Hoofball Reading Log 2015

Hoofball

32)

Author: Jeff Lindsay

Title: Dexter is Dead

Comment: This is supposedly the last novel in the series and like the tv series it goes out with a bit of a whimper. Dexter has been arrested for the murder of three people (which he didn't do) and is also accused of other crimes. I won't mention the details as it would be a spoiler for the previous book. He is sprung on bail after his brother hires a high powered attorney to get him out, but the detective who arrested him, Anderson, keeps after him and becomes more desperate in his attempts to have Dexter locked up. This wasn't a great book and I have to say I didn't really enjoy it. The plotting was poor and the ending a bit silly.

Score: 3/10

Hoofball

33)

Author: Kathy Reichs

Title: Speaking in Bones

Comment: Dr Tempe Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who is approached by an amateur detective called Hazel Strike who says she has identified a set of remains from a cold case. Tempe gets dragged into the case when she becomes intrigued by what the amateur has found. This is the 18th novel in this series and it is still somewhat interesting although the relationship with detective Ryan is starting to get really annoying. The plot is decent enough but the ending seems completely rushed.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball

34)

Author: David Baldacci

Title: Memory Man

Comment: This is the introduction to a new character from Baldacci called Amos Decker. The plot is fairly far fetched but it did keep my attention and was a good read. Decker is an ex-pro american football player whose career was ended in his first game by a massive tackle. That trauma affected his brain and gave him a perfectly eidetic memory with complete recall of every single thing from that point onward.

He joined the police force and one night he arrives home from work to find his wife, daughter and brother-in-law murdered. Decker falls apart and fifteen months later is living rough. He gets pulled back into police work when there is a mass shooting in a local school and there is a connection found between that incident and the murder of his family.

The story was a massive stretch and there were a few too many tenuous connections made but it was still enjoyable to read.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

35)

Author: Claire North

Title: Touch

Comment: This isn't a very easy read and it is sometimes a bit difficult to keep track of what is happening. A man called Kepler has the ability to switch bodies with anyone that he touches and has been doing this for over 200 years. Sometimes he spends a long time in a body, even years, and other times just spends a few seconds. It was a very interesting premise but the plot let's it down slightly in my opinion. I never quite got why the people like Kepler were being chased and there is a lot of repetition in the book. It was still a good read though.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

36)

Author: Paula Hawkins

Title: The Girl on the Train

Comment: Be forewarned - make sure you read the chapter headings. I was about 6 chapters into the book and wondering what the heck was going on when I realised that each chapter is being told from the perspective of one of the three main female characters. There is nothing in the writing itself that would make this distinction for you. The book is an OK read but is an average first novel. Rachel is an alcoholic who has lost her job and is living with a friend after losing her marriage and home. She still travels by train in and out of London every to keep up the pretense that she is still working. She passes certain houses every day on the train and she watches for a couple who usually sit on their patio at the back of the house. She makes up a fantasy in her own head and names the people and imagines what their life is like. Rachel also passes by the house she used to live in with her ex-husband Tom which is just a few doors down from the fantasy couple. Tom and his current wife Anna are now living in the house. Then one day the woman who she used to see on the patio disappears and Rachel is drawn into the whole scenario. A lot is explained and comes together in the last couple of chapters which is good. This is still worth a read.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

37)

Author: Ben Coes

Title: The Last Refuge

Comment: This is a series featuring Dewey Andreas, a former Navy Seal special forces operative. An Israeli special forces commander called Kohl Meir is kidnapped on a quiet street in Brookly. Dewey owes his life to Kohl so goes to rescue him from one of the worlds most secure prisons, in Iran. This is a fast paced thriller and a good read overall. The main character is a bit larger that life like every other hero but he is an interesting character. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

38)

Author: Adam Brookes

Title: Night Heron

Comment: A man escapes from a hard labour camp in the depths of China. He makes his way to Beijing and finds a city that has changed a lot in the 20 years he was in prison. His difficulty is that he was a British spy before being sent away for an unrelated crime and he now needs to make contact with his old handlers. He passes a message to a British journalist called Philip Mangan who is on assignment in Beijing. This book is a decent first novel but the action tails off after a fast paced start. It was hard to get to care about the characters.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

39)

Author: Lee Child

Title: Make Me

Comment: This is the 20th book in the Reacher series and it's becoming a bit repetitive now. Reacher gets off a train at a stop called "Mothers Rest" as he likes the name and wants to find out why it is called that. Normally you would read these books quite quickly but this one took some effort to complete. It seems like this series has run out of steam as it's not a very good book. Cliched characters (even more than usual) and a lack of a plot until more than halfway through the book and the ending is a bit strange. For fans of the series only.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

40)

Author: Kyle Mills (& Vince Flynn)

