2025 #21: Her Last Moment (James) - Jake Cashen #5

 

Her Last Moment: Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series, Book 5 by Declan James
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I seem to be invested in Worthington County, although I think Alexander Cendese's readings are half of it. Poor Jake still doesn't have a longer story arc to save his soul, but we get a clearer sense that he is a ticking time bomb in terms of his pent-up trauma and anger regarding his father. As I listened to the preview when I finished Red Sky Hill: Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series, Book 4, I was prepared for who the victim was. It felt a bit of a shame -- it isn't like a TV series where they have to write someone off the show. We hardly knew ye...But truly, it made me care less about her secrets since we had to get her entire backstory posthumously.

Things felt a bit formulaic without the interesting characters of the previous installment -- deadbeat ex clichés abound. This one brings back wrestling, albeit in small doses, so I found it tolerable. While I'm glad Birdie and Jake haven't gotten together (I was worried after Kill Season), the former also hasn't had much of a storyline either. In fact, everyone in Blackhand Hills is pretty much where we left them -- Jemma is about the only one with something new and interesting in her life. Grandpa Max gets to be a bit more than grouchy, semi-senile, and obsessed with dinnertime in this one. Meg Landry doesn't shine as much. Zender is starting to bore me.

Still-- a fun read, enough of the usual suspects to feel a comfortable familiarity, and a few new ones that I would hope would return but probably won't (go Grandma!!).



View all my reviews

2025 #19 The Burning Island (Young) - Charlie Cates #3

 

The Burning Island by Hester Young
My rating: 3.75 of 5 stars


As with some other readers, I was surprised to find out that this was no.3 in a series of books that feature Charlie Cates, a journalist with gently paranormal abilities. Set primarily on the Big Island of Hawai'i (and a bit in Arizona), the story leads us to vulcanologist Victor Nakagawa and his family, as Charlie and her BFF Rae travel to Hawaii allegedly for some R&R and a bit of a workcation for Charlie, who is writing an article on Victor. Hester Young has a degree from University of Hawai'i at Mãnoa, so her descriptions are as lush and vibrant as the island itself.

There are a few red herrings, and the characters are generally fairly complex and multi-dimensional, which helps things stay interesting and not obvious. Charlie's inner dialogue occasionally felt tedious, but some of it helped provide backstory so the reader/listener doesn't feel the "series gap". Charlie can be a bit preachy, even just inside her own mind, but is generally strong-willed and a good protagonist. Rae, as the effervescent bestie, provides a good counterpoint without resorting to too much caricature. January LaVoy offers a solid reading, with a particular gift for voicing the surf-loving pothead bro.

I found myself a bit relieved to be wrong about how I interpreted one of Charlie's main visions--the one at the core of why she "takes the case"--although that relief was short-lived in that a related subplot covered the territory I was hoping to avoid. Still, it made for a dynamic story. I wasn't a fan of the ending, although I have to give Young major props for not tying everything up with a neat little bow. And while the ending does seem to hint at perhaps more to come in the series, it is not with a cliffhanger for the major plot points (thank goodness).

3.75 stars for me.

Serious About Series challenge 2025 (May)


View all my reviews

2025 #17 The Last Town (Crouch) - Wayward Pines #3

 

The Last Town by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This really swings back and forth between 3.75 and 4 stars for me.
No real spoilers here unless you haven't read the other two books in the trilogy, in which case you really shouldn't be reading reviews (any reviews) of this one.

--------------------
Surprisingly, I liked the ending. I even liked the epilogue---I never like epilogues. But, I have questions.

What happened to the solitaire-playing lady and the abbie? Maybe I missed it. I really thought we were going to go somewhere with that--maybe connect it back to Margaret. That was a welcome respite to the relentless violence. I would have rather than have been developed than the saccharine conversation between Ethan and Ben about an idealized future where they'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

The first quarter of the book was rough --- much like the endless fugitive scene in the first book (or was it the second?) this one spent way too long with the gory details--and they are truly that, gory.

Teresa gets to join Mae Holland (Dave Eggers's The Circle) in my winner's circle of obnoxious protagonists. The only time I liked her in this book was when she found the chutzpah to tell Ethan the truth and then told him to shut it when he started going all entitled macho man on her. But absolutely cringeworthy was the discussion with Hassler in the jail cell with Ben sitting right there. Have some self-respect, people. I guess maybe some people find that language romantic (Teresa's note, that we learned of in the previous book), but I don't (it isn't that I find it offensive...just doesn't make me feel a strong bond of love between two people...not sure what I was supposed to feel). Also, big UGH on her reasons for staying with Ethan.

