ALL MY PHOTOS HAVE VANISHED FROM THIS BLOG! WTH?????

 Today I see that all my photos have vanished from this blog from every post from my sidebar from the heading!  WTH happened????.  All I know is I cannot replace each one of them.  I will try to add a new header photo but I am so disgusted with this and Blogger that I may just give up and totally forget about this BL:OG./  

Better Off Dead by Lee Child and Andrew Child

 

This had been sitting aside on my shelf,  read it a year ago, January 2022!  A joint Jack Reacher by Lee and Andrew Child.  As ever a 5 *****  although this might not be my favorite.  Still a Jack Reacher intrigue, mystery, thriller, no words really describe the breadth of this collaborative effort between Lee and his brother.  

 I regret that I did not keep all my copies  that I read over the years and now have been scouring book sales and thrift stores to replace them.  Unfortunately due to the Prime movies on Amazon the popularity of Reacher has been discovered by many new  readers so the books are always snatched up.  I do not mind another reader finding the books first, but I really despise those resellers who grab the bargains and then list  or resell on Ebay, etc.  Greedy suckers. So I have begun to repurchase new paperbacks on Amazon, copies of what I had before.   But enough of my rant. 

This one is set in Los Gemelos, a ho hum town on the US Mexican border.  Not the place Reacher was planning to stop.  He's on his way to San Francisco, to the ocean. But things happen and as he reaches the outskirts where Reacher is passing through on his way to San Francisco.  Reaching the outskirts he encounters Michaela Fenton, she has some things ion common with him, a military vet, an  FBI looking for her twin brother Michael whom she fears may be dead.  She is almost 6 ft. tall and walks with a limp  due to a prosthetic foot a result of a war injury.  And being Reacher he stays on to assist and soon knows he will have to clean up the town.  

Page 7..."  Because the stranger countered with a kick of his own.  A sneaky one.  Straight and low.  Directly into the guy's shin.  Just as it reached maximum speed.  Bone against toe cap.  The stranger's shoes.  The only thing about him that wasn't scruffy.  Bought in London years ago.  Layer upon layer of leather and polish and glue.  Seasoned by time. Hardened by the elements .  And now solid as steel."    In other novels Jack's shoes have been described and here they are prominent in the opening setting.  

And the conclusion seemed off, as Reacher  watches Dendoneker depart in his Cadillac. But the Cadillac  stops, then rolls forward barely "above  walking pace.  Its horn blared.  It trundled on Stewed slightly to the left.  And ran into a fence post."  

I am  really condensing this review to get this posted here before I put it off longer.  

  

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. 

Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler

       Published in 2020, 178 pages paperback.  I  found this gem at a local book sale and read it in August.  Here end of year with a stack of books I've read and not blogged.  I am trying to get busy before year end.  This was a delightful book, packed with details about ordinary type characters who might not be given a second thought.  It is touching and  a good story as Anne Tyler usually writes. The back cover summarizes this well, so I include that here.  A review from Oprah magazine said, "..realism has been so pervasive a style that it is easy to forget it is a style.  One of its flawless practitioners is Anne Tyler.."  The book has touches of humor along with the heart stirring  feelings it creates for the reader.  

The book begins, "You have to wonder what goes through the mind of a man like Micah Mortimer.  He lives alone; he keeps to himself; his routine is etched in stone. At 7:15 every morning you see him out on his run.  Along about 10 or 10:30 he slaps the magnetic TECH HERMIT sign onto the roof of his Kia.  The times he leaves on his calls will vary but not a day seems to go by without several clients requiring his services."  It could lead a reader, unfamiliar with Anne Tyler to think this might be a boring book.  But her gift is in the ordinary.  

Page 26 reveals how the book got it's title. " When Micah went on his runs he never wore his glasses.  He hated to feel them bobbing up and down on his nose, which was why.  He hated how they grew steamy when he sweated.  This was unfortunate, because in the past few years his distance vision had noticeably worsened.  Not that he was going blind or anything it was just that her was getting old, as his optometrist so tactlessly put it.  At night the lane markers on the streets were all but invisible and just last week he had whacked a black spider that turned out to be a tangle of sewing thread.  On the homeward stretch this morning, he made his usual mistake of imagining for a second that a certain fire hydrant, faded to the pinkish color of an aged clay flowerpot, was a child or a very short grown up...."  Perhaps because I too have needed glasses and identify with the symptoms I found this amusing.  But this is just one example of the author's ability to detail the ordinary and evoke identification, humor, an oh yes from the reader.  

A boy, a young man, Brink Adams shows up at his stoop and pursues his introduction.  He is the son of a college friend, Lorna Bartell, now a lawyer but not someone with whom Micah has kept any contact.  Brink needs a place to stay, which surprises Micah who  takes him in.    

Some people get into trouble by talking too much, not so with Micah, his words are few and sometimes his silence in under appreciate nor is his humor.  Cass his kind of "girlfriend" is leaving his apartment and he tries to humor her,  Pg 49, "Aw now, he said teasing her.  "Why do that when you've got a car of your own you can live in?    But this didn't make her smile.  She just closed the door behind her and left him standing alone in the kitchen.....He ought to fetch Brink some sheets he supposed.  Then he would relocate to his bedroom. Ordinarily he hung out on his couch and played solitaire on his phone in the evenings but not tonight.  Not with an audience, so to speak.  That was the trouble with houseguests, they took over a person's space.  They seeped into all the corners."  

All's well that ends well    Page 148,   A 5 ***** read