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A Secret Kept Review

I really enjoyed this very interesting story about a French family and the unraveling of the "secret" that was at the heart of the mystery in this novel. Although set in modern day France, the narrative has a timeless quality about it as a forty-ish, newly divorced man, Antoine Rey, starts investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of his mother, Clarisse, after his sister Melanie is injured in an automobile accident after suddenly remembering something dramatically suspicious about their mother while the two of them are off on holiday.
While his sister is hospitalized and during her recovery from her injuries, Antoine becomes compelled to find out more about his mother and who she was and how she died since both of her children feel as if they never really knew her and the subject has never been talked about within the family. In the course of his inquiries, he discovers and faces the truth about a mother he loved deeply but lost far too soon.
Antoine is a very complex man who is simultaneously dealing with his love and longing for his ex-wife and their three children-- two of whom are surly and distant teenagers -- and with the sudden urge to finally know more about his mother. He suffers loneliness and self doubt, bored with his career as architect, and morose about his lack of close relationships with his children and his father's family. I found him an interesting character with a lot of depth and sentimentality that led to many moments of self examination and introspection. The other supportive characters were not so well drawn, but did provide the means for Antoine to interact with and to push the narrative along.
I read the novel in one sitting. I don't think the story is so much about the revelation of the secret or even the nature of it, but more about the process of discovery and about the importance of exploring the bonds of family relationships and about knowing each other. Do children really ever know their parents -- and should they know everything? It is human nature to question and to want answers to the age-old question -- "why"...
Recommend.

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Lowest Price The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Review

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) Review

This is the story of William Kamkwamba, a clever boy in Malawi, Africa who built his own windmill from found materials at age 14. Much of the energy of the book is that it is a very recent story, the main events taking place just in the last six years.
The story is in three parts. The first part tells of Willam's life growing up and that of his father, giving a fascinating glimpse of the village life of subsistence farmers whose culture has changed little in thousands of years. Daily existence includes very real fears of witchcraft, shamans for healing, and strong currents of superstition. Although written in clear, simple narrative (mostly by the co-author, Bryan Mealer, an AP reporter with extensive experience across Africa), it is by no means a child's bedtime story. Malawi, an interior country of 13 million, has minimal health care, primitive agriculture, and no free public high schools. Villagers can be killed by wild animals in the forest. In 2001 the maize crops failed, plunging the countryside into famine and near social collapse, and William loses friends to disease and starvation. The government comes off badly in this episode, incompetent, brutal against the local village chief who complains, and corrupt.
William is a bright boy eager for school, but his family cannot afford the fees. He is forced to drop out. In the second part of the story, doing the best he can in spite of this disappointment, William finds an elementary physics textbook in a local library and sees diagrams of windmills - he cannot even read the English text. From this bit of information, with impressive focus and persistence he manages to build his own version from scraps of wire, an old bicycle hub, and flattened PVC pipe for blades. He has zero resources - not even a soldering iron, which would be useless in any case since there is no electricity in his household. But he is a natural engineer, and even with no guidance or help, he succeeds in making an operating windmill which powers a few lightbulbs for home and village, charges cell phones, operates a water pump - all of which make a real difference in village life.
The third part of the book, just as remarkable as his technological triumph, is about William's discovery by the outside world. The hero of the discovery phase is really the Internet. William's windmill comes to the attention of an engineer working in the capital city, who blogs about it, inspiring others to take a four hour bus journey to find William, who then quickly comes to the attention of international entrepreneurs and technologists. His life quickly expands - amazingly, straight from his village he is invited to speak at an African conference organized by TED, the California organization which publicizes emerging ideas about technology and design. Taken under wing by US sponsors, he travels internationally and finds scholarships for his own education as well as funding for his village technology. He now has a website of course (just Google his name), a PayPal donation account, and a promotional video here on Amazon - more international attention within a short time than the coolest MIT Media Lab guru!
There are a few technical errors in the text - malaria is not a virus for example, and the core of a transformer is a ferromagnet, not a conductor. These are minor points; William is an appealing character and the story is inspiring. But there must be millions of Williams across the developing world. What the book really shows is that the best international assistance is in response to local energy rather than top-down through an ineffective government. The tools to find those kids and offer that help are now at hand. Whereas electric windmills are not new - everything William did has been known for a hundred years - instant cheap global communication is a revolutionary innovation which can help bring the best minds of Africa and many other places into the world community.

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Zeitoun (Vintage) Review

First off, Zeitoun painted my house about 8 years ago so maybe I'm a little bit biased. I also think Dave Eggers is a great writer (doubly biased, perhaps). This story needs to be told to a large audience and Mr. Eggers is just the person to tell it. Maybe we can knock Eggers for the simplistic style he chose to write this book. On the other hand, this story frankly didn't need much artistic enhancement. It is shocking on its own accord and told in a very straightforward manner. Appropriate for the material, I believe.
Every American NEEDS to read this book. What we find in it is an America that lost its core. It is truly shocking that no matter how bad things were in New Orleans immediately following Katrina (most reporting was inaccurate and sensationalized), we are still Americans with common beliefs in our system of rights. That these rights were tossed out the window is appalling.
Mr. Zeitoun is a kind and gentle man. His signs are ubiquitous in New Orleans and he is a stranger to no one and well liked by all who have met him. That he could be mistreated is a crime and an outrage. That others were rounded up and treated even worse is one of the worst black eyes on our country. As I read this book I just kept saying out loud over and over again, "This cannot be America."

