Sorry gang. I know you have been dying to know what I read on my recent vacation. The good news is that the eggsellent place where I stayed had a book swap bookshelf, so I got to read all sorts of thrillers without having to buy them. Heaven!!!
Dead Connection by Alafair Burke
JJJ
I love Alafair Burke and have a hard time finding her books when I'm impulse shopping and had an even harder time waiting five days to read this since I bought it a week before I left town. But I resisted. This is about a murderer who preys on online daters in NYC. The lure is obvious. Yay mysteries and thrillers and reading books and vacations and not working!!!
The Ruins by Scott Smith
JJJ
More good times ... a bunch of college-aged kids on vacation in Mexico decide to go check out an archaeological dig ... but it's alive!!! Or at least the vines are that grow under their skin and eat them and mimic their voices. An important lesson about the danger of leaving resorts and venturing into untouched nature. Ew.
Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives by Marilee Strong
JJJJ
This is a nonfiction book about what Strong calls "Eraser killers" -- a so-far unclassified type of wife-killer. While most domestic murders occur after years of escalating violence, some men are sociopaths and perfectionists and want everything to appear hunky-dory. So when their wives want to split, they simply "erase" the women. (Think Scott Peterson or Charles Stuart or Mark Hacking.) In many cases, the murders aren't even classified as such because they're made to look like accidents or voluntary disappearances. Lots and lots of true cases make this fun to read.
But it's maybe not the best thing to read the day you go get lost and then the sun goes down and you're by yourself near a bunch of like industrial parks and wild dogs are everywhere. Just keep that in mind.
Ice Trap by Kitty Sewell
JJ
This is about a disgraced UK doctor who served a couple of years in the Arctic North. Years later he's contacted by a woman who he worked with who says she had his kids -- but he doesn't remember ever sleeping with her. I like books about Canada and Alaska and Inuit love stories and evil tricky mind-effy women, as you should well know by now, but this was mostly just okay. When I can see the "twist" coming it's pretty obvious, since I'm basically my mom.
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
JJJJ
One from the book swap, I had always assumed this would annoy me and be about a self-indulgent douchebag feeling sorry for himself. And it sort of was, but it was also about how he's sad and realizing his life is empty and he's a commitmentphobe. And it was really funny, too. And then I realized it was really about me which annoyed me a little too but mostly it was awesome.
And then I decided since I'm too poor to adopt those kids I want from Alaska I should just have my own so I have something to live for. But that passed, mostly since they don't sell Eskimo sperm online.
Pop Goes the Weasel by James Patterson
JJ
This was about some online role-playing guy (conveniently called "The Weasel" for the title's sake) and magic black-person/DC detective Alex Cross who hunts him down. Literary equivalent of an episode of CSI. Acceptable!
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
JJObviously it's vacation so I read a Jodi Picoult book, duh. This one is about a guy on death row who murdered a cop and his step-daughter, and the people who fight for his right to donate his organs post-death to the daughter of the cop he killed whose heart is failing. Oh and some people think he's Jesus. It was fine and all, but it took longer to read than most of her stuff. Because basically that premise is sent up on the back cover, and then there are 500 pages of, well, just illustrating that.
The Partner by John Grisham
JJJA lawyer is caught in Brazil after faking his own death and making off with about 47 bajillion dollars that his sleazy partners were about to make. And then it's about his attempts to get out of trouble. It involves the government and legal conspiracies and some fraudulent contracting stuff and is delightfully thrillery. And then there's a twist ending.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Okay I know you're all smart and fancy and think I read boring bs and I do but I tried to read this and I hated it so bad I couldn't even finish. Seriously, it's like Gabriel Garcia Marquez' stuff where there are 34,000 characters and fascinating colorful incidents and blah dee bloo but there's no entry point that you actually care about, just some intersex dude with no personality, so it's all authory showboating and then it talks down to you like "In other words, this was a symbol for all the times my grandparents had ... " and "Let's skip ahead to hours later, when ..." and it's like listening to jazz on a page. So I say sorry Oprah and my smart friends and people who care about things -- I'll take my vacation book swap thrillers any day.
