Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Jake

I love reading!

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Jake's Reviews:

Portrait of the Gangster as a Man

The Mad Ones: Crazy Joey Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld by Tom Folsm

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As I get older, I try to take myself, and my reading tastes, less seriously. There was a time where I fancied myself a Very Important Book Reviewer that would choke the life out of anything I read in order to critique it with skill. It’s silly, at least from my perspective. I love reading and I love writing reviews but they’re just that: reviews. Chronicling the things I read, if I liked them or not, and if I would recommend them. No more, no less. The Mad Ones is a book I would have ripped in to at a different […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:118 |

Tales of the Past

Walk A Black Wind by Michael Collins/Dennis Lynds

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Lucked out that I finished this one on the last day of my Kindle Unlimited subscription as it’s the only one in the Dan Fortune series my local library doesn’t have. One of the best of the four I’ve read so far, maybe my favorite after Act of Fear. Michael Collins/Dennis Lynds takes the story out of New York City, or at least large parts of it, to investigate corruption in an upstate New York town. I always love a good tale of municipal corruption and there’s plenty of it here. But because this is a Dan Fortune novel, and this series […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/5/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:117 |

Tripping the Light Fantastique

The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

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I’ve been going through Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series the last few years and mostly enjoying it. He’s a good writer with a solid sense of time (post-WWII Los Angeles), a compelling character, and a point-of-view that many readers don’t get from “mainstream” (re: dominantly white) mystery writers. I hadn’t thought much of reading his Leonid McGill series, which is basically Easy Rawlins set in New York in contemporary times. But as I’ve been on a big New York City reading kick lately, I figured I’d give it a try. And I’m glad I did, for I discovered yet another […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:116 |

Take It Easy

Heart of Darkness Club by Gary Reilly

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I am a slacker at heart. Even though I work hard at my job and try to give a good effort in other endeavors in life, my goal is to just crawl somewhere and be left alone. I love my friends and I love my family, but I have no greater aspiration in this life than to have time to myself. Murph, the star of Gary Reilly’s Asphalt Warrior series, is a kindred spirit for me. He has a shabby apartment where he grills burgers, watches TV and occasionally reads. Otherwise, he does the bare minimum at his job. And […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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10/30/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:115 |

All That Razz

Night of the Toads by Michael Collins/Dennis Lynds

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Trying to pour through as much of the Dan Fortune series as I can before my Kindle Unlimited subscription finally expires (for real this time). I really enjoy these books. I’m a Ross Macdonald devotee and “Michael Collins” (Dennis Lynds) is one of the closest writers I’ve read who’s capable of aping Macdonald’s style. He is empathetic yet engaging. He also uses just enough of New York City without getting lost in it. This one is another good entry in the series, though the seams showed a little. Lynds apparently has some axes to grind and he does so through […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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10/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:114 |

Ya Drink Too Much

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

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My tour through Matthew Scudder’s New York continues. This is another solid entry in the series. I was a little concerned when I saw Matthew drinking at Armstrong’s and other places on the west side. It seemed to negate the ending of Eight Million Ways to Die. Was Block going to retcon everything or just pretend it didn’t happen? However, the reader soon realizes the whole time this is a flashback novel of something Matthew did in 1975, while he was still binge drinking. And while there’s enough for a book, it doesn’t feel shoehorned in. It feels like a quality, authentic […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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10/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:113 |

British Mysteries

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

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As I’ve said several times in these parts, I’m a bigger fan of the “whydunnit” than the “whodunnit.” The big reveal of the killer has never appealed much to me. I like to know what makes one person want to take the life of another. Murder is dismissed as a regular crime in fiction because of the prevalence of mystery novels but being an empathetic person, I need to have some sort of understanding as to the motivations of the players. My love of the whydunnit was severely strained by Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories. It’s almost as if this book was a […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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10/24/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:112 |

Offed at the Races

Gargantuan by Maggie Estep

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Maggie Estep lived a fascinating life. Novelist, poet, MTV correspondent. I think it would have been quite something to have known her when she was alive. Sadly, she passed (seemingly unexpectedly) in 2014. Hex, her first book in the Ruby Murphy took me two tries to get into, not because it’s bad or complicated but because her style is so unique. Each chapter happens from the POV of a different character, and each character is infused with a lived-in personality. But the plotting happens at a glacial pace. Estep’s thing is to allow you to spend plenty of time with […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Offed at the Races"

10/21/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:111 |


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