A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness & Siobhan Dowd

Frequently a book is simply better than the movie.  In this case it’s better written and so much darker. 

Conor lives alone with his mother, who is dying from cancer.  She’s been getting treatments, but they’re failing to make her better.  His father lives in America with his ‘other family’.  Conor has been havinv nightmares every night.  In the churchyard across the field from their home is a yew tree.  One night, it comes to life and walks to Conor’s bedroom.  In the movie, it feels like an adventure.  In the book, it’s another nightmare.  Especially the fourth story, the one from Conor, the truth.

I could not read this without hearing Liam Neeson’s voice as the monster.

A note on authorship.  Mr. Ness has written a masterful work based on the idea of another writer, Siobhan Dowd, who died before she could write the book.  He could have taken all the credit, but he has made a point of citing her as co-author.

Tell No One by Harlan Coben

A Doctor and his wife, who has been his love since they were five years old, are on a trip to the family’s private lake when they are attacked.  He was swimming and could not get to his wife fast enough, and when he did reach the dock, he was knocked back into the water.  They found the body a few days later.  She had been stabbed repeatedly and branded with a ‘K’ just as several other victims of a serial killer.

Now, nine years later, he gets a mysterious email that has a feed from a security camera and his wife looks at him for 30 seconds.

He starts asking questions, digging up the old case and trying to find out what is going on.  This brings the attention of the FBI, who think he was the real killer.  More and more damning evidence turns up and he has to run to keep ahead of the authorities while he searches for the truth.

The Midnight Line by Lee Child

Reacher steps off a bus to stretch his legs.  There’s not much to see.  The only thing open in a pawn shop.  He finds a ring there, a West Point graduation ring, size small, like a woman’s ring.  It has an inscription.  He knows what hell a woman had to have gone through to earn that ring, so he decides to buy it and track her down to return it.  He gets the name of the person who sold to the pawn shop and where they’re from.  He goes there.

Reacher finds a network hidden in the back of a self-serve laundry that nobody uses.  As he tracks the origin he finds a Major, like his own rank, who did five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.  She was injured by an IED and like many soldiers returning from war, the meds ran out, so she’s gone back to her childhood home in the mountains of Wyoming and is surviving there.

Her twin sister has also been looking for her, so when Reacher helps track her down, there is a lot to discuss and do, Reacher’s way.

Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley

A new character; Joe King Oliver, private eye and former cop.  He was setup with a woman who then filed a complaint complete with video.  It’s 13 years later and he hasn’t forgotten that they showed the tape to his wife while they had him in an interrogation room, nor the fact that she wouldn’t post bail and left him to the tender mercies of prejudiced cops and felons he had put away.  She immediately divorced him.

Now he has a client on death row.  He was framed by the same cops.  An assistant attorney brought the case to him.  His daughter insisted that he take the case.  But he needs help.  And he finds it in the form of a man he’d caught escaping but had no evidence.  When called upon to testify in court, he refused to lie to convict the man.  Now that man, a killer with extended resources is helping Joe break a man out of prison on death row.

Mosley writes in first person, getting in the head of his protagonist so the reader becomes vested in his success.

Saga Volume 1 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples

A sci-fi/fantasy about the people who inhabit a world and have wings, and their mortal enemies who inhabit their moon and have horns.  They’ve been at war for as long as anyone can remember, pitting science and magic in their fighting.  But having tired of the destruction of their own homes, it has become a proxy war waged throughout the universe.  One of the horned people is captured and held prisoner.  He lends a book to his female, winged guard and is broken out of jail as a result.  They escape and go on the lamb and have a child.  This is something both sides have always told their people is impossible.  As a result, professional assassins are hired to find them and kill them, except to bring the child back discreetly.  There’s a one-eyed novelist who writes the inciting book, there are mere-people who are reporters, trying to get the story published, there are bat-winged people trying to prevent this, a humanoid assassin who is in love with a spider woman assassin and who’s sister is also an assassin, a cat who can tell if someone is lying, a dog who sneezes sleeping darts, people who are part robot, a robot child, and the narrator, the offspring child that everyone wants to find.  Not safe for work – there are a lot of pornographic images in the artwork. (54 issues in this volume)

Redemption by David Baldacci

Amos Decker is visiting the graves of his wife and daughter when a man he helped put in jail for life without parole comes up to him and asks Amos to clear his name.  He has terminal cancer and only days to live.  He’s been let out of prison because the system does not want to pay for his health expenses.  That evening someone kills the man.  Decker decides to look into it against direct orders from the FBI.  The only people to talk to are the wife of one of the original murder victims and the man’s daughter.  But as Decker picks at the lives of these people from thirteen years ago,it seems like everyone Decker talks to ends up murdered.  And the real secrets behind it all is almost unbelievable.

