novel

Two Kinds of Truth

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 16:12 on 27 March 2018

Harry Bosch, Book 22, by my count, which, again, is inaccurate, but we're still going with it.

YEEHAW, I am, once again, all caught up in Bosch's world, having read these last three books. Yeah, the Lincoln Lawyer is in these books, but that's kinda unsurprising to anyone who is growing older: the older you are, the more you want your family around, for whatever definition of family works for you. Why would a fictional detective be any different? Answer: he wouldn't be.

So, yeah, I'm caught up. And Harry (this Harry, anyway, there are four you know) seems to have found his place: a department where he's respected and wanted and, most of all, believed when the shit hits the fan.

Slight spoiler alert (but only slight, since I'm spoiling only the first chapter, so I don't think it really counts), but an old case is reopened when a guy Bosch put away thirty years before is petitioning for release on the grounds of false imprisonment based on new DNA data. The question becomes where did this new DNA that was tested come from.

I know, I know, you're thinking TUNNELS! and BAD COPS! but it actually wasn't (I'm shocked, too), AND I didn't get the "how was this new DNA placed in a sealed box" technique quite right. My solution would have worked, but it was far too elaborate for what actually happened. Dammit.

If you're a Bosch fan, these last three books have been fun. I've been sick, so they have been fun reads during my "I really can't do anything but lie here" convalescence. If you're not yet a Bosch fan, go ahead and start at the beginning, most of the books are fun.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 12:11 on 25 March 2018

Harry Bosch, Book 21, by my count, which is apparently inaccurate, but that's my count, so let's go with it.

Fast on the finishing of The Crossing, I kept going on the Bosch books. I can think of no fictional person to keep me better company when sick than a guy named Harry, with this being one of the last three books about Harry {Dresden, Potter, Hole, Bosch} that I haven't read yet. Now that I think about it, there was that other Harry series with a surprise new book. Hmmmmmm....

As with the last one, I enjoyed this one, too. It is far more contemporary, and we have Harry less internally twisted about working on a defense case, and more with him solving a bad-guy case as well as a not-so-bad-guy-but-still-bad-guy case. The two separate cases, however, work well together, with just enough internal strife to keep them plausible as happening at the same time.

What cracked me up, no it didn't crack me up, was, however, and I really wish I could say I was spoiling this book for you by saying this, but I'm really not if you've read any of my other reviews, the book is classic Bosch: someone dies, a bad cop did it, tunnels.

Okay, okay, okay, not really. But a bad guy did do it. And there were tunnel references!

Anyway, I enjoyed this book, too. I, on my sick bed, immediately started the next one upon finishing this one.

The Crossing

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 18:19 on 23 March 2018

Harry Bosch, Book 20 by my count, which I've been informed is inaccurate, but whatevs.

A group of my friends were recently ranting about how they have to go through a number of pages, IF NOT DOZENS to get to the meat of the article they are trying to read, or the recipe they are trying to find, and how frustrating this is. Given my book reviews really are just my discovery of the book, and not really reviews, per se, hell, you could call these blog posts that I write when I finish a book, even, I'm good with my lack of book-reviewing-book-reviews.

What does that have to do with this latest Bosch book? Absolutely nothing.

I've been sick the last five days. Today, I read this book, start to finish, because doing anything else required too much effort. That said, I enjoyed this book. Yeah, it was a crossover with the lawyer dude, which is where I think my book count is off, with the books that have the half-brother in them, but the book is mostly Bosch, and it was a good detective adventure.

Unsurprisingly, BAD COPS! No tunnels, though. Odd that.

If you're a fan of Bosch or happen, like me, to have all twenty something books available and you're reading them, keep going. This was fun.

All of the patients Bosch saw leaving were women, all of them middle aged or older, all of them by themselves.

All of them probably trying to hold onto an image of youth, pushing back that moment they feared when men would stop looking at them. It was a rough and tough world out there.

