Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

New Rural Chinese Mystery Series!

Thief of Souls by Brian Klingborg

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Thief of Souls is the first book in the Inspector Lu Fei mystery series. I’m not sure how long the series is intended to go, but I know a second book was released earlier this year. In fact, Bookpage’s review of the newest installment is what had me track this one down at my local library. Inspector Lu Fei is a mid-level law enforcement agent for China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB). He lives and works in the rural agricultural town of Raven Valley. The reader […]

Murder near the Nile

DIsappearance of a Scribe by Dana Stabenow

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Bingo 4: New Before I saw Disappearance of a Scribe in the library, I had heard of neither The Eye of Isis series nor its author Dana Stabenow. This is both a new to me series and author; it turns out this is actually book 2 of the series, but it seems pretty stand alone as well. What we’ve got is detective fiction in a historical fiction setting. Due circumstances from the previous book which we mostly don’t need to know, Tetisheri has become the […]

This will be a short review considering the length of the book

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

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I started reading this series during the early days of the pandemic, and it’s proven to be satisfying, escapist fun for me. I stumbled upon this latest entry in one of my local Little Free Libraries, so I decided to read it before CBR BINGO hits, because at 927 pages, there’s no way I was going to let it eat up prime BINGO scoring time. That said, I’m going to write this review in list form of likes and dislikes. Dislikes: 927 pages. There is […]

Vino with Guido

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

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Death at La Fenice is the first of 31 Commissario Brunetti mysteries. If you haven’t heard of this series, which began in 1992, Commissario Brunetti is a middle-aged detective in Venice, Italy. This inaugural mystery begins with a very dead, very famous maestro found on the floor of his dressing room. Tragic? Yes. But also very inconvenient – he died during the intermission of an opera! Word quickly spreads, as do the rumors and innuendo. Did he die of old age? Was he murdered? With […]

Even the Dog Can’t Save It

Bear Witness by Lark O Jensen

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Stacie is a tour guide, introducing people to Alaskan wildlife from a boat. When a man vanishes from the tour, she thinks he’s stowed away to cause trouble. But when his body is discovered out amid the ice floes, she realizes that there is something far worse at play. I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounds so cool and so eerie, the idea of a body bobbing out in the frigid Alaskan waters. Unfortunately the story goes downhill from there. My main […]

When You’re Too Hard Core for Raymond Chandler

Fast One by Paul Cain

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Bingo square – People This noir classic was created when Paul Cain patched together five stories that he had written for the detective magazine Black Mask.  Published in 1933, it soon became famous as the book that was just too hardboiled to be fashioned into a movie.  And seriously, it is, even by today’s standards.  Daaaaamn son. Paul Cain was by then a slippery character in Hollywood.  That was not his real name, nobody was quite sure where he was from (spoiler, Iowa, actually), and […]



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