What I've been reading
PRIEST, Ken Bruen, St. Martin's Minotaur. $23.95
CROSS, Ken Bruen, St. Martin's Minotaur. $23.95
When you are as addicted to Ken Bruen as I am, not too many weeks can pass before picking up another of his biting takes on the police, alcoholism, and the effect of the Roman Catholic Church on the Irish soul. These two books were published a year apart. The Edgar nomination of Priest prompted me to read it, and I read straight through to the end of Cross. When Father Joyce is decapitated in a Galway confessional, Jack Taylor becomes involved. Taylor is fighting his personal demons, as usual, and dealing with a horrendous loss. But there's a young man who wants to learn the ropes and Taylor is feeling paternal so things are beginning to look very slightly up. In Cross, Taylor is once again in the slough of despond, but now somebody has crucified a young boy.
GAS CITY, Loren D.Estleman. Forge. $24.95
This was one of the most surprising reads I've had for a long time. Not because I don't know who Loren D. Estleman is - indeed I have many of his books on my shelf, unread
- but because I didn't realize just how good he is. Best known for his Amos Walker
mysteries set in Detroit, Estleman has written a stand alone here that is extraordinary. Set in a Midwestern blue-collar city (like Detroit), Gas City tells of the power struggle between Police Chief Russell whose wife has just died and the mob boss who has for
years been Russell's benefactor. This struggle is set against a city made antsy by a serial killer's rampage. What a very pleasant surprise this was.
THE DARK TIDE, Andrew Gross. Wm. Morrow. $25.95
Summer is here early, or at least my beach reading is. Not a criticism, just an observation. James Patterson's one-time writing partner has given us a thriller which, literally, starts with a bang in New York's Grand Central Station. A bomb demolishes the train car in which Charles Friedman is riding. His wife, Karen, hopes that he may have survived though, with many bodies unidentified, she is beginning to think that her
husband of eighteen years is dead. Months later, Karen discovers that Charles's business dealings are in question. There are hedge fund losses, international scams, conspiracies, and murder. A page-turner!
PARTY OF ONE: THE LONERS' MANIFESTO, Anneli Rufus. Marlowe.
$15.95
This book is in no way a mystery. It's not even fiction. And it's five years old. However, I had to pick it up when I came across it because it had my name all over it (Loner!), and I couldn't resist. We loners have had a bad rap lately. We've been called
everything from standoffish to serial killer. We never leap to the phone when it rings and
groups bore us or scare us to death. But loners are just like everybody else except we don't have a high tolerance for the non-essentials. We need our time alone to recharge
and many of us need it to create. Isaac Newton was a loner, as was Michelangelo. As are Anne Rice and Haruki Murakami. So if, when you're invited to a party, you see it less as an opportunity to meet people and more as an ordeal where you're convinced you'll be trapped in a corner by a bore, with bad breath, this delightful, eccentric, and surprisingly
in depth look at the loner may be for you.