Sail

I finished the book “Sail” by James Patterson earlier today.  It was an alright book but disappointing on several levels.

First of all, the plot was the same old thing which is irritating because they had the chance to make it have a good twist but it didn’t.  The book cover says there are “twists” but there were none - the book is predictable from the get go.

The book is about a rich family who goes on a two month vacation on their yacht.  They run into all kinds of trouble due, mostly, to someone trying to make sure they never make it back to shore alive.  The villain is so uninteresting that you hardly feel he is capable of coming up with such a devious plan as murdering people from long distance.

I would like to say more but that would ruin it for anyone else who might decide to read the tale.  It is entertaining enough so I would recommend it but do feel like it could have been sooooo much better.  Unfortunately, it seems to be the trend with Patterson and his coauthors lately - so much so that I’ve pretty much stopped reading him.

Odd Hours

Well, I finally read Dean Koontz’s latest installment of the adventures of Odd Thomas.  It has been on my list but I haven’t felt like reading at all lately.  I picked it up tonight out of sheer boredom.

I can not say in all honesty that this is my favorite of the series thus far for I do think it fell short of my expectations.  I do think the one where they are in that hotel is my favorite so far.  However, Odd Thomas does continue to inspire and make a person stop to consider how they approach life.

In this installment, Odd becomes involved with saving America from terrorists who have devised a plan to bring nukes into some of our major cities.  I think this kind of went over the top and there were several things in the book that just didn’t seem to fit or get explained, which I always hate.

You couldn’t read this book without first reading the other Odd books first for, even though he summarizes the past, you can’t really appreciate his existence without having read the others.  I do wish Koontz would have kept it a little more real but obviously he didn’t ask me before publishing it.  I did read that the next one is due out later this year so that will be good.  I sure wish he’d continue the Frankenstein series but am told he won’t be writing anymore of them.  What a pity.

I think it is over the top a bit because Odd is always involved in saving a few people which seems more in the realm of possibility then saving America in general.  I want Koontz to keep Odd real rather then turn him into a James Bond sort of character.  I was disappointed in his attempt at grandeur.

Odd Hours is a decent book and I pretty much flew through it as is fast paced from the very first page.  For sure if you are into the series, this is one you will want to read.

Shoot the Moon

Read the above titled book by Billie Letts yesterday.  It is about a boy whose mother is murdered and he is stolen away only to return as a man to have questions answered about what happened.  That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell - to tell much more would give away too much of the story.

The book kept me interested and the character’s were colorful.  I liked the main character and the woman he falls in love with.  Her mother is also quite a character in her own right.  The book is set in Georgia or one of those southern states…let me see, it was actually Oklahoma now that I think about it.  Either way, neither are states on my list of places I want to vacation in - and this book did nothing to change that.

A lot of times I will read a book that so wonderfully describes the landscape that I just have to add it to my places to see someday.  Nevada Barr’s books are like that most of the time - makes me want to see what she is describing.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, it was a decent story with a couple good twists in it.  It is not very fast paced but seems more like one a person would curl up with on a cold winter’s night. 

A Whole New Light

Last night when I got off work, I sat and read the above titled book by Sandra Brown.  I must have finished it around 3 am.

The story is about a young widow whose husband’s best friend is also her best friend.  Eventually, they become more then that hence the title.  They began to see each other in a new light - as possible mates instead of just friends.

Of course the book was predictable, it was a love story.  But I wanted something simple and easy to read last night - this is what I found in my sister’s bookcase.  It was a nice, easy going book - not my usual fare but hey, everyone has to expand their horizons now and then. 

The Heart Shaped Box

Finally finished this book by Joe Hill.  He is actually Stephen King’s son and is named “Joseph Hillard King” or something like that but he didn’t reveal that until after this book was published.

I did enjoy this book in the long run.  There were many times I thought the characters, given the circumstances they had already been through, continued to make stupid mistakes…however, working 911 has taught me that people are inherently stupid.  Even given all the right options, they will make the wrong choice anyway.

The story is about a rock star who had a bad childhood.  He is in his 50’s and pretty much played the field with women his whole life.  Of course he was rich so the women were willing to deal with his peculiar ways such as calling them by the state they came from rather then their names.

He decides to buy a ghost online and pays a $1000 for it.  The ghost ends up being the stepfather of one of the girls he had dumped.  The girl had, supposedly, committed suicide so the stepfather was bent on getting revenge on the main character.  Of course, things are not what they seem (duh) and the main character ends up in a battle for not only his life but the life of his current squeeze. 

It is entertaining and I would have finished it sooner had I not had to work so much.  Would I recommend it? Ah…I’m not so sure.  I guess I would to people who like ghost stories but not to the ones who want to stay grounded in reality.  It does, in the spirit of a King book, have some gross scenes that even I ended up skimming over because I didn’t want them in my head.

 

Odd Hours

So I went shopping briefly today.  I picked up my hiking boots - $45 at Walmart.  I hope they are good ones.  They are Brauns and called “Frontier”.  I was going to get the “Rustler” one but decided the sole was so heavy that it would kill my knees on uphill hikes.  Both are waterproof.  The ones I bought are a tan color so will show dirt but hey, that just means they are getting used…right? I’m anxious to try them out tomorrow.

I was going to buy a compass but as I know so little about compasses, I wasn’t sure if the one I was looking at was good or bad.  They had two - one for map reading and one for sight measurements.  Wish I knew a bit more about them before I made my decision.

I wanted a buck knife rather then a folding knife but will probably go with the latter just cuz it will be easier to carry in my pocket.  I don’t know about rope, what kind of rope does one take camping and hiking in the wilderness???

