New Jersey and L.A.

As I said earlier I have been doing some travelling. I was in Norway for a day and a half. Waiting for transportation, riding on the bus, sitting on the airplane are all excellent opportunities for reading (and listening to Eva Cassidy on my MP-3 player). An old friend, Harlan Coben, was available to me through my library in the form of his latest book "The Woods". Coben is always a satisfying read, but I keep hoping he will go back to Myron Bolitar again (as he did in "Promise Me"). As usual the main character, Paul Copeland, is honest, but makes mistakes. Spying and other tangled webs are embedded in the novel. I enjoyed it, but as mentioned above I would rather have Bolitar back.
Waiting for the bus to the airport in Ski, Norway I decided I'd better spend my last Norwegian crowns on a book. The ones I had with me had already been read and it was many hours until I would arrive home to Uppsala. So I bought a Jonathan Kellerman called "Twisted". I know that the Kellerman family does produce readable books, but I'm not a great Alex Delaware fan (21 books and counting). I bought the book because it was another main character - Petra Connor. She was okay - the character that was the most fun was the genius Isaac Gomez who comes up with the June 28 pattern. I guessed who the killer was very early on, and it was hard to believe that the rest of them missed the obvious!

Movies - Johnny and George

Just want to let the world know that I don't just do book series - movie series are also part of my repertoire. Have been to see the mincing Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean) and the eye rolling, tux-clad George Clooney (Ocean's 13).

Evan (California) and Alex (New York)

I have been travelling a bit - first to Gothenburg for a rainy, but very nice Mid-summer. The choice of books gets limited by what is available at the pocket shop and I bought "Kill Chain" by Meg Gardiner. So I met up with character Evan Delaney - called Kit (for Kathleen) by her kidnapped father. She also has a boyfriend; lawyer, wheelchair-bound athlete. California and Santa Barbara figured into the equation. A good read, but I will probably donate the book to our book-table at work.
While in Gothenburg I started rereading a series that I stumbled upon a few years ago. The author is Beth Saulnier and her heroine is journalist Alex Bernier. There are actually five books in the series, but I've only been able to locate three "Distemper", "The Fourth Wall", and "Bad Seed". The last book is particularly interesting for me right now as it is about GMOs and one of my grad students is finishing up her PhD on GMOs. The setting for the novels is a fictive upper New York college town, a cover for Ithaca and Cornell. Alex, her colleague Jake Madison (aka Mad), and her policeman friend Brian Cody get into all sorts of tigh spots. I'm trying to locate the first and last books in the series, but so far no success. Saulnier's web site doesn't seem to be working so you kind of wonder what she has been doing. She also writes under the name Elisabeth Bloom (which is her married name).

Three books, a movie, and a singer

Courtesy of my library I just read "Simple Genius" by David Baldacci. Sean and Michelle are back kicking ass and saving the world. The most interesting thing about the book was that Baldacci used famous code-breakers to name his characters.
Book number two was "Naked to the Hangman" by Andrew Taylor. It is another installment in the Lydmouth series and all the players are there Richard and Edith Thornhill, Jill, and Elizabeth. There is background to the story spaced throughout the book. Happenings in Palestine right after WWII. The other plot lines concern a dance school and rainy, rainy weather. I like Andrew Taylor, he writes well and the atmosphere is always special.
The third book is the latest by Jonathon King. It is, unfortunately, not a Max Freeman story. The book is called "Eye of Vengeance". A sniper and lots of grief figure in the story about a journalist named Nick Mullins based in Florida. Unlike Max there is not a lot of depth to Nick and I sort of think that King should have stuck to his winning concept.
The movie was the third Pirates of the Caribbean - "At World's End". I do like Johnny Depp and I had good company when I went to see the film. But even three hours didn't live up to the first movie. My favorite scene was when they "rocked the boat".
Finally a "find" in the music world - for me at least - Eva Cassidy. My father sent me a recording of her version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - extraordinary! I ordered some CD's by her.

Aberdeen and Northumberland

My reading list has been dominated by books from the US lately. Courtesy of my library, however, a gift of two new books from the British Isles came in this week. The first is a continuation of the Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride - "Broken Skin". This book like the other is a mixture of dark and funny. The screw-up DI Steel is back giving everyone a hard time and emjoying the pornography lead in part of the mystery. MacBride has several plot lines going all at once, not necessarily linked. Another comedy aside is the fat DI Insch who is directing an amateur production of the Mikado. The second book is by Anne Cleeves; her latest "Hidden Depths". It wasn't as good as Raven Black, but a fairly interesting story about several dysfunctional families. This is evidently the third book in a series featuring DI Vera Stanhope, a chubby middle-aged spinster as tough police investigator. I guess they can be a back-up if I need something to read on a long trip.

Lots of books, less substance

In an earlier post I mentioned liking a book by Douglas Kennedy, true to form my library had another "State of the Union". I liked this book also, probably because the main character was of my age and the book was about both the college period and the now period. It was also a lesson in how things can spin out of control, and how in the final analysis it doesn't matter much in the scheme of things.
The library also provided me with two books by David Baldacci: "The Camel Club" and its follower "The Collectors". Baldacci always keeps me reading, even though I know that it is just bubblegum for the mind. The adventures of Oliver, Caleb, Milton, and Rueben were fun to read, but naturally not very believable. One good thing is that you can count on everything working out alright for the good guys at the end of the book.
Another library find was "Sunstroke" by Jesse Kellerman. A debut thriller, by the son of the two famous Kellermans (neither of whom I am really fond of). But it was a well written and pacey thriller with at least two car trips between LA and Sonora. Mostly about how you never really know someone. One comic relief sequence had a guy handcuffed to a garden chair. It would probably be worth the movie rights. Gloria, the main character, went from flat to interesting as the book progressed, that's worth something as well.
The final book in this post, "See No Evil" by Michael Ridpath was a purchase from the ever reliable English Book Shop. You can always find something to pass the time with there. A change of venue also - from the US to England and South Africa. It was not, however, a surprising as promised. It wasn't hard to figure out who the bad guys were and why they did it. But I did enjoy the SA part of the story.