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The Magicians: A Novel Review

Stop thinking this is a fantasy book. I know, I know, it's called "The Magicians," the plot synopsis references all three of the most famous fantasy series and describes a handful of familiar fantasy tropes, including the school of magic and the fairy tale land come to actual life. But forget all of that. I have read more fantasy books than I can remember -- I'm named for a character in perhaps the most famous fantasy series of all time -- and I'm telling you: "The Magicians" is not a fantasy.
It has fantastic elements, yes. There is magic; there is a school for magic, where the characters learn to cast spells, using hand gestures and arcane language and strange mystical components -- Ziploc bag full of mutton fat, anyone? -- and there is a voyage from this world to another, a land of naiads and fauns and magical speaking animals, gods and demons, kings and queens, quests and wishes. But this book is something very different from the usual fantasy novel. In "The Magicians," Lev Grossman has done something unusual, and remarkable, perhaps even unique: this is a grown-up fantasy. This book is to fantasy what "The Grapes of Wrath" is to travel books, what "The Metamorphosis" is to self-help: so much more depressing and visceral and funny and horrifying, and genuine, and fascinating, and hard to read and therefore valuable, that it doesn't belong in the same category despite sharing some central traits. The setting is imagined, and there are supernatural things that happen, but make no mistake: this is a serious novel.
Where the characters in most fantasy books are heroic, larger than life, the sort of people we wish we could be, these magicians are not: the characters are too close to plain old humanity, flawed, contradictory, foolish and foolhardy, to stand in as idealized versions of ourselves. Where most fantasy books provide an escape from our reality, this book does not. In point of fact, the moral of this book is that escape is not only impossible, but dangerous and harmful to attempt. The hero, Quentin Coldwater, attempts to escape every serious situation he faces, and every time, he ends up worse off than he would have been if he had just been able to deal with it, honestly and sincerely. But his response to his worsened circumstances is to try to escape again -- with predictable results. Every step Quentin takes is the wrong one, and every step sinks him deeper and deeper into a quagmire. The book gets hard to read: not because the writing is anything less than excellent, as it is top notch from first page to last, but because the urge to reach into the page and slap, shake, and eventually throttle the main character becomes overwhelming. But that desire, that feeling, should be familiar to every adult who has thought back on his or her life, and shook his or her head, thinking, "Why did I do that? How could I be that stupid?" That desire to smack Quentin is no different from the desire to smack our younger selves, and sometimes, that's a terribly annoying feeling to have, which makes this a somewhat annoying book to read.
The real triumph of this book, however, is that it is not only a serious novel, despite what I have been saying. Grossman is able to describe a world of wonder and imagination, and populate it with characters who are utterly unworthy of the magic all around them, who appreciate nothing, who completely flub their great chance -- just like I would have done if I lived through this experience, just as most of us do with our great chances in our real, mundane, unfantastic lives, which are also as full of wonder as any dreamed by a teller of tales. And because the characters are so real, so easy to relate to, it makes the fantasy seem just as real (which, of course, makes the real world just as fantastic). Brakebills reminded me of my own college experience, and yet it is a magical place. Fillory is indeed a fairy tale land come to life in this book, and I found myself wishing that I could believe I would have handled Fillory better than Quentin does -- but knowing that I would have done almost precisely the same things, made the same choices and the same mistakes. And the ending is glorious: the climactic action scene is thrilling and impossible to put down; the revealed secrets are both surprising and satisfying; the final resolution is, if not completely happy, at least hopeful.
I won't say that this is a great book, on par with "Of Mice and Men" and "Catcher in the Rye" and "To Kill a Mockingbird," but I will say that it is closer to those than it is to "The Hobbit" or the Xanth books. If you are a fan of literature, of thinking about your reading, then you must get this book, especially if you enjoy fantasy. If you are just looking for an escape, look elsewhere -- because this is not a fantasy. Or at least, it isn't only a fantasy. It's a wonder.

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Best Price 10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club) Review

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10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club) Review

The time has finally come. Lindsay is marrying Joe Molinari, the love of her life. After taking some time off after the wedding she is a little hesitant about her return to work. Changes are all-around, including a new lieutenant to answer to, Jackson Brady. Her first case back is that of Avis Richardson. A 15-year-old girl found collapsed in the middle of the road, bleeding out. It appears that she has just given birth, but apparently has no recollection of what happened since the delivery, how she got where she is, or what happened to her baby. Lindsay isn't so sure how honest Avis is being with her. She will have to push her hard in order to find out the truth. And hopefully find her baby alive.
Yuki has a make or break case on her hands. Dr. Candace Martin is charged with shooting her husband in cold blood. It appears to be an open and shut case, a sure, must-have win for Yuki. That is until Lindsay finds herself drawn into the case and starts poking around. Maybe things aren't as perfect as they appear to be. And Yuki's slam-dunk case may now be in jeopardy.
Cindy is basking in the glow of being head-over-heels in love with Rich, who just happens to be Lindsay's partner. Working as the crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. She knows in this day and age - with internet news and bloggers - that she doesn't have 100% job security. She needs to find that one big story that will make her stand out, and hopefully hold onto her job. She gets the inside scoop on reports of several women being found passed out near their homes, with no memory of the past several hours. Cindy uses her investigative skills and tracks down a lead that will put her in a very precarious position.
While each of the Murder Club women works her own case they offer their own brand of expertise to each other. They each have their own worries, both professional and personal. But they are always there to help and support each other. They are each others best friends.
My issues with 10th Anniversary are relatively minor. Lindsay, Yuki, and Cindy each have strong, independent stories, but we get only glimpse of Claire. Yes, she had a baby not too long ago, and maybe shying away from trouble for now, but I wish we had seen more of her. I also found it confusing that there was a second, albeit minor character, named Cyndi. Granted the spelling is different, but it can be confusing to the reader. I think with any character in a book, we develop a picture in our minds of what we think each character looks like. With the Women's Murder Club having been a TV show, the images of Angie Harmon as Lindsay have stuck in my mind. Don't get me wrong, I love Angie Harmon, but now she is the only face I see. And she wasn't necessarily what I pictured Lindsay to look like originally. This isn't the authors doing, obviously, but those of you who watched the show may have a similar issue.
10th Anniversary is typical James Patterson ~ short chapters, fast-paced storyline, familiar characters and cases that aren't easily solved. He realizes that, at this point, everyone is probably familiar with the women of the Murder Club and doesn't bother the reader with too much repetitive info on their pasts. James Patterson & Maxine Paetro do a great job of combining mystery, intensity, love, friendship, and suspense in this latest edition of the Murder Club series. While most may look at this book as a typical James Patterson mystery, I see beyond that, to what to me is the core of this story. The deep, unrelenting friendship that these four women share. A friendship that has survived death, kidnapping, dating your BFF's boss, and whatever else gets thrown at them. Looking forward to when they celebrate their 20th anniversary.