While out shopping, I picked up Dean Koontz’s new book “Odd Hours” which is the fourth book in the series about Odd Thomas.  I’ve really enjoyed the other three and hope this one is just as good.  I love Odd Thomas and the way he approaches life.  I don’t know if you have tried any of them but I do recommend them.  They are “Odd Thomas”, “Brother Odd” and “Forever Odd.”

One of my son’s friends brought over his dog for a minute.  This dog was freaking beautiful! I haven’t seen a dog with such awesome markings since the dog show last year where the collie won.  This dog had brown and white markings but of a varying degree and unique pattern.  I would classify the dog as beautiful as my son’s boxer.

It rained here for awhile but is suppose to be fantastic weather all weekend.  I don’t know what I have planned other then meeting up with my sisters tomorrow in the park - I’d take Baxter but as I don’t know what we will do when we leave the park, I best not.

Happy Weekend Folks!

 

A Superior Death

Started this book on Saturday and finished it around 2 am last night (or really early this morning). It is another from the Anna Pigeon series by Navada Barr. From the sounds of it, it is one of - if not the - first one of the series.

It is about Anna working as a park ranger at Lake Superior for a year. There is an old wreck that is in very deep water - only the “best” divers go down to it. Inside the wreck are five bodies that have been left there since the vessel sank years prior. Anyway, some out of town divers mention to Anna that the six bodies down there had kind of freaked them out. Of course, one body was really that of a local fisherman who had just gotten married.

Thus the mystery of who killed young Denny unfolds around us. Once again I had it figured out early on but I know a lot of that is that I spend more time analyzing each character then most people do when they are reading for pleasure.

Once again Navada does her homework on the surrounding area which makes the book informative as well as interesting. I don’t think she did as much research as she does in later novels but that is just my opinion. I kind of read her now to find out about our different national parks. LOL.

The book was pretty good - a little dry in spots but that is when I’d put the book down and go on to something else for awhile. It wasn’t spellbinding by any means but still kept a person semi-interested in the characters. Anna, because of her husband’s death, is something of a lush which I don’t really care for but that is just me. I get tired of the same old formula - an alcoholic person who can’t handle their own problems seemingly able to figure out complex cases that even the FBI can’t handle. I’d prefer that her character be one who is tormented by the past but yet strong and enduring - kind of a role model for real life folks. We all have problems yet most of us don’t turn to alcholism so why do the characters in books and in movies always seem to?

Anyway, I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn about another great environmental resource (Superior) and have a bit of a mystery plot too.

Bones to Ashes

The above titled book, written by Kathy Reichs, is headed back to the library today. I started it on Saturday and finished it on Sunday night about 2 am.

This was my first experience with Ms. Reich’s writing. I know she has written at least one other book also with the word “bones” in the title. Why “bones?” Because her main character is a bone expert. Police departments all over Canada send their unidentified remains to her so she can analyze them & possibly id the victim. This book involved missing teenagers.

I found the book a little dull. Sometimes there would be interesting stuff going on and then other times it was as flat as the sheet of paper it was written on. Would I read another book by Ms. Reich’s? Probably so because her characters were interesting and some of the forensic information was stuff I hadn’t read before.

Deep Storm

OK, so Earth has become a repository for alien nations who need somewhere to store their active weapons of mass destruction - why not? Earth is a non-essential planet with inferior humans crawling around it like ants. So what if the weapons have the capacity, if disturbed, to destroy our half of our galaxy? The aliens don’t live in our neck of the woods so what would they care? They probably wouldn’t want to lose all those cool weapons but its a chance they’d take no matter where they stored them

Besides, it isn’t like they didn’t put in safety features just in case us inferior humans stumbled across their stash. Sounds like a perfect plan to me.

In Lincoln Child’s world, humans stumble across a signal deep in the ocean. They build a gigantic city and fill it with the top scientists, drilling specialists, and, of course, the military. The city has everything pretty much a city 10,000 feet below the ocean’s surface could want or need. But when workers start getting sick and some become violent, they bring in a medical specialist to help diagnose the problem.

Obviously the illnesses are related to whatever is down under the Earth’s crust - that thing that is sending out the signal. Of course the humans, in their altruistic way, think that the aliens have left them a “gift” - something we were only meant to find once we became sophisticated enough to do so. Very few people stopped to consider that whatever was down there could be incredibly dangerous. I suppose even if they had, it still would be human nature to want to know WHAT it was - even if it meant endangering the entire galaxy. We just can’t walk away from a mystery.

Deep Storm is an interesting book. It didn’t keep me glued to it as it took three days to complete, but I did enjoy it as I went along. If you want a book totally void of any “love” storyline - no, nobody even kisses or thinks about kissing - then this book probably would be of interest. It did leave me intrigued enough that I will check out a couple more of his books to see what else he has dreamed up.

The Killing Night

Ok, I finished this book, “The Killing Night” by Jonathon King (finally) last night.  I’m sorry to say, it just didn’t meet my standards for a good murder mystery.  The theory of the case was good - a murdering cop likes to kill young female bartenders after dating them for a few weeks.  He takes their bodies out to the Everglades for the animals to chow down on.  The main character, Max Freeman, is a former cop turned private investigator.  He takes on the case as a favor to a Lt that he use to have a relationship with.

Of course it isn’t the first cop that they go after - it is only logical that it wouldn’t be, otherwise the story wouldn’t be “tense”.  Uh, it wasn’t tense by any means anyway.  Honestly…I skipped about 50 pages and didn’t miss a thing.  The book could have been cut down 87 pages easily without detracting from the storyline.  Don’t bore me with side stories that have nothing to do with the main storyline…I don’t care about the other cases Max is working…they are unnecessary fluff.

Sorry Jonathon, I hate being so down on your book but it did kind of suck.  I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of your stuff and I can’t really recommend it to my friends.