Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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When the CIA is trying to kill you, you try to kill them back!

A Death in Sweden by Kevin Wignall

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I love spy and conspiracy thrillers, so this was right up my alley.  Plus, it was a Kindle First, so it was free! I can’t remember the main character’s name.  Nevermind, I just looked it up, it’s Dan.  It starts out with him finding a guy that he’s supposed to recover for his spy job.  I think the job was for the CIA, but he doesn’t actually work for the CIA.  I guess you could call him an independent contractor.  He actually feels sad once he […]

Jack Reacher in Europe, with an unexpected twist

Personal by Lee Child

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While I won’t claim it’s his best, or even that great, I found this latest (19th) Jack Reacher story an intriguing enough premise, a rapid page-turner (including the ballistics details which others found boring but which I enjoyed), a truly scary bad guy, and an unexpected punch-to-the-gut ending.   Someone has taken a long-distance shot at the French president, but special bullet-proof glass protected him from assassination. The CIA decides, along with Europe’s top intelligence agencies, that this was just a practice run aimed at […]

Tattooed corpses and Muslim fundamentalists prove a heady mix in Thailand

Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett

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Bangkok detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in another dramatic, action-packed, and nearly hallucinogenic plot involving tattoo artists, mutilated corpses, golden-hearted whores, hard-bitten police captains, Muslim fundamentalists, and the CIA—all of this against the backdrop of an impoverished nation dependent on drugs and the sex trade for survival and a Buddha-worshipping cop who doesn’t hesitate to bend the rules when necessity and/or his conscience dictates.   A strangely brilliant and obsessive CIA operative named Mitch Turner is found murdered in the bed […]

The Cost of Unintended Consequences

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson

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The premise of Blowback is very interesting. It aims to examine the role of shortsighted policy decisions made by the U.S. and the long-term, unintended consequences they created. This is another book I chose to read, rather listen to, after discovering it on the Army Chief of Staff’s recommended reading list for 2013.  The book was listed of the CoS’ list under the section for broadening leaders.  The list is intended to “complement materials currently used in the Army educational system and can help bridge […]

Another unbelievable conspiracy thriller

Face of a Killer by Robin Burcell

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This is the first in a new series about FBI special agent and forensic artist Sydney Fitzpatrick, written by Burcell, herself an FBI-trained forensic artist. A somewhat better tale than Burcell’s The Dark Hour which I recently reviewed, this novel focuses on Fitzpatrick’s personal crisis over whether to follow up on brand-new clues about her father’s murder 20 years earlier, or to leave it alone.  Of course, had she left it alone, we would have no story, so…. There is a race against time, as […]



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