Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Hand that Mows the Lawn

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives by Elizabeth Arnott

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Three women who met because they were all at one point married to a serial killer band together to try and stop a potential new killer when women start disappearing around where they live. This book picks up with an unusual premise – what is it like to have been the closest person to a serial killer, and not have it believed that you knew nothing of their crimes? The author does an excellent job of grounding us in the place and time of the […]

Down by the sea is where you drown your scars

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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It’s 1983, and Malibu is getting ready for the party of the year that pro-surfer and model Nina Riva – estranged daughter of legendary rocker Mick Riva – throws every year. Nina’s siblings gather too: not-really twins Jay and Hudson, normally joined at the hip, now have a terrible secret that threatens to pull them apart; and baby sister Kit, headstrong and on a quest for independence. The crowd at the party grows speedily and sets in motion a chain of events that will forever […]

This Mess is Pretty Neat

Mess by Michael Chessler

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The colorful cover of the book and its glitzy (and ditzy) Hollywood backdrop easily lure the reader in, for a quick beach or travel read. The chapters are set up as vignettes to showcase various Hollywood types and their messy lives – and how heroine Jane, a professional organizer (think a cross between a celebrity assistant and a devotee of lifestyle guru Marie Kondo), can brave the traffic of Los Angeles freeways and twisty/turny roads in the Hollywood Hills to save them all. Author Mike […]

“No other bosses but mine and my opponents’ can have your soul jerked out of your body and sent to the deepest fiery pits to suffer for eternity. Unless you work for Walmart.”

The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

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Not a big fan of this book. It was written like a mashup of the Johnny Dollar radio show (which is where I think Tad Williams got the idea to name the main character “Bobby Dollar”) and the Kolchak tv series. Very Sam Spade, hardboiled detective, old film noir, complete with gangsters, dames, booze, shoot-outs, and double crosses; heck, it even has a golden stand-in for the Maltese Falcon. The big change is that instead of detectives, cops, and gangsters, you have angels and demons, […]

“Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else.”

Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion

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Joan Didion and Bob Dylan are two peas in a pod – insightful, elusive, bug-eyed sunglass’d. I enjoy reading/listening to both of them, if for nothing else than to see what it’s like for an artist to be at the top of their game. I think Didion is at the top of her game when writing about California, and when writing about her family. Sometimes she writes about both. While Didion generally strikes me as someone who presents “Joan Didion” to the world, her tenderness […]

Amigos

Friends Helping Friends by Patrick Hoffman

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My mother recently asked me what “noir” means in the context in which I often use it: reading and watching. I tried to explain to her that noir isn’t the same as classic mystery or hardboiled in that there’s an event that happens that permanently changes the behaviors of all persons, drawing them into difficult circumstances. But that felt like a weak definition to me. So I’ll roll with Megan Abbott’s classic definition in this interview with LitHub… In noir, everyone is fallen, and right […]



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