Merry Christmas. Joyous Kwanzaa. Finally Solstice.
And Festivus for the rest of us. 😀
Mercy by David Baldacci
The 4th book in the Atlee Pine series.
Atlee is a badass FBI agent obsessed with finding her twin sister, Mercy, who was abducted at the age of six and never seen again.
… Mercy left at least one dead body behind before fleeing her captors years before.
Atlee has no idea if her sister is still alive, and if so, how she has been surviving all this time. When the truth is finally revealed …
Amazon
This ain’t literature. But it kept me going.
I appreciated Mercy turning out to be an uneducated 6 foot tall MMA fighter.
What’s Love Got to Do with It
Ron recommended this remake of the classic Tina Turner 1984 hit.
At the 1985 Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Dark Hours by Michael Connelly
Connelly‘s latest book is set during the pandemic starting New Year’s Eve 2020 in Los Angeles.
It’s the 4th featuring Renée Ballard, the female badass surfing successor to Harry Bosch who has a secondary role. This is the 23rd Bosch book.
Like Bosch, Renée’s a talented, hard working — undisciplined — investigator.
Also reckless.
The book is Bosch so it’s good. But I haven’t been won over by Renée in the way I’ve always like Harry.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Raised by Wolves – season 1
Raised by Wolves is an American science fiction drama launched September 2020.
… “two androids—Father and Mother—tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great religious war. …
Great casting.
Unfortunately, all the human embryos they brought with them did not survive — except one.
It looked bad.
BUT a large ship of human refugees arrives. Led by a priesthood, it’s the theocracy that destroyed Earth.
The androids were programmed to start the new seed civilization based on science. Conflict results, of course.
If you like SciFi, I recommend it.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins
Like everyone, I admired Hawkin’s 2015 blockbuster “The Girl on a Train”.
It was part of the new-to-me at the time sub-genre of murder mysteries where female authors write the story from mostly a female point of view. Gillian Flynn-like books.
Hawkins is smart. Studied at Oxford.
Her 2021 book is smart. And there are some similarities to Girl on a Train:
- story told from the viewpoint of multiple unreliable characters
- mostly female perspective
- story unfolds jumping forward and backward in time
Daniel Sutherland is murdered on his Narrowboat on a canal. And damned if I could guess which of the many unlikely killers did the deed. It kept me guessing right to the end.
It had something to do with a domestic tragedy long ago where a young boy fell to his death from a balcony. But what?
I recommend this book. But the complexities were a bit much for me. I liked Girl on a Train better.
To see how a good author develops a novel, click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Bridges of Seville
The one tourist attraction in Seville not widely touted are the beautiful bridges.
Click PLAY or watch more attractions on YouTube.
Open Season by CJ Box
The first Joe Pickett novel.
Quite good.
Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden—especially one like Joe who won’t take bribes or look the other way—is far from popular.
When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. …
CJBox.net
There are MANY more in this series.
Lisbon, Portugal in November
I arrived Lisbon Nov. 2nd, 2021 — my birthday. During a pandemic.
My excuse was ESSENTIAL TRAVEL 😶 to get a dental implant done. Expen$ive — but excellent. And finished within 2 weeks. A dental holiday.
Click PLAY or watch highlights on YouTube. (3min)
I avoided museums and restaurant because PLAGUE — but ordered out from famed Time Out Market at least 6 times.
Tourists love Lisbon.
Fantastic street art for pretentious influencers. 😀
I stayed at Sunset Destination. Not the best hostel in town, but definitely the best located. On top of a train station transportation hub. AND they have a great rooftop patio.
I walked more than on a typical hiking day. There’s much to see. Many viewpoints to visit.
I really liked climbing the Christ statue at sunset.
I’ll be back in Lisbon next Spring to get my implant installed.
Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
Kane and Abel is a 1979 novel by Jeffrey Archer. It reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list.
It’s among the top 100 best-selling books in the world, with a similar number of copies sold as To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone with the Wind.
The intersecting life stories of two men born on the same day — 18 April 1906.
William Kane is a rich kid from Boston. Abel Rosnovski, a Pole born into poverty.
Both are super talented and ambitious. Kane becomes a top banker. Abel a hotel tycoon.
The two should have been friends and allies, yet become enemies.
That gets complicated when their children get married despite vehement protests.
A sprawling good book with plenty of historical references. Yet I feel Archer became a better writer over the decades since 1979. This book felt old to me, compared with his newer books.
Rick McCharles 