Book Recommendation – Close to Death – Anthony Horowitz

I finally got my hands on a new release by an author I have come to really enjoy – Anthony Horowitz. I stumbled on him because of a couple Sherlock Holmes themed books he wrote. From there, I stumbled on his Hawthorne and Horowitz series. You can read about those a bit here:

Reading Recommendations

Here is the link to another Horowitz book:

Book Recommendation: Moonflower Murders

For those keeping track, the Hawthorne/Horowitz book series is now up to five.

The Word is Murder (Book 1), The Sentence is Death (Book 2), A Line to Kill (Book 3), The Twist of a Knife (Book 4) and now the latest in the series:

I have said before that I sometimes got bored with a series featuring the same character because the books tend to recap the previous books I had read. While Horowitz will elude briefly to bits from past books, it isn’t so bad that it takes away from the one you are reading.

I really do enjoy this series a lot and this book was a bit different then the previous ones. In the first four books, Horowitz is following Hawthorne and writing a book about a case he is on. This time around, he is writing about a case from the past. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

It has characters that make you wonder just what they are up to, the atmosphere of a “locked room mystery” except its in a gated community, deep dark secrets, and a lot of twists and turns!

Highly recommend! 5 stars!

I’m a Winner!

My wife called me on her way to work this week and said that I had received a package. I told her I hadn’t ordered anything. She told me what the return address was and said it felt like a book.

I started to think about whether or not I had preordered a book awhile back. Nope. I told her it must be something someone is sending me for my birthday or something. My brother will send stuff every once in awhile from Amazon. Sam told me it wasn’t an Amazon box. I was stumped. It wasn’t until I thought more about it being a book that I wondered if maybe I had won one from Goodreads.

Since joining Goodreads, I always look at the free book giveaways. I don’t enter them all, but the ones that sound good to me I will put in an entry. I logged in and looked at my “Entered Giveaways” and began to scroll. Sure enough, I was chosen as a winner for a book. Next to the book on the site there was a box that said, “I have received my book.” When it arrives, you click on it.

I don’t win stuff often, and many of these giveaways have thousands of entries. I’m sure I will be posting a review when I finish…. Here is the book:

Book Recommendation: The Day Tripper

Slowly, but surely, I am working through my “Want to read” list. I just finished one that I almost stopped reading after the first chapter. It begins with a couple in their 20’s who are in the early stages of their relationship. Their cheesy “lovey dovey” exchanges were a bit over the top for me. However, once the story gets going, I was hooked.

The book is by James Goodhand and it is called The Day Tripper.

“Another time-travel book, Keith?! Really?!” Well, yes, but it has a very unique spin on it. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

The right guy, the right place, the wrong time.

It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames.

He wakes the next day to find he’s in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn’t recognize, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s older—much older—and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010—fifteen years since the fight.

After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river.

But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge, and Holly? In this thrilling adventure, Alex must navigate his way through the years to learn that small actions have untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.

This reminded me a bit of Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place, Wrong Time in the sense that it was not your typical time travel story. In Wrong Place, Wrong Time, the main character just keeps going backwards in time. With The Day Tripper, the main character has no idea where or when he is going to be when he wakes up. He is living the days of his life – just not in chronological order.

One of my favorite quotes in the book was “The worst our enemies can do is turn us into them.” This quote really struck me and plays into the plot of the story. Reviews I read before picking it up compared the story to the Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap. I think you will enjoy it.

Book Recommendation: The Final Witness – Paul Landis

It seems that I have been reading a lot of non-fiction lately. It isn’t anything deliberate, it just happens to be the way the books I have “on hold” have become available. The latest is on a topic that has fascinated me for years – The JFK Assassination.

The assassination happened seven years before I was born. My grandmother had saved newspapers from the week after he was killed. She had some books on the events as well. In school, I remember the first research report I ever wrote was on the assassination.

I have read many of the books surrounding the event and have heard almost every conspiracy theory involved with it. When I saw this book come up on Goodreads, I naturally had to read it. Believe it or not, there was one thing in this book that I had never heard before.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. The president is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns.

Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He is inside Trauma Room #1, where the president is pronounced dead. He is on Air Force One with the president’s casket on the flight back to Washington, DC; an eyewitness to Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office.

What he saw is indelibly imprinted upon his psyche. He writes and files his report. And yet . . . Agent Landis is never called to testify to the Warren Commission. The one person who could have supplied key answers is never asked questions.

