More Books I read in Sep 2011 (Part 2 of 2)

I had to split the post because I couldn't include enough tags. <shrug>

The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson (thriller). It's weird to realise James Patterson was writing bestsellers in 1976. What a different style he had. I'm also beginning to notice style differences between decades. Books in a certain decade have similar writing styles, even among widely-different writers. Rating: Good

Down the Long Hills by Louis L'Amour. A young boy takes a young girl across the plains of the old West (USA) after their wagon train is massacred. Villains get after them, while the boy's father hunts for him equally desperately. Sweet story, happy ending. Rating: Very good.

Risk by Dick Francis (thriller). One of his better ones, and the hero is a chartered accountant. This was the book that made me feel CAs were not boring; something for which I am very grateful now. Rating: excellent.

Reign in Hell by William Diehl (thriller). After a bit, I realised this was the middle book in a series. Lawyer Martin Vail tries to bring down a parallel government/militia in the USA, under direct orders from the General (Attorney General, ha!), and mixes up with his old nemesis, the evil mass-murderer Aaron Stampler. Rating: Good.

Stone Cold by David Baldacci (thriller). The third in the series, and equally good. Rating: Very Good.

Part 2 of 2. Part 1 is here.

Books I read in Sep 2011 (part 1 of 2)

Why the delay? I already said in the previous posts. 😛

BOOKS!

Oh, my! I haven't updated to you my list of read books for a month! 

Currently re-reading: Bear Island by Alistair Maclean. Don't ask me why; I've always thought this was one of his worst books. That said, it's better than many people's good books. It's just that when every motion on the ship is described with a synonym of 'stagger', it gets a bit ... seasick. Fortunately, they will all (except the dead guys) reach land in a few chapters. ;)

Recently (re)read:
Scimitar by Peter Nieswand (thriller). It's always interesting these days to read a book written in the 1980s. The Afghan mujahideen were the good guys then, and the Russians were unadulterated villains. The protagonist in the book keeps turning out to be an unmitigated creep. Still, some good points, though avoidable overall, unless you want to specifically read an 80s book.
The Secret of the Nagas by Amish (myth/fantasy). I loved the first book in this series, The Immortals of Meluha, despite its sometimes too-modern dialogue. This one goes smoother. The book introduces Sanskrit/Hindi words in italics, and, within the next line or two, their meaning in English, also italicised (for dummies). It gets a bit annoying (gee, it's for dummies!) but is probably greatly useful for people who don't know the words. I loved this book too, and am bouncing and screaming for the next (and last) one. For less than Rs 500, you can get both books. Paisa wasool, these books are worth every paisa.

High Citadel by Desmond Bagley (thriller). An excellent light read from the 70s. If you like stories in which medieval weapons turn the tide, also try Mother of Demons by Eric Flint (science fiction).

The Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour (western). My son asked me if the book came first or the movie. Heh! A very typical Louis L'Amour book. The good guys win; the Indians are not evil, just different. Rating: Good

Part 1 of 2. Part 2 is here.

More books I read in Aug 2011

Nope, I wasn't more prolific a reader then than I am now. It's just that I'm too lazy to write reviews these days. That may change, though. Not that anyone cares...

Finished reading Stone Cold by David Baldacci. Rating: Very Good. And Don't read the author's postscript until you've read the whole book. Trust me, you'll enjoy it better only after.

Back to reading The Mammoth Book of Horror Stories Read two more novellas. These, so far, have been based in the early 20th century, and mostly feel very dated. The writing and action (if any) tend to be slower than we are used to. However, the one I'm currently reading was written in 1986, and is 'faster', though also startlingly predictable. I'll tell you if it surprised me in the end.

Next up: The Summer of Riley by Eve Bunting

Books I read in August 2011

And you're probably wondering, why now?? Well, I just found my reviews, that's why. Duh!

Killing Fear by Allison Brennan. Good

Edge by Jeffery Deaver. Excellent. I'm beginning to think he hasn't written anything mediocre.

Dragon Fire by Humphrey Hawksley. Tolerable. But it made me laugh to see he has a Dixit as the CM of Andrah Pradesh, who has also, at some time (wait for it!), been the Health Minister in Assam. Rotfl unbelievable. There are other goofs, too.

Midway through The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels edited by Mike Ashley. Fortunately, with happy endings, so my initial trepidation has been assuaged somewhat (I'm no longer a teenager, so horror stories without happy endings are not so easily brushed off these days). So far, I've read The Monkey by Stephen King, Parasite by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Damned by Algernon Blackwood.

