operative before quitting because he disliked getting shot at and opening a bookstore in Copenhagen. His old boss, Stephanie Nelle is visiting town and wants to get together with Malone. On his way to meet her, he notices someone stealing her bag and gives chase. The man kills himself before jumping off a tower which leaves Malone confused. He follows Stephanie to a book auction where more trouble occurs. Malone tells Stephanie he's now involved in her troubles and learns that she has taken on her deceased husband's quest to find the Knights Templar's hidden treasure. The problem is she's not the only one trying to find it.

This quest takes them to France and puts them right in the crosshairs of the Templars that are still around. There are a lot of clues pointing in the direction of the treasure and the "Great Divise" but the code is tough to break.

I've enjoyed Steve Berry books in the past and expected to enjoy this one but found there was one major problem with it. Every 40 pages or so, Berry would go on for 3-4 pages about the Bible which I thought broke the flow of the story. I was mostly reading this book on the train and whenever he did this, I started falling asleep. I much preferred Berry's The Amber Room to this. That aside, the mystery was still interesting.

First Line: "Jacque de Molay sought death, but knew that salvation would never be offered."

Rating:
(3/5)

The Lincoln Lawyer

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

Mystery
Mickey Haller is a sleaze-bag lawyer or is he?.  Haller represents clients like prostitutes, drug dealers and motorcycle thugs.  He won't proceed with a case unless he knows he will be paid.  When  Louis Roulet is charged with the brutal beating and rape of a woman, Haller finally has his 'franchise' case.  A case where he will make a ton of money.  Roulet comes from a wealthy Beverly Hills family and his mother will do anything to keep him out of jail.

Haller has 2 ex-wives and a little girl and they all love him as the reader slowly does by the end of the book.  Haller is brilliant as he unravels this case.  And the ending is exactly why they made this book into a movie.  

I have read many of the Harry Bosch books and loved the character but I think I like Haller even better.  Haller does not care one whit about rules and breaks them willy nilly.  But he still cares for right vs wrong and is willing to make things right.  This book also helped me to understand the role of the defense attorney in court proceedings

Rating:
(4.0/5)