10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club) Overview

For every secretDetective Lindsay Boxer's long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime: a badly injured teenage girl is left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. Lindsay discovers that not only is there no trace of the criminals--but that the victim may be keeping secrets as well.For every lieAt the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life--a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of her two young children. Yuki's career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or follow her instinct?There's a different way to dieLindsay's every move is watched by her new boss, Lieutenant Jackson Brady, and when the pressure to find the baby begins interfering with her new marriage to Joe, she wonders if she'll ever be able to start a family. With James Patterson's white-hot speed and unquenchable action, 10th Anniversary is the most deliciously chilling Women's Murder Club book ever.

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The Most Dangerous Thing Review

Lippman explores a mythologized childhood in the woods that skirts Dickeyville, a suburb just inside Baltimore. Five children, Gwen, tomboy Mickey and the wild Halloran brothers, Sean, Tim and Gordon (Go-Go), spend their summers exploring, far exceeding the boundaries of their parents' permission to remain on the outskirts of the wilderness. The unity of five, Go-Go the youngest, following the older kids like a happy puppy, gradually evolves with the onset of adolescence, until a fateful summer where a ramshackle cottage is the scene of tragedy the night of a fearsome hurricane. Thirty-two years later, Go-Go is dead, either by accident or suicide, his descent into bad behavior long a familiar theme in the Halloran family. Go-Go's history is littered with secrets, the long habits of parents keeping silent about bad things infecting five friends who have secrets of their own. None of them have survived that final summer unscathed, brought together finally by the loss of the boy who raptly copied everything they did and hid the ugliest secret of them all.
The narrative voice dissects the lives of each, Gwen, Tim, Sean, Go-Go and Mickey (who has changed her name to McKey). But Lippman fleshes out these pivotal characters with their mothers and fathers, the family patterns, the facades of marriage and secrets passed from one generation to another. Often the pages feel weighted with regrets, of mistakes made and roads not taken: a beautiful, artistic mother who once dreamed of Paris and painting; a woman who trades on the artifice of her body even as her beauty fades to blowsy, changing men like costumes; fathers who act on behalf of their children, adding another layer of deceit to an already senseless tragedy; adolescents eager to explore the adult world and taste forbidden fruit, only later to be burdened with the consequences of their carelessness.
In a provocative and thoughtful novel, Lippman is not content to let events drive her story, delving relentlessly into personalities, motives, the collision of egos and the instinct for self-preservation. Guilt is reduced to nearly equal portions, a collective tragedy, a collective secret that begs for release. As expected, the truth provides a measure of relief, the breaking of silence the only palliative to now-adult lives filled with mistakes and opportunities. Humanity is, after all, a complicated thing. Lippman avoids the easy dismissal or the facile explanation. No, this is murkier territory, where only one body remains buried, secrets intact. Luan Gaines/2011.

The Most Dangerous Thing Overview

Some secrets can't be kept. . . .

The Most Dangerous Thing

Years ago, they were all the best of friends. But as time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the past—and the terrible lie they all shared.But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and the others are thrown together for the first time in years.

And then the revelations start.

Could their long-ago lie be the reason for their troubles today? Is it more dangerous to admit to what they've done or is it the strain of keeping the secret that is beginning to wear on them and everyone close to them?Each one of these old friends has to wonder if their secret has been discovered—and if someone within the circle is out to destroy them.


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Buy Cheap A Trick of the Light: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novels) Review

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A Trick of the Light: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novels) Review

