Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Battling with Geometry

The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson

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The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson has an interesting premise.  In the fantasy world Sanderson has created, United Isles, rithmatists use geometric shapes drawn with chalk to battle.  The story takes place at a Rithmatic Academy, where rithmatists and regular students both study.  Joel is the son of the chalk maker, who died a tragic death, but he is not a rithmatist.  However, he longs to be one. A mystery unfolds when a rithmatic student is kidnapped and attacked in an unusual manner.  Joel gets swept […]

Mediocre offering in a good series

Edinburgh Midnight by Carole Lawrence

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The Ian Hamilton Mysteries is a historical mystery series set in Edinburgh, Scotland in the late 1800s. It focuses on the work and personal life of fictional Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton. Each novel involves Hamilton and his partner Detective Sergeant Dickerson investigating a heinous murder. They are often helped by a street urchin named Derek McNair, Ian’s doctor-in-training brother, Donald, and Arthur Conan Doyle (yes, really). I loved the first two novels, Edinburgh Twilight and Edinburgh Dusk, when I read them a few years ago. […]

Here’s to the Ones that We Lost on the Way

Slipping Into Darkness by Peter Blauner

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Peter Blauner’s Casino Moon was an unexpected hit with me last year. Richly created characters all down-on-their-luck in loser-town Atlantic City. I enjoyed it from start to finish and thought I had discovered a new voice. I tried twice to read his Lourdes Robles series but I couldn’t get into it. Everything that popped in Casino Moon felt lank there: the characters, the setting, the mystery, etc. Slipping Into Darkness was the one I really wanted. No less than Stephen King hailed it as one of the best books he’d read […]

A Decade in the Life

The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke

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The David Robicheaux series is beloved in mystery circles and it’s one I’ve always mean to come back to after having read In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead ten years ago. I liked the writing well enough and I especially enjoyed the south Louisiana setting. New Orleans makes for a great mystery location. But I don’t know; I just made excuse-after-excuse not to return to it. Yet I set those aside when I randomly grabbed the first one from the library. And despite a massive library […]

CBR12 Book Bingo – Fresh Start

Still Life by Louise Penny

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“This book is stupid,” I said to my husband as I finished the last page of Still Life and closed the book. Needless to say, I was not a fan. It was boring and weird. I honestly cannot even remember why this was in my pile of books to read. My best guess is that the library accidentally added it to my pile of check-out requests. I’m going to share the summary from the book jacket because the only thing I remember is that the murder victim is […]

Loved this book except for one pretty big thing.

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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Aside from one pretty big complaint, this is one of the most fun books I’ve read this year. I love Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries (a good house party mystery always gets me going). I love when books mess with time. And I love sf elements mashed with other genres. I was worried the ending wouldn’t be able to bring it all together, but it did, with an added element of human emotion that I wasn’t quite expecting. My advice to you on this one is […]



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