For a James Patterson book, this is quite good.
Sure, it’s cheesy. It’s Patterson.
But I enjoyed the character of Rob Trilling, a shooting expert—a former Army Ranger and sniper with NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit.
He’s there to help New York City detective Michael Bennett find a killer sniper who’s been taking out seemingly random people.
Crosshairs (2024) is Michael Bennett series.
Of course, Bennett’s wife and 10 children are always entertaining.
A surprising and important book.
Outsider follows journalist Brett Popplewell as he uncovers the story of Dag Aabye, an aging former stuntman who lived alone inside a school bus on a mountain, running day and night through blizzards and heat waves.
The book chronicles Aabye’s life from childhood to the silver screen, reflecting on our notions of aging, belonging and human accomplishment.
Dag Aabye is often credited the world’s first extreme skier.
His life is extreme, as well.
GREAT ending.
Into the Wild meets Born to Run meets The Stranger in the Woods in a fascinating true story of a marathon-running hermit and a journalist’s quest to solve the mystery at the core of the enigmatic man’s existence
Apostle’s Cove is a 2025 murder mystery novel by one of my favourite authors, William Kent Krueger.
The 21st book in his Cork O’Connor Mystery series.
This one has an interesting format.
A few nights before Halloween, as Cork O’Connor gloomily ruminates on his upcoming birthday, he receives a call from his son, Stephen, who is working for a nonprofit dedicated to securing freedom for unjustly incarcerated inmates.
Stephen tells his father that decades ago, as the newly elected sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork was responsible for sending an Ojibwe man named Axel Boshey to prison for a brutal murder that Stephen is certain he did not commit.
Cork feels compelled to reinvestigate the crime, but that is easier said than done.
Not only is it a closed case but Axel Boshey is, inexplicably, refusing to help.
The deeper Cork digs, the clearer it becomes that there are those in Tamarack County who are willing once again to commit murder to keep him from finding the truth.
Cold Storage is a 2019 science fiction novel written by one of the top screen writers of all time.
After decades underground in a forgotten sub-basement, a highly mutative organism – capable of extinction-level destruction – has found its way out.
Only Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz can stop it. With the help of two unwitting security guards, he has one night to quarantine this horror, before it destroys all of humanity.
Loser Teacake is hilarious.
It’s one of those end-of-the-world thrillers. Not too believable — but would make a good Hollywood film.
I did enjoy the humour. Some of the dialogue could be kept for the movie.
In fact, a film version is planned for 2026. Starring Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, and Liam Neeson.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I’m one of millions who enjoyed all the Dan Brown books.
The Secret of Secrets (2025) is his latest.
If you liked the rest, you’ll probably like this one.
I do enjoy the many little scientific nuggets included.
But Brown is an infamously terrible writer:
At this stage, everything that needs to be said about Brown’s sentence-by-sentence ineptitude as a prose writer has been said.
Fear not: he’s still hopeless. It may be counted as a metafictional joke that in a novel where a favoured adjective like “elegant” can appear in two consecutive sentences, where bells are said to “blare” …
This is, in other words, a Dan Brown novel. It’s weapons-grade bollocks from beginning to end, none of it makes a lick of sense, and you’ll roar through it with entire enjoyment if you like this sort of thing. …
The Secret of Secrets (2025) by American author Dan Brown is the 6th instalment in the Robert Langdon series.
The Associated Press review described the novel as a 650-page thriller featuring Langdon on a dangerous quest through Prague, where he is caught up in an international race to unlock the mystery of what happens after death.
Brown once again blends suspense, philosophical themes, travelogues, codes, puzzles, and secret societies …
Too long. Tom Hanks must be exhausted.
Killers stop to join in long, philosophical discussions.
No doubt the movie will be better than the book.
Jesse Q. Sutanto is the Chinese-Indonesian author of Four Aunties and a Wedding (2022).
She currently lives in Jakarta with her husband, who is English, and their two daughters.