Temporarily abandoned this in favour of The Orc King by RA Salvatore. I'm most bugged with this book's publishers. I picked it up because it clearly says on the cover Book 1 of Transitions so I was reassured I'm starting at the beginning; but then, it seems the main character has already starred in another 13 books in another series. Cheating! Cheating! But Todd Lockwood has painted a wonderfully evocative cover, and I have a quote for you: "I have heard it said that the universal hope of the world is that our children will find a better life than we." I'll live. I'll also post if I'm going to be reading any more books in this or other RAS series.

James Bond Guy with Dog takes on terrorists with mutated germs

Thriller | The Kill Switch (Tucker Wayne, #1) | James Rollins

⭐⭐⭐ aka I liked it

James Bond with Dog takes on terrorists with mutated germs that can destroy whole crops (ya, attack the food supply rather than the people, an uncommon twist).

The hero cares more for his dog than he cares about most people, which always puts off speciesists like me. It's a typical Hollywood mix of running up a body count unless the character is named, whereupon our hero becomes all kind and squeamish.

Withal, a light thriller that won't tax your brain cells.

Bastards do not beguile

Detective/Thriller | The Hollow Man | Oliver Harris

⭐⭐

The mystery is well done, the detectiving is fine. The writing is pacy and atmospheric, the editing is taut. That should easily get a book 3 stars.

The reason it does not, is the ‘bastard of a hero’ as the blurb too charitably puts it. I found the detective (Nick Belsey) to be an appalling human, greedy, addicted, manipulative, conniving, misusing his position for personal gain, dishonest in every possible way (and yet he manages to con the investigative journalist into falling in love with him, despite lying to her at almost every step).

Deal breaker. It’s only curiosity about the mystery that saw me through the whole book. Next time, I’ll watch a train wreck instead.

So, the rating is the average of 1 star (I hated it, that’s Nick Belsey), and 3 stars (I liked it, that’s the mystery). It’s a shoddy compromise, leaving me feeling vaguely unclean. Like the book itself. More accurately:

   2 stars and a pile of poop.

Life after Artemis Fowl

YA SF | WARP The Reluctant Assassin | Eoin Colfer

So, last review I said I'd tell you about a coincidence. The last book had a protagonist named Rylee, and this one has a protagonist named Riley. How's that for coincidence between two YA thrillers? Oh, so the title says YA SF? Big deal. Can't an SF book be a thriller? Usually, they all are. Thrilling, I mean.

Let's get on with it. Riley is an orphan from Victorian London. Chevie aka Chevron, is a teen FBI agent (it's an experiment by the FBI, being abandoned). How do they meet, you wonder. Not so tough. The FBI has a top secret program called WARP, in which witness protection is done by hiding the witnesses in the past. Chevie, in some kind of disgrace for saving some people she was watching over (yeah, yeah, you know how it goes), is sent to London to mind the WARP machine, but not told by Agent Orange what it's all about. (Please groan along with me if you get the Agent Orange reference, since we soon enough find that's not his real name).

Just to get some things sorted out for you, Agent Orange's dad invented WARP, and is sulking in the past, along with the timekey. Which means nobody else can go to the past, and the people there are stuck.

Now, someone wants to assassinate the dad, and pays our friend, the evil villain Albert Garrick, to do so. Albert in turn wants Riley to do so. Somewhere in the process, Riley tumbles out in our century. Garrick, an erstwhile stage magician and enthusiastic assassin, realises that something is afoot and he can gain power, maybe even rule the world (muwahahahahaha!) Somewhere in the transfer when Garrick hits our century, he gets super powers as well as a lot of information about the present. (Not telling you how; that would be a spoiler).

So, you have a story with a supervillain, and ordinary teenaged heroes, each with his or her own weaknesses and strengths.

Eoin Colfer never promises a smooth ride, or even a happy ending. The process of beating the villain is complex, nail-biting, and never to be taken for granted. You may even find that the villain is not fully beaten, but only a temporary truce has been formed. Other villains pop up and help or hinder, depending on their own needs and outlooks.

If you liked the Artemis Fowl books and The Airman, the chances are good you'll like WARP. There's more historical reference and less fantasy in WARP than in Artemis Fowl, and more fantasy and less historical reference than in The Airman. Just so you know.

Recommended!

Reading YA books over the objections of the Resident Teen

Thriller | RUN | Greg Olsen

The resident teen wanted to know why I read YA books instead of 'normal adult' books. Are they better? You bet they are!

RUN features a protagonist named Rylee. I'll come to this in the next review, under the heading 'coincidences'.

Rylee has been on the run from since she can remember. Every now and then, her paranoid mother (not really, in case someone is really out to get you, are you still paranoid?) will uproot the whole family, stepfather, stepbrother and all, and they will change their names and city. Rylee has reached the grand old age of 16 or so, and wants to have a normal life and normal friends, like schoolmate Caleb.

Who's after them? Why can't normal law enforcement keep the villain at bay? Rylee doesn't know, and nobody's telling.

