Category: 3 Star Books

Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, by Christopher Moore

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Cover ImageFinished audio 7-28-08, rating 3/5, fiction/sci-fi, pub. 2003

“The science you do not know looks like magic.”

Nate Quinn is a marine biologist who studies whale songs and his partner Clay is the underwater photographer.  They have been set up in Hawaii for years and Clay hires a wanna be native, Kona, although his real name is Prestin Applebaum and he’s from New Jersey.  They also have a research assistant, Amy, who they all agree looks fantastic from behind.  The ‘Old Broad’ funding their research can hear the whales and lets them know when one lets her know he wants a pastrami on rye.

One day Nate sees a whale with Bite Me written boldly across his fluke.  He takes a picture, but it never comes back from the photo lab.  Their lab and boat are trashed and Clay almost drowns.  When Amy sees Nate swallowed by a whale mahem ensues.  The whole second part of this book after Nate is swallowed is a sci-fi story under the sea.

I liked it, but didn’t love it.  It made me laugh out loud more than once and the characters were quirky and fun.  The first part of the book I felt like I waited a long time for something to happen and when something did happen I wan’t sure how much I liked it.  Read it if you like Moore’s other books or if you want to know why the whales sing.  I would tell you here, but if I had to read the book to find out, so do you.

Suffering Fools, by Ed Gaffney

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Cover ImageFinished 7-22-08, rating 3/5, suspense, pub. 2006

“You know sometimes big problems get smaller when you talk about them.”  Chapter 25

This is the second book with attorneys Zack and Terry, but I didn’t realize that or I would have started with the first one.  But, no worries, this was completely a stand alone novel.  Zack and Terry, friends since college, take the case of ‘Babe’ for free and find themselves trying to defend a man who can barely put a complex sentence together.  At the same time, there is a kidnapped woman who cannot remember who she is and an Assistant District Attorney more concerned with the truth than a conviction, much to the consternation of his boss.

I liked it, but there were a lot of story lines going on at the same time that took place at different times.  In one chapter you could be reading an long ago written email, a future trial transcript, present time and two months ago.  It seemed unnecessarily confusing.  The mystery and the writing were good enough that I really didn’t really need to wait until the middle of the book to get a handle on who was who.  Even with that complaint the book kept me turning the pages as fast as I could.  I’ll have to read the the first book about these attorneys.

Bittersweet Rain, by Sandra Brown

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Cover ImageFinished 7-13-08, rating 3/5, romance, pub. 1984

Caroline grew up as the daughter of the town drunk.  She was the poor girl who would never amount to anything.  Rink was the significantly older, rich son of the town patriarch.  He met Caroline when she was only 15 and fell in love.  They hid their relationship until one day Rink decided to tell his father, regardless of the consequences.

Fast forward 12 years and you’ll find Caroline married to Roscoe, Rink’s dad.  Roscoe is dying and Rink is forced to come home.  Rink and Caroline are forced together by the circumstances, but find their attraction has the same powerful pull it had before. 

As silly as this may sound, and I thought it sounded silly too, it was an enjoyable romance.  There were a few things that I thought would be hard to get over, a college graduate in love with a 15 year old and a woman marrying an old man for the comforts he could provide, but somehow it worked.  It was a good romance and I would recommend it.  Sandra Brown knows how to tell a good story.

The Blue Hour, by T. Jefferson Parker

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Cover ImageFinished 7-1-08, rating 3/5, thriller, pub. 2000

“Use the years to live well.”    Chapter 35

Retired detective, Tim Hess, is asked to come back to work as a consultant.  Hess is taking chemo and radiation treatments and will be forced to take orders from a young, brash detective that has just sued her last partner for sexual harassment.   He takes the job and is hoping to pass on his years of wisdom to his partner, Merci.  Merci, for her part, is an ambitious woman who has not yet figured out how to play well with others.  They are tracking a serial killer and using the time to learn what each other has to offer.

I liked Hess, but not Merci.  I thought the mystery was good and moved fast.  I did not really like the last chapter, it didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the book.  I didn’t love it, but it was good.  This is the first in a series just about Merci and I’m curious to see if she softens enough for me to really like her as the series progresses.  We’ll see.

Phantom Prey, by John Sandford

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Cover ImageFinished 6-16-08, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2008

Cop turned investigator, Lucas Davenport, is back in his 18th novel.  This time he’s investigating the Goth scene after a wealthy young woman who fancies herself Goth goes missing.  The mother of the missing girl is friends with Weather, Lucas’s wife, and she leans on Lucas to find her daughter. 

Almost as soon as Lucas begins, three more Goths are killed with little time between.  And when Lucas is shot, he knows that he is onto something big.  There was also a secondary investigation involving a bad man named Siggy and his pregnant girlfriend, Heather.  It was this secondary story that I liked the most.

I’m a big fan of this series, but this one was not one of my favorites.  It was good, but it didn’t draw me in as quickly as it usually does.  And there a distracting amount of colons used in the book.  I know that seems weird, but if you read it let me know if you saw it too.  And the story with Del and Cheryl was a little predictable.  I highly recommend the series and I always think it’s better if you start a series at the beginning (which would be Rules of Prey).

