Hoofball Reading Log 2016

Hoofball

32)

Authors: James Patterson & Max Dilallo

Title: Zoo 2

Comment: This was an OK read. The virus spread in the animal kingdom in the first novel, Zoo, is now being transferred to humans. Again the plot feels rushed here and parts seem skipped over. This finishes on a cliffhanger as well and I'm not sure if we will get any resolution in a further book.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

33)

Authors: N.J. Fountain

Title: Painkiller

Comment: Monica suffers from chronic pain and she is in constant agony. Due to all the medication she is taking her memory of everything since her accident is all a blur. One day she finds a suicide note, seemingly written in her handwriting, but she doesn't remember writing it. She starts asking her husband and friends about the past and uncovers secrets that she didn't know. This book is decent enough but took a while to get through

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

34)

Authors: Laurence Rees

Title: Their Darkest Hour

Comment: From Amazon: "Award-winning documentary maker and historian Laurence Rees has spent nearly 20 years wrestling with these questions in the course of filming hundreds of interviews with people tested to the extreme during World War II. He has come face-to-face with rapists, mass murderers, even cannibals, but he has also met courageous individuals who are an inspiration to us all. In Their Darkest Hour he presents 35 of his most electrifying encounters."

This is an excellent book but for each story I was left wanting to know a lot more as we only get a cursory introduction to the person telling the story. For quite a few of them I would have liked to read a lot more on them. Some of the stories are quite hard to read and it's hard to imagine how these people did what they did.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

35)

Authors: James Patterson & Candice Fox

Title: Never Never

Comment: This is the follow up novel to the bookshot called "Black & Blue" featuring Detective Harriet Blue. After the events of the novella she is sent to a mine deep in the Western Australian desert, to investigate the disappearance of three people. She is given a new partner to work with who she doesn't trust fully. I enjoyed the read but the villian was fairly obvious from the start and the twist telegraphed.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

36)

Authors: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Chase

Comment: This is a bookshot from the Detective Michael Bennett series. I enjoyed this story about a man falling to his death from a hotel roof but it turns out that he has a false identity and it wasn't suicide. His fingerprints match a man who is already supposed to be dead. We don't see much (if anything) about the big Bennett family in this novella, it's all about the story. Worth a read.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

37)

Authors: James Patterson & Max Dilallo

Title: 113 Minutes

Comment: Molly's 15 year old son died after taking some drugs in school and she is out for revenge. The family farm is also about to be taken by the bank so she comes up with a fairly elaborate scheme. I did enjoy reading this one and there are a couple of twists in there to keep it interesting.

Score: 7/10

Hoofball

38)

Authors: James Patterson & James O. Born

Title: Let's Play Make Believe

Comment: This is one of the better bookshot books. Two divorced people meet up and gradually start to play "make-believe" games until things take a sinister turn. I have to say I didn't see the major twist coming in this book so it was a nice surprise. This one is well worth picking up.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

39)

Authors: Beck Weathers

Title: Left For Dead

Comment: I thought this book would be a lot better than what it was. The incident on Everest from 1996 (where 8 climbers died over two days) is dealt with in the first two chapters and then the rest of the book is a biography and family history of Weathers and what seems like a very drawn out apology to his family for being obsessed with climbing. There are definitely better books out there about the Everest disaster in 1996 such as "Into Thin Air".

Score: 6/10

Hoofball

40)

Authors: Dee Brown

Title: The American West

Comment: In this book Brown explores the battles and dealings between three main groups in the American Wild West, the settlers, the native Indians and the cattle ranchers. This is a very good and easy read to get a decent introduction and high level view of what happened in the West of North America in the late 19th century. Quite a bit of the story could make people surprised at the carry on of the white settlers and what was effectively the attempted genocide of the native people on the plains of the West. This is an excellent read and could change some peoples understanding of how the Wild West was conquered only 120 years ago.

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

41)

Authors: James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Title: Bullseye

Comment: This is the 9th in the Detective Michael Bennett series and it's a good addition. Most of this book is focussed on the plot and not so much on his family, in fact the only plot line involving his family seems just tacked on. Bennett receives intelligence that there is a plot to assassinate the US President in New York. It's a race against time to prevent it and everything seems to point at Russia being behind the plot. A fast moving story as usual and worth reading

Score: 8/10

Hoofball

42)

Author: Shari Lapena

Title: The Couple Next Door

Comment: A couple go for a dinner party to their neighbours house and leave their 6 month old baby in the house on their own with just an audio baby monitor to mind them. They check every 30 minutes but when they go home at 1.30am the baby is missing. Even though it moves a bit slowly the plot still holds the attention. Some of the plot was a bit telegraphed but still well written

Score: 7/10