Chapter One Hundred and Seven

I grew up without air conditioning and I still don't have one. A fan has usually been good enough for me - placed strategically in front of the open bedroom window and blowing across me as I stretch out on the bed reading. This month has been tougher then usual  and it wouldn't surprise me if it goes down as the hottest July ever. I may have to think about an ac for next year. Anyway, I did manage to finish a couple of books.

Series

Darkness, Take My Hand - Dennis Lehane ($7.99/$7.99, copyright 1996, 355 pages, Paperback)

This is the second in Lehane's Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro series and - like it's title indicates - it's a lot darker then it's predecessor. They're hired through an acquaintance by a Professor who's received a threat towards her son. It looks to have come from the local mob so they get their friend Bubba to arrange a meeting. All that comes out of it is that Kenzie pisses off one of the bodyguards  - a squirrelly, violent guy named Kevin who grew up in them in Dorchester. They keep at the case, following the Professor's son around without any results. In the meantime, Angie is enjoying the single life while her ex tries to prove he's gotten better and Patrick is enjoying a relationship with a single mother nurse. Then things go bad. Another old acquaintance is found murdered in a way that points to a series of killings from 25 years ago. The Boston police and the FBI get involved and Kenzie finds himself at the mercy of a couple of serial killers. Like I said it gets dark. Lehane writes well and his characters are nicely defined, quirks and all. I do think it was too long, maybe a bit too gory for some, and I have to take issue with the beginning. Lehane starts the book with Kenzie reflecting on what took place as he recovers from his injuries. That caused me to anticipate something happening at every turn and slowed down the natural flow of the story. It was OK.

This next book first came to my attention on the 3rd when it popped up on Facebook as a suggestion from Amazon. On a whim, I checked out a Discount Sites and it was already there. I ordered it and it arrived in less then a week. Needless to say, I put down what I was reading to check it out.

Hope Never Dies - Andrew Shaffer ($14.99/$4.48, copyright 2018, 301 pages, Trade Paperback)

Now that their 8 years in charge of the country were over, what were Obama and Biden going to do? Obama traveled around hobnobbing with celebrities, giving speeches, and generally enjoying himself. Biden returned to Wilmington where he did very little except resent Obama for not including him. At least that's the impression I got from Shaffer's book. That all changes when Obama shows up late at Biden's home to let him know that a friend of his has died. Finn Donnelly was a conductor on the Amtrak Acela that Biden used to take to Washington on his daily commute when he was in the Senate. Now Finn was dead, crushed under the wheels of that same train. In his possession were a map to Biden's house and some drugs. Biden, of course, can't believe that his friend was into drugs and sets out to prove it, dragging along Obama and his Secret Service Agent Steve with him. Along the way, they run into the police, DEA agents, a Motorcycle Gang, and - almost - a cow. All of this culminates with a fight on a train. Shaffer has created an interesting story with several plot twists and the supporting characters are well written but stereotypical. I think that this is the first book I've ever read where the central characters were real which made this a fun read. There's already a sequel out and maybe I'll check into it. I enjoyed it.

So much for this month. Back to what I was in the middle of and then .... who knows?

I pulled out a few "first in a series" books from the shelves and came across a couple of older Adventure Novels that I might revisit. Plus, there are all of those books that I bought cheaply over the last couple of months.

Tune in next time to find out what happens. Until then, stay cool and ....

Keep Reading.

Chapter One Hundred And Six

I've been writing this blog for almost 10 years now and I intend to continue doing this for a long time because, frankly, it's a lot of fun. I've told you about all the books I've read  - some were great and some not-so-great. I'm not a professional reviewer, just a regular guy sharing his opinion on social media and, if I had to guess, I usually have 2 or 3 books to tell you about each Post. This month I only have 1.

A brief explanation: I love to read and I have no shortage of material to choose from. In fact, I added 6 more books to my TBR pile 2 weeks ago. But reading takes concentration and mine has been focused in a different direction lately. I'm going to presume that anyone reading this is aware that I write another blog as well. It's fiction but based on my personal life. I have to admit that it was getting into a rut so I spent some time trying to come up with a way to get back on track. I found a new direction to go in and added the latest post to this blog just last week. From the reactions I received, I'm back on track.      

