Great American Road Trip: Nevada

The Princess of Las Vegas
 by Chris Bohjalian
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: March 26, 2024
Genre: fiction
Pages: 400
ReRead?: No
Project: great American road trip
A Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip.
Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy’s daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy’s sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy’s carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. A riveting tale of identity, obsession, fintech, and high-tech mobsters, The Princess of Las Vegas is an addictive, wildly original thriller from one of our most extraordinary storytellers.

Stop 5/50: Nevada

This was possibly the perfect book for my stop in Nevada. A book narrated by a Princess Diana impersonator, who performs in a seedy, off-strip casino, and gets mixed up with cryptocurrency-gangster bros.

I have somehow managed not to read a book by Bohjalian, even though he has written more than a dozen and several of them have been on my list for a long time. I enjoyed this one enough that I plan to continue to dip into his back list.

This book did have flaws. The middle section dragged. The main character, Crissy, and her sister, Betsy, made some frustratingly terrible decisions – even if they were necessary to move the plot forward. And the ending was abrupt and convoluted.

Overall, though, I enjoyed my visit to Las Vegas and felt that this book really nailed the slightly tawdry aesthetic of the less savory parts of the city.

Where I am going next: Utah, to begin my exploration of the Four Corners states: Utah, Arizona, New Mexico & Colorado.

Great American Road Trip: Idaho

Idaho
 by Emily Ruskovich
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 2017
Genre: fiction
Pages: 320
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard, great American road trip
One hot August day a family drives to a mountain clearing to collect birch wood. Jenny, the mother, is in charge of lopping any small limbs off the logs with a hatchet. Wade, the father, does the stacking. The two daughters, June and May, aged nine and six, drink lemonade, swat away horseflies, bicker, and sing snatches of songs as they while away the time.
But then something unimaginably shocking happens, an act so extreme it will scatter the family in every different direction.
In a story told from multiple perspectives and in razor-sharp prose, we gradually learn more about this act, and the way its violence, love and memory reverberate through the life of every character in Idaho.

Stop 4/50. I have had this book on my TBR since it was published in 2017.

My Washington book was a bust. This book more than made up for it.

I can’t say that it was an “enjoyable” read in the traditional sense of the word, because in many ways, this book left me gutted. But, it will be a long time before I forget May and Wade and Ann and Jenny and especially June, or the house on Mt. Iris, near Priest Lake in Idaho.

I read Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson in January, 2023, another strangely beautiful book that is set in Northern Idaho. As I was reading this book, I was reminded of Robinson’s writing style. When I read the afterward, this made a lot of sense to me. Ruskovich studied at the well-regarded Iowa Writer’s Workshop, under a list of luminaries that included Robinson.

The writing in this book is gorgeous. Each character is delineated with precision and delicacy. The book begins with an act of inexplicable violence – Jenny, wife of Wade, murders her youngest daughter, May, with a hatchet. June, the older daughter, is lost when Wade takes Jenny and May into town and leaves June behind so she doesn’t have to share a backseat with her dead sister, promising to return for her. By the time he returns, June is gone. She is 9.

The reader is transported back and forth between the narratives of Wade, who has lost his entire family in one terrible day and who, because of early onset Alzheimer’s is losing his memory of his family bit by inexorable bit. Ann, Wade’s second wife and a former teacher who dwells upon her memory of the single time she saw June as she grapples with the reality that soon, she will carry the burden of a past tragedy that Wade has forgotten. Jenny, who spends the next three decades in prison, frozen in a sort of stasis, her life ending on the day she murdered her daughter just as surely as she ended her daughter’s life. And Elizabeth, who becomes Jenny’s cellmate, surrogate daughter and friend.

This book is all about the characters. It is strangely luminous for a book that is so dark, and the humanity shines through in a way that I can neither understand nor explain. I don’t know if I would recommend it, beyond saying that I loved it. It has been seven years since this book was published. Whenever Emily Ruskovich publishes her next book, I’ll be first in line to buy it.

