Nyssa
2017-11-07 19:05:54 UTC
Since the traffic here has been rather sparse lately, I
figured that it was time to report in with some of my
recent books read.
Not all are mysteries, but I figured that I'd go ahead
and include them since someone else here might be as
eclectic as I sometimes am as far as potential reading
material and it could spark an interest in the book.
Before I get started, I want to give any Kindle owners/
readers a heads-up about a $5 ebook credit being offered
as a banner on amazon.com. It usually shows up whenever
you've got a product description page open for a Kindle
book. Click on the banner, it makes you an offer for a
FREE $5 credit on any Kindle ebook offered through Amazon
Digital Services (not good for others offered through
ebook publishers such as Macmillan, etc.). Click on
the button, you get a congratulations screen letting you
know that the confirmation email has been sent. You have
14 days to use the credit. You can spread it out over
several lesser-priced books (which is what I'm doing).
Free is good. Free books are even better.
In the last episode, our heroine had just finished reading
"The Assassin's Wife" which was a nice twisty turny political
thriller and mystery.
This is a long post, so get comfy.
"Growing Season" by Melanie Langeschutte was a piece of contemporary
fiction that was a nice change from murder and mayhem. I like to
decompress occasionally after all the blood and backstabbing, and
this was a nice, quick one set in rural Iowa. The main character
is a thirty-something woman who has been laid off from her marketing
job in the Twin Cities and returns to her native Iowa while she's
between jobs. She ends up renting an old farmhouse as more or less a
caretaker for the summer. Meanwhile she reconnects with small
town life, parents, and friends and reflects on the differences
between her life in the city and back home. Nice feel good stuff,
if anyone needs some similar down time from crime stories. There's
a sequel, "Harvest Season" that's in my queue for the next time I
need some downtime from the more violent genres.
This next one was labeled a political thriller, but it would better
fit the Speculative/Science Fiction category. "America, Inc." by
Dan Daines is in the tradition of "1984" but with a financial and
corporate take on the future. Set in 2088, the US has been turned
into a corporation, the office of president has been replaced by
a CEO who is selected by a board of directors, and residents of
the corporation's "sphere of influence" are called employees, not
citizens. There's lots of tech to keep track of the employees too
including AI systems even in the home who monitor conversations
and attitudes. There's only one stock market, administered from
Zürich and kept open 24/7 as transactions are handled in centers
located in Beijing, Frankfurt, and Manhattan.
There are lots of social changes described including the "patrician"
class who do all the trading on the stock market, who would be what
we call now the 1%ers. They are the only ones allowed to use family
names/surnames. All others use only their job classification with
a first name. As an aside, this piece was the one I just couldn't
swallow since surnames have been firmly embedded for centuries, it
would take a lot more than fifty-odd years to break the population
of the habit.
An underground group who wants to overturn the corporation and
return the country to the people sets off a number of planned
terrorist strikes designed to bring down the global stock market.
There's a major subplot of the rebel group kidnapping the son of the
NYC chief guardian (police force) with the leader of the rebels
instructing him in points of history and pre-corporate government.
This one was worth the time both for the ideas and the what-if
of a world run by corporations for their benefit with no oversight
from the general populace or a civilian government. Five stars for
originality.
"The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder" by Joanne Fluke was the paperback
I picked up last trip to the Big City for lack of finding anything
else. The version I bought also had a novella "Candy for Christmas"
plus a sample chapter of "Carrot Cake Murder."
I know this is a popular author with a lot of books in the
series, but I found the cookie recipes included of more interest
to me that the characters. It may have been fresh and wonderful
when originally published, but now it is just too similar to so
many of the "cookie cutter" mysteries I've been reading, and the
details all mush together. Yes, pun intended because of the title
and the setting of The Cookie Jar bakery for the main character's
business. Granted, this book is better edited than most of the
newer books, but now this genre is just too flooded with imitators
to make it stand out.
Hannah Swenson owns The Cookie Jar coffee shop and bakery in a
small town in Minnesota. The driver of the delivery truck for the
local dairy is found dead in his truck near her shop one morning
still clutching a cookie from her shop. Hannah starts looking for
clues to find who and why.