Till one day she reaches home to find her brother calling for her in terror. Someone has killed her stepfather, and her mother is missing. Rylee goes on the run, to save seven-year-old Hayden, and possibly her mother, too. There are clues her mother has left for her, and there are clues she finds out for herself. All the while avoiding being caught for a murder she did not do. There are so many lies she has to go through, and so many layers of lies, the book begins to look fairly onion-shaped. There are evil villains, convoluted reasons why people do the things they do, idols with feet of clay, unexpected help, serial killers, crooked cops, even facebook. What more could a young adult want?

I loved the book, and would want to read more about Rylee (whose 'real' name we do find out at some stage) and her further adventures. Here is one ninja you'd want on your side: fearless, dedicated, intelligent, compassionate and a chameleon! Every girl's hero fantasy, written in a pacy, no-nonsense first-person style that is so very believable and true to the character.

Strongly recommended!

Pax Americana

Thriller | The Shark Mutiny | Patrick Robinson

This was the slowest of the six books I read this past month. Though really, should not have been. It's a war story, with SEALs.

It's a book about the US Navy. Dan Headley and Rick Hunter are childhood friends who join the Navy. Cut to the present day. Admiral Arnold Morgan is the cynical NSA to a President he holds in contempt. (There seems to have been another book before this one, but it's fairly standalone, though it seems the Chinese were villains in that one as well). A young lieutenant finds satellite and other intelligence to indicate that the Chinese are up to no good, along with the Iranians.

Sure enough, they have mined the Strait of Hormuz, and blow up a set of tankers. This sends the world oil markets into a tizzy. While nobody claims responsibility, Admiral Morgan is bent on teaching the pesky Chinamen a lesson. This the SEAL team does. The Chinese in the meantime do more cunning things and need to be taught more lessons. It's very much a world in which the USA calls all the shots and diplomacy and other countries are not relevant. It's a world with war, so that's not surprising. It's also written by an American, for American readers.

Morgan is almost a caricature, with quirky speech and mannerisms. One would expect less use of such literary crutches, and in the other characters, they are not used. Dan Headley, the XO of the nuclear submarine Shark is to insert the SEAL team for the retributive attacks. His Captain is a strange guy, on his last tour. Rick Hunter leads the second SEAL team. The first tour has issues which show that the Captain is not exactly operating with a full deck.

Hence, the mutiny. Actually, it happens in the last 100 pages of the book, almost as an anti-climax. Except that the point is to show how a modern navy would handle a mutiny, even a 'justified' one like we have. That raises the book from the level of mere thriller.

 

Not the best writing, but a solid story, and a tremendous love for the navy which shines through every episode.

A hero vs a not-purely-terrorising terrorist

Thriller | Strike Back | Chris Ryan

So, the blurb on the back of the book says:

What would you normally make of this? That Sir Peregrine is definitely a bad guy of some sort, and John Porter is going to get a life back?

Dynamite! How clever of you!

John Porter's first live mission in Beirut ended with the hostage rescued, but his three buddies dead. All because he didn't kill a young Arab with a cleft palate. Now, the self-same Arab has kidnapped a media star. John is the only one who can get her, because the Arabs acknowledge debts.

A nice adventure story for insular Englishmen. Not quite so much for, say, an Arab, even though the villains and heroes are all mostly English. It's that objectification thingie.

 

Nice enough yarn if you suspend disbelief. Fast paced and frothy.

A cure for meekness

Suspense | Mice | Gordon Reece

The book starts off by describing meek 16-yo Shelley and her meeker mother shifting into an isolated cottage after Shelly has been bullied to within an inch of her life in school, and her mother has been divorced by a husband looking for a trophy wife.

They are struggling on. The book covers a lot of ordinary, everyday scenes, which establish for us how much the mother and daughter love each other, and how very very meek they are.

And then a burglar breaks into their house one night. High on drugs, he ties them up and starts picking and smashing. As the blurb on the cover says, “If she and her mother are not mice after all, then what are they?”

There is a murder. Will the police solve it or will it remain one of those perennial mysteries? It's up for grabs right till the very end.

I'm not going to give any spoilers, so you have to content yourself with this much.

Do I recommend you read it? Yes. Will it be made into a movie? I doubt it, but I'd go watch if it is. Age group for readers? Fifteen plus.

What would you do if you knew one drug could doom the world?

Thriller | The Side Effect | Bob Reiss

The head of security for a pharma company finds his Chairman dead, presumably suicide. In the meantime, the President of the USA resigns, and is replaced by a hardliner. Other resignations happen. What's the connection, if any?

Investigating, along with his faithful team of security guy and computer hacker, our man teams up with the daughter of the Chairman and his personal assistant, both ravishing beauties to whom he is deeply attracted, though wary of involvement almost as a principle. For a change, they are not described as large-breasted. Still, their breasts are very much described. Bleargh. Don't male authors think women read, or do they not care how shallow they seem?

