Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The three of them sat there – a Ministry agent, a half-djinn, and a cat (likely), staring out past the balcony to the sleeping city they somehow had to find a way to save.”

A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn, #3) by P. Djèlí Clark

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Another book in this world, please! I continue to have a really good time with these audiobooks. I loved Suehyla El-Attar’s narration—even though she mispronounces some words, which would normally make me lose it, but that’s how much I love her voice—it’s so melodious it squashes my inner pedant. We’re back with Fatma el-Sha’arawi—agent of the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities—in this first full novel (the first two were novellas) in this alternate-history, fantastical version of 1912 Cairo. Decades previously, a man named […]

I couldn’t put it down

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

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CBR Bingo: Gateway (favorite genre: Mystery) I love a good mystery, and this is a good mystery. I was surprised, actually, by how much I enjoyed this since typically this kind of hardboiled, seedy-underbelly, protagonist has seen some shit mysteries aren’t the type of mystery I go for. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins is a WWII vet living in LA in the late 40s, down on his luck, who is approached by a man offering a lot of money if Easy can find a woman who’s gone […]

Been There, Doing That Again

Rose Gold by Walter Mosley

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: Old Series. The Easy Rawlins series debuted in 1990. As the times change, Walter Mosley has changed his most famous creation with them. He’s also changed his style. I don’t know if it’s for better or worse but I like it. I’ve written on his Leonid McGill series about how Mosley has incorporated some surrealist existentialism into those works and how they felt different to what he had written before. These don’t read like McGill books but they do have […]

“It felt strange. I was about to read one murder mystery while sitting inside another.”

Moonflower Murders (Susan Ryeland, #2) by Anthony Horowitz

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What a fun, twisty (not so) little whodunnit. I was skeptical about this one, because it seemed on the surface like it would just be the same thing all over again, when the resolution of the first book would seem to make that impossible. But he made it work! I should have trusted. This is a 600-ish page book that I read feverishly in about two days one weekend in July. Some spoilers for book one below; you have been warned. We return to former […]

“I wondered what it was like to live without that weight on your shoulders, the weight of the murdered ancestors, the stolen land, the abused children, the burden every Native person carries.” #CBRBINGO – Fauna

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

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Virgil Wounded Horse is an enforcer on the Rosebud reservation, the home of the Lakota in South Dakota. Due to some fucked up laws, felonies are subject to federal prosecution, and the feds refuse to prosecute many serious crimes on the reservation, leaving murders, rapes, you name it, uninvestigated. The residents turn to Virgil. For some extra cash, he’ll give the perpetrator a beat down, oftentimes a very violent one. Vigilante justice is more reliable than the so-called justice of white people. The plot kicks […]

Davy Jones Locker

Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: Machine. The book revolves around a missing Nazi sub sunk in the Louisiana Gulf Coast as a MacGuffin.  Sigh. Every Dave Robicheaux novel will feature things that will both delight and frustrate me… The good… -Some wonderful descriptions of south Louisiana atmosphere, both weather and culture. You really feel like your transported to the place but not in a gratuitous way. -A few True Detective-esque reflections on the nature of life and crime that’ll take my breath away and keep me […]



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