Hoofball Reading Log 2013

Hoofball

30)
Author: Hugh Howey

Title: Shift

Comment: This was a great book but I wish I knew that it was the second in a trilogy before I read it! Although it's a prequel of sorts to the first book apparently it does give away what happens in the first. However I will definitely be reading the first book "Wool" in the near future and the last in the trilogy "Dust" when it comes out in October. The world is destroyed by nuclear war and many thousands of people have been saved and been put into "Silos". This novel explores what these people do throughout a couple of hundred years of existence. I found the plotting and dialogue in the book to be a refreshing change and this book comes highly recommended.

Score: 9/10

Hoofball

31)
Author: Harlan Coben

Title: Six Years

Comment: It had to happen sooner or later but this is a poor effort from Coben, but only when compared to his past novels. It is six years since Jake watched the woman he loved, Natalie, marry another man and she asked him never to contact her or try to find her. But when he sees the obituary for the man she married he decides to go the funeral but Natalie is not the grieving widow. This leads Jake into a world of intrigue as people from their past deny ever knowing Natalie or him. The plot is a bit convoluted and is a fair stretch to believe but the action zips along and kept my interest. I just didn't think this was up to his usual standards

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

32)
Author: Michael Cordy

Title: The Crime Code

Comment: This is a half-decent thriller with an interesting premise. A conspiracy is underway to use genetic engineering to remove the genes that give a pre-disposition for violence. The plot is a bit standard and there isn't any decent twists or surprises. Some of the twists are far too coincidental and convenient and one in particular, all I will say is hologram, is ridiculous. All in all though, an enjoyable enough read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

33)
Author: Hugh Howey

Title: Wool

Comment: This is the first book in the "Silo" trilogy and is made up of previously available material. This author is a breath of fresh air and I really enjoy his books. I only wish I had read this first before "Shift". I won't say too much about this book other than "Read It!!". Likeable and believable characters and good writing make this a really good story. I am looking forward to the final book this autumn.

Score: 9/10

Hoofball

34)
Author: David Baldacci

Title: The Hit

Comment: Will Robie is a CIA assassin and is given the task of bringing in or killing a rogue fellow agent. But all is not what it seems and Robie is drawn into the middle of a conspiracy and he can't trust anyone. This is the second novel featuring this character. The plot is a bit of stretch but is typical of Baldacci. Good solid read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

35)
Author: Dick Wolf

Title: The Intercept

Comment: This is a debut novel from the creator of the tv series "Law & Order". It is a good story with some interesting angles but I have to say that the plotting is abysmal. For a thriller there isn't very many surprises in it and I saw the main twist coming from about a quarter way through the book. A hijacking is preventing by six people from the crew and passengers and they become instant celebrities. A passenger on the same plane disappears as soon as it gets to Manhattan and this leads the intelligence division of the NYPD to believe that the terrorist threat is not gone.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball

36)
Author: Matthew Glass

Title: End Game

Comment: This novel is set in 2018. Over 200 people are massacred, including 35 Americans, when the Lord's Resistance Army attack a hospital in Uganda. The US plans to destroy the LRA but China now have strategic positions in that part of the world. Stock prices start falling as uncertainty hits the US markets. This is a novel of political intrigue and shows some interesting scenarios which are quite believable. A very enjoyable read.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

37)
Author: James Patterson & Michael White

Title: Private Down Under

Comment: Private Down Under is the 4th novel in the Private series by James Patterson and is co-authored this time by Michael White. This is an ok addition to the series but I'm not sure why Patterson is spreading this series across so many locations. A serial killer is murdering rich wives in Sydney and a rock star also approaches the newly set up Private office in Australia for help. The characters are a bit one-dimensional in this novel and it's hard to care for them but as usual the action zips along.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

38)
Author: Stephen King

Title: Joyland

Comment: This is a book released by "Hard Case Crime" and so is only available in paperback. It's a shortish novel at 283 pages but it packs a great story into those pages. I believe this is King at his best - telling a good story. It's not full of action or horror, but is about a man who is telling a story from his youth when he worked a summer job at Joyland, a small theme park. As the blurb on the back says..."the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and dark truths about life". I really enjoyed this book and it seems that King is really back on form with his last few books. It makes me really look forward to "Dr Sleep" later this year, the sequel to "The Shining".

Score: 9/10

Queen-Mise

Hoofball wrote: »

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....

If doing one of those tours (and I presume this goes for all tours of this type) and I learnt this accidentally.

Do it in the smallest bus tour you can find - the one I did it was a small bus with at most 8 seats. This meant that we could get around all the stuff that you couldn't get to on a large bus. And the roads all round North Belgium for WW1 are really small.
We couldn't have gotten to that crater, for example, on a large bus.