Now I was able to devote more of my concentration to reading and I went back to the books I had already started. One of these was a political thriller that I mentioned previously. I won't go into specifics but it was published in 1965 and, at that time, the basic plot must have been intriguing to readers. Now almost 55 years later given what we've seen of politics and politicians nothing is surprising anymore. Without that surprise factor driving the book, I lost interest in getting back into it, at least for now. I've put it into "The Pile" for future consideration.

Here's what I did finish.

Series

Several months ago, I wrote about a book that I'd found on my shelves. I enjoyed it but it was the 3rd in a series and I like to know how these things start. I checked my usual discount sites for the first volume but they didn't have it so I wound up ordering it from Amazon.

Bullet For A Star - Stuart M. Kaminsky ($10.65/Gift Card, copyright1977, 141 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is that first book in Kaminsky's Toby Peters Series. It's set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1940. Toby is an ex-cop, ex-security guard for Warner Brothers who's scratching out a living as  Private Investigator. Here he's contacted by a producer at Warner's who remembered him and has a job that he needs taken care of. Seems that a major star is being blackmailed and he wants Toby to handle the payoff (a similar concept to the book I've mentioned before). Turns out that the star is Errol Flynn and the blackmail involves a picture of Flynn with a very young female. The studio wants it swept under the rug. Of course, nothing goes right and Toby winds up being suspected of murdering the blackmailer. From there, things snowball. Kaminsky does a good job of setting up 1940's LA but his strong suit is the characters. Toby is well defined, as are the "extras" specifically his brother Phil Pevsner a police detective with anger issues and Shelly Minck, a slovenly dentist he rents office space from. To me, what sets this series apart from others is that Kaminsky mixes in a fair number of movie stars which I get a kick out of. In this book, Toby not only deals with Flynn but has conversations with  Edward G. Robinson, Peter Lorre, and Humphrey Bogart. I thought I had it figured out midway through but was totally wrong, though close. I would recommend this series to anyone. I really enjoyed it.

That's all I have for now. If I pushed things I might finish one of the other books I'm reading but I don't think I would enjoy it. I'm just gonna let things flow naturally and we'll see what we come up with next month.

It's officially summer and it's definitely hot. Stay inside with the AC cranked up and ….

Keep Reading.

Chapter One Hundred And Five

I ended the last Chapter by saying that I had some books lined up that were totally different from what I'd previously told you about. This is true. I found a number of books in my "stacks" from a genre that is new to this Blog. I also planned to do a follow-up on something I told you about several months ago but you know what Burns said about the best laid plans. Things got in the way.

I was reading 3 books - a political thriller I found during my search; the first of a series I ordered months ago; and one of the "new genre" books, but I kept coming across others that piqued my interest. One of these was a Fantasy novel by Steven Brust. It was a sequel and I wound up ordering its predecessor from Better World Books because they don't charge for Shipping & Handling. Around the same time, I ordered a few books from Thrift Books (including 1 that I told you about). They charge for S&H unless the order is over $10. My total was over and the prices, by themselves, were less then Better Worlds. Plus, I had earned a $5 Credit so I was really ahead of the game. Then I wound up having problems with both orders.

The Better World order got stuck in a shipping center in the Midwest for way longer then it should've (I was following it using the Post Office Tracker). I contacted them and they agreed that there was a problem and recredited me. Two days later, the book showed up. I contacted them again and wound up mailing them a check.

I also used the Tracker to follow the Thrift Book order. It was going smoothly until the Tracker said my package was delivered. I didn't get it. I waited until the next day and met the mailman when he came by. He said he'd left it in front of my Apartment door. I contacted the Company and they said they'd send out replacements immediately and if the original package should show up I could just keep it, donate it, or whatever. Turns out my Super saw the package and picked it up so it wouldn't get stolen. I got it back that afternoon. I contacted the company but they didn't reply. The replacements came in individually over the next couple of weeks.

