Category: Branches Books

Book 17 – The Narrows – Michael Connelly

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Ok so the last book I read Nowhere to Run by C.J.Box was the 10th book in the Joe Pickett series and now book number 17 The Narrows by Michael Connelly also the 10th book in the series featuring  Harry Bosch only difference is that I have read all the books in the Pickett series and this is my first Harry Bosch book! I had started The Concrete Blonde book # 3 years ago and for one reason or another couldn’t get into it so I never tried to read another Connelly book (the series is now up to 14). What was I thinking! I enjoyed this book, liked both the writing style and Bosch’s character and will certainly read more, having picked up several last week at the library book sale.

The book starts with Harry Bosch, asked by the widow of his former friend Terry McCaleb to investigate what she feels is the murder of her husband. McCaleb’s heart medicine (he had had a heart transplant -the storyline of the book and movie Blood Work)  had been switch with shark cartilage pills leading to a heart attack.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Rachael Walling receives a call that she has dreaded for eight years! Eight years earlier she had been involved in the chase to track done a serial killer known as The Poet, who turned out to be her former mentor at the FBI Robert Backus. The Poet is back and operating in the Las Vegas area. Harry’s investigation into McCaleb’s death quickly puts him on to the trail of The Poet and soon Bosch and Walling must join forces to catch Backus!

Like I said I enjoyed this book and the final pages flew by and I am certainly going to read more Bosch novels. I have a lot of catching up to do!!

My bookshelf at Goodreads.com now holds 796 books – 4 more to 800!! Next up the new Body Farm book by Jefferson Bass The Bone Thief another favorite series featuring Bill Brockton and the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee and while I root for Bill Brockton, this Florida Gator can’t root for the Volunteers!

Book 16 – Nowhere to Run – C.J. Box

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Nowhere to Run is my 16th read of the year and the 10th book in Box’s Joe Pickett series, which keeps getting better and better. This books opens with Joe in his last week of temporary assignment in Baggs Wyoming. The assignment has lasted a year and Joe will be returning to his wife and family soon. But Joe goes into the mountains to investigate some strange happenings, which include camp lootings, tents being slashed, and an elk butchered before the shooters can even collect it! There was also the case of a female Olympic class runner going for a run into the woods and never coming back! On the hunt Joe runs into two twin brothers Caleb and Canish Grimm, who appear to be the men who butchered the Elk! When Joe asks for their fishing license and gives them a citation for hunting without a license their wrath is taken out on himand he barely escapes the mountain alive, but not before he potentially sees the Olympic runner……and the rest of the book revolves around finding out who the Grim Brothers are and was that really the lost runner!

Like all Box’s books the characters are great from Joe to his wife Marybeth, Marybeth’s golddigging mother Missy. the kids Sheridan, Lucy and April to Nate Romanowski and the Brothers Grim! Coupled with the characters is Box’s great descriptive writing about the beauty of the mountains that form the setting of the story!

The pages in this book flew by and overall it was a very enjoyable read! The series can probably be read out of order because the story stands on its’ own but to get the full effect you need to know Joe and his past! So get busy because you have nine books to go to catch up but it will be worth the trip!

Red Sky at Night

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While this book is my first read of a book by James W. Hall it is the sixth book in the eleven book series featuring Hall’s  iconoclast beach bum fisherman Thorn. (Anyone know his full name?). The book centers around the senseless slaughter of eleven dolphins at a Key West park that Thorn and his current girlfriend Monica had visited a few days previous. The slaughter is tied to the experiments in pain alleviation being performed on wounded veterans by an old boyfriend of Thorn’s Bean Wilson Jr. Wilson is also being investigated by the DEA for illegal actions and they have placed an undercover agent Greta Masterson in Wilson’s clinic. As Thorn starts to investigate he becomes a target and the rest of the story revolves around solving the mystery of the slaughter of the dolphins and rescuing Greta!

It was a good read and I enjoyed the character development of  many of the characters including Bean Wilson, Pepper Tremaine and Thorn. However, I know that there’s a lot of background on Thorn’s life that was missing, so overall I don’t think I enjoyed the book as much as I would have had I started at the being of the series.  So now, I have to go back and learn about Thorn from the first five books before I travel forward to the next five. Like I need another series. So check James W. Hall out but start with  Under Cover of Daylight.

Forty Words For Sorrow – Giles Blunt

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Forty Words for Sorrow

Forty Words for Sorrow is the first Giles Blunt book I’ve read and the first book in the John Cardinal series. Set in Algonquin Bay Canada, John Cardinal is a former Toronto police officer now back on the force in his hometown. He is a former homicide detective who had been transferred out of the homicide division after he spent too much time on two missing children cases Katie Pine and Billy LaBelle.

When the mutilated body of Katie Pine is discovered in a block of ice in an abandoned mine shaft, Cardinal is transferred back to homicide and sets out to find the serial killer.

Cardinal is aided by Lise Delorme a former Special Investigator, who in fact is still investigating Cardinal! . Cardinal is  married with a daughter at Yale in the Master of Fine Arts program and a wife in a mental hospital and how he can afford both is part of the reason for Delorme’s investigation and Cardinal’s guilty conscience. Read more from Giles Blunt’s web page here

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it was fast paced with some twists and turns as Cardinal and Delorme race to find and stop the killers. I liked both of the main characters Cardinal and Delorme.

The book won the 2001 Macallan CWA Silver Dagger award for the second best book in English by a British publisher and in my opinion it was well deserving of the award.

Now onto The Delicate Storm the second John Cardinal book!