I’ve been doing a lot of driving lately, which is always a good time to catch up on my audiobooks. I’ve got a stack of great audiobooks that the good folks at Macmillan Audio sent me, and I’ve been putting them to good use.

I finished this novel sitting at home, warm and cozy with a cup of coffee — a great way to listen to a book about a blizzard. Bad Little Falls by Paul Doiron is the story of Maine game warden Mike Bowditch. He’s been sent into exile, Down East, a remote outpost on the Canadian border. He’s lonely, frustrated, and not making friends. Game wardens aren’t popular with the hunters in the area, making it a very tough assignment.

Having dinner with the local veterinarian (what passes for his social life, these days), Bowditch is called to the cabin of a local couple. In a raging blizzard, a half-frozen man has appeared at their door, raving about another person, lost in the swirling snow. After a long, cold search they find the body — but it’s not the storm that did him in.

All in all, this is a good mystery. There are some holes and there are more than a few loose ends at the end. I like that about the story; nothing seems more fake than a tidy confession that wraps everything up in a bow. I found plenty of local color and enough talk of snow and ice to send me to the kitchen for a hot toddy. The mystery unfolds in fits and starts, as you’d expect. There’s danger, a little bad romance, and bad things happen to some dogs — and people.

My favorite character is Lucas, an odd little 12-year-old boy with coke-bottle glasses and the sort of bent outlook on life you’d expect, growing up in a family twisted by addiction and tragedy. His notebooks provide insight into the story and Bowditch’s affection for the boy puts them both in terrible danger.

The audio portion is excellent. The accents are wicked good and it’s easy enough to tell the characters apart. No distracting music and sound effects, just a good story, a competent reader (Henry Leyva) with voices and accents that fit the characters.

The problem with the book, for me, is Bowditch. What an idiot! He is constantly making the wrong choice, jumping to the wrong conclusion, and driving headfirst into brick walls. To begin with, I don’t have a lot of respect for guys who can’t keep it in their pants, and Bowditch knows he’s making a bad decision! Every step of the way, he tells himself it’s a bad idea and he does it anyway. The fact that things turn out okay in the end makes no difference. If he’s this thick in every book, I wouldn’t keep reading. Of course, that means I’ll need to check out a few more, just to be sure. The series includes The Poacher’s Son and Trespasser

My audiobook copy of Bad Little Falls was a review copy, provided free of charge.

Sometimes a book tells you things about the author. Douglas Nicholas is an award-winning poet, and some of that poetry seeps into his novel, Something Red. There is a certain lyrical quality to it that I appreciated, and I found that quite interesting, mixed as it was with a tale of murder and mayhem.

The story is told through the eyes of Hob (Robert), a 13-year-old orphan apprenticed to Molly (Maeve). a musical troupe crossing the Pennine Mountains of Northern England during a particularly brutal winter. Although the stop at many of their usual haunts, visiting old friends, there is clearly something lethal along the trail. There is an ominous presence in the forest and there are many who will not survive the journey. It may be that only Molly, her granddaughter, Nemain,  her lover, Jack, and young Hob will be able to save them all.

There is a bit of Irish mysticism in the story, and much about the past and future is told in hints and riddles. I had to work a bit on the language, as many of the words are obscure or regional. (Check out my Wondrous Words post on January 9, January 16 and January 23.) Maeve and Nemain have powers and there is something about Jack, something hinted at in the stories about his time on the Crusades and the horrible wounds he suffered. Hob, an orphan, was plucked from a small village where he had been cared for by the village priest; Maeve clearly saw something in him, and as Hob begins the transition to manhood, he comes into his own in this story.

I really enjoyed Something Red. I enjoyed the interactions among the troupe members and the story of life on the road, its hardships and friendships, was very interesting to me. What would it have been like to live on the road, performing for noblemen, trading your healing skills for food shelter? It’s a life modern people cannot imagine. It’s a suspenseful story, as you worry about the creature clearly stalking the travelers. Hob makes an excellent narrator — even though he spends his days walking along the trail, leading their ox, just trying to keep warm, he never seems to feel sorry for himself. Instead, he is filled with the wonder of a boy discovering life on the road, making friends, and seeing strange and glorious sights. He has Molly and Jack — and possibly Nemain — to protect him, but he does his part as well. His story kept me turning pages, racing towards the final confrontation.