In the meantime, powerful people, including the new Chairman and the company's lobbyist, both friends of the dead man, want the case closed. Our hero is threatened with death, which only makes him more determined. The daughter of the Chairman says he was awfully manipulative and elitist, while our man thinks of him as just and honest. The Chairman was wary of an army Major, and the Major takes an immediate dislike to the protagonist, too. A dangerous enemy is made.

It emerges that the Chairman had been approached by a freelance researcher who had found a 'side effect' in a drug being tested (uselessly) for arthritis.

The rest of the book is about this side effect. Since it is revealed in its full glory only halfway through the book, it would be a spoiler to tell you what it is. Suffice to say it sits on the edge between science fiction and fantasy, and is well worth all the efforts to gain exclusive control over it. All in the national interest, of course.

Fortunately, the entire government is not compromised, and the evil doers are not (yet) all powerful. The new drug is being mass produced, but only in one location. Our team attacks the location, and the finale is achieved. Credit roll.

There are formulaic elements in the book. Which of the two women, equally in love with the protagonist, will eventually live with him? (As per formula, the other one has to move conveniently aside, either through sacrifice or death). Children exist, but they are neither seen nor heard. The sidekick is utterly loyal, competent, but follows the leader unquestioningly. At a critical moment, he is injured, and the boss has to do all the rest of the 'action'.  The evil doers claim to be doing good. The really nasty killers get their just desserts. Fanatics suffer.

A fair lazy Sunday read.

Thrillers by Indians, for Indians and of Indians

Thriller | The Terrorist | Juggi Bhasin

There are a lot of thrillers being written in English in India these days. This is good news. We can read about outlandish capers set in our own localities instead of in places we are unlikely to see in our lifetimes.

 

The Terrorist is set mostly in Delhi, though frankly, I barely recognise the places. I really didn't know that Karnataka Bhawan was a den of iniquity. I always thought of it as the place to go to eat delicious thali food at ludicrously low prices.

Anyhow, there is a young engineer who falls in love and then gets kicked out of his job and loses the love of his life, just because he happens to be Muslim. His evil employer gets him framed in a terrorist case, and the radicals around him further embroil him in terrorism. Finally, being brutalised by the police during 'interrogation' turns him into a hard-core terrorist, yet, withal, one who only kills police and army people.

In the meantime, there is a young Army officer who is trained in counter-terrorism in a remote place in the North East. His rich mother has driven his Army father to suicide, and he has cut off all ties with her in revenge. His soul's shell is breached by his best friend, an Army buddy who is just as good a soldier as him, but has a heart. He falls in love with a woman his mother 'arranges' for him to meet, but because of his mother, the two are sundered and he also falls out with his best friend.

He gets posted to J&K where he is seconded to the local police. There, he slowly wins over the police team assigned to him. One day, his teammate's niece is gang-raped by powerful politicians and the police. Her sister records the evidence, and his teammate is now trying to save her and her family.

The book opens with the battle of our hero to rescue the girl and her family. He is court-martialled for it, and emerges vindicated. The Prime Minister (thinly disguised Manmohan Singh), in the meantime, imports an Indian-origin American to run an anti-terrorist cell.

Now, the main action takes place, with the terrorist, known as Ghaznavi, taking on the anti-terrorist Prithvi (named for the nuke, not the planet), and vice versa. Ghaznavi is teamed with a lethal young woman, whose mother was brutalised in one of the communal riots that are the cauldrons for creating radicals in India. She disappeared when her mother was killed and their terrorist cell destroyed (and Ghaznavi was radicalised), but clearly, she went over to Pakistan and turned against her country.

The two work with a set of other cells to attack a leader of the main opposition party, one who is gaining traction by having overseen a communal riot in Gujarat (no prizes for guessing who this person is thinly disguised as). Police and the anti-terrorist cell race to uncover them and foil their evil plans. Two plans are foiled, two are not.

Finally, we have the much-awaited face-off between Ghaznavi and Prithvi, and a finale with enough explosions to satisfy any die-hard thriller buff.

I pendulumed between liking Juggi Bhasin's plot and writing and being appalled by it. Casual cynicism wars with some truly well-fleshed out passages. I had more sympathy with the antagonist than the protagonist, for most of the book. All in all, a fast but shallow read, and the characters could do with more fleshing out. As it is, it's written for Bollywood. You can expect to see a movie on it, if Bhasin's agent does a good job of the negotiation. I can just about imagine Neil Nitin Mukesh and Vivek Oberoi in the movie!