By mid-1964, the nightmares from Dallas remain, and he resigns. It isn’t until the fiftieth anniversary that he begins to talk about it, and he reads his first books on the assassination.
Landis learns about the raging conspiracy theories—and realizes where they all go wrong.

Admittedly, I had hoped for a lot more about the events of that day. The author doesn’t really get into November 22, 1963 until a little over halfway through the book. He spends time explaining how he came to be a Secret Service agent and how he eventually was assigned to the White House and Mrs. Kennedy. There were some really enlightening stories about her and the reader gets a glimpse into what she was like behind the scenes.

Once he gets to the events that lead up to the trip to Dallas, things get really interesting. For months after the assassination, he would keep seeing it over and over again. I cannot imagine the trauma that the Secret Service men experienced that day and the days afterward. Eventually, it became to much and he resigns.

The most interesting thing to me was that he distanced himself from that day in Dallas for years! He never read any of the books (including the Warren Commission Report), watched any of the TV coverage and TV specials, he avoided it all. It wasn’t until recently that he began to discuss it and that led to this book.

Does the book add to the many conspiracy theories? Maybe a little. Does the book clear up questions about the assassination? Well, it cleared up one for me.

If you like historical non-fiction, or are interested in the JFK assassination, I think you will enjoy this one.

Book Recommendation: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Perhaps I should have thought twice about using the title “Book Recommendation” to blog about books I’ve read. Why? Because every so often I’ll read a book that I’m not sure whether I’d call my post a “recommendation.” That’s the case with this book. Many of the reviews I read praised this book. I am not sure it lived up to the praise. It’s not that it was bad … I just was left disappointed. I’ll explain more in a minute.

So before I get into it, let me share the Goodreads synopsis:

Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. “I nearly missed you, Doctor August,” she says. “I need to send a message.” This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

Interesting concept, right? It peaked my interest. I have had great success in the past with books that have a neat premise. This book had a lot of potential, but it never really did much. The book tells the story of Harry, who is a man who never really dies. Well, ok, he does, however after he dies, continues to relive his life over and over again. One Goodreads review described it to be like “Groundhog Day,” but instead of reliving the same day over and over, Harry is reborn after death in the same time and place every time.

So basically, he repeatedly has to start his life over as a child even though he has the memories and knowledge of many years and lifetimes. Toward the beginning of the book, Harry is given a message that the “world is ending” and that is happening faster than it should. It seems that he is the one who can stop it from happening. To me, this sets up an exciting read, but instead I thought it was a slow read.

Perhaps it was slow because Harry and the rest of the characters are kind of bland. You’d think that if this guy had fifteen lives, there would be a bit more character development. At the same time, the main character is usually someone you like or are rooting for (unless the main character is evil and then it is sort of the opposite). In this story, I really never felt like there was any character I liked.

I am not sure why I was under the impression that this would be sort of a time-travel type story, and it technically isn’t. There are, however, many time-travel-related plot holes that would come up as I read (Maybe I’ve watched Back to the Future too many times and these things bugged me) that left me with questions.

There were so many good reviews about this book. Maybe I am missing something. I listened to the audio book and found myself re-listening to segments. That’s not odd, because every now and then I will reread a passage in a book to make sure I get what is going on. I really wanted to like it more than I did. I say that because this is simply my opinion. Maybe you will read it and say, “Keith has no idea what he is talking about! This book is great!” If that is the case, please let me know! To me, the book has an very interesting but poorly executed premise that could have been something so much more.

Book Recommendation: The Little Liar – Mitch Albom

I’ve known the name Mitch Albom since I was 15, when he started writing for the Detroit Free Press. He started with sports related columns, but eventually started writing a second column that focused on … well, “life.” I’ve always enjoyed reading his columns, even when he and I disagreed on a topic.

As an author, his big breakthrough was in 1997 with his book Tuesdays With Morrie. That was followed by The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, Have a Little Faith, The Time Keeper, The First Phone Call From Heaven, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven, Finding Chika, and The Stranger in the Lifeboat.

I have read a few of his books in the past and enjoy his style of writing. He has been able to take much of what makes his newspaper columns so popular and do the same with his novels. Last year he published The Little Liar and after reading the synopsis, I knew I had to read it.

From Amazon.com

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with a powerful novel of hope and forgiveness that moves from a coastal Greek city during WWII to America in the golden age of Hollywood, as the intertwined lives of three young survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis has never told a lie. His schoolmate, Fannie, loves him because of it. Nico’s older brother Sebastian resents him for both these facts. When their young lives are torn apart during the war, it will take them decades to find each other again.

