Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Dngrsone]

Finished Invader by C. J. Cherryh. Now reading Wildflower by Drew Barrymore.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Soldiers Out Of Time by Steve White. Latest in his Jason Thanou series.

A decent continuation. I did like the Master Li/Number Ten Ox bit, although it wasn't really needed plot-wise.

Next up: Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge by Larry Correia. The last of my recent Baen Monthly bundle purchase.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next up, The Chestermarke Instinct by Joseph Smith Fletcher, awaiting in my TBR since long.

Finished The Chestermarke Instinct by Joseph Smith Fletcher. John Horbury, manager of Chestermarke's bank, in the old-world English village of Scarnham, vanishes overnight. The task of finding him taxes the skill of one of Scotland Yard's best men. A good piece of detective thriller, worth reading.

Next I'll read The Assistant Murderer by Dashiell Hammett.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

Next I'll read The Assistant Murderer by Dashiell Hammett.

Finished The Assistant Murderer by Dashiell Hammett. This short novellette is a crime story with an intricate plot and characters, and a surprise twist at the end.

Next up, Slant by Greg Bear.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge by Larry Correia. The last of my recent Baen Monthly bundle purchase.

Which turns out to be mostly by John Ringo. Who makes a decent job of it. I certainly whooshed through it.

From the forward, it seems that Larry edited out any explicit sex scenes, for which I am grateful.

Next up: Godspeed by Charles Sheffield.

[Cinisajoy]

Finished the Eric Clapton autobiography last night. Still reading Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg. That is my bathtub book at the moment.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Wildflower by Drew Barrymore.

Now reading The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson. I'm 18% through already and waiting for it to grab me...

[CRussel]

Finished Dark Threat (APA: Pilgrim's Rest), the 10th Miss Silver mystery from Patricia Wentworth. This is a lovely English Cozy where you very likely know who did it early on, but get to follow the process of Miss Silver as she quietly confounds the police and identifies the killer. This is, perhaps, not her best, with a bit of Deus ex Machina that isn't really properly set up, but still a quiet pleasure.

Next up, the MobileRead Book Club selection for this month, The Day of the Jackal.

[ATDrake]

Finished The Princeling of Nanjing by Ian Hamilton, 8th in his Ava Lee, Intrepid Chinese-Canadian Ex-Catholic Lesbian Forensic Accountant, international (mostly) non-murder investigative mystery adventure series. I'd gotten this pretty much when it came out and started reading it then, but then got distracted by cramming stuff for the Hugo nominations and later voting, and then kind of forgot I had it until Kobo started recommending the upcoming 9th novel, The Couturier of Milan, as a pre-order to me. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of disappointed that since #7 was The King of Shanghai, the titles aren't continuing down the royalty/aristocracy naming theme, especially since IIRC, Italian designers IRL do tend to have aristocratic connections thanks to the old nobility system being both widespread and lingering.

Anyway, this was another solidly enjoyable outing for Ava, who's been switching over from deceptively simple (but actually rather complicated) debt collection to a more stable way of life with allies and investment partners. One of whom has been trying to shift to a more stable way of life himself, separating at least some of his business from its original criminal roots onto a more legitimate and sustainable manufacturing route. Unfortunately, he himself has shady past alliances who won't let go, and when they start to pressure him in a way that could jeopardize his investments with Ava's projects, she starts looking into them, and that's just the start of the ensuing problems.

From the beginning, Ava's adventures have kind of straddled that shadowy border between legal and extra-legal, considering that her job has basically been to recover legitimately-operating clients' money that was taken by solitary embezzlers and fraud schemes. This sort of kicks it up a notch by tackling more widespread organized (but technically non-criminal) civil corruption in China and the UK and is an interesting look onto the sort of large-scale stuff that operates on a higher, better-connected, better-protected, and more politicized level than the essentially fly-by-night solo operators who got lucky whom she's dealt with before. It's good to see the depiction of the changing tactics Ava needs to evolve to apply pressure when the old ways that worked for her no longer quite do the job, keeping her adventures feeling fresh.

And there's even less repetition of the standard boilerplate about her favourite Moleskine notebooks and French-cuffed button-down-shirts with the modified Italian collars than in previous books. (Brooks Brothers didn't even get a namedrop this time around!)

Recommended as another enjoyable entry in the series if you've been following it. As ever, these books build on what went on before, both personally and professionally, and Ava's budding business with her friends and her family/girlfriend issues and potential new ally connections are further developed in the B-plots as well, so this is not a good jumping-on point for the series. But the prequel novella is available to read for free on Wattpad, courtesy of the author himself, and the books go on deep-discount at Kobo semi-regularly during holiday weekend sales (I finally have all of them thanks to a recent one), if you think you might like to give it a try.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Finished The Princeling of Nanjing by Ian Hamilton, 8th in his Ava Lee, Intrepid Chinese-Canadian Ex-Catholic Lesbian Forensic Accountant, international (mostly) non-murder investigative mystery adventure series.
<snip>

Recommended as another enjoyable entry in the series if you've been following it. As ever, these books build on what went on before, both personally and professionally, and Ava's budding business with her friends and her family/girlfriend issues and potential new ally connections are further developed in the B-plots as well, so this is not a good jumping-on point for the series. But the prequel novella is available to read for free on Wattpad, courtesy of the author himself, and the books go on deep-discount at Kobo semi-regularly during holiday weekend sales (I finally have all of them thanks to a recent one), if you think you might like to give it a try.