Just what the doctor ordered, in terms of a thriller to read on a brisk Saturday morning

Thriller | The President's Assassin | Brian Haig

So, another series thriller. Fortunately, Brian Haig writes series books that stand alone, so it was quite enjoyable. Unlike the previous book (I, Sniper), the humour in this book is an integral part of the writing. The dialogue is full of people sharpening their wits on each other. Sample page one when Sean Drummond, army lawyer and presently seconded to the CIA, meets his FBI counterpart en route to the scene of the crime:

“That's a lovely pistol you're carrying.”
No reply.
“The accessorized holster is nice, too.”
“Well ... they're FBI issue.”
“No kidding. Ever shoot anybody with it?”
“Not yet.” She gave me a brief glance. “You might be my first.”

And just like that, we understand that Jennifer Margold is not to be trifled with, and why his bosses are sick of Sean Drummond, and why we're going to like this book already.

Someone has just killed the Chief of Staff of the US President, his family, and his Secret Service detail. And left a note that more killings will follow, with the President as the finale, in just two days.

Margold and Drummond have to battle not only the villains, but internal politics. The FBI profiler's team doesn't like her recent promotion, her boss has a history with Drummond and hates him already, and doesn't mind hating her as well. The two are clearly supposed to take the fall in case the villains really do succeed. High stakes detective work combine with snappy dialogue, and twists and turns almost worthy of Jeffrey Deaver (the dialogue is better). When all the villains are taken down (oh, come on, you know that will happen, it's not a spoiler), we're brought back to reality to ponder who wants to convince everyone Drummond is one of them, too. Yeah, it's not over. There are still forty pages to go.

Move over, M, Phyllis Carney is here. I loved Drummond's boss. She's sharp, old, and runs a tight ship. George Meany is well named, as Margold's boss and Drummond's love's ex-boyfriend. I enjoyed loving to hate him. I liked the resolution. Satisfactory, and tying up all the loose ends. And of course, I loved Drummond's incisive observations, witty lines and ability to cut through the crap. Just what a thriller should be.

A peek into the novels that thrill the American right

Thriller | I, Sniper | Stephen Hunter

Okay, I confess that the main reason I picked up this book was the juxtaposition of 'Bob Lee Swagger' and 'FBI agent Nick Memphis' on the back cover. Yeah, a book I came to because I've seen a movie of an earlier book in what I rapidly realised is probably a long-running series. Who knew?

Bob Lee is an ex-marine sniper, arguably one of the best, a Vietnam War survivor on the American side, now getting old and creaky in the joints. His friend Nick Memphis gets hold of some great breaks in the latest political assassinations case, and zeroes in on the culprit in double-quick time. As the SWAT team goes in, Carl Hitchcock, also an ex-marine sniper, is found dead of self-inflicted gunshots. Memphis suspects something is wrong because no case can ever be so quick, so clean, and so wrapped up. He asks Swagger to take a look so that he doesn't end up with egg on his face some years down the line. Swagger finds nothing wrong in the case, except his conviction that Hitchcock was not guilty (yes, he has evidence of sorts for this).

And then, suddenly, the anomalies pop out of the camouflage, and the case becomes complex. Bob Lee, that typical American hero in the tradition of Westerns, the good guy with the guns, goes into bad guy land to prevent them getting away with perfect murders. (And yes, there is a shoot-out with sixguns in California.)

It's really weird to read a book from the conservative side of American politics. There are snide references about leftists, sneaky scenes against the media, even a comment by Swagger that he gets all his news from Fox! Yes, apparently, intelligent people, too, can watch Fox News (which is discredited even all the way round the world in India as an unreliable news source—that should tell you something). Combined with missing subject-verb agreements in his speech (his term for it), it's a bit of a peek into a different set of assumptions than most books from the USA. I guess the Right doesn't get as much space as the Left, so it has to work harder. But Hunter wears the mantle lightly, and never quite descends to rants. The poking fun is done with a light touch. Sample the first sentence in the book: “The time has long passed in American when one can say of a sixty-year-old woman that she is “still” beautiful, the snarky little modifier, all buzzy with irony, signifying some kind of miracle that one so elderly could be so attractive.” What's a bit more of a tripping point for me was the terrifying detail about all those guns, detail so matter-of-fact that it scared me at times. Surely the USA is weird in its worship of guns? I'm grateful that we don't have the equivalent of the NRA where I live!

So, is it very much in the macho style popularised by the Die Hard movies? I didn't quite get the same vibe in the movie Shooter. And the book makes Memphis and Swagger even more rounded characters. So, no. It's rooted with the conservatives, but these are not as much stock characters as the Die Hard or True Lies movies. Books win over movies, again.

Hmm, where can I find more Stephen Hunter books, particularly about Nick Memphis, whom I like more and more?

And, oh yeah, there's a pun in the book title.

