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.
3.5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, E, Fiction, Read in 2008, SERIES, Stephanie Plum

Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich

Tara
Two for the Dough
by Janet Evanovich
Copyright: 1996
Pages: 312
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: August 1-3, 2008
Challenge: No challenge; personal read

First Line: I knew Ranger was beside my because I could see his earring gleaming in the moonlight.

Stephanie Plum is at it again. This time, the bounty hunter is on the hunt for Kenny Mancuso, a guy who shot his best friend in the knee and has jumped bail. He’s also distantly related to Joe Morelli. So with the help of Joe, her fellow bounty hunter Ranger, and her Grandma Mazur she’s on the hunt and determined to find Kenny before more people are hurt, mutilated or killed.
Okay, this one was just okay. I’m not overly impressed by this series (I read the first one a couple years back and remember not being very impressed), but I’m going to have to admit, that Grandma Mazur is a piece of work!! I found myself jotting down some of her funnier quotes because they were just too good to pass up! The best in the book had to be in the end, where Grandma quotes Clint Eastwood:

“But being that this is a forty-five magnum, the most powerful handgun in
existence, and it could blow your head clean off, you got to ask yourself one
question. Do you feel lucky today? Well, do you, punk?” (p. 305)

I laughed and laughed at that one! It’s definitely an entertaining book, but the plot left a little to be desired in my opinion. I’m probably going to look for the third in the library sometime in the future though, simply because these books are so funny!
Monthly Wrap Up

July 2008 Wrap-Up

Tara
July 2008 Wrap-Up

Here’s my end of the month wrap-up:

  1. John Sandford, Invisible Prey –> Really good. I thought this one had some really great twists and turns. I really enjoyed it and really need to catch up on this series more. 4/5
  2. J.F. Freedman, The Disappearance –> I thought that the beginning was incredibly slow. It did pick up some, but I really didn’t enjoy this one all that much, it was just okay. 3/5
  3. Michael Connelly, The Black Echo –> First in the Harry Bosch series. It had a slow start, but the rest of the book made up for the slow start! Glad I finally read this one! 4/5
  4. John Lescroart, Dead Irish –> I enjoyed this one. The first in the Dismas Hardy series. The ending was really good! Looking forward to exploring this series more. 4/5
  5. Alex Kava, The Soul Catcher –> Okay, this one was really great up until the ending … it was AWFUL! There is no other way to say it, the ending was just plain bad. 3/5
  6. Anne Bird, Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson is Guilty –> I’ve read a few books on the Scott Peterson case, this one was not the best but not the worst. I’m glad I read it, but I wouldn’t really recommend it to people who didn’t follow the case very closely. 3/5
  7. J.A. Jance, Name Withheld –> This one was okay for me. I didn’t really like or dislike it. I’d never read this author before, and I’m afraid to say I’m not going to be trying Jance again. 3/5
  8. James Patterson, The 5th Horseman –> This one is another good installment in the Women’s Murder Club. It’s a quick and enjoyable read! It’s not the best in the series (the 3rd is in my opinion), but I enjoyed it! Looking forward to the 6th in a little while! 4/5
  9. Jeffery Deaver, The Bone Collector –> I enjoyed this one. I found it a little hard to follow in places. But overall it’s a really good book. 4/5

Here are some statistics in regards to my reading:

  • Books read: 9
  • Pages read: 3,594
  • New Authors: 3
  • Fiction: 8
  • Nonfiction: 1
  • Read for Challenges: 7
4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, D, Fiction, Lincoln Rhyme, Read in 2008, SERIES

The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver

Tara
The Bone Collector
by Jeffery Deaver
Copyright: 1997
Pages: 423
Rating: 4/5
Read: July 28-31, 2008
Challenge: Triple 8 – First in a Series Category

First Line: She wanted only to sleep.

