Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Binge

The Blackbird by Richard Stark

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black

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Anytime I finish a tome (in this case, Don DeLillo’s Underworld), I tend to binge read in order to get back in the swing of things. Here are three books I picked up over the weekend… The Blackbird *** Someone asked on Twitter recently that if you could take three traits from a writer for yourself, what would they be? I should have mentioned Donald Westlake’s amazing versatility. Just consider the Grofield series: first a heist tale, then a locked room mystery, now a spy thriller, […]

Reading, Reading, Reading, RAWHIDE!

The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

The Dame by Richard Stark

Tricky by Josh Stallings

Quarry's Deal by Max Alan Collins

The Plea by Steve Cavanagh

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I