52+ in 2009
Sep. 5th, 2009 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumineaux206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
The latest Temperance Brennan novel, newly arrived and consumed in a single night in my insomnia.
For those who are fans of the TV Bones, the sole similarity between the TV show and the books is the name of the main character and her ostensible profession. The characters are completely different, their histories are completely different, their current situations are completely different. I love both the books and the show despite their differences, but no one should pick up one thinking it has anything to do with the other.
This book tells a parallel story - Brennan awakes, trapped and bound in the dark with no memory of how she got there. The chapters alternate between her efforts at escape and flashbacks of the events leading up to her captivity. Over time, Reichs has become far more facile at explaining the science in lay person's terms and the scientific explanations don't derail the story nearly as much as they used to. I found the book a very easy and compelling read, well worth the time.
Walking Dead by C.E. Murphy
Our heroine, reluctant shaman Joanne Walker, has to deal with the theft (and use) of a magic cauldron that raises the dead in modern Seattle on Halloween. If you're a purist about either shamanism or Celtic mythology, Murphy's tinkering with both will annoy you. I'm not that kind of purist, so I find this series enjoyable because of the characters. Joanne has grown up a lot and stopped whining about not wanting her powers or the responsibility. Her supporting cast is a delightful array of personalities. I particularly like the cop she's partnered with, a cross-dresser who sees the dead. The zombie attack in the cemetery cleverly recalls that a wide-spread spell for raising the dead isn't just limited to raising dead *humans*
Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas
This is a re-read for me. I take a guilty pleasure in true crime books. Give me a dead body and the details of a police investigation, and I am a happy woman.
John Douglas is one of the men who invented profiling for the FBI. He headed the Behavioral Science Unit (and prompty changed its name to something that didn't abbreviate to BS) of the FBI in the 80s, and has been making a decent living as a consultant and author since his retirement in the early 90s. In this book, Douglas applies his modern profiling lens to the evidence in a number of famous cases: Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Black Dahlia, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Zodiac killler, the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Douglas's prose makes for easy reading, although he does have some tendency to repeat himself. You get a real feeling for his personality as well as for his feelings about the evidence, particularly from the chapter on JonBenet Ramsey. If you enjoy mysteries, it's worth a read, especially the chapters on Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden and Lindbergh.
Green River, Running Red by Anne Rule
Yeah, another true crime book. This one is about the Green River Killer in Seattle. The first 2/3 of the book devote a great deal of time to discussing the victims and the incredibly sad life stories that lead to their working as prostitutes on the Sea-Tac Strip and falling into the hands of a killer. The really interesting part for me is the last 1/3 of the book which goes into the final cracking of the case as new evidence became available (through scientific advances) and the capture and interrogation of the killer. It's a good enough book if true crime stories float your boat. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a weak stomach for the horrors that humans can commit against each other.
The latest Temperance Brennan novel, newly arrived and consumed in a single night in my insomnia.
For those who are fans of the TV Bones, the sole similarity between the TV show and the books is the name of the main character and her ostensible profession. The characters are completely different, their histories are completely different, their current situations are completely different. I love both the books and the show despite their differences, but no one should pick up one thinking it has anything to do with the other.
This book tells a parallel story - Brennan awakes, trapped and bound in the dark with no memory of how she got there. The chapters alternate between her efforts at escape and flashbacks of the events leading up to her captivity. Over time, Reichs has become far more facile at explaining the science in lay person's terms and the scientific explanations don't derail the story nearly as much as they used to. I found the book a very easy and compelling read, well worth the time.
Walking Dead by C.E. Murphy
Our heroine, reluctant shaman Joanne Walker, has to deal with the theft (and use) of a magic cauldron that raises the dead in modern Seattle on Halloween. If you're a purist about either shamanism or Celtic mythology, Murphy's tinkering with both will annoy you. I'm not that kind of purist, so I find this series enjoyable because of the characters. Joanne has grown up a lot and stopped whining about not wanting her powers or the responsibility. Her supporting cast is a delightful array of personalities. I particularly like the cop she's partnered with, a cross-dresser who sees the dead. The zombie attack in the cemetery cleverly recalls that a wide-spread spell for raising the dead isn't just limited to raising dead *humans*
Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas
This is a re-read for me. I take a guilty pleasure in true crime books. Give me a dead body and the details of a police investigation, and I am a happy woman.
John Douglas is one of the men who invented profiling for the FBI. He headed the Behavioral Science Unit (and prompty changed its name to something that didn't abbreviate to BS) of the FBI in the 80s, and has been making a decent living as a consultant and author since his retirement in the early 90s. In this book, Douglas applies his modern profiling lens to the evidence in a number of famous cases: Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, the Black Dahlia, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Zodiac killler, the JonBenet Ramsey murder. Douglas's prose makes for easy reading, although he does have some tendency to repeat himself. You get a real feeling for his personality as well as for his feelings about the evidence, particularly from the chapter on JonBenet Ramsey. If you enjoy mysteries, it's worth a read, especially the chapters on Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden and Lindbergh.
Green River, Running Red by Anne Rule
Yeah, another true crime book. This one is about the Green River Killer in Seattle. The first 2/3 of the book devote a great deal of time to discussing the victims and the incredibly sad life stories that lead to their working as prostitutes on the Sea-Tac Strip and falling into the hands of a killer. The really interesting part for me is the last 1/3 of the book which goes into the final cracking of the case as new evidence became available (through scientific advances) and the capture and interrogation of the killer. It's a good enough book if true crime stories float your boat. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a weak stomach for the horrors that humans can commit against each other.
