Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child

I read this May 2022, one that I'd not posted yet.  It will be the next movie on Amazon Prime in the Jack Reacher Series.  Published 2014, paperback has 477 pages and a Preview of Night School at the end.  It is another Jack Reacher at his best and involves the pulling back together the Old Army Unit who had each been hand picked back then by Reacher.  Someone is murdering the  members.  Reacher and the team will find and destroy that person(s).  

Chapter 1  begins with the description of Calvin Franz, the first victim although not identified as part of the team at first.  He was tortured, two broken legs, tossed from a helicopter.  On pages 23-24 Neagley informs Reacher about Calvin.  

Reacher has had to change some things from earlier novels.  Now instead of traveling only with this tooth brush he has  passport and ATM card.  It is different now post 9/11/2001. 

 Page 6 describes: how Reacher has had to change tactics and add this gear:

Page 16 recalls how Neagley had come up with the catchphrase, "You do not mess with the special investigators"  It had been repeated endlessly as a  promise and a warning.  Now someone clearly was trying.  

 Pages 202-203 describe something about the soldier's mindset about death..."  "It was given that soldiers contemplate death.  They live with it.  They accept it.  They expect it.  Some of them even want it.  But deep down they want it to be fair.  Me against him.  May the best man win.  They want it to be noble.  Win or lose, they want it to arrive with significance.      A soldier dead with his arms tied behind him was the worst kind of outrage.  It was about helplessness and submission and abuse.  It was about powerlessness."  

This is another bang up Reacher thriller.  5 ***** x 3.

The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer

    Still playing catch up, read this back in June 2022 and my final note was "WOW  x 10 a great read"  Paperback published 2021, 367 pages followed by 12 questions  for a reading group guide, and  Author Interview.  This was the first  book I had read by this author, I am interested in reading more of his books. 

Based on a true story with which I was  unfamiliar, the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa.  According to the author note on two pages, Vincent Peruggia was a Louvre employee who did steal the Mona Lisa.   

The book opens August 21, 1911 in Paris France where "He stares into the gloom, knowing he will spend the rest of his days in the darkness.    We lose the things we do not cherish enough, his one thought, his only thought as he slips into his workman's' tunic, buttons it over his street clothes and opens the closet door."  

By page 151, he realizes he's in deep.  "He rubbed his spidery fingers together and talked of his plan.  Chaudron would make copies.  He would sell them.  It was that simple.  The paintings would fetch a fortune.  And each one w3ould be sold as the original.  He said we would all become rich.    But all I wanted was enough money to get my son back. .....I had no choice but to go along.  I had made a pact with the devil.  And for that I would pay the devil's price."    

The writing draws the reader along.  I could hardly put this book aside,  thoroughly captive to what would happen next.  Yet there is also a philosophical tone to some of the pages.  Like page 255,  "But you know taking this crazy risk, it's almost like I've started over, like I'm somebody again.   I got that.  What Peruggia had wanted too, to be somebody.  What we all want, dreamed of as kids, before the world got too real and dreams got crushed."  . 

Page 313, "We were not always right, but that never stopped us.  Funny how far I thought I'd come.  But did we ever really leave our former selves behind?"  

The two page Author's Note at the conclusion of the book are here.  Blogger is not allowing me to get them set up side by side  so frustrating when things just do not work on this blog.  

But this is definitely a 5 ***** book, my highest rating.  I  will be reading more by this author, for sure.  . 

 
 

Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver

 Still playing catch up posting my 2022 reads onto this blog.  So my write up will be brief because too many books to add,  I read this in August 2022 although it was published in 2002, 548 pages paperback, I scooped it at a book sale.  Good books and good reading stand the test of years and Deaver's novels are usually worth reading at anytime for the suspense. This is an excellent intrigue  featuring forensics expert Lincoln Rhyme and his protégé and assistant,  Amelia..  This is a twister that  surprised me when Amelia is surprisingly drawn into the deceptive web of the Ghost whom they must capture. It was a bit slow starting out as it sets the stage about the Chinese smuggler of humans into the US.  The other concurrent question through the book is to learn whether or not Rhyme will go through with the surgery that might ease his quadriplegic state or might not.  It is a  risky  surgery.  By  page 111 we learn that the Ghost is so able to vanish partially because he has government contacts on his payoff schemes, adding to his veil of protection and making his capture more elusive and more dangerous.  While Amelia and Deaver strive to protect the Changs whom the Ghost is seeking as  witness to his crimes. 

 Sunny Li is a former detective police officer from China also seeking the Ghost against odds.  Rhymes decides to allow him to work with them at Amelia's urging.  Pages 330-331 are amusing as Li teaches Rhyme the Chinese strategy game of wei-chi.. .   

The ending is suspense as the elder Chang maneuvers and tricks his son and all  goes to kill the Ghost.  Will they get there in time to rescue him?   a 5 ***** read. 

Rediscover the Saints by Matthew Kelly

 One of several from last year 2022 and one that I would not normally post to the reading blog as I will keep it on my Biblical Spiritual resources shelf.  Our parish made these available  free to us and I appreciated that.  Recently though I decided to gift a copy to a Protestant friend in NC who recently posted on FB about  reading a book on St Teresa.  This little book i118 pages, paperback s not one of just describing the lives of saints. .  Matthew Kelly poses 25 questions and using examples of saints guides us along. 

 In his introduction, "Amazing Possibilities" Page 9, he offers two questions that confront us all still today and have to people throughout the ages:   Are you satisfied with the direction the world is moving in?  .  Are you satisfied with your life?   He introduces this with reminding us that we are capable of so much more than we think.  Page 11 he mentions that the saints are great teachers and are always swirling around us.  This is something I grew up believing, exposed to saints all my life by Church, Catechism, and most of all my grandmother.  I still have  my favorite go to saints today, perhaps the top is St Anthony whom I refer to as Tony.  IO say we are on a first name basis because I call on him constantly when I've misplaced something.  There is a little prayer which has become familiar to many even Protestants, St Anthony, St Anthony please come round,   something is lost and must be found."  So I just call on Tony and drop  the search I might have been into looking for whatever.  He never fails me, it always turns up sometimes immediately sometimes  later in the day, sometimes the next day.  

The Table of Contents follows.  

This is the  beginning with the First Saint, someone  whom I had not considered ever before as the first saint, Dismays, the name was not familiar.  But aha at the conclusion of this one, the thief on the cross ..  

Page 8, concludes St Dismas, ...They say that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.  If I could lean in close to you and whisper something in your ear it would be this:  "If there are pieces of your past that are weighing you down it's time ...."

If I were to rate this  it would be  5 ***** but as  I mentioned it has a permanent place now on my resources shelf.  It is more than casual reading, one to ponder from time to time.