Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site


Open Registration ends 2/10/23 - Sign up for Cannonball Read 15 today!  
> FAQ Home
> Tag: Noir

You Had Me at Braineater

Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski

by 2 Comments

Braineater Jones (as he calls himself), has a problem. He woke up dead in a swimming pool and he has no idea who he was before he was undead. He also doesn’t know why he’s undead and why there are a whole bunch of undead people around these days…these are just some of the many mysteries that our self-described private dick has to tackle. Taking place in the 1930’s this is a fun little play on a noir novel as Jones deals with the “dames”, […]

California Soul-less

Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

by 2 Comments

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 […]

That’s a lotta corpses, bro

A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames

by Leave a Comment

I liked the other Jonathan Ames books I’ve read, and learned ten seconds ago that he’s the creator of Bored to Death, which, for anyone who doesn’t know, is a show on HBO Max (which I haven’t seen, but which multiple people have told me I’d like). Anyway. A guy named Happy Doll – for real, his parents named him that…seriously? a little much right off the bat – is an ex-cop who’s now a fairly unsuccessful, i.e., not busy,  private detective. A friend comes […]

Secrets Typed In Blood: The Third Pentecost & Parker Mystery

Secrets Typed In Blood by Stephen Spotswood

by 6 Comments

Hello howdy and hey y’all, it’s my first post ever! I love detective stories. I’ve got a brain that enjoys puzzles and being right, so it’s fun on top of fun. But I am also super picky and easily distracted or annoyed by most mysteries. I need a challenge but not something so convoluted it’s unsolvable. I don’t want anything too cozy or too grim, nothing with lots of graphic violence/mutilation/torture but a decent amount of action. I prefer women authors and characters, I like […]

Pedal-to-the-Metal

Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

by 2 Comments

Well, this is a perfect book to review after Blood Sweat and Chrome? Going by the blurb of Blacktop Wasteland, I had been expecting a crime novel. But this is not really the case. What I got instead was a novel that was one part noir and many many parts most intense car changes I have ever seen committed to the written word. Now I may have made some grammatical clunkers there trying to convey the kind of feel you get from Blacktop Wasteland, but […]

To Hell, Not Back

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: snakes. This book has several references to snakes, and also I think one of the characters turned into a snake? It was a wild scene, regardless.  It took me two tries to get into this one but ultimately, I’m glad I did. It didn’t match the hype but it’s a good read on its own. Essentially, there are two books here: the first 20% that’s a compelling novel and the rest which is the magical mystery tour through the throes of […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo