Blog Title #4

         Reviews Of Unusual Size          

Some short reviews today, I need to catch up on things!


Books

5 Things About...

THE SPLIT (AKA THE SEVENTH)
by Richard Stark
1966, 168 pages, e-book

1 - The Seventh Parker novel. He also goes after his cut of a take that was stolen from him. His seventh of the take, coincidentally.

2 - Parker is dogged by a villain a little too convenient and lucky, in my opinion.

3 - My least favorite of the series so far. Usually, I think the Parker novels are too brief, that they rush along so fast that when the end comes, I want to keep reading. This one was not like that.

4 - Still rich with period details and great tough-guy dialogue, however.

5 - Never leave your dough in an apartment with a nude woman and go out to get smokes. Even if she says she'll make you breakfast while you're out.

6/10

DEAD IN THE WATER
by Stuart Woods
2009, 464 pages, e-book

1 - Stuart Woods manages to write thick books that are fun, a little goofy and pretty good at evaporating from your memory before you've started dinner. Which makes them perfect summer reads, in my opinion.

2 - I genuinely can not remember the plot of this book, and I read it less than a week ago.

3 - Actually, after looking up the plot, I remembered liking this novel quite a bit. Stone Barrington, lawyer and ladies man, has to defend a young woman's life on the stand in St. Marks, where the local magistrate has a bone to pick and wants to hang her for the death of her husband, whom she claims had a heart attack at sea. Or did he?

4 - A tropical twist on the usual lawyer thriller, Dead In The Water is probably the best Stone Barrington novel so far.

5 - So why did I forget what it was about?

7/10

THE FIRST RULE
by Robert Crais
2010, 432 pages, e-book

1 - A new Joe Pike/Elvis Cole novel! Hooray!

2 - I love Robert Crais. He hasn't let me down yet, and if you haven't read any of his books, you should go out and find some. They aren't as funny as Marshall Karp's novels, but they still have nice little doses of humor mixed in with the all of the awesome killing.

3 - To me, Joe Pike is a better Strong, Silent Hero than Lee Child's Reacher, and part of that is probably his partner, Elvis Cole. The Fozzie Bear to Pike's Kermit.

4 - Crais pulls the old "Big tough guy protects a baby" plot out of the hat this time, and I was worried, but he manages to keep it good, though a bit predictable in regards to the baby subplot.

5 - Robert Crais is a pretty cool guy, and he wears bright shirts on occasion. Just sayin'.

8/10

VAMPIRE A GO-GO
by Victor Gischler
2009, 352 pages, e-book

1 - Victor Gischler is an extremely talented and funny dude, who balances sci-fi novels, crime books, comic books and barbecuing in a way that I can only hope to emulate some day.

2 - Vampire A Go-Go takes sly jabs at vampire lore, the occult, the Vatican, travel books and the philosophers Stone. Which makes for a crazy book.

3 - Enjoyable, though at times disjointed and over the top. Though with Gischler, disjointed and over the top is still enjoyable.

4 - Oh yeah, there's a werewolf too. Sorry, lycanthrope.

5 - Despite the title, very little vampire and even less go-go-ing.

8/10

GOD SAVE THE CHILD
by Robert B. Parker
1987, 208 pages, e-book

1 - Another Spencer novel, one of the first.

2 - You can tell that Parker is just starting to flesh out the charcter of Spenser in this novel. He cracks wise, carves wood, woos women and cooks fancy meals. And sometimes solves crimes.

3 - I was surprised at the level of detail given to everyone's clothing in this book. At times I felt like I was reading a really effusive catalog entry.

4 - Good book, but the ending was pretty obvious from the get-go and it seemed to take a long time to get there. The child, Kevin, had some really crappy parents.

5 - This was missing the snappy patter and sharp dialogue that I've enjoyed in other Parker novels.

5/10

FEVER DREAM
by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston
2010, 416 pages, e-book

1 - Pendergast is back, still exorcising his past's demons. This time unraveling the twisty past and fate of his wife.

2 - For a little while in the beginning, I thought the book would take place exclusively in the past, a tale of Pendergast's early days, and I was pretty pumped to read it.

3 - Then it bounced to the present day. Which was okay. I  just thought the idea of a Young Pendergast story would have been fun.

4 - The Audubon Code! I liked the way Preston and Child integrated Audubon into the story, but it did seem like the "disease" in question reacted differently with him than others. Maybe it was a different strain?

5 -  Their next book? A totally new series!

8/10



Yes, I am aware that these reviews are more of a collection of random thoughts that only mostly refer to the book in question. That's the way I roll.

Writing - 

Finally, some progress! I cracked 60,000 words on Graves, with what I think is around 20,000 to go. The best part though is that the exciting, dramatic confrontation is next, and I'm pretty pumped to dive in.

The Last Sentence - 

"Let everyone down there know that it's time."

From - " GRAVES " (WIP)