These were my March reads. It wasn't a great month for volume but there were some pretty good reads.

1. THE SHAPE SHIFTER, Tony Hillerman A very good Joe Leaphorn novel which details Leaphorn's interest in an old case that is resurrected by a photo in a magazine of a rug that supposedly burned in an old fire that Leaphorn had investigated. If the rug survives, did the victim of the fire, a wanted criminal on the FBI list, somehow escape? And if he did, well, then, who was that body? As usual, a very descriptive and compelling story set in the four corners region of Arizona and New Mexico. I'd give it an 8.5 of 10.

2. VELOCITY, Dean Koontz. Billy is a really nice guy, taking care of his comatose fiancee as he does, working, and basically treating everyone around him with respect. So why the notes? Suddenly Billy is getting cryptic notes asking him to make choices by his actions - if he does one thing, one person dies. If he does something else, then another person dies. And so on. Why is this happening to Billy? Koontz takes the reader on his usual fast paced, intriguing plot, with likable characters and his trademark twist on reality. I have had this one sitting on my shelf for a long time, and finally got around to it. I'd give it 8 of 10.

3. BLOOD ENGINES, T.L. Pratt. I found out about this reading journals on Journalscape (where Keith Snyder, S.J. Rozan and Laura Lippman have journals, to name a few authors). It sounded intriguing, and it was. It's about a sorcerer named Marla Mason, who is the chief sorcerer of a town called Felport. She's had to travel to San Francisco with her trusted sidekick, Rondeau, to locate an artifact she needs to save herself and her city from an attack by a rival sorcerer. But things are going a little weird in the city by the bay. Someone's killing off the sorcerers in that town, and her friend Lao Tso (? might have the character's name a little off) was the first to die, a victim of little yellow poisonous frogs. This book was a really fun, well written story, with a lot of originality. At first I was thinking of the Anita Black vampire novels with their vampire Masters of Cities, but it really wasn't anything like them. (Thank goodness!) Very enjoyable. 8.5

4. SOMEONE'S GOTTA SAY IT, Neal Boortz. A non fiction book that I blogged about last month here. It's a libertarian take on important issues. Even if I didn't agree with every last thing he says, I did find that I agreed with a lot of the stuff. I don't rate the non-fiction books.