Category: G

3/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, RATING, Read in 2010, READING CHALLENGES 2010, Review Book

REVIEW: 18 Billion by Jack Gresham

Tara

18 Billion
by Jack Gresham

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 337
Rating: 3/5
Read: Feb. 4-7, 2010
Challenge:  2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Countdown Challenge 2010; Thriller & Suspense 2010
Yearly Count: 6

First Line: The man approaching teller number three carried a rectangular black leather briefcase.

Blurb from the back of the book:
In Washington, D.C., a cell of Afghan terrorists – armed with a nuclear weapon – conspire to rob the Federal Reserve Bank of New York of eighteen billion dollars. They plan to fund and curry favor with Mohammed of Babylon, an international negotiator and proponent of peaceful jihad who is rumored to be the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam. Mohammed, shocked to find himself the center of religious extremism, attempts to right the wrong done to the United States without betraying the trust of his people. Meanwhile, the government’s investigation into the terrorist cell behind the threat uncovers a more frightening plot. An international corporation called Global Consultant Ltd. appears to be funding and manufacturing global terrorism for their own purposes. The corporation, driven by greed rather than ideology, has the feds wondering how far their influence reaches and what it will take to counter the terrorism already set in motion.

My opinion: (some SPOILERS are included)
I received this book to review from Maia Levenson from Phenix & Phenix Publicity. This would not have been a book that I would have ever picked up in a bookstore. This is a little bit out of my normal reading, and I think that that is what initially attracted me to this book. However, I was slightly disappointed in it. First of all, there were more than a few grammatical errors (I know I’m a stickler for that, but it’s definitely a pet peeve of mine). I also didn’t really care for the writing style, I found myself having to re-read a lot of paragraphs because I found myself losing track of who was speaking and what was really going on. Personally, I felt like the first half of this book was much better than the second. Pretty much everything that went on after the robbery at the Fed in regards to the government and their plans, well that was unbelievable to say the least. The overall story got a little bogged down for my taste with all the descriptions by the different government agencies in regards to how they were going to unravel the conspiracy behind the terrorists and the nuclear threat. There was so much jumping around between the different characters that it was a little bit confusing at times. I thought that Mr. Gresham could have made it a little more believable if some of the government agencies had made a few wrong turns here or there in regards to tracking the communications, the terrorists and the businesses involved. Everything went a little too smoothly for my taste – the robbery occurred, but the bombs were never set off – the money was returned – the terrorists were caught, etc. It was all just a little too cookie-cutter clean. Sure, this is the first book in a planned series, so maybe some of the answers are in subsequent books, but I’m not sure I would continue on with this series. Overall, I wouldn’t consider this a bad book, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009, T

REVIEW: The Book of Names by Jill Gregory & Karen Tintori

Tara

The Book of Names
by Jill Gregory & Karen Tintori

Copyright: 2007
Pages: 341
Rating: 5/5
Read: Dec. 30-31, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; Countdown Challenge 2010; RYOB 2009
Yearly Count: 74

First Line: Two men shoveled the sand under cover of darkness.

In each generation there are 36 people who hold the world in balance. The names of those 36 people are found in The Book of Names. If all 36 of those people are killed then the world as we know it will essentially end. Some  examples: Mt. Vesuvius erupted when 15 were killed; the Inquisition was triggered after 18 were killed. In the current generation, there are only three left to find and kill. So what disaster will happen once those three are identified and eliminated? It’s up to one man – David Shepherd to end the cycle. He sees all these names in his head and has been writing them down in a journal for years. He has no idea what these names mean or why they are coming to him. But when he learns the reasons behind these mysterious names coming to him he is horrified to find that the latest one that has come to him is his step-daughters name. Knowing he must save her no matter what, he sets out across the globe to finally end this once and for all.