Clara Morrow, at age 50, is far beyond the age when most artists are discovered. Yet, on the evening this novel opens, she is about to enter the prestigious Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montreal for a gala solo show of her work. Clara's nerves nearly get the best of her, but she gets through the experience and is soon able to return to her idyllic Eastern Townships home of Three Pines for a celebratory party with her Three Pines friends, and artists, gallery owners and artists' agents from Montreal.
In the "friends" category are Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Québec Sureté and his second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Gamache and Beavoir have become acquainted with Three Pines and its quirky residents during their investigations of several prior murders. (Penny amusingly acknowledges the incongruity of Three Pines being simultaneously a place of art, friendship and warm hospitality, and a locale with a frighteningly high murder rate, by having bookseller Myrna describe Three Pines as "a shelter[, t]hough, clearly, not a no-kill shelter.")
The celebratory mood of Clara's Three Pines party doesn't last. Early the next morning, it is brought to an abrupt end by the discovery of the murdered corpse of a woman in Clara's garden. The woman is identified as Lillian Dyson, Clara's childhood friend who cruelly betrayed her while they were in art college. Clara claims she hadn't seen or heard from Lillian in over 20 years.
Looking at means and opportunity leaves Gamache and Beauvoir with a wide field of suspects. They must focus on motive, which reveals a huge gap between the type of person Lillian is widely reported to have been 20 years earlier and how she is seen contemporarily by her new circle of acquaintance. Gamache asks, over and over: "can people change?"
The search for Lillian's true identity is the key to the mystery, because only through understanding her nature can the investigators learn how she inspired murderous hatred and in whom. In the course of the investigation, Gamache and Beauvoir also confront the horrors they still live with as survivors of a deadly attack on their team the year before. The experience has affected Gamache profoundly, but it has not shaken his fundamental belief in people. By contrast, Beauvoir thinks: "The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you'll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn't. He believed that if you sift through good, you'll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit." Though Beauvoir's name can be translated, literally, to mean "beautiful view," his actual view of people has become increasingly dark and embittered.
Clara's new-found success and Lillian's murder also bring to a boil the problems of envy and lack of understanding that have plagued her marriage for several years. In fact, envy is one of the deadly sins that is a persistent theme in this book, as greed was a theme in Penny's prior book, A Brutal Telling. This is what Penny does best. Her mysteries are not about forensics, timetables, alibis or violent action. They are about the human heart and spirit; about envy, resentment and fear eating away at people, threatening friendships, marriages, partnerships and even lives. But they are also about love, forgiveness and redemption offering hope for change and a forging of new, stronger bonds.
In A Trick of the Light, we see Louise Penny at the height of her powers. She is a master of characterization; a genius at creating a world that we enter into and fully live in, and want to return to. This is the finest book I've read this year and I have no doubt it will deservedly win many awards. Highly recommended.

A Trick of the Light: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (Chief Inspector Gamache Novels) Overview

"Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm...." --Booklist (starred review)“Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead."But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.

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The Reversal Review

Michael Connelly brings together criminal defense attorney Michael (Mickey) Haller and his half-brother, the cynical and battle-scarred LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, in "The Reversal." Mickey calls himself "the defender of the damned," a job he has had for over twenty years. "During that time," he states, "I'd grown a suspicion and distrust of prosecutors and police...." Still, the L. A. District Attorney convinces Mickey to go over to the dark side as an independent special prosecutor in the second trial of Jason Jessup. The defendant has already spent twenty-four years in San Quentin for abducting and strangling twelve-year-old Melissa Landy. Over the last two decades, Jessup filed numerous motions and appeals while steadfastly proclaiming his innocence. Much to his delight, the California Supreme Court reversed his conviction and sent the case back to Los Angeles County "for either retrial or dismissal of the charges." Against his better judgment, Mickey agrees to take the case, partly because it will give him an opportunity to work with his ex-wife, deputy district attorney Maggie McPherson, and Harry Bosch, who will be their investigator.
Jessup has a groundswell of support from the liberal media and an organization of lawyers known as the Genetic Justice Project. Although the physical evidence against Jessup may be a bit shaky, Melissa's sister, Sarah, who was thirteen when the murder occurred, vehemently stands by her eyewitness identification of Jessup as Melissa's abductor. However, Sarah has a history of drug abuse and run-ins with the law which the defense will undoubtedly exploit in an attempt to discredit her.
This is one of Connelly's most suspenseful and involving legal thrillers in years. It has incisive and realistic dialogue, compelling courtroom scenes, well-drawn characters, and a carefully constructed plot. Fascinating details about surveillance, trial strategy, forensics, and police procedure add to the book's verisimilitude. The only false note is that when Mickey is on the scene, he is the first-person narrator, but otherwise, Connelly writes in the third person. This is slightly jarring; Connelly might have been better off sticking to the third person throughout, especially since Haller, McPherson, and Bosch all share the spotlight. Another familiar face is FBI profiler Rachel Walling, who makes a strong cameo appearance when Bosch requests her analysis of Jessup's behavior. Harry stands out as the person most invested in nailing Jessup, partly because Harry has sole responsibility for his fourteen-year-old daughter whom he adores, and partly because he has worked tirelessly on hundreds of homicides during his thirty-five year career as a cop. He is passionate about finding the bad guys and putting them away so that they cannot do any more damage.
In "The Reversal," the author effectively shows how politics and public opinion influence the legal process; how the stress of trying a high-profile case can lead to mistakes in judgment; and the importance of always being prepared for the unexpected. Readers who crave a feel-good ending may balk at the novel's disquieting finale. Others may find Connelly's conclusion thought-provoking, daring, and original. It certainly demonstrates the ways in which life's vicissitudes and the capriciousness of fate can undermine the search for truth and pervert the course of justice.

