Book Review - Betrayal of Trust by J.A. Jance

I've been a fan of J.A. Jance mysteries, with J.P. Beaumont as the detective, for a while now. I first came onto the Beaumont series because they take place in Seattle, and so it was cool to hear about things that I already kind of knew. Jance's writing is what kept me reading, of course. I haven't read all of the Beaumont books, but I have read all the recent ones, and they are excellent reads for the mystery fans.

Jance's latest book is Betrayal of Trust, a book that starts out seeming like it was about political corruption (or at least something to do with politics) and political families with skeletons. It quickly turns into a page-turner about the trials and tribulations of growing up.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I wrote briefly about this book back in October. It was my post about story beginnings, and how typically authors are encouraged to grab the reader on the first page and keep a grip on them. Betrayal of Trust doesn't do that, though. Its first six pages drag on and on and on and...well, you get the idea.

Book Review: Richard Castle - Heat Wave

Been a while since I've posted a book review, but my review of Richard Castle's Heat Wave has now been posted on Curled Up With a Good Book.  This is an unusual book in the sense that the "author" is really a character on the ABC television show, Castle.  On the show, he's a writer who tags along with the cops because he's going to be writing about them.  This book is loosely based on those cop characters (thus, we have a character writing a book containing characters based on other characters...confused yet?)

Many thanks to Sharon, the editor at Curled Up, for saving my ass on this review.  See, I didn't know any of this when I read the book and wrote the review.  The review copy of the book I had contained a DVD with an episode of Castle on it, but I wasn't really interested in watching it.  I guess I should have, as it would have explained everything.

So many thanks to Sharon for adding a disclaimer at the beginning of the review, as well as a few words here and there within the review to make it look like I'm not a total idiot and that I actually knew how this book worked.  I believe (I hope, anyway) that this is the first time she's had to do that, and I hope it will be the last too.

You're the best!

Tess Gerritsen - Vanish

I've extolled the virtues of Tess Gerritsen's "Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles" books here before, but I want to draw attention to an older one of hers that I feel is the best of the bunch.  Gerritsen has come close to topping it a few times, but she never quite has.  Vanish is the book that I read the fastest, mainly because it gripped me so tightly that I couldn't put it down.  If you don't want to tie yourself to a whole series, but also don't want a standalone (The Bone Garden is good for that), then you can't go wrong with Vanish.

Anyway, rather than review it here yet again, I'm going to post my Epinions review of it here.  I posted this on March 7, 2007. This is also an experiment, because this particular review has been getting a whole bunch of hits since March 2008 on Epinions.  Since there's no tracking hits there, I want to see if I can find out why that is.  Below the fold is the review, in its entirety (including the review header).

More Book Stuff - Heavy Books

As any of you who go down to the bottom of this page and look at my "GoodReads" widget (at least for now, though future visitors to this page won't see them), I'm currently reading two books:  Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 B.C. to 1000 A.D. by Barry Cunliffe and Tess Gerritsen's The Keepsake.

Now, I'm normally not one to read two books at one time.  For some reason, it just annoys me trying to follow two books at the same time, though it's not quite as bad if one is non-fiction and the other is fiction.  It's just a quirk of mine that I don't like to do it.  I concentrate on one book and one book only.

So why am I doing that this time?

Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor (Review)

Just got word that my review of Lisa Gardner's The Neighbor has just been posted on Curled Up With a Good Book.

It's a decent thriller, if you're into those kinds of books. It has your cynical detective, your apparent crime scene, your cast of characters who all look kind of guilty (though, in a bit of a twist, the one who everybody assumes is guilty actually is a viewpoint character, so either he's not guilty or he's lying to himself and the reader).

It's a good, but not great book. Check out the review for more!