My copy of Something Red was an Advanced Reader Copy, provided free of charge.

I read Lake Country by Sean Doolittle while I was in Key West, back around Labor Day, and for some reason, never finished my review. I found, in my year-end clean-up, a small stack of things I meant to review but somehow never did, and I’m going to try and get those reviews caught up in January.

Lake Country, for me, was about a young man who had lost his way and wanted to do something. Darryl Potter left the Marine Corps, but now he’s just drifting — no job, no prospects, and none of the sense of purpose that the Marines gave him. He latches on to a story about the death of a young woman, the younger sister of a man he served with, and decides that this is a wrong he can put right.

Wade Benson, a successful local architect, killed a girl. He was driving home one night and fell asleep at the wheel. He wasn’t drunk, just tired. Becky Morse was severely injured in the accident he caused; she lingered in a coma for two days in the hospital before she died. As part of his probation, Wade Benson spends two days every year in jail, the anniversary of the days that Becky spent in her coma.

Potter decides that’s not enough, and that Benson should suffer more for what he’s done. He decides to even the score by kidnapping Benson’s twenty-year-old daughter, Cheryl. His friend, Mike Barlowe, is the only person with a chance to set things right before they turn tragic.

Woven into this is the story of the reporter who first covered the tragedy, Maya Lamb, who finds herself uniquely positioned to be involved in the developing story. She’s got plenty of upheaval in her own life to keep her distracted. Potter has other problems that may catch up with him soon, and those problems are armed and dangerous. Barlowe just wants to keep his last good friend out of trouble, preferably while keeping him alive.

I devoured this book — tore through it in two sittings. There was something about Mike Barlowe, more than Darryl Potter, that appealed to me. Also Maya, with her career concerns and her fear that she is getting sucked into the camera and losing touch with her human side, makes an interesting character. There are some funny moments with her, but nothing that takes away from the bigger story.

Benson’s story also touched me — it’s really the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel and it’s very scary, but luckily I only hit a few bushes. It could have easily been disastrous. He doesn’t shirk his punishment, but he is not willing to sacrifice his daughter for it. And his daughter, Cheryl, is a tough cookie. You’ll definitely find yourself rooting for her. This is a novel that I highly recommend.

My copy of Lake Country is a free copy, from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program. Check out more of Sean Doolittle’s work at SeanDoolittle.com.

Redshirts may be the most fun I’ve had with a book this year. It made me laugh…and it made me go out and load my Kindle with other John Scalzi titles. I love the mix of humor and seriousness in the book, and I am looking forward to reading more.

Are you a Star Trek fan? If you’ve ever watched the old episodes, it didn’t take long to notice that there was always some poor schmuck of an ensign in a red uniform shirt who ended up getting killed on the away missions. In fact, the term “redshirt” became a stock phrase in the sci-fi world, referring to a character who dies soon after being introduced. But what about those disposable characters? Don’t they have stories of their own — friends and family and ambitions? John Scalzi’s Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas pays homage to those characters while he pokes fun at science fiction conventions.

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union star fleet. He’ll be working in the xenobiology lab, and spending time with the other new crewmen: Maia, Jimmy, Hester and Finn. Things seem a little odd right from the start, and it soon becomes apparent that something strange is going on. The Away missions on the Intrepid seem to be unusually lethal, especially for new crew members. If Dahl and his friends want to survive this posting, they need to figure out a way to fight back.

I could tell you more, but I don’t want to spoil the fun. The book makes fun of sci-fi television shows, directly and indirectly, and as a fan of the genre, I enjoyed seeing some old standbys given some play. The ridiculousness of the Away missions, the ensigns’ crazy plan to discover the Intrepid’s dark secret, and the absolutely insane conclusion they come to were a joy to read. I found myself laughing page after page after page.