Title: The Survivor

Comment: This is the 14th book in the Mitch Rapp series and the first one released since Vince Flynn passed away in 2013. Flynn had started this book before his death and Mills was selected to complete it. This book picks up where the last novel ended, the CIA is under threat from outside due to a traitor releasing top secret information about informants and agents. Rapp needs to hunt down and stop this flow of information. This was a good read and there were only some subtle differences in the writing styles between Flynn and Mills but there were enough to notice. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

41)

Author: James Patterson & Kathryn Fox

Title: Private Sydney

Comment: This is the 10th book in the Private series and a return to the Private office in Australia that was also featured in book 6 (with a different co-author). There are two main plots in the novel, one featuring surrogacy and a missing baby and the second plot line is about a CEO from a multi-billion dollar company who suddenly disappears one day. This has the usual short chapters you would expect in a Patterson novel but I'm not sure why he has the two unrelated stories in the same novel other than to have tension as the hero, Craig Gisto, has to balance the two cases. As is usual in these books the Pricate agency has everything at it's disposal, even more than the police. Overall it's an OK book but this series in my opinion should start focusing on the main office in the US rather than going around the world, although we already know that the next two books are based in Paris and Rio.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

42)

Author: Linda Fairstein

Title: Devils Bridge

Comment: This is the 17th book in this series featuring Alexandra Cooper, a DA in New York. Fairstein takes an unusual approach to this book as Cooper disappears after a night out quite early in the story and then the rest of the novel is from the perspective of NYPD detective Mike Chapman as he hunts for Cooper and as recently revealed in earlier books there is now a personal reason for him to hunt for her. I think the book lacked some of the usual punch that this series has due to the fact that Cooper is not in it for most of the novel and the interaction between her, Chapman and Mercer is therefore absent. I'd give Fairstein a big plus for trying something different to liven up the series and to keep it interesting though.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

43)

Author: James Patterson

Title: Cross Justice

Comment: This is the 23rd book in this series and is as weak as the last one. For the first time in the series, Alex Cross goes back to his hometown when his cousin is accused of the brutal murder of a young boy. There are two plot lines intertwined here and they seem quite rushed and contrived. Cross uncovers a family secret that shocks him but it's a bit of a yawn.

Score: 5/10

Hoofball

44)

Author: Michael Connelly

Title: The Crossing

Comment: Harry Bosch #20. Bosch has been drummed out of the LAPD cold case squad after the events of the last book. He helps out his brother, defence lawyer Mickey Haller, on a murder case and has to deal with the consequences of crossing over to the defence side of the fence. The plot is a bit of a stretch and the plot device of the watch is a bit odd. Overall it's not a bad book but it's hard to get to care about any of the characters.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

45)

Author: Graeme Cameron

Title: Normal

Comment: Normal is the first book from this author and is a decent enough read but could have been better. It is written from the perspective of a serial killer who kidnaps and murders young women. He also has a special basement built with a cage in the center of it to hold his victims. We never get to know the killers name or his motives for what he is doing. There are also some other plot holes such as how does he have so much money when he doesn't appear to work. Things start to unravel for him when his latest victim, Erica, gets into his mind and starts to affect him. The author also tries to show a "normal" side to the killer but it just gets confusing to try and keep track of Rachel/Annie/Erica and to figure out what is going on. Overall it's worth a quick read, you should get through it in a few hours.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

46)

Author: Stephen King

Title: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

Comment: There are 20 stories in this short story collection and as usual there are some hits and some misses. Unfortunately there are more misses than hits in my opinion. A few of these stories have been released before in different formats such as Blockade Billy, Mile 81 and UR. A running theme through this collection is the notion of getting old and what happens, this is becoming a more prevalent theme as King himself gets older. He also has included some details before each story telling how he got the idea or something about how the story was created and this is an interesting addition. A few of the stand out stories for me:

Batman and Robin Have An Altercation. This is a bittersweet story about what could happen when you are with an aging parent in a road rage situation.

The Bad Little Kid. This is a strange tale and the ending is a bit unsettling as we never really know the full story.

Obits. A hack discovers that when he writes obituaries for people they come true. This was an interesting idea.

Drunken Fireworks. This was a good tale but it does kind of peter out at the end.

Summer Thunder. The last story is about the end of the world, and is a sad one. This was just about my favourite.

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

47)

Author: David Baldacci

Title: The Guilty

Comment: Will Robie is an agent working for the CIA and he has some issues on a mission when he kills a little girl by mistake. He then gets a call to tell him that his father has been arrested for murder. The wrinkle is that he is now the local judge in their hometown.

Will and Dan Robie are estranged and have been for a long time so there is no love lost between them. Will gets dragged into a conspiracy in this deep south town and needs to find out if his father really murdered this man or is he being set up.

This is a good addition to the series but not the best that Baldacci has written

Score: 6/10