Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Bad Men

Quarry by Max Allan Collins

I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad by Baynard Woods & Brandon Sodeberg

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I read two books over the weekend about bad men. One fiction, one non-fiction. Both good in their own respective ways. Quarry 4 stars This month’s Hard Case Crime tale was one I had actually been avoiding for a while. I find Max Allan Collins to be insufferable. In interviews I’ve read with him, he seems to be the kind of blowhard-ish know-it-all I don’t care for in the crime community. His verbal racism at the Shamus Awards was obnoxious. Really, how hard is it to […]

No Surprises

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler

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Bingo: Red I read recently that people who tend toward anxiety prefer to watch TV shows and movies that they’ve already seen, because then there’s no anxiety about how things turn out. I think this is true for books, too. I would always, always, prefer to read something I’ve read before–even if I didn’t love it the first time around. I think this is one reason I always return to Anne Tyler–even if it’s a book of hers that I’ve never read before, I know […]

Bawlmer

Four Kinds of Rain by Robert Ward

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One of the more memorable things I’ve read in the last few years is Robert Ward’s Red Baker. It’s your typical blue collar male midlife crisis story, only it’s set in Baltimore and is hardcore devoted to the city. Being a native, I love Baltimore tales. When I mentioned to someone that I really enjoyed Red Baker, they suggested I pick this one up. I’m glad I did. This one is an actual crime story set in Baltimore and it’s twisty. In the first fifty or so pages, […]

Freaks, Geeks, and Automobiles

Role Models by John Waters

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Oooh mama, this is not for the faint of heart! If you aren’t already a fan of John Waters and his coterie of misfits and outsiders then this is NOT the place to start! I first became aware of John Waters through the 1990 film Cry-Baby. It used to be on TV fairly frequently in the late 90s/early Aughts, and I would secretly watch bits and pieces of it when my parents weren’t in the room. I had the “flashback” button on the remote primed and […]

Read It Here First

Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

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I won a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for this review. Thanks Goodreads! Laura Lippman’s been on a bit of a roll with her standalone novels. Wilde Lake was really good and Sunburn is, in my estimation, the best thing she’s ever done. Most of what I loved about reading Lippman’s Tess Monaghan novels growing up was the Baltimore tourism. Being a native of the city, it’s fun to see a bestselling author talk about places I know like they’re real. But her standalone works show how she […]



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