I actually reached my goal for this month and finished 2 books. I was hoping for a 3rd but got bogged down with some details I'll discuss later. Also, I really don't have as much time on my hands as you'd think. Yes, I'm retired and a stay-at-home kind of guy but my meds are all on different schedules - one is every 4 hours, another every 6 hours, and the food tube every 3 hours. It's not easy getting into a comfortable reading habit when you have to keep getting up. Anyway, I did what I wanted to and here are the results.
Series
Little Boy Blue - Ed Dee ($6.99/$.50, copyright 1997, 290 pages, Paperback)
This is the second book in this series that I've read (and the third chronologically). Again, Dee starts off with the crime already having happened - the theft of a large amount of cash at JFK airport. There were shots fired and several airport employees killed including a young man who was wearing his father's old heavy, woolen police coat. The boy's name was Johnny Boy Counihan and he died in a hail of bullets. Detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory wind up on the case and it turns out Gregory has a personal connection - the victim was the son of his ex-partner. The Italian mob is suspected and the investigation leans that way but Ryan and Gregory have a different take on things which may included the IRA. Dee gives us more of Ryan's family life and Gregory gets more to do here. The characters and well-defined for the most part although there are a couple that border on caricatures. There are several nicely done twists and the ending has a few surprises. I enjoyed it.
I mentioned last month that I'd ordered the first book in the series from a Discount site I use and it came in pretty quickly. At the time, I also ordered another book for reasons that should become obvious and that came in at the same time. I chose to hold off on the Ryan/Gregory book so as not to blur things and I went with the other one.
Miscellaneous
The Con Man's Daughter - Ed Dee ($6.99/$5.88, copyright 2003, 400 pages, Paperback)
I'm sure you've noticed by now that the author of this book is the same guy who wrote the one mentioned above - Ed Dee. This is a stand-alone novel and has a grittier, harder edge to it. In the Ryan/Gregory books the violence takes place off-screen, here the violence is in-you-face and largely caused by the main character. Eddie Dunne is an ex-cop forced to retire for taking bribes. He's also an ex-boxer and former gofer for a Russian mobster. these past careers influence his attitude throughout the book. He's spent the last 4 years trying to stay straight and help his daughter raise his granddaughter. Then, the daughter is kidnapped and Eddie vows to do everything he can to get her back. Eddie starts with the Russians and it becomes pretty obvious that they are involved. The cops join in and the FBI wants a piece of what's going on. Eddie doggedly pursues his own agenda - strong arming people and getting beat up in the process. Dee tries to soften all this with scenes of Eddie with his family, especially his granddaughter, and a love interest but he can't forget what's happened. Again, Dee has created some interesting characters and situations and throws a nice twist in that changes everything. I found the beginning to be very tedious but the pace picked up about halfway through. It was OK.
NOTE: Another reason that I had trouble with this book was that it was missing pages 148 to 180 and after page 210 pages 181 to 212 were reprinted. The binding didn't look tampered with so it must've been printed this way. This is curious because it comes from a library in New Mexico and the borrower's card shows that it was taken out at least 5 times. You pays you're money, you takes you're chances.
(If you're interested, the Discount site I use is Better World Books and they don't charge for Shipping and Handling. I've also used Thriftbooks but they charge S&H for orders under $10.)
That's it for January. I'm going to hold off on the first Ryan/Gregory book and try one of the other books I've picked up recently. February's coming and the weather's been cold. Bundle up, hunker down, and
Keep reading.