Bootleggers Daughter by Margaret Maron

Deborah Knott is appalled by the utter disregard for mercy as she watches her least favorite judge declare the toughest possible sentence on a black man.  She decides to run for a judgeship herself.  A young woman whose mother was murdered when she was just an infant wants to pay Deborah to find out why her mother was killed.  Between her campaign and asking around about the incident that had happened 18 years ago, other people begin to die.  In the end, Deborah figures out who and saves the girl again.  But she loses the election.  However her least favorite judge is felled by a stroke, and her father calls in some favors to get her appointed to take his place.

Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo (3/10)

Harry Hole is brought out of his drunken stupor to go close a case in Bangkok where the Norwegian Ambassador was found murdered in a disreputable hotel.  He doesn’t really want to go, but he had some celebrity from his last case and that’s who they want to handle this one.  He’s supposed to just clean-up and call the case unsolvable.  But of course, that’s not how Harry operates.  He needs to find out who really killed the Ambassador, and other parties that seem to drop like flies.  In the end, at great personal risk and cost, he nails the bad guy and wakes-up later in a hospital, recovering.  But now that the case is closed, he has to try to seek oblivion again – only this time in an opium den.

The Killing Fog by Jeff Wheeler

A fantasy in an Asian-like land where magic is real and when it is used, it draws the killing fog.  A practitioner of marshal arts sees her own parents murdered and her grandfather killed.  She escapes by hiding and grows up in a neighboring dojo.  When her group is hired to find a legendary city beneath the ice, she accidentally awakens a spirit who is the former emperor and he wants to rule once more.  Only he can use magic and is not hurt by the fog, though his enemies are not immune.  Our girl is the one to fulfill a prophecy, but the only way she can defeat him is to sacrifice herself beyond to wall where no one returns.

Liar, Liar by James Patterson & Candice Fox

In this episode, our heroine, Detective Harriet Blue is wanted as a rogue cop, going after a serial killer who has murdered indiscriminately, then killed her brother after setting him up to take the fall for several deaths he did not cause, and trying to kill her temporary partner.  He’s after doing the same thing to her and using a psychologist as his gopher to blame or cause her own death.  It’s intense with no let-up throughout the whole book.  It goes from dark to bleak and never comes back.

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Written in verse, this tour-de-force follows a boy whose brother was just shot and killed.  As he takes the elevator down from his apartment, after having retrieved his brother’s gun, he is met at each floor by ghosts of others in his family who have also died by gunshot; his uncle, a girl he knew at a playground, his father, even the young man who killed his father, and his brother.  They all ask him why he thinks he needs a gun.  And it ends with that question still open.

This book won honors from Newbery, Correta Scott King, Prinz, and won the Walter Dean Myers Award and The Edgar for Best Young Adult Fiction.

End Game by David Baldacci (2/12)

In the fifth novel in the Will Robie series, Blue Man, Robie and Reel’s handler is missing.  He went on his annual vacation to Colorado and has not reported back.  The two government assassins are sent to find him.  Grand, Colorado is a tiny town with open carry (everyone), and little to nothing to do outside of hiring out as guides for wanna-be hunters and fishermen.\

The heroes find out that Blue Man grew-up in the town and lost his parents in an accident.  The woman he should have married is growing medicinal marijuana.  The girl he doesn’t know is his daughter is part of something much worse.

The Guilty by David Baldacci

The fourth novel in the Will Robie series – Robie is sent to assassinate a potential leader who wants war with America.  But when he pulls the trigger, he finds a little girl had run into the room right behind the target and his bullet has killed both.  On his next mission he hesitates because he sees a little boy jump into the target’s arms.  Only it didn’t happen and Robie did not pull the trigger.

He’s sent to Cantrell, Mississippi where he grew-up because his estranged father has been accused of murder.  When he arrives, he finds out that his father remarried and has a very young, autistic son.  Robie has a half-brother.  He soon finds that there are very questionable things going on in the town and his partner, Jessica Reel has to intervene and come to his rescue.

Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina

Merci’s family live in Miami.  They have three houses next to each other.  She goes to an exclusive school in trade for her family’s labor in painting and sewing.  Her older brother is considered the smartest kid in school and spends all his time in science labs.  She has younger twin brothers whom she loves, but hates to have to babysit.  She likes to play soccer and often plays on her father’s team.  Merci’s grandfather, Lolo, is changing due to Alzheimer’s.  At school, she tries to fit-in with a group of girls who tend to look down on her.

The book centers around Merce’s feelings and her not wanting change to happen and dealing with being a twelve-year-old.

The Target by David Baldacci

The third novel in the Will Robie series.  Jessica Reel is his partner in this volume.  The plot is more complicated than before.  The first story is about Jessica’s father and the Neo-Nazi who raped and impregnated her.  When she was young, her father abused her and turned her over to a group of white supremacists and misogynists who also abused her.  But she turned the tables and was able to get the group busted.  This put her into witness protection and from there she was recruited by the CIA.  Her father, on death row, and finagles getting a message sent to her, asking to see her before he dies.

A North Korean, General Pak, has a secret plan with the President to take-out his supreme leader and take his place.  The President gives his word to back him up.