I am such a sucker for action packed adventure that a book like this provides. It’s such a wonderful escape for me. It was also a great way to end my 2009 reading. Some of the stuff in this book was a little unbelievable, but I think that’s what made me like this book even more. I really enjoyed it. I don’t really know what I can say about this book other than that I recommend it to everyone. If you want a really good race-against-the-clock storyline this is a great place to start.

4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009

REVIEW: The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace

Tara

The Eleventh Victim
by Nancy Grace

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 353
Rating: 4/5
Read: Nov. 6 – 13, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 2009 Celebrate the Author Challenge; 2010 Countdown Challenge
Yearly Count: 59

First Line: A little something. What was it? Something … Some detail was wrong.

Young Hailey Dean’s life is turned upside down when her fiance Will, is murdered weeks before their wedding. She deals with it the only way she can think of: she becomes an attorney. And a darned good attorney at that. Working as a prosecutor in Atlanta, Hailey racks up a 100% win rate in court. She is unstoppable. Until she meets Clint Cruise. She manages to get the jury to convict the serial murderer, but it will be her last case. She has finally reached her limit. She leaves Atlanta and the court system behind. She finds herself in New York City working as a psychiatrist. She thinks everything is going great for her – until not one, but two of her patients turn up murdered. And who is the police’s prime suspect? Hailey herself. She manages to get herself out of jail, but she knows that the police are watching her every move. But when she finds out that Cruise has been released from prison on a technicality – her whole world is going to be chaotic because she knows he is the one who is framing her for the murder of her patients.

I enjoyed this book. It was slightly formulaic and predictable. However, I thought that overall the storyline was pretty good. Knowing Nancy Grace from watching her show over the years, I’m sure she has lots of great ideas for fiction books based on all of her experience. I know she put some of herself into Hailey Dean, which made Hailey’s character that much more likable. I thought that for Grace’s first stab at fiction, she did really good. She had some well developed characters and I love how she had kind of two, almost three, storylines going on at the same time and yet they weren’t confusing to me the reader as to what was going on. I enjoyed this book and hope that I see more of Nancy Grace’s fiction books in the future.

4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Kinsey Millhone, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009, SERIES

REVIEW: ‘D’ is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton

Tara

‘D’ is for Deadbeat
by Sue Grafton

Copyright: 1987
Pages: 240
Rating: 4/5
Read: Oct. 6-10, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; A Well-Rounded Challenge 2009 ;2009 Celebrate the Author Challenge; RYOB 2009; 2009 What’s in a Name Challenge
Yearly Count: 52

First Line: Later, I found out his name was John Daggett, but that’s not how he introduced himself the day he walked into my office.

Kinsey Millhone figures her latest job will be an easy one. All she has to do is deliver a $25,000 check to a fifteen-year-old boy. She was a little leery of Alvin Limardo, but she took the job, and his retainer check. But when the check bounced, she knew that something wasn’t quite right. Trying to track Alvin down, she finds out that Alvin is actually John Daggett, a drunk who was just released from prison. But by the time Kinsey tracks him down again, he’s dead. And unfortunately there is a very long list of people who was more than happy to see him end up dead. So how does a private investigator get a dead man to pay up?

This is the fourth installment in the Kinsey Millhone series. I found this book to be slow to start, but it had a really great middle and then a below-par ending. It really is kind of unbelievable in regards to all the trouble that Kinsey manages to find. But I like her character. This one was definitely better than the first three books in this series were. I guess she was still developing as an author back then. But I’m going to repeat something that I know that I mentioned in my reviews of the first three in this series: it’s hard to pack a really great action-filled story into 240 pages. I know that as this series progresses, the books become longer in length, and I hope that that’s due to Grafton being able to develop the characters a little bit more. That’s something that I really look for in a series, but I haven’t seen much development so far.

5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Jane Rizzoli, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009, SERIES

REVIEW: The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

Tara

The Surgeon
by Tess Gerritsen

Copyright: 2001
Pages: 359
Rating: 5/5
Read: Oct. 3-5, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 2009 Celebrate the Author Challenge; 2010 Countdown Challenge; RYOB 2009
Yearly Count: 51

First Line: Today they will find her body.

