“B” Is for Burglar is the second novel in Sue Grafton‘s “Alphabet” series of mystery novels and features Kinsey Millhone, a private eye based in Santa Teresa, California.
Kinsey is hired by Beverly Danziger to locate her missing sister, Elaine Boldt.
Like the first book, it’s an easy, breezy read. Entertaining. And actually includes more twist and turns than I would have expected.
Recommended.
Just One Look (2004) is a stand-alone novel.
A woman’s husband drives off one night. And doesn’t come home.
What emerges, slowly, is a fascinating and incredibly complicated plot filled with interesting characters.
I couldn’t guess whodunnit.
BUT … for me it was probably 40% too convoluted.
Coben is a good writer, however. I like how he handles technology.
I’ll keep reading.
The book was made into a TV series in Europe. Available in both French and German.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Excellent and entertaining. Fascinating and original plot. 2005.
Brilliant cop from northern Ireland gets hooked on Heroin. His life in ruins.
Denver, Colorado: a pretty, clever young girl working for an environmental charity, Victoria Patawasti is sleeping peacefully, unaware that she has barely an hour to live.
As her killer slips into her apartment and draws a revolver in the darkness, Alex Lawson wakes up in Belfast. Twenty-four, sickly, and struggling to kick his heroin habit after a disastrous six-month stint in the drug squad of the Northern Ireland police force, Alex badly needs a chance to get back on track.
Victoria was his high school love, and when he finds out she has been murdered, he volunteers to help Victoria’s family hunt down the killer.
But once in Colorado, Alex has a fight on his hands: wanted by both the Colorado cops and the Ulster police, and uncovering corruption at the highest levels of government, he can solve the case only if he manages to stay alive.
All the author’s books are excellent. He’s known for his Sean Duffy series.
This book runs very much in parallel with Sean Duffy. McKinty is trying to have Alex Lawson appear in a Duffy novel.
I really like the setting of this 2020 book – Spokane in the early 1900s.
The author is from Spokane.
Homeless workers, railway tramps and union organizers.
A mix of real and fictional characters makes it more entertaining.
Rye Dolan and his older brother, Gig. Orphaned and penniless. Trying to make their way.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a teenage, pregnant firebrand western Joan of Arc. She’s based on an actual historical character. A founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women’s rights, birth control, and women’s suffrage.
Ursula the Great, a striptease artist who sings in a cage with a cougar.
The bad guys: mine owners, violent police, unsympathetic judges and conservative newspaper editors.
It’s not all that well written. But the story does keep moving.
Book #2 in the Atlee Pine series.
I enjoyed this one more than the first book – Long Road to Mercy.
Badass FBI Agent Atlee Pine finally returns to her Georgia hometown while on forced leave to investigate her twin sister’s abduction when they were just 6-years-old.
Consumed with survivor’s guilt, Atlee believes solving that mystery might help her get her life together.
She stumbles on to a weird serial killer.
I like her unexpected sidekick Carol, who has at least a dozen grandkids.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Nemesis Games (2015) is the 5th book in their The Expanse series.
The best, so far, I’d say. (None of the book titles, however, make much sense to me.)
A simpler plot. Our 4 heroes go their separate ways while the Rocinante is down for long-term maintenance.
I new and engaging BAD GUY.
The Expanse TV series is better. Season 5 is based on this book.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
It’s a PAIN having to wait a week between episodes. Season 6 will be the last.
Audible selected Falling Glass as a Best Mystery or Thriller of 2011.
It is very good.
But the highlight for me is the reader Gerard Doyle. Irish accents are easy on the ears.
And McKinty is one of my favourite authors these days.
Richard Coulter is a man who has everything. …
But then, for some reason, his ex-wife Rachel doesn’t keep her side of the custody agreement and vanishes off the face of the earth with Richard’s two daughters.
Richard hires Killian, a formidable ex-enforcer for the IRA, to track her down before Rachel, a recovering drug addict, harms herself or the girls.
As Killian follows Rachel’s trail, he begins to see that there is a lot more to this case than first meets the eye and that a 30-year-old secret is going to put all of them in terrible danger.
Fantastic. I recommend this book to everyone.
The Glass Castle is a 2005 memoir by Jeannette Walls.
The book recounts the unconventional, poverty-stricken upbringing Jeannette and her siblings had at the hands of their deeply dysfunctional parents.
The title refers to her father’s long held intention of building his dream house, a glass castle.
Sounds like I don’t need bother see the film.
I can see Woody Harrelson in the role of the father. A charismatic loser.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Many — like me — are frustrated that we’ve read all the Jack Reacher books written by Lee Child.
At a cocktail party in New York in 2009, Lee and author Diane Capri discussed a great question: Where is Jack Reacher?
With Lee’s blessing, Capri began writing a series of “Hunt For Reacher” books. This one is #13.
FBI Special Agent Kim Otto is tasked with finding the ever elusive wandering Jack Reacher.
Though not as good as the Lee Child books, Full Metal Jack kept me going.
I do recommend it for Jack Reacher fans.
The first book (2018) in the Atlee Pine series.
I picked this book from dozens of similarly popular current fictions because the lead character is based close to the Grand Canyon.
The premise is interesting. The tale less engaging than I anticipated.
I could take it or leave it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 