What are you currently reading?

[QualityBookReviews]

An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.

[Barbara C. Johnson]

Never heard of it.  Will take a look.  Thanks.

[I. J. Parker]

THE YORKIST AGE is very good, but it's non-fiction, in case anyone wonders.

[Joy Calderwood]

I don't usually read social history, but Kendall's biographies set in that age are extremely high quality, so I'm reading THE YORKIST AGE for the author.

[Juri Nummelin]

Just finishing Jason Starr's TOUGH LUCK, which I hadn't previously read, even though I like Starr very, very much. This is another contemporary noir classic.

[I. J. Parker]

Andrew Taylor, THE SUFFOCATING NIGHT.  British police procedural which also attempts to be a cozy (at least in setting and character selection).  Perhaps that is what did not quite work for me.

[I. J. Parker]

As soon as I finished Taylor, I turned to Michael Gregorio, UNHOLY AWAKENING.  I should have know better. A few months ago I fell for their (husband and wife) CRITIQUE OF CRIMINAL REASON.  The title got me.  It sounds brainy.

I tossed that one and also tossed this one. In my view, Michael Taylor can't write.  It's a matter of language; in this case it is extraordinarily wordy, overblown, and apparently totally unedited.  One wonders how it got published.  Indeed, how three novels got published.  Readers don't seem to mind?  Well, it has vampires, I think.  :)

[Kemosabe]

I’m having a big problem with Elizabeth George’s WELL-SCHOOLED IN MURDER. The author has tremendous talent but goes off on so many tangents it is had to concentrate of the crime
solving. Her two protagonists are fine and their character development is
desired but it seems ever other character has a long tragic history that the
author seems compelled to tell us about which has little or nothing to do with
the story. This is like pages and pages of anguished back story along with
pages of scenery describing every nut and bolt and where they were manufactured
and mined and the poor miners who mined it.

[I. J. Parker]

George writes lengthy novels, but as a rule Havers and Linley, plus some minor characters make up for that.

[Kemosabe]

They are very good, what little I see of them. Still I find myself skipping over at least two thirds of the novel.

[I. J. Parker]

Yes,I get a bit bogged down and did wonder about the editing of her novels.  Of course, when you get that successful, the publishers don't mind the expense of paper.

On her last, which seemed very long to me, I felt so comfortable in the beginning that I was willing to go along with her. Hers are among the books one likes to go back to after stopping for a while.

[Suzanne]

I think that, in addition to the plot and likable characters, that she wants to comment on social issues, such as class in the UK, crime, racism, sports heroes, etc.  What's nice is that she sees the complexity in these issues and doesn't come down predictably conservative or liberal.  Maybe this is one of the reasons that she needs more words.

[I. J. Parker]

Well now, wasn't it in the last one I just wrote about that she was preaching to the reader about the poor teens who ended up committing a torture murder of a toddler because their parents didn't love them?  That novel really got to me, especially since one of them grew up to such a nice person.  It offends against believability and strikes me as far out liberal.  It also offends my sense of justice.