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Victory and Honor Review

I've been a W.E.B. Griffin fan for almost a decade now, which means I've been waiting impatiently for quite a while for each new release in each and every series that Griffin has written. Unfortunately, I've found a few of his recent novels a bit lacking compared to his previous works. In particular, I found it painful to read through his previously recent book "The Outlaws" (Dec. 2010) which I gave 2 stars. I know that sentiment is shared by other Griffan fans and is also reflected by the average 2.5 star Amazon ratings of his recent books versus 3.5-4+ ratings of older works (out of 75+ reviews per book).
I'm glad to say that this book is a definite improvement on some of his lower quality recent works! It's not one of his best, but for me, it was definitely an acceptable and fun read.
This book flows smoothly from start to finish. I was originally going to wait, but ended up purchasing an electronic version of the book on a whim a bit past midnight. A few hours - and one book - later, I finally looked up from my reader to see the first signs of daylight appear outside my window.
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PROS:
--- Flows well. - While reading it, I don't have an urge to skip entire parts. The writing flows smoothly and makes you interested in wanting to turn each page as quickly as possible so you can find out what's next. For me, "The Outlaws" was a book that didn't flow well and which I wanted to skip whole sections, only to force myself to read it hoping that it would get better (hint: it didn't). That thankfully was not a problem with this book.CONS:
--- Limited / Tightly Focused Story - The story and plot is a lot more focused compared to previous books in this series. It almost seems (or is) linear in terms of what happens and what is being told. In previous books you'd have different sides, action happening simultaneously in different regions, etc. In this novel, it's almost entirely one side and following a group of people in a linear fashion. You get a much more limited view and much more limited action. There's also no major twists or mysteries.
--- Limited Characters Involved - This novel primarily focuses on a handful of characters with a small supporting cast. True, most stories only have a few main characters, but compared to previous novels in the Honor Bound series, the amount of character involvement diversity is a lot smaller. I guess one way to explain the difference is that in previous novels you might get at least a few pages (if not dozens) on the action or words of minor characters. In this novel, you'd get sentences instead (if at all).
--- Too short! - Ok, this might just be the age-old problem where the fan just wants more and more. And yes, that is definitely a factor. However, let's do a strict page count comparison using Amazon's hardcover page count figures. This book "Victory & Honor" has a page count of 320 pages. Compare that to "The Outlaws" in Dec. 2010 with 432 pages (although I'd take 320 good pages over 432 mediocre pages any day!). Further compare that to 464 pages in "The Vigilantes" in Aug. 2010 or 496 pages in "The Honor of Spies" or 528 pages in "The Hunters"... I think you get the picture. This book is 100 pages (1/3rd the current length!) shorter than recent releases and nearly 200 pages (2/3rds the current length!) shorter than older releases, which probably makes this one of the shortest works released by W.E.B. Griffin that was part of his main series.
---
While upon reflection I felt that there were elements of this book that were lacking, it is indisputably a huge improvement on recent books of Griffin's like "The Outlaws". Was I disappointed in the limited scope of the novel? Yes. Do I think Griffin could have done a better job or that his previous works are better? Yes. However, did I also enjoy myself while I was reading this novel? Yes.
For me, I read works by authors like W.E.B. Griffin for casual pleasure. If I have a good time while reading it and am smiling while I reflect upon it right after, I'm happy. To be honest, it was only while writing this review that I fully grasped the parts of the book that I felt were lacking as they were not issues or concerns while I was reading. Hence, despite its shortcomings, I gave it 4 stars.
---
DO NOT GET THIS BOOK:
If this will be your first W.E.B. Griffin book or your first book in the Honor Bound series, I strongly suggest you get one of his earlier works. It's probably best if you start out at the beginning of a series (both because all those books are great, but also because it'd give you a chronological progression of events as you inevitably acquire more of his works from that series).
If you're looking for a book with hidden meanings, multiple twists, and a complex plot, don't get this book.GET THIS BOOK:
If you're a long time Griffan fan (I guess we'd get his book anyways no matter what!), if you've read previous books in the Honor Bound series and want to find out what happens to the characters, or if you have some time and just want a very casual straight-forward read.

Victory and Honor Overview

The spectacular new book in New York Times-bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin's Honor Bound saga of World War II espionage. Wars come to an end. But then new ones begin. Just weeks after Hitler's suicide, Cletus Frade and his colleagues in the OSS find themselves up to their necks in battles every bit as fierce as the ones just ended. The first is political-the very survival of the OSS, with every department from Treasury to War to the FBI grabbing for its covert agents and assets. The second is on a much grander scale-the possible next world war, against Joe Stalin and his voracious ambitions. To get a jump on the latter, Frade has been conducting a secret operation, one of great daring-and great danger-but to conduct it and not be discovered, he and his men must walk a perilously dark line. One slip, and everyone becomes a casualty of war.

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Lowest Price The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Review

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The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Review

I have loved all of Tess Gerritson's thrillers and this one The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel is no exception. The story is set in Boston and has a strong sense of place when the plot develops. This story is about a chilling murder in Boston's china town where detective Jane Rizzoli finds a red haired woman murdered on a roof top with a severed hand which they find in the alley below. Between the detective and the medical examiner, Dr. Maura Isles, they look for clues. Some of the clues are given early in the book and it is very interesting how the team tries to connect all the clues and then discover secrets of an ancient Chinese legend and all its dangers...
The author has done it again by coming out with this tremendous thriller. Don't start this book late at night like I did, and then you simply have to stay up to find the next clue! I am sure it will be another best seller, it is the type of book that grabs you from the very beginning!

The Silent Girl: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel Overview

No one takes readers to the dark side and back with more razor-sharp jolts and sheer suspense than the storytelling master behind Ice Cold and The Keepsake. When New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen has a tale to tell, put yourself in her expert hands-and prepare for the shocks and thrills that are certain to follow.Every crime scene tells a story. Some keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. The grisly display homicide cop Jane Rizzoli finds in Boston's Chinatown will do both.In the murky shadows of an alley lies a female's severed hand. On the tenement rooftop above is the corpse belonging to that hand, a red-haired woman dressed all in black, her head nearly severed. Two strands of silver hair-not human-cling to her body. They are Rizzoli's only clues, but they're enough for her and medical examiner Maura Isles to make the startling discovery: that this violent death had a chilling prequel.Nineteen years earlier, a horrifying murder-suicide in a Chinatown restaurant left five people dead. But one woman connected to that massacre is still alive: a mysterious martial arts master who knows a secret she dares not tell, a secret that lives and breathes in the shadows of Chinatown. A secret that may not even be human. Now she's the target of someone, or something, deeply and relentlessly evil.Cracking a crime resonating with bone-chilling echoes of an ancient Chinese legend, Rizzoli and Isles must outwit an unseen enemy with centuries of cunning-and a swift, avenging blade.BONUS: This edition includes an exclusive script excerpt from the TNT series, Rizzoli & Isles.

