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Recent reading
Aug. 18th, 2008 11:37 pmWell, it's been a murder mystery binge:
Dyer Consequences by Maggie Sefton - latest in her knitting series; so-so. I probably won't bother with more of these; they're just not interesting enough. Could see who the murderer was (though not all the details of why) fairly quickly. One high spot: one of the alpacas is a hero in the final showdown between our heroine and the murderer. But at the end of this book, she's getting rid of most of the alpacas.
Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman - again has Peter Decker and his daughter Cindy working together. Didn't like it that much though; the plot had complications and coincidences multiplied unnecessarily. In connecting two murders some 15 years apart, we have so many characters who were supposedly involved in both but for different reasons that I started losing track of who was who, which victim and which year we were talking about. It just didn't appeal to me that much. On the other hand,
Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm, latest in her Barbara Holloway series, is also about 2 murders, 15 years apart, but I found it much easier to follow who the characters were and why they were involved with each other. Perhaps it's that the setting for this one is mostly academia, while the setting for the Kellerman is the rap-music-and-drugs business in L.A. - I can relate more to the university characters.
Damage Control by J.A. Jance. Latest in her Sheriff Joanna Brady series. Always good. Joanna's mother is getting a bit tiresome, but we do find out a lot more about Joanna's family history in this one, along with the usual exposures of human greed and stupidity.
And one non-murder:
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman. Very similar to Predictably Irrational but not quite as long or as amusing. In one chapter, the authors make the assumption that the discovery of homo floriensis has been proven to be a separate species of humanity and that anyone who doesn't buy the arguments in that direction (instead of the many scientists who feel there's not nearly enough evidence yet to draw that conclusion) is irrational. That was a bit annoying. On the other hand, the chapter about the ineffectiveness of the typical job interview in predicting whether a person will fit the prevailing corporate culture is interesting.
Every post deserves a picture:
There is a 36-Euro fine for not picking up your dog poop in Vienna. There are MANY of these little signs, on virtually every patch of grass, alerting you to the consequences.
Dyer Consequences by Maggie Sefton - latest in her knitting series; so-so. I probably won't bother with more of these; they're just not interesting enough. Could see who the murderer was (though not all the details of why) fairly quickly. One high spot: one of the alpacas is a hero in the final showdown between our heroine and the murderer. But at the end of this book, she's getting rid of most of the alpacas.
Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman - again has Peter Decker and his daughter Cindy working together. Didn't like it that much though; the plot had complications and coincidences multiplied unnecessarily. In connecting two murders some 15 years apart, we have so many characters who were supposedly involved in both but for different reasons that I started losing track of who was who, which victim and which year we were talking about. It just didn't appeal to me that much. On the other hand,
Cold Case by Kate Wilhelm, latest in her Barbara Holloway series, is also about 2 murders, 15 years apart, but I found it much easier to follow who the characters were and why they were involved with each other. Perhaps it's that the setting for this one is mostly academia, while the setting for the Kellerman is the rap-music-and-drugs business in L.A. - I can relate more to the university characters.
Damage Control by J.A. Jance. Latest in her Sheriff Joanna Brady series. Always good. Joanna's mother is getting a bit tiresome, but we do find out a lot more about Joanna's family history in this one, along with the usual exposures of human greed and stupidity.
And one non-murder:
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman. Very similar to Predictably Irrational but not quite as long or as amusing. In one chapter, the authors make the assumption that the discovery of homo floriensis has been proven to be a separate species of humanity and that anyone who doesn't buy the arguments in that direction (instead of the many scientists who feel there's not nearly enough evidence yet to draw that conclusion) is irrational. That was a bit annoying. On the other hand, the chapter about the ineffectiveness of the typical job interview in predicting whether a person will fit the prevailing corporate culture is interesting.
Every post deserves a picture:
There is a 36-Euro fine for not picking up your dog poop in Vienna. There are MANY of these little signs, on virtually every patch of grass, alerting you to the consequences.