He is dubbed The Surgeon. He slips into women’s homes unnoticed and does horrendous things to their bodies. Things that are so precise, it indicates that he is a man of medicine. The only clue is another surgeon, Dr. Catherine Cordell. Two years ago she was attacked and fought back and ultimately killed her attacker. But everything Cordell has worked to build will come crashing down when The Surgeon begins to do his work in Boston – he will re-create almost identically the ordeal that Cordell went through.

Okay, so I’ve read a later book in this series, Vanish, a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. I’ve had this one on my shelf for over a year now and finally picked it up! And I am definitely glad that I did pick this one up, I was really surprised by it. I loved it! I am not one who normally reads and/or likes medical type books. But this one was a little different than your typical medical thriller. There was an actual story kind of outside of the hospital to this book. Sure, there was a distinct medical aspect to the book, but as the reader I was not bogged down with a lot of medical terminology. I found it to be a really easy read and very suspenseful! Highly recommended!

AUTHOR, Book Review, G, Nonfiction, Read in 2009

If I Did It by the Goldman Family

Tara

If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer
by The Goldman Family

Copyright: 2006
Pages: 202
Rating: 4/5
Read: June 17-22, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 31

First Line: I’m going to tell you a story you’ve never heard before, because no one knows this story the way I know it.

Unless you were living under a rock in 1994, you know this story. Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman were brutally murdered one night in June. Her ex-husband, the famous O.J. Simpson was the assumed killer. Practically everyone thought he had done it … but he walked away a free man. Although the Goldman family won in a civil trial, they never got the money out of Simpson that they were awarded. Until one day in 2006 when it came out that O.J. was going to write a book, a so-called confession. They fought him on it, they didn’t want something like that in print. But then they realized that maybe it should be published, but that they wanted the rights to it. Well, they eventually won and the book was published.

Okay, so I was a little young in 1994 … I’m going to out my age here, I was 9. However, I remember the trial in 1995. I remember specifically that I was at Walt Disney World with my grandparents and we could hardly pull my grandfather away from the TV to go to the park because he was glued to the trial. I was obviously too young to really know what was going on. But as I grew up and really got interested in true crime stories I saw many TV specials and books on the trial. I formed an opinion based on what I read. When this book came out a few years ago, I have to admit, I was intrigued. A confession? Really?! But I didn’t really want to buy it. So when I saw it in the library last week I snatched it up knowing now would be a great time to read it. And I have to say, the actual original manuscript written by the ghostwriter after extensive interviews with O.J., it was chilling. It sure seemed more of a confession rather than a “If I had done it, this is how I would have done it.” Whatever your opinion on whether or not O.J. did it, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in this trial.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Kinsey Millhone, Read in 2009, SERIES

C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton

Tara

C is for Corpse
by Sue Grafton

Copyright: 1986
Pages: 213
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Feb. 5-9, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; RYOB 2009
Yearly Count: 10

First Line: I met Bobby Callahan on Monday of that week.

Kinsey Millhone meets Bobby Callahan at the local gym. Kinsey is doing physical therapy after getting shot on her previous case. Callahan is at the gym doing his physical therapy after barely surviving a horrific car accident. Bobby knows that someone was after him and that the car accident was not an accident, but unfortunately the accident took away most of his memory and he can’t remember who was after him or why. So he hires Kinsey to find out what really happened that night and what it was that he knew that was worth killing over. But three days later, Bobby is dead and Kinsey is more determined thane ver to find out what it was that Bobby knew that would get him killed.

