Finished DEATH BENEFIT

I had loved the character of Pia Grazdani when I first met her in the second book in her series which I had read out of order.  This is her introduction book, and I love her even more.  She reminds me of Larkin's Lisbeth Salander, if she had been a medical student.  I hope to meet her in another of Robin Cook's thrillers, which this certainly was.  One of those books that you can't put down and then, when you get to the end, you regret that it is finished!

I have now started My Lucky Life in and out of Show Business, by Dick Van Dyke.  I've been looking forward to reading this since I first heard that it was out.  I waited too long to buy it and then it was out of print.  Luckily I found it from a private vendor on Amazon.  It has started as I was hoping: funny, sincere, and charming, perfectly fitting with the public image of this man.

Made progress on BY BLOOD WE LIVE, read a children's book, and started a new Robin Cook

Rather than be the romantic, albeit dangerous, vampires I enjoy reading about, these are mostly stories about more traditional evil vampires, though there are twists.  I enjoy the stories, but there are so many of them after a while they all start to blend together in my head, so I have to take breaks from them.  I have just passed the half-way point and am taking another break.

I then read The Ox of the Wonderful Horns and Other African Folktales by Ashley Bryan, a children's picture book with five wonderfully unfamiliar (to me) stories.  I think I will enjoy sharing it with our Great-Grandkids who should move in with us by the end of the month.



I have now just barely started Death Benefit by Robin Cook.  I've read the book that came immediately after it, so am reading this one out of order.  I have only read the prologue, in which a clandestine and illegal gun deal has taken place in Russia.  Just doesn't seem much like Robin Cook yet.

Finished THE BIG SHORT

Well, it seems that the reason none of us understood "junk bonds" and all the other convoluted kinds of bonds that blew up towards the end of 2008 is that they were so complicated that no one understood them.  Which may be why nobody on Wall Street was ever actually prosecuted--none of them understood what they were doing.  They weren't criminal, they were stupid!  The few people who bet against the bonds were very interesting people--unusual, very smart, and incredulous.  Good book, though somewhat technical.

I have now returned to By Blood We Live.  These are short stories about vampires by modern authors.  I have read a story about a group of vampire hunters taking out a nest and am now reading one about a young vampire going out hunting alone for the first time.

Finished People of the Weeping Eye and another book

I swear each of these books I read is better than the last.  Perhaps because I have been a camping aficionado, I love living is the distance past with these great characters and this time the characters are, perhaps, even more interesting and the plot more complicated.  It has a sequel, People of the Thunder which is next in my Gear pile , so I'll be reading it in thirteen books.  Now I am only half-way through the story.

Then, while going to California for TR's class reunion, I read Emperor Dad, another of  Henry Melton's sci/fi-fantasy books for teens.  Joseph's dad got laid off and resents it.  He tries to consult, but he is a scientist, not a money manager.  So he scraps it and starts (in secret from his family) to pursue a line of scientific investigation that leads him to teleportation.  From this discovery to his becoming Emperor of the Earth makes a really great story.  It starts slow because it is pretty technical showing his line of study, but as soon as he discovers teleportation, it becomes really exciting.  Highly recommended.  I love this author.



I have now started The Big Short by Michael Lewis.  I have not yet seen the movie, but will when it shows up on a TV channel I watch.  I have never been able to understand exactly what happened with the housing market bust.  How could such huge banks make such a big mess?  This books not only purports to explain this, but also how someone could make money of the crash (another concept that is totally beyond me.)  So, I figured I'd let Michael Lewis attempt to explain it to me.  I have to admit that, though I've barely started, he is doing a pretty good job.

Finished THE LOST YEARS

Unlike with most MHC novels, I figured out "who done it" pretty much after we had been introduced to all the characters.  But that didn't keep me from being hooked by the suspense, because I had no idea how they were going to catch this very clever character.  However, I should have known, when Alvirah and Willie are on the case....  As usual, I enjoyed this book very much.

I have now started People of the Weeping Eye, another W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear novel.  This one has started rather slowly by introducing characters and I can't connect the characters introduced in the first chapters with those in the opening unnumbered chapter,  Moon of the Angry Winds.  Each character seems pretty interesting, though and I am hopeful that they will all connect somehow before too long.

Finished EVER AFTER

Don't you just hate when a favorite author kills off a favorite character?  When Stephen R. Donaldson did it in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, he just invented another fabulous character.  Will Kim Harrison do that?  Remains to be seen.  In the meantime, the book was edge of the seat exciting--it kept me up past my bedtime a few times.  I enjoyed the short story at the end as well which picked up right where this book left off.

I have now started The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark.  Mariah's father has been murdered and the police suspect her mother who is suffering from Alzheimers.  Did he really have a letter written by Christ to Joseph of Arimethea?  If so, where is it?

Finished DEATH AT VICTORIA DOCK

Certainly the most dangerous of the Phryne Fisher novels I've read to date, what with a machine gun and a kidnapping.  In addition to that, a missing person case is solved.  Quite a bit for such a short book.

I have just started Ever After, #11 in Kim Harrison's Hollows series.  Someone is stealing sick babies from the Rosewood unit of the hospital.  This is the disease that Rachel would have died of if not cured as a baby.  However, the cure is illegal because cured children become demons.  Is someone trying to experiment with finding a better cure, or, more likely, wanting to give selected people demon powers???