Where I was last: Washington
Where I went next: Nevada

Great American Road Trip: Washington

Blackberry Winter
by Sarah Jio
Rating: ★★½
Publication Date: September 1, 2012
Genre: historical fiction
Pages: 286
ReRead?: No
Project: great American road trip

In 2011, Sarah Jio burst onto the fiction scene with two sensational novels--The Violets of March and The Bungalow. With Blackberry Winter--taking its title from a late-season, cold-weather phenomenon--Jio continues her rich exploration of the ways personal connections can transcend the boundaries of time.

Seattle, 1933. Single mother Vera Ray kisses her three-year-old son, Daniel, goodnight and departs to work the night-shift at a local hotel. She emerges to discover that a May-Day snow has blanketed the city, and that her son has vanished. Outside, she finds his beloved teddy bear lying face-down on an icy street, the snow covering up any trace of his tracks, or the perpetrator's.

Seattle, 2010. Seattle Herald reporter Claire Aldridge, assigned to cover the May 1 "blackberry winter" storm and its twin, learns of the unsolved abduction and vows to unearth the truth. In the process, she finds that she and Vera may be linked in unexpected ways...

Stop 3/50 was Seattle, Washington, in 2011 and 1933.

Unfortunately, this book was a disappointment, although I could absolutely see how it would work really well for a different reader.

I had two significant issues with the book, and both are related to the dual-timeline narrative structure. I find that this type of book is very hit-and-miss for me. There are books where I feel like it really works – Kate Morton’s books leap to mind for me here. But, there are also many more books and authors where I don’t feel like they really pulled it off.

This one fell into that category for me. Often when I read a dual-timeline book, I find myself absorbed in one of the timelines – almost always the historical one – and much less interested in the other one. In this book, I really wasn’t interested in either timeline. I selected it because I felt like it had a lot of potential, but when it came right down to it, Jio didn’t succeed in making me care about either of the main characters. Sitting here, writing this review, I can’t even remember the name of the present-day narrator and I just finished the book about nine hours ago.

The other major issue I had with the book was its “Lifetime Movie of the Week” quality of using massive coincidences to tie the two timelines together. These elements, to me, were simply laughably convenient and entirely unbelievable.

Seattle is a metropolitan area of 4 million people and the whole “hey, my bestie’s aunt just happens to have incredibly crucial information about an unsolved abduction from the 1930’s that I, a newspaper reporter, am looking into” was too much for my credulity to bear. It would have been fine – great, even – for a reporter to have solved an unsolved abduction without needing to incorporate that level of intertwined absurdity. I think that authors do that to try to heighten the investment of the reader, but for me, those sorts of machinations really take me out of a story and make me doubt the author’s confidence in her storytelling ability.

And, as a bit of an aside, another thing that bothered me about the book was the way that the author used the fact that a blackberry was growing on a grave as some sort of folky metaphor for being specially chosen. The thing is, though, as someone living in the PNW, I am all too aware blackberries are an invasive weed here. There is nothing selective about where blackberries grow – they grow fucking everywhere, as anyone whose neighbor has frustratingly allowed a huge goddamned blackberry bramble to take over their property line would know. Because it is a constant battle to avoid your (ahem, my) property turning into a replica of Sleeping Beauty’s castle once they have a foothold. I am speaking from real life irritating experience here. So, even though this is a really small thing, it just annoyed the hell out of me. I kept wanting to yell at the author “Trillium. Trillium is the metaphor you are looking for here…” even though it didn’t tie in with the whole blackberry theme.

I did enjoy the Seattle setting. I live in the Portland area, and I have always loved Seattle, and would spend more time there if my husband didn’t have such an irrational aversion to the University of Washington from his time as an Oregon Duck. So, even though the book was a bit of a dud for me, I enjoyed hanging out at Pike Place Market and other Seattle hot spots for a few hours.

