A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci

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 by James S. A. Corey

Leviathan Wakes

Caliban’s War

Abaddon’s Gate

Cibola Burn

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.

Falling Glass by Adrian McKinty

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.

The Glass Castle by by Jeannette Walls

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.

Full Metal Jack by Diane Capri

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.

Long Road to Mercy by David Baldacci

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.

In the Morning I’ll be Gone by Adrian McKinty

I’ve become a huge McKinty fan over the #COVID months.

This is book #3 in the Sean Duffy series.

In Belfast, September 1983, in the middle of The Troubles, Sergeant Sean Duffy, one of the few Catholics in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), is drummed out of the RUC on trumped up charges.

At the same time, Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber and ex-schoolmate of Duffy’s escapes from the Maze prison and becomes a prime target for British Intelligence.

MI5 drags Duffy out of his drunken retirement to track down McCann.

Wikipedia

Here’s a 2015 interview with the author. Quite a character. Roller coaster of a life.

He didn’t really get famous until his 2020 book The Chain.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Invasion of Privacy by Christopher Reich

The first book I’ve read by this author, I downloaded because of the digital privacy theme.

Those details are fascinating. Reich does seem to understand technology.

We get to the DEF CON® Hacking Conference in Vegas.

But aside from that, the plot is stupid and lazy.

It kept me going, but I can’t recommend it.

The Fallen by David Baldacci

The Fallen (2018) is book #4 in the Amos Decker Memory Man series by David Baldacci.

Star FBI detective Amos Decker and his colleague Alex Jamison must solve four increasingly bizarre murders in a dying rust belt town–and the closer they come to the truth, the deadlier it gets …

… It’s a bleak place: a former mill and mining town with a crumbling economy and rampant opioid addiction. Decker has only been there a few hours when he stumbles on a horrific double murder scene. …

davidbaldacci..com

There’s much to like about this book.

Decker is brilliant but socially awkward due to brain injury from an old football hit.

In this one he finally starts showing some empathy to other people, one 6-year-old girl in particular.

BUT … the plot is still 40% too long and complicated. Baldacci needs a more ruthless editor.

Peter Galloway #5 by Randy McCharles

My brother Randy switched genres from Fantasy to Murder Mystery.

I just finished the 5th novel in his Peter Galloway, Private Investigator, series.

There are more to come.  Perhaps 5 more.

Murder on the Mall (short story)

  1. Murder in Wood Buffalo
  2. The Christmas Carol Murders
  3. Murder in Mazatlan
  4. The Bridal Veil Murders 

Deadliest Outdoor Show on Earth

Book 5 is set in our home town.

In fact, local heroes Nickelback are playing the Saddle Dome.  😀

AND in a nostalgic bit, The Stampeders play a wedding.

Peter Galloway’s pursuit of his mother’s killer brings him back to Calgary, where he determines the accidental death of a rodeo star at the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede is in actuality murder.

Enlisting the aid of RCMP Sergeant Angela Ford, his investigation into the workings of the international rodeo circuit leads to an attempt on his life as well as an answer to the 20-year-old mystery of who killed his mother.eye.