I rather loved Kate and Hassler meeting up on the cliff, even if it did feel a bit cliché. David Pilcher's god-complex wore me down a bit, but I have to say that Max Meyers created such a picture in my mind--fantastic voicing.

This was a fun series -- it doesn't have the depth and sophistication of Dark Matter, Recursion, or Upgrade (admittedly, I didn't love the latter)--but it has a pretty good sense of beginning, middle, and end and enough moving parts to hold interest when the story gets too wrapped up in being an action movie.

View all my reviews

2025 #16: Strangers on a Train (Highsmith)

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not having had the benefit of seeing the Hitchcock film, I had no idea what I was getting into, only that I had heard great things about Patricia Highsmith.

What an interesting ride. It is yet another example of the victim-villain paradigm I talk about with my students that we see in twentieth-century opera. I think there are places that are a bit heavy-handed with the philosophical musing, particularly as Guy Haines's own grip on reality starts to loosen, but the book manages to be satisfyingly creepy, even though we are privy to almost everything that happens, as it happens. That Hitchcock took an interest in the novel makes me think he had a thing about boys and their mothers ---I'm not just talking about Charles Bruno, either. Guy Haines also had sort of a weird relationship with his mother. Neither quite at the Norman Bates level, but there does seem to be a theme... Maybe it was just the 1950s/60s...

I had trouble understanding how whiny psycho Bruno could so get under Haines's skin -- this was perhaps exacerbated by Bronson Pinchot's performance. It was, on the whole excellent, but every time Bruno would go into whining mode, I had to turn down the volume. I do get the implication--that we all have this evil switch inside of us that just needs the right set of circumstances to trigger, but I think I'm far enough removed from the social nicety of sharing a train car that I didn't really understand how the ball got rolling in the first place.

Still, it is a really intriguing book where you read with a constant knot in your throat because you know what's coming next, but you aren't sure when or how. In some respects, this is a more artistic type of suspense than the walk down the hallway with dark corners and spooky music. The hallway in this case is our own potential psychotic path.

View all my reviews

2025 #14 Birnam Wood (Catton)

 

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.75 stars
It wasn't until after I read the book that I noted the "A savagely satirical thriller" description provided by a reviewer. This book made me rethink my general strategy of not reading about a book before engaging, although I may have taken that to the extreme here, since the description says "A gripping psychological thriller" so I shouldn't have been in the dark.

And speaking of dark...this book is just that. And it is not *just* a "psychological" thriller, so I feel that isn't exactly a fair description. I enjoyed the book, but felt it lacked subtlety. The (truly) bad guy is so evil that he spells out his nefarious plans for us, while we have to watch as he dupes the other characters in the book. His hand is shown too early on -- I started to feel just a general sense of dread waiting for it all to come to a head. We also are treated to a lot of narration about his scheming (as a personality trait):

"His goal had been to become so ambidextrous when it came to action and reaction, move and countermove, that he would reach the point where half the games he played were won by white, and half by black; only then, he'd told himself, could he really call himself a master."

Overwrought chess analogies aside, the description says "it is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our own survival" -- that's fair, although there's quite a bit of flinching going on in some respects. There are some real chances for character and relationship development that are stymied by the ending. Mira, the main protagonist, is a fascinating character:

"Like all self-mythologizing rebels, Mira preferred enemies to rivals, and often turned her rivals into enemies, the better to disdain them as secret agents of the status quo."

Catton reveals Mira's layers through passages like this and the complexity of her character pushed the book toward four stars for me. The pacing is frustrating -- slow and leisurely at the beginning and then accelerando at the end. The catalyst for the accelerando makes for a fun (?) plot point, however, and we do get quite some classic suspense moves, and a game of cat and mouse with several mice and several loops.

The premise engages with politics in New Zealand and environmental issues and I felt myself wanting to know a bit more (as a reader not wholly familiar with New Zealand), and not especially via bickering characters. The writing is beautiful and descriptive, and overall gives a great sense of the delicate balance (imbalance, perhaps) in which we operate as a society.

