Category: books

Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs

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I never got hooked on her (many) Temperance Brennan Books.

BUT gave it another try.

I’m still not convinced. Reichs writes in an interesting, unusual style.

But the plot of this one was not convincing. The killer simply surprising. There was no ah ha twist to the story.

Fire and Bones (2024) by Kathy Reichs is 23rd in the series.

… forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation with deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence. …

The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and when Tempe delves into the property’s history, she becomes suspicious about the ownership.

The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle.

Soon the duo learns that back in the 1930s and ’40s the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang.

While interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attack? …

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

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Mixed feelings.

The Night Circus (2011) is a phantasmagorical fairy tale set near an ahistorical Victorian London in a wandering, magical circus that only opens at night and closes at dawn.

Called Le Cirque des Rêves (The Circus of Dreams) …

Well written. But what is it?

Magic realism?

A romance novel?

We are supposed to get interested in some sort of contest between two talented people: Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair.

I couldn’t get into it. And neither could either of the two.

It’s more of an ongoing history of a unique circus.

Mixed feelings.

Unbound by Stuart Woods

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Unbound (2018) – #44 in the series.

This one features more Teddy Fay, one of our favourite characters. And not someone you want to mess with.

Teddy’s wife is killed by a drunk driver. He takes a leave of absence to grieve — and considers revenge.

One thing leads to another, as always in the Stone Barrington, books. And we end up well entertained.

Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo

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Among the Wicked (2016) is very popular with fans. And was quite well reviewed.

I found it to be poorly written. Repeating points unnecessarily, for example. A pet peeve of mine.

Pacing too slow.

But the plot is interesting.

Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called upon by the sheriff’s department in rural, upstate New York to assist on a developing situation that involves a reclusive Amish settlement and the death of a young girl.

Unable to penetrate the wall of silence between the Amish and “English” communities, the sheriff asks Kate to travel to New York, pose as an Amish woman, and infiltrate the community. …

Kate infiltrates the community and goes deep under cover. In the coming days, she unearths a world built on secrets, a series of shocking crimes, and herself, alone… trapped in a fight for her life.

The Underground Man by Ross Macdonald

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The Underground Man (1971) is an interesting read — looking back from 2026.

One in the series of hardboiled novels set in Southern California and featuring private detective Lew Archer. 

The slow pace. The odd, jilted dialogue. The attention to details.

Interesting.

But — ultimately — you have to conclude this is a BAD BOOK.

The plot is confusing and dumb.

The ending inconclusive.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Lew Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping.

What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder—and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline.

If any writer can be said to have inherited the mantle of Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler, it was Ross Macdonald.

Between the late 1940s and his death in 1983, he gave the American crime novel a psychological depth and moral complexity that his predecessors had only hinted at.

It was adapted as a TV movie in 1974. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube.

Peter Graves is Lew Archer.

The movie is not very good. 😀 Worse than the book.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Deadly Equation by Gary Gerlacher

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Recommended.

Deadly Equation (2024) is #4 in the entertaining AJ Docker and Banshee series.

A trauma patient’s dying request of AJ Docker leads him and his retired police dog, Banshee, to embark on their latest adventures.

Partnering with his patient’s sister, they embark on a quest to uncover powerful research that could alter the course of humanity.

Shadowy enemies pursue them in Washington DC, in a race to capitalize on the information, while a new threat reveals itself at Doc’s hospital. A greedy corporation is attempting to take over the emergency room, threatening the quality of healthcare nationwide.

Doc has to fight a billion dollar company to save more patient’s lives, as well as the careers of competent medical professionals.

A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst

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Wow. This is one intense survival story.

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were a British married couple who, in 1973, survived for 118 days on a rubber raft in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued.

… At dawn on 4 March 1973, their yacht was struck by a (dying) whale and severely damaged.

After transferring some supplies to an inflated life raft and dinghy and salvaging some food, a compass, and other supplies, the Baileys watched as Auralyn disappeared beneath the waves.

To survive, they collected rainwater and when their meagre food supplies ran out, began eating sea creatures such as turtles, seabirds and fish caught by hand or with safety pins fashioned into hooks.

Their adventure was turned into the book 117 Days Adrift (1988).

The story was retold in Maurice and Maralyn (2024) by first time author Sophie Elmhirst. The book was published in the United States in 2025 as A Marriage at Sea.

Amazingly, they returned to sailing, purchasing a new yacht called Auralyn II. 

Maralyn Bailey died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 61. Maurice Bailey died in December 2018 at the age of 85.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.



The Stranger by Harlan Coben

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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

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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

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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