Another character, Chung Cha Yien, is in a similar role to Robie and Reel in North Korea.  She grew-up in a concentration camp because her father spoke out against the regime.  She has never forgotten how she was treated or what she had to do to escape the camp and get trained to be an assassin.  She is sent to kill an English envoy who has been spying on the country.  In that act, she finds his phone and re-dials the last number he spoke to and discovers it is a highly placed North Korean general.  The general flees to France for a medical procedure.

Robie and Reel are tasked with taking-out the general so the U.S. involvement will be kept secret.  But when they get there, the General asked that his family (an adopted son and daughter) be kept from going to the camps, then shoots himself.

The North Koreans decide they must strike back and assign Chung Cha to kill the first lady and her children.

Robie and Reel are tasked with getting General Pak’s children out of a concentration camp.  They do this with the help of a man who escaped the same camp.  Robie is wounded, but manages to escape holding onto a helicopter skid.

The first lady introduces Robie and Reel to her children, her son is having a hard time adjusting to the White House but is very impressed with the two agents.  They are going to vacation for a week on Nantucket during Halloween week and have asked the two agents to accompany them.

Chung Cha takes a young girl who reminds her of herself from the same camp she was in.  Her proposal is to use her to allay suspicion from the Americans.  They travel to New York, posing as South Koreans and then to Nantucket.  The girl, Min, is awestruck.

Chung Cha teaches Min a few words in English.  My name is Min.  I am ten.  Please help me.

When the attack happens, the first family and Robie and Reel are trapped in a basement.  One of the Koreans announces what is to happen, then Chung Cha turns on her comrades and kills them.  Robie and Reel are impressed.  They ask why just as another police officer enters the basement and kills Chung Cha.

They take Min to live with their friend Julie, who will be Min’s big sister.  Then they visit the grave of Chung Cha.

The Hit by David Baldacci

The second book in the Will Robie series.  In this one, a colleague of Wills, Jessica Reel, has killed her spotter instead of the target.  Then she kills the DD, the number 2 man at the CIA Special Operations.  Will is assigned to find her and try to bring her in or execute her.  She misses killing a FISA judge.  Robie is called to the new DD’s house which is being protected by only two bodyguards.  They come under attack and Robie tries to get her out of the estate.  She is hit by one of the bullets and as Robie is sure he won’t make it Reel comes to his rescue.\

Robie tracks Reel down by looking for someone she is also looking for, there is a firefight from a radicalized militia and this time Robie comes to her rescue.  When he confronts her she raises more questions than answers.

Ultimately this exposes a deep government conspiracy that is trying to alter the world order in the Middle East.  The two killers save the day and the terrorists are stopped.  For this they receive the highest medal from the CIA.  But the head of the CIA wants them dead.

The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

Another story about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lizbeth Sanders.  In this volume, she is tracking her own sister, the head of a Russian Crime Syndicate.  Lizbeth killed her father because he beat her mother into brain damage.  Her sister was abused by him, but did not see it as abuse.  She holds Lizbeth in contempt for her father’s death.

At the same time, Lizbeth is helping her friend, Mikael Blomkvist, who is looking into a corruption case.  While a government minister is being dragged through the mud in the media.  And a homeless man, wearing an unseasonable parka rages against unintelligible demons.

It all ties together in the end.  A tightly written thriller that was fun to read.

The Fallen by David Baldacci

Another book in the series about Amos Decker, the memory man.  In this volume, Amos has accompanied his partner, Alex Jamison, on vacation to see her sister, whose husband was recently promoted to a management position in a fulfillment center.  Amos sees a flicker in an empty house behind them, sees a plane in the sky and hears an odd noise.  He worries that a fire has started and so runs to the house to check it out and discovers a body hanging above blood.  Everything goes downhill from there with murders happening one after the other.  There is a descendent of the man who built the town and named it for himself, there are suspected bad cops and there are bad cops.  And there is a drug mill in town and a conspiracy to steal the rich guy’s estate to look for a treasure.

The only sore thumb is how long the explanation takes at the end of the book – and a bit of a tomato surprise in the reveal of one of the bad guys.

The Fix by David Baldacci

Third in the memory man series about Alex Decker, a man who was in one place in the NFL and suffered from the hit.  Now he has synesthesia, where he sees colors representing what he sees, the most prominent being blue for death, and hyperthymesia, a perfect memory, whether he wants to remember or not.\

In this case, as he is walking to work one day, a man kills a woman then himself in front of the Hoover building.  Decker's team is pulled off of cold cases and given this case to solve.  What it leads to is bigger than a simple murder.  The man was a contractor with a meeting in the Hoover building, the woman was a hospice volunteer and substitute teacher with no apparent connection to the man.

It's up to Decker and his team and friends to solve what turns out to be a much bigger case than anyone expects.

This is worth analyzing.

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski

A series of intertwined short stories in which we meet The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, who was tortured and raised to fight monsters in medieval Poland.  A big man with a pagan priestess and a troubadour named Dandelion.  Geralt slays monsters and frees others from their curse.  It is now a series on cable TV.