Blood on the Mink by Robert Silverberg
Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: vintage. This book was originally published as a serialized story in a magazine in 1959. When I learned I had to read a book that was over 40 years old for a reading challenge, I knew it would be a Hard Case Crime one. Hard Case Crime is great at bringing to life authors that are little known or have fallen out of vogue. There was so much in the way of pulp publication in the 50s and 60s […]
Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco by Richie Narvaez
Read as part of CBR16Bingo: Disco. The book is set in the 1970s, in New York City, has a prominent theme at a discotheque and has the word “disco” in the title. Imagine if Harriet the Spy was a high school girl of Hispanic descent in 70s Brooklyn and you’d have the vibe of this one. There are two stories here, one about Holly and the other about Xander. I don’t want to spoil them but the dueling narratives do not imply an unlikely friendship. […]
Dissolution by CJ Sansom
Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: Horses. This book features people riding horses as a practical matter because it’s set in the 15th century. First of all: RIP CJ Sansom. I didn’t know until I started this that he had recently died, and sadly just before Shardlake, a tv series based on these books, was released on Hulu. I read Sansom’s Dominion years ago and thought it was decent. I grabbed this not long after but eventually gave up on keeping it, as I just needed to clear […]
Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain
Read as part of CBR16Bingo: Part 2. This is the second in the Gretchen Lowell and Archie Sheridan series, which currently has six books and is apparently counting. I’m trying hard not to be a jerk here. This is me. Look people should write whatever they want. And have fun with it. Writing books is hard. A gender swapped Silence of the Lambs? Hell yeah, baby! Sounds right up my alley, even if I don’t like serial killer books. Ok so this is gonna be a […]
The Fish That Ate The Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen
Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: bananas. The biography is on the life of Samuel Zemurray, the notorious “banana king” of United Fruit whose pursuit of wealth and product led to political destabilization in central America and the Caribbean. It’s a shame that Samuel Zemurray has such an interesting story and yet only a so-so biographer. Rich Cohen takes on compelling subjects such as Zemurray and Albert Hicks (The Last Pirate of New York) but he tells their respective tales in such a slipshod and […]
The Hunter's Daughter by Nicola Solvinic
Read as part of CBR16Bingo: dun-dun. This is a mystery novel, also a backstory about the daughter of a serial killer, so there’s a lot of dun-dun to it. Those who read my reviews know I’m not a fan of serial killer stories, particularly diabolical serial killer stories. It’s not just that Silence of the Lambs broke the mode, though that is part of it. It’s more because serial killer stories are so…F-WORD…boring! Oh look at me! I’m such a tortured soul because of trauma! And since […]
