Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Honky Tonk

The Fallen by Ace Atkins

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I’ve accepted the fact that Ace Atkins is basically going to write the same book each time with the Quinn Colson series. Over-their-head gangsters with connections to Tibbehah. People swooping in from Quinn’s past. A bunch of random references to vaginas. Some dirty dealing Mississippi pols and crooks. And overall, mostly fun southern fried crime stories. I don’t know if I would have gorged on this series so hard had it not been for quarantine. But I’m glad I am. They’re enjoyable. Atkins knows how […]

Doesn’t live up to the title’s promise

The Worst Street in London by Fiona Rule

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The Worst Street in London promises to delve into the history of Dorset Street, once a street full of fairly well-to-do weavers making the most of their flourishing trade, that sank into disrepute as the work dried up and the weavers moved away. Apparently becoming the most notorious street in the whole of the city and one haunted by thieves, pimps, prostitutes and murderers, on reading this it turned out it was mostly populated by the desperately poor who were busy being fleeced by unscrupulous […]

Tales of the Times

Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Crosby

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

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I read two books this week, a new one I was excited about and one that I’ve been putting off for three years. Both are good. Blacktop Wasteland This one was pretty hyped. I’ve seen S.A. Crosby’s image everywhere and it was covered review-wise by all the big ticket spots, including The New York Times. I’ve had my eye on Crosby for a while, even though I had yet to read him. A chance encounter at the library helped me nab this one. It absolutely meets the […]

“If I had to get there without friends, I could do it. Had been doing it. I’d never met anyone who brought me somewhere I wanted to stay, looked at me and saw someone I wanted to be for good; anyone who was worth giving up the more I wanted down the line.”

The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5) by Tana French

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This is still my least favorite Dublin Murder book, but I found a little something more in it this time. I was actually kind of dreading revisiting this one, because the prospect of getting inside all those teenage girls’ heads just felt like way too much to handle at the moment. I used to be a teenaged girl, and I do not miss it. French is such a good writer, so evocative, that I just knew it was going to bring me right back to […]

The Union Forever

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

The Golden Gizmo by Jim Thompson

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Reviewing two books here, one of which I have a lot to say about and do, the other I have little and do not… Battle Cry of Freedom 5/5 Unquestionably the ur-text on why the Civil War happened, McPherson examines all angles, the social, political and military. Not a stone is left unturned. Yet this book is remarkably readable. Very few parts of it dragged and the ones that did were the ones that I wasn’t particularly interested in in the first place. McPherson doesn’t set […]

Who knew ice cream could be so dangerous?

Van Wars: The Real Story of the Brutal Glasgow Ice Cream Van Wars by Teddy Renoc

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If you’ve never heard the story of the Glasgow Ice Cream Van Wars, then you certainly won’t get the full story here. What you will get though is Teddy Rennoc’s version of what happened when he drove one of the vans going up against the competing Marchetti Brothers, and in Teddy’s version the war really was over the rights to sell ice cream, household basics and the odd bit of stolen goods rather than heroin – I suspect the true full story lies somewhere between […]



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