A better than average Stone Barrington novel.
Unintended Consequences (2013) is #26 in the series.
An easy, entertaining read.
Stone finds himself in Paris, France. With amnesia.
What happened?
Seems a French billionaire wants to buy one of his companies. And a Russian oligarch disagrees.
Michael Cavacini is an award winning writer. Yet STILL enjoys the silly Stone Barrington novels. As do I.
My first visit to the world’s fourth-most-populous country.
It would take a LONG time to explore over 17,000 islands!
I flew into Surabaya, the 2nd largest city, for the great airfare.
Location-wise it was ideal for me jumping off to the Bromo volcano climb.
That said, Surabaya has little to offer for the tourist. It’s mostly a loud, polluted sprawl. Transportation is difficult.
I’ll leave for Malang as quickly as possible.
I only saw the film because I was stuck on a plane.
BUT it’s worth watching if only for the incredible scenes of ancient Rome.
Cast is good. I liked Denzel Washington best as he felt so believable.
The plot is probably unnecessary if you are there for the action scenes and special effects.
Don’t worry about historical inaccuracies. There are many. And no record of a gladiator riding a rhinoceros. 😀
On Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of 394 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. That sounds about right to me.
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Not bad.
Severe Clear is #24 in the Stone Barrington fantasy series.
This one includes the Presidents of the United States and Mexico.
Stone Barrington is in Bel-Air, overseeing the grand opening of the ultra-luxe hotel, The Arrington, built on the grounds of the mansion belonging to his late wife, Arrington Carter.
The star-studded gala will be attended by socialites, royalty, and billionaires from overseas…and according to phone conversations intercepted by the NSA, it may also have attracted the attention of international terrorists. To ensure the safety of his guests—and the city of Los Angeles—Stone may have to call in a few favors from his friends at the CIA…
Strangers in Time: A World War II Novel (2025) is excellent historical fiction.
I’m surprised as Baldacci is mainly know for best selling suspense novels and legal thrillers that you immediately forget once getting to the last page.
But his 2025 book is serious literature. This could be nominated for major awards.
… set in London in 1944, about a bereaved bookshop owner and two teenagers scarred by the Second World War, and the healing and hope they find in one another.
Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.
Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there.
Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his bookshop …
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I’m moving back to Calgary … or — more accurately — going on the road full-time. In fact, I’m en route to Indonesia today.
Rob & Yvonne sold the house in Parksville where my parents lived their last years.
It was a perfect retirement home for them.
I’d been spending a lot more time in Parksville over recent years helping out my folks.
But Dad died in March.
Dad originally wanted to move to the left coast for fishing.
Mom for the weather, gardening, and … bocce ball.
A few years after my parents, my brother Rob and his wife Yvonne decided to move to Parksville, as well. They bought a 2nd house. AND got married in that Parksville home.
Randy and Val made long trips from Calgary, especially enjoying the annual Sandcastle Building competition and LIVE music at the Park.
I was born and raised in Calgary, the high prairie. Ocean and rain forest were a big attraction for me.
Most mornings, I’d get up for dawn and take coffee down to Rathtrevor Beach.
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Evenings, I’d often walk down to Parksville Beach at dusk.
Mom played a lot of tiles. And then cards, as her vision worsened over the years.
The most popular addition to town was Charlie during COVID.
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Climate is mild in Parksville, year round. You can walk and cycle every day of the year.
Surprisingly, Dad wanted to get an electric trike in 2019. That was fun. Rob and Yvonne later got 2 electric motorcycles.
We did get a few days of snow each year.
I’ll definitely miss Parksville, B.C.
A great lifestyle.
The McCharles family first came here in the 1960s on family summer vacation. We’d park the homemade camper right on the beach.
I’d taken morning coffee at Rathtrevor beach over 2,000 days over the years. This was my last. Quite overcast after the first hard rain in weeks.
Jo Piazza is a novelist, journalist, and podcaster.
I read The Sicilian Inheritance (2024) mainly because I‘ve never been to Sicily. An unforgivable oversight on my part.
It kept me going. Both the modern day story of Sara, there for the first time. AND the story of her great-grandmother Serafina in the bad, old days when women were treated like chattel ➙ kept me going.
I’d almost place this book in the Romance genre.
Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage.
On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief.
But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret.
Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.
Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and learn the story of Serafina—a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly the more she challenges the status quo, the more she finds herself in danger.
Piazza wrote this fictional novel inspired by the real life murder of her great, great grandmother, Lorenza Marsala, more than a 100 years ago.
Good book.
Death Benefits (2001) has a terrific premise.
A careful, methodical young data analyst for a California insurance company, John Walker knows when people will marry, at what age they will most likely have children, and when they will die.
All signs point to a long successful career—until Max Stillman, a gruff security consultant, appears without warning at the office.
It seems a colleague with whom Walker once had an affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor.
Stillman wants to find and convict her; Walker is convinced the woman is innocent.
Now Walker teams up with Stillman on an urgent north-by-northeast race …
I enjoy learning about how skiptracers work and think.
The Left-handed Twin (2021) by Thomas Perry is good, but not as good as the previous 8 books in the series.
One part I did enjoy was a chase on Maine’s Hundred Mile Wilderness.
Jane Whitefield helps people disappear.
Fearing for their lives, fleeing dangerous situations, her clients come to her when they need to vanish completely—to assume a new identity and establish a new life somewhere they won’t be found. …
… Jane finds a young woman fresh from LA with a whole lot of trouble behind her. After she cheated on her boyfriend, he dragged her to the home of the offending man and made her watch as he killed him. She testified against the boyfriend, but a bribed jury acquitted him, and now he’s free and trying to find and kill her.
Jane agrees to help, and it soon becomes clear that outsmarting the murderous boyfriend is not beyond Jane’s skills. But the boyfriend has some new friends: members of a Russian organized crime brotherhood.
When they learn that Sara is traveling with a tall, dark-haired woman who disappears people, the Russians become increasingly interested in helping the boyfriend find the duo. They’ve heard rumors that such a woman existed—and believe that, if forcibly extracted, the knowledge she has of past clients could be worth millions.
He does plan a 10th book to be called The Tree of Life and Flowers (2026).
Mixed feelings.
I downloaded “I See You’ve Called in Dead” (2025) for the intriguing premise:
Obituary writer Bud Stanley is semi-depressed. One night he gets drunk and posts his own obituary.
His company assumes he is dead and removes him from their employees list.
Turning up at work, the computer won’t let them fire Bud because he’s technically dead in their system. 😀
Catch-22.
I love it.
And there is a lot of humour. I laughed out loud more than once.
Thurber Prize-winner and New York Times bestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.
Suspended from work, Bud meets a woman and they start attending wakes and funerals of strangers.
There are some interesting philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. Important.
Two additional characters really appeal: Leo, a neighbour’s son, and Bud’s best friend Tim.
So … plenty of good content. But ultimately I’m not sure I can call this book a success. I nearly quit several times.
Rick McCharles 