The Last Good Kiss
Posted: 2020/02/23 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2020, book lust i, book review, crime, february, Fiction, James Crumley, mystery Leave a commentCrumley, James. The Last Good Kiss. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
Reason read: February is friendship month and Sughrue’s friendship with T is pretty interesting.
C.W. Sughrue is an interesting character. He has a convoluted story as well. Sughrue is an investigator out of Montana, but is currently in Sonoma, California, looking for a girl who has been missing out of Haight-Ashbury for ten years. Hired for only eighty-seven bucks and no clues to go on, besides easy women and an abundance of alcohol, he isn’t having a lot of luck. Only, this girl isn’t the one he was first hired to find. He started down the rabbit hole, hired by a woman looking for her alcoholic ex-husband, a famous author and poet. The ex lives with his mother across the way from him and his current wife…and the plot thickens.
I had trouble keeping score. Betty Sue went missing ten years ago, was thought to have run away looking for the bright lights of stardom. Instead, she is rumored to have taken up fame as a porn star. Sughrue falls in love with her just by seeing a picture. Seems everyone is in love with Betty Sue.
Lines I liked,”When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog names Fireball Roberts in a ramshackeld joint just outside Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a spring afternoon (p 1). How’s that for an opening line? Here’s another one, “As we shared the whiskey, I wondered how long men had been forgiving each other over strong drink for being fools” (p 164).
Author fact: Crumley has been compared to Raymond Chandler. He has written a few other mysteries, but I’m not reading them. Crumley died on September 17th, 2008.
Book trivia: This is a deceivingly fast read. You may want to guzzle your through it, but do yourself a favor, sip it slow and take your time. There are a few plot twists worth staying sober for.
Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say much about the Last Good Kiss despite in being in two different Book Lust chapters. As an aside, Pearl was hesitant to read Lee Child because of his gratuitous violence, but did she know of Crumley’s penchant for shooting people?
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters. First, in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 121), and again in “Montana: In Big Sky Country” (p 156). I would argue Pearl needed to pick a different Crumley mystery for this chapter as The Last Good Kiss mostly takes place in Colorado and California.
Moonlight Downs
Posted: 2020/01/22 Filed under: Book Reviews, E-Books, Fiction, Lust To Go | Tags: 2020, Adrian Hyland, australia, book lust iii, book review, Fiction, january, mystery, series Leave a commentHyland, Adrian. Moonlight Downs. New York: Soho Press, 2008.
Reason read: Believe it or not, I have no idea why I started reading this in January.
Emily Tempest is finally home after a long twelve-year absence. Half white and half Aboriginal, she must relearn her place in the landscape; to re-establish old relationships with the community and people she used to love. But, at the same time she is a pesky armchair detective, always poking her nose where it shouldn’t be. When a beloved member of the Moonlight Downs mob is murdered, Emily goes on the hunt to find his killer. It’s personal because Emily has an extra special relationship with the victim’s daughter.
Confessional: all throughout the book, when Emily was fearing for her life I thought it was an exaggeration until a few more people die. The amount of violence towards the end of the book was surprising.
Another confessional: you will appreciate Hyland’s glossary of Aboriginal words in the beginning of the book.
As an aside, I love it when there are little tiny overlaps in my books. I am reading about the Bacardi family in Cuba in another book. In Moonlight Downs a Cuban shows up in Australia.
Confessional: I kept a running list of all the characters I met in Moonlight Downs.
Best and only quote of the book, “As the fury subsided it made room for questions” (p 142).
Author fact: Hyland has lived and worked among the Indigenous people of Australia.
Book trivia: Moonlight Downs is the first Emily Tempest mystery in the series. It was published as Diamond Dove in Australia. As an aside, I am also reading Gunshot Road for the Challenge.
Nancy said: Pearl included Moonlight Downs in a list of more Australian fiction that “absolutely shouldn’t be missed” (Book Lust To Go p 30).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz: Fiction” (p 29).
Persuader
Posted: 2020/01/19 Filed under: audio book, Book Reviews, BookLust II, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2020, adventure, audio book, book lust ii, book review, ebook, Fiction, january, Lee Child, maine, mystery, series Leave a commentChild, Lee. Persuader. Read by Dick Hill. Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio, 2003.