It was okay, but I won't be knocking myself out tracking down the
rest of the series. If I find some used for cheap I might bite,
but otherwise, there are plenty of imitators I can find for cheap or
free floating around.
Next up was "In Sheep's Clothing" by L.D. Beyer, a political thriller
with a mystery component. This one relies heavily on the 25th Amendment
for a portion of the plot. The current president commits suicide, so
the vice president takes over. The problem occurs when the replacement
vice president selected turns out to be less than a good choice and
has corrupted a number of highly placed officials in various levels
of the FBI, CIA, NSA, Justice Department, and even the Cabinet. His
plotting includes the destruction of Air Force One as the new president
returns from a Seattle event.
There's lots of action in this one, since the main character is a
Secret Service agent on the presidential detail who manages to get
the president out of the jet just in time. They then go on the run
as they try to figure out who they can trust with the president's life.
I just finished "The Maximum Contribution" by Rick Robinson last night.
Another political thriller with a mystery, this one follows a congressional
candidate in a Kentucky district as he runs in a special election after
the sudden death of the incumbent. Since the campaign and election is
taking place in July with little other political news to compete with it,
the national press takes more interest in the race than it normally
would. When the candidate brings up the issue of a little known piece
of the tax code about credits in the Caribbean Basin, suddenly he's
in the cross hairs of some lobbyists who attempt to buy him off with
PAC contributions (hence the title) and when that doesn't work,
resort to attempted blackmail and other threats of violence.
This is the first book in a series of four, and I'll probably burn
the rest of my free ebook credits on the rest of them. Although
there were some things about the book that bugged me (a lot of
references to quotations from movies I've never seen), and some
formatting glitches that changed the size of the fonts from chapter
to chapter, overall it was still a solid four stars for the plot
and characters.
Currently reading "Dairy-Free Murder" which is the second book
in the Aunt Clem Cozy series. I have to admit that when I began
reading it, I got some of the characters (and pets) confused
with those in Fluke book. Just substitute allergen-free baked
goods for the cookies. Yes, all of these too-similar cozies
are running together. Time for something different...again.
Nyssa, who hopes some of you are still awake after plowing
through all of that
figured that it was time to report in with some of my
recent books read.
Not all are mysteries, but I figured that I'd go ahead
and include them since someone else here might be as
eclectic as I sometimes am as far as potential reading
material and it could spark an interest in the book.
Before I get started, I want to give any Kindle owners/
readers a heads-up about a $5 ebook credit being offered
as a banner on amazon.com. It usually shows up whenever
you've got a product description page open for a Kindle
book. Click on the banner, it makes you an offer for a
FREE $5 credit on any Kindle ebook offered through Amazon
Digital Services (not good for others offered through
ebook publishers such as Macmillan, etc.). Click on
the button, you get a congratulations screen letting you
know that the confirmation email has been sent. You have
14 days to use the credit. You can spread it out over
several lesser-priced books (which is what I'm doing).
Free is good. Free books are even better.
In the last episode, our heroine had just finished reading
"The Assassin's Wife" which was a nice twisty turny political
thriller and mystery.
This is a long post, so get comfy.
"Growing Season" by Melanie Langeschutte was a piece of contemporary
fiction that was a nice change from murder and mayhem. I like to
decompress occasionally after all the blood and backstabbing, and
this was a nice, quick one set in rural Iowa. The main character
is a thirty-something woman who has been laid off from her marketing
job in the Twin Cities and returns to her native Iowa while she's
between jobs. She ends up renting an old farmhouse as more or less a
caretaker for the summer. Meanwhile she reconnects with small
town life, parents, and friends and reflects on the differences
between her life in the city and back home. Nice feel good stuff,
if anyone needs some similar down time from crime stories. There's
a sequel, "Harvest Season" that's in my queue for the next time I
need some downtime from the more violent genres.
This next one was labeled a political thriller, but it would better
fit the Speculative/Science Fiction category. "America, Inc." by
Dan Daines is in the tradition of "1984" but with a financial and
corporate take on the future. Set in 2088, the US has been turned
into a corporation, the office of president has been replaced by
a CEO who is selected by a board of directors, and residents of
the corporation's "sphere of influence" are called employees, not
citizens. There's lots of tech to keep track of the employees too
including AI systems even in the home who monitor conversations
and attitudes. There's only one stock market, administered from
Zürich and kept open 24/7 as transactions are handled in centers
located in Beijing, Frankfurt, and Manhattan.
