Wayfaring Stranger (2014) is the first Burke book I’ve read.
He seems a very good writer — though I only got through 50% of this one.
It got too bleak. Good people somehow ruining their lives.
It reminded me of Cormac McCarthy. Burke’s also been compared to Thomas Hardy.
I’d given up on Karen Slaughter, finding her early books simple too violent against women.
They are horror.
For some reason I downloaded this short book — and found it excellent.
Protecting someone always comes at a cost.
At the age of thirteen, Charlie Quinn’s childhood came to an abrupt and devastating end. Two men, with a grudge against her lawyer father, broke into her home—and after that shocking night, Charlie’s world was never the same.
Now a lawyer herself, Charlie has made it her mission to defend those with no one else to turn to. So when Flora Faulkner, a motherless teen, begs for help, Charlie is reminded of her own past, and is powerless to say no.
But honor-student Flora is in far deeper trouble than Charlie could ever have anticipated. Soon she must ask herself: How far should she go to protect her client? And can she truly believe everything she is being told?
Excellent historical fiction. I was astonished by how many facts were included in this entertaining romp.
The Phoenix Crown (2024)
From bestselling authors Janie Chang and Kate Quinn, a thrilling and unforgettable narrative about the intertwined lives of two wronged women, spanning from the chaos of the San Francisco earthquake to the glittering palaces of Versailles.
San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage.
Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.
His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart and Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.
Of the other characters, I enjoyed Alice Eastwood most. Based on a real person of the era.
Well … it’s easier than the Faroe Islands. And far more popular.
BUT I wouldn’t recommend bikepacking the Ring Road (Route 1) around Iceland. 1,332 km (828 mi) long.
I met people who had done it. And they were not thrilled.
The shoulder is nearly non-existent — and tourist drivers are often gaping at the scenery, not watching for cyclists.
In fact, 4 guys who had spent 2 years cycling Alaska to the tip of South America found it tough.
There are buses, but many only run once a day. SOME take bikes underneath — but only if there is space.
Hvalfjörður and Vaðlaheiði tunnels do not allow cyclists. You’d need to find a ride through.
You can easily lose a day if you can’t get on that bus.
I took buses most of the way from near Egilsstaðir to Reykjavik. That was after only 2 days trying to cycle the Ring Road. For me it wasn’t worth the danger.
I had cycled a couple of days with Léonce Kircher from France on a minor highway and gravel roads. Those were great — but not easy due to wind and steepness.
We had come off the ferry together in Seyðisfjörður.
On the upside, campgrounds are frequent and inexpensive. Most with free hot showers.
There are many hostels, as well, though some are full in August.
GREAT would be to have a mountain bike and stay off the Ring Road. Of course to get to the best mountain bike trails, you would probably want a motor vehicle. 😀
BEST would be to plan well in advance. Fly up to the remote N.W. to do the Westfjords Way – 575 miles (925 KM).
Probably not solo, however.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
related – Cycling Iceland
Harlan Coben is the master of engaging plots.
This is not one of his best.
… Still, it kept me going.
7th in the Myron Bolitar series. He reps sports stars and celebrities — but somehow ends up spending more time solving murder mysteries.
His best friend, Windsor Horne Lockwood III (better known as Win), and his assistant at MB SportReps, Esperanza Diaz are both more fascinating characters.
Life isn’t going well for Myron Bolitar. His business is struggling, and his father, recently recovered from a heart attack, is facing his own mortality – and forcing Myron to face it too.
Then Emily Downing, Myron’s college sweetheart, reappears in his life with devastating news: her thirteen-year-old son Jeremy is gravely ill and can be saved only by a bone-marrow transplant – from a donor who has vanished without trace.
Before Myron can absorb this revelation, Emily hits him with an even bigger shocker: Jeremy is Myron’s son, conceived the night before Emily’s wedding to another man.
Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor.
But for Myron, finding the only person who can save the boy’s life means cracking open a mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and a cat-and-mouse game between an ambitious reporter and the FBI.
This is the best television I’ve seen in years.
98% on Rotten Tomatoes.
John Hodgeman and many celebrities make cameos.
Pokerface stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a casino worker on the run who entangles herself into several mysterious deaths of strangers along the way.
It’s touted the new “Columbo”. Each episode shows the crime.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
A good read.
The bad guys are really, really bad.
#16 (2018) in the anti-hero Charlie Parker series.
Recent rainfall has exposed a hidden grave in the woods close to Portland, Maine.
Parker is retained by a local lawyer to identify the woman’s body, and establish what happened to a baby that forensics believe may have been born just before she was killed.
Parker’s best guess is that the child may have been adopted locally by whoever buried the woman …
Themes like gender violence and systemic cruelty are woven into the plot. The plight of women escaping abusive relationships plays a crucial role.
The highlight for me are Charlie’s entertaining cast of friends: Louis and Angel, a Gay couple who are loyal friends and killers for hire. And his frequent boss, lawyer Moxie Castin, who turns out to be Jewish … ish.
There is a parallel story line of a racist criminal and his very stupid son.
There is a supernatural element in this one, but it doesn’t distract.
Cliff hanger ending. I’ll buy the sequel on Audible.
A silly comedy. I enjoyed all the oddball characters in the cast.
Critics hated it.
This is a sequel. I missed the original.
JJ is persuaded to accompany his daughter Sophie on her school trip to Italy, where they become involved in a terrorist plot.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The 10th book (2017) in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Deep Freeze.
Originally disappointed in these Virgil Flowers books, I’ve come to like them. Or … perhaps they got better over the years.
Class reunions: a time for memories — good, bad, and, as Virgil Flowers is about to find out, deadly — in the thrilling new novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series
Virgil knows the town of Trippton, Minnesota, a little too well. A few years back, he investigated the corrupt — and as it turned out, homicidal — local school board, and now the town’s back in view with more alarming news: A woman’s been found dead, frozen in a block of ice.
There’s a possibility that it might be connected to a high school class of twenty years ago that has a mid-winter reunion coming up, and so, wrapping his coat a little tighter, Virgil begins to dig into twenty years’ worth of traumas, feuds, and bad blood. In the process, one thing becomes increasingly clear to him. It’s true what they say: High school is murder.
One of the better Sherlock Holmes spinoffs.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) is the first book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King. It was nominated for the Agatha best novel award
Sherlock Holmes is well retired at age- 54 in 1915. Keeping bees and studying everything in rural Sussex Downs.
A 15-year-old Jewish-American wonder child — Mary Russell — bumps into the old man in the woods — and the two quickly become odd friends.
Mary becomes a worthy apprentice. Then enters Oxford University in the autumn of 1917.
The book is a series of adventures NOT written up by John Watson.
Click PLAY or watch the author introduce the book on YouTube.
Rick McCharles 