This book was pretty good. Like I’ve said about the two previous books in this series that I’ve read, it’s hard to get an entire story into 200 short pages. But this story was actually pretty good. This series is definitely getting better for me and I’m looking forward to reading ‘D’.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Read in 2008, READING CHALLENGES 2008

By Order of the President by W.E.B. Griffin

Tara
By Order of the President
by W.E.B. Griffin

Copyright: 2004
Pages: 608
Rating: 3/5
Read: Dec. 14-26, 2008
Challenge: Celebrate the Author

First Line: As he climbed the somewhat unsteady roll-up stairs and ducked his head to get through the door of Lease-Aire LA-9021 – a Boeing 727 – Captain Alex MacIlhenny, who was fifty-two, ruddy-faced, had a full head of just starting to gray red hair, and was getting just a little jowly, had sort of a premonition that something was wrong – or that something bad was about to happen – but he wasn’t prepared for the dark-skinned man standing inside the fuselage against the far wall.

When a Boeing 727 is hijacked from Angola and is flown to an unknown location, the various security agencies of the United States race against the clock to find out where this plane has been taken to and what the hijacker’s intentions are. Unfortunately, those same agencies end up in a power struggle to find the plane first. The President gets fed up with all the in-fighting and asks an outsider, Major Carlos G. Castillo, a West Point graduate and a pilot to get to the truth of the missing airplane. But what Castillo finds out in the end is not only surprising but terrifying, and Castillo must move very, very fast in order to wrap things up before it’s too late.

Military-esque books are very much out of my comfort zone, which is why it took me so long to read this book. However, I did really enjoy this one quite a bit, which would be why I hung in there to finish reading it. I would have given it a higher rating, but I thought that the ending could have been a lot better than it was. It was all a little too neat for my personal tastes. But this is the first in a series which I am definitely going to want to keep an eye on in the future.

3.5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Kinsey Millhone, Read in 2008, SERIES

B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton

Tara
B is for Burglar
by Sue Grafton
Copyright: 1985
Pages: 211
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Aug. 4-6, 2008
Challenge: Book Awards II Challenge – Anthony Award

First Line: After it’s over, of course, you want to kick yourself for all the things you didn’t see at the time.

When Elaine Boldt’s sister comes into Kinsey’s office, Kinsey feels that finding the missing Elaine for her signature on some legal papers will be a piece of cake. She was last seen leaving her condo in California headed to her condo in Florida for the summer – an every year occurrence. But when Kinsey finds out that Elaine apparently never made it to Florida and that she instead sublet her condo (against condo rules), Kinsey feels that something deadly has happened to Elaine. As she follows the leads her case has, Kinsey realizes that her case is related to an accidental fire that killed Elaine’s next door neighbor – and that it might not have been accidental at all….
This book was a lot better than the first one. I liked it. It wasn’t exceptional, but it was definitely intriguing!It’s definitely got me hooked on this series. I’m looking forward to “C” sometime in the near future.
3/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Kinsey Millhone, Read in 2008, SERIES

‘A’ is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

Tara
‘A’ is for Alibi
by Sue Grafton
Copyright: 1982
Pages: 215
Rating: 3/5
Read: April 1-3, 2008
Challenge: Celebrate the Author Challenge; Triple Eight – First in a Series Category

First Line: My name is Kinsey Millhone

Private investigator, Kinsey Millhone vaguely remembers the case of the murder of slick divorce attorney Laurence Fife, some 8 or 9 years previously. Fife’s wife, Nikki, was tried and convicted of the murder and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Now Nikki is out on parole and comes to Kinsey to prove that she did not kill Laurence. Kinsey is reluctant to take the case, eight years cold and seemingly solved. But she takes it thinking there is no way Nikki would bring this up again if she was indeed guilty. But what Kinsey does not expect to find along the way is a second eight-year-old murder and a brand new murder.
I had read part of this book a few years ago and decided to pick it up again since I now own most of the series (I think I’m missing K, O and T). Overall, I was a little disappointed in this. I felt that the writing was a little lacking. Of course, it’s hard to write a novel in 200 short pages. However, I am indeed going to continue this series and can’t wait to get to ‘B’.