Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Horror Month 2023: #8 and #9

Reptile Memoirs by Silje Ulstein

Come Closer by Sara Gran

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I meant to review every book of Horror Month separately but I happened to consecutively read these two and they both feature women going through…transformations. So I figured it made sense to talk about them both on one page. Reptile Memoirs**** This is billed as a horror mystery but aside from a woman’s weird psychosomatic fascination with a snake, there’s not much in the way of horror, if that even qualifies as horror. That’s okay though; this is an interesting enough mystery tale with shifting […]

October 2022 Leftovers

Batman: The Impostor by Mattson Tomlin

The Son by Jo Nesbø

Killer Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury

The Devil's Wedding Ring by Vidar Sundstøl

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Happy belated Halloween to all who observe! Again, I don’t have as many leftovers as I did in recent months since I’m logging so many full reviews for the Book Bingo. But here’s what I got, all of them quality 4-star reads…   Batman: The Impostor Really enjoyed this one. A fresh take, helped by the fact that Batman is surrounded by characters with no history. Jim Gordon is off the force. Alfred has forsaken him (or vice versa). No Joker, no Riddler, Penguin functions […]

Cold as Hell

The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe

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Read as part of CBR14Bingo: series. This is the first in what’s referred to Stateside as the “Hanne Lagerlind-Schon” series. It’s also part of a series of popular “Nordic Noir” and/or “Scandinavian Noir” tales that have made it to the United States. I don’t really know what to make of Camilla Grebe’s interesting, sometimes frustrating, always compelling The Ice Beneath Her, except to say that I enjoyed it. It’s twisty to be sure but I always felt like the twists were grounded in the pathos of […]

Do You want to Build a Snowman (I Hope Not)

The Snowman by Jo Nesbø

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I usually like to start a series from the beginning, but I had already seen the movie The Snowman with Michael Fassbender, so decided to just try the novel by Jo Nesbø and see how they compared. It probably would have been better if I had done those two things in reverse order, but that’s how it was. This is the seventh book in Nesbø’s series featuring Norwegian Detective Harry Hole. Harry, like all good, classic detectives, has his issues – he’s an introvert, but […]

Lost in the Noir of Iceland (And Liking It)

The Dark Iceland Series (1-6) by Ragnar Jónasson

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After reading the Martin Beck novels last year, I decided to continue with Nordic noir. I had heard about a series set in Iceland, specifically the remote area of Siglufjörður, and featuring  a young detective named Ari Thór Arason. I read these novels on Kindle and on Audible, where it helped to hear the correct pronunciations of some of the more challenging (to me) place names. Then author is supposed to be a big fan of Agatha Christie (as am I). He has translated fourteen […]

Like the coldest winter chill

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The first of Indridasons books featuring Inspector Erlandur (since surnames are patronymic or matronymic, Icelanders call everyone regardless of rank by their first names) translated into English, this story chilled me to the core and I am looking forward to spending more time in Reykjavik as the series progresses. Upon discovering the murder of a man named Holberg, Erlandur and his partners Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli must work to determine if this is the usual clumsy Icelandic crime or something more. As the book progresses […]



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