Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion

What a month, the summer reading has hit in earnest, and my shelves are getting crowded with top end authors. I polished off the last couple pages of the new Connelly today, but too late to call May. Sorry, you will just have to wait.
Barry


The Way Home: Geo Pelecanos
If you liked The Turnaround, you will love the Way Home. Again, the book deals with individuals on the edge of society that have gone astray and have to find their way back. The edge of Washington society is a niche that Pelecanos owns like nobody else (A-)

Gone Tomorrow: Lee Child
He just does this so well, you wonder after so many books about a smart, strong guy wandering around, how much longer it can work, but while you wonder and watch the set up, you might as well have been a fish with the hook in your mouth getting slowly reeled in, because before you have passed 100 pages, the book is a compelling read.
Now a special thanks to the Patriot Act, and its severe provisions for restricting that authors can have a field day with. Maybe the government does too, I don;t know, I try to keep my nose clean, but Reacher has one more thing to worry about when his needs, and those of the government may not exactly coincide. (A-)

Turn Coat: Jim Butcher
While the earliest books were lessons in how the supernatural worked, the later books put this all to use as a study in conflict and mystery in the parallel world. As with many m/cs we see, being a friend of Harry Dresden is not a recipe for good health. The level of mayhem remains high, Harry remains in good humor, and the world seems to be moving somewhere, hopefully toward being a better Place. (A-)

Wicked Prey: John Sanford
This is the procedural where old friends come back, swear as they always did, and incrementally take apart a plot by an ever more devious set of criminals. A welcome addition to the family, set during the Republican National Convention. (A-)

Cemetery Dance: Preston/Child
In some ways, Pendergast and his life get a bit more bizarre in every book. He was far from normal here, and D'Agusta was as crotchety as ever, but they stayed mostly true to character while investigating what might have been zombies, and the death of somebody near to them. While overall, I would say we learned nothing new about the characters, we did see the people we know solve a case and move on a bit with their lives. (B+)

Code Sixty-One: Donald Harstad
A police mystery, featuring and older, slightly overweight Iowa deputy, and written by a retired slightly overweight Iowa deputy. This has been a good series, better than average, and has played the police mission with a bit of humor and a bigger bit of ethics of the job. In this case, the suspect is a vampire, as described by the witnesses. Hecould have played this very funny, but he played it straight and it worked. (B+)

Hard Ticket Home: David Housewright
The first of the McKenzie series (his second series) and I am now current with this author. This seems to be the most brutal of the books, but the continuing characters are suitably horrified, and better brings the reader into a desire for justice. The topics here are murder, and family, and of course money. McKenzie has to sort it all out, while watching out for feds, cops, adn the gangstas that want him gone. (B+)

Rogue Forces: Dale Brown
Over the course of numerous novels, Brown has put us at war with country after country. In the latest, our enemy is a NATO ally, proving that you can never be too sure. Luckily, he happnes to have a couple bombers ready to ride to the rescue. He's not in the Air Force anymore, but doesn't everybody have heavy bombers? (B)

Tonight I said Goodbye: Michael Koryta
An Edgar nominee a couple of years ago, and set in Cleveland,which is not quite the PI stomping ground that Boston is. I had to put this aside to finish the Harstad, since reading the two together just was not working out. The protaginist here is an ex-cop PI, who partnered with another ex-cop are trying to figure out how a faily managed to run afoul of the Russian Mob. The interplay between characters was good, thre were adequate twists and turns to the story, andif the main characters were never sure who they could trust, neither was I. (B)

High Country, Nevada Barr
Finally, a National Park I have been in. Long time ago, I'll admit, but I camped in Yosimite an Sequoia in 1970, and saw my first Grizzly, luckily form a distance. For once, I could understand the terrain that Nevada gave me without relying only on her description. In this episode, Anna is undercover, working as a waitress (not a very good one), and looking into a series of possible murders. The pallette widens to include drug issues, and the action is heavy, and hard on Anna. This is another of those books where she ends with a harder attitude than she began. (B)

Diamond Head (Charles Knief)
A first novel, and he has about 4 more in the series, aboput an ex-seal PI in Hawaii. I thik this got recommended to me because I love Florida crazies, and somebody figured if I liked Florida, then Island books must also be good mon, and if I liked those, California is almost the same climate, and of course, once you have gone from Florida to California vis the islands (mon) you might as well go to Hawaii, so I would like those too. It did have a palm tree on the cover. I might have bought it just for that.
If you got this far, the book itself was the investigation into the dead daughter of an admiral, and finding what trouble she might have caused, and who ultimately caused her undoing. It was a great job for an ex-seal. (B)

Dead Midnight: Marsha Muller
After a string of "these keep getting better" I have to press the pause button. This was not a bad book, but was not a better book. McCone, coming off the need to deal with the suicide of her brother, is tasked to investigate another suicide. Against her initial judgement, those on her more mystical indian side convince her that the investigation would be cathartic. I'm not sure that goal was met, the items in her investigation were not the same as thecircumstancs i her family, and more so than usual, the bad guys were painted with a very dark brush, the good guys with a lighter one, so there were not any real surprises. (B)

Lords of Corruption: Kyle Mills
I think Mills went to see "Last King of Scotland" and decided it was not sufficiently violent, so he wrote Lords of Corruption to remedy the oversight. Early in the novel, it is apparent that a happy ending can only be found in terms of the main character, the lesson being, don;t fall too much in love with anybody. The action takes place in NY, KY, and a fictitious African country with an Idi Amin type ruler. There is much money to be made, and many innocent people to get hurt. (B)

I really liked Turn Coat and The Way Home, too, Barry. Pelecanos has quickly become a must read for me.

Barry:
My shelves are getting crowded again with top notch authors too -- isn't it great! You had a very good month and I see several I need to add to my "need more books" tbr piles! Lords of Corruption is one of them

Barry wrote: "What a month, the summer reading has hit in earnest, and my shelves are getting crowded with top end authors. I polished off the last couple pages of the new Connelly today, but too late to call May. Sorry, you will just have to wait. "