JB’s Best of the Last Decade

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These sorts of lists are really pointless. I look at the lists from others – lists of books, lists of movies, lists of albums or songs – and I rarely agree with them. Hell, in the Rolling Stone‘s lists I don’t even know who most of the singers are – but then I’m now in my 60s and never was very hip…

But they are a way to look back on what you read and to see what stood up to time. Books that may’ve been on my Best of the Year some time ago don’t hold up to others that were also on one of the lists.

Then, too, it is often impossible to tease out one title from ten years of a favorite author’s books. So I’ll cheat and include some authors whose title really stands in for the entire decade’s worth of books.

And then it is also the case that favorite authors don’t appear on the list because the book of theirs that you really loved was before 2010. That’s the case with Winslow, O’Connell, Estleman, Kerr, Lehane, and Ellroy for instance.

In typing this out I noticed a gap in the center of the decade where no books are listed. That could’ve been an effect of our battles to save the shop and how that colored my enjoyment of what I was reading, and that I did a lot of re-reading of old favorites for comfort.

So, by year published:IMG_1187

2011: Urban Waite, Terror of Living

2011: Peter Spiegelman, Thick as Thieves

2011: Craig Johnson, Hell is Empty

2012: Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

2012: Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

2013: James Lee Burke, Light of the World (would’ve been the perfect end to the series)

2013: Roger Hobbs, Ghost Man

2019: John Connolly, A Book of Bones (but, really, each book is just a chapter of a greater story)

2019: Mike Lawson, House Arrest (stands in for a consistent decade of great works)

Then a few non-fiction titles –

2011: Bill James, True Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence

2015: Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey

2019: Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Last thought – I don’t have a Best Book of the Decade. Guess I don’t think like that any more!

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Downtown Continues to Empty

Downtown Seattle Barnes & Noble

store to close Saturday

By

Seattle Times arts critic

“The Barnes & Noble bookstore in downtown Seattle’s Pacific Place shopping center is closing this weekend. A sign inside the store announces: ‘This Barnes & Noble is closing on Jan. 18. Thank you for your patronage over the past 22 years.’”

This is the second Barnes & Noble location in Seattle to close within the past 12 months: The West Seattle store, in the Westwood Village shopping center, shut down in January 2019. The once-mighty Barnes & Noble chain has struggled nationally in the age of Amazon; in the past decade, it has closed more than 150 stores. Its University Village location closed in 2011. Barnes & Noble was acquired by Elliott Management, a hedge fund, last summer.

The closure leaves downtown Seattle without a general bookstore.

A Barnes & Noble spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Barnes & Noble continues to operate a handful of stores in the area, including at Northgate Mall, near Westfield Southcenter mall, and in Bellevue, Issaquah, Woodinville and Lynnwood.”

An abrupt announcement – just  two days warning. If this continues, if more B&N stores close, watch for major contractions in publishing, as we saw when Borders closed its stores.

Well, it was fun while it lasted…

from The Guardian,

Jack Reacher series author Lee Child ‘quits and lets brother step in’

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“The author of the Jack Reacher series of novels is retiring and handing over the writing duties to his brother, according to a report.

Lee Child said he has been searching for a way to kill off the title character, portrayed on film by Tom Cruise, for years but has ultimately decided his fans deserve to see him live on in books which will now be written by Andrew Grant.

But Child, who was born James Grant, has reportedly set out a condition for his brother: he too must change his surname to Child.

“For years I thought about different ways of killing Reacher off. First of all, I thought he would go out in a blaze of bullets, something like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It would take an army to bring him down [but] Reacher had to have an afterlife after I was done,” Child told the Times.

Grant is an established author in his own right. “It’s not as if I twisted his arm into doing it. And he didn’t twist mine either. It just happened. It feels like a natural development. My brother is a good writer. Now he has a hero,” Child said.

He added: “Readers don’t need to know about me or whoever writes the books. They only really care about Reacher. And I know he’s now in safe hands.”