Next destination is Idaho!

Great American Road Trip: Oregon

The Book of Cold Cases
 by Simone St. James
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Genre: gothic, supernatural
Pages: 344
ReRead?: No
Project: great American road trip
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect--a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.
They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?
A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in t

Stop #2/50

Oregon is my home state, which makes it interesting that I struggled a bit to decide on a book to read. The books that my home state is known for – Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey, The River Why by David James Duncan – didn’t appeal to my current mood. When I was searching around for a book, this one came up & I remembered that I had already bought a copy a couple of years ago.

I’ve read a couple of other books by Simone St. James, and find her reliably entertaining. This might have been the scariest of all of her books so far. It is very ghost-y, and uses the scenery and climate of the setting well, with lots of cliffs, a plunge into the cold Pacific Ocean, and drizzle. Lake Claire is a fictional town on the coast, and I kept trying to figure out the real analog for it. I never did place it firmly in the coastal geography, but that’s just fine.

To be completely truthful, this is not a book I would usually read in May. I am always very attracted to books like this in the darker months, especially October. This would be a GREAT October read. But, I still enjoyed it, and from here, I am planning to continue my fictional drive north, to the State of Washington.

Great American Road Trip: California

Girls and their Horses
by Eliza Jane Brazier
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: June 6, 2023
Genre: fiction
Pages: 400
ReRead?: No
Project: great American road trip

Set in the glamorous, competitive world of showjumping, a novel about the girls who ride, their cutthroat mothers, and a suspicious death at a horse show

When the nouveau riche Parker family moves to an exclusive community in the heart of Southern California, they believe it’s their chance at a fresh start. Heather Parker is determined to give her daughters the life she never had—starting with horses.

She signs them up for riding lessons at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, where horses are a lifestyle. Heather becomes a “Barn Mom,” part of a group of wealthy women who hang at the stables, drink wine, and prepare their daughters for competition.

It’s not long before the Parker family is fully enmeshed in the horse world—from mean girl cliques to barn romance and dark secrets. With the end of summer horse show fast approaching, the pressure is on, and these mothers will stop at nothing to give their daughters everything they deserve.

Before the summer is over, lies will turn lethal, accidents will happen, and someone will end up dead.

I decided to start my road trip in California because there is no better start to the Great American Road Trip than California, unless it’s New York, and I decided on California.

I ran across this book because I have been mainlining a podcast with Anne Bogel called What Should I Read Next. She also runs an internet “book club” called the Modern Mrs. Darcy book club, which is reading this book for May. It’s $15 a month to join, but I decided to go ahead and pay for a month to figure out if it is worth my time, which is where I ran across this book.

I’m not sure if I loved it or hated it, but I read it in one day.

It’s definitely a modern thriller mystery. Told from the perspective of various characters, we start after the murder, but spend about 2 pages there and then go backwards, to four months before. And the author does not fill the reader in on the identity of the victim. Until about 95%.

I spent most of the book periodically looking up and asking my dog “WHO THE FUCK IS DEAD.”

I thought I had an inkling at about 70%, but turns out I was wrong. And because this is a modern thriller, all of the characters suck. Like, I hated them all. Maybe I liked one. No more than two. Probably only one.

I will say that my daughter was a horse girl, and she competed at the 4H horse fair, but her experience in a barn in Oregon was worlds away from the cutthroat world and million dollar horses of this book. Thank god, because these people had more money than sense. Or character. But I was thoroughly engaged, and I was wrong about the ending, and that’s satisfying.

Summer Reading 2024

In the summertime, I often enjoy coming up with a theme for my reading. Past themes have included Summer of Spies (courtesy of a bookish friend) and the 20 Crimes of Summer. For the past few years, I haven’t had the energy to indulge myself in any sort of a theme.

This year, though, feels different. It is my first full summer as a retiree, and I am having a great time with my reading right now. I’m already 110 books in for 2024, 33 books ahead of schedule to finish the year at 204, which was my reading goal.

