11-07-2017, 05:47 PM | #26566 |
Wizzard
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Finally caught up with a number of latest-available series installments for various police procedural mysteries. Given that they seem to currently be the best-known bestselling Nordic Noir authors for their respective countries, it was interesting to contrast Adler-Olsen and Nesbø's styles after having read both their books in quick succession. Adler-Olsen loves playing “eh, most of these people are guilty of something, now why don't you try and figure out exactly what”, while Nesbø wades straight into the red herring pool of “these persons' activities look really, really suspicious, but there's actually an innocuous explanation for most of them and someone else is probably the culprit instead”.
IMHO, the original title of Selfies for Jussi Adler-Olsen's latest Department Q novel The Scarred Woman worked much better thematically with the case inside, which was (hopefully satirical) look at the dark side of the Danish welfare system. Frankly, the story was more interesting when it came to the personal developments for supporting character Rose, whose mysterious backstory has been hinted at for a number of previous installments. Though it was pretty entertaining watching a number of characters try to plot murders upon each other, with varying degrees of success. As for Jo Nesbø's The Thirst, it was a typical Harry Hole novel, with a little extra focus on a contrasting cop team also handling the case, since there had to be some build-up to get Harry onto it after some developments in the previous novel which made it look like a happily ever after series wrap-up. I do wonder if it's meant to be quasi-allegorical to Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun's classic The Hunger, given that Nesbø sometimes draws upon other influences in his work (Jesus for The Son and IIRC, Les Misérables for Midnight Sun, and he's got a Macbeth retelling coming up). Anyway, I liked the continuing extended glimpses of various Harry-adjacent characters, and the case had interesting aspects even though the type of killer it initially appears to be is rather cliché. Leena Lehtolainen's Before I Go was a more mature entry in her gradually-translated Maria Kallio series (only around 6 or 7 behind the Finnish originals now, and on sale for just $1.99 each from AmazonCrossing this month), with Maria dealing with more in the way of office politics and public service corruption and work-life balance issues as she climbs the career ladder, and also coming to certain realizations about the somewhat reckless risk-taking she's been engaging in for much of the series. The case, involving the seemingly hate crime-motivated murder of a prominent gay politician, provided an interesting look at retro Finnish societal attitudes towards LGBT persons and alternative lifestyles, which are sadly kind of unprogressed from that mid-90s state in other countries today. Overall, solid but not stellar entries nicely continuing their respective series, worth looking at for ongoing character developments if you've already been following them, and some interesting aspects to their various cases if you've been thinking of giving them a try at some point. |
11-09-2017, 05:28 PM | #26567 |
Wizzard
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Finished a few more books from the library. Firstly, the graphic novel adaptation of The Mystery Knight, a novella in George R. R. Martin's Dunk & Egg prequel spin-off of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, was pretty nice. This had the same adaptation team as the previous ones, out from a different publisher before being reprinted by the new one, and the script and art by Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller were done just as well as before. A little disappointingly, this didn't have any extras in the back. While this was released all at once rather than gradually as separate issues so there couldn't be a cover gallery, it would have been nice to see some concept or other sketches like the previous volumes had.
Just now, Ben Aaronovitch's Moon Over Soho, 2nd in his Rivers of London police procedural urban fantasy series, which I bought the 1st for during a sale a while ago but didn't get around to reading until the series was nominated for the Hugo Awards. While this was an engaging enough read with an interesting look at the historical London jazz scene as well as fleshing out the magic system a bit more, I'm still not yet convinced it's really a Best Series candidate, since this installment wasn't quite compelling enough for me to sit down and read all at once instead of on-and-off during bus rides over a couple of weeks. But possibly it levels up in later books and I'm willing to persuaded and I did pre-emptively grab the novella once it went on deep-discount sale. In between, redeemed some Kobo points to get Elsewhere, the latest in Barbara Hambly's self-published Further Adventures novelettes continuing her various series with new shorts, this one for her Darwath fantasy setting. While it didn't seem quite as good storywise as the two previous Darwath shorts, it did make some nifty use of the setting's possibilities and we saw a bit of catch-up on whatever happened to some important antagonists from the original trilogy, as well as continuing developments with both familiar and newly introduced characters. Overall I liked it and hope she writes more, hopefully at intervals of less than three years between them, in the future. |
11-10-2017, 01:00 AM | #26568 | |
Is that a sandwich?
