I was a late starter reading Robert Crais. He has been writing books since 1987. Before that he wrote for T.V. shows like Hill Street Blues. A little back story: Elvis Cole is a private investigator. His partner's name is Joe Pike. The first book I read by R.C. was The Forgotten Man about 4 years ago. I actually listened to it on audio; I kept pushing the cassettes "remember those" into the car stereo and would drive to my destination slower and slower just to listen to more. After that book, which was very good, I started looking at R.C.'s back list. And the book that all of the critics said was his best was L.A. Requiem. Well I picked it up at a used book store and read it cover to cover in 3 days, which is fast for me. It quickly became one of my top 5 books of all time. OK back to Chasing Darkness. L.A. police find a corpse in a house, during fire season, trying to evacuate houses. The corpse is holding a photo album of murdered young women. From that point Elvis gets involved and there are so many twists and turns that you won't know who the real killer is until the last 20 pages. Crais is a great writer, his dialogue is some of my favorite, his books are relatively short, which I like. Elmore Leonard said once "leave out the parts that readers skip". Well Crais does, but that by no means takes away from his powerful prose. This is a good read and I enjoyed it, not his best, but very good. And the ending is very well done. There is also a scene where Cole visits a dead girl's family that will crack your heart.
Final Thought-Very good book-I love the Elvis Cole series.
Ruling: 8 out of 10
Jul 7, 2008
The Brass Verdict (our father's review)
I bought this book on E-Bay (ARC) . For some reason I just Can't wait for the release date of a Connelly book. The main character of the book is Mickey Haller from the Lincoln Lawyer. I don't enjoy Mickey as much as I do Harry Bosch another character Connelly writes about and that also launched his career, but I'll take what I can get. I got excited about this book because the synopsis said Harry and Mickey have to team up to solve a crime. Well Harry wasn't in much of the book but he's in there and that's enough for me. Back in 1993 Connelly wrote The Black Ice (probably my favorite Bosch book in the series. Certainly in my top 3). In that book Connelly wrote that Harry had a half brother that he did'nt know from a father he had only met once,it was only about a half a page well from that seed came the book The Lincoln Lawyer . Oh yeah Mickey is Harrys half brother. They do get together to solve a crime in this book. And during the whole book I was rooting for them to discover that they are half brothers. They do find out at the end of the book.
O.K. Connelly can't write a bad book as far as I am concerned and this one is good. About 3 quarters of the way through there was about 8 or 9 pages where it got bogged down by some courtroom scenes and I was thinking crap I paid $23.00 for this and it looks like Connelly has lost some of his MOJO. However I plowed on (I mean I paid $23.00 and gas is four dollars a gallon) and oh man then it happened the plot twist I usually can figure out how a mystery is going to end and who the bad guys are. But in the Brass Verdict Connelly threw a sucker punch and a twist that I did not see coming. I finished the last 100 pages in one sitting.
FINAL THOUGHT
Connelly has not lost any of his MOJO. And that is why I will be buying his books on E-Bay probably from now on , before the scheduled release date.
Cause I just can't wait for Connelly to sucker punch me again.
Ruling: 9 out of 10
- Jackie
O.K. Connelly can't write a bad book as far as I am concerned and this one is good. About 3 quarters of the way through there was about 8 or 9 pages where it got bogged down by some courtroom scenes and I was thinking crap I paid $23.00 for this and it looks like Connelly has lost some of his MOJO. However I plowed on (I mean I paid $23.00 and gas is four dollars a gallon) and oh man then it happened the plot twist I usually can figure out how a mystery is going to end and who the bad guys are. But in the Brass Verdict Connelly threw a sucker punch and a twist that I did not see coming. I finished the last 100 pages in one sitting.
FINAL THOUGHT
Connelly has not lost any of his MOJO. And that is why I will be buying his books on E-Bay probably from now on , before the scheduled release date.
Cause I just can't wait for Connelly to sucker punch me again.
Ruling: 9 out of 10
- Jackie
Jun 10, 2008
The Bourne Ultimatum (book)
This is the third novel I've read. I love the bourne series so much and am kind of sad that this was the last Bourne book Robert Ludlum wrote. I really did enjoy all three books very much.
But anyway...
Like I said I'm kind of sad this is the last one Ludlum wrote and was hoping (before I read it) that it would be good and a nice finish to the original trilogy. Well now that I've read it I can say that it did, and didn't live up to my expectations. But don't get me wrong I loved it, but it could have used a little more action to me.
First off, I love that Bourne is 50 years old in this one. There's just something about a sort of old guy that can, and does kick a** that I find awesome.
Secondly, the story was good, interesting and pretty cool. Bourne after Carlos again was fun. Alex Conklin and Mo Panov are lured into a trap by Carlos and barley escape. They tell David Webb that Carlos is after him again and David makes the choice to become Jason Bourne again and find and kill Carlos once-and-for-all. Pretty cool.