Hoofball

39)
Author: Dan Brown

Title: Inferno

Comment: I wish I didn't bother with this one. I did enjoy some of his previous books as pure escapism thrillers but this one reads as if it was written to a formula. Even more unbelievable than the previous books and an ending that is fairly absurd (but on an interesting aside was similar to the plot in a book I read recently). The twists are fairly contrived to say the least and the "change of heart" by a company in the last third of the book was laughable. I probably won't be bothering with the series books from Brown again but might try a standalone novel. Langdon wakes up with apparent amnesia and has to race through several countries to get to the boring end point.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball

40)
Author: Ben Mezrich

Title: Straight Flush

Comment: I usually enjoy Mezrichs books as they are written in an easy to read style but this book takes it too far. This is fiction dressed up as a true story. This book is a fairly simple telling of how some college frat boys built up an online Poker site called Absolute Poker (and subsequently merged with UltimateBet) but fails to tell how they stole 90% of the players money in cheating scandals. This book makes them out to be heroes against the US government but in reality these guys were implicated as thieves who cheated and stole millions from the online players. I'm giving this book a 1 purely because it doesn't tell the whole story and is too light on actual facts.

Score: 1/10

Hoofball

41)
Author: Herman Koch

Title: The Dinner

Comment: This one caught my attention from the blurb on the back cover when I picked it up in the shop. It's an interesting take on a standard story, what would parents do if they knew that their child was responsible for a terrible crime and the authorities didn't know. Two sets of parents (two brothers, Paul and Serge, and their wives) meet in a restaurant in their home city of Amsterdam to discuss what their sons have done. The book is broken into courses and as per the name the food and the dinner is quite prevalent in the story as well. In the beginning it is quite easy to be sympathetic to the narrator of the book, Paul, but as the story progresses and background is revealed it somewhat shakes that sympathy. In fact none of the characters are in any way likeable but that is the way that the book is deliberately written. The narrator is shown to be a violent man who has to take medication to prevent outbursts, and for me it is a weak point in the book to say that this is due to a biological defect. The way the plot turns and engages you with the characters was something I enjoyed in the book. The issue with the children (well the fifteen year olds) is not really brought to the front until near the end of the book, but Koch neatly raises the suspense up to that point. In the end it is shown what the parents will actually do for their children. While this book may not be everyone's cup of tea, I enjoyed it and it kept my interest.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

42)
Author: John Grisham

Title: Theodore Boone: The Activist

Comment: This is the fourth book in the Boone series. I know this is a series aimed at young adults but it's just a thing for me when I start reading a series I have to read them all. Unfortunately that does mean I read some turkeys every so often or when I buy a book and don't realise that it's aimed at a younger audience. The plot for this book is interesting, a bypass is being planned for the town and will go right past the school and take some play areas, farmlands etc, using the eminent domain law. The kids get together to fight the bypass and the ending is very predictable, but I won't say what it is. The writing is very simple to follow and could be improved on a bit. The main character is a bit annoying as he is too perfect, he never does anything wrong even though he is thirteen, and if anything does happen it's never his fault. There also is some plot points not wrapped up which annoyed me as well. I'm obviously scoring this book from an adults point of view rather than from the point of view of the intended audience.

Score: 4/10

Hoofball

43)
Author: Casey Hill

Title: Taboo

Comment: This is the first book in this series by the "chick-lit" author Melissa Hill and her husband Kevin. I'd already read the second book before I realised that it was a series so I'm going back to read the first one (again this is more due to my thing about reading series as per my comments on the last book rather than wanting to read this one). A crime scene investigator called Reilly Steel who is an American ex-FBI agent, moves to Dublin to bring the Irish crime lab into the 21st century and also to watch over her Irish-born father who has turned to the booze after a past family tragedy. This book brings nothing new to this genre, and it is a somewhat standard female protagonist
versus the male dominated world of policing. The plot also gets a bit slow after a while and the twist is a bit strange and contrived to say the least and you can see it coming a mile off. I think these authors need to work on their plotting a bit more which I think they did do in the second book. I'm currently reading the third book in the series (Hidden).

