Hoofball Reading Log 2013

Hoofball

1)
Author: Richard Laymon

Title: The Glory Bus

Comment: This is the first book from this author that I've read and it happened to be a book that was published in 2005, four years after his death. I enjoyed this book although I wasn't quite too sure what to expect. The book revolves around two main characters, Pamela and Norman. Pamela finds herself abducted by a crazed stalker and Norman is a college student who gives a ride to two sociopaths called Duke and Boots. Their paths cross in an unusual way and I can't go into more detail without spoiling the plot. Good book but not a believable plot.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

2)
Author: Dennis Lehane

Title: Live by Night

Comment: This is a stand-alone novel from Lehane and is well up there with the rest of his books. The plot is based in the world of the 1920's gangsters in the US and deals with what went on during Prohibition and afterwards. Joe Coughlin is a gangster with ambitions to be at the top and his father is a senior cop. An excellent read and recommended.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

3)
Author: Patricia Cornwell

Title: The Bone Bed

Comment: I'm not sure what is the problem with this book but as a huge fan of this series from the beginning I'm starting to dislike all of the characters in it. This novel is a bit disjointed in that there is plenty going on but a lot of it doesn't really relate to each other. Some of the characters take another beating in this book and I can't really tell why they are still working together. Cornwell really needs to get back to the tightly knit plotting of the earlier books and get some life back into the characters. I'm really only sticking with this author now as I'm a fan of the series.

Score: 6/10

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4)
Author: Andrew Klavan

Title: Damnation Street

Comment: Not this authors best work. This is a "by the numbers" private detective novel about hunting for a woman in hiding to find her before a killer does. This novel apparently draws on the authors experiences with a real private detective agency. There is also a side story told in the first person narrative style which is supposed to the authors experience. This side plot goes nowhere and doesn't add to the main story. In the main story we are never told why the killer is hunting for the woman or why the detective is looking for her. An ok book but would not attract new readers to this author - try some of his earlier novels instead.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

5)
Author: Anthony Moore

Title: The Swap

Comment: This is a fairly well written, if predictable, thriller with some black comedy moments thrown in. None of the characters are in any way sympathetic and it's hard to really care what happens to them. The twist is telegraphed well in advance and should be obvious to anyone. The plot revolves around a comic store owner going back to his home town for a school reunion and meeting up with another student with whom he had swapped a very valuable comic back in the school days which is now worth about 200,000 pounds. Events take an unusual turn and the main character is thrust into the middle of a murder case.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

6)
Author: Will Davies

Title: Beneath Hill 60

Comment: This is a really good read and is a fascinating insight into an aspect of the first world war that I wasn't aware of before now. This book relates to an offensive which happened on the 7th of June 1917 when the Allied forces exploded nineteen huge mines along many kilometres of the western front which smashed the German frontline. These mines were placed into large caverns which were tunneled and dug out underground by specialist miner units, some of the mines consisted of over a hundred tons of explosive material so the tunnelling took a long time to complete. This showed up an aspect of trench warfare which is easy to pick up on in any book on WWI, namely how little the frontlines moved in a couple of years. In some cases these mines were in place a year before they were exploded and the frontline didn't move that much. I highly recommend this book.

Score: 9/10

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7)
Author: James Patterson & Mark Sullivan

Title: Private Berlin

Comment: This is the fifth book in the "Private" detective agency series. This novel is based on the Berlin branch and is a good quality crime story. The plot is that the Berlin branch is investigating the disappearance of one of their investigators, Chris Schneider. He had gone on an off the books investigation related to events that had occurred 30 years earlier when he was in an orphanage.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

8)
Author: Various

Title: Vengeance

Comment: This is a collection of stories from the Mystery Writers of America association. Some of the biggest names in crime writing have stories in this collection. As with all short story collections you have the good and the bad. The best story is from Michael Connelly who provides a short story with his character from his novels: Harry Bosch. The poorest story in my opinion was Blood and Sunshine, the ending just didn't really sit right with me and the whole story was just a bit strange.

Score: 7/10

Queen-Mise

Hoofball wrote: »

6)
Author: Will Davies

Title: Beneath Hill 60

Comment: This is a really good read and is a fascinating insight into an aspect of the first world war that I wasn't aware of before now. This book relates to an offensive which happened on the 7th of June 1917 when the Allied forces exploded nineteen huge mines along many kilometres of the western front which smashed the German frontline. These mines were placed into large caverns which were tunneled and dug out underground by specialist miner units, some of the mines consisted of over a hundred tons of explosive material so the tunnelling took a long time to complete. This showed up an aspect of trench warfare which is easy to pick up on in any book on WWI, namely how little the frontlines moved in a couple of years. In some cases these mines were in place a year before they were exploded and the frontline didn't move that much. I highly recommend this book.