Another fun read, I can only hope the new one is available soon. (Amazon.ca is saying January 16. Too far, too far!) And glad to hear that the prequel is available for free. But if you have a good Kobo coupon, you can come pretty close to free.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Godspeed by Charles Sheffield.

A good villain, but more of a YA book than I was expecting.

Next up: The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters. Another adventure with Amelia Emmerson (nee Peabody).

[WT Sharpe]

Just finished Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood. The first of the tales, "Alphinland", I heard as a free audio download from Penguin House, and it intrigued me enough to download the ebook from my local library. The following two tales had a connection to the first, leading me to believe that the entire book would be interconnected, but such was not the case. This book is also known as Stone Mattress: Nine Wicked Tales, but perhaps rather than wicked, poignant should be the adjective. The last tale, "Torching the Dusties", was for me a most chilling one made more so by the comment of one of her characters that the depicted events are not without precedent in history.

Spoiler:

"Torching the Dusties" depicted a dystopian near-future where elderly care homes worldwide were being set ablaze by mobs angry that precious resources were being wasted in an effort to extend the lives of seniors that could be put to better use helping younger, more productive members of society.

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood is a very masterful collection. Highly recommended.

[Dngrsone]

Finished The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson. Not likely to read this one again.

I mean, I finished the book, but it really wasn't compelling, gripping or any other similar adjective. It just was.

Next up, Quite Contrary by Richard Roberts. Ought to be fun. Then I will likely go after that next Cherryh book.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Another fun read, I can only hope the new one is available soon. (Amazon.ca is saying January 16. Too far, too far!)

We did get The King of Shanghai about a month early, since Hamilton had finished it sooner than he expected and the publisher moved it up in their schedule, so maybe we'll get lucky again (and Kobo will have a good coupon promo when it's released).

And speaking of stuff I bought with Kobo coupons, finished Michael Ridpath's Where the Shadows Lie, 1st in his Fire & Ice series starring Magnus Jonson aka Ragnarsson, Intrepid Double Expat Icelandic-American Boston To Reyjavík Cop.

The premise of this is that over in Iceland, a murder has occurred which is sufficiently unusual (not being the usual obvious case of drunken stabbing or crime of passion or the like) that the Icelandic cops are asking for help. Meanwhile in Boston, Magnus has gotten involved in whistleblowing against a dirty cop and after experiencing at least one hit attempt, needs to be gotten out of the country to stay safe until he can testify. Being of first generation Icelandic immigrant descent, he still remembers enough about the language and culture to hopefully be the perfect fit over in Reykjavík and they can kill two birds with one stone by sending him there.

Anyway, this was a fairly enjoyable read which contrasted Icelandic and American culture, both crime-solving and otherwise. There was an interesting extrapolation of the possible influence of the Icelandic sagas and folklore on J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and some entertaining tidbits about the books and the surrounding fandom (the author gets the typical pedantic nerdfight vibe down), with trying to figure out clues from a potential suspect by asking fans to help translate some scraps of the elvish languages, and a lot of other nifty tidbits.

The case itself was a little convoluted and meandering, but unfolded well enough and made sense, at least on the Icelandic side, even if there was a bit of a feel of aiming for double red herring contrivance in places in order to tie a whole bunch of murders together (but then, Iceland is a pretty small place where probably everyone really does know—and kill!—everyone else). There was also some stuff from the Boston side as a lingering effect of why Magnus found himself sent away, but that tended to feel like a distracting intrusion onto the more interesting bits. But I suppose it did serve to illustrate the differences in his life and surrounding supporting cast then and now, and a reminder of what he was technically giving up and how it was affecting the people he'd left behind.

Medium recommend (medium-high if you're a Tolkien fan and would enjoy seeing significant references to his work incorporated into a murder mystery). A promising outing for a 1st-in-series where the characters and setting are still being established; somewhat flawed in places, but still a solid story. The author also includes a note in the back about the historicity of some of the stuff he mentions about Iceland and Tolkien, and he has a webpage set up with more info about the research that he did and a photo gallery of the locations that he used, which is a very nice touch (I'm rather tickled that the Icelandic translations of these books get first place on the international editions page). Despite a kind of bumpy start and a few spots where it seemed to drag, I ended up rather liking this one and I'm glad I picked up further installments in the series when they were on deep-discount sale.

Incidentally, for UK MR members who happen to use iTunes, this was a freebie last year and worth having a look at if you picked it up then and think you might enjoy a bi-cultural international police mystery with a detective plot which unfolds around some history/culture and fantasy literature references.

[Luffy]

I've been reading Words of Radiance for the past two weeks. I picked up many new things that I didn't notice on the first read. I'm at 75%. The book is better than I thought it was at first. It can easily go toe to toe with the first book in the series, The Way of Kings.