In 2021, Sutanto published her hit novel, Dial A for Aunties. I enjoyed it.
Wedding is the 2nd book in the series.
Quit somewhere in the middle where nothing actually seems to be happening. This book didn’t work for me.
It’s supposed to be a cozy murder mystery — but I’d call it more of a light comedy.
Our heroine, Meddy Chan, is getting married.
… she can’t wait to marry her college sweetheart, Nathan. Instead of having Ma and the aunts cater to her wedding, Meddy wants them to enjoy the day as guests.
As a compromise, they find the perfect wedding vendors: a Chinese-Indonesian family-run company just like theirs. …
… family aren’t just like her own, they are The Family—actual mafia, and they’re using Meddy’s wedding as a chance to conduct shady business.
Her aunties and mother won’t let Meddy’s wedding ceremony become a murder scene—over their dead bodies—and will do whatever it takes to save her special day, even if it means taking on the mafia.
It makes no sense.
Oddly, the wedding is in Oxford, England.
Kopi Dulu (2022) is an amazing account by Mark Eveleigh over many trips, many years.
He’s an adventure travel badass.
15,000 kilometers – by rail, road, on foot and under sail – through 50 Indonesian islands.
From tracking tigers (and the mythical ‘short man’) in the Sumatra jungle to the mystical Dayak tribe that lives near the geographical center of Borneo, this book touches on some of Indonesia’s most intriguing secrets.
The author meets Tana Toraja’s ‘living dead’, the Bugis people (once known as the Bogeymen) who build and sail the spectacular Sulawesi schooners and the villagers who are literally besieged by dragons in the Komodo archipelago.
He surfs the legendary reefs of G-Land, Nias and Occy’s Left (and pioneers a previously un-surfed wave in the remote Alor Archipelago).
He road-trips across Sulawesi and Flores and sails in the wake of Alfred Russel Wallace around Spice Islands that have remained largely unchanged for centuries.
“. . . a soldier of fortune or Legionnaire of the travel writing business!”—Korean Airlines magazine
This is book #20 in the Roy Grace series.
Roy Grace is a Detective Superintendent with the Sussex Police in Brighton, England.
His wife, Sandy, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving him haunted and driven by the need to discover her fate.
They Thought I Was Dead is a change-up.
Fans finally find out what happened to Sandy. It’s an amazing, compelling story.
But Sandy is an idiot.
Sandy’s a compelling and complex anti-hero: smart and resourceful, yet seeming cursed to make one terrible choice after another.
Not my favourite Thomas Perry. But — as usual — the dialogue and dumb mistakes made by almost every character are believable.
But some of his fans consider this one of his best books.
… I loved almost every word of the book, from beginning to end — particularly the conclusion — as it is full of memorable characters, each of them infused with one or more tragic flaws, in a plot that variously places them in league and at cross-purposes with each other. …
The focal point of STRIP is arguably Claudiu “Manco” Kapak, a 60-something owner of an L.A.-area nightclub and a couple of strip bars that are collectively a cash cow for him.
The entertainment establishments are popular and provide their own independent revenue stream; their income, in turn, provides a cover for Kapak’s money-laundering services.
Kapak’s life begins to change when he is robbed in broad daylight by a masked thief. His reputation is such that he cannot permit this breach of decorum to go unpunished. …
Good. Very unusual.
This is another in the popular Alex Delaware series.
Psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware works with Detective Milo Sturgis in an unsettling case of altruism gone wrong.
Unnatural History (2023) finds a handsome, wealthy photographer slumped in bed, shot to death.
The victim had recently received rave media attention for his latest project: images of homeless people in their personal “dream” situations, elaborately costumed and enacting unfulfilled fantasies.
The book is well written. Interesting. Entertaining, philosophical dialogue.
But almost nothing happens in terms of plot development.
I can’t recall a murder mystery with fewer successful leads. 😀
The ending I found a bit of a letdown.
Rick McCharles 