Cannonball Read 14

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April 2022 Leftovers

Batman, Volume 3: Death in the Family by Scott Snyder

DC: The New Frontier, Volume 1 by Darwyn Cooke

Batman: Curse of the White Knight by Sean Gordon Murphy

Batman, Volume 4: Zero Year-Secret City by Scott Snyder

Chances by Jackie Collins

Batgirl, Volume 1: Batgirl of Burnside by Cameron Stewart

Batman, Volume 5: Zero Year-Dark City by Scott Snyder

Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzeze by S.J. Peddie

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch

Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free by Sarah Weinman

Call Me a Cab by Donald Westlake

Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen

The Bouncer by David Gordon

Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbø

Tough Luck: Sid Luckman, Murder, Inc., and the Rise of the Modern NFL by R.D. Rosen

Concourse by S.J. Rozan

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Here are the books I read in April that didn’t merit a full review… Batman, Vol. 3: Death in the Family **** Reading a Batman-v-Joker comic is perfect for April Fools Day. I loved Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls run but wasn’t sure how I’d feel about him doing a Joker story combined with the extended Batman Family (which I’ve never been interested in). But this is a good story, a creepy one that continues to burnish Snyder’s credentials on this series. DC: The New Frontier, Volume […]

November Odds and Ends

The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake

The Dark Tower by CS Lewis

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk

The Feathers of Death by Simon Raven

The Drowned Cities by Paulo Bacigalupi

Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

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The Hot Rock – 3/5 Stars A farcical kind of heist book. John Dortmunder is getting out of prision and his old pal immediately brings him a caper to work on. Together with three other specialists, the friends will be stealing an emerald from a museum that has cultural and sentimental value for two warring African nations. One of the nations currently possesses the emerald, while the other is hiring the thieves. Paid a salary, plus the promise of a large reward, Dortmunder begins to […]

Not Bond? Not James Bond?

Forever and a Death by Donald Westlake

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In a writers group I participate in via social media, someone asked the question a few months ago that if we could have three traits from authors, what would they be? I don’t remember my other two answers but the one I do remember is Donald Westlake’s versatility. The man wrote noir potboilers, political gags a la Ross Thomas, the sparse and sharp Parker series, the slyly comedic Dortmunder tales…he could do it all. He even had a hand at James Bond. Forever and a […]

Extra Reading

Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

Players by Don DeLillo

A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke

Louise Hathcock: Queen of the State Line Mob by Robert Broughton

Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark

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I’m trying to document all of the books I read on here to better hit my cannonball numbers. These are ones I’ve been meaning to upload into combined reviews but haven’t. Some are good, some are eh, but most of them just didn’t merit a lot of words from me at the time I finished them for various reasons. Who Is Maud Dixon? *** For a similar identity-based thriller I read last year, a reviewer derisively pegged it as The Talented Mr. Rip-off. I didn’t […]

Binge

The Blackbird by Richard Stark

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black

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Anytime I finish a tome (in this case, Don DeLillo’s Underworld), I tend to binge read in order to get back in the swing of things. Here are three books I picked up over the weekend… The Blackbird *** Someone asked on Twitter recently that if you could take three traits from a writer for yourself, what would they be? I should have mentioned Donald Westlake’s amazing versatility. Just consider the Grofield series: first a heist tale, then a locked room mystery, now a spy thriller, […]

Reading, Reading, Reading, RAWHIDE!

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Dame by Richard Stark

Tricky by Josh Stallings

Quarry's Deal by Max Alan Collins

The Plea by Steve Cavanagh

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I read a lot last week but also had a busy week at work (a good busy). Every time I tried to write a review on one of these books, all of them good, I just didn’t have the time or energy. So here’s a big update dump of the stuff I read in the last week and I’d be glad to tease them out more in the comments if anyone is curious… “The True History of the Kelly Gang” I enjoyed large parts of […]



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