So, I decided that a summer reading theme would be a great idea for this year.

So, here it is: the Great American Road Trip.

My plan is to read as close to 50 books – one set in each U.S. state – as I can between May 16 and the end of summer on August 31.

I actually started the themed reading a few days ago, & have already made a virtual trip through four states: California, Oregon (my home state), Washington and Idaho. I’ll be getting posts up for those books in the next day or so.

Even though the four states I’ve visited so far are geographically adjacent, I’m not going to be travelling in any specific order. I have already identified some library books that I’ll be reading, and my plan at this point is to hit a few more western states, and then I’ll be (virtually) flying to Florida and renting an imaginary car to explore the Southern US.

This is going to be a mood reading project. I am going to try to find books that have a strong sense of place attached, but all genres are fair game. There may be a few states where I linger for more than one book, if that is where my mood takes me. And while I’m hoping to hit all 50 states, if I find myself growing tired of this project, I will strand myself wherever I am and move on to other reading without a second thought!

A pair by James Michener

Centennial
by James Michener
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1974
Genre: historical fiction
Pages: 1105
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard

Written to commemorate the Bicentennial in 1976, James A. Michener’s magnificent saga of the West is an enthralling celebration of the frontier. Brimming with the glory of America’s past, the story of Colorado—the Centennial State—is manifested through its people: Lame Beaver, the Arapaho chieftain and warrior, and his Comanche and Pawnee enemies; Levi Zendt, fleeing with his child bride from the Amish country; the cowboy, Jim Lloyd, who falls in love with a wealthy and cultured Englishwoman, Charlotte Seccombe. In Centennial, trappers, traders, homesteaders, gold seekers, ranchers, and hunters are brought together in the dramatic conflicts that shape the destiny of the legendary West—and the entire country.

I love a doorstopper, a sweeping epic, a long, dramatic read – and especially if it was published in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Authors like James Clavell, Leon Uris, Herman Wouk, M.M. Kaye, Colleen McCullough and, yes, James Michener. I read a lot of James Michener as a teen, because my dad loved them and they were always on our bookshelves. I definitely remember reading Chesapeake, which I haven’t yet revisited, but that’s the only one I am certain that I have read. I am fairly certain that I did read Centennial, but it’s four decades on, so I can’t be sure.

Anyway, now that The Dial Press has reprinted all of Michener in kindle as well as paperback formats, I’ve revisited a couple of them and plan to continue. As an aside, these are perfect to read on my lightweight kindle because they are so huge that reading them in paperback is physically difficult. In addition, although they are a little pricy for a 50 year old book, at over a thousand pages, it’s basically like getting 3 to 4 books for one price.

This is Michener’s Colorado/wild, wild west book, which follows several characters/families from Lame Beaver, an Arapahoe chief, through the present day (which was 1976). I found it be a great read, and especially enjoyed one of the chapters about a cattle drive that brings cattle to Colorado from Texas. This reminded me a lot of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, which is one of my favorite books of all time.

I really love this style of book, and wish that there were more modern writers who were writing this type of epic story in addition to Edward Rutherfurd. Since there aren’t, I’m just going to revisit the old authors.

The Source
by James Michener
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1965
Genre: fiction, historical fiction
Pages: 1080
ReRead?: Yes

In the grand storytelling style that is his signature, James Michener sweeps us back through time to the very beginnings of the Jewish faith, thousands of years ago. Through the predecessors of four modern men and women, we experience the entire colorful history of the Jews, including the life of the early Hebrews and their persecutions, the impact of Christianity, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition, all the way to the founding of present-day Israel and the Middle-East conflict.
"A sweeping chronology filled with excitement."

I read this one last April and never got around to reviewing it. With the Israel/Palestine conflict, it’s even more timely than it was last year. And, for anyone who is interested, the kindle version is currently on sale for $1.99 in the U.S. kindle store.