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

44)
Author: Casey Hill

Title: Hidden

Comment: This is the latest in the Reilly Steel series. This collaborative effort definitely shows some improvement over the previous two books. The characters are a bit more believable and the plotting is better as well. The tension and suspense is well built up and the story progresses nicely. A girl is found dead on a remote road and she has a strange tatoo of angel wings on her back. The tatoo leads to more open cases of missing children and it looks like they may have been abducted by the same person. An enjoyable read.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

45)
Author: Philip Carlo

Title: The Iceman

Comment: This book tends to get mixed reviews but one thing is not really disputable, Richard Kuklinski was a sociopath and a killer. He had a truly horrendous childhood suffering severe constant physical abuse from his parents and his father eventually killed his younger brother during one of these beatings. According to the book, Kuklinski used to kill people who would look at him the wrong way or cross him in an innocuous way. His claimed number of victims varies from 100 to 200 men - one thing he claims is that he never killed women or children. He became a contract killer for the mob and apparently all the major crime families used him as an independent contractor. He was particularly known for his ability to make his victims suffer before they died, and one method that is repeatedly mentioned in the book is that he fed victims to rats while they were alive. The only thing he said he ever cared about was his family, his wife and kids. But unfortunately he turned into the person he hated the most, his father. He was very abusive towards his wife but never towards his kids. One line which stuck with me was something that his daughter said to the author: "...he (her father) once told her that he would have to kill her and her two siblings should he happen to beat her mother to death in a fit of rage". His crimes eventually caught up with him and he was locked up for life in 1988 and died in prison in 2006. This is a long book but I flew through it as it was a very interesting read. Well worth trying if you are into true crime or Mafia related books

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

46)
Author: Seth Patrick

Title: Reviver

Comment: There are some people who are called Revivers and they are able to briefly reanimate or wake the recently dead. There are revivers who do this for personal gain, who primarily "revive" people so that they can say one last goodbye to their loved ones. There are then revivers who work in the criminal justice system who revive victims to see if they can identify their killers.

Jonah Miller is one of the best forensic revivers, but when he is reviving the victim of a murder, he encounters something which talks to him and unnerves him. When a journalist called Daniel Harker is murdered, he was the first journalist to break the reviver story, Jonah is dragged into the hunt for his killers. Along with Harker's daughter Annabel, they uncover a sinister conspiracy related to revivers that could threaten everyone.

This is a good first novel from this author and the premise is really good. The author seems to be setting up a series with this novel as he spends a lot of time explaining everything and going into a lot of background information which slows down the pace. This is a mix between genres: crime, supernatural and a bit of horror. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

47)
Author: Mark Gimenez

Title: Con Law

Comment: This is stated as the first in a new series. John Bookman professor at the University of Texas who teaches Constitutional Law. He also receives many letters from lost causes looking for help. This was a bit average at best. An ex-intern sends him a letter and dies the same day it was posted. Bookman travels to the town to unravel the mystery. It was an OK read, but the professor is a bit too unbelievable.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

48)
Author: James Patterson & Howard Roughan

Title: Second Honeymoon

Comment: This is a usual collaborative novel from Patterson. It's a quick and easy read with the usual short chapters. It's a follow up to the "Honeymoon" novel. FBI agent John O'Hara who is on suspension receives a call from the father of the victim of a serial killer. He is dragged into the middle of the case and the past comes back to haunt him. Well worth a read

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

49)
Author: Karin Slaughter

Title: Unseen

Comment: The previous book of this series figuring Agent Will Trent was set in the past and this one comes back to the present time. This is not as good as her previous books and I found it a bit dissapointing. It also would help if you had read the previous novels as it could be hard to understand why some of the characters hate each other so much. Will goes undercover in this book but doesn't reveal any details to Sarah, his wife, and the case widens and bring a person from their past into it - Lena Adams. Overall it's worth a read but only if you're a fan of the series.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

50)
Author: Jeffrey Deaver

Title: The Kill Room

Comment: Lincoln and his team are asked to get involved in a murder that was committed in the Bahamas but they have no crime scene and no evidence. The murder looks like a contract hit and the ADA has some whistleblower evidence that the order came from a high level in the government.This is the 10th in this series and it's starting to wear a bit thin. In fact I found Rhyme to be a bit of an d*ck at times in the novel. On the plus side the story does zip along nicely and there are some interesting plot points that will no doubt be picked up in future novels. Again, read if you are a fan of the series - otherwise I wouldn't bother.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

51)
Author: David Wroblewski

Title: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Comment: This is a "novel" and not a thriller or a crime story per se. I am not giving away anything that isn't already known by saying it resembles Hamlet in it's plotting. A mute boy, Edgar Sawtelle, grows up on a farm in rural Wisconsin where they breed dogs as a business. It affects Edgar greatly when his father dies suddenly and then one night he sees his fathers ghost in the rain and he runs away. The first half of this book, about 275 pages, go really slowly but the second half really picks up the pace. If you were really picky you could say that half of the book could be cut without affecting the plot but as I mentioned this is a "novel" so it does seem to go on a bit. I did really like it though and would recommend it, although not if you only like fast paced thrillers.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