I now had 4 new books to check out, one of which I added to the 3 that I was already reading (which was taking longer then usual due to some personal situations). I had just gotten back to a comfortable routine when I realized that my local Library would be holding their annual Weekend Book Sale. The price scale was simple - hardcovers were $1 and softcovers (regardless of size) were $.50. I decided to go on the Friday just to see if I could find something by Hemmingway. I ended up with 6 softcovers for a total of $3. I went back on Saturday because I was obsessing over a book I hadn't taken the first day and I got it along with 5 others for another $3. All together, I wound up with:

2 books by Ernest Hemmingway
2 by Mark Twain
2 by Ross McDonald (Lew Archer mysteries)
1 by Lewis Carroll (both of his classics in one volume)
1 by Edward Rutherford (the one I went back for)
1 by Phillip Roth
1 by Paul Austin (three short novellas)
1 by Bryan Burrough (the FBI and crime 1933-1934)
1 by Joyce Carol Oates (fictionalized last days of famous people)
FYI: these 12 books cost me $6 out-of-pocket and have a total face value of $153.38. Not bad. This means, of course, that over the last few weeks I've added 16 books to my "To Be Read" pile.

Even though I spent a lot of time accumulating and sampling these new books I did continue to read the ones I had and did manage to finish one. The "new genre" I mentioned earlier deals with The Pulps and - at least for now - will be a part of the "Off The Shelf" category. A little history first - before there were comic books people had The Pulps to whet their appetites for adventure,
mystery, romance, and science fiction (among other categories). They'd been in existence since the late 1800's until the early 1950's when comic books started to take over the market. They were referred to as Pulps because of the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on (a opposed to Glossies). Several of the heroes (or antiheroes) that were popular then are believed to have influenced some of the early comic book characters. For example, The Shadow is believed to have had an influence on the creation of The Batman. Also, Superman is believed to rely heavily on
possibly the most famous of the Pulp adventurers - Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze whose first adventure is my first selection for this "new genre".


Off The Shelf - The Pulps

The Man of Bronze, Doc Savage - Kenneth Robeson* ($.75/$.75, copyright 1933, 135 pages, Paperback)
Clark Savage, Jr. - known to the world as Doc - has gone to the family office on the 86th floor of a building in Manhattan to find out how and why his father died. He's met there by his 5 close friends - Monk, a famous chemist who physically resembles his namesake; Ham, a lawyer who dresses well and carries a sword cane; Renny, a construction engineer with fists that can punch through walls; Long Tom, an electrical engineer whose thin frame covers a huge heart; and Johnny, an archeologist and geologist who wears a magnifier as the left lens in his glasses. They've just learned of the Savage property in  South America where their gold comes from when a shot rings out and a window
shatters. An attack has been launched from another building and the adventure is on. There's a wild cab ride, Doc jumps off a building, and they catch the would-be assassin and discover his link to the property before he jumps to his death. Doc and his crew are off to South America to get to the bottom of things. Robeson* doesn't spend a lot of time on descriptions except for Doc and his men. His writing is plain but he knows how to keep the action flowing. It's almost like "reading" one of those old movie serials with the cliff-hanger episode endings. I enjoyed it.
(* The Robeson name was actually owned by Street & Smith Publications and was used on several other magazines. Doc's adventures were actually written by Lester Dent who was contemptuous of the work but gladly took the money they paid him.)

That's all I have for now.

Hopefully I'll have finished the other 3 books I'm reading now and can tell you about them next time. Till then ...

Keep reading.

Chapter One Hundred And Four

I usually reread the previous Chapter before I start a new one and I noticed something they have in common with the first in this month's selections. They are all centered in different cities and the authors each give you a feel for their locales. Dee's books are based in New York City; Crais' books are from Los Angeles; and Lehane uses Boston as his backdrop. (Kaminsky also uses LA but the book I mentioned actually took place in Chicago). You'll find a new location next.