Score: 9/10

I was in one of the craters of those bombs a few years ago. I had a family member in hospital in Bruges & one of the days I took a break and went on a WW1 tour.
It was incredible, would so recommend going to some of the museums around there. It was huge, seemingly it was one of the reasons the Allies won the war. When the allies took the German tunnels after the bombs - they got all their back up munitions, stores, etc. Left the Germans with very little.

Hoofball

That sounds fascinating - thanks. I've only really gotten into the military history books in the last 10 years so it looks like I've missed out on this the few times I've been to Bruges in the past! Must keep that in mind if I'm ever there again. One of my future travel plans is to do some historical tours so Bruges might be an easy one to get to....

Hoofball

9)
Author: Dean Koontz

Title: 77 Shadow Street

Comment: Zzzzzzzzz. For such a long book, about 450 pages, not much happens until near the end. This book suffers from trying to cram too much "stuff" into it, too many characters, not enough plot in the beginning so the story meanders along. Decent enough premise when you find out near the end but very poorly executed. The editor of this book should take a good long look at themselves, at least 30% of the book could have been culled with no impact to the plot.

Score: 3/10

Hoofball

10)
Author: Linwood Barclay

Title: Never saw it coming

Comment: Keisha Ceylon is a con woman who preys on the families of missing people pretending to be a psychic with important messages. One day she picks on the wrong mark and comes uncannily close to the truth of what actually happened. This is quite a short book and is a very quick read. NIcely plotted but nothing too laudable about it. Standard thriller.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

11)
Author: Nelson DeMille

Title: The Panther

Comment: This was a welcome read after a few slow books. John Corey, ex-NYPD detective, returns in this novel hunting down "The Panther", a terrorist who assisting in the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Corey and his wife Kate Mayfield are sent to Yemen as part of a team to hunt the Panther down and not everyone can be trusted. The book is slightly overlong at over 600 pages and could have done with some better editing and the wisecracks from Corey are overplayed in this novel. Having said that, I enjoyed this novel and it held my attention throughout. You won't have to read the previous Corey novels to enjoy this one but it would enhance the reading as you'd understand some of the back stories for a few of the characters.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

12)
Author: William Landay

Title: Defending Jacob

Comment: Andy Barber is the DA in a small Boston town where a 14 year old boy is murdered and Andys own son is the main suspect. This book explores themes such as how far a parent would go to protect a child, is the "murder"-gene a reality i.e. Can violent tendencies be passed from generation to generation and the impact of a childs trial on a family. The author uses flash-forwards throughout the novel which give glimpses at something happening in the future but never quite reveals anything. Good premise and plot but I felt the end was much weaker than the rest of the novel. I won't give any details as they would be tantamount to spoilers but I thought too much was crammed into the ending and events could have been explored a bit more. I'd still give this book a high score as it held my attention and I wanted to find out what happened.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

13)
Author: Jonathon Kellerman

Title: Guilt

Comment: This is the 28th Delaware novel and this series still holds up fairly well. Standard plot in this one, a renovation in an old house turns up an infants body buried over 60 years ago and two other gruesome discoveries are made in a nearby park. This novel also delves a small bit into the darker side of celebrity. Good story and enjoyable read. I was also glad to see they have dropped this "Crime Reader" business from the cover of the books.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

14)
Authors: James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Title: 12th of Never

Comment: As self evident from the title of this novel this is the 12th book in this collaborative series from James Patterson. Quite a short novel with a few plot strands being interwoven with all of them leading to the conclusion, which I thought was a bit odd anyway, but I can't say much more with spoiling it. The main plot strands are an english professor comes into the precint telling of a murder he has dreamt about which then happens and a serial killer awakes from a 2 year coma and says he will reveal where the missing bodies are. Not the best in the series by a long shot, maybe this one is running out of steam.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

15)
Authors: Roger Hobbs

Title: Ghost Man

Comment: The main character is a Ghost Man, he makes things disappear and ties up loose ends. This first time author has plenty of promise but even though I wanted to, you just don't get any connection with any of the characters. At times he is like a "Jack Reacher" impersonator, put into impossible situations but still comes out the only man standing. Having said that, this is a good page turner and I did enjoy the book so it gets a high score from me.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

16)
Author: R J Ellory

Title: Saints of New York

Comment: This is a great book - Detective Frank Parrish had a famous father who was a detective who was on the organised crime task force in the 1980s. His son faces daily sessions with the forces shrink and is on a knife edge to be fired for insubordination. Can he deal with his personal issues and also solve what could be his last investigation? Good plot, characters and writing - I recommend this one

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

17)
Author: Casey Hill

Title: Torn

Comment: I normally don't go for crime novels set in Ireland (for whatever reason) but I'm glad I picked up this book. The plot is somewhat unbelievable for an Irish setting - we don't usually have too many sadistic serial killers around, but it is played out well enough. The characters are believable and it's a good story. Reilly Steel is an FBI trained crime scene investigator who is now heading up the Garda Crime Scene Unit in Dublin. The corpses of high profile victims start turning up and there are no clear clues. Casey Hill is the pseudonym for the husband/wife team of Kevin and Melissa Hill.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

