I enjoy Charles McCarry’s Paul Christopher series, a great blend of espionage intrigue and commentary on American foreign affairs. Many consider The Last Supper to be his magnum opus. While I enjoyed parts of the book, I will not be one of those people. The Last Supper is not a conventional Christopher novel in that there’s a case and he’s working it. Instead, it’s kind of a biographical work that traces his father’s life and his own. Throughout it are multiple espionage cases handled by the OSS and […]
“So.” She drummed her fingers on the book. “You’re a grown man who still reads ghost and monster stories.”
(4 stars) The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher Kingfisher tells us from chapter one that the dog (Bongo, best dog ever) and the narrator (Mouse, also quite enjoyable) will be okay at the end of the book. This is good, because I liked them both very much, and this book was SO CREEPY that I really needed some reassurances by the end. Mouse gets called up by her dying father to help with his dead mother’s estate — specifically, the big old house in the […]
London is drowning and I live by the river
When pressed, I’ll tell people I don’t like fantasy. This claim is usually followed by a list of exceptions. I like Neil Gaiman. I like Harry Potter. I also like the Rivers of London-series by Ben Aaronovitch. The rest of the genre is, as they say, not my cup of tea. No offense to you fantasy lovers, but it just doesn’t do much for me. The suspension of disbelief required is, apparently, too big a leap. One of the reasons I do like these books, […]
Michael Connolly gets his two detectives together
Dark Sacred Night is the first time Ballard and Bosch get together, but I’m not sure if they are greater together. At this point, Bosch is dealing with the ramifications of a previous case, where he met and became close to a drug addict who is haunted by her daughter’s death. Ballard is working solo for the whole book, as her partner is on leave. I’m not sure it would be possible to read this book out of sequence – knowing the background for both […]