But the book also has a serious side. Their conclusion may be insane, and they may come up with a pretty brilliant plan, but there are consequences. The codas at the end of the book are more serious, detailing some of those consequences and the people whose lives were changed. It gave the book balance, and made it a more satisfying read.

This is a great book. I’ve been recommending it to everyone (it provided a great break from the usual sentimental holiday stuff). After much prodding from friends, I picked up my copy of Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas from the local library, then promptly bought a bunch more John Scalzi titles on Amazon.

I’ve got a few new books to tell you about. I don’t think I requested any of these (I’ve been requesting fewer these days, as I’m trying to get caught up), and if I didn’t request it, a book has to be really good to make the review list. Let’s see if any of these make the cut:

First, The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon sounds really, really good:

The summer of 1985 changes Reggie’s life. An awkward thirteen-year-old, she finds herself mixed up with the school outcasts. That same summer, a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women. He leaves their severed hands on the police department steps and, five days later, displays their bodies around town. Just when Reggie needs her mother, Vera, the most, Vera’s hand is found on the steps. But after five days, there’s no body and Neptune disappears.

Now, twenty-five years later, Reggie is a successful architect who has left her hometown and the horrific memories of that summer behind. But when she gets a call revealing that her mother has been found alive, Reggie must confront the ghosts of her past and find Neptune before he kills again.

This one just might make the review list.

Next, another one that I don’t recall requesting, but might just read anyway – The Bughouse Affair by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini:

In The Bughouse Affair, this first of a new series of lighthearted historical mysteries set in 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John
Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations.

Sabina’s case involves the hunt for a ruthless lady “dip” who uses fiendish means to relieve her victims of their valuables at Chutes Amusement Park and other crowded places.  Quincannon, meanwhile, is after a slippery housebreaker who targets the homes of wealthy residents, following a trail that leads him from the infamous Barbary Coast to an oyster pirate’s lair to a Tenderloin parlor house known as the Fiddle Dee Dee.

The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before two murders and assorted other felonies complicate matters even further. And not before the two sleuths are hindered, assisted, and exasperated by the bughouse Sherlock Holmes.

That sounds good! That might very well make the review list.

Now this last one, I know I didn’t request. Not sure if I’ll get to it, but it might be worth a look, Baksheesh by Esmahan Aykol:

Kati Hirschel, the owner of Istanbul’s only mystery bookstore, is fed up. It all started when her lover Selim insisted that she behave like the Turkish wife of a respectable lawyer. Looking demure and making witty small talk were the only requirements. Then her landlord announced an outrageous rent increase on her Istanbul apartment.

She has no desire to move in with Selim. She’d rather learn the art of bribing government officials in order to find a new place. Kati is offered a large apartment with a view over the Bosphorus at a bargain price. Too good to be true until a man is found murdered there and she becomes the police’s prime suspect. In her second novel Esmahan Aykol takes us to the alleys and boulevards of cosmopolitan Istanbul, to posh villas and seedy basement flats, to the property agents and lawyers, to Islamist leaders and city officials—in fact everywhere that baksheesh helps move things along.

I am a firm believer that kids should have a lot of books, and this is a book that I would choose for my nieces and nephews. It’s funny, but I’ve seen the Nutcracker ballet, but I don’t think I’ve ever read the story before. Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann and illustrated by Maurice Sendak is wonderfully written, perfect for some of the older kids in my extended family and it definitely made it onto the Christmas list.

The story is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 1816 story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It is the story of seven-year-old Marie, who falls in love the with handsome Nutcracker. The characters are fantastical: the seven-headed Mouse King, Princess Pirlipat, and the Queen of Mice. There is romance and adventure, battles and curses, ungrateful princesses and court astrologers.

In the introduction, Sendak tells the story of being convinced to design stage settings and costumes for the Nutcracker by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. I’m glad they convinced him, because I can’t think of a better candidate — although I don’t have children of my own, I not only have a wonderful copy of Where the Wild Things Are, I have the little action figures. The photos I’ve seen of the ballet are marvelous:

The story is a classic, the illustrations are beautiful. It would be a lovely thing for a child to find under the Christmas tree.