View all my reviews

2024 #43: Do Not Disturb (McFadden)

 

Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Honestly more of a 2.5 - 2.75 for me. For the first 25 chapters I kept thinking, "Psycho called and wants its story back." I'm all for troping the classics, but it didn't feel clever or original enough to be an interesting take on Psycho, OR, as was often the case with the wonderful TV series Supernatural a tongue-in-cheek parody, which I would also have welcomed. That said, for such a quick listen, I wasn't about to declare it DNF, and was happy that things started to take a turn in Chapter 26. But then....things got a bit wonky--as if the plot was being improvised on the spot. I've read other reviews applauding the "twists and turns" and for me it felt more like a windy road under construction with detours that warranted other detours, until finally arriving at an "Epilogue" which reveals a major plot point, and somehow inexplicably turns it into part of a happy ending tied up with a bow. The detours also don't explain the road we start on when Claudia is first narrating, unless I missed something. I'm just not clear on how a character can narrate actions in one way, only to have them be something else. And I'm being intentionally vague here so I don't give any spoilers. The reason given for the "something else" was all fine and good, but that reason wouldn't cover the early Claudia chapters. Also, loose ends---just one, but I'm unclear on Naomi's raison d'être. There were also long tedious passages that read like the author had attended a writing workshop focused on scenic description of the banal --who knew a TV antenna warranted so much prose? See also: wet socks.

Now, adding to the problems is the audiobook narration. A random chapter given over to a presumably male actor was weird and jarring after habituating Holly Adams's "male" voices. I found her voicing of Quinn to be very grating (and I know I'm not alone in this), and as others have noted, there was a very unique pronunciation of "masseuse" that was not French, nor was it even Franglish. That, however, was a very small issue. Also, Greta, described in the narration as having a "very slight accent" sounded like every stereotypical depiction of a Romani fortune teller since the dawn of depiction of fortune tellers.

I kept listening partially out of incredulity and morbid curiosity. The major plot twist was more like a restart, and the epilogue was cloying, and ultimately rather disturbing. I'm not sure I could come away liking a single character in the story, with maybe the exception of Scott, but everyone seems to have a pretty broken moral compass. I've read reviews that say many of the author's other books are better and I will be happy to try another because I did get a sense that she has some good ideas and writes vivid characters (even if they all wind up rather unlikeable). I'm also going to read the next one in print, because I feel the issues with the audiobook tarnished the experience. But it was a freebie on Audible, so...I'm not sad I tried it!

View all my reviews

2024 #36: Orphan X (Hurwitz) - Orphan X #1

 

Orphan X by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this on a whim (and also because I was looking for a book title that had the letter X), and, well, it was good fun. Evan Smoak is a bit of James Bond meets Jack Bauer/Jack Reacher, and the book sets up what hopefully is a riveting set of thrillers. Smoak has the requisite mysterious past, and Hurwitz gives us just enough to be sated for the time being, but knowing that we will need to know more soon (and the end of the book helps with that).

Not surprisingly, the thriller is quite violent, bordering sometimes on the edge of gratuitous description, but there's a lot of substance too, particularly in the dynamic nature of the "cat and mouse" scenario(s). Hurwitz keeps us on our toes in terms of characters too--who is to be trusted? Even Evan seems to have trouble deciding. A young character, Peter, and some sundry members of the Homeowner's Association, bring some levity and charm to the cast, with an occasional outright chuckle. Evan himself is at his most endearing as he attempts to navigate the vagaries of human sociability. And yeah, there are gadgets and guns galore, if that's your thing.

Scott Brick does a great job with the voicing, although I much preferred Candy McClure and Mia Hall to the other woman whose name I've already forgotten because I found "her" voice so cloying. But overall, a great ride for the genre, and I'm likely to continue the series because sometimes that level of escapism is what's needed.

View all my reviews

2024 #32 The Good Daughter - The Good Daughter #1 (Slaughter)

 

The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A really good example of the genre, The Good Daughter has all the right pieces in terms of characterization and secrets. The plot stalls in a few places in service of lengthy dialogue between characters (some of the characters don't say much to each other, but when they do, it is several pages of dialogue).
There are some moments I found predictable, some secrets obvious to the reader before they are obvious to the characters. That said, there are some surprises too, and Slaughter paces these really well. The two sisters, Samantha and Charlie, are well-crafted in character and there are several characters who really trigger ambivalence, something I actually like.
Content warning as there is graphic description of sexual assault, and murder, but that's not unexpected for the genre.
The book also rests on some stereotypes of rural life, but is relatively gentle in its condemnation, painting with a medium width brush, let's say, assigning the worst to specific characters.

View all my reviews

2024 #15: Murder in the Hollows (James) - Jake Cashen #1

 

Murder in the Hollows by Declan James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I care not a whit about wrestling, so I could have skipped that aspect of this book, and I also had the murderer figured out very early in the game, but still, this was very entertaining. Alexander Cendese does a terrific job of voicing the protagonist Jake Cashen. The first book in any series is important because it either is going to hook us for the long haul, or it won't. This one did, mostly through the protagonist who navigates both his demons and the quirky characters of his small town with a certain amount of earthy skepticism and hard-won good-naturedness.

