This
past quarter's list:
Getaway
by Lisa Brackmann - Michelle, fairly recently widowed after 10 years
of marriage to her financier husband, is in Puerto Vallarta trying to
recover/figure out how to deal with the scandal and debt her husband
left behind. She allows herself to be picked up by a good
looking guy on the beach thinking 'why not' and things go downhill
from there. The amorous encounter didn't happen and thugs break
into her room and Daniel gets pistol whipped. As she is headed
for the airport to return home, her cab is stopped by the police who
find drugs on her and she is thrown in a Mexican jail. 24 hours
later one of the men she had met through Daniel arrives to get her
out and then proceeds to hold her passport and forces her to stay and
hang out with Daniel and report back. The whole premise seemed
far fetched to me and she didn't seem believable. Never really
acted, only reacted, or rather just did whatever she was told to do
until the end then she's throwing the F word out there every sentence
being defiant. It was OK.
The
Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton - Fiona Sweeney, a 28 year old
librarian, is feeling unfulfilled and wants to make a mark on the
world, do something greater than herself, when she sees a post on the
bulletin board where she works for a volunteer to help deliver books
to the semi-nomadic tribes of Africa. She takes a leave of
absence and boards a plane for Kenya where she travels by camel with
her African colleague and their helpers bringing books to the far
flung tribes and settlements, to people who have never seen a book
much less know how to read or even speak English. I thought at
first that this would be a shallow feel good story but it developed
into much more. Fiona is a typical white American with western
values and has no concept of how these largely illiterate people live
and their relationship with the earth and how it shapes their
identity. Fiona forms a personal attachment to one settlement
in particular and after two books are not returned, she takes it on
herself to go retrieve them. Not knowing if she will be
welcomed, she arrives at the settlement. During her four day stay she
becomes the focal point of a struggle within the tribe between those
who think it is time to join the modern world and those who seek to
maintain their way of life even in the face of drought. It
turned out to be very thoughtful, written not only from Fiona's point
of view but also all the main characters, a good read.
Dragon
Tears by Dean Koontz – an evil apparition appears to a homeless
man and a homeless woman and her son promising to kill them at dawn
and then disintegrates into a whirling mass of rats or leaves or
trash or becomes an inferno. An interfering police detective draws
it's attention and gets on the kill list. The detective and his
partner, with the help of the homeless and a stray dog, have only
about 12 hours to figure out what's going on and stop it before they
are all killed.
Time
Untime by
Sherrilyn Kenyon – a conglomeration of Greek, Atlantian, Mayan, and
Cherokee pantheons and an end time/cycle story in which all the evil
mauraders will be let loose if the gate keeper doesn't reset the
stone. Only the gatekeeper doesn't know who she is or what stone or
anything about it as she has been kept in the dark by her mother and
grandmother. Both of them died before the wisdom/task could be told
to her and she is thrust into a mythological maelstrom. Kinda dumb.
Fever
Dream
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – FBI special agent Aloysius
Pendergast discovers that his wife's death by lion in Africa 12 years
previous was not the horrible accident he thought it was and she was
actually murdered. He begins his quest to discover who and why which
leads him and his friend NY detective Vincent D'Agosta to Africa and
back, to New England, and Louisiana as they begin to unravel the
events leading up to her death.
Cold
Vengeance by
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – In the second of this trilogy,
Pendergast is determined to get vengeance for her death and in the
process of tracking them down is stunned to learn that she may have
participated in her own demise and that she may also still be alive
and has been in hiding all these years. As Pendergast digs deeper he
discovers a conspiracy that goes back generations.
Notorious
Nineteen
by Janet Evanovich – the continuing adventures of Stefanie Plum,
bounty hunter, bouncing between Morelli and Ranger. Many cars get
blown up.
The
House On Willow Street
by Cathy Kelly – The postmistress in a small Irish town who has
kept herself separate from the social life of her town while hiding
the secret of her own life has it all unravel when her niece, after
being ditched by her boyfriend of two years when he abruptly marries
a young woman he has only known for months, comes to stay for an
extended length of time. Different residents of the town have their
own story lines and they are all woven together.
Two
Graves
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – The final book in this
story. After Helen dies in his arms, Pendergast sinks into a
depression that it seems none can pull him out of until a series of
gruesome murders occurs and D'Agosta asks for help. Pendergast,
almost against his will, becomes interested and discovers that it
appears the murders were committed by his presumed dead brother. He
is stunned when his son, a son he did not know he had, shows up at
the penthouse and tells an unbelievable story that causes Pendergast
to embark on the conclusion of his investigation not only into who
was responsible for his wife's death but also the conspiracy behind
it all. It takes him finally to Brasil where he finds a remote Nazi
enclave that has continued the eugenics research into perfecting a
master race. These three books also contain side stories that
intertwine with Pendergast's involving the characters Corrie Swanson
and Constance Green from previous books.
Odd
Apocalypse by
Dean Koontz – the continuing story of Odd Thomas. Odd sees dead
people and they come and ask him for help. Well, not ask so much as
pantomime since they can't talk. Usually whatever help they are
asking him for involves some sort of terrible evil that needs to be
combated. He has prophetic dreams and visions too, can see things
the rest of humanity can't. His path or calling had led him to join
up with a seemingly young pregnant woman who asks Odd in the previous
book if he will die for her. Her gift causes people to offer her
whatever she is most in need of at any time, thus they have ended up
as guests at Roseland, a walled estate of 40 some odd acres where
they are advised to stay in after dark and make sure all doors and
windows are locked. While there a ghostly woman on a ghostly horse
pleads for him to save her son. Thus does Odd's next foray into evil
begin.
