Past Tense by Lee Child

Reacher is on his way across the country from Maine.  He happens to see a sign for the town that his father grew-up in.  So he decides to investigate.  While there, he stops a young punk from raping a waitress that works for the boy’s father.  He’s the local spoiled rich-kid.  Reacher intervenes and the kid ends-up with a broken arm and jaw.  The local cops include a former Army MP and out of courtesy, she asks Reacher to leave.  But he isn’t finished looking for his roots. 

At the same time, a young couple from Canada have car trouble and find an out of the way motel in the woods about 20 miles north of where Reacher is staying.  What they’ve stumbled upon is a version of the Most Dangerous Game where a group of rich older men have been willing to pay a lot of money to hunt people.  The motel is run by three young me who have been planning this for a long time. 

Reacher discovers that a Tin Mill, run during the war effort was managed by his grandfather.  At the time, all the little groups of buildings had a local area name, but the post office was in the nearest city.  Reacher finds that the neighboring farm has encroached on the Mill area and fenced it in as their own, untaxed land.  This leads to complications since there aren’t enough men to challenge Reacher.  More people get injured.  The Mob, at the restaurant owner’s request come in from Boston looking for Reacher.  This causes problems for the local police who still want Reacher to leave. 

So finally, Reacher goes north and finds the same motel.  Only they don’t want another person there, so they make poor excuses for why they can’t rent him a room when it’s obvious that there are quite a few people there.  Reacher doubles back and interrupts the ‘game’.

The Rise of Magicks by Nora Roberts (6/9)

The final volume in the Of Blood and Bone series – in which our heroine, Fallon, raises her armies and attacks Evil.  She begins by taking outposts of the Purity Warriors.  Then she attacks a government base in Atlanta that is targeted to destroy magicals.  Then Washington DC where a self-proclaimed president presides over horrible experiments on magicals, searching for a vaccine to inoculate a super-army.  Then she attacks New York, and restores broadcasting.  Finally, she and her mate and his sister, blood of the Danniah confront and trap Evil, ridding the world of it for another thousand years.

There are a lot of biblical parallels in the story.  But it was a fun read.