Monthly Archives: May 2019

action/adventure, character, mystery, reviews

Nick Petrie — Tear it Down

Peter Ash goes to Memphis to help Wanda Wyatt, who has been receiving strange threats since purchasing an old house and moving in. When he arrives, he finds someone has driven a dump truck into the front of Wanda’s house. While trying to track down who might have done it, A young thief, a homeless street musician, steals Peter’s pickup truck. Peter decides to help the young musician, too.

I like Peter, even though he often makes stupid and risky decisions. (He always gets out of the dangerous situations where these decisions lead him.) All of the characters in the story are interesting, even the bad guys. Plenty of bad guys populate the book—the young boys, who rob a jewelry store; a farmer and his psycho brother, who are trying to drive Wanda out of her house; the gang boss of the Memphis drug world and his close associates, who are chasing the boy that stole Peter’s truck; and more. Even Peter and his friend Lewis are not always on the right side of the law.

Suspend your disbelief, and you will enjoy the story.

character, head, heart, mystery, reviews, setting

Stieg Larsson — The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I intended to read this book years ago and finally got to it. I won’t go into great detail. There are plenty of reviews available with so much detail you almost don’t need to read the book.

There are two plots. The story begins with Mikael Blomkvist’s conviction for libel for an article he wrote about billionaire businessman Wennerström. This plot line stays in the background until late in the book. Mikael is then hired by Vander, another rich man, to write a family history as a cover to find out what happened to his granddaughter, Harriet, who disappeared almost forty years earlier. This is the plot that consumes most of the book.

The book covers many subjects including business greed and crime, abuse of women, twisted family relationships, journalism ethics, Swedish Nazism, computer hacking, and more.

There are also two main characters: Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, (the girl with the dragon tattoo). Lisbeth doesn’t get involved with the investigation until about halfway through the story, but we follow what she is doing before that. Larsson gives us great detail about both of these very different characters.

I enjoyed the book from the beginning, even though the first half was rather slow with too much detail about clothes, meals, and day-to-day minutia. Mikael spends a lot of time on the family history and very little on the missing girl until way into the book.

The climax of the story occurs about three-quarters of the way through. The rest of the book ties up all the loose ends, including the first plot.

Larsson’s writing kept me interested from beginning to end.

character, head, heart, mystery, reviews, setting

James Lee Burke — The New Iberia Blues

Burke writes vivid settings. He brings you into the bayous of Louisiana and activates all your senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch—and more. He laments what greed and politics is doing to his beloved land.

His characters (good guys and bad guys) have depth. But protagonist, Dave Robicheaux, has to be in his eighties and is still playing cop and lusting after women in their twenties. Dream on, Burke. A bit less of Robicheaux’s anger and feeling sorry for himself would make him more likable and move the story along.

The plot keeps you guessing about the villain, who is ritualistically killing members of the community using a tarot theme. But I did suspect the killer early on.

character, head, heart, reviews, setting

Dennis Lehane — The Drop

A very dark tale set in the underbelly of Boston. Lehane paints very vivid portraits of his characters, some of whom you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. There is a nice story of a man and his dog woven through the novel plus the building of a romance between two lonely people.

The author is an excellent writer holding my interest in the story and all the unsavory characters.