Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An assassin is the murder solver; he didn’t do this one

The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore

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So imagine that you’re a scholarly sort whose day job is being a historian, but you’ve also just passed your final test to join a professional family for assassins; you’ve done this both to learn but also for the sense of belonging. You’re actually kind of ok with the fact that your society has banned assassination contracts. Except that suddenly people are being murdered, your family will take the fall, unless you solve the murder. You’re probably going to have to kill someone along the […]

Bad Men

Quarry by Max Allan Collins

I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad by Baynard Woods & Brandon Sodeberg

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I read two books over the weekend about bad men. One fiction, one non-fiction. Both good in their own respective ways. Quarry 4 stars This month’s Hard Case Crime tale was one I had actually been avoiding for a while. I find Max Allan Collins to be insufferable. In interviews I’ve read with him, he seems to be the kind of blowhard-ish know-it-all I don’t care for in the crime community. His verbal racism at the Shamus Awards was obnoxious. Really, how hard is it to […]

When you have a soft spot for Russians named Viktor and he still doesn’t save the book

Deadly Class, Volume 1: Regan Youth by Rick Remender

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A joy of being a bookstore employee is that you never know what you might find. Usually I find some gem when they find their way to the cart next to my desk that unfortunately means we were unable to sell it and it is being returned to the publisher. Deadly Class, Volume 1: Regan Youth was not one of those gems. There is no question why Rick Remender’s graphic novel was being returned. The cover was the draw for me so that was not […]

Another rather forgettable Harris book

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

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Official book description: Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town. There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his […]

It’s a travesty this has only been reviewed once before (thanks, bonnie!)

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I would love to rhapsodize about this book, but I’m kind of pressed for time (doubt I’ll be able to write this review before Christmas, and I don’t want to hold off since I just finished this book and it’s fresh in my mind). The best way I can describe this, I think, is to say that The Way of Shadows (2008) a bit like The Name of the Wind (2007) by Patrick Rothfuss mixed with an Assassin’s Creed video game. Azoth is an impoverished child […]

Gin Bianco is an assassin. She won’t shut up about it, in fact

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Gin Blanco is an assassin. She goes under the name The Spider. Her weapon of choice is knives and she’s very good at her job, something she will rarely shut up about, even in times when people are trying to kill her. Gin lives in a world where there are a number of elementals, controlling fire, ice, earth, air, water, stone, even electricity and the like. Gin is a stone elemental and can also control ice. If you forget, she’ll remind you every third chapter […]



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