The Book of Joan

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 20:32 on 17 March 2018

Warren Ellis has a weekly newsletter, in which he talks about writing, reading, and things of interest to him. In last week's episode, we found our intrepid hero talking about The Book Of Joan in a way that sounded fairly interesting, so I looked for it in the library.

And there it was!

Well, if this isn't the world telling me to read this book, I don't know what is. Okay, maybe the world is telling me this book isn't in high demand, or that it was at one point and the library has excess copies.

Anyway. Ellis' book description is much better than I would have done. It reads differently than I expected the book to read, but his description is spot on. The way Yuknavitch weaves history into the story (uses history as a template?) is just wonderful.

Trying to figure out where I put it on my scale, it's definitely "fan" or above, but would I recommend it to a friend? It was interesting, so I'd have to say it is worth reading.

How’s that for a cosmic joke of the ruling class? The meek really did inherit the Earth. And the wealthy suck at it like a tit. There’s no telling how many meek are left.
Page 6

And anyway, I’ve got that gnawing human compulsion to tell what happened.
Page 9

No one on Earth was ever literally white. But that construct kept race and class wars and myths alive.
Page 11

Do Not Disturb

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 16:32 on 11 March 2018, kitt created this:

Why did I pick up this book? It's book two of the Deanna Madden series (there are currently three books in the series).

I didn't think I liked the first one enough to warrant reading the second one, but the GoodReads reviews were consistently "This one is better!" so I went with it. That, and, other than the sex part, I like the Madden character.

This one still doesn't have any suspense. We know all the actions of all the characters. It does, as the first one, have a fast moving plot. There's an attempt at suspense, but it lasts like 4 pages, so it wasn't a great success. Again, a fast moving plot.

Nothing to write home about, nothing to rave about. If you're looking for a mindless distraction, this'll do.

Never had the hot, wet sensation, vibrating suction, the delicate play of a talented tongue against pleasure-packed bundles of nerves.
Page 23

I am like my clients—on the edge of danger, playing with the fire of fantasy and hoping I don’t slip. Hoping I don’t fall over that dangerous edge and act out on my desires.
Page 83

VILLAINS COME IN all shapes and forms.
Page 104

I bet he’s a good hugger. A good, responsible hugger who makes you feel like he is taking some of your worry with the embrace.
Page 149

A lot about human nature, how caged humans, despite our upbringing, drug habits, or skin color, are all the same. We want to fuck, to eat, to live. We want freedom, we enjoy control, we want to kill.
Page 230

Rage Against The Dying

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 17:36 on 8 March 2018

Okay, much like The Girl in 6E, I picked this book up because it was the listed on-sale in the Audible "First In A Series" Sale for $5 a book. I checked the book out from the library instead of purchasing the book (yay saving those funds for priorities), and read it that way.

This book is pretty much take Kay Scarpetta or Kinsey Milhone or any other rough and tumble PI, and age her thirty years. Add in the Case that Broke Her, and and you have this book. While the book says "age her twenty years," Brigid Quinn is in her late fifties, I have to say age her thirty years, because anyone who has the history that Quinn has is not going to be the aged woman described in this book. The only way the late fifties woman could be that frail is if she stopped being who she was, and the rest of the book indicates she had not.

Clearly, the book wasn't written by someone active in her late fifties (just checked, yes, late fifties, so maybe not an athlete, not an active person, whatevs).

I sorta enjoyed the book. It was a fun read, but one I'd prefer to do on the beach or on a long plane ride, not one I'd devote any serious time to reading. The book wasn't bad, not at all, just not my style. I enjoyed this one, but won't be reading any further in the series.

Keeping secrets, telling lies, they require the same skill. Both become a habit, almost an addiction, that’s hard to break even with the people closest to you, out of the business.
Location: 156

“You shouldn’t have been there,” I said again, at the same time stalling and wanting to go, like the last friend at a wake.
Location: 801

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