Child has sold more than 100m books since embarking on a career as a novelist relatively late in life at 40. Jack Reacher has been turned into a film and is also reportedly being made into a series for Amazon’s Prime service.

According to the Times’ report, the cover of the next Reacher novel – in a series which is published by an imprint of Random Penguin House – will read: “Lee Child with Andrew Child”, in what has been interpreted as a possible sign of the publishing company’s nerves.”

We were told years ago by a prominent Reacher Creature that Lee/James knew exactly how he was going to kill Reacher to end the series. Guess it is too difficult to kill a cash cow.

The Child brothers now join the ranks of the Pattersons, the Cusslers, the Evanoviches, the Parkers, and all the authors whose books are written by committee, or buy a ghost.

Reacher deserves better.

Reacher deserves his blaze of glory.

The Best of the 20 Teens

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Fran here. Happy New Year, everyone!

I was so proud of myself! I got my Best Of for the decade done, and down to a total of 10! I’ve NEVER done that before, so I was strutting!

Granted, a bunch of them were series, and that means ALL of the series, so it’s not like I read only ten books over the decade. We know me better than this. And the series are, in no particular order:

Louise Penny’s “Inspector Gamache” series. I came late to this party, but I am fully onboard!

Anne Bishop’s “The Others” series, including the follow-ups after the original five.

Ben Aaronovitch’s “Rivers of London” series. I think I’ve read the entire thing seven times.

Everything by Christine Feehan except the vampire and leopard series. Everything else. And I haven’t gotten to those yet, so stay tuned.

Carolyn Hart’s “Death on Demand” series. Seriously, I need these books.

William Kent Krueger’s “Cork O’Connell” series. They’re family to me.

Maureen Johnson’s “Truly Devious” series. And that’s going to spill over into this decade.

And then I had a few individual titles. But then, see, I remembered all the books I hadn’t thought of, not because they were bad, but because a decade is a really long time in the book world, and I hadn’t really given the whole ten years – which included the shop being open for most of it.

So I’m going to throw out authors and titles, and if you have questions, just ask. Because this is gonna be a LOT longer than just 10! Ready? Here we go:

Joshilyn Jackson – I love all of hers, but The Almost Sisters is my favorite. So far. Until she writes the darned phone book.

Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, which has its own cult following, and I’m so pleased!

Seanan McGuire’s “Toby Day” series, along with everything else she writes.

Speaking of series I forgot before, Mike Lawson’s “Joe DeMarco” series. Now and always!

AND Tim Maleeny’s “Cape Weathers” series! Holy cats, I want more!

How could I overlook Craig Johnson’s “Longmire”? I don’t know what I was thinking.

John Connolly’s “Charlie Parker” series. More on that later.

Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook. Amber’s recommendations must be heeded.

Everything by Ben Winters (including grocery lists, I imagine) but especially Golden State.

Toni McGee Causey’s Saints  of the Lost and Found.

Seriously, anything by J. T. Ellison and Hank Phillippi Ryan. I love them both so much!

Alan Bradley’s “Flavia de Luce” series, as well as Ian Hamilton’s “Ava Lee”. Nothing in common except brilliant writing, and  cultural appreciation.

Can I throw in here Amber’s “52 Weeks with Christie”? Because wow. And her new blog, The Finder of Lost Things, is going to find a publisher soon, I’m positive.

To those of you whom I’ve missed, I’m so sorry! I really do love you! Blame it on my cold.

I’m going to stop here, but now it’s up to you. What did I recommend to you over the last 10 years that you loved? Or hated? I’m always interested where I missed as well as where I might have accidentally gotten it right.

A decade’s a really long time, y’all, especially when you read! Happy New Decade!

Amber’s List Of….

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Okay, so here’s the deal.

I cannot confine a decade’s worth of favorites to one simple list — my entire being revolts at the thought. I am also uninterested in inducing a biblio-anxiety by attempting to do so!

So instead, I decided to create a series of short lists of my hands down, all-out favorites that I first read between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2019. Whether or not they were published between those two dates is entirely incidental.

