A Book a Week

Finished September 29, 2022 I have developed an intolerance for writing that's stiff, obvious, lazy, woke, pandering, or self-conscious. It's not difficult for me to find a book I enjoy, but I don't run in to modern fiction that impresses me very often.  I think I've found a new favorite author.   I saw this book sitting on a towering table of books at Costco. At the time, our family was in a belt-tightening mode, and I wasn't going to shell out $25 for a novel, especially considering the state of novels nowadays. But I couldn't get the story line out of my mind, and eventually bought the 9-hour audiobook.  Centered around a blended family, the story unfolds as they bribe a couple of dudes in rural coastal Australia to allow them to spend a brief, under-the-radar visit to the family's small private island a short ferry-ride away. Things take a turn for the worse as the husband, a widower and newlywed with his second wife and two teen kids along for a ride, u...

Finished 9/25/2022 

 Finished September 24, 2022 This is a tech/adventure thriller along the lines of Jurassic World, but with more mind-bending time-travel plot twists. Some of the technological explanations about how the scientists figured out how to send someone back in time (and eventually bring them back) were over my head and I had to skim. But overall, an intriguing idea for a book and the story was well-told.  Six scientists (or actually five scientists and one venture capitalist) invent a machine that will deliver packages to consumers instantaneously. But it doesn't work. The packages go to a different time instead. So how to make the technology profitable? Use it in place of the death sentence. Send prisoners on death row back to the time of dinosaurs to fend for themselves and live out their days (however many they might have) in isolation, away from society.  The problem arises when one of the six scientists is murdered and another is accused of the murder. With his teenage daug...

 Finished September 22, 2022

 Finished September 8, 2022

 Finished September 4, 2022 This thriller from the master storyteller, John Grisham, did not disappoint. Set in lovely Italian towns and cities -- as well as Washington DC -- it tells the story of a lobbyist known as The Broker who gets a little greedy and ends up running for his life.  After six years in a Federal penitentiary, Joel Backman is suddenly pardoned by a lame-duck president. The CIA relocates him to Bologna, Italy, gives him an apartment (bugged, of course), a wardrobe, a little money, and an Italian tutor, then sits back to see who will kill him. Candidates include the Israelis, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians. This will tell the CIA which of them bought a very sophisticated surveillance program that uses existing satellites in a new way, the brainchild of three Pakistanis who are all now dead. But Joel isn't stupid, and despite the fact that he's not a trained spy, he not only eludes them all, but escapes back to the U.S. to turn over the software to...