18)
Author: PJ Tracy

Title: Two Evils

Comment: This is the sixth book in this Monkeewrench series and it is unfortunately the weakest one. The book was quite short and felt to me to have been rushed. The usual characters didn't look to be themselves and something just seemed to be off. This book continues from where the previous one finished but you could read this as a standalone effort if you wanted. This deals with domestic terrorism in the US and a groups efforts to unmask the perpetrators. Given all the above it's still a decent read but not up to the standard of the previous books.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

19)
Author: Clive Cussler & Justin Scott

Title: The Striker

Comment: This is the sixth book in the Isaac Bell series, about an early 1900's detective agency. This novel goes back to his first case as a detective involving a plot around union saboteurs in the coal mining industry. I usually don't like when series suddenly go back in time for a character, but it works here. I enjoyed this read and would recommend these books to someone who is after a light enough read. These are more adventure type novels rather than traditional crime/thrillers.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

20)
Author: John Godey

Title: The Taking of Pelham 123

Comment: I picked this up cheap in an airport recently and was glad I did. This is a great book about the hijacking of a subway train in New York for ransom. The novel was written in 1973 and some of the writing is a bit jarring today, especially when dealing with race relations which were apparently quite bad in the early 70's. The author uses a good tool of giving insights from the different characters viewpoints which allows him to show everything from all sides, the cops, the hijackers and the passengers. Well worth the read, must go watch the movie as well

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

21)
Author: David Hewson

Title: The Villa of Mysteries

Comment: This is the second novel in this crime series set in Rome. The main character is Nic Costa and as with any protagonist he has his flaws. This series is a really good one and has very good character and plot driven story lines. In this novel a young woman is found dead in a peat bog and opens up a dark secret of the underworld in Rome. Nic gets a new partner who has been demoted to the position so that brings more trouble. Recommended reading for sure.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

22)
Author: David Hewson

Title: The Sacred Cut

Comment: I'm catching up on the older novels in this series so this is the third novel. Rome is beset by blizzards and a a body is found in the Pantheon. Before Nic and Gianni can investigate the body and case is taken over by the FBI in a strange twist. Another excellent novel from this author.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

23)
Author: David Hewson

Title: The Lizard's Bite

Comment: The fourth in the series and the last book in my catchup. This follows on some months later from the outcome in the third book. An accidental fire has claimed two lives but is all what it seems? This novel is set in Venice and is another good read but not as good as the previous novels.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

24)
Author: James Patterson

Title: Alex Cross, Run

Comment: This is the 20th Cross novel according to Pattersons bibliography but I still discount two of the novels as not being part of the series (Alex Cross' Trial and Merry Christmas Alex Cross). However, this is a return to form after the miserable effort that was the "Merry Christmas" book. Short tense chapters, fast paced writing and action bring this novel back to what the Cross books are all about. Three killers are on the rampage and Cross is after them, but he doesn't notice that someone is also after him. The only complaint I have is some of the plot strands are wound up very quickly and the ending is very fast. But overall this was a good read.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

25)
Author: Mark Allen Smith

Title: The Inquisitor

Comment: This is the debut novel from this author and for once I tend to agree with the blurbs on the cover. It is a fairly original kind of story and you get to care about the characters. A professional torturer has only one rule - never work on children, but one day the situation is forced on him. What will Geiger do? As I say, an interesting concept and is pulled off well here.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

26)
Author: Erica Spindler

Title: See Jane Die

Comment: This one has been on my "to-read" shelf for quite a while and I'm glad I picked it up to read on a recent flight. Seventeen years ago a teenagers life was nearly ended by a boat that sped towards her and hit her head on. In the present day her husband is accussed of murder and the past keeps rearing its head. Everything keeps pointing to her husbands guilt but is he guilty? This book is worth reading as well.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

27)
Author: David Ignatius

Title: Body of Lies

Comment: Roger Ferris is a CIA operative who is on a anti-terrorist team to capture one of the most wanted terrorists still at large. A convoluted scheme is thought up using a body as a deception but it starts to unravel quickly and Ferris is caught in the middle and does not know who he can trust. This a good read and recommended

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

28)
Author: Raymond Khoury

Title: The Devils Elixir

Comment: This novel brings back the hero of Khoury's previous bestselling "Templar" novels. The plot revolves around a natural drug that is so powerful and potent that one of the biggest cartels is after it and they will go to any length to obtain it. There are unexpected twists in here (and one of them was looking so outlandish I nearly put the book down) that keep your attention and the plot moves along at a good pace. I'd recommend this novel as well

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

29)
Author: Glenn Meade

Title: The Second Messiah

Comment: This is a well written novel with a main character with an interesting background and a somewhat unlikely hero. In Jerusalum an archaeologist called Jack Cane finds a scroll which could rock the historic foundations of the church. It's an interesting theme and is played out well but I felt like the risk of the secret being known did not justify what was being done to hide it. A good read.

Score: 7/10