I liked this one even more than I liked Centennial, probably because the subject matter was much further away from my own historical past. I do believe that I read this one as a young adult, because there were elements that felt extremely familiar to me.

I long ago left my Christian faith behind, but I did not lose my interest in Christian history, and this book is a riveting exploration of a place that is deeply consequential to the spread of Christianity across the world. In many ways, Jewish history is world history.

I haven’t decided yet which Michener I am going to read/revisit next. I do remember really enjoying Chesapeake, so that one is in the running, but I also bought Iberia in 2016 and it’s just been waiting for me. These really aren’t books that I want to check out of the library, because it often takes me more than the checkout time to finish the book, and, as well, I expect them to have strong rereading potential.

I did decide that it was time to reread Shogun, since there is a new, lush adaptation available through FX, so that is the next 1970’s “sweeping epic” on my reading list. While I was at it, I also bought Tai Pan, which I remember actually liking more than Shogun. So, I’m heading back to feudal Japan once I finish Our Mutual Friend.

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

All The Sinners Bleed
 by S.A. Cosby
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: June 6, 2023
Genre: mystery: golden age (1920-1949)
Pages: 341
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard
A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.
Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart.
As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.
Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction” (The Washington Post).

I am certain that this book will end up on my top ten list for 2024. I previously read Razorblade Tears, which I really enjoyed, but this one was gobsmacking. Holy Hannah, Cosby can write, you guys. This is a near perfect – in my opinion – piece of crime fiction.

I’m not going to reiterate the plot summary, which you can read for yourself, but this is a dark book. Titus Crown is a wonderful character – articulate and thoughtful. He grew up in a small town in Virginia, where the Civil War is barely in the rear view mirror, and where the local the local racist fringe wears it’s “history” like a badge of honor. Cosby definitely has something to say – about history, especially in the South, about the present, where the history is so close to the surface that we can’t even call it buried – and about religion. Crown is a man who has no patience for a religion that has abused him and his people a whole lot more than it has succored them.

Later, after his mother was in the ground, he realized the Word was just as corrupt as the men who read it. Old Testament, New Testament, it was just words with a little w, written by zealots as PR for their new cult founded in the memory of a dead carpenter.

Religious trauma & racism run deep in Charon County, and in the life of Titus Crown.

“Flannery O’Connor said the South is Christ-haunted. It’s haunted, all right. By the hypocrisy of Christianity. All these churches, all these Bibles, but it’s places just like Charon where the poor are ostracized. Where girls are called whores if they report a rape. Where I can’t go to the Watering Hole without wondering if the bartender done spit in my drink. People say this kind of thing doesn’t happen in a place like Charon. Darlene, this kind of thing is what makes places like Charon run. It’s the rock upon which this temple is built,” Titus said. He tossed back the rest of his drink and stomped into the kitchen.

This is Southern Gothic, written by a black author who has a total command of his subject. It’s a mystery, yes, but it’s a lot more than that, too. I am a huge proponent of the concept that there is no better way to understand a place or a time than to read crime fiction that was contemporary at the time it was written. Crime authors are excavators and archeologists – they perform ethnography of a place, getting below the surface. Cosby does just that, here.

It occurred to him no place was more confused by its past or more terrified of the future than the South.

All the Sinners Bleed is not a book for the faint of heart, or for the person who needs a trigger warning. There is nothing in this book that isn’t triggering. But it’s worth the read, if you have the stomach for it. And I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The Murderbot Diaries: Books 1 – 3

I’m not a natural science fiction reader, but in the last year or so, I’ve gotten more into sci fi. Last year, I managed to read the entire Wayfarer’s quartet, by Becky Chambers and I absolutely loved them. My husband is a sci fi fan, so when we had a trip planned that was going to be about a 4 hour drive, I used an Audible credit to buy All Systems Red.