Reason read: to finish the series started in July in honor of New York becoming a state…
I think this has to be my favorite Reacher story simply because it takes place, for the most part, outside of Portland, Maine. The ocean is always present so right away you can bet Reacher has to tangle with it at some point in the story. Of course he does. [As an aside, my favorite section of Dick Hill’s narrative is when Jack struggles with the ocean for a second time, not learning his lesson the first time around.] But, back to the plot. Reacher gets sucked into a compromising position, this time by his own accord. Ten years ago, a critical investigation went sideways and someone under Reacher’s military command was horrifically murder. Up until present day Reacher had thought the killer was dead by his own hand. He witnessed a demise he thought no one could survive..and yet ten years later here is proof the nemesis not only survived, but is thriving. Revenge is Jack’s motive.
Of course, Reacher wouldn’t be Reacher without an eye-roll inducing romance. This time it’s with a federal agent and I agree with other reviewers when they say it feels like Child threw in the relationship with Duffy because it is simply part of the formula for Reacher’s modus operandi. It was short lived and kind of silly.
As an aside, exactly how is Reacher running around with an Anaconda firearm in his pants? Pun intended?
My other gripe? Lee child has obviously never tried to tie his hair back with a rubber band. If he had, he would know it hurts like hell to take it out! No self respecting woman (or man-bunned hipster) would reach for a rubber band. If a real hair tie wasn’t available, a bread tie or a pencil or even a piece of string would do.
Last gripe. For the most part Child has stayed away from cheesy lines but he let this one slip by, “Gravity had no effect on her perfection.” Gag.
Favorite line – I have to include this line because it’s the first one in the book, “The cop climbed out of his car exactly four minutes before he got shot” (p 1). If that doesn’t grab your attention!
Author fact: Rumor has it, Child spent a lot of money on the publicity campaign for this book.
Book trivia: This is the seventh Reacher book in the series and the last one on my Challenge list. A more specific to the book piece of trivia – the Persuader is a type of firearm and not a reference to Reacher’s personality.
Nancy said: Pearl suggested finishing the Reacher series with Persuader.
Actually, Pearl had more to say about Persuader than any other book. She admits, with nothing else to read, she picked it up out of boredom, but by the first line she was hooked.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Lee Child: Too Good To Miss” (p 41).
Sanctuary
Posted: 2020/01/07 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2020, book lust i, book review, crime, Fiction, ireland, january, Ken Bruen, mystery, series Leave a commentBruen, Ken. Sanctuary. New York: Minotaur Books, 2009.
Reason read: Bruen’s birth month is in January. Read in his honor.
Warning! This is the kind of book you can read in one sitting. It is less than 200 pages with a very fast paced, tight plot. That isn’t a bad thing. It only means you can reread it a second or third time. You may need to.
The first time I met Jack Taylor I wasn’t sure I liked him. Like his creator, he carries a massive amount of surly anger inside him. Everything Jack Taylor mutters is dripping with sarcasm. Because I met him mid series (Sanctuary is the seventh book), I was hoping Bruen would bring me up to speed on exactly what makes Taylor tick. I wasn’t too disappointed. He is ex-police, booted from the force for his excessive drinking; walks with a pronounced limp and wears a hearing aid. He has stayed “friends” with a former partner, Ridge, and often discusses unsolved crimes with her. In this case, Taylor has received a check list of future murders: two guards, a nun, a judge, and a child. Ridge, recovering from breast cancer surgery doesn’t think much of the list, but when a guard, a nun, and a judge all die, it is hard for Taylor to ignore the list.
Taylor also has a priest for a nemesis. Who gets on the wrong side of the church in Ireland? Apparently Jack Taylor.
Here’s another detail to Sanctuary that I loved: Bruen’s inclusion of music. I could have compiled a “Sanctuary Playlist” from the music he mentions. To name a few: Snow Patrol, Philip Fogerty, Rolling Stones, and Johnny Duhan.
Line I loved, “Books had brought me through so many hangovers, not that I could read them then, but they were a lifeline to some semblance of sanity” (p 65).
Author fact: There are a bunch of YouTube videos of Ken Bruen talking about his writing process and how he got started. Like reading his book, once I started watching, I couldn’t stop. He is a fascinating person.
