Tag: Mysteries

The Narrows – Michael Connelly

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Ok so the last book I read Nowhere to Run by C.J.Box was the 10th book in the Joe Pickett series and now book number 17 The Narrows by Michael Connelly also the 10th book in the series featuring  Harry Bosch only difference is that I have read all the books in the Pickett series and this is my first Harry Bosch book! I had started The Concrete Blonde book # 3 years ago and for one reason or another couldn’t get into it so I never tried to read another Connelly book (the series is now up to 14). What was I thinking! I enjoyed this book, liked both the writing style and Bosch’s character and will certainly read more, having picked up several last week at the library book sale.

The book starts with Harry Bosch, asked by the widow of his former friend Terry McCaleb to investigate what she feels is the murder of her husband. McCaleb’s heart medicine (he had had a heart transplant -the storyline of the book and movie Blood Work)  had been switch with shark cartilage pills leading to a heart attack.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Rachael Walling receives a call that she has dreaded for eight years! Eight years earlier she had been involved in the chase to track done a serial killer known as The Poet, who turned out to be her former mentor at the FBI Robert Backus. The Poet is back and operating in the Las Vegas area. Harry’s investigation into McCaleb’s death quickly puts him on to the trail of The Poet and soon Bosch and Walling must join forces to catch Backus!

Like I said I enjoyed this book and the final pages flew by and I am certainly going to read more Bosch novels. I have a lot of catching up to do!!

My bookshelf at Goodreads.com now holds 796 books – 4 more to 800!! Next up the new Body Farm book by Jefferson Bass The Bone Thief another favorite series featuring Bill Brockton and the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee and while I root for Bill Brockton, this Florida Gator can’t root for the Volunteers!

Roger Smith – Mixed Blood

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Mixed Blood is set in South Africa. This makes its setting the fourth country visited in my quest to read twelve books sent in different countries. So far I have read books set in Canada, Russia, and Australia and now Mixed Blood by Roger Smith set in South Africa. South Africa is by far my least favorite place to visit of the four!  Mixed Blood (book 13 of the year) is a gritty book filled with murder, drugs, crooked cops, poverty and despair! The story opens with Jack Burn his wife Susan and son Matt on the run in South Africa after Jack becomes involved in a bank robbery which goes bad leaving a policeman dead. One night two black gangstas climb into their rented home.  To save his family, Jack kills the two men and his life goes downhill from there.

The book is a real page turner The characters include: Benny Mongrel a harden each con working as a watchman in a neighboring house under construction witnesses the thieves going into the Burn house. Rudi “Gatsby” Barnard the crooked cop who rules by killing and Disaster, Rondi, the good cop. Each of the characters is well developed.. As I wrote earlier the book is gritty and not for the faint of heart. There are references t o drugs, abuse and prostitution. As a result I found that there weren’t a lot of good guys in the book to cheer for.  However, that did little to detract from the overall enjoyment of the book.

Overall, I liked the book  four stars out of five and will look for more by the author.  But I will stay away from South Africa at least the Cape Flats!

 

Favorite Series -Joe Pickett

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C.J.Box’s Joe Pickett series has been a favorite of mine since I read Savage Run (Book #2) in 2004. I quickly went back and read book #1 Open Season (which won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel) and have continued from there. From the beginning, I have loved the characters of Joe Pickett and his family. Joe Pickett is a game warden originally living in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming and now Saddlestring. Joe is a kinda’ normal guy living a normal life and correcting the wrongs that he encounters and there have been enough to fill ten books. From his website:

the New York Times once wrote, “…Box introduced us to his unlikely hero, a game warden named Joe Pickett, a decent man who lives paycheck to paycheck and who is deeply fond of his wife and his three daughters. Pickett isn’t especially remarkable except for his honesty and for a quality that Harold Bloom attributes to Shakespeare — the ability to think everything through for himself.”  and Joe Pickett has been compared to Gary Cooper by both reviewers and the actor’s only daughter for his quiet, but determined, approach.

Joe moves through life with the help of his beloved wife, Marybeth and his daughters Sheridan and Lucy and helped by his right hand man Nate Romanowski, falconer and man of the land who often appears at just the right time to help Joe. Joe’s life is of-times complicated by his mother-in-law Missy (with several last names due to her penchant for moving up the social ladder through divorce). All of the novels are great Box really creates a great “sense of place” in his novels muc  like James Lee Burke, so that even though I’ve never visited Wyoming, I’ve been there many times thanks to Box. Box says this about his books and particularly about  Trophy Hunt

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My novels include environmental issues that are integral to the modern West.Trophy Hunt is no different. The boom in coal bed methane development in the Rocky Mountains has literally transformed the terrain – and the economy– in ways both good and bad. I was researching the issue for background when something entirely unrelated happened: the discovery of dozens of mutilated cattle in Montana. Remembering the stories of cattle mutilations from my youth, I contacted the lead reporter covering the story and she supplied me with clippings, reports, and extremely disturbing photos. The details of the deaths were eerily similar: no obvious cause of death; faces and genitals surgically removed; no tire tracks, footprints, or evidence near the bodies; and, strangest of all, the bodies were untouched by natural predators. I knew as I leafed through the documents that Joe Pickett would have a new case – one that would test his sense of reality.

While many of the stories stand on there own, I do think that this is a series that deserves to be read in order. So much of the character development and ancillary story lines develop from book to book that if you haven’t read the other books you’ll not get the full effect of the book. If you don’t like to read series books, you can still experience Box’s writing  talent by reading his two standalone novels, the Edgar Award winning Blue Heaven or Three Weeks to Say Goodbye both excellent reads. I can’t wait for the April 6th release of Pickett’s next adventure chronicled in Nowhere to Run. As for you who have never read any you got lots of readin’ to do, but it will be worth the effort!