The Stranger by Harlan Coben

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

The Stranger (2015) is another excellent, but short, novel by the master of the intriguing plot.

A stranger shows up at a bar tells Adam Price a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne.

… But that is only the beginning of Adam’s problems.

Corinne explains that there is more to her deception than appears on the surface, and wants to meet Adam alone to discuss it. She never shows up for the meeting and seems to have disappeared.

More secrets are discovered to have been revealed or leveraged by The Stranger, threatening to not only ruin lives, but end them

The novel was made into a British television limited series of the same title that was released on Netflix in January 2020.

It looks like the TV show is very loosely based on the book.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Be Careful What You Wish For opens with Harry Clifton and his wife Emma rushing to hospital to learn the fate of their son Sebastian, who has been involved in a fatal car accident.

But who died, Sebastian or his best friend Bruno?

That storyline is very interesting. But I found it to go downhill from there.

Clifton Chronicles

Be Careful What You Wish For follows the Barrington-Clifton family during the years 1957 to 1964, when Emma Barrington Clifton seeks to take control of her family’s shipping business and must deal with conspiracies and sabotage.

Don Pedro Martinez tries to get his own candidate to lead the company and Yorkshire banker Cedric Hardcastle joins the board.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

I don’t typically like (overly-long) Fantasy novels. But this one worked for me.

Foundryside (2018) by Robert Jackson Bennett is a high-stakes fantasy heist novel set in the city of Tevanne, where industrialised magic—known as “scriving“—is used to convince inanimate objects to disobey the laws of physics. 

The Core Storyline:

  • The Heist: Sancia Grado, a highly skilled thief with the unique ability to “feel” how objects are scrived, is hired to steal a seemingly ordinary, heavily guarded box from a merchant house warehouse.
  • The Discovery: Upon opening the box, Sancia discovers it contains an intelligent, ancient artifact (named Clef) that holds the secrets of the “Hierophants”—an ancient civilization that once used this magic to reshape reality.
  • The Conflict: Powerful, ruthless merchant houses want this artifact to monopolize the technology and rewrite the world to their advantage. Sancia, now a target, must go on the run to protect the item.
  • The Alliance: Sancia teams up with an unlikely group, including a disgruntled soldier named Gregor Dandolo, to prevent this technology from falling into the wrong hands.
  • The Resolution: The plot unfolds as a series of action-packed heists and chases, forcing Sancia to learn how to manipulate the magic herself to survive and stop the merchant houses from unleashing a new, dangerous era of reality-warping technology. 

Ofelia Dandolo: Gregor’s mother, the fiercely formidable woman who runs the Dandolo Campo and plans on making sure it stays on or near the top.

  • Orso and Berenice: the master scriver of Gregor’s House and his “Fab” (think the “builder” to his “architect”), both driven by intellectual curiosity and a desire to further their craft.
  • Claudia and Giovanni: scrivers who failed out of the campo system and now do scriving work in the black market.

Foundryside is the first book in the Founders trilogy and focuses on themes of corporate greed, the ethics of AI, and the power of technology

Too Old for This by Samantha Downing

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

You can’t help but cheer for 75-year-old Lottie, a likeable old murdering grandmother.

Too Old for This (20250 by Samantha Downing is a dark comedy.

Lottie Jones, a retired serial killer living a quiet life who is forced back into her old habits when an investigative journalist shows up asking questions about her past.

– AI


People magazine review – A Serial Killer’s Secret Is on the Line in Samantha Downing’s Thriller Too Old for This

I’m on the EQUATOR

On By Rick McIn food, travelLeave a comment

Ecuador was named after the Spanish word for “equator“.

Almost every tourist who makes it to Quito visits the (somewhat cheesy) Ciudad Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World City).

The grounds contain the Monument to the Equator, which highlights the exact location of the Equator.

The placement of the equatorial line was defined throughout a 1736 expedition called the French Geodesic Mission.  They were astonishing close — only incorrect by 240 metres (790 ft). 

Most interesting was a demonstration of the Coriolis force. I’d always heard stories about the “coriolis effect” ➙ water draining in different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres.

BUT I was shocked to see it with my own eyes with the draining water only about 2m on either side of the equator line.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

A great trick. I was fooled.

As you would intuit, the Coriolis force does not work on small bodies of water anywhere on earth.

