Category Archives: 2023 Fiction

Hit the spot!! Yay!!! An Invisible ClientBy Victor Methos2019 / 256 pagesRead by Alexander Cendese 6h 19mRating A / legal crime Joel Whiting, the 12-year old only child of the widowed Rebecca Whiting, is very ill from cyanide poisoning the … Continue reading →

Due to all the unfortunate current events and assholes-in-office, I’ve been having a somewhat difficult time keeping my focus when I read almost anything. I’m okay for about a page or two and then my brain wanders. But I keep … Continue reading →

This was on sale and it just sounded good so it was an impulse buy and an almost immediate read. It did grabbed my attention and I started the ride one evening and finished the next day – a 12-hour … Continue reading →

Oh dear – I just don’t read like I used to – the focus is not there. I get distracted by mail or by the news or by my daily doings or by just thinking. I’m currently reading one mystery … Continue reading →

A friend in New Zealand recommended Maurice Gee and as I checked around and although Amazon has quite a number even in Kindle format, Audible had two. So I got this one which, as a mystery, sounded like something I’d appreciate. … Continue reading →

Oh my goodness I love this book. Yes, it deals with some very difficult subjects, from the days of Nazi Germany to the current difficult times with Coronavirus. It’s the fourth in Smith’s Seasons Quartet so it’s also a kind … Continue reading →

This is a very good book by a well regarded journalist who follows the subject, but there is so much information that even at only 338 pages of narrative, I have to call it a baggy shaggy monster. *******Veritas: A … Continue reading →

Oh wow – there was more in this book than I could really get a grip on in one reading but yes, I did read it all the way through. There was some material and characters from the earlier books … Continue reading →

I read this twice this month. The first time I was so depressed at reading the middle three chapters but then the end picked up. During the middle I felt like it was all lost and this was the funeral, … Continue reading →

Brilliant!   I didn’t really know all that much about Frederick Douglass before reading this masterful biography.  I knew he was an escaped slave who became a speaker and writer of great renown who lived in Boston.  He lived to … Continue reading →

Oh my –  I did need this book.  It’s nothing fancy in any literary way except that the straightforwardness of Tyler is always soothing and comforting and in these difficult difficult times that is such a blessing.  Covid is spiking … Continue reading →

This is the last of the Shetland Island Mystery series which features a Detective Inspector  named Jimmy Perez.  There is a definite overarching plot which means the books are better read in order of publication. This is what I did … Continue reading →

So I read this a second time and in some ways appreciated it much more.  I understood better Childs’ lapsing into the poetic, but I got a lot of info this time which I’d missed the first reading.  My first … Continue reading →

This was very good until toward the end when the resolution to one “mystery” seemed to be clear and obvious,  but presented another issue. There was a slight lapse in suspense (for me anyway) during that time, but it only … Continue reading →

Burke is back with Dave Robicheaux in book # 23 and his usual luscious prose with evil characters set in an incredibly violent and gritty context, a context which includes some occult context.  He’s still coming out with great novels, … Continue reading →

Thicker Than Water by Tyler Schultz2020 / Audible onlyread/told by authorrating 8/ memoir – (podcast) This is not a “book” as such, but more of a pod-cast produced and sold by Audible. And what I really hearing about was Tyler … Continue reading →

A friend recommended this and I picked it right up because I’ve have fairly serious breathing problems as a result of surgery (and more).  The first parts were just exactly what I needed but the third part went a bit … Continue reading →