I'm in for the next in the series, although the preview makes me fear that I'm in for more wrestling. However, the first book sets up enough characters that I already felt empathy (I do like how the crime happens almost immediately) knowing who dies in the second. I hope that all the books get audiobook versions with Cendese, because now that is how I hear Jake Cashen and all the other fun characters--his overbearing-but-ultimately-loving older sister, his cranky-but-ultimately-loving grandpa, the very cool sheriff, Jake's more-observant-that-she-seems high school sweetheart, and more.

Declan James's former career in law enforcement serves him well. The policing narrative is smart, and entertaining as it is seen through the critical eye of Cashen, who bemoans the idiocy of his partner, rather than parading procedure around in flattened dialogue meant only to show that the author knows his stuff.

View all my reviews

2023 #1: The Violin Conspiracy (Slocumb)

 

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book tries to cover a lot of ground and does some of it quite successfully. The important messages about the still-prevalent racism in classical music are sometimes spoon-fed to the reader via prose that might feel a bit obvious to a few, but is probably sorely needed by most. As a mystery/thriller it fell a little flat for me--the rhythm felt a bit too random, as if the through line of the plot was sometimes forgotten until it popped back up again. The "reveal" was a rather big disappointment as it seemed rushed and trivial by the time we get there. The musical interludes in the audiobook were a nice touch, and JD Jackson's character voices were extraordinarily compelling -- especially Grandma Nora. The basic narration, however, could have used more emotion is some places, particularly in Slocumb's more poetic descriptions of music. Classical musicians might get a bit tired of the explanations put in there for non-musicians, but this is a small issue. I think I might have enjoyed this one more in print, but it was worth the audiobook for the vivid characters that Jackson really brought to life. This isn't really a book about a stolen violin, but instead a violinist and the elitism and racism that drive much of the classical music world.

View all my reviews

2022 #19 The Roommate (McTiernan) - Cormac Reilly #0.7

 

The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like The Sisters, this book is a prequel of sorts in the Cormac Reilly series. Niamh Turley gets in a bind when she loses her (first) roomate, and Cormac Reilly is a garda on the case (in Dublin, prior to his move to Galway). This was a free audio novella for subscribers to McTiernan's newsletter (although I accessed it through audible), and well...it suffers a bit for it. The condensed mystery novella isn't really McTiernan's strength, and once you start the Cormac Reilly series, these prequels unnecessary. The Sisters (review here) does give some backstory to a character who appears in the series proper, but The Roomate has less connection. We don't really get to care enough about the extremely naive Niamh to truly empathize, also her boss (the principal of the school where she teaches) seems to be hell-bent on making her life difficult. There are some overlapping strategies with McTiernan's novella The Wrong One, so I hope not to see that particular approach again. To give it a label (it is a common move in mystery and suspense) would be to offer a spoiler, so I won't, but it seems a bit clichéd.

It does, however, deserve kudos for the good old-fashioned "babysitter and the telephone" moment, which is delivered at the right time. I hope McTiernan sticks to full-length novels for the Reilly series, because her writing is more effective when she has the time and the space to develop both plot and characters.

View all my reviews

2022 #7: Blink (K.L. Slater)

 

Blink by K.L. Slater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great beach-read mystery/thriller. About three-quarters of the way in I felt that I must have figured it out, and I was a bit irritated because the protagonist (Toni) hadn't yet clued in. Then one major plot twist sets the world spinning and things move very quickly from there. That's a bit frustrating if you like more subtlety and a slow roll out of revelations, but the roller-coaster ride of the last quarter of the book is worth it. It is also the best kind of plot twist--the facepalm plot twist. The drawbacks have some spoilers, so don't keep reading if you don't wish to! I have referred to characters by the initial of their first name, so that nothing pops out at you if your eyes drift there. Overall it was an entertaining read and the performance by Lucy Price-Lewis is excellent (although I found the voicing of little girl Evie to be quite cloying at times).

[SPOILERS BELOW]



What the heck happened to B? Was she just a plot device and diversion? If so, that was fairly obvious. It was disappointing to have so much investment in her character and then have her not really be involved at all.
The "Three Years Earlier" titles of the chapters were confusing and a bit annoying in the audiobook. Only necessary if the preceding chapter was the present day or a different character's perspective.
I might be wrong here (harder to confirm with an audiobook), but it seems there is a continuity issue--why would H be expecting T to pick E from school that day? She didn't know that T's mom was in the hospital. Unless I missed some definitive decision to have T do the pickups (I remember them discussing it)...quite possible.

View all my reviews