Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Party in the City Where the Heat is On

Silent City by Alex Segura

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I enjoy crime fiction that effectively doubles as a tour guide. I’ve never been to Miami before so part of Silent City‘s allure for me was to learn more about the city. Charles Willeford does it somewhat effectively but he’s looking at it through the ethnographic lens of an old, racist white guy. Alex Segura gives me that and more. I appreciate writers who talk about their urban environments as if they actually dwell there. No “this is a good/bad neighborhood” kind of nonsense, but espousing a familiarity with the terrain itself. The bars and roads and neighborhoods he mentions […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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12/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:128 |

Nine for the Tomb, and for all that was lost

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

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Official book description: The Emperor needs necromancers. The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman. Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit. Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as skillfully animated as necromantic skeletons. The result is a heart-pounding epic science fantasy. Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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12/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:83 |

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

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I hate the term “politically correct.” Let’s just get that out of the way. I think the idea of respecting people’s humanity as they want it to be respected is important. When the vast majority of a marginalized group say they don’t want to be addressed with a certain word or in a certain way, making the decision to listen to them is now the downfall of western civilization. Those of us who don’t share a racial, gender, body- or gender-oriented experience as someone else would do just as well to be quiet and listen. I lift this up because […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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12/5/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:126 |

Is there anyone NOT reading this series? If so, what is the matter with you??

A Better Man by Louise Penny

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Seriously though, there are enough Cannonballers who are on the Inspector Gamache train, that this should just be required reading. Amirite? [Review is semi-spoilery, depending on where you are in the series] Due to his questionable (yet, effective) methods of cracking a drug ring in the last book, Inspector Gamache found himself stripped of his title as head of the Quebec police department. This book sees him accepting a demotion and returning to his previous role as head of homicide. It’s a decision that is dividing the province, as some laud him as a hero, but an increasing number are […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Is there anyone NOT reading this series? If so, what is the matter with you??"

12/4/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:42 |

Hardboiled

Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem

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Jonathan Lethem has this habit of writing detective novels and adding his own little curlicues on them. Motherless Brooklyn is fronted by a Tourette’s-minded “detective.” The titular character in The Feral Detective loves runaway animals of all kinds (feral included) and is an escaped cultist. Gun, With Occasional Music is set in a future society and has musical guns and talking animals. Lethem has spoken a lot about his major influences, including my favorite mystery writer Ross Macdonald. What impressed me about this, his first effort, is how polished it is. Lethem’s prose is wonderful. He’s able to master the hardboiled dialogue and atmosphere. A lot […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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12/4/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:125 |

Sex Mystery sounds like a genre I want to read much more of.

Hither, Page (Page & Sommers, #1) by Cat Sebastian

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Well, the sex part of this certainly wasn’t as prevalent as the mystery, but it did deliver on Sebastian’s other promise, which was “Agatha Christie, but make it gay.” Small English village, check. The mysterious murder of one of their own, check. The discovery that the small village is hiding a bunch of secrets, check. An outsider coming in to unearth those secrets, check. Lonely spy falls in love with traumatized country doctor, check. This was very sweet in terms of the romance, and pretty clever in terms of the mystery (although I think I would have liked it better […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Sex Mystery sounds like a genre I want to read much more of."

12/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:92 |

A murder mystery within a murder mystery, and a lovely homage to the genre.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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I really, really enjoyed this one. I’ve struggled the past several weeks to really get into the books I’m reading, even if I’m liking them. But I just fell into this book. Horowitz has a lot of fun playing around with his premise and the conventions of a whodunit, and it’s fun to read as a result. The book opens with a frame story. Alan Conway, the famous author of the Atticus Pünd detective books, has turned in his last Pünd book, and his editor Susan Ryeland has hunkered down to read it. She warns us that reading the book […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "A murder mystery within a murder mystery, and a lovely homage to the genre."

12/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:90 |

Checking In

Out On the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block

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Although there is a mystery at the heart of the novel, eventually growing to encompass two mysteries, this feels like more of a hangout tale. Apparently, Lawrence Block never meant for his star character Matthew Scudder to go beyond four or five books but after writing a flashback tale in When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, he decided to expand the series to Scudder’s life post-alcohol. Out on the Cutting Edge, book seven in the series, is the first of those efforts and it feels like Block is trying to get a sense of what he should do with Matt. In the […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Checking In"

11/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:124 |


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