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Nemesis

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 10:33 on 21 December 2015

This is book 4 of the Harry Hole series.

Okay, be completely (and by "completely" I mean 100%) unsurprised that the next book I read is a Harry Hole book. It's pretty much all I'm reading these days. So close to 104 books for the year, which would be twice my goal of one book a week. Go me.

This Harry Hole book had the feeling of deja vu. So much so that I had to reread a number of chapters just because I felt I had already read the chapter and wanted to reread it just to confirm that the feeling of "I've totally read this book before" wasn't valid.

In this book, Harry is set up.

Shock.

And likely about time.

By which I mean, the man has totally set himself up to be screwed by jealous and less moral coworkers.

Tom Waaler is a major character in this book, how he is a complete an total asshole and BAD COP (whoops, spoiler alert). Seriously, if you've been reading this series, that Tom is a bad guy isn't a revelation. He plays an important role in the previous two books. And yeah, he's an asshole. Takes advantage of someone else setting up Harry.

I enjoyed the book, again with the caveat "as much as I can enjoy anything with murder in it." Hate people taking advantage of other people, hate the willful destruction of other people, hate the fucking unfairness in this world. Go Harry! it gets better.

Related: OMG writing book reviews when drunk is AWESOME. Sober Kitt, you should try this more often.

Or maybe not.

The Redbreast

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 12:20 on 16 December 2015, kitt created this:

This is book 3 of the Harry Hole series.

Book ONE HUNDRED for the year! Given my goal was to read 52 books this year, a feat I accomplished in June, I have to say that I have crushed that goal. Harry Hole was a significant part of that crushing: this is the seventh book I've read in the ten books of the Harry Hole series. While I prefer to read series in order, this one happens to be readable in any order, with lots of details filled in by reading earlier books. I kinda like that I didn't read them exactly in order. Even if I didn't really like the first book, I do like the series and the tragic character of Harry Hole.

This book has a different writing structure than most of the other Harry Hole books, in that it tells two stories intertwined, with the merging of the two plot lines at the end with a resolution for both of them. One of them was the story of a soldier from Norway who fought on the Eastern Front during World War 2. On the wrong side. Except there wasn't a correct side in the trenches until after the war and atrocities were revealed, and even then, the bottom of the totem pole does what he was told to do, did what he needed to do to survive.

As with the rest of the Harry Hole books, there is the path Nesbø leads us down, and the actual solution to the mystery, the actual person doing the series of murders of persons who fought on the Eastern Front. A few of the murders didn't quite fit, which of course leads the police down the wrong path, which makes things interesting and confusing.

I'll finish the series, likely this year at this rate. Maybe. Four more books this year and I've doubled my reading goal for the year.

Cockroaches

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:07 on 11 December 2015

And now, to no one's surprise, I'm going back to read the five Harry Hole books I didn't read. Starting at book five likely wasn't the best decision, since I was fairly "meh" after reading it, but I found that I missed the character, so I'm going back to read the books I had missed.

This is book 2 of the Harry Hole (hō-lay? hol-lee? hōl!) series. Again, Harry is on the other side of the world. Again, he is solving an odd murder. Again, there are so many twists and turns and what the hell, I am so confused moments, that, yes, I enjoyed the book (minus the murder and the brutality parts).

The book takes place mostly in Thailand. There are a number of actions that Harry does that are referred to in passing in later books that I'm glad I read this book. I suspect I missed a lot of other references, having no context for them when I read the later books.

As with the Harry Dresden and Harry Potter books, I recommend this Harry series if you like Scandinavian crime mysteries and can stand gruesome descriptions and horrific acts. I tended to skip over the dark parts, without loss of continuity.

The Bat

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 15:09 on 3 November 2015, kitt created this:

Okay, really now, this book surprised me completely.

It is the first Harry Hole series. The first Harry Hole I read, turns out, was book five in the series. Which meant, there were four books of character development that I completely missed out on. Which is surprising, given that this book was also in the stack of books from Mom. WHEN AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH THAT STACK? I swear, that woman has defined my reading for this year, and likely next.

So, this book, the first Harry Hole book, actually acknowledges the odd name, though most people in this book pronounce Harry's last name as Holly and Holy.

The book takes place in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, which I found ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL, as I started reading it when I was in Sydney. It made the story more interesting to me in the way the Harry Bosch series was engaging: I knew the area. I knew what the spaces looked like, I walked along the places, watched people in the different locations. I hadn't really realized how much that connection appeals to me.

This story also gives us a large part of Harry's background, which also made the character more interesting to me.

The plot is that Harry flies to Sydney to look into the death of a Norwegian citizen. Amidst a whole bunch of other deaths, a serial killer is discovered in investigation, and boom, now we have a plot. There were a number of Australian cultural references in the book that went along with the museums that Mom and I were visiting as I was reading the book, that made the story have a stronger impact.

I enjoyed the book, and am looking forward to the other Harry Hole books in the stack from Mom, unlike how I was after the previous Hole crime mystery thriller I read.

Recommended.

The End of All Things

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 20:27 on 16 September 2015

I've read all of the main books of the Old Mans war by Scalzi. I really like Scalzi's works, with a few minor exceptions, and those mostly because they seem derivative and not Scalzi in all his glory. So, when the Human Division came out, even in its serialized format, I devoured it. The serialized format was torturous in the slow release, but awesome in the suspense that it built. The End of All Things was released in the serialized format, but, for some reason, all my new author alerts missed them. It wasn't until Luke mentioned starting it that I remembered I even had the book, auto-purchased on in Kindle format.

Shock. Reading a book this year that wasn't chosen by my mother? Amazing.

So, I picked it up and, unlike my reading for most of this month, zipped though it. I even read the alternate version, which I have to say, kinda bit. I'm glad that Scalzi listened to himself and chose the version he published.

It's a great conclusion to the Old Man's War series, in the same way the Lost Colony was a great conclusion, which is to say, if Scalzi wants to keep writing books in this universe, he can.

In this book we see many of the same characters from previous books in the series. I don't know how Luke read this book without having read the previous four (no, Zoe's Tale does not count), but he said it worked for him.

This series is recommended, this book in series is recommended. I recognize I will read pretty much anything Scalzi writes, and I am not ashamed to say this.

2014 Year in Review

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 18:56 on 31 December 2014

I read these books in 2014. I didn't reach my goal of one book a week, for 52 books for the year. I did okay, though. Instead of doing full book reviews, I'm just dumping them all in this list. Hopefully, I'll be better in 2015.

  • The Shining Girls (Lauren Beukes)

    Fast read, a bit jarring in the plot twists that come with trying to span two stories that occur 100 years apart.

  • Darkness Visible (William Styron)

    Styron's account of depression, and the closest account I've read that describes the descent into the hell that blackness is.

  • Acceptance (Jeff VanderMeer)
    Authority (Jeff VanderMeer)
    Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)

    I did not like these books. I read them as fast as I could. I was confused after the first one, slightly less confused after the second and ready to throw the third book into the fire. I was never able to see the world VanderMeer was trying to create. It was one gigantic white blur of crappy story-telling.

    Plot is some event happened that made this dome of the East Coast impenetrable, where time is accelerated and man's influence (toxins and poisons and the like) are removed. It's a bizarro worm hole to another world, but you never really know that and it's all a giant fog, like the writing. I do not recommend these books.

  • The Witch with No Name (Kim Harrison)

    Final book of the Hollows series. An eye-roll but expected ending to the series. I enjoyed all of the books, though I think Andy stopped reading a few books back.

  • Hidden (Alex Verus 5) (Benedict Jacka)

    Enjoying the series. Read it. Enjoyed this one.

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