Series - Off The Shelf

The Neon Rain - James Lee Burke ($4.99/$4.99, copyright 1987, 281 pages, Paperback)
This is the first in Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. He's a recovering alcoholic Lieutenant in the New Orleans police department who's not above bending the rules when he thinks it will help. While out fishing near his house boat, he comes across the dead body of a young black woman and calls in the locals. When he checks in several days later he finds out that no one has done anything so he takes it on himself to find out what happened. Turns out she was a small-time prostitute that got in over her head. He brings in his partner Clete to shake up some people she may have dealt with but that quickly escalates. Things get to the point where he's involved in an assault on a drug lord, gets assaulted by a couple of sadistic goons working for some arms dealers, and is force fed liquor which drives him off the wagon and into some dangerous situations. When his half-brother Jimmy is mistaken for him and shot, Robicheaux pulls himself together and goes after those he believes are responsible including his partner. Burke has a way with words and his characters are all well defined. He also paints a great picture of New Orleans and the surrounding areas although, in my opinion, he does overdo it at times. I enjoyed it.

We're still in the same category and we're still dealing with Detectives but there's a difference here. I remember first coming across these main characters when I was a kid back in the '50's watching the "Million Dollar Movie" on a rainy weekend day with my Dad.

Charlie Chan Carries On - Earl Derr Biggers ($1.25/$1.25, copyright 1930, 217 pages, Paperback)
According to the book's cover, this is the 6th volume in the series. I don't know how the others start, but Charlie does not appear right away in this one. Instead we have an old friend of his - Scotland Yard's Inspector Duff. Duff is called to a murder in a respectable hotel in London. The victim is a member of a Tour Group traveling around the world. It's a large, varied group of well-to-do Americans and Duff wants to hold them but the American  Ambassador steps in and he has to let them go. He continues working on the case and turns up some evidence against another of the travelers but when he catches up to the party he finds his suspect has been killed. Two more murders follow before they reach Honolulu and Duff gets to meet up with Charlie. When Duff is shot, Charlie picks up the case and vows to solve it before they reach San Francisco in 6 days. While Chan and Duff are solidly constructed characters some of the travelers are stereotypes - the Chicago gangster, the Ingenue, the Rich Old Lady. Still Biggers does right by them and he keeps the story moving smoothly up until the end where he throws in a red herring before wrapping it up. I enjoyed it.
(Chan was played in the movies by several different white men including Warner Oland and Sydney Toler. To satisfy my curiosity, I've ordered the first book in the series from a Discount site.)


Thank You, Mr. Moto - John P. Marquand ($1.25/$1.25, copyright 1936, 190 pages, Paperback)
Tom Nelson, a jaded American expatriate living in Peking during the mid-'30's, stumbles into a deadly conspiracy as tensions between Japan and China threaten to escalate into all-out war. When a British ex–army officer, Major Best,  trafficking in stolen goods is murdered, the beautiful American art dealer Eleanor Joyce is implicated in the crime. The search for the real killer leads Tom and Eleanor straight into the clutches of General Wu Lo Feng, a notorious warlord from the North who has surreptitiously entered Peking as part of a secret plan with global implications. Feng will stop at nothing to silence the American pair. Their only hope for survival is Mr. Moto, a secret agent of the Japanese Government. This is a very short book and Marquand does a good job with most of the characters except, in my opinion, Moto himself. He's not in most of the book and only appears when there seems to be trouble, sort of an Asian Deus Ex Machina. It was OK.
(Again, Moto was played by a white man - the great Peter Lorre. I have no interest in reading any of the other books in this series.)

I have some books lined up for the next Chapter that are totally different from what I've written about recently. I hope they hold up as well as I remember. We'll find out. Until then ….

Keep Reading.

Chapter One Hundred and Three

As I mentioned last time, I've been waiting for a few books on order to come in so I've dug into the piles of books on my shelves. I spent about 1/2 a day doing this and picked out about 10 that piqued my curiosity. I've had a lot of down time recently so I've gotten through a couple of these as well as a couple of the ones I ordered. Here we go ….

