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.

[K.R. Lewis]

"The Fourth Watcher" by Timothy Hallinan. Halfway through it...excellent, excellent, excellent!

[carole gill]

I like blasts from the past currently.
I just started Chester Hime's IF HE HOLLERS, LET HIM GO. It's one tough book, boy.
Hime's first novel. A passionate, angry novel of an African American man who is employed in a defense plant in Los Angeles during World War Two.
The thing that strikes me the most is the basic point of the whole thing: while a war was being fought, the main character Bob Jones finds himself embroiled in a war in his native country. It's one of the most powerful novels I have ever read.

[I. J. Parker]

Finally got a copy of CHILD 44 from the library. Read about half, found it utterly boring and merely sentional and gave up. This in no way resembles GORKY PARK (to which it is compared on the jacket), but is merely an attempt to buy into the taste for gory tales. In addition it's badly organized. The story of the serial killings of children is not connected with the story of the KGB investigator and his wife until later (well, past where I stopped -- I hope there's some connection). In essence, it relies on multiple little horror stories, mostly over the top of believability even in Stalinist Russia.

[I. J. Parker]

Booker Prize? I thought I saw it listed for something somewhere. Nothing really. It didn't win, did it?

[I. J. Parker]

Ah, thanks. In some ways, it's a very busy book, and there's a bit of character work on the marriage of the protagonist, but it didn't work well for me. I particularly disliked the emphasis on on making the incidents as horrible as possible. That's the sort of thing you normally find in cheap thrillers.
Mind you, I have a lot of respect for Booker Prize winners as a rule.

[I. J. Parker]

I see it didn't make the Booker shortlist. Someone else must have found it wanting.

[I. J. Parker]

Well, as I said the marriage part was more interesting, but somehow it did not feel believable. Human nature is to escape at all cost. And ignoring your responsibilities to a beloved wife because of job pressures was also hard to take. And -- as I skipped to the end: all was ultimately forgiven and they lived happily ever after. Hmm.

[Karyn J. Powers]

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. Put it on your list if you'd like to taste hope in our daily dose of dispair/war/economy news.

[Joy Calderwood]

SOMEBODY ELSE'S MUSIC by Jane Haddam. This series keeps acquiring more and more depth. Oh do I love watching this gang of school bullies getting their come-upance, not to mention getting scathingly analyzed. I also enjoyed meeting young Mark DeAvecca. I already read his own mystery THE HEADMASTER'S WIFE, which comes later in the series.

[I. J. Parker]

Just finished Upadhyay's THE GURU OF LOVE. I picked it up partially because the author is Asian-American (Nepal), and partially because of the title. It turned out to be an excellent book about a gentle schoolteacher who succumbs to one of his students while desperately trying to hold on to his family.
Just started a Jack Reacher novel (BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE). As all classic Lee Child thrillers, it starts with a shocking murder. Granted, these books are formula, but they are very well done, both in character type of the protagonist (take note that both men and women adore Jack Reacher) and plotting. So they are a bit over the top. Who cares, when you keep turning the pages?

[Torch]

I am currently reading Wastelands-Stories of the Apocolypse edited by John Joseph Adams. It is a collection of short stories. I love to read how different authors in the book deal with the "end of the world"...as we know it.

[Karen from AustCrime]

I've not been around here much recently - my life seems to be obsessed with how much stuff I can fit in what sized moving box, and where the hell I'm going to put everything when we finally get this move on the road. Still - I have been reading.

JF The Secret Lovers by Charles McCarry - I think I'll have to think about that one for a while. It's a spy thriller, more of a character study, and it was very elaborate.

JF Sawbones by Stuart MacBride. What is it about this man that can make gruesome so readable and dare I say funny on occasions. It's just not right.... well it's good, but I wonder what sort of sick bunny I've turned into.

NU will be The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe, which my next door neighbour delivered to me last night muttering darkly about gory and what WAS I thinking when I suggested she buy it .... LOL

After that I'm hoping to read one of Adrian McKinty's books - probably Bloomsday Dead.