The Enchanters by James Ellroy
Read as part of CBR15Bingo: hold steady. James Ellroy is a favorite author of mine; I return to his work often. This is the second in his Freddy Otash series. And it features a “protagonist” in a lot of trouble. I only found out less than a month ago that James Ellroy was coming out with a new book. I keep my ear close to the ground as far as Ellroy is concerned so I’m not sure why the delayed announcement here. But I put […]
The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez
Read as part of CBR15Bingo: relation”ship.” This is a romance novel about two people in a relationship who the reader is supposed to “ship,” I s’pose. Never been a fan of the term, myself. I’m going to give a brief review and say that this book is fine and entertaining if you like romance; moving in spots, cloying in others. And I’m going to spend the rest of the time spoiling the book talking about its take on infertility. So don’t read on if you […]
There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll
City of Dreams by Don Winslow
Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright
Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins
Tripwire by Jack Reacher
Baby Moll by John Farris
Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle
The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich
X by Davey Davis
Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen
The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham
Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan
Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite
Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell
The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond
That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
Weyward by Emilia Hart
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]
To See Clearly: A Portrait of David Hockney by Evan Turk
Who is David Hockney? I had no idea before reading To See Clearly: A Portrait of David Hockney. Or at least, I might have known the paintings (this picture book shows Hockney’s style interpreted by the author/illustrator Evan Turk), but not the name. The story is straight forward. Turk says, “David did this, that and the other thing.” He we “here, there, and someplace else.” However, there are a few facts that are tossed out, sit down, and say, “Whatcha gunna do about it?” Such […]
Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly
Queen of Thieves by Beezy Marsh
Anxious People by Frederick Backman
The Dead Season by Tessa Wegert
A Diet of Treacle by Lawrence Block
The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports by Joshua Robinson & Jonathan Clegg
Here are brief reviews for the books I read in 2023 that I either didn’t have time to review or that didn’t merit 250 words… Two Kinds of Truth*** First new read of 2023! I continue to plow through the Bosch series. I enjoyed most of what I read recently but this was just blah. Boring, predictable dueling plots, though one is resolved with an interesting twist. Read better, read worse in this series. Looking forward to getting to some of the Renee Ballard books. […]
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
Much like Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice, this is an early 2023 novel that came with a ton of hype. Being a big crime fiction fan, I’ve been hearing about this book for months, not just from publishers who make it their job, but from other mystery writers. It was billed as the modern day Chinatown, the new age Los Angeles noir. I knew I’d probably enjoy it but wasn’t sure if it could live up to its lofty billing. It did. Oh my, it did. What […]