Nico’s innocence and goodness is used against his tightly knit community when a German officer barters Nico’s reputation for honesty into a promise to save his loved ones. When Nico realizes the consequences of the betrayal, he can never tell the truth again. He will spend the rest of this life changing names, changing locations and identities, desperate to find a way to forgiveness—for himself and from the people he loves most.

Albom’s extraordinary storytelling is at its powerful best in his first novel to confront the destruction that lying can wreak both on the world stage as well as on the individual lives that get caught up in it. As The Stranger in the Lifeboat spoke to belief, The Little Liar speaks to hope, in a breathless page-turner that will break your heart open and fill it with the power of the human spirit and the goodness that lies within us all.

Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, The Little Liar is a timeless story about the power of love to ultimately redeem us, no matter how deeply we blame ourselves for our mistakes.

I have read my share of books set in World War II, Concentration Camps, and that era in general. I suppose that is why it popped up as a recommendation on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book. While the setting and situations involve sadness (the Holocaust, the War, etc…), it was more about the characters and their stories that really grabbed me. The innocent child who believed he was doing right; the hateful German officer and his terrible thoughts, the family members who fought to survive and those who never had a chance; sibling rivalry, jealousy, and a drive for justice – all of those characters and how their stories intertwined made this book a memorable one.

If you love historical fiction, you will enjoy this one.

Book Recommendation: Before We Were Yours

This is another book that was recommended to me by my wife. When I read what it was about, I wasn’t sure I could get through it. There is something about the poor treatment of children that I have a hard time with. I wasn’t sure I could handle this emotionally. I added it to my “To Read” list.

It seemed like I kept seeing this book pop up on the “Must Read” Historical Fiction lists, on Facebook, and even in blogs that I follow on Word Press. I decided to read it and I was not disappointed. It was a powerful read that made me aware of some real terrible things that happened in real life.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

With each chapter, I got more and more engrossed in the story. As I made my way through the book the past and the present begin to slowly come together and many of the questions are answered. It was an emotional read, but I am glad that I picked this one up.

Book recommendation: Remarkably Bright Creatures.

I have seen this book come up over and over again on Goodreads, in blogs I follow, and online. You know the old saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover?” Well, that holds true here.

This was a book that I just wouldn’t have read by looking at it or even after reading the brief descriptions of it. It just didn’t seem like something I would enjoy.

My wife, you may recall, recently joined Goodreads and has been listening to audio books now. It’s been fun to see many of the books I have read pop up on her “want to read” list.

She read this book and loved it. She said she thought I would like it. A few of my friends had recently read it as well and said it was one of the best books they read this year. So I checked it out and was not disappointed.

It was a great story! Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow’s unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors–until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

The characters were very real and they dealt with real life issues (death, addiction, grief, gossip, depression, love, etc). At first you wonder how everything fits together, but as the story moves along the puzzle comes together nicely.

It is a heartwarming story that I am so glad I read. I highly recommend it.

Book Recommendation: The Marlow Murder Club

One of the things I love about Goodreads is how they will take books that you have read and offer suggestions based on them. You may recall that I have read all of the available books in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman. This book was suggested based on those. I admit there are similarities, but this one was just as good.

This is the first book in the series. It was very well written and there were plenty of twists and turns throughout it. There were likable characters and characters that you like to hate. I was left guessing right up to the end, and there were some surprises that wrapped everything up nicely.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

To solve an impossible murder, you need an impossible hero…

Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper.

One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar.

Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.

When another body turns up, they realize they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…

The author, Robert Thorogood, is an English screenwriter. He is best known as the creator of the BBC 1 Murder Mystery Series, Death in Paradise. I was excited to learn that the PBS show Masterpiece is adapting this book into a 4-part miniseries that will air on PBS soon.

It’s no secret that I love a good mystery, and I enjoyed this one a lot!

Tag: Goodreads

Book Recommendation – Close to Death – Anthony Horowitz

I’m a Winner!

Book Recommendation: The Day Tripper

Book Recommendation: The Final Witness – Paul Landis

Book Recommendation: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Book Recommendation: The Little Liar – Mitch Albom

Book Recommendation: Before We Were Yours

Book recommendation: Remarkably Bright Creatures.

Book Recommendation: The Marlow Murder Club

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