Lincoln Rhyme was one of the nation’s best criminologists. Then an accident at a crime scene paralyzed him. Now a bitter cripple, he’s ready to end his life. But when his old department drags him into a case, he is swept up into an intriguing case. A man known as the Bone Collector is preying on the New York streets, picking at random, and it will take Lincoln’s genius to solve the case. With police detective Amelia Sachs being his eyes at the crime scenes, it becomes a race against the clock in order to catch this madman before he hits too close to home….
I enjoyed this book. I found it a little difficult to follow in a few places, but that might have been my attention slipping a bit. I’ve only read one other in this series and am glad to have read the first in the series. Although I watched the movie, I didn’t recall enough of it to ruin the book for me (although I’m not sure I really agree with changing Thom’s character into Thelma for the movie). Overall I enjoyed this book!
4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, P, Read in 2008, SERIES, Women's Murder Club

The 5th Horseman by James Patterson

Tara
The 5th Horseman
by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Copyright: 2006
Pages: 428
Rating: 4/5
Read: July 27-28, 2008
Challenge: No challenge; personal read

First Line: Rain was drumming hard against the windows when the midnight-to-8:00 rounds began at San Francisco Municipal Hospital.

People are dying at Municipal Hospital in San Francisco. It’s a hospital, of course people will die there. But doctors are stumped as to why there are recovering patients that are dying. People that should not be dying are dying. Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer becomes convinced that someone at the hospital is playing God. But the hospital is pulling out all the stops in order to protect its reputation. It will wage a court battle with the family members of twenty deceased patients. All the while, Lindsay and the Women’s Murder Club are hunting down a merciless killer.

This one was okay. Definitely not the best in the series (that one still goes to the 3rd in my opinion) but I enjoyed it. As always, it was a quick and fun read with a lot of twists and turns along the way. And the ending was great!! I highly recommend this series to those who have not experienced it yet, I love it!!

3/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, J, Read in 2008

Name Withheld by J.A. Jance

Tara
Name Withheld
by J.A. Jance
Copyright: 1996
Pages: 392
Rating: 3/5
Read: July 24-27, 2008
Challenge: Initials Challenge

First Line: With Seattle’s New Year’s fireworks display due to begin soon, the Peters girls – nine-year-old Heather and ten-year-old Tracy – and I shut down our Uno game at twenty minutes before midnight.

When a dead man’s body is found in Elliot Bay, Detective J.P. Beaumont catches the case. What he is faced with is a man, as a biotech executive, has made many enemies along the way. So it’s easy to say that this was a man who was hated and wanted dead by many people. But things are not as they seem. Instead of an open-and-shut case, there are many twists and turns along the way, including the man’s boss admitting that he should be prime suspect number one, and a little old lady from the suburbs confessing to the murder. It will take a lot of thinking for Beaumont to straighten this one out.
Okay, this is the first book that I’ve ever read by J.A. Jance. And I hate to say it, but this will probably be the only book I read. I just was not impressed by it. It honestly sounded like a good book, but I felt that the writing was seriously lacking. It was just okay for me. Nothing spectacular by any means, though.
3/5, AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Nonfiction, Read in 2008

Blood Brother by Anne Bird

Tara
Blood Brothers: 33 Reasons My Broher Scott Peterson is Guilty
by Anne Bird
Copyright: 2005
Pages: 211
Rating: 3/5
Read: July 22-24, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – True Crime Category

First Line: On a quiet midweek afternoon in early June 1997, I received a phone call that almost destroyed my life.

Anne Bird is one of the two children that Jackie Peterson gave up as a young woman. When Anne first met Jackie and her family she was glad that it turned out the way that it did. When she meets the “Golden Boy” of the family, Scott, she takes to him immediately. If she had known when she first met her “new” family what was to come she probably would have been a little more cautious. But whatever the reason, she became caught up in the Scott Peterson investigation in a way that no person should ever have to. Her family ties make her want to prove everybody wrong about Scott but her instincts tell her that things just aren’t adding up.
This was probably not the best book on this subject. But I am glad that I read this one. It was interesting to see it from this point of view. She was a part of the family and then yet again she really wasn’t because her adoptive family was the family that she really knew and trusted. And yet I understood why she was hesitant to believe that Scott could have done such a thing as kill his wife and unborn child. I am very interested in everything about this trial, having watched it all unfold daily. But like I said, not the best book to read regarding this case, but definitely worth your time.
3/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, K, Maggie O'Dell, Read in 2008, SERIES