Series

14 Peck Slip Station - Ed Dee ($5.99/$4.28, copyright 1994, 302 pages, Paperback)
This is the first book in a series that I wrote about a few months ago and mentioned at that time that I'd ordered from a Discount site. Now I finally got around to reading it. Flynn and Gregory are detectives in NY and have been partners for a very long time. They've been checking out the Fish Market for a few days looking for one of the mob bosses when they watch a bunch of goons drop a barrel off a pier. Gregory is convinced that there's a body inside and calls out Special Services. They wind up recovering the wrong barrel but it holds something interesting - the body of a cop who's been missing for over 10 years. A cop who was openly on the take and doing business with and for the mob when he got nailed by IAD and was going to testify. There's a lot at stake for Flynn and Gregory as they deal with mobsters and senior police officials who may have all been involved in the corruption. This book is different from the one's that followed because the violence takes place on the page though none of it is gratuitous. Also, Dee spends a lot of time dealing with families and their relationships. We learn more about Flynn's home life and get to see Gregory's interaction with his father. His descriptions of the city and the various locations the guys drive through are spot-on but I felt that some of the supporting characters were interchangeable. Still, the ending we get feels right under the circumstances. I enjoyed it.
(NOTE: I have the feeling that Dee did not originally intend to build a series out of Flynn and Gregory. The ending here does not gibe with the subsequent books and there are a few things that happen that are changed in the follow-ups. Still, it's a good series and I recommend it.)


Series - Off the Shelf

You Bet Your Life - Stuart Kaminsky ($2.25/$2.25, copyright 1978, 213 pages, Paperback)
There's a formula for certain Detective stories that goes back to the days of Hammett and Chandler. A
down-on-his-luck ex-cop turned Private Investigator gets hired by a rich guy to help a client of his whose being threatened unless he pays a gambling debt that the client swears isn't his. A lot of writers have followed this - some successful some not. Kaminsky has added something interesting - specifics. Toby Peters (the PI) is hired by Louis B. Meyers of MGM (the rich guy) to help Chico Marx (the client) get out of a gambling debt that Chico swears isn't his. Toby has to fly to Florida to speak to Al Capone then take the train to Chicago to meet with Frank Nitti as he tries to find out who's behind things. During his investigation, he gets to interact with Chico and the other Marx Brothers and gets rescued from a tough spot by Ian Fleming. Kaminski does a great job with the characters including the secondary ones and I particularly liked the way he depicts Toby - a 40-ish guy who winds up underdressed in Chicago during the winter and catches a cold. I enjoyed it.
(NOTE: This is the third book in the series. I'm pretty sure I originally read this back in the mid-seventies as a selection from a book club I subscribed to. I can't find the first of the series around here so - you know me -I found it online and ordered it.)

The Monkey's Raincoat - Robert Crais ($7.99/$7.99, copyright 1987, 201 pages, Paperback)
This is the first in the Elvis Cole series and I actually found it in the stack on my bookshelves. Cole is a PI in LA and he's a real wise-ass. He's hired by a woman to track down her husband who appears to have run off and taken their son with him. It seems like a pretty simple case so he starts at the family house to see what he can find.Things start to get out of hand right there. The family house has been ransacked and the cops (including his friend Lou Poitras) get involved. Turns out the husband was in the film industry but not very successful. He's murdered and the boy turns up missing. Cole finds out that a Mexican drug dealer is missing a package and the dead husband is the suspect. He's given a deadline to produce the goods so he brings in his partner, Joe Pike,who's an ex-cop and a sometimes mercenary. This is a short, fast book that intensifies quickly. Cole and Pike are very interesting characters and Crais gives us some background to each of them as the book progresses.There's a lot of violence here but Crais offsets it with humor and some quiet moments between Cole and his client (and Pike). I enjoyed it.


A Drink Before the War - Dennis Lehane ($6.99/$3.75, copyright 1994, 277 pages. Paperback)

I found another of the books in this series within the pile on my bookcases and - you know me - I had
to order the first. It came in while I was reading something else. Patrick Kenzie is a PI in Boston with
a female partner, Angie Gennaro, a decent practice, and he's from the wise-ass school . They get hired by a State Senator and his cronies to recover some "documents" they accuse a cleaning lady of stealing. It seems like a quick job and easy money, but the cleaning lady is black and Boston is boiling over with racial tensions. The Partners track down the woman but Kenzie has a change of heart and they agree to help her out. That lasted until she was murdered in cold blood in a public square. Now they find themselves caught between two rival gangs trying to wipe each other out. Lehane has created a couple of interesting, likeable characters in Kenzie and Gennaro. They've been friends since kids, growing up in the same neighborhood, and the conversations between them ring true. Their back stories - especially Gennaro's abusive marriage - bring in a certain realism and Lehane goes one step further. Other characters who could've been clichés are fleshed out nicely and he wraps up the book with something unexpected. I enjoyed it.