(Though I did make a separate list for those titles. See below.)

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List numero uno: Faves published & read between the aforementioned dates –

      1. The Rook – Daniel O’Malley
      2. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
      3. Written In Red – Anne Bishop

This was a close call but ultimately I chose The Rook because Ms. Thomas helped save herself while fending off some purple spores and rescued a possibly omniscient bunny!

List 2: Entire Contemporary Series I Burned Thru, Still Reread and Love –

      1. Aunt Dimity – Nancy Atherton
      2. The Parasol Protectorate (and that entire Universe) – Gail Carriger
      3. Mrs. Pollifax – Dorothy Gilman
      4. Mercy Thompson – Patricia Briggs
      5. Chicagoland Vampires – Chloe Neill
      6. Mrs. Malory – Hazel Holt

#3 – Agatha Christie: She deserves a list all to herself otherwise, she’d whoop everyone else! Can you believe my year with her was all the way back in 2014?

      1. Nemesis – Miss Marple
      2. Pale Horse – Ariadne Oliver (tangentially)
      3. Endless Night
      4. Cards At The Table – Oliver, Poirot, Race & Battle
      5. The Moving Finger – Miss Marple
      6. A Murder Is Announced – Miss Marple
      7. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Hercule Poirot
      8. Murder Is Easy – Mr. Harley Quin & Superintendent Battle
      9. Man In A Brown Suit – Colonel Race
      10. By The Pricking of My Thumbs – Tommy & Tuppence

**And Then There Was None is a masterpiece of suspense. So to give her other books a chance, I left it off! I also left off The Sleeping Murder as I’d read it well before this last decade!

4) Golden Age Favorites: Now, I loved all the books these authors wrote. However, these are my particular favorites within their series –

      1. Somewhere in the House – Elizabeth Daly
      2. Murder For Christmas – Francis Duncan
      3. Death In The Stocks – Georgette Heyer

List No. 5: My Favorite Historical Series I Devoured As Fast as I Found Them –

      1. Amelia Peabody – Elizabeth Peters
      2. Her Royal Spyness – Rhys Bowen
      3. Lady Julia Grey – Deanna Raybourn
      4.  Amory Ames – Ashley Weaver

List Number Six: Favorite Short Story Collections –

      1. Mr. Harley Quin – Agatha Christie
      2. The Black Widowers – Issac Asimov
      3. Sherlock Holmes – Doyle
      4. The Teahouse Detective – Baroness Orczy

Last But Not Least: My favorite YA/Kids books –

      1. The Last Dragon Slayer – Jasper Fforde
      2. Tokyo Heist – Diana Renn
      3. Goldenhand – Garth Nix
      4. Steelheart – Brandon Sanderson

And even with all the books I’ve listed on here, I still feel like I’ve missed a few….sigh….And its also readily apparent I tend towards a certain flavor of mystery – and I’m all right with that!

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Don’t forget you still have time to catch up on my other blog Finder of Lost Things before series two starts in a couple months!

January 2020

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WELCOME TO A NEW YEAR

WELCOME TO A NEW DECADE

We’ve recently learned that Sandy, the creator and original editor of our quarterly newsletter and one-time bookkeeper, has moved back to town.

Welcome Back! We hope to see you soon.

‘It’s really flattering’: Obama picks Spokane’s Jess Walter for favorite books of the year list

Extra! Extra! Pike Place Market newsstand to close after 40 years

      Serious Stuff

Bone-Marrow Transplants Alter Genetic IDs, Complicating DNA-Based Criminal Analysis

Henry Lee Lucas Was Considered America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer. But He Was Really a Serial Liar.

Evidence Scandal In Orange County Stirs Conflict Within Law Enforcement 

How This Con Man’s Wild Testimony Sent Dozens to Jail, and 4 to Death Row

Is this cave painting humanity’s oldest story? 