Legal Thrillers for Kids

Legal Thriller | Theodore Boone: The Abduction | John Grisham

Into every hotshot best selling writer's life, some kids or grandkids will appear. Suddenly, the writer will realise that there's nothing really good out there for these super-awesome wonders of the universe. Thus did Terry Pratchett and John Grisham turn their keyboards towards the eager eyes of the tweens of the world.

The Abduction is the second Theodore Boone book. Theo is an eighth class student, and a lawyer at heart. The son of two famous lawyers of a small town in the USA, he is in and out of the courtroom, and possibly knows more about the law than many smart adults. Having liked the first book, we eagerly reach for this, the second.

And we are not disappointed. Grisham made his name as a pacy writer of complex legal twists and turns. He maintains much of that in the new child-friendly format, and the constraints of handling a story for the adults of tomorrow are handled deftly. These are not detective stories, despite the claim of one of the publisher's blurbs that link it to Nancy Drew (come to that, Nancy Drew was more about makeup than detection, meh); no, they bring you to the law.

Theo's good friend April Finnemore, has disappeared from her house in the night. Theo knows her mother is lying about the sequence of events, and tells his parents so. In the meantime, while police hunt all over the town, and the local TV channel keeps up a high-pitched repetition of meagre facts, April's father has vanished on a band-tour, and a convict cousin-cum-penpal of hers has been found in the vicinity, having busted out of jail. While the police try to convince the convict to confess and release the girl instead of angling for 'deals', Theo's ex-lawyer uncle gets tips from the local underworld, and the two of them pick up on clues to track April down.

There are side stories about dive-bombing parrots, and other everyday trivia. Still, you end up carrying away lessons about your rights, city ordinances, abuse of power and position, and other righteous stuff in a very slickly packaged story for kids of all ages.

Does that mean I will tell you about Theodore Boone and Theodore Boone: The Accused​? Heh heh. Hang around. I read those some months ago, and may get around to telling you about them some day. Or you can just go read them for yourself.

Reading three books at the same time

Fantasy | Secrets of Goth Mountain | Gary J. Davies
Legal thriller | Reversible Errors | Scott Turow
Fantasy | Mad Ship | Robin Hobb

Here's the thing about reading three books at the same time: it's confusing. Which book do you really want to read? First. (You want to read all books if you're like me). I was going through a slow patch last month, and really, didn't feel like doing anything. Even reading. (Horrors!) So I picked up three books at the same time (never take medical advice from me).

Now, of the three, Gary Davies' book moves the fastest. Unfortunately, it's an ebook, and so not as amenable to being read in all sorts of places (it's weird to open your laptop and chuckle in a doctor's waiting room, for example). So it ended up being the only one of the three I haven't yet finished. You have in it Johnny Goth, who has special powers (like extra-keen super sight, hearing and strength), but who's been taken away from Goth Mountain by his mother, since she doesn't want him to disappear, like his father did. He's engaged to Angela because she wants it that way. He has a watch with his father's image engraved on it, along with his own. The images age.

In the meantime, near Goth Mountain, Fenster the logger wants to grab the mountain so that he can cut the old-growth forests. The native Americans on the mountain will not stand for it. There is the teacher, Elizabeth Winters (we all know she will end up with Johnny Goth instead of Angela), and Johnny's childhood friends, including Dooley Simple who convinces the bark of several trees to grow in smiley shapes, the shaman Two Bears, and the shape-shifting Ned. Ranged with the villains are Skunk Fenster, the goonish nephew of Fenster the logger, the Sheriff (owned by the logger) and Mr Dark, an evil entity that feeds on humans and other beings. Of course, given that the market is for white males, Johnny is not a native American. Duh.

Yep, shenanigans all around. A Wild West story with supernatural beings. Keep tuned. I'll write it up later.

Reversible Errors refers to the legal term that gets trials thrown out on appeal. Rommy Gandolph is about to be executed for three gruesome murders. The federal appellate court (I'll never understand the USAn legal system, so I'm careful to copy-paste the terms) has drafted corporate lawyer Arthur Raven to help him draft his last appeal. Arthur used to be a public prosecutor, then moved to the richer fields of corporate practice. He's a gone case, unattractive and sentimental, and has resigned himself to never marrying. He also has a schizophrenic sister to look after, which doesn't help. Ex-judge and ex-con Gillian Sullivan had judged the case originally. She's been disgraced as taking bribes for cases, blackmailed by lawyers who found her guilty secret. Larry Starczek the detective who ran the original case, is still trying to get somewhere with his true love, Muriel Wynn, the prosecutor. Both are married to other people whom they don't love. The reopening of the case throws them together.

