Category: books

Vanished: A Nick Heller Novel

On By Rick McIn books1 Comment

My Mom recommended this author so I downloaded book 1 (2010) in the Nick Heller series. The author is Joseph Finder.

… Trained in the Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator–exposing secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden. He’s a guy you don’t want to mess with. He’s also the man you call when you need a problem fixed.

Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick’s nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick’s brother, has vanished without a trace. …

Amazon

Though Nick Heller is compared with another fictional action hero Jack Reacher, my money is on Reacher. And Lee Childs is a much better author than Finder.

In fact, there’s a short story where Jack Reacher meets Nick Heller.

For me Vanished is too simplistic. Too two dimensional. I didn’t really get invested in any of the characters.

I do like Finder’s detailed understanding of TECH.

Still … I’ll try book 2 in the series to see if it improves.

Lethal White by JK Rowling

On By Rick McIn books, TV1 Comment
  1. Book 1 – The Cuckoo’s Calling
  2. Book 2 – The Silkworm
  3. Book 3 – Career of Evil (my favourite, so far)

Rowling is an excellent writer. Worth about $1 billion, she certainly keeps putting pen to paper only because she wants to.

I enjoyed this 4th book in her Cormoran Strike series. She writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Still, for me the plot was a bit too complicated. The book a bit long.

I just found out BBC had already turned the series into a TV series.

Robin Ellacott has a crush on her mentor and eventual business partner Cormoran Strike. Seems BBC has cast those two characters well.

Click PLAY or watch the season 1 trailer on YouTube.

Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

If you like a whodunnit where you don’t know whodunnit, read Shari Lapena.

I kept thinking Bob must have been the killer since he doesn’t appear in the book until the very end.

This 2017 book was not as good as her biggest hit — The Couple Next Door — but it’s still worth reading.

Her plots are excellent. Her writing style weird, repetitive, but still impressive.

Shari Lapena

Game of Thrones – my summing up

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

Unlike many, I thought the writers did a great job with season 8.

It’s not easy to end anything. Books. Films. TV series. It was impossible to tie up every loose end introduced by George R. R. Martin.

This series was my favourite all time — aside from, perhaps, Breaking Bad.

Certainly TV was far better than the books.

I’ll be tuning in for any and all prequels and sequels that come along.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

https://twitter.com/ultrabrilliant/status/1130529632061710336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1130529632061710336&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fio9.gizmodo.com%2Fajax%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1130529632061710336%26autosize%3D1

Erebus by Michael Palin (2018)

On By Rick McIn books, musicLeave a comment

I’ve read all Michael Palin’s book. Always engaging and entertaining.

The audio version is particularly recommended as Palin reads it himself.

In September 2014, marine archaeologists discovered HMS Erebus, her snapped stern furred with algae, on the Arctic seabed. Palin starts there and works back. …

… September 1839, accompanied by HMS Terror, … four years on an Antarctic adventure, where the dashing James Clark Ross captained her to the Barrier, or the Ross ice shelf as it was then known. …

The two ships set the record for most southerly latitude reached under sail alone.

I actually enjoyed reading about the successful Antarctic voyages — 12 months avoiding icebergs — than the more infamous Northwest Passage attempt under captain Franklin.

Sir John Franklin

… disappeared while on his last expedition, attempting to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage in the North American Arctic. The icebound ships were abandoned and the entire crew died of starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning, zinc deficiency and scurvy.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin – review

The TV star’s vivid memoir of HMS Erebus and its epic polar expeditions is lively and diligent

I knew the story best from the lyrics of one of my favourite songs. “Northwest Passage” by Stan Rogers.

Palin refers to the classic in the last pages of the book.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

The tension in this book is excruciating.

Shari Lapena (born 1960) is a Canadian novelist. She is best known for her 2016 thriller novel The Couple Next Door … 

“The twists come as fast [as] you can turn the pages.” —People

“Provocative and shocking.  One crime, an entire neighborhood of suspects, secrets and lies.  How well do we ever know those around us?  The Couple Next Door will keep you glued the pages in search of the answer.  Even then, you’ll never guess the truth…until it’s too late.” –Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Find Her

I will read more Shari Lapena.

The Rooster Bar by Grisham

On By Rick McIn books, economics, education, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Rooster Bar (2017) is the 25th legal thriller novel by John Grisham.

Grisham was inspired to create the story after reading an article entitled “The Law-School Scam” that appeared in The Atlantic magazine in 2014. …

I continue to be impressed with Grisham. He’s getting better as an author.

This entertaining and unpredictable plot touches on many current topics including:

  • Law School diploma mills
  • American student debt
  • Medical malpractice
  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
  • Corruption in Sengal

In the novel the fictional law school is based on REAL for profits like the Florida Coastal School of Law, part of the InfiLaw System of law schools owned by Sterling Partners.

Florida Coastal is ranked in the bottom 25% of U.S. law schools. About 35% of graduates — most with student debt of about $200k — found full-time long-term jobs practicing law within nine months of graduation.

Students should be very wary of signing on with InfiLaw.

Amazon

related – “The Law-School Scam,” by Paul Campos

Gray Mountain by John Grisham (2015)

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, governmentLeave a comment

Another excellent Grisham.

This time a female protagonist – Samantha Kofer.

She’s a young lawyer let go by the world’s largest legal firm in New York because of the 2008 Recession. The one on George Bush’s watch. The one caused by lack of government banking regulation.

Samantha is furloughed. She can keep her health benefits and legacy at the firm for a year if she does charity legal work.

She relocates to the rural Appalachia Mountains in Virginia. A slowly dying coal town.

Most of the book deals with a battle against strip-coal mining lawyers. I found it fascinating.

The book is titled Gray Mountain, one of those that’s been decimated by strip mining.

There are other clients. All too poor to be able to hire a private lawyer. Case studies.

Amazon

Some found it preachy. It is.

Some found it too slow moving. I’d disagree. It kept me going.

Some critics I’m sure never read the book. They are some sort of Trump / Coal advocates. Lashing out.

A year alone on an island in Patagonia

On By Rick McIn books, philosophyLeave a comment

Author Bob Kull seems to be a jerk.

It’s not easy to argue with one review I read – Unfocused drivel by an unlikable author.

On the other hand, his diary kept me going. The philosophical ramblings were circular — and I ended up learning nothing.

But the day-to-day physical challenges were interesting. The technology he used fascinating.

This was actually Ph.D.  research. And he defended his dissertation in 2005 at UBC.

Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year.

He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life.

With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

Amazon

The Likeness by Tana French

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

An intriguing (if implausible) plot. Good writing.

I do recommend this book — but it should have been about half as lengthy.

(I felt the first book in the series – In the Woods – was too long, as well.)

The audio version is best, I think, so you can enjoy the various Irish accents.

It’s read by Grainne Gillis.

Set in Ireland, it is the second volume in French’s Dublin Murder Squad series.

The story follows the efforts of detective Cassie Maddox to determine the circumstances surrounding the death of Lexie Madison, a young woman who is her doppelgänger.

The dead woman not only resembles Cassie but also was living under an alias the detective used in an earlier undercover assignment. A senior police officer, Frank Mackey, convinces Cassie to impersonate the dead woman to investigate her death …

related – NY Times review