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Next, another library book, The Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan. |
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11-10-2017, 05:01 AM | #26569 |
Genre Jumper
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Decided to take a chance on Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra by Christopher & Anne Rice. Mixed feelings so far.
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11-10-2017, 01:28 PM | #26570 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Just finished Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly and it was a typically excellent Harry Bosch novel. And the Lincoln Lawyer was also in it. Highly recommend it.
Next up Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. Gotta Read the book before I see the movie which just opened. |
11-10-2017, 01:54 PM | #26571 |
Home Guard
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I want to see the movie too, but that mustache! It looks like a Sam Elliot mustache rather than a Poirot mustache.
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11-10-2017, 02:32 PM | #26572 | |
Readaholic
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Apache |
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11-10-2017, 09:29 PM | #26573 |
Almost legible
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Finished The Dragons of Nova by Elise Kova and The Girl with All the Gifts (Audio) by M. R. Carey.
Now Listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, not decided what to read on the tablet yet, though conveniently enough, I just got a new Gillian Flynn book from the library. |
11-12-2017, 12:32 AM | #26574 | |
(he/him/his)
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11-12-2017, 12:49 PM | #26575 |
David
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Waiting for the Forsaken Throne in the Kingfountain series (Fantasy) by Jeff Wheeler to get out. Two days left until release. I had to re-read book 5 (The silent shield) to get up to speed, finished it during the weekend.
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11-12-2017, 06:35 PM | #26576 | |
Wizzard
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Anyway, finished some more Barbara Hambly, since I finally got a package which turned out to be merely severely delayed in the mail. Apparently, her Benjamin January historical mystery series is up to novel #15, as of the latest installment, Murder in July. This was one of the less common types of cases, where there's a clue which seems to tie into an event in January's specific personal past which shows up to haunt him, with a nice dual investigation switching between his old Paris days (this time, during one of France's semi-periodic attempts at revolution) and his New Orleans present until he manages to piece things together. I quite liked this one, which gave an extended glimpse of characters whom we normally only see in brief mentions or memory flashbacks, and the solution to the mystery was unexpected, as was the outcome of one of the case threads, which I was hoping would end in a more positive place, but eh, c'est la vie, I guess. And the obligatory attempted peril and impetus to keep Our Hero on the case when common sense tells him not to poke at dangerous things, but also place obstacles in his way, is at least done a little differently, this time around. Also redeemed some more Kobo points for another one of her “Further Adventures” self-published novelettes, Hazard, continuing her Sun Wolf & Starhawk fantasy series starring former mercenaries who get involved with learning magic. IIRC, this one is shorter than the two previous novelettes, but was a self-contained domestic case adventure presenting a problem with an unorthodox but fitting solution using just the space it needed to be told, with a nice callback to certain thematic elements of the original novel trilogy, and some guest star appearances for supporting characters. Overall, solid continuations of both series, which I hope to see more of eventually. |
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11-13-2017, 07:22 AM | #26577 | |
The Grand Mouse 高貴的老鼠
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Next up: Krondor: The Betrayal by Raymond E. Feist. Bought ages ago, and about time I read it. I like this series, even if these are fill-in novels. Last edited by pdurrant; 11-14-2017 at 05:59 AM. |
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11-13-2017, 08:22 AM | #26578 | |
Wizard
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I had to look it up on wikipedia last week, so I could refresh my memory prior to heading into Forever Free, which is what I'm reading now. It seems fine, although it doesn't have the impact of FW, and doesn't so far feel like it needs to be a sequel to that book. |
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11-13-2017, 02:58 PM | #26579 |
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Listened to The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley whilst unpacking (ALMOST DONE)!
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11-14-2017, 04:13 AM | #26580 |
The Couch Potato
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After breaking a long spell of aversion to read long books, I finally finished today Properties of expanding universes by Stephen Hawking. It was actually his doctoral thesis obtained from the library of the University of Cambridge. I was holding this book in my TBR since ages, and now found it to be the appropriate route to begin my reading journey again. I must confess I spent maximum time of last one and a half month watching TV shows, thus seriously hampering my reading target for the year. But who cares, if I enjoyed the TV shows?
Next, I have bought today the recently published thriller Origin by Dan Brown. I hope it will bring me back to the world of fiction. |
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