If you suffer with 1st World Problems, you MIGHT struggle with finding the perfect bath mat.
After 3 failed purchases at thrift stores, I finally researched and bought the Toftbo IKEA Bath Mat on Amazon.
We’re not using any underlay. It doesn’t seem to slip on our bathroom floor.
Twisted Prey (2018) is #28 in the Lucas Davenport series.
They are all good — but, for me, this one had too little action.
Lucas Davenport had crossed paths with her before.
A rich psychopath, Taryn Grant had run successfully for the U.S. Senate, where Lucas had predicted she’d fit right in. He was also convinced that she’d been responsible for three murders, though he’d never been able to prove it.
Once a psychopath had gotten that kind of rush, though, he or she often needed another fix, so he figured he might be seeing her again.
He was right. A federal marshal now, with a very wide scope of investigation, he’s heard rumors that Grant has found her seat on the Senate intelligence committee, and the contacts she’s made from it, to be very…useful.
John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of twenty-eight Prey novels; four Kidd novels; ten Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels co-authored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three other books.
A formulaic thriller that ranks with Quirk’s lesser efforts.
This is only my 2nd Quirk book — but I’d call both silly non-stop action thrillers with very little else to recommend them. He’s not my kind of author.
Suspend your disbelief.
As a Secret Service agent, Nick Averose spent a decade protecting the most powerful men and women in America and developed a unique gift: the ability to think like an assassin.
Now, he uses that skill in a little-known but crucial job. As a “red teamer,” he poses as a threat, testing the security around our highest officials to find vulnerabilities—before our enemies can. He is a mock killer, capable of slipping past even the best defenses.
His latest assignment is to assess the security surrounding the former CIA director at his DC area home. But soon after he breaches the man’s study, the home’s inner sanctum, Nick finds himself entangled in a vicious crime that will shake Washington to its foundations—as all the evidence points to Nick.
He knows he’s the perfect scapegoat. But who is framing him, and why? To clear his name, he must find the truth—a search that leads to a dark conspiracy whose roots stretch back decades. The prize is the most powerful position in the world: the Oval Office.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
A scary spy thriller.
Silly escapism. But with some interesting twists.
If I was editing, I would have cut the length of the novel in half. Many threads did not contribute to the plot resolution.
I Am Pilgrim (2015) is the debut novel by former journalist and screenwriter Terry Hayes. …
“Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. …
The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalized by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War.
Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus. Smallpox.
Smallpox was a terrible infectious disease.
Smallpox is estimated to have killed up to 300 million people in the 20th century and around 500 million people in the last 100 years of its existence.
The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.
Inoculation for smallpox appears to have started in China around the 1500s. In 1796, Edward Jenner introduced the modern smallpox vaccine.
Officially, 2 live samples of variola major virus remain, one in the United States at the CDC in Atlanta, and one at the Vector Institute in Koltsovo, Russia.
Between 65 and 80% of survivors are marked with deep pitted scars (pockmarks), most prominent on the face.
U.S. Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln all contracted and recovered from the disease. Washington became infected with smallpox on a visit to Barbados in 1751.
Finally, I feel the author was not successful in combining a lightweight good v evil thriller with some sort of philosophical overview.
Pick a lane. 😀
Father Brown is one of the most popular British cozy mystery TV series.
It’s been running since 2013!
The series is set in England during the early 1950s.
Father Brown is the priest at St Mary’s Catholic Church in the fictional village of Kembleford …
Britain is struggling with the aftermath of the Second World War, rationing is still in effect, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place, the death penalty has not yet been abolished, and homosexuality and abortion are still illegal.
An empathetic man of keen intelligence, Father Brown solves murder cases when members of his parish are involved, when circumstances are strange enough to gain his interest, or when he is directly asked for help. During his investigations, he occasionally neglects his more mundane parish duties.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Sister Boniface Mysteries is a spin-off which began 2022.
The series is set in early 1960s Britain.
Sister Boniface is a Catholic nun at St. Vincent’s Convent in the fictional town of Great Slaughter …
In addition to her religious duties at the convent, she makes wine and has a PhD in forensic science (although this is referred to as a MA (Cantab), in the “The Forensic Nun” episode of Father Brown) allowing her to serve as a scientific adviser to the local police on investigations
I watched one episode of each simply to know what folks are talking about.
Light entertainment.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Neon Prey (2019) is 29th in the Lucas Davenport series.
This author has loyal fans. Including me.
Clayton Deese looks like a small-time criminal, muscle for hire when his loan shark boss needs to teach someone a lesson. Now, seven months after a job that went south and landed him in jail, Deese has skipped out on bail, and the U.S. Marshals come looking for him. They don’t much care about a low-level guy — it’s his boss they want — but Deese might be their best chance to bring down the whole operation.
Then, they step onto a dirt trail behind Deese’s rural Louisiana cabin and find a jungle full of graves.
Now Lucas Davenport is on the trail of a serial killer who has been operating for years without notice. His quarry is ruthless, and — as Davenport will come to find — full of surprises…
Though I didn’t recall his name, I howled at Bargatze’s bit on Saturday Night Live.
Click PLAY or watch him as George Washington on YouTube.
Bargatze’s stand-up special Hello World, filmed at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona, was released in 2023 on Amazon Prime Video.
Hilarious.
He has been called a clean comedian, generally avoiding profanity, sexual humor, and potentially controversial or politically incorrect material. His success among adult audiences has been noted as a departure from the provocative and surreal styles of humor that dominated the 2010s.
What does he joke about?
… Mostly about his wife Laura Blair. 😀
The two met in their early 20s while working together at an Applebee’s restaurant in Tennessee.
“We got married on Friday the 13th. Got a pretty sweet deal on that,” he quipped. “They were wide open. We were like, ‘What times are available?’ They go, ‘Every one of ‘em. All 24. You can call us that day if you want.’ ”
After a while his shtick does start to seem repetitive. Still … worth watching.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Christmas is coming upon San Francisco.
Detective Sgt. Lindsay Boxer, her family, and her friends of the Women’s Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The courts are slow and the medical examiner’s office is quiet. Journalist Cindy Thomas is working on a story about the true meaning of Christmas in San Francisco.
Then a series of crimes and threats of horrific crimes to come put the entire police force into nonstop action. At first, all they have is a name, “Loman,” behind the threats. It takes until Christmas before enough pieces come together to find enough to hope to pinpoint where Loman can be caught.
Very good. One of my favourites.
Sergeant Lindsay Boxer tackles an ambitious case that spans San Francisco, L.A., and Chicago in this pulse-pounding thriller of “smart characters” and “shocking twists” (Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
Three victims, three bullets, three cities. The shooters’ aim is as fearsomely precise as their target selection. When Lindsay realizes that the fallen men and women excel in a lucrative, criminal activity, she leads the charge in the manhunt for the killers. As the casualty list expands, fear and fascination with this suspicious shooting gallery galvanizes the country.
The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains . . . or heroes?
Also great.
Detective Lindsay Boxer takes a vow to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.
When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife—until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal.
While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . .who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe from the reach of an unspeakable threat.
Not as good as usual.
I couldn’t get into the nonstop pursuit. It seemed absurd to me that the villains didn’t simply start breaking vials of toxins throughout the chase.
Toxic Prey (2024) is John Sandford’s 33rd book in the Prey series.
Lucas Davenport and his daughter, Letty, team up to track down a dangerous scientist.
Climate change activists want to release a deadly virus to reduce the world’s population. They hope that fewer humans would result in the Earth rebalancing.
Rick McCharles 