Stop Believing in Free Shipping 

Prime Leverage: How Amazon Wields Power in the Technology World ~ Software start-ups have a phrase for what Amazon is doing to them: ‘strip-mining’ them of their innovations. 

New Research Identifies Possible Mass Graves From 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

From The Guardian’s Editor’s Best Stories of 2019: ‘Blood on their hands’: the intelligence officer whose warning over white supremacy was ignored

This Is America: Eleven years after Obama’s election, and three years into the Trump presidency, the threat of domestic terrorism can’t be ignored.

A group of self-taught investigators is confronting the limits of using DNA and genetic genealogy to identify victims.

      Words of the Month

vade-mecum (n.) “a pocket manual, handbook,” 1620s, Latin, literally “go with me;” from imperative of vadere “to go” (see vamoose) + me “me” + cum “with.” 

      Book Stuff

An Algorithm Can Tell Us How Much Shakespeare Was Actually Written by Shakespeare

In Greenwich Village, the Perfect New York Bookstore Lives On

Latin Dictionary’s Journey: A to Zythum in 125 Years (and Counting)

Janet Evanovich wins big with Stephanie Plum series and TV deals 

Alaska: Northern Noir ~ Crime fiction has found a strange home in the cold wilds of Alaska. (have to say these people are way behind the curve if they think this is new…)

Couth Buzzard Books, celebrating a milestone anniversary, has become the ‘Cheers’ of Greenwood‘

The Ferrante Effect’: In Italy, Women Writers Are Ascendant ~“My Brilliant Friend” and Elena Ferrante’s other best-selling books are inspiring female novelists and shaking up the country’s male-dominated literary establishment.

New book claims Albert Camus was murdered by the KGB 

7 Things Crime Readers Will No Longer Tolerate by Christopher Fowler

Get Radcliff!: The Search for Black Pulp’s Forgotten Author. Gary Phillips on the trail of Roosevelt Mallory, who helped revolutionize 1970s pulp fiction, then disappeared.

From Gar Anthony Haywood: I Wrote the Kind of Character I Wanted Most to Read About

The Elements of the Haunted House: A Primer or, How to Build a Haunted House Mystery from the Ground Up 

Jeff Lindsay Has a New Anti-Hero ~ The Dexter Author Talks Craft, Character, and Cannibalism 

Peter Pan’s dark side emerges with release of original manuscript 

George RR Martin opens bookshop next to his cinema in Santa Fe 

America 2019: Area man steals rare books in order to pay for cancer treatment. 

How Do Some Authors “Lose Control” of Their Characters?

The (Quiet) Death of a Legendary Parisian Bookstore

These are the 10 Best-Selling Books of the Decade

From Portland, another bookshop closes: Another Read Through is leaving Mississippi Avenue

Do apostrophes still matter?

The tricks that can turn you into a speed reader

Booksellers get holiday bonuses from James Patterson  

Rediscovering Dorothy B. Hughes’ Brutal Hollywood Take-Down, Dread Journey 

A Romance Novelist Spoke out about Racism. An Uproar Ensued

Here are the most popular books checked out of the Seattle Public Library in 2019

       Author Events

January 11 – Candace Robb and Kim Zarins, 4pm, UBooks

January 21 – Chad Dundas, 7:30pm, Powell’s

January 29 – Mary Wingate, 7pm, Village Books

January 30 – Russell Rowland, 7:30pm, Powell’s

      Other Forms of Fun

Motherless Brooklyn: Ed Norton on the film it took him 20 years to make 

How Olga Kurylenko Won ‘Bond’ and Narrowly Lost ‘Wonder Woman’

The Evolution of the Femme Fatale in Film Noir

The Bone Collector, Jeffery Deaver’s first book with forensic anthropologist Lincoln Rhyme, was made into a 1999 film staring Denzel Washington as Rhyme and Angelina Jolie as the young cop who becomes his “legman”. Rhyme is a quadraplegic and needs Amelia Sachs to visit the crime scenes. The books are a true updating of the armchair detective story – it’s a great series. Now, starting Friday, Jan. 10, the book comes to the smaller screen when ‘Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector’ debuts on NBC. As they say, check your local listings!

