Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Well, at least Lesbian Vampires are Better than an Invisible French Woman

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

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“Bury my bones in the midnight soil, plant them shallow and water them deep, and in my place will grow a feral rose, soft red petals hiding sharp white teeth”   1532 Spain: Maria wants more out of life than to be stuck in her small village, and the combination of her great beauty and wily mind may be the ticket to get her out of there. When all it does is throw her into a man’s world of men’s games played by men’s rules, […]

The Thiefs

Old Black Magic by Ace Atkins

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Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: starts with O I have heard from many living old school mystery writers that the modern PI mystery tales in the States can be traced back to Spenser. Having gone out of vogue with the deaths of Chandler and Hammett — and with only Ross Macdonald elevating the genre — the hardboiled PI tale had taken a back seat by the time Robert B. Parker began building his prodigious catalog in the early-70s. Which is why I’ve given more […]

Murder Makes for Strange Bedfellows

A New Lease on Death by Olivia Blacke

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When Ruby impulsively moves to Boston, she’s glad to get a fully furnished apartment for a decent rate. She does not even mind that the previous inhabitant committed suicide – though those views may change when she realizes that Cordelia is still hanging around, and keenly interested in the murder of a neighbor. Say ‘an unlikely crime-solving duo’ in application to a cozy mystery, and I will be there in a flash. Also, roommates of all stripes can be tricky, so I was curious how […]

“Maybe the question shouldn’t be why am I doing this, but why isn’t everyone looking?”

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner

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Frankie Elkin is a roving seeker of missing people, and in her latest case she’s come to Boston to discover what happened to Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished almost a year ago. Like she does to the cops and the community, Frankie first struck me as strange and perhaps untrustworthy but like she did with them she grew on me too. She’s a flawed person with no illusions about it, and her steadfast pursuit of the missing won me over during the course […]

January 2024 Leftovers

The Battle of Hastings: The Fall of the Anglo-Saxons and the Rise of the Normans by Jim Bradbury

Time to Murder and Create by Lawrence Block

Charlesgate Confidential by Scott von Doviak

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell

The Trouble With Peace by Joe Abercrombie

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

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A lot of folks said this month was slow but I thought it flew by… The Battle of Hastings: The Fall of the Anglo-Saxons and the Rise of the Normans *** Bit too stuffy and academic but gave me a great outline as to the importance of the Battle and its outcomes. Time to Murder and Create **** This is the second time I’ve come out of a Matthew Scudder re-read with a better impression than the first time I read it. How it bodes for the […]

To The Moon

Love You More by Lisa Gardner

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Here’s something funny: as evidenced by a thousand hammy postcards and Live Laugh Love-adjacent signs, Love you to the moon and back is a term of endearment in English. In Dutch, however, if you want to tell someone to fuck off, you tell them to walk to the moon. I’m not sure what that says about us as a people, but I was reminded of the duality by Gardner’s Love You More. Not because it involves either linguistics of astronomy, but because there’s an inherent […]



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