There are lots of social changes described including the "patrician"
class who do all the trading on the stock market, who would be what
we call now the 1%ers. They are the only ones allowed to use family
names/surnames. All others use only their job classification with
a first name. As an aside, this piece was the one I just couldn't
swallow since surnames have been firmly embedded for centuries, it
would take a lot more than fifty-odd years to break the population
of the habit.
An underground group who wants to overturn the corporation and
return the country to the people sets off a number of planned
terrorist strikes designed to bring down the global stock market.
There's a major subplot of the rebel group kidnapping the son of the
NYC chief guardian (police force) with the leader of the rebels
instructing him in points of history and pre-corporate government.
This one was worth the time both for the ideas and the what-if
of a world run by corporations for their benefit with no oversight
from the general populace or a civilian government. Five stars for
originality.
"The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder" by Joanne Fluke was the paperback
I picked up last trip to the Big City for lack of finding anything
else. The version I bought also had a novella "Candy for Christmas"
plus a sample chapter of "Carrot Cake Murder."
I know this is a popular author with a lot of books in the
series, but I found the cookie recipes included of more interest
to me that the characters. It may have been fresh and wonderful
when originally published, but now it is just too similar to so
many of the "cookie cutter" mysteries I've been reading, and the
details all mush together. Yes, pun intended because of the title
and the setting of The Cookie Jar bakery for the main character's
business. Granted, this book is better edited than most of the
newer books, but now this genre is just too flooded with imitators
to make it stand out.
Hannah Swenson owns The Cookie Jar coffee shop and bakery in a
small town in Minnesota. The driver of the delivery truck for the
local dairy is found dead in his truck near her shop one morning
still clutching a cookie from her shop. Hannah starts looking for
clues to find who and why.
It was okay, but I won't be knocking myself out tracking down the
rest of the series. If I find some used for cheap I might bite,
but otherwise, there are plenty of imitators I can find for cheap or
free floating around.
Next up was "In Sheep's Clothing" by L.D. Beyer, a political thriller
with a mystery component. This one relies heavily on the 25th Amendment
for a portion of the plot. The current president commits suicide, so
the vice president takes over. The problem occurs when the replacement
vice president selected turns out to be less than a good choice and
has corrupted a number of highly placed officials in various levels
of the FBI, CIA, NSA, Justice Department, and even the Cabinet. His
plotting includes the destruction of Air Force One as the new president
returns from a Seattle event.
There's lots of action in this one, since the main character is a
Secret Service agent on the presidential detail who manages to get
the president out of the jet just in time. They then go on the run
as they try to figure out who they can trust with the president's life.
I just finished "The Maximum Contribution" by Rick Robinson last night.
Another political thriller with a mystery, this one follows a congressional
candidate in a Kentucky district as he runs in a special election after
the sudden death of the incumbent. Since the campaign and election is
taking place in July with little other political news to compete with it,
the national press takes more interest in the race than it normally
would. When the candidate brings up the issue of a little known piece
of the tax code about credits in the Caribbean Basin, suddenly he's
in the cross hairs of some lobbyists who attempt to buy him off with
PAC contributions (hence the title) and when that doesn't work,
resort to attempted blackmail and other threats of violence.
This is the first book in a series of four, and I'll probably burn
the rest of my free ebook credits on the rest of them. Although
there were some things about the book that bugged me (a lot of
references to quotations from movies I've never seen), and some
formatting glitches that changed the size of the fonts from chapter
to chapter, overall it was still a solid four stars for the plot
and characters.
Currently reading "Dairy-Free Murder" which is the second book
in the Aunt Clem Cozy series. I have to admit that when I began
reading it, I got some of the characters (and pets) confused
with those in Fluke book. Just substitute allergen-free baked
goods for the cookies. Yes, all of these too-similar cozies
are running together. Time for something different...again.
Nyssa, who hopes some of you are still awake after plowing
through all of that