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The Cold Dish

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 14:22 on 2 February 2015, kitt created this:

I think that Book Riot might be the death of me. I have to admit that "death by books" wouldn't necessarily be the worst way to go, though perhaps being pummeled to death by books might be. In this particular case, the article Five Female Characters Who Are Way More Awesome in Books started off with Katee Sackhoff as Victoria Moretti in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series. Katee Sackhoff. Starbuck. Sackhoff. In another tough-as-nails role? Yeah, sign me up.

And, holy moly, this book is fun. I came for the character and stayed for the wit. Johnson's writing style is as fun as Butcher's style in the Dresden series. Johnson also has the writing style of showing, not telling. I am a huge fan of this style, and consider it a sign of a better writer. The book is written in first person, and done well. We aren't privy to thoughts of the other characters, but are shown small details, sometimes in odd places, just as we all do in real life.

The book is set in Small Town, Wyoming. I haven't looked up the town or county to see if they actually exist. An unpleasant young-ish man is murdered. While the sheriff (who we follow in the first person) is solving his murder, one of the victim's fellow miscreants is also murdered. The sheriff is now taxed with protecting the victims' other fellow miscreants, while now solving two murders, which are linked. We learn of the sheriff's history in this book, the first of a currently-11 book series, which isn't unusual for a first book.

A Darkness More than Night

Book Notes kitt decided around 18:01 on 25 January 2015 to publish this:

"Harry Bosch," book 7

I finished A Darkness More than Night, book seven in the Harry Bosch series, tonight. To call this book a Harry Bosch book is a bit disengenous, since it really was book two of Connelly's Terry McCaleb series. I didn't bother reading the first McCaleb book, Blood Work, choosing to watch the move which starred Clint Eastwood, and to read the summary on Wikipedia instead. A big *shrug* on that one.

The book, in and of itself, is classic Connelly, with the surprising twist that THE BAD GUY IS NOT A COP. Can you believe it? No, I can't either. The plot alluded to a number of other incidents and cases in Bosch's past, with Bosch being set up for a murder he didn't commit, but didn't prevent either. Given the murder was of a man who was also a murderer and had walked on a technicality, we are presented with a moral dilemma that no one would ever want to face.

Okay, so, the bad guy isn't a cop, but you know what? BOSCH IS STILL A SUSPECT, STILL HAS THE FBI AND IA ON HIM and, good lord, after nearly 30 f------ years of living with that, only a fictional character could survive. 30 years of a hostile work environment where EVERYONE you work with thinks you're dirty, even though the beloved reader would NEVER THINK SO? It has to be extremely wearing.

Yeah, so, book seven of the Bosch series. Good enough I'll read another one. Might have been okay to skip, given that it's a essentially a McCaleb story.

Fear Street 9: Stepsister

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 10:47 on 20 January 2015

This book came up as a Book Riot book, just as I started reading Book Riot posts. I promptly bought a number of the books from that first list, but this book has been moving from to-do list (yellow card) to to-do list (another yellow card) to to-do list (give it to the PA to buy for me). In a fit of insomnia last night, I opened up my ebook copy and started reading. I had read R.L. Stine years ago when reading his books were age appropriate, though found them inferior to Christopher Pike's works (and learned JUST TODAY, that Christopher Pike is a pseudonym for Kevin Christopher McFadden, who used the Star Trek captain's name - always wondered about that one). Given the recommendation that Fear Street #9: Stepsister was the best of the Fear Street series, I read it. The "you'll read it in 35 minutes" was fairly accurate, though it took me more like an hour, reading on the jostling bus on a small screen.

THAT ALL SAID, it was okay. The style of writing was very, um, juvenile? The sentence structure was monotonous, the plot predictable and the twist anticipated. I found all of the characters unlovable, uninteresting, and, well, to be honest, unbelievable. The mom who doesn't want anything bad said about anyone or anything, to the point of disbelieving her daughter who's been almost killed twice? The stepdad who is such a wet noodle that we have no idea why the mom is even interested in him? The omniscient main character who is so determined to blame her stepsister for everything wrong that she is unable to function even slightly rationally? There were enough clues to understand where the author was going with the plot, fortunately.

If I were 10, I might have enjoyed this book. Related: I'm not 10. It was an okay book for the bus ride to work this morning. I'll move back to reading Madame Bovary for the ride home.

Angel's Flight

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 21:57 on 12 January 2015

Harry Bosch, book 6

Oh, look! Another bad cop! In this case, however, we don't know which cop is the bad one. It's this one, no it's this one, no, no, no, it's that one. In reality, this is one of Connelly's better books, in that the bad guy isn't obvious. Well, that, and we didn't have to sit through a boring trial. While the end had a slightly meh part to it, Angel's Flight had enough twists, mystery and action to make it enjoyable. I'd recommend this Bosch book for readers of Connelly's work or crime mystery fiction.

Unrelated to the book, ooooooof, eight books in 12 days. That's a lot, even for me. I'd guess something is going on with me and my life, since that much reading usually indicates I'm avoiding something or I'm doing a lot of physical labor that allows time for my mind to wander or, as is this case, listen to an audiobook.

Trunk Music

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 20:13 on 11 January 2015

Harry Bosch, Book 5

Oh, look! Another bad cop! I swear this is going to be how I start every Bosch book, because that seems to be how every Harry Bosch book ends. This one has the very, very obvious bad cop, even if he doesn't end up being THE bad cop. Well, that's not actually correct, because there are a couple bad cops, that don't ever end up being THE bad cop. It's just weird.

