The Simple Truth (1999) by David Baldacci is quite good.
The plot sounded more Grisham — a murderer in prison for life wants to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Suddenly everyone who has anything to do with the possible case is at risk of being killed.
This one is definitely above average for Baldacci. I recommend it.
Excellent. Literary students should be studying this book.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a novel by Gabrielle Zevin.
Amazon named it the best book of 2022.
I’d heard the hype — but didn’t rush to get a copy. The plot didn’t sound all that intriguing.
Over the course of three decades, the relationship between two friends, Sadie Green and Sam Masur, changes as they develop video games.
But it is fantastic. A modern classic.
Delightful. Original. Charming.
All true.
Modern and philosophical.
How many novels feature a love story where the couple are not sexually involved?
All that said, I found the second half of the book not nearly as good as the beginning. Anticipating a poor ending — I am pleased to say the wrap-up is very well done.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Paramount Pictures and Temple Hill Entertainment purchased the film rights for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow for $2 million.
The Broken Window (2008) is the 8th book in the Lincoln Rhyme series.
As always, Deaver backs up his entertaining stories with great research.
Though the book was published 2008, it parallels what could happen in 2023 as hackers are winning the war against privacy.
… a killer has access to the world’s greatest data miner called Strategic Systems Datacorp. He is using detailed information to commit crimes and blame them on innocents.
Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs, and characters from the previous books, team up to stop the criminal.
Anthony Horowitz is an excellent murder mystery writer.
This one from 2016 is a bit of a sequel to the very popular The Magpie Murders.
Moonflower Murders (2020) finds Susan Ryeland broke, running a small hotel in Crete.
For ￡10,000 she’s convinced to fly home to England to investigate the disappearance of a woman from another hotel.
Why?
Because there are parallels between how Cecily disappeared and another novel that Ryeland had edited in the past.
It’s a story within a story.
In fact, if you read this book ➙ you read 2 books. The one based on the other.
The second is called …
In the novel Pünd and his new secretary are hired to investigate the murder of Melissa James, a former actress turned wife and hotel owner. As with the case of Frank Parris, there are many potential killers who could have murdered Melissa such as her husband …
Magpie murders was adapted for TV. It must have been successful as now Moonflower Murders will be coming to the small screen in 2023.
This is the first book I’ve read from Naomi Novik.
Novik’s first novel, His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire in the UK) is the first novel in the Temeraire series, an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars in a “Flintlock Fantasy” world where dragons are abundant and are used in aerial combat. …
The dragons of the story are portrayed as sapient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. …
I found the story refreshingly different. Historical fiction with dragons that speak perfectly on hatching. They learn language through the shell.
It turns out that Temeraire was to be a gift from the Chinese to Napoleon, his personal mount. But the British captured the egg from a French ship.
Deaver books have more twists and turns than any other author.
And he outdoes himself in The Cold Moon, 7th in the Lincoln Rhyme series.
It also introduces CBI agent Kathryn Dance, who would later get her own series of books. She’s one of the nation’s leading experts in interrogation and kinesics—body language.
The brilliant bad guy in this book calls himself the Watchmaker.
This killer’s obsession with time drives him to plan the murders with the precision of fine timepieces, and the victims die prolonged deaths while an eerie clock ticks away their last minutes on earth.
Lincoln Rhyme, Amelia Sachs, and the rest of the crew are tapped to handle the case and stop the Watchmaker and his partner, Vincent Reynolds, a repulsive character with a special interest in the female victims of the killer. …
The Kill Room (2013) is 10th in the Lincoln Rhyme series by Jeffery Deaver.
Robert Moreno, an American citizen living in South America, is killed in the Bahamas by a … sniper (?).
It seems an impossible shot.
Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are drafted to investigate.
In fact, Lincoln flies to the Bahamas and tries to work with local authorities.
As always, the research and technology is excellent. Many twists and turns.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Anthony Horowitz is an English novelist and screenwriter.
Anthony, the narrator (a barely fictionalized version of the author), is a modern day Watson to a modern day Holmes called ex-Detective Inspector Hawthorne.
Hawthorne, who is in need of money, proposes that Anthony write a true crime novel about him. A bad idea. Horowitz somehow agrees to a 3 book contract.
The first in the series was The Word Is Murder. Quite good.
This is the second. And I’d say it’s even better.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
An excellent empty room mystery.
It begins at a prestigious music school in New York City. A killer flees the scene of a homicide and locks himself in a classroom. Within minutes, the police have him surrounded. When a scream rings out, followed by a gunshot, they break down the door. The room is empty.
Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to help with the high-profile investigation. …
jefferydeaver.com
I have to wait a year for each new novel in the Joe Pickett series.
#23 Storm Watch dropped Feb. 28th, 2023.
It went to #1 on the NY Times list as well as Publishers Weekly.
All of these books are good. And Storm Watch is as good as the best.
Fans like me love Joe and his family. Good people in the midst of rightwing, rural Wyoming.
And we are intrigued by his buddy Nate Romanowski, a rogue falconer.
When a prominent University of Wyoming professor goes missing, authorities are stumped. That is, until Joe Pickett makes two surprising discoveries while hunting down a wounded elk on his district as an epic spring storm descends upon him.
First, he finds the professor’s vehicle parked on a remote mountainside. Then Joe finds the professor’s frozen and mutilated body.
When he attempts to learn more, his investigation is obstructed by federal agents, extremists, and Governor Colter Allen.
Nate Romanowski is rebuilding his falconry company—and financing this through crypto mining with the assistance of Geronimo Jones.
He’s then approached by a shadowy group of local militant activists that is gaining in power and influence, and demanding that Wyoming join other western states and secede from the union—by force, if necessary. ..
It’s quite surprising that a TV series based on these books has happened yet. One recent attempt was quashed by Box.