Here's something that I felt I had to add even though most of you probably don't bother with them. I've included totals every year since I've been doing this but, due to circumstances, I missed posting last months. Bear in mind that these are from December, 2017, through November, 2018.

Off the Shelf - 5 books, 22.88 actual cost, 22.88 out of pocket
Miscellaneous - 13 books, 124.16 actual cost, 20.61 out of pocket
Series - 11 books, 76.18 actual cost, 4.75 out of pocket

2018 totals 29 books, 223.22 actual cost, 25.36 out of pocket

grand totals for 9 years 353 books, 3444.97 actual cost, 380.29 out of pocket)

I don't have anything else on order for now and I'm hoping to do a Library Run soon. In the meantime, I'm juggling 2 books so we'll see what happens. the days are getting longer and the weather's getting warmer. Enjoy yourself and ….

Keep reading.

Chapter One Hundred and Two

I'm going to do something different this time so bear with me. When I buy a book - and I presume it's the same for everyone - I'm motivated by the Author's name (especially if it's a continuation of a series), the subject matter, the cover, and/or the description and blurbs on the back. Still, the old adage is true - Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware). I've mentioned in the past that there are a lot of books I start but then put aside or wind up disappointed with. I thought that I'd give you an example so here are 2 books where the Author's name drew me in.

Series

Deep Freeze - John Sandford ($9.99/$.50, copyright 2017, 385 pages, Paperback)
Sandford is the author of the "Prey" series starring Lucas Davenport, who leads the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I've read and enjoyed a number of these so when I came across this I picked it up eagerly. Virgil Flowers is an investigator for the Bureau who operates in the more  rural areas of the state. Here, he's given two cases to work on in the small town of Trippton- a place he solved another case years ago and where a lot of people know him. The first is the murder of a prominent woman in her own home after hosting a meeting for a 20 year school reunion. The second involves tracking down whoever is adapting Barbie and Ken dolls so they can simulate sex. Virgil
is an interesting character and Sandford does a great job with the townspeople (especially Virgil's friend Johnson Johnson) and the winter scenes in Minnesota but it's entirely too long. Virgil interviews everyone who was at the meeting and asks them all the same basic questions which became tiresome. Plus, we know who the murderer is because he's revealed in the first chapter. As far as the second case, it only popped up intermittently and I lost interest. It's now in the "Donate To The Library" pile.

Miscellaneous

The Third Man - Graham Greene ($12.95/$3.98, copyright 1968, 120 pages, Trade Paperback)
I read a few of Greene's books years ago and recently came across a reference to one that I hadn't. I, of course, went to my favorite Discount site to look for it. I forgot about it as soon as I came across this. I didn't know that Greene had written it and it's one of my favorite movies. I ordered it immediately. My excitement on it's arrival evaporated quickly. It's a copy of the Screen Play. Again, this is one of my favorite movies and I'm not going to go into any details. It was interesting to read the dialog between Holly Martins and Harry Lime, and the descriptions of the scenery in bombed-out Vienna (which are short, clipped film references) give you a sense of the location . My problem is that I was expecting a novel, and a novel - in my opinion - should give you insight into the characters and their motivations. Through the Author, you should get to read their minds and try to understand what makes them tick. I was disappointed but I did finish it. It was OK.

Right now, I've got several books on order and they're all in transit. While I'm waiting I browsed through my shelves and came across several books that I remember enjoying years ago. They are all from different series' and different genres. Maybe the next Chapter will be a Throw-back one.
It's cold and we've had some snow. Typical February weather. Bundle up, pour a drink and …

Keep reading.

Chapter One Hundred and One

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.