Here's my list of books read in January. I got through 4!

1. THIRD DEGREE, Greg Iles. This book starts out with tension and and it continues through the whole book. It's sort of odd, because though there is a buildup, it isn't as evident because it starts out sort of in the middle of the crisis. In this story, a physician seems to be going crazy; he's discovered his wife appears to be having an affair. His practice is being investigated, and it looks like he and his crooked partner are likely going to jail. And there is other stuff going on, too, and it ends up being a hostage situation with the doctor and his wife and others. Good book. 8.5

2. THE BODIES LEFT BEHIND, Jeffery Deaver. In this book, a professional hit takes place in the woods of Wisconsin, and when an off duty police officer investigates, she finds herself in the middle of a manhunt, with her as the hunted. There's another young woman there, with her, and there is a ton of stuff going on that confuses the issue. This is a really taut story with good characters and lots of building tension. 8.5

3. BLOOD TRAIL, C.J. Box. Another of the Joe Pickett books. In this one, it appears that there is a serial killer at work hunting the hunters in the mountains, and Pickett is called upon by the governor to find out what's going on. As usual, there is more going on than meets the eye, and pressure mounts as an anti-hunting activist and his crew show up to capitalize on the publicity, and the governor is forced to close hunting season, a move that will cripple the state's, and many local, economies. It's a good story, one that I figured out fairly early, and in retrospect I should have gotten it even before I did. But still, I had trouble putting it down. 8

4. CUT TO THE BONE, Shane Gericke. This was recommended to me by the manager of our Borders Express, Gericke (pronounced Yer-kee, I think) is a local writer, from Naperville. The story is set in Naperville, has some local color, but mostly it's like reading about Boulder or Portland or any community that you're unfamiliar with. (The local angle doesn't hit anyone over the head, like it might be more prone to do in Denise Swanson's series, which I really like, BTW.) In this one, there is a seemingly senseless murder, very professionally done, at a spa in Naperville, followed by a less professional killing of a cop. The killer's motives are unclear - he would have likely gotten away clean if not for the unhappy coincidence that a couple of cops are at the spa as customers. Meanwhile, the governor of Illinois has reversed George Ryan's edict that no more death sentences are carried out, and he's even brought back the electric chair, in a special facility built in or near Naperville. The next guy to ride Sparky is a real piece of work, a psycho criminal who killed a woman to take her unborn baby (I'm sure it was patterned on a real case here in Illinois) and then killed the baby when he was being pursued. Everything ties up nicely, and for a first novel, it's quite good. It has its rough spots, but for the most part, it's a really interesting story. I want to give it an 8, but I think I gotta settle for 7.5, because of the rough spots in the storytelling.

There's my list for January. Maybe you'll find something there to like...