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Purchase Cheap Safe Haven Review

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Safe Haven Review

This certainly isn't a traditional sappy love story that Sparks usually writes. Sure it has the love story and it's set in North Carolina, but he puts in an element of danger. I have read all of his books and I love them all, however I am definitely tired of the "I love you" on the first date that practically occurs in all of his novels. The rest of this novel makes up for that quick love. It truly is impossible to put down. I made the mistake of starting it before bed, figuring I would read a few chapters and go to sleep - Well, I stayed up all night and finished it. They way it's written is strategic and effective in keeping the reader wanting more (which is why I had to finish it in one night). Sparks has said that this is the next movie adaptation and I'm sure it will work well. There is something for everyone: love story, family life, internal conflicts, danger, and a twist at the end. Well worth the money (the physical book is more $ than the Kindle version - so I don't know what everyone is complaining about; he's a best-seller, it came out yesterday - of course it's not going to be $5!) Overall, I loved it and I don't regret my purchase at all. I'm just sad I finished it already! Can't wait for the next one!

Safe Haven Overview

When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family.But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo's empathic and stubborn support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards . . . and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven.

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Best Price The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium) Review

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The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium) Review

In THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, the second volume in the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, publisher Mikael Blomkvist and the police are conducting parallel investigations into three horrifying murders -- and their initial evidence points straight at young computer genius and social misfit Lisbeth Salander. Kalle Bastard Blomkvist (as Salander has begun referring to him) hasn't seen Salander in nearly two years, except for one night when he happened to witness a huge man attempting to kidnap her and both she and the attacker eluded him. He's bewildered about why she cut him off cold, but had accepted her decision -- until now. He doesn't believe Salander killed these victims. Well, at least not two of them. He has to contact her, find out how she's become embroiled in this, and help her. Salander, as usual, has her own ideas about who she'll see and when....
In THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Larsson partnered Blomkvist and Salander as they unraveled a twisted tale of corporate greed, Fascist connections, and perverse sex and violence. FIRE highlights another subject on which Larsson wanted to shine light, namely the underbelly of the sex trade, a swill of human misery being forcibly imposed for money and simple loathing of women. Blomkvist's magazine, Millennium, plans an issue devoted to the subject based on the interviews and reporting of a criminologist and a journalist, and there follows much in-house discussion of the lurid material and how it should be presented to the public. But the three murders turn the magazine and its people on their heads.
Meanwhile, Salander travels, changes her appearance, and matures in the early chapters of the 569-page book that covers four months in total and is told in four parts. Among her pursuits: attempting to proof Fermat's Last Theorem in a way Fermat himself might have done, furnishing her new abode, and keeping tabs on Bjurman (whom, recall, she memorably tattooed in DRAGON). Then, she disappears for quite a spell as the murder investigation gets cranking, and finally, she regains the spotlight as the book rushes headlong into a heart-stopping denouement.
The last book in this series -- tentatively entitled THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS' NEST in its English translation -- is not scheduled for release until 2010. However, the entire trilogy has already been published in Swedish (naturally), French, and German. Larsson reportedly had planned a ten-volume series. He had written part of the fourth book and had outlined volumes five, six, and seven. Sadly, due to his early death, only the trilogy is complete and will, according to his father, be published. After reading FIRE, the thought creeps in that perhaps the trilogy will not provide closure, and that the reader could be left dangling, unsatisfied. That would be a crying shame because Salander and Blomkvist -- along with other continuing characters -- do burrow themselves deeply into the reader's (at least this reader's) affections. Fortunately, reviewers who have read, in the other aforementioned languages, the entire story arc, including the final novel, seem generally very satisfied. Some claim that the last book, also the longest, is a grand finale that answers all outstanding questions. A few are less effusive, stating that the last book can't meet the anticipatory heights set by the stunning, unusual first one.
This last criticism can be applied to the second book as well. FIRE does not pack quite the punch of uniqueness that DRAGON did. One can perhaps think of the movie trilogy THE MATRIX, MATRIX RELOADED, and THE MATRIX REVOLUTION as an analogy. The smash introductory film awed with its mind-bending perspective. The second and third passes were very solid, even amazing, partners, but they only reiterated the cutting-edge magic so novel in The MATRIX, building on it, not inventing something mind-blowingly fresh. Familiarity takes a bit of the bloom off the rose, but it certainly doesn't breed contempt in these instances. Larsson's FIRE lags a little during the mid-section in which criminal investigation procedure grinds along and the author belabors certain points, seeming to believe his readers novices at crime mysteries. But overall, FIRE accelerates the enthralling story of Lisbeth and Mikael with panache. One can't help thinking the world they inhabit is too slimy, too vicious, but Larsson was a man with many crusades and causes, and his trilogy vividly paints the harsh pictures of society that he hoped to reform. The Millennium Trilogy encompasses uncompromising social critique; prickling thrills; and curious, bittersweet romance. FIRE drew me like a moth, and I can't wait to get my hands on HORNET. 4.4 stars.