Book trivia: Sanctuary is book seven of the Jack Taylor mystery series and the only one I am reading for the Challenge.
Nancy said: Pearl called Bruen’s mystery “gritty.” She goes on to say, if you are going to read more of the series you do not need to read them in order because the story lines are contained. As I mentioned earlier, I am not reading any other Bruen mystery for the Challenge.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ireland: Beyond Joyce, Behan, Beckett, and Synge” (p 110).
Aguero Sisters
Posted: 2019/12/18 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2019, book lust i, book review, Cristina Garcia, Cuba, december, family, Fiction, mystery, sisters Leave a commentGarcia, Cristina. The Aguero Sisters. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
Reason read: December is the best month to visit the Caribbean. I thought I had removed the “best time to travel to [fill in the blank]” but I guess not.
The Aguero Sisters starts with a bang (pun totally intended). Ignacio and Blanca Aguero are a husband and wife naturalist team, slogging through the Zapata swamp shooting specimens for a U.S. based museum. Suddenly forty-four year old Ignacio turns the gun on his wife and pulls the trigger…The mystery of what really happened in the swamp on that day in 1948 doesn’t become clear until much, much later.
The rest of the novel follows the lives of Ignacio’s adult daughters and their very different lives. Constancia Aguero Cruz lives in New York, married to a tobacco shop owner with a daughter in Oahu and a son in Morningside Heights, New York. She has been kept apart from her sister in Cuba for as long as she can remember, but she doesn’t really know why. Reina was only six when her mother died. She still lives in Cuba as an electrician and mechanic and has many passions, seducing married men. She has a daughter, Dulcita, in Madrid, Spain. Interspersed between this current-day, third-person narrative is Ignacio’s first person account of his life, starting with remembering his parents, Reinaldo and Soledad Aguero. Through his accounts, the history of Ignacio and his daughters becomes clearer and clearer, like sediment settling in the bottom of a glass of murky water once the agitation of stirring has stopped.
Line I liked, “Reina stares out the window for hours trying to make sense of the density of stars” (p 39). Me too, Reina. Me too.
Other lines worth mentioning, “she is the first to admit she has a low threshold for disorder” (p 27), “My sense of smell is heightened by hunger” (p 205), and “A confidence in her walk is what gives birth to lust” (p 233).
Author fact: Like her characters, Garcia grew up in Havana and New York.
Book trivia: Garcia does a fantastic job fleshing out the characters of The Aguero Sisters. So much so that I felt it necessary to take notes on all the details.
Nancy said: Pearl included the Aguero Sisters as one example of wonderful novels being turned out by Cuban emigres.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Cuba Si!” (p 68).
Without Fail
Posted: 2019/12/17 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust II, Fiction | Tags: 2019, book lust ii, book review, crime, december, Fiction, Lee Child, murder, mystery, political, series Leave a commentChild, Lee. Without Fail. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2002
Reason read: to continue the series started in July in honor of New York becoming a state…never mind the connection. Just go with it.
When we catch up to Jack Reacher this time, he is in Atlantic City. But, not for very long. He somehow finds himself in Washington D.C., approached by a Secret Service agent who needs his help. Another damsel in distress. This one has ties to his dead brother, so how can he say no? Agent M.E. Froelich wants, errr no, needs to test the holes in her security detail guarding the newly elected vice-president, Brook Armstrong. She tells Reacher she’s just a girl playing in a competitive man’s world and those resentful men? They’re all out to get her; prove she’s horrible at her job. What Reacher doesn’t know is this isn’t really a test. No one is bitter about Froelich’s position. Instead, Vice President Armstrong has been receiving very real death threats. Now Reacher is in it deep and he can’t back out. He needs to figure out who is behind the threats before the vice president is assassinated. The clock is ticking…
A few annoyances. This is the first time I have to agree with Pearl. She said you didn’t need to read the Reacher series in order. I agree because in Without Fail Reacher asserts he has never owned anything. Not true. In Echo Burning he unloaded a house previously left to him by a military mentor. In truth he owned that.
Second annoyance. Froelich. She is Joe Reacher’s former lover. She is definitely not over the breakup (as he left her) and even less over Joe’s death. She talks a tough talk but every other second she’s bringing up Joe. She weirdly blames Jack for everything. As a member of the secret service I thought she would be a little tougher than that.