The story see-saws between Arthur's team proving the client innocent, and Muriel's team proving their case was solid all along. Except that both sides are being played. As each side sees an ascendant in their case, so do the two couples, Arthur and Gillian and Muriel and Larry, seem to come together. As their cases slide downward, so do the relationships. Since I'm not going to spoil the end for those who want to read the book, let me say that one relationship survives, and the other crashes, exactly in tune with the respective cases. Yeah, wait for the last chapter. It's a decent whodunit as well; don't get misled by the author's emphasis on the relationships.

Mad Ship is the second book (of three) in 'The Liveship Traders' series. As usual, I hit a series in the middle (what's with me??). This book is the slowest moving as well as the fattest of the three books. Most series authors walk a line between writing the second book for the fans of the first, and writing it for new entrants like me. Robin Hobb, aka Megan Lindholm, takes you on a round of introductions of practically every character who populated the previous book, including the liveships, so I'm guessing she chose the first option. Liveships are constructed of wizardwood, and are 'alive'. They are characters, too. A liveship with a good relationship with the crew and trader family it belongs to, can outrun any other ship on the world. Bingtown, where the Traders live, pays rates and taxes to the Satrap of Jaimillia. Unfortunately, the new Satrap is a spoilt teenager who is tying up with the villainous Chalcedeans. Along the Rain Wild River are the Rain Wild Traders, a secretive and deformed group who are the only source of wizardwood. The river eats any other wood than wizardwood, so only Bingtown trades with them. There are also pirates, led by Captain Kennit, who wants to be King of the Cursed Shores, the only human-populated part of the planet.

Liveships need a family member aboard. Vivacia has been taken over by Kennit, but Althea, the daughter of its old captain, still hopes to wrest it from her brother-in-law, Captain Kyle Haven (not a Trader-born), who has turned slaver to save the family's fortunes. Kennit is trying to corrupt her nephew Wintrow, but she doesn't know that. Having proven her ability to run a ship on Ophelia, she is torn between her newly rediscovered love Brashen Trell and Ophelia's captain's son, Grag Tenira, who loves her unrequitedly. There is Amber the beadmaker and wizardwood carpenter, who is on the side of the slaves and also on the side of the mad ship Paragon. Althea's sister, mother and niece are wondering whether to let her niece, Malta, marry a Rain Wild trader, Reyn. Reyn's mind is being torn up by the dragon who lives in the last dragon egg (the shell of which is wizardwood), because she wants to be freed. Sea Serpents are trying to retain their sentience, and dying out all over the planet. The Elder Race, which lived alongside the dragons, died a long time back, and only the Rain Wild people have deciphered some of their secrets.

By the time I was finally engaged with the story, I was 6/7 of the way to the end. And it bugged me that the end of the story is in part 3. Fortunately, I can guess what will happen, muwahahaha.

It's not a bad book by any means, well written. A liveship is an interesting concept. But too slow. Also, as usual, I wonder why people have to revert to Victorian customs in fantasy lands. Especially when it's clear they came from Earth at some time in the past, and well into our future.

And, drat, I read two more books in between. So I'll write them up, too, before telling you all about Goth Mountain.

Read Reversible Errors if you like legal thrillers. Scott Turow writes well. This is not his best book, though. John Grisham fans will probably like Scott Turow books.

 

Read Mad Ship if you like complex stories with lots of characters who have emotional issues that they need to resolve. Anne McCaffery readers would like these books.

 

Read The Secrets of Goth Mountain if you like fantasy placed in modern settings. Light reading with happy endings. It reminds me of Disney's Hot Lead and Cold Feet. With Added Nature Powers. Oh, and it's free in July 2014.

When is a James Bond story not a James Bond story?

Thriller | Jeffrey Deaver | Carte Blanche

If you like James Bond stories, chances are that you like the Bond movies. Every time the Bond actor changes, there is a lot of controversy. Still, Daniel Craig seems to have got the thumbs up. Until Skyfall. It may be a well-done movie, all nicely directed and shot, with a super-clever villain, nice camerawork and the like. Yet, ask anyone. Was it really a Bond movie? No. The real Bond does not age past 40.

So, does Jeffery Deaver pull off the Bond book? Take a step back. Have you actually read any Bond books? I read quite a few by Ian Fleming, and trust me, they were not worth re-reading. Almost all of the Bond fame came from celebrity endorsement. Until John Kennedy, then President of the USA, mentioned that he found them good for light reading, these books were not bestsellers. Thereafter, they became so famous that it was found churlish to complain that their writing was average, their plots jingoistic, and the humour schoolboyish. Not one of the 'Bond girls' in the books had anything like normality, neither in their appearance nor their names. Octopussy is a name? Come on!

Deaver's Bond has been updated to the 21st century, while retaining his age in the mid-30s. This Bond's history is the newer movies, not the Ian Fleming books, and so he comes with fresh backstory. Which is a good thing.

