Jake – Page 103 – Cannonball Read 17

When I’m Wrong, I’m Wrong

Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Grann

March 4, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

First of all, has it been almost 15 years since Hurricane Katrina? Feels like yesterday. This book gave me some bad flashbacks and I’ve never lived anywhere near New Orleans. My God, did this country fail the residents of that city. Secondly, I tried reading this one several times. It always ends up on every “You Have To Read This!!!” list of mysteries. Every time I saw it, I kept wanting it to be different from the book I tried before. Again and again I […]

Turning on a Dirt Road

The Ranger by Ace Atkins

March 2, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

It’s a good thing The Ranger was my first Ace Atkins novel. He’s written plenty of southern-friend country crime tales and with this one, I find a writer who has developed a style that works. I was weary of these books in the same way I’m reflexively weary of most male lone-wolf time crime tales: they often produce the same cocktail of toxic masculinity, gross misogyny, class and race caricaturization and a big bang shootout to end it all. The Ranger has a big bang shootout to end […]

Ghostbuster

Heaven, My Home by Attica Locke

February 29, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

On the surface, Attica Locke is not reinventing the proverbial cop mystery wheel with her Highway 59 series. Her protagonist is a lone wolf who drinks too much, meddles in other affairs, has woman and family troubles, doesn’t get along with the brass, plays by his own rules, and is a byproduct of the local culture, which he simultaneously loves and loathes. The difference between these and most other white-written bestselling cliched mystery series is that main character Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is black, and […]

End of the Road

The Right Madness by James Crumley

February 27, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

And so I finish the great road trip that is James Crumley’s mystery novel series featuring private eyes Milo Milodragovitch and CW Sughrue. While I didn’t like them as much as their most ardent fans do, I enjoyed my time going through all seven. Apparently, it took a lot of prodding for Crumley to write this one. He wasn’t sure if he was going to do another after 2001’s The Final Country, which for my money is his best book and a tribute to Texas. I […]

The Wrestler

Bucket Nut by Liza Cody

February 27, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

I found this one on a list of unusual crime novels. It definitely fits the bill. I think this book is kind of tricksy. It’s billed as a crime novel, and it is. Eva, the protagonist, works for folks in the London underground and there is a crime at the center of the story. But really, this is a character study about a low class English woman who just wants to wrestle and live her life the best way she can. It’s as much about […]

Too Cool For School

Shortcut Man by p.g. sturges

February 25, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

You know a book you read and enjoy while acknowledging it’s not that good? I’m not talking about a “guilty pleasure” read, a term I’ve always found to be condescending anyway. I’m talking about something that you know is probably not well-written but it meshes with your taste and you wind up enjoying it? That’s how I feel about p.g. sturges’ (sic) Shortcut Man. sturges writes in an absurdist, Chuck Palahniuk-esque style that I don’t often enjoy. And he has no running plot, rather a series […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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