All Systems Red
by Martha Wells
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: The Murderbot Diaries #1
Publication Date: May 2, 2017
Genre: sci fi
Pages: 156
ReRead?: No

A murderous android discovers itself in All Systems Red, a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial Intelligence.

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

I was surprised at how much I loved this first entry. Murderbot is a Security Unit – or SecUnit – which is an AI construct. Genderless, I am going to use “he/him” for reference, because that’s how I imagine him, although I have no idea why. I could use “it,” but he feels more like a “he” than an “it.”

Wells drops the reader directly into her world, without much in the way of exposition. You’re just on planet with the survey team, and meet the characters really organically. The first several Murderbot books are novellas, so the action commences pretty much right away and doesn’t really stop until the end.

The intriguing thing about this series is being inside of the head of Murderbot, a self-aware construct that has hacked his own governor module, but that has so internalized his job of providing security to humans that it continues to do just that, even though he doesn’t really have to. He becomes attached to his humans, and wants to keep them from harm. Rather reluctantly, he likes them. At the same time, he is deeply conflicted because, as he tells himself, he is a ruthless killing machine, which is why he has named himself Murderbot.

This novella sets up the central conflict between Murderbot & the humans he wants to protect, and the soulless corporation, GrayCris, which is the major villain.

Artificial Condition
by Martha Wells
Rating: ★★★½
Series: The Murderbot Diaries #2
Publication Date: May 8, 2015
Genre: sci fi
Pages: 158
ReRead?: No

It has a dark past--one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot." But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more. Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue. What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks.

In the continuing adventures of Murderbot, he has slipped away from Dr. Mensah and left Port FreeCommerce to try to get to the bottom of the events of Ganaka Pit on RaviHyral, which culminated in the death of a whole bunch of humans at his hands. He ends up on an unmanned transport that he names ART, and they become co-conspirators.

I found this to be the most confusing of the novellas, and am still trying to process exactly what happened on RaviHyral. I went back and reread it, and I’m still not sure that I understand. But Murderbot continues to develop relationships with humans, and, as well, with ART (aka Asshole Research Transport) a bot driven transport with a massive processing capacity.

Rogue Protocol
by Martha Wells
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: The Murderbot Diaries #3
Publication Date: August 7, 2018
Genre: sci fi
Pages: 159
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard

SciFi’s favorite antisocial A.I. is again on a mission. The case against the too-big-to-fail GrayCris Corporation is floundering, and more importantly, authorities are beginning to ask more questions about where Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit is.

And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

We listened to this third book on a drive to the Oregon coast on Wednesday and then home on Friday. I also really liked it – Murderbot is determined to find evidence against GrayCris to assist Dr. Mensah in proving the case against them, so he scams his way onto a research team at a far outpost on the Corporation Rim to do his own investigation into what is probably more bad behavior by the villainous corporation.

Of course, things get FUBAR’d beyond all recognition because GrayCris is, indeed, pure evil. Murderbot throws a giant wrench into their plans, and saves a bunch of humans, while becoming emotionally attached to a human shaped and somewhat innocently child-like bot named Miki. Oh, my sweet Miki.

I love this series and would read on if I didn’t know that my husband would be super annoyed with me. The next entry is another novella, called Exit Strategy, and then book 5 is a full-length novel. I need to plan a road trip.

This Week in Books: Week 7

This is the post for 2/11 through 2/17, which means that I’m caught up. I managed to get in a lot more reading this week because my husband & I took a short beach vacation with his side of the family, which made for some extra reading time.

The Last Smile in Sunder City
by Luke Arnold
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Fetch Phllips #1
Publication Date: February 6, 2020
Genre: urban fantasy
Pages: 352
ReRead?: No

A former soldier turned PI tries to help the fantasy creatures whose lives he ruined in a world that's lost its magic in a compelling debut fantasy by Black Sails actor Luke Arnold.

Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain.

I'm Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me:
1. Sobriety costs extra.
2. My services are confidential.
3. I don't work for humans.

