Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


You Englishwomen are all the same. So modern with your bicycling machines and pamphlets on voting.

An Unexpected Peril by Deanna Raybourn

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Dear Ms Raybourn: You may never stop writing your Veronica Speedwell novels. I will not permit it. Many thanks. Book 6 in the Veronica Speedwell Mystery series, is, as they all are, a damn delight. If you haven’t read them, please do. If you do read them, know that this one does not disappoint. Everyone’s favorite lepidopterist and taxidermist are on a momentary mystery solving and near death experiencing lull. As they work side by side to create an exhibit honoring the late mountain climber Alice Baker-Greene […]

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 […]

Cannonballing with Agatha.

4:50 from Paddington (Miss Marple, #7) by Agatha Christie

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I had a very good time with this one. Especially the beginning and ending. (The middle did get a bit squidgy.) The premise of this one has Miss Marple in it from the beginning, which is always nice, but even when that happens, she still takes a backseat in her own books. This time, it’s because she says she’s too old now to do her own footwork, so she enlists the services of Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow to help her search for a body. The set […]

Conspiracy of Fools

Wedding Station by David Downing

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I don’t know what to make of David Downing’s Station series. On the one hand, I frequently read historical fiction that explores the pitfalls of life in Nazi Germany. Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series is the best example but there are others in the popular “Nazi Noir” subgenere and Downing’s series is one of them. Downing gets the atmosphere of prewar Berlin down in an effective, readable way. I visited Berlin before and while it’s far removed from its Nazi past, the environment of low […]

The Alchemy Side Might Be Interesting

The Ancient Magus Bride: Wizard's Blue vol. 2 by Makoto Sanda, Isuo Tsukumo, Kore Yamazaki

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I’m probably back to graphic novels for a bit both because I’m getting a little behind with a few series I follow, and I’ve got some stress going on both at work and elsewhere for the next week or so. Nothing serious, but lightening the reading sometimes helps ease the unease. So, I picked up Wizard’s Blue vol. 2 off my TBR shelf; it’s been there a while and I was hoping it might be not too dark; thankfully it wasn’t. It’s not all sunshine […]

I liked this one

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

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Series: The Inspector Gamache books. I read and reviewed Book 1 in 2016 and since then have read a couple a year. I read Book 11 in August of 2020 and didn’t really like it. I’ve been really back and forth on these books–I’ve loved some and barely been able to finish others. What I remembered most about this series prior to reading this book: I remember very few of the mysteries and even less of the b-plots–the ones that revolved around the corruption within […]



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