Suddenly flying to Reykjavík, Iceland for hiking — I bought the new book called Reykjavík.

Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson is well known. But this book was co-written by the current Prime Minister of Iceland Katrín Jakobsdóttir. Katrín wrote her master’s thesis on the Icelandic crime novel so she’s not simply along for the ride.

Reviews have been good, but I found the book much weaker than Ragnar’s usual.

It’s a cold case set during the era of the Reagan and Gorbachev’s Reykjavík summit in 1986.

A 15-year-old girl had disappeared in 1956. And many wondered if she was still alive. Or had died somehow while leaving a remote island.

The premise is interesting. The story very slow paced.

And the summing -up less than exhilarating.

Give it a miss.

The most original Western book I’ve read since Trevanian’s Incident at Twenty-Mile.

And not a bad story.

It’s 1877.

Bridget Shaughnessy .. is 16, uneducated, and impoverished when her feckless father dies after a rattlesnake bite on the trail …

Relying on intuition and one remaining mule, Bridget crosses the plains alone and winds up in Dodge City, where her story parts ways with most cowboy novels of the past.

Bridget’s bright red hair attracts the attention of one of the proprietors of the Buffalo Queen Saloon, an establishment devoted to fulfilling the drinking, gambling, and carnal needs of cowboys and others living and passing through the frontier city.

As Bridget embarks on a career as a “sporting woman” in the rough and tumble male world of the emerging West, she receives a belated education not just in the nature of sex work, but also in her own sexuality. …

Kirkus

Who is Nora Roberts? This woman is amazing.

Certainly she was unsurprised at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

After all, she’s just published her own pandemic trilogy:

Chronicles of “The One” Books

This pandemic starts in the Scottish Highlands. A pheasant the bird that infects patent zero.

About 80% of the world’s population dies quickly.

Unlike Covid, a high percentage of the survivors have some kinds of magical abilities.

This trilogy is an easy read. I’d call it Young Adult.

Plenty of romance, as expected of Nora Roberts.

Good vs Evil.

The One is a young woman trained for this epic battle. A child born to a special destiny. A teacher who had been waiting over 1000 years for her birth.

Fast paced. Easy to follow as Roberts does not make the typical mistake of including too many characters.

YES it’s predictable and sentimental.

Still, I enjoyed all 3 predictable and sentimental books. I wished there were more in the series.

Once again, I have to point out that Nora Roberts does not get the respect she deserves.

She publishes so frequently. And sells so many books, that very few bother writing reviews.

Divine Evil (2010) is another entertaining story, well told.

Not her best book of the 270+. But well worth reading.

Clare Kimball, an accomplished sculptor, is troubled by depression and the return of childhood nightmares. So she takes a break from New York City and heads for her sleepy hometown in Maryland, despite its association with her beloved father’s violent but apparently accidental death.

Cameron Rafferty, formerly the town hellion, is now the sheriff and faced with a puzzle: the century-old grave of an infant has been dug up. In fact, the grave was robbed by Satan worshipers; Clare’s dreams date from the night in her childhood when she saw them performing a coven ceremony–and they know she saw them.

Cam’s problems are compounded when the mutilated corpse of his hated stepfather is discovered in a field after the two have a public fistfight. …

Publishers Weekly

Excellent.

The 2023 book by Barclay is as terrific as the rest.

Jack Givins’ father was a killer for hire — whisked away by witness protection, leaving Jack and his mother to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives as best they could.

Years later, Jack is a grown man with problems of his own.

He’s a talented but struggling author, barely scraping by on the royalties from his moderately successful first book.

So when the U.S. Marshals approach him with a lucrative opportunity, he’s in no position to turn them down. They’re recruiting writers like Jack to create false histories for people in witness protection—people like Jack’s father.

The coincidence is astonishing to Jack at first, but he soon realizes this may be a chance to find his dad. Only there’s one problem—Jack’s father hasn’t made contact with his handlers recently, and they have no idea where he is. He could be in serious danger, and Jack may be the only one who can find him.

But how will he find a man he’s never truly known? A man who has done terrible things in his lifetime and made some deadly enemies in the process—enemies who wouldn’t think twice about using his own son against him.

Amazon