The bad cop was just one of the now-classic Bosch elements: bad cop, IAD on Bosch's ass, the dame, Los Angeles. We have a newly introduced Kima Greggs, who was the black woman detective in The Wire, though her name is Kiz Rider in the Bosch series.

Did I mention the mob in this book? Yeah, because the mob would totally let all of this go, right? Yeah.

I'm enjoying the books. I'll keep reading. Not sure I'll keep up this pace, though: 7 books in 11 days.

Last Coyote

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 19:08 on 10 January 2015

Harry Bosch, Book 4

Okay, now things are getting absurd in this series. Seriously, how the f--- does a cop manage to get a 100% close rate when he's investigating murders that are 30+ years old? I mean, COME ON, how f---ing stupid were people 30 years ago that THEY MISS THE OBVIOUS? Oh, wait, THEY WEREN'T STUPID. There were, of course, cover-ups and shameful acts and people-who-need-to-confess.

Upside, the book wasn't boring like Concrete Blonde was.

Oddly, no tunnels.

I enjoyed this book, too, even if the level of suspension of disbelief was a little high. Coyotes talking to people who haven't had peyote and 30 year old case solved, my foot. Doesn't happen unless the killer confesses on his deathbed.

Concrete Blonde

Book Notes kitt decided around 22:02 on 7 January 2015 to publish this:

Harry Bosch, book 3

Okay, this is the third book of the Harry Bosch series, and, well, the most boring and predictable of the three. The previous ones weren't boring, so having to listen to this one at 3x speed to get through it was surprising. The main plot point of the story is Bosch is being sued in civil court for the wrongful death of the Dollmaker from four years previously, a plot point mentioned many times in the previous two books, giving us lots of court scenes and predictable characters: the tough plaintiff lawyer, the bumbling city lawyer, the asshole judge. The plot does give us a way to understand the plot of the Dollmaker murders without having to read about the past, which was a good history fill-in that I liked. The misdirections in the plot, though, were boring enough to be eye-rolling with the obvious clues for the reader to figure out they were immediate misdirections.

My worry is that in three books, I've figured out Michael Connelly's style and the remaining 11 Bosch books will be boring past two. The upside is that the area of Los Angeles that the books take place in, as well as the time, are all familiar to me, making the old books a trip down memory lane.

5 in 7 days

Black Ice

Book Notes kitt decided around 17:27 on 5 January 2015 to publish this:

Harry Bosch, book 2

Like Bosch book 1, I've had this book in audio format for two and a half years. I better have bought these on a steep discount, given how long I've had them and not read them. That said, I enjoyed this book, too. Similar to the first book, it had tunnels, bad cops, stupidly annoying and bumbling IAD officers (they can't possibly be this awful in real life), Los Angeles circa-my-era, the dame, and Harry Bosch in his hard-boiled detective glory.

I enjoyed the book and I'll keep reading them until I've read two in a row that suck. So far, this one is good enough to keep going.

Four books in five days. Maybe I should have set last year's 52 books in a year for this year instead.

Black Echo

Book Notes kitt decided around 22:19 on 3 January 2015 to publish this:

Harry Bosch, book 1

I bought book fourteen (yes, 14) of the Harry Bosch series. I hadn't quite realized it was book fourteen of the series. The only series where I've read fourteen of the books in the series is the Harry Dresden series, and yes, that Harry is well worth the read. I didn't realize this Harry was up to fourteen books, but, eh, sure, I'll give the series a try. It's not like I don't have a stack of 60 books just waiting to be read on my nightstand or anything.

So, book ONE of the Harry BOSCH, not Dresden, not Potter, series is Black Echo. I swear I've had this book in my audio book list for two and a half years (June of 2012, actually, I just checked, so I'd be right), and have no idea why I haven't read it or listened to it. Fixed that today, and by "today" I mean, "today," because I spent the whole day putzing around the house, cleaning up the yard, and listening to it.

Okay, right, enough rambling, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is set in Los Angeles in the late 1980s with enough similarity to when I was there in the late 1990s, that I knew where everything was. A lot of the scenes in Hollywood were where I had gone to night clubs to listen to new bands coming up, or in the canyons where I had hiked, or along Wilshire where I worked, or UCLA where I went to play ultimate, or along Silverlake where I'd bypass traffic when riding to work, that all of it came rushing back and it was a great. The book is like the old hard-boiled detective novels, with a slight twist at the end, with the good cop (Harry, of course) who everyone suspects of wrong doing because he's sticking to finding the truth even when the bad guys dressed in good guy clothes don't really want him to find the truth.

And wheeeee!

White Night

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 17:50 on 1 January 2015, kitt created this:

I am uncertain how many times I've read this book. This is at least the fourth time through; my count is likely higher, though. It has one of my favorite Harry scenes in it, even though it isn't one of my top three favorite Dresden books.

The book has the typical Dresden banter and an interesting plot twist. It wraps up a couple ongoing story points, presents Harry and human, and gives us a moment to see Harry's breaking point. The story arc of this book isn't quite the typical Dresden story arc, which is refreshing if you've been on a Dresden streak and understand Butcher's Dresden formula.

I like that Elaine is back in the storyline. The glimpses into her life, as well as the display of her power, are interesting. Reading about Molly and her apprenticeship from the perspective of having read the subsequent seven books is also refreshing.

As always, love the Dresden books. I will, unsurprisingly and of course, read this one again.

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