The Soul Catcher by Alex Kava

Tara
The Soul Catcher
by Alex Kava
Copyright: 2002
Pages: 402
Rating: 3/5
Read: July 20-23, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – From my TBR Shelf Category; A Well-Rounded Challenge; Series
Challenge Season 2

First Line: Eric Pratt leaned his head against the cabin wall.

FBI Agent Maggie O’Dell thinks that there will be nothing more than routine when she begins to consult on two separate cases. But as she continues to work, she realizes that there might just be a connection between the two seemingly unrelated cases. And that connection is Reverend Joseph Everett, a charismatic leader of a religious sect. But Maggie is not at all prepared when she learns that her mother is part of Everett’s group. Unfortunately the only way that Maggie is going to be able to figure out what is going on with Everett is to use her mother as a pawn in a deadly trap.
I’m going to be honest here. There are currently 5 books in this series. Reading this third book in the series, brings me to a total of reading 4 of the 5. And although I read the first, second and fourth late last year, I vaguely remember them. And I hate to say it, this is the worst one I’ve read. I was just disappointed with this one. I was really flying through this one and enjoyed it right up until the end. The ending was just horrible! It sucked, to be honest. It was just a complete let down to end the book in such a fashion (a horribly unbelievable fashion). I have the fifth in the series on hold at the library and hope that it’s better.
4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Dismas Hardy, Fiction, L, Read in 2008, SERIES

Dead Irish by John Lescroart

Tara
Dead Irish
by John Lescroart
Copyright: 1989
Pages: 420
Rating: 4/5
Read: July 16-20, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – First in a Series Category

First Line: From his aisle seat, Dismas Hardy had a clear view of the stewardess as her feet lifted from the floor.

Dismas is a former husband, father, cop and attorney. Currently he’s living alone and tending the bar at the Little Shamrock. All he wants is some normalcy in his life. What he gets instead for his good friend and boss to ask him to look into the death of his brother-in-law, Eddie Cochran. The police think it’s a suicide, but his family thinks it’s a murder. As Dismas dives into this new task he doesn’t know how to explain it, but he feels that the family is right – Eddie was murdered. Now as his ex-wife reappears in his life, his friend at the police department, Abe Glitsky can’t seem to believe Hardy’s murder claims, he doesn’t know what else to do. But he knows that he wants to do right for his boss’s sister, Frannie, her unborn child, and Eddie’s family. But what he will find in the end will shock everyone.
This is the first in the Dismas Hardy series. I really, really, really enjoyed this one! The person who ends up being the murderer was completely surprising for me. I’m looking forward to exploring more of this series when I get the chance.
4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, C, Fiction, Harry Bosch, Read in 2008, SERIES

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

Tara
The Black Echo
by Michael Connelly
Copyright: 1992
Pages: 412
Rating: 4/5
Read: July 9-16, 2008
Challenge: Celebrate the Author Challenge; Triple 8 – First in a Series Category

First Line: The boy couldn’t see in the dark, but he didn’t need to.

LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch is surprised when he is able to identify the body in the drainpipe. It’s Billy Meadows, a fellow Vietnam “tunnel rat” who fought side by side with him. But Billy’s murder turns up evidence that there’s more than just murder to this story. Meadows’ death will take Bosch to clues of a bank heist that was never solved. It’s when working with a female FBI agent that Bosch will discover the true identity of the bank robber and murderer, and it’s a familiar and shocking face.
I enjoyed this book. I thought that it was a slow start, but the ending was REALLY good! Perhaps it was just because I’ve been swamped at work and haven’t had much spare time to read lately. Either way, I’m glad that I finally read this book. It is definitely an interesting read and one that should not be missed.