How can a handful of words and a simple drawing be so moving?

Over and over while reading through The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 2, I was startled at how a tiny amount of ink could make me laugh or make me want to cry. Perhaps because the drawings are so simple, the message is much sharper; the tiny bits of text are full of possibilities and changing meanings.

While there were many that stood out, there was one in particular that I kept coming back to. I first caught sight of the image: a girl cutting her hair, the hair turning into flowers as it fell. Then the text:

He loved me.

He loves me not.

The story of a million failed romances in seven words.

(Even more striking to me, I was just having a conversation with online friends about how often women cut their hair after a bad break-up. Made it seem that much more a real girl, a real heartache, a real story.)

There are so many other great snippets, too many to mention, but the thing that I kept coming back to was how much time I spent reading each one. They are very, very short, and yet they demand your attention. I found myself pondering their meaning, filling in blanks, smiling to myself. How often do you do that with any other sort of book? I like it when an author (or a filmmaker) leaves me a bit of the story to puzzle out on my own; these stories are all about that sort of puzzling.

If you get the chance, you should really check out HitRecord.org. Some very talented folks hang out there. I love browsing the images and listening to the audio clips – very cool stuff. Founder Joseph Gordon-Levitt calls it an online collaborative production company; this is their second book (I reviewed The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, vol. 1 back in January), and there are other events and collaborations in the works. Check them out.

My copy of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 2 was a review copy, provided free of charge.

Oh hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea.
– William Whiting

I start off every book wanting to love it. You don’t choose books to review because you think they’ll be bad. But sometimes they are.

Wilbur Smith’s Those in Peril would make a pretty decent spy novel. The problem is, he tries to make it more than that. He tries to add a romance that just doesn’t work; his female characters are painful to read. And there should be a law: that he never writes another sex scene. The other problem for me was that this was an audiobook, and the reader, Rupert Degas, did not enhance the experience of this book.

The story centers around Hector Cross, owner of Crossbow Security and his boss, Hazel Bannock. Hazel is the head of Bannock Oil; Crossbow provides security for their oilfields, shipyards and personnel, in dangerous Middle East locations. Hector is tough and worldly-wise. Hazel is beautiful and tough, worth millions, and absolutely devoted to her daughter, Cayla.

Cayla is a spoiled little bitch, and everyone but her mother can see it. She’s blowing off her college classes to spend her time in bed with her boyfriend, Rogier. While she is ensconced on the family’s luxury yacht, sailing off to visit her grandmother on her vineyard estate in Capetown, the yacht is overtaken by pirates and Cayla is kidnapped. There are no simple ransom demands, as this is no simple kidnapping.  There is far more involved here — and far more at stake — than Hector and Hazel realize.

Now, for the good stuff. The story is interesting, although it would have been better without the romance angle. The inside look at Middle Eastern pirates and radical Islamic blood feuds definitely makes an interesting read. There are some good plot twists that keep you going. However…

The female characters are terrible. Hazel Bannock does not sound like an oil company executive. Some of the things she says are so ridiculous, I literally groaned to hear them. No one addresses their college-age child by saying, “Oh, my darling daughter!” Does. Not. Happen. And the sex scenes? My god, they were painful to read. I felt bad for the Rupert Degas, the audiobook reader, for having to suffer through them.

I could have done without the detailed descriptions of torture that Smith keeps repeating. When the group is on the run and stumble upon an Islamic village where the residents are rounded up to watch the “public punishment,” I had to fast forward. There are also detailed rape scenes that were difficult to read (or listen to, in my case). Not for the faint of heart.

As for listening to it, this is one case where the audiobook doesn’t improve the story. Degas, the reader, does not do women’s voices well. Hazel sounds bad, but Cayla is even worse. I don’t know how you could hear her whiny little voice and not hate her.

All around, Those in Peril was not a good experience. I’ve got some brand new audiobooks from Macmillan Audio that I am planning to listening to on my drive to Detroit tomorrow (I am really looking forward to The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury!), so hopefully, I will have some better stuff to talk about really soon.