The Most Underrated Crime Films of the Decade

Coming in February: ‘Narcos: Mexico’: Scoot McNairy Hunts Diego Luna in Season 2 First Look 

From “Making a Murderer” to “Don’t F**k with Cats,” the evolution of true crime this decade

BioShock returns for more gene-enhanced gaming

      Words of the Month

Ignis fatuus: a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter or a deceptive goal or hope.

Ignis fatuus is a Latin term meaning, literally, “foolish fire.” In English, it has come to designate a hovering or flitting light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground that is attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter. Other names for this light are jack-o’-lantern and will-o’-the-wisp—both of which are connected to folklore about mysterious men, Jack and Will, who carry a lantern or a wisp of light at night. A Scottish name for ignis fatuus is spunkie, from spunk, meaning “spark” or “a small fire.” It has also been told that ignes fatui (the Latin plural form) are roaming souls. No doubt these stories spooked listeners by candlelight, but in time, advancements in science not only gave us electricity to dispel the darkness but proved ignis fatuus to be a visible exhalation of gas from the ground, which is rarely seen today.

‘But thou art altogether given over, / and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter / darkness. When thou ran’st up Gadshill in the night to catch my / horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a / ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a / perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! ‘

— William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, ca. 1597

(Thanks to Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

       Links of Interest

November 26: Lee Child: How Jack Reacher Fits Into a Long History of Folk Heroes

December 2: Great Film Composers: The Music of the Movies: How the rise of the Nazis gave us the best film noir music

December 2: Judge tosses $71-million verdict against NBC Universal over ‘Columbo’ profits

December 2: ‘The Irishman’ Left Out the Full Story of the Disastrous Angelo Bruno and Frank Sidone Murders

December 3: ‘He Had It Coming’ looks back on the ‘Murderess Row’ that inspired ‘Chicago’

December 4: Five ‘hot mic’ moments that got leaders in trouble

December 5: The murdered ‘handsome’ priest with a decades-long secret

December 5: Spassky vs Fischer: How the chess battle became a theatre event

December 6: How to conquer work paralysis like Ernest Hemingway

December 9: ‘Perfect’ Scotch whisky collection could be worth £8m

December 10: Failed plot to steal domain name at gunpoint brings 14-year prison term

December 11: “Portrait of a Lady” ~ Stolen Klimt mystery ‘solved’ by gardener in Italy

December 11: Art Forgery Is Easier Than Ever, and It’s a Great Way to Launder Money

December 11: Buyer returns Grease jacket to Olivia Newton-John after auction

December 12: The CIA’s Former Chief of Disguise Drops Her Mask

December 13: Hosting an Orgy? This 1970s Cookbook Has You Covered

December 13: Octopus and eagle square off at Canadian fish farm

December 16: Christopher Reeve’s ‘Superman’ Cape Sells at Auction, Sets Record

December 16: Mice watching film noir show the surprising complexity of vision cells

December 16: Babe Ruth: Baseball player’s landmark home run bat fetches $1m\

December 16: Meet a Bad Man Who Became a Truly Great Spy

December 16: Grave of top Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich opened in Berlin

December 17: A New Way of Looking at ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

December 17: Judge rules in favor of US effort to take Snowden book money

December 19: James Blake uses unseen Planet Earth footage in new video

December 19: Is the Netherlands becoming a narco-state?

December 20: Democratic lawmakers pushed Spy Museum to alter CIA torture exhibit\

December 21: Police department finds furry culprit behind toy theft

December 22: Take a look behind the ‘small doors to imaginary spaces’ within bookshelves

December 22: The night Samuel Beckett was nearly stabbed to death by a pimp

December 23: LS Lowry: Lost painting to go on sale after 70 years

December 23: I was a teenage code-breaker at Bletchley Park

December 23: Daniel Craig Wanted to Resign as Bond After ‘Spectre’. Here’s the Real Reason He Returned For ‘No Time to Die’

December 27: Sriracha hot sauce recall over ‘exploding’ bottle fears

December 31: Lawyers: Robert Durst Wrote Incriminating ‘Cadaver’ Note

December 31: Human remains found in Idaho cave identified as outlaw who died over 100 years ago

      Words of the Month

terroir: the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character. First known use was in 1863. From Old French tieroir, from Vulgar Latin *terratorium, alteration of Latin territorium. (thanks to Merriam-Webster) [what a difference and “i” makes…]

      R.I.P.