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium) Overview

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Purchase Cheap Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel Review

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Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel Review

Posted at [...]
You don't know me. I'm a fan of your work, have been for years. I have gotten many friends and family hooked on Stephanie, Joe, Ranger and Lula. I had every one of your books. I love your work with Charlotte Hughes and the Full Series. I have laughed and teared up, I have giggled and gasped for years, but it's time I stand up and shout.
Your last three Stephanie Plum Novels have left me feeling cheated. With each new installment I hope for more. But I get the same old antics. I read a recent interview with you, in which you say that when an author finds a winning formula, to stick with it and milk it for all it's worth. I take issue with this. How can an author expect their fans to keep buying a novel with the same plots, same games, same lines, same everything? The books seem to be getting shorter, the font larger, and the quality poorer, all with a hardcover price. I used to recommend your books to all who would listen, but now? I shy away and that sucks!
In your latest installment of the Stephanie Plum Series, Stephanie turns into a Hoochie. I'm sorry to say it. I don't like the word, I don't like the meaning, but it's what you turned her into. I didn't mind so much previously when she would steal a few kisses here and there between Ranger and Joe (and hell Diesel) but having her sleep with both men, in the same book, on back to back nights is just shameful. Gramma Bella SHOULD put the eye on her! Joe SHOULD dump her, so should Ranger. So what, now that Joe and Stephanie have an 'open' relationship they can sleep with whomever they want, whenever they want, and each other? Yuck. I was a Joe fan in the beginning of the series, but then he turned rather chauvinistic, spouting how she should be barefoot and pregnant and not working, and that got my feminist hackles all up and pissy. I've always been a Ranger girl, but I can't understand how he can still be around playing for scraps. Is her vagina magic? Are you gearing up to make her like Anita Blake? Because if So, please for the love of books don't!!!
Characters need growth in a series. Stephanie has not grown, in fact I could argue that she has regressed. After seventeen books, she STILL can't shoot her gun, she can't use handcuffs, she blows up cars, and has no desire to learn self defense. I'm sorry, but she's an idiot. And not a funny one anymore.
To me, and I know that I am not alone, Stephanie used to be a source of comic relief. She made me laugh and took me out of the seriousness of my life or other more suspenseful books I was reading at the time. But she's no longer funny, she's a joke.
If you are tired of writing her, then please stop.
If you think your fans will stop reading if she chooses to stay with ONE of the men, they won't.
If you are doing this for the money, I'm sorry.
I won't be buying anymore of your novels.
If this alienates me in the book blogging world, so be it. I can't stand it anymore. I've held my council for the last three books and I can't do it anymore. It's my opinion, but I am not alone. I implore you to see reason. Please go back to writing meaningfully. Make Stephanie grow up a bit. Make her see that she has to learn.
I hate to see her the way she is. I hope you have a plan. I pray to the editors that you have a plan. Please don't string us along. Don't make us hate her. We fans, and Stephanie as well, deserve better than what you are giving us.

Smokin' Seventeen: A Stephanie Plum Novel Overview

Where there's smoke there's fire, and no one knows this better than New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. Dead bodies are showing up in shallow graves on the empty construction lot of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. No one is sure who the killer is, or why the victims have been offed, but what is clear is that Stephanie's name is on the killer's list.Short on time to find evidence proving the killer's identity, Stephanie faces further complications when her family and friends decide that it's time for her to choose between her longtime off-again-on-again boyfriend, Trenton cop Joe Morelli, and the bad boy in her life, security expert Ranger. Stephanie's mom is encouraging Stephanie to dump them both and choose a former high school football star who's just returned to town. Stephanie's sidekick, Lula, is encouraging Stephanie to have a red-hot boudoir “bake-off." And Grandma Bella, Morelli's old-world grandmother, is encouraging Stephanie to move to a new state when she puts “the eye" on Stephanie.With a cold-blooded killer after her, a handful of hot men, and a capture list that includes a dancing bear and a senior citizen vampire, Stephanie's life looks like it's about to go up in smoke.


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Special Prices for Cold Vengeance (Special Agent Pendergast) Review

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Cold Vengeance (Special Agent Pendergast) Review

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have been writing tales of Special Agent Aloysius X. L. Pendergast since 1995's Relic. And I have been a mostly loyal fan in the years since. But I might as well admit that Pendergast and I engaged in a trial separation these past few years. However, I just read Fever Dream and I remembered why I had stuck with him for more than a decade. You don't just toss a relationship like that away.
And I'm hooked again. Cold Vengeance is book two in the Helen Pendergast Trilogy, in which the special agent is hunting the reason for and the identity of his wife's murderers. It begins just a few weeks after the events of Fever Dream. In brief, the novel is a deliciously drawn out cat and mouse game between Pendergast and the only opponent left standing in the last novel. As this pursuit unfolds, Pendergast comes to realize, "that he truly had not known his beloved wife. Like so many other fallible human beings, he had been blinded by love. He had not even begun to crack the ultimate mystery of her identity."
But he does make progress in that ultimate mystery--with the help of more than a few characters we've met in prior novels. Who was Helen Pendergast, and what was her family connected to? At one point, Pendergast's opponent challenges, "You think your fight's just with me, but you're wrong... The fact is you have no idea, no idea, of what you're dealing with."
By the end of the book, both Pendergast and the reader will have an inkling, but there's much yet to be uncovered. Preston and Child are masterful at building suspense, and the end of this novel will be the start of a torturous wait for the final volume in the trilogy. The book ends on more than one huge cliff-hanger. Along the way, there are shocks, twists, and revelations aplenty. This is some highly entertaining storytelling, and my favorite in the series for many years.
I was a fool to leave Pendergast these last few years! I will be waiting anxiously until I can see him again in the conclusion to this most compelling story.