Father Night is the fourth book in Eric van Lustbader’s Jack McClure/Alli Carson series. These are spy novels with a bit of a supernatural twist. Jack McClure, Department of Defense special agent, has some curious abilities: he’s dyslexic, which has to be a detriment for an agent, but his unusual way of thinking lets him see things others miss.  He can solve puzzles that require thinking not just outside the box, but inside, outside, under, over and through the box. Occasionally, when things are particularly tough, he gets some help from his daughter, Emma.

Of course, Emma has been dead for a number of years, but she can still lend a helping hand from time to time.

The series has introduced a number of interesting characters: Dennis Paull, the Secretary of Defense; Edward Carson, President of the United States and his very scary brother, Henry Holt Carson; Caro, the heartless hacker; Nona Heroe,  dedicated police officer; Morgan Herr, who once kidnapped Alli Carson and tortured her; Werner Waxman, psychopath. There s a large, complex plot that has been building over the course of these four novels, and he’s not finished yet. From Moscow to Rome to Washington, puppets and puppeteers play their parts and most of these players are not who — or what — they seem.

There is less of a supernatural element in this book, and I generally think that’s a good thing. McClure’s chats with Emma can be illuminating, but it’s a device that could over-used very easily. Jack’s bond with Alli has grown over the course of the series, but Alli is less dependent on him, while Jack recognizes her strength. Jack has fallen in love with Annika Dementiev, who is a hot-blooded woman, a cold-blooded killer, and has motives that even Jack’s puzzle-solving skills can’t unravel. She’s an interesting character — they’re all interesting characters — and this book takes her in a direction I did not expect.

Like any good spy novel, this is 2 parts totally believable and 1 part completely preposterous. You want to believe that there couldn’t possibly be these sorts of cover-ups, secret brotherhoods and decades-old conspiracies operating in our government…but you can’t be totally sure about that. Each book — First Daughter, Last Snow, Blood Trust and now Father Night – has built on a crazy conspiracy theory involving Cold War legends, Nazi war criminals, billions of dollars in hidden cash, and the legacy of two powerful men: Henry Holt Carson and Dyadya Gourdjiev. Their descendants are left to finish the game, and even four books in, I can’t be sure where the next book will lead us.

If you like spy novels, this is definitely a series to check out from the very beginning. My copy of Father Night was a review copy, provided free of charge.  For more about the books, check out the author’s website, EricvanLustbader.com

I wanted to read Buried on Avenue B as soon as I read the premise:

When a home health attendant, Paulette Williamson, appears at Homicide South in Manhattan, she’s introduced to the NYPD’s Detective Darlene O’Hara and skeptically reports the confession of a senior citizen struggling with Alzheimer’s. Gus Henderson, a former junkie and petty criminal, claims he murdered and buried his former partner-in-crime in a park off Avenue B more than a decade ago, a lowlife who fell off the grid and hasn’t been seen since. The city agrees to excavate the alleged scene of the crime, and the police find a body—just not the one they were looking for. The cops unearth the skeleton of a ten-year-old boy, neatly dressed and buried ceremoniously with a comic book, a CD, some pot, and booze.

There has to be a great story there! And it turns out, there is. Darlene O’Hara is a great character. She’s got so much spunk and such an interesting life! I love the way she jumps into promoting her son’s band, the way she takes off on a Florida road trip with a tattooed lesbian detective in a hot car and the logical leaps she makes are pretty amazing. She’s a fun character and definitely one that will keep me reading the series.

The story was a little far-fetched, but that didn’t stop me from really enjoying it. This is the sort of mystery where nothing comes easily, and answers have to be ferreted out. Darlene’s ability to think her way around a problem and come at it from all sides really serves her well. She talked her chief into investigating this little mystery because it seemed like a slam-dunk; now, she has to solve it. Or else.

I also want to recommend an earlier book by Peter de Jonge that I read, Shadows Still Remain. I was sure that I reviewed this, but apparently not. Gonna have to correct that soon.

My copy of Buried on Avenue B was an Advanced Reader Copy, provided free of charge.