The guide pours the water in a certain way to cause the direction of drain.

I enjoyed my 2nd chocolate tour over the past few months. A fascinating story.

You could certainly skip Ciudad Mitad del Mundo. But I’m glad I went. The parklike setting is well done.

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Beautiful Ugly is a 2025 psychological thriller novel by Alice Feeney.

The book follows Grady Green, a once-successful author who retreats to a remote Scottish island after his wife Abby’s disappearance, only to encounter unsettling events and a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Not normally a fan of anything horror,— or even creepy — this book was interesting enough to keep me going.

The twists and turns are not believable — but it’s still worth reading.



Best Hostel in the World ➙ Secret Garden Cotopaxi, Ecuador

On By Rick McIn cycling, food, hiking, travelLeave a comment

On arrival Quito, the 1st recommendation I got from everyone was to travel to the Secret Garden Cotopaxi hostel.

After 5 wonderful days, I’d rank it the best hostel in the world ➙ for ME. 😀

Ecuador is fantastic for outdoor recreation. BUT logistics of getting to and from the trailheads is difficult.

Over 5 days I signed up for these easy logistics adventures:

Rumiñahui summit

Secret Garden Cotopaxi is at an elevation of around 3,800 metres (12,500 feet) directly facing famed Cotopaxi volcano. If arriving directly from sea level, you might suffer some altitude symptoms. Especially minor headache, stomach, or sleeping problems. I was OK having been above 2800m for over a week.

Here’s my best photo from the hostel.

A gorgeous location.

Food is fantastic. They have a stone pizza oven. Healthy ingredients, many grown on site. Excellent vegan and vegetarian alternatives.

The hostel has high speed starlink internet — but guests get only about 1 hour / day of slow wifi. They don’t want you on your phone. 😀

Without question, it’s a hippie vibe.

I considered renting a Hobbit House for one night — but $165 was too steep.

It’s fun feeding the resident llamas.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

And another video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Judgment Prey by John Sandford

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

The 33rd book in the Lucas Davenport series is excellent. One of the best.

In Judgment Prey (2023) Davenport and Flowers are brought in to help with the investigation of the murder of a federal judge and his two young sons.

As they track down various suspects, they aren’t getting very far.

With each potential lead flawed, Davenport and Flowers are determined to chase every theory until they figure out who killed the Sands. But when they find themselves being stonewalled by the most unlikely of forces, the two wonder if perhaps each misdirection could lead them closer to the truth.

Best Kept Secret by Jeffrey Archer 

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

I’ve resumed reading Clifton Chronicles.

Archer is a terrific story teller.

The book picks up after the events in The Sins of the Father, with the House of Lords having to decide who will be the heir to the fortune of Hugo Barrington.

The vote ends with a tie, which prompts the Lord Chancellor to vote in favor of Giles Barrington.

This leaves Clifton free to marry Emma Barrington …

It goes on from there.

Personally, I most liked the story thread of Sebastian Clifton and his sister.

Sebastian returns to school and is focused on gaining admission to Cambridge University. However, he is rusticated because of certain misdemeanours …

Running off to London, Sebastian is robbed by a pickpocket. Without money, he visits his friend Bruno Martinez.

Bruno’s father (a crook) offers the 17-year-old 100 pounds if he carries a sculpture to London from Argentina.  It contains eight million pounds in fake £5 notes originally produced by the NAZIs.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

Wow. An original book.

Nothing to See Here (2019) by Kevin Wilson

I loved the unusual and believable dialogue. A convincing, if odd, friendship.

Lillian is 28 and in a dead-end job.

Years ago, she was a scholarship student at an elite boarding school but was wrongly expelled when her privileged best friend Madison was caught with drugs.

Now Madison is married to a US senator and has two problem stepchildren who spontaneously combust whenever they get angry or upset.

Madison employs Lillian as the children’s guardian for the summer and the trio of outsiders discover they have much in common.

Funny, surreal and tender, Nothing to See Here portrays an unconventional, dysfunctional family in need of repair.

Guardian review

Roberta Stalzer:

I’m giving it a 5 star rating for its originality and the author’s ability to make me believe the idea of kids starting on fire when stressed, didn’t seem particularly odd. A fun read.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

“I can’t believe how good this book is…. It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect….

Wilson writes with such a light touch….

The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming.

You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.”