There are three reasons I pushed through The Shining Girls to the end. First, I hate giving up on entertainments half way through. This is also why I stuck with American Horror Story: Freak Show despite it being a fetid pile of rancid bung beetles. Second, I09 was so effusive in their praise I felt like I wasn’t giving it a proper chance. Third, because Wikipedia does not have a complete synopsis. If I’m being honest Reason Third is the most important reason I stuck […]
Hot New Harlan Coben Paints Dating Services Extra Creepy
I’ve been stuck on Harlan Coben since his Myron Bolitar days, but I have to say that even though I miss the funny give-and-take dialogue his novels keep getting better, more along the lines of his marvelous Tell No One. Coben likes dealing in flawed characters and in delving into the emotion of loss, which colors most of his novels of late. This was the driving force of Missing You, in which there are not one, but two missing people with whose memories NYPD Detective […]
Debut Harry Hole book is not bad, but contributes little to the Hole story at this late date
This is apparently the debut novel of Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, released in English only recently and after a whole raft of later Harry Hole mysteries were already long in the public domain in their English translation. While it is gratifying to learn that (1) Hole was once capable of a romantic relationship and (2) that Hole was once capable of having a whole conversation with someone, this novel doesn’t reveal a whole lot more about this morose if brilliant drunk of a detective except […]
Inspired by a true story . . . .
I’m not the hugest Joyce Carol Oates fan – I’m sure I’ve read a book or two of hers, but I couldn’t tell you which ones. Clearly they didn’t make much of an impression on me. I picked this up on a Kindle deal around Halloween (scary good deals!). I think it was $1.99, and I’m still not sure it was worth the price. Oates was inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer, who I think even other serial killers thought was gross. In this story, Quentin P. […]



