Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Crime Yarns of Varied Awesomeness

Be My Enemy by Christopher Brookmyre

Last One Out by Jane Harper

Never Flinch by Steven King

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Way back in 1996, I picked up a book by Christopher Brookmyre based on a staff recommendation in a long-since-closed book store.  I’ve never regretted it, and I’ve gone on to read and reread all his books.  This Christmas, it was Be My Enemy (or Fuck This for a Game of Soldiers). Set at the opening weekend for a teambuilding retreat in the Scottish highlands, the novel unites an eclectic group of advertising execs, PR teams, one crime reporter (familiar from earlier books), and a […]

Autumnal Reading

1979 by Val McDermid

The Survivors by Jane Harper

De Metsiers by Hugo Claus

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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After not having read much for a couple of weeks (work has been hell), I once again found myself in a place with terrible internet connectivity and a pile of books. Worse things have happened, particularly because the books I ended up selecting all turned out to be pretty dang good. 1979 (Val McDermid) **** Allie Burns is a woman in a man’s world. An Oxbridge graduate, she works as a journalist for a small Scottish newspaper. She hopes to make it big but so […]

Bittersweet Nothing

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

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Deep in the Australian outback lives the Bright clan. Older brother Nathan, a divorcee, lives alone on a small ranch; brothers Cameron and Bub share the larger ranch, where they live with their mother Liz, Cameron’s wife Ilse and their two young daughters. Each has their own demons to face but all in all, they make things work in the scorching climate of the Outback. Until one morning, when Cameron’s body is discovered near an old marker; a century-old grave. The man has been stuck […]

Hell Hath No Fury

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

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A group of five men and five women set off on a corporate-sponsored hike through an Australian forest. The men emerge successfully three days later, happy to be done with it, to return to the hotel and its bar, but the women fail to appear. When they do, they are one person short: Alice Russell is missing. Detective Aaron Falk and his partner Carmen set off to investigate because Alice Russell is the whistleblower in their latest case. They soon discover that the women’s stories […]

Holiday Reads: Alpine Edition

The Clinic by Cate Quinn

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

The Dry by Jane Harper

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

A Sincere Warning About the Entity in your House by Jason Arnopp

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

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Apparently, all I need in life is a pile of books, a fridge full of cheese and diet coke and a massive tent. The Clinic (Cate Quinn) ** Certified tough chick (™) Meg checks into an exclusive rehab clinic, not to treat her own burgeoning drug problem, but to discover what happened to her sister Haley, a famous actress who died on the grounds. The clinic claims suicide, but Meg doesn’t buy it and sets out to investigate what really happened.  I read this book […]

Gone, but not forgotten

Exiles by Jane Harper

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On a warm spring night, during a busy festival in South Australia’s wine region, a six week old baby sleeps in her pram. Her mother is nowhere to be seen.  A year on, Kim Gillespie is still nowhere to be found. Investigator Aaron Falk, who works for Australia’s financial crimes department, heads down to old friends for the baptism of their young son, but as he meets their extended group of relatives, friends and acquaintances, he starts to be drawn into the mystery. It can […]



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