Author: Brian J. Noggle

I know, what’s next, book reports on Dell mini mags? But I read this book and it’s 96 pages, so it’s thicker than some of the tracts I’ve covered here. It’s a tiny little octo or whatever you would call it with a number of crime-related puzzles. You’re supposed to figure them out and look up the answer in the back to see if you’re right. The book’s stories are split between logic puzzles, the kind you’re supposed to draw grids for and mark off the inferences from a finite number of statements of fact such as “One of the suspects is a liar,” and the more Encyclopedia Brownish spot-the-inconsistencies. I prefered the latter, mainly because I read this in bed often and didn’t have pen and paper to do the logic puzzles.

I paid a quarter for it at a book fair (Carondolet 2006? Oh, it’s so hard to tell). It’s worth it if you can get a cheap copy if you remember Encyclopedia Brown fondly.

This is the new Spenser novel, released this week. I read it. Atypically for me, I read it over the course of two nights. Normally, it only takes one, but I completed The Night Crew, so I didn’t get a good run at it.

This book is another one featuring April Kyle, also of Ceremony and Taming a Seahorse. Like the Paul Giacomin cycle, these are trilogies of sorts. This time, April Kyle is back in Boston and is running a franchise brothel for Patricia Utley. When some men come along and want to take the business away from her, she turns to Spenser.

He has to investigate to find out who the men are and why they’re after April’s business. He finds that everyone’s lying to him, including April, and has to hang in there to find out the real story.

It’s a pretty good book, I guess, but after 20 years, it’s very familiar; the Sandford book was different in that I didn’t know what to expect. With this one, I knew pretty much how it would go and realized the storyline pretty early. Still, I shall always be loyal and serve Robert B. Parker as my master.

As you know, I have discovered that I like John Sandford’s novels; I’ve reviewed a couple of Kidd novels and a couple of the Lucas Davenport novels. Last week, I assembled a couple more book cases so I could spread out my to-read shelves (now comprising more thn three complete bookshelves), and this book emerged.

Within, a freelance news crew in LA works at night to find and film news. After one excursion in which they film an animal rights raid on a university lab and a jumper, someone starts shooting members of the crew. Someone seems obsessed with Anna, the leader of the group, and is killing the potential rivals in his sick pursuit of her.

Wow, you can sum books up pretty simply if you just tell the plot. Fortunately, this book has more to it; the main character has depth, the auxilliary characters have depth and individual agenda. I was interested in it and the book flowed nicely. It probably could even have done without the “eye of the mad criminal” inserts that Sandford threw in like eveyone does these days.

However, the climax was kinda tacked on and didn’t build any sort of excitement that made it worthwhile. A climactic shootout at a farmhouse. Ho hum. I actually put the book down in the middle of the drama and picked it up the next night. So the payoff could have been improved, but the denouement satisfied me.

So Sandford continues to prove worthy of the bucks I spend on his books. If I ever catch up with him, I might have to buy his books new, and that’s the best compliment I can give an author.

Well, it’s been a year and a half since I read a Robert Crais novel (The Forgotten Man). I’d even forgotten this book existed, since it was behind a wall of unread books on my to read shelves. Now that I have a couple extra book cases, I have spread these books out, and it appeared.

I wasn’t that pleased with Crais’s later offerings leading up to this book, but I was very happy with this book. It centers on a convicted bank robber getting out and integrating into society. However, on the day before he gets out, his estranged son, an LAPD officer, is gunned down. The official story doesn’t make sense, and the ex-con turns to the FBI agent who put him away, now retired, for help.

Together, they try to find out why four police officers allowed someone to come up to them in a secluded riverbed without suspicion. They determine that the officers were looking for sixteen million dollars in unrecovered bank heist loot. Once they found it, a fifth man eliminated his partners. Someone in the police force wants the ex-con to be re-con to protect himself and his retirement.

The pace moves along well, the characters are interesting, and I rather liked the book. I got it as a gift from my beautiful wife, and it’s probably worth the money if you want to click the link below.

And based on this book, maybe I’ll even read any new Elvis Cole novels.