A big fan of the Joe Pickett novels by C.J. Box, I ASSuMEd I’d enjoy another of his series based on a rogue, a brilliant cop named Cody Hoyt, an alcoholic.
But for me they are too blood thirsty and violent.
I didn’t like either Hoyt or his protege, Cassie Dewell.
Back of Beyond is the first book. It’s set in Yellowstone National Park.
#2 is The Highway, somehow astonishingly connected to the bloodbath in Yellowstone.
Serial killers are picking up prostitutes at long haul trucking service stations.
… the typewriter itself is a problem. Paul swears it’s possessed and types by itself at night. But only Paul can hear the noise coming from downstairs; Charlotte doesn’t hear a thing. And she worries he’s going off the rails.
Paul believes the typewriter is somehow connected to the murderer he discovered nearly a year ago. The killer had made his victims type apologies to him before ending their lives. Has another sick twist of fate entwined his life with the killer—could this be the same machine? …
I’ve been working my way through the books of Peter May.
In the Enzo Files series, half-Scottish, half-Italian Enzo MacLeod lives in lives in Toulouse, working as a university professor. Then decides to solve some of the great cold case murders in French history.
Book #1 is Dry Bones. (Also published as Extraordinary People.)
Next up is The Critic, much better in my opinion. Especially if you like wine. 🍷
The body of Gil Petty, America’s most celebrated wine critic, is found strung up in a French Gaillac vineyard, dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Order of the Divine Bottle and pickled in wine.
For forensic expert Enzo Macleod, the key to this unsolved murder lies in decoding Petty’s mysterious reviews, which could make or break a vineyard’s reputation. …
In the 3rd book — Backlight Blue — one of the cold case murders decides he should take out Enzo before he starts investigating the case from 19 years earlier.
Enzo is not the most likeable hero. But he certainly gets the women. 😀
In book #4 — Freeze Frame — Enzo heads for the tiny island of Ile de Groix off the coast of Brittany.
He wants to solve the cold case murder of tropical disease specialist and entomologist Adam Killian in his study.
The crime scene was left completely undisturbed for two decades as the victim said he left a clue to his murderer. Killian was dying of cancer when he was killed.
To complicate things, his sometime lover, Charlotte, arrives — with an important announcement.
During a blizzard one bitter winter night, just days before Christmas, the car belonging to the wife of a retired local judge is discovered abandoned on a rural county road in Tamarack County. After days of fruitless searching, there is little hope that she’ll be found alive, if she’s found at all.
Cork O’Connor, the ex-sheriff of Tamarack County, notices small things about the woman’s disappearance that disturb him. When the beloved pet dog of a friend is brutally killed and beheaded, he begins to see a startling pattern in these and other recent dark occurrences in the area. And after his own son is brutally attacked and nearly killed, Cork understands that someone is spinning a deadly web in Tamarack County. At its center is a murder more than twenty years old, for which an innocent man may have been convicted. Cork remembers the case only too well. He was the deputy in charge of the investigation that sent the man to prison.
While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.
He’s asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting Professor of Statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.
While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.
They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. …
On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather for a family dinner with Armand’s godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz.
But the evening ends in horror when Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Armand is convinced is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on an elderly man’s life.
When a strange key is found in Stephen’s possession it sends Armand on a desperate search for the truth that will take him from the top of the Tour Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives. …
East of Edenis a novel by American author and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Published in 1952, the work is regarded by many to be Steinbeck’s most ambitious novel …
Steinbeck stated about East of Eden: “It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years,” and later said: “I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this.” …
I liked it less well than the author, but am still pleased to have made it through the lengthy, rambling saga.
Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. In fact, he appears as himself as a small boy in this novel.
Racism is a fact in this era. But one of the two smartest and best characters is Lee, an American born Chinese servant.
The other character you want to spend time with is Samuel Hamilton, the patriarch of one family.
Steinbeck books frequently explore the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everymanprotagonists. For example, Of Mice and Men.
The female characters are not nearly as important or well drawn as the men and boys.
The title comes from Genesis, Chapter 4, verse 16. The story of Cain and Abel.
Two sets of brothers are the main characters in this book. And one of the four is named Adam.
There are weird love triangles complicating both sets of brothers.
There’s something of a reimagining of the biblical story woven into a history of California’s Salinas Valley.
My two highlights reflecting back on this epic:
the STORY telling is memorable and entertaining
the philosophical discussions
James Dean played in one of the movie adaptations.
Rick McCharles 