Author fact: Did I ever mention that, according to Child’s website, he also is 6’4″ just like his character, Jack Reacher? Hmmmm…
Book trivia: Without Fail is the sixth book in the Reacher series.
Nancy said: Nothing specific about Without Fail.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Lee Child: Too Good To Miss” (p 42).
Echo Burning
Posted: 2019/11/25 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust II, Fiction | Tags: 2019, book lust ii, book review, Fiction, Lee Child, murder, mystery, november, series, texas Leave a commentChild, Lee. Echo Burning. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001.
Reason read: to continue the series started in July…
Jack Reacher always seems to end up on the wrong side of the law. It’s almost as if he thrives on being framed. Damned if he does…damned if he doesn’t. This time, on the run for beating up a cop, Reacher finds himself involved with helping a battered Mexican woman escape her racist white husband. Even when all signs point to Carmen being a liar Reacher stays. Even when he has the means to walk away from this prejudice drama Reacher stays. He stays because he believes Carmen and her small daughter really are in grave danger. [My comment here is for all Reacher’s insistence to avoid real world attachments, for he has no clothes, no house, no bank accounts, no car, no family or friends…he certainly gets entrapped by attachments of the heart often enough. He can’t say no to a lady in need. But, this is the first time in the series Reacher doesn’t get sexually involved. Carmen certainly tries to seduce him in order to guarantee his help getting away from her husband; and the woman Reacher is attracted to turns out to be a lesbian.
But, back to the plot. This is Texas where the heat is oppressive and ranch families are even more so. Reacher’s damsel in distress finally takes matters into her own hands. Again, Reacher could walk away. Case closed. But. He can’t.
As an aside, I love how crafty Child can get with the details. He makes one villain of a subplot smoke in a rented vehicle leaving ash everywhere thereby forcing the rental agency to thoroughly clean the car of his existence when he returns it.
Author fact: In a previous novel, Child gave us a play by play of exactly how a gun works. This time, he knows horses; how to saddle them, ride them, care for them.
Book trivia: a Crown Vic and a gun of some kind always seems to show up in a Jack Reacher novel. Additionally, Echo Burning is the fourth book out of eight Pearl recommended reading.
Nancy said: Pearl said it was not necessary to read Child’s books in order. However, I find it helpful to stick to the chronology because Reacher’s story continues in each installment. For example, at the end of the previous book Reacher’s girlfriend leaves him to take a job in London. He wasn’t too broken up about it by the time you catch up with him in Echo Burning, but how he explained the situation to his new damsel in distress is interesting because I already knew the situation.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the obvious chapter “Lee Child: Too Good To Miss” (p 41).
November Nope
Posted: 2019/11/13 Filed under: audio books, E-Books, Early Review, Fiction, NonFiction | Tags: books list, crime, culture, Dervla Murphy, Early Review, Elif Shafak, Fiction, jewish, Kira Salak, Lee Child, librarything, medieval, memoir, murder, mystery, NonFiction, Papua New guinea, Rich Cohen, series, siberia, Sigrid Undset, Suzanna Henshon, Thomas Mcguane, travel Leave a commentI don’t have writer’s block. I have writer’s apathy. I have nothing to say. Here are the books already underway for November:
Fiction:
- The Sporting Club by Thomas McGuane – in honor of the Mackinac bridge being built in November of 1957.
- The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak – I needed an author with my same initials for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge.
Nonfiction:
- Four Corners: a Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea by Kira Salak – in honor of November being a decent time to visit PNG…if you are into that sort of thing.
- Israel is Real: an Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History by Rich Cohen – in recognition of Resolution 181.
- Silverland: a Winter Journey Beyond the Urals by Dervla Murphy – in honor of Murphy’s birth month.
Series continuation:
- Master of Hestviken: the Snake Pit by Sigrid Undset – to continue the series started in October. I needed a translated book written by a woman. Voila!
- Echo Burning by Lee Child – to continue the series started in July in honor of New York becoming a state.
Early Review for LibraryThing:
- Teaching Empathy: Strategies for Building Emotional Intelligence in Today’s Children by Suzanna Hershon, PhD.