52)
Authors: James Patterson & David Ellis

Title: Mistress

Comment: A journalist watches his friend fall from her 6th floor apartment balcony and starts to dig into her death. She worked for the CIA so the investigation is taken over by the governement agencies. More people start to die as the journalist digs further. The plot for this is OK but the characters are one dimensional and this trait of the main character for quoting trivia gets really annoying quite quickly. An OK beach read but if you took out a lot of the rubbish you would be left with a decent short story.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

53)
Author: Stephen White

Title: Line of Fire

Comment: This is the second to last book in this series featuring the psychotherapist Alan Gregory and detective Sam Purdy. A new witness has stepped forward which reopens the apparent suicide of a woman called J. Winter Brown. This witness has knowledge of Alan and Sams involvement in the death. A drug dealer overhears Alan and Sam discussing the murder and the case is no longer cold. This book felt like the author was stretching for a story to fit across the two book finish. The plot was more than a bit unbelievable and the ending was a bit of a shock. Average compared to the rest of the series

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

54)
Author: Stephen White

Title: Compound Fractures

Comment: The last book in the series. I can't say too much here without spoiling the ending of the previous book but the shock from that ending continues into this novel. This book zips along at a nice pace but I really don't like what White did with the characters in this last book. In particular, one twist that he brought in with two major characters was completely out of left field and was nonsensical. The worst thing is that there isn't an exact ending and things are left a bit ambiguous. All in all i didn't like the way White ended the story and the characters which was disappointing.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball

55)
Author: Max Hastings

Title: Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45

Comment: This one was a long slog to finish. This had a slightly different approach than most of the books about WWII that I've read in that the author uses a lot of anecdotes about individuals and sometimes glosses over the details (for example regarding the battle of the Bulge). It was refreshing to see a book take the viewpoint from all the major sides and included analysis on the british, american, russian and german armies. The one thing that really jumped out at me is that Montgomery is really taken apart in this book, more often that not quite justifiably but sometimes over quite petty things. As this book is based around the last 18 months of the war you get a small feel for the civilian and military despair about when the war would end. As has been written about many times before, the savagery of the Russians on the Eastern front is really quite hard to comprehend even though they weer just "paying back" the German people for what was done to them. All in all a fascinating book but took a few weeks to get through

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

56)
Authors: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Gone

Comment: I like this Bennett series from Patterson but this sixth one was just average. It could have done with a bit more action which given the plot was a bit of a puzzler as to why there wasn't more in it. Michael Bennett is an NYPD detective and a widower with a large number of kids. In the previous book he arrested the head of a cartel, Manuel Perrine, who escaped during the trial. Bennett killed Perrine's wife in a shoot-out so Perrine is now gunning for Bennett. The family are moved to a safe-house in rural California but Bennett is soon dragged into the case to hunt down Perrine as the cartel boss becomes more violent on US soil. This is another by-the-numbers jointly written book and while enjoyable does lack something which I can't quite put my finger on. For a fan of the series only and I wouldn't read this as a one off.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

57)
Author: Jeff Lindsay

Title: Dexter's Final Cut

Comment: This is the 7th in the Dexter series of novels. The characters, particularly Dexter, are a bit different from those in the tv series. In this novel a couple of tv stars arrive at the Miami Police Department after the bosses agreed that they could shadow Dexter (a blood spatter analyst) and his sister Deborah (a detective) in order to learn how to portray characters in a tv show pilot that is going to be shot in Miami. This novel starts off really well but then kind of fizzes out. Some of the plot points and twists are a bit strange and the ending was a bit of a damp squib as well. During the book there is plenty of "stirring" from his Dark Passenger but nothing happens! Just an OK effort.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

58)
Author: Stephen King

Title: Dr. Sleep

Comment: This is a good read again from King who I think has really been back on form with the last 4 or 5 novels. It is set up as a sequel to the Shining but it only is one because Dan Torrance is in it. This could easily have been a stand alone novel. A group of people called "The True Knot", rove across America and feed off the "steam", or essence, of gifted young people. This does give us some of the most uncomfortable scenes in the book which are of the torture of a child by this group to get his "steam". I'm not squeamish etc by any stretch but anything involving kids like this doesn't sit well with me.

Dan Torrance has settled in a small town and works in a nursing home, helping people pass over. A battle is set up between good and evil with Dan and a child on one side and the True Knot on the other. This is worth reading and another hit from King

Score: 8/10