Deaver's writing is as crisp as ever. The plot fairly whizzes along. There are twists and turns in every chapter. Everyone is thinking three steps ahead of everyone else. You can almost see the movie scenes play out (I hate to say this, but they all look like Craig would fit in them, and not Brosnan). The villain has the Bond villain edge of outlandish villainy, and a name to match. Severan Hydt runs a garbage disposal empire, and loves death and decay. So much that he is willing to quietly dispose of inconvenient dead bodies for criminals.

The action starts with Bond in Serbia, faced with an Irishman, Niall Dunne, about to derail a train carrying MIC, the Bhopal chemical. But that was misdirection. Needless to say, Bond saves the day and the train. And gets drummed out of Serbia for his trouble.

The Bond women in the plot include Ophelia Maidenstone, the South African Bheka (giving her full name is a bit of a spoiler, so I'll merely say it means 'protector'), and Felicity Willing. You can't complain that the names are run-of-the-mill, but they're not as absurd as Fleming's names. One of them gets shot. What did you expect, anyway?

There are gadgets, international travel, fine wine, intra-departmental politicking, fiendish villains, doomsday devices, thousands of lives at stake, chases, shootings, confusion, you name it. Whatever you want in a Bond book, or a movie. Plus, a new, improved James Bond. Who's actually looking for a woman to share a life with.

So, when is a Bond book not a Bond book? When it's a typically Jeffrey Deaver book, with his signature twists and turns. Bond is incidental. Good choice of author, Ian Fleming Publications, but Deaver is taller by far than James Bond.

Which is a good thing.

Justice, helped along by humans

Books | John McLaren | Running Rings

One of the things I like about John McLaren books is the 'poetic' or ironic justice that always gets the villains by the end. The good guys may do stupid things along the way (and usually do), but they remain essentially just. They have their foibles and weaknesses, and the villains have things going their way much of the time, but in the end, justice prevails, helped along by the good humans.

This is roughly what the story is about: 

It's not a spoiler, because I've lifted it off the back cover. Thing is, it's not fully accurate. Primrose is not the one who works with Rupert on the crime side. It's her dad who does.

Primrose starts off as a doormattish woman, whom Rupert winds around his little finger. Later on, she does show signs of fury and spine, more like a hotshot lawyer should be. Her brother Lee is a thug of the first order. Her brother Dan spends most of the time off-stage. Ronnie, her dad, is a likeable character all around. Kudos to McLaren for this, since most drug-lord characters in thrillers rarely engage the readers' sympathies. 

This despite the fact that McLaren has a very spare writing style, almost like Icelandic sagas, in which you get to know a lot about the facts, the things that happened, and little about the inner workings of the characters unless they mention something in dialogue. Well done, McLaren, and I will continue reading your books!

You should, too. These books written around the turn of the century have references to cutting edge technology, and cutting commentary on the style of management consultants and VCs. I found those sections hilarious, knowing quite a bit about how companies really do work with management consultants. Totally spot on, and why not? The author used to be a venture capitalist and director of two investment banks, where he must have closely worked with all kinds of people in that realm, the good, bad and ugly.

Yes, there is humour, all integral to the plot, which chugs along at decent clip. You find you warm up to the 'right' characters, which is a tribute to the author's skill (okay, I'll stop belabouring this point). There are also a lot of surprises along the way.

There is a happy ending, which is de rigeur for me to really like a book (necessary but not sufficient condition), and I really liked this one. Some day I'll get along to reviewing Press Send, which I read before this one, and which made me pick out John McLaren books when I can get them. But take it from me, that one was good, too.

Hmm, for those who need more help in making up their minds, I should give you an 'if you like x, you may like these'. So, similar stories but a more famous writer would be Sidney Sheldon. Plus of course if you made good in the dotcom era, or even if you were close to it, you can relate to fellow geeks in the story.

Should we keep faith in David Baldacci?

Thriller| David Baldacci | Saving Faith

Lee Adams is hired by a mysterious client to find Faith Lockhart. Faith has disappeared because she is being protected by the FBI, whom she has approached to cut a deal. In return for information about high-level misdeeds, she wants her mentor, lobbyist Danny Buchanan, and herself to be home free. Now, somebody is after her, FBI agents get killed, and she is on the run, along with Lee Adams.

Is Danny really a lobbyist with a heart of gold, or something a lot darker?

Unlike many books by Baldacci, this one describes emotions rather than letting us feel them directly, which to my mind is a drawback. Or perhaps it isn't fair to hold only Baldacci to higher standards, eh? No, by gum, it is perfectly fair.

Slower than some of his other books, some good twists and turns, but the climactic scenes are not handled that well. They're a bit like from a formulaic Hollywood movie (you know the hero can win against a zillion villains), although there is certainly one Noooooo! moment.

There are better books by David Baldacci, but this one's not bad either.