Books and other stuff I feel like discussing
By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
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Books Update - Fiction
BOMBPROOF by Michael Robotham
I try to keep up with all of Robotham's books, but I missed this one when it was published in print in 2009. The publisher recently issued it in ebook versions, for several popular platforms, and I was able to catch up.
I'm very glad I did. A young man gets arrested and sent to prison for a crime he didn't even commit. The driver of the van where he was a passenger spooked when he saw police at a rest stop. He attempted to run away and was struck and killed by another vehicle. As the police investigate, they find stolen jewels hidden in the van. Without competent counsel, the passengers in the van end up in prison.
The main character expects his sister to meet him when he is released, and when she is nowhere in sight, he starts searching for her in the darker side of contemporary London. There are several incidents taken from contemporary headlines, and a harrowing odyssey with both cops and bad guys in the hunt. A sympathetic retired cop gets involved, hoping to find the young man and his sister before more harm comes to them.
DIE A STRANGER and LET IN BURN by Steve Hamilton
Another effort to catch up with a favorite author. Hamilton's protagonist is a retired Detroit cop, now living in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. DIE A STRANGER involves an attempt by a father, long estranged from his wife and family, who is hoping to reconnect with his son - a good friend of the protagonist. In LET IT BURN, the former cop gets a phone call from another retired cop and returns to Detroit to follow up some loose ends of a long ago case.
COMPOUND FRACTURES by Stephen White
White has been writing about psychologist Alan Gregory for about 20 years now. Two books back, he announced to his readers that he would end the series, the final two books to be companion volumes tying up all the loose ends. I was looking forward to seeing how the author would conclude his telling of his characters lives and experiences, but in the end I was disappointed. Alan and his friend Sam Purdy (a cop) were involved in an egregious breach of ethics a few books back, and that was not resolved in a way that satisfied me.
CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by Tom Franklin
The title comes from the children's poem on how to spell Mississippi. The story involves the lives of two men, one white, one black, friends as elementary age boys, who have grown apart through a series of events which were not at all pleasant for either one of them. An unsolved crime, several years old, which has unsettling similarities to a current murder, brings real danger to one of the men. The other, somewhat reluctantly, finds himself working to answer both current questions as well as questions from ten years ago. Tentatively, the two men begin to find their way back to a mutually satisfactory relationship. The author won the prestigious Edgar Award for a short story. I was not familiar with him, and was very pleased my book discussion group chose the title.
STORM FRONT by John Sandford
The latest in Sandford's Virgil Flowers series. Several groups are in pursuit of a stolen Israeli artifact. Not everyone involved is completely honest about his/her true identity, much less true motives. The Flowers series is always fun to read, and I think this is one of the best.
W IS FOR WASTED by Sue Grafton
Another disappointment, and very unusual for me, I did not finish the book. There was one issue I was curious about, the rest of the action seemed self evident almost from the beginning, and I just skipped ahead to find out how the one issue ended, and took the book back to the library.
I try to keep up with all of Robotham's books, but I missed this one when it was published in print in 2009. The publisher recently issued it in ebook versions, for several popular platforms, and I was able to catch up.
I'm very glad I did. A young man gets arrested and sent to prison for a crime he didn't even commit. The driver of the van where he was a passenger spooked when he saw police at a rest stop. He attempted to run away and was struck and killed by another vehicle. As the police investigate, they find stolen jewels hidden in the van. Without competent counsel, the passengers in the van end up in prison.
The main character expects his sister to meet him when he is released, and when she is nowhere in sight, he starts searching for her in the darker side of contemporary London. There are several incidents taken from contemporary headlines, and a harrowing odyssey with both cops and bad guys in the hunt. A sympathetic retired cop gets involved, hoping to find the young man and his sister before more harm comes to them.
DIE A STRANGER and LET IN BURN by Steve Hamilton
Another effort to catch up with a favorite author. Hamilton's protagonist is a retired Detroit cop, now living in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. DIE A STRANGER involves an attempt by a father, long estranged from his wife and family, who is hoping to reconnect with his son - a good friend of the protagonist. In LET IT BURN, the former cop gets a phone call from another retired cop and returns to Detroit to follow up some loose ends of a long ago case.
COMPOUND FRACTURES by Stephen White
White has been writing about psychologist Alan Gregory for about 20 years now. Two books back, he announced to his readers that he would end the series, the final two books to be companion volumes tying up all the loose ends. I was looking forward to seeing how the author would conclude his telling of his characters lives and experiences, but in the end I was disappointed. Alan and his friend Sam Purdy (a cop) were involved in an egregious breach of ethics a few books back, and that was not resolved in a way that satisfied me.
CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by Tom Franklin
The title comes from the children's poem on how to spell Mississippi. The story involves the lives of two men, one white, one black, friends as elementary age boys, who have grown apart through a series of events which were not at all pleasant for either one of them. An unsolved crime, several years old, which has unsettling similarities to a current murder, brings real danger to one of the men. The other, somewhat reluctantly, finds himself working to answer both current questions as well as questions from ten years ago. Tentatively, the two men begin to find their way back to a mutually satisfactory relationship. The author won the prestigious Edgar Award for a short story. I was not familiar with him, and was very pleased my book discussion group chose the title.
STORM FRONT by John Sandford
The latest in Sandford's Virgil Flowers series. Several groups are in pursuit of a stolen Israeli artifact. Not everyone involved is completely honest about his/her true identity, much less true motives. The Flowers series is always fun to read, and I think this is one of the best.
W IS FOR WASTED by Sue Grafton
Another disappointment, and very unusual for me, I did not finish the book. There was one issue I was curious about, the rest of the action seemed self evident almost from the beginning, and I just skipped ahead to find out how the one issue ended, and took the book back to the library.
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