It's nothing personal—I'm human myself. But after what happened, to the magic, it's not the humans who need my help.

This was a fun little urban fantasy that I checked out of the public library after running across it somewhere. If I had to pick my most underrated but enjoyable genre, UF would probably be it. I don’t read it often, but when I do, I always really enjoy it. It did remind me – a bit – of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files but without Harry’s sometimes creepy attitude towards women.

This series has an interesting premise – a world that used to have magic, but doesn’t anymore (because human beings are assholes, of course), where all of the magical creatures are slowly falling apart.

Unlike Dying is My Business from last week, this is one where I will definitely continue the series. There are two more that have been published, which are available at my library.

Still Midnight
by Denise Mina
Rating: ★★★
Series: Alex Morrow #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Genre: mystery: modern (1980-present)
Pages: 363
ReRead?: No

The first book in the acclaimed Alex Morrow series of crime novels set in Glasgow, Scotland, from the author of national bestseller Conviction.

Alex Morrow is not new to the police force -- or to crime -- but there is nothing familiar about the call she has just received. On a still night in a quiet suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, three armed men have slipped from a van into a house, demanding a man who is not, and has never been, inside the front door. In the confusion that ensues, one family member is shot and another kidnapped, the assailants demanding an impossible ransom. Is this the amateur crime gone horribly wrong that it seems, or something much more unexpected?

"As Alex falls further into the most challenging case of her career, Denise Mina proves why "if you don't read crime novels, Mina is your reason to change"-Rocky Mountain News

Do I like Denise Mina? Do I like Tartan Noir? I don’t know. I can’t really answer that question. I know that I’ve read at least one other book by her, but I can’t remember anything about it.

I did not love this book, though. I gave it 3 stars, and that was probably generous given that there were basically zero characters that I liked, and there was a bit of a romantic subplot that left me feeling like I needed to go take a shower. One thing that was true to life is that the criminals and thugs in this book were dumber than dirt.

Alex frustrated me a lot, but there was a reveal at the end that put things into a different perspective. This was a library check out, so I’m going to give the next book a chance to redeem the series for me.

La Belle Sauvage
by Phillip Pullman
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: The Book of Dust #1
Publication Date: October 19, 2017
Genre: fantasy, YA
Pages: 449
ReRead?: No
Project: 2024 read my hoard

Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy...

Malcolm's father runs an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his dæmon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue.

He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust--and the spy it was intended for finds him.

When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, Malcolm sees suspicious characters everywhere; Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; an Egyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a dæmon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl--just a baby--named Lyra.

Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm.

This was the clear stand-out of the week. After languishing on my digital TBR since 10/11/2017, it came up in a lucky spin at the beginning of February. I’ve read Pullman’s His Dark Materials previously, and enjoyed the series a lot.

La Belle Sauvage is a prequel to His Dark Materials, and involves the fate of baby Lyra. I loved the characters, especially Malcolm Polstead and his daemon Asta. Returning to the alternate England, and getting glimpses of Oxford and the increasing monstrousness of the Magisterium (OMG, the League of St. Anthony that encourages children to inform on their families if they don’t demonstrate sufficient adherence to religious rules was absolutely horrifying) and the coming fight centered around Lyra is fascinating.

The next book is called The Secret Commonwealth and was published in 2019. The events of that book evidently occur 20 years after La Belle Sauvage, and 7 years after the end of The Amber Spyglass. I don’t yet own that book, so I’m going to hold off for a reread of His Dark Materials, and then plunge in straight-away.

There is also – supposedly – a third book, but it hasn’t been published and there is no information about when that is likely to occur. There is conjecture that it could be this year, but no definitive information has been provided.

In addition to those 3, I finished:

Centennial by James Michener
They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

I plan to write up individual posts for Centennial and They Came to Baghdad, and I’m rereading Artificial Condition & will do a series post of the first 3 Murderbot Diaries once I finish that reread. I’ll also be finishing Beloved this week – yay!