Cold Vengeance (Special Agent Pendergast) Overview

Devastated by the discovery that his wife, Helen, was murdered, Special Agent Pendergast must have retribution. But revenge is not simple. As he stalks his wife's betrayers-a chase that takes him from the wild moors of Scotland to the bustling streets of New York City and the darkest bayous of Louisiana-he is also forced to dig further into Helen's past. And he is stunned to learn that Helen may have been a collaborator in her own murder.Peeling back the layers of deception, Pendergast realizes that the conspiracy is deeper, goes back generations, and is more monstrous than he could have ever imagined-and everything he's believed, everything he's trusted, everything he's understood . . . may be a horrific lie.COLD VENGEANCENothing is what it seems.

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Lowest Price One Day (Vintage Contemporaries Original) Review

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One Day (Vintage Contemporaries Original) Review

I absolutely loved this book. I became a big fan of Nicholls with his first novel (A Question of Attraction -- originally titled "Starter for Ten" with its U.K. edition.) I was a little letdown by his second -- The Understudy, which was fun, but not quite as good as his first. This book exceeds his first. He takes a great device -- following the lives of one couple on the same day over a period of 20 years -- and does a masterful job of storytelling with it. We go from the couple's idealistic college days -- they meet on the day of their graduation -- all the way into their late 30s, with all the physical and emotional changes that come during that timespan. We see the career missteps along the way, and all the various relationships they have while still remaining friends -- and the woman, Emma, always secretly in love with Dexter Mayhew, who has more than a few wild oats to sow before he realizes the woman he should be with is the one who's always been his best friend. The writing is absolutely marvelous. The dialogue is absolutely terrific -- the couple have a teasing/kneedling way of talking to each other and the reparteee between them remains funny and fresh throughout even though the novel is long -- 435 pages.
To say much more would be to give too much away. But if you like insightful books about relationships that can touch all of your emotions, this is the book for you. I think structurally the way Nicholls manages to take you on an extraordinary trip from the first page to the very last is a tour de force.
I had to buy this from amazon/uk because it was available in Britain a year before it became available in the United States, but I'm so happy I got it. This is definitely a book I will re-read several times -- and I hope Nicholls continues to have a prolific career.

One Day (Vintage Contemporaries Original) Overview

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Buy Cheap Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Review

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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Review

A memoir written by a chef is appealing because it promises to take us to a place few of us ever see, unless it's on the Food Network---that is, a restaurant kitchen. It promises to reveal all of the gritty, unlovely steps leading up to the moment when the beautiful plate emerges from the pass and into the hands of the waitstaff. In addition, after Anthony Bourdain led the way, such a memoir must also offer appetite-killers: dirty walk-ins, unsavory butchering scenes. And, like a religious testament, it also has those conversion moments, the moment when the chef discovers that she or he is destined to become an artist with food. Gabrielle Hamilton's memoir has all of these elements.
When Hamilton writes about food, she's entertaining, irreverent, and even spiritual. Her engaging account of her father's spring lamb roast (an edited version of this piece recently appeared in The New Yorker) establishes the origins of her love of food. Her account of her years working for catering companies will make you think hard before you pick up that next wedding hors d'oeuvre from the waiter's silver plate. And a chapter about cooking at a summer camp in the Berkshires is funny and deft in its handling of detail. I loved her wry depiction of the time she spent in a master's writing program, from the satirical descriptions of her fellow writers to her homage to Misty, a fellow cook and, for Hamilton, a kind of culinary muse.
This book aspires to be more than just a chef memoir, however, since the subtitle refers to "The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef." In particular, this is a book about family: about Hamilton's own family, painfully riven by divorce when she was still a child, and about her marriage and the birth of her two sons. With the exception of the opening chapters, these parts of the book are often difficult to read, mostly because they have almost none of the good qualities (sharp detail, humor, self-awareness) of the "chef" sections. Her relationship with her mother, the "spider" of a chapter about a long, miserable visit to Vermont, is so angry and painful that you want to avert your eyes. After such a rant, a reader comes not a whit closer to understanding this mother or why she behaves as she does. As for Hamilton's marriage to Michele, the man whose ancestral home in Italy is the setting for the last ("Butter') section of the book, this too is the subject of pages and pages of rage and disappointment. Yes, this unhappiness is somewhat mitigated by Hamilton's initial happiness in cooking and eating in Italy, as well as her pleasure in being part of Michele's extended family. In the end, however, the many pages devoted to descriptions of glorious Italian foodstuffs (think Frances Mayes, with cursing) turn into too much eggplant, the Italian family disappoints, and the marriage remains a source of sorrow.
There are many memoirs about unhappy families. How the writer shapes that material is key. The difference between "Blood, Bones, and Butter" and other memoirs about bad parents, like Tobias Woolf's "This Boy's Life" or Mary Karr's "The Liar's Club," is one of perspective. Even when Woolf is telling us about how his mother failed to protect him from his abusive stepfather or Karr is describing yet another chilling incident with her parents, we know the grown-up writers understand why their parents acted the way they did. This sort of perspective is not evident in Hamilton's memoir, perhaps because she has not yet gained it. In her book, the education of Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef, is presented as the most interesting of dishes, full of diverse and sometimes surprising ingredients---and so it is. (I was lucky to have the chance to eat, just once, in her restaurant, Prune, and she is truly a wonder in the kitchen.) However, her depiction here of her education as daughter, wife, and mother awaits a more finished account.
M. Feldman

Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef Overview

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