December 3: D.C. Fontana, famed writer for Star Trek, dies at 80

December 7: Friends actor Ron Leibman dies at the age of 82

December 8:  Winston Lawson, Secret Service agent with JFK in Dallas, dies at 91

December 8: Caroll Spinney: Sesame Street’s Big Bird puppeteer dies

December 9: Overlooked No More: Rose Mackenberg, Houdini’s Secret ‘Ghost-Buster’

December 9: Battle of Britain pilot Maurice Mounsdon dies aged 101

December 10: George Laurer, an Inventor of the Modern Bar Code, Dies at 94

December 11: Jeanne Guillemin, pioneering researcher who uncovered a Cold War secret, dies at 76

December 13: Danny Aiello, beloved character actor and Oscar nominee for ‘Do the Right Thing,’ dies at 86

December 13: Elisabeth Sifton, editor and tamer of literary lions, dies at 80

December 16: Nicky Henson: Stage and screen actor 

December 20: Claudine Auger: French actress known for Thunderball role dies aged 78

December 20: Acclaimed Author and Journalist Ward Just Dead at 84

December 25: Allee Willis: ‘Friends’ theme songwriter

December 26: Sue Lyon, teenage star of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Lolita,’ is dead at 73

December 31: Sonny Mehta, visionary editor and head of Alfred A. Knopf, dies at 77

December 31: M. C. BEATON: R.I.P.

      Words of The Month

vamoose (v.): “to decamp, be off,” 1834, from Spanish vamos “let us go,” from Latin vadamus, first person plural indicative of vadere “to go, to walk, go hastily,” from Proto-Indo-European root *wadh- (2) “to go” (source also of Old English wadan “to go,” Latin vadum “ford;” see wade (v.)). (thanks to etymonline)

      What We’ve Been Up To

   Amber

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Finder of Lost Things

This coming Friday we come to the last post for series one! Can you believe it? And we will see how Phoebe and Joseph cope with the after effects of the Woman In White’s attack.

Series Two – will drop in about two-ish months. I will give you guys plenty of warning when I’m going to start posting! Though on the upside if you haven’t started reading my story yet – this is the perfect time to catch up!

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Chloe Neill – Wicked Hour

The second book in the Heirs of Chicagoland series is a fun, fast-paced romp that is stronger than its predecessor by a factor of five. While a few of the original cast make their presence felt, they only enter into the narrative when necessary. Rather than making gratuitous and/or distracting appearances – which is really lovely.

The mystery presented in the second installment is also solid. Part of the Pack living in Northern Michigan is experiencing problems…and that’s putting it mildly. So Connor Keene, heir apparent to his father’s position as Apex, is sent to figure out what exactly is going on.

What he finds is a hornet’s nest.

Into this mess of resentment, issues, and anger Conner’s also brought, Elisa Sullivan. Because if things aren’t already stressful enough, let’s bring along the girl you’re more than just a little interested in and see how the pack reacts.

Elisa is more than capable of staring down a few shifters – katana in hand.

Then we get to the murder…and the other murder…and bad magic.

Seriously this book was a whole lotta fun to read. Neill introduced us to a quasi-new character named Alexei Breckenridge – who next to Lulu and Elisa’s cat Eleanor of Aquitaine (who will exact revenge if called by anything less than her full title) – is my favorite thus far. Mostly due to his dry sense of humor, the fact he enjoys needling Elisa by continuing to sneak up on her and the fact you never know where any of his sentences will take you.