Dark Of The Moon, by John Sandford

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Cover ImageFinished audio on 6-4-08, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2007

This is a fast paced mystery featuring BCA officer Virgil Flowers from Sandford’s popular Prey series.  Virgil is sent to investigate a murder in the small town of Bluestem, Minnesota and while there more dead bodies pile up.  Virgil is old friends with the sheriff, Stryker, and in bed with Stryker’s sister, Joan, within a few days.  Virgil doesn’t know who to trust or who to believe and he must wade through a whole town of suspects.

Virgil had occasional check-ins with Lucas Davenport from the Prey novels, but I much prefer Virgil as a secondary character in those novels.  Jason and I listened to this on our way to and from Atlantic City and we were both laughing by the last cd because Virgil had not eliminated a single suspect in the the first 8 cds!  The story kept moving and I enjoyed the reader a lot, but this is only an average thriller.  Read the Prey series for great reading.

An Angel For Emily, by Jude Deveraux

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An Angel for EmilyFinished 5-17-08, rating 3/5, romance, pub.1998

“I’m your guardian angel and we have been together for a thousand years.”            Chapter 1

Emily is engaged to a popular newscaster in the city and she runs the local library in the small town of Greenbriar.  On a night when Emily was the center of attention and being awarded Librarian of the Year, her fiance, Donald, stands her up.  Upset, Emily hits a man with her car on a dark road and is faced with a man who called himself her guardian angel.

Michael, her personal angel, has been sent down to earth to help Emily, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.  Emily can’t believe he’s an angel, especially considering that he’s on the FBI Most Wanted list.  The two reach an understanding and some very unangelic feelings arise.

To enjoy this fun romp you must be totally willing to suspend disbelief and common sense beginning on page one.  With that said, it was fun.  The way of this spiritual world has its heart in the Hindu tradition of reincarnation, although I’m pretty sure Hinduism doesn’t believe in ‘relations’ between angels and humans.

Hot Stuff by Janet Evanovich and Leanne Banks

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Cover ImageFinished 5-6-08, rating 3/5, fiction, pub. 2007

I love Janet Evanovich, but sometimes she tries to make the characters  so unique and entertaining that they just end up being ridiculous.  So, when I was introduced to Pugg in Chapter One I was prepared to ignore his antics, but a wonderful thing happened.  I really enjoyed the other characters and the story so much that by the end I sorta even liked Pugg.

Cate is from a loving family and she is going to school to become a teacher.  She is subletting a room from Marty, a cross dressing singer when bad things begin to happen.  There are weird hang-ups, annoying visitors, and Marty’s disappearance to contend with and that’s before the guard dog, Beast shows up at her door.  At the bar where she bartends she meets Kellen and is unwillingly drawn to him as he begins to charm her.  Circumstances arise that throw Cate and Kellen together and a whirlwind love affair begins.

This was a fun and fast read and I really liked it.  I loved Beast and Cate’s family.  It made for a very enjoyable few hours.

Destiny Unleashed, by Sherryl Woods

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Cover ImageFinished 3-28-08, rating 3/5, romance, pub. 2004

Destiny gave up a carefree life in France with a man who wanted to marry her to rush back home to the States after her brother and sister-in-law died in a plane crash.  Destiny took over the care of her three young nephews and left her art and love, William,  behind.  Fast forward 20 years and Destiny has decided to reclaim her life.

Destiny wants be the head of Carlton Industries European division, her family business.  Her nephew Richard, head of the company gives her the position although her only qualification is that her last name is Carlton.  She rushes to London to begin her independence and immediately puts herself into William’s orbit.  William happens to be the head of a rival company and the two are forced together by business and by choice.  The nephews do not approve of this liaison and send their wives to London to find out what is going on.  There is lots of family drama and a little business intrigue too.

Destiny was a wonderful main character.  As a 50 something heroine she brought a lot of charm and it was refreshing.  I thought the book was fun, even if a bit unbelievable.  It was an enjoyable read.

Freakonomics, A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Levitt & Dubner

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Cover ImageFinished audio on 3-20-08, rating 3/5, non-fiction, pub. 2005

 My husband loved this book and thought I would enjoy it too.  The title made me wary (I don’t read books by economists!), but the few things he told me about the book while reading it intrigued me.  This is a book about a guy who likes numbers and who like to be able to explain everything, especially those sometimes silly questions that pop into our head as quickly as they pop out.  Levitt actually tries to answer them.

I think the best way to address the wide range of topics in this book is to list the titles of the six chapters.   1.What Do Schoolteachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?   2. How is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real Estate Agents?   3. Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?   4. Where Have All the Criminals Gone?   5. What Makes a Perfect Parent?   6. Perfect Parenting, Part II: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell As Sweet?

I was not as interested in some of the topics as others, but overall I was interested enough to keep listening.  I think the way he explained how incentives (economic, social and moral) ruled the world was a new way to look at things for a non-economist like myself.  I was also shocked to learn that TWO US Presidents were Ku Klux Klan members, Harding and Truman.  And his argument that the legalization of abortion was responsible for the reduction of crime on the 1990’s was one I hadn’t heard before.

I would recommend this book.  I listened to the audio read by the author, but I think you’d be better off with the book.  The reading of some charts and lists were not always easy to keep straight when driving 🙂