Thirdly, the book starts off pretty slowly and to my surprise never really sped up. It did a little, but not much. There are quite a few times where it gets really boring and throws unnecessary political situations, political people, and political organizations that I just could not understand or keep up with. And ended up scanning very quickly, or skipping those parts almost completely. But when it gets back to Bourne (which of course is mostly why I read these books in the first place) it gets very easy to read, fun, and awesome.
Fourthly, when action does happen it's pretty intense and, well, Bourne like, I guess.
It took me a while to finish this book because it was kinda slow at points, but all-in-all it was a good and fun read. And of-course, since it was a Bourne book it was awesome! But, as much as I hate to say it.... The Bourne Supremacy maybe, maybe, was the best out of the three. but I really did love the premise of this one, and in ways this book was better and worse than the others. And, again, like I said, I love the fact that Bourne is 50 in this! I guess all I can say is, in a lot of ways all three Bourne books were really good and awesome in their own ways. So, with that said, I would recommend you read all three!
And maybe I'll read the other, newer Bourne books out there even though they're written by another author. Besides I think they are based on notes Robert Ludlum made up for new Bourne books he planned on doing before he passed away. So..... we'll see.
Ruling: 9 out of 10
Reread Value: Good
- Stefan
But anyway...
Like I said I'm kind of sad this is the last one Ludlum wrote and was hoping (before I read it) that it would be good and a nice finish to the original trilogy. Well now that I've read it I can say that it did, and didn't live up to my expectations. But don't get me wrong I loved it, but it could have used a little more action to me.
First off, I love that Bourne is 50 years old in this one. There's just something about a sort of old guy that can, and does kick a** that I find awesome.
Secondly, the story was good, interesting and pretty cool. Bourne after Carlos again was fun. Alex Conklin and Mo Panov are lured into a trap by Carlos and barley escape. They tell David Webb that Carlos is after him again and David makes the choice to become Jason Bourne again and find and kill Carlos once-and-for-all. Pretty cool.
Thirdly, the book starts off pretty slowly and to my surprise never really sped up. It did a little, but not much. There are quite a few times where it gets really boring and throws unnecessary political situations, political people, and political organizations that I just could not understand or keep up with. And ended up scanning very quickly, or skipping those parts almost completely. But when it gets back to Bourne (which of course is mostly why I read these books in the first place) it gets very easy to read, fun, and awesome.
Fourthly, when action does happen it's pretty intense and, well, Bourne like, I guess.
It took me a while to finish this book because it was kinda slow at points, but all-in-all it was a good and fun read. And of-course, since it was a Bourne book it was awesome! But, as much as I hate to say it.... The Bourne Supremacy maybe, maybe, was the best out of the three. but I really did love the premise of this one, and in ways this book was better and worse than the others. And, again, like I said, I love the fact that Bourne is 50 in this! I guess all I can say is, in a lot of ways all three Bourne books were really good and awesome in their own ways. So, with that said, I would recommend you read all three!
And maybe I'll read the other, newer Bourne books out there even though they're written by another author. Besides I think they are based on notes Robert Ludlum made up for new Bourne books he planned on doing before he passed away. So..... we'll see.
Ruling: 9 out of 10
Reread Value: Good
- Stefan
Jun 8, 2008
'Salem's Lot (Book)
Embarrassingly, this is the first novel I have ever read in my 19 years; so when I say it's the best, you know why. Until a few months ago my mind travelled only in the land of visual, non-thinking entertainment, only to be freed from it by I Am Legend, which I have read nearly 3 times since then (great novella).
The first 200, or so, pages of 'Salem's Lot are more about character introducing, and character development, with not much action. But it is still very interesting and fun to read, in areas.
When the story gets a kick into action, it's a very good one, which only gets better. It starts when Matt Burke (a teacher) finds Mike Ryerson (a student of his from a while back) sick and sleepy at a local.. bar.. or concert place.. [sorry, not sure what it is], and takes him home to sleep, and watch over him. Well what happens next is too cool to ruin, and I don't feel like typing it all out.
Reread value: Good
Ruling: 9.2 out of 10
- Joey
The first 200, or so, pages of 'Salem's Lot are more about character introducing, and character development, with not much action. But it is still very interesting and fun to read, in areas.
When the story gets a kick into action, it's a very good one, which only gets better. It starts when Matt Burke (a teacher) finds Mike Ryerson (a student of his from a while back) sick and sleepy at a local.. bar.. or concert place.. [sorry, not sure what it is], and takes him home to sleep, and watch over him. Well what happens next is too cool to ruin, and I don't feel like typing it all out.
Reread value: Good
Ruling: 9.2 out of 10
- Joey
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