If you are looking for a new-ish shifter/sorcerer/vampire mystery series to read, without needing to go back and read the original Chicagoland series (which honestly you should because it was great), you should start with Wicked Hour!

   Fran

I’ve been trying to figure out how to sell M. R. Carey‘s post-apocalyptic thriller THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS (Orbit) to myself, if I was still selling books. Because on the surface, I’d have turned it down, despite the whole post-apocalyptic thing. I guess it’s a “Trust me” book.

9780316334754See, it’s written in present tense, and we all know how weird I am about that. But worse, it’s about zombies. I really don’t like zombies. Bleah. I know lots of people do love them, and they’ll jump all over this book, but I find them boring.

However, I really do like the TV series “Lucifer”, and M. R. Carey is the writer behind that. He creates amazing, three dimensional and compelling characters, and I’m a sucker for great characters! And twisty, well told stories. He does those brilliantly.

Oh, short synopsis, yeah. In this devastated future in a military base in England, children are strapped into wheelchairs, arms, legs and heads. Then they’re wheeled into classrooms where they’re taught all the things school children learn. Melanie is about ten years old, and her favorite teacher is Miss Justineau. Miss Justineau makes learning fun, and she really interacts with the children. Melanie loves Miss Justineau, the other teachers not so much.

However, outside the base, things are  bleak. A fungus, Ophiocordyceps, has mutated – or has been mutated – so that it no longer just infects ants, and has taken over mankind. Well, most of mankind. And the fungal infection moves quickly, thoroughly, no chance of recovery ever, and makes  the new hosts mindless and hungry.

I don’t want to say too much more because THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS takes off at breakneck speed, and it really doesn’t slow down. M. R. Carey understands timing and plot and tension, but he also understands how complicated people are, and how powerful love can be.

So yeah, this is a “Trust me” book, but I really do want you to trust me on it! The science is disturbingly cool (I kind of want to watch the David Attenborough documentary about the ants, but I’m afraid it’ll just creep me out), the story revolves around a teacher and her pupil, and the writing is simply brilliant.

Trust me.

   JB

Shop dream on the morning of Xmas Eve: what I remember was looking into a box of books, a shipment all jumbled together, and realizing that reserves hadn’t been pulled so I was digging through the books and flipping pages in the reserve book, trying to match up authors to lists of customers who wanted a copy. The books in the box were in no special order, so I was flipping back and forth in the reserve book as I fished out a hardcover, for some reason not taking all the books out first and organizing them… Where do these dreams come from !

Could there be a better way to end the year, and to relax over a few days away, that to catch up on a 9780802129307.jpg favorite author’s book you’d missed???? I doubt it, I really do.

I had ordered what I thought was his latest book last Spring to take on a trip back to KC but it ended up being the story from the year before. What the hell – I read it again on the trip, the books are that good. So it had always stuck in some shadowed part of my brain that there must’ve been a DeMarco from this year that I’d not read. Finally, I started to wonder when there’d a be a new one next year and that’s when I finally cleared to mush from my cabasa and got a copy of House Arrest.

It’s a very different DeMarco story, even while it is another great DeMarco story.

Arrested for the murder of a congressman in the Capital, DeMarco sits in jail with a target on his forehead. In many ways, this is Emma’s book, as she swings into action to prove he was framed. To do that, she’s gotta provide the FBI with the real killer. So she relies on her years of training and work and those she’s gotten to know to save DeMarco. Why? She abhors his love of baseball and golf, thinks his wardrobe is ridiculous, and is pained to know he works for a man she detests but, really, Emma likes DeMarco. She appreciates his spirit, his ethic, and his willingness to put himself in the line of fire to help someone – as he has with Emma a couple of times.

There are big changes in DeMarco’s life mandated by publicity of the arrest and I have no idea where Mike will put him. It could be the end of the series – any of books could – but I think he has freed DeMarco to do other things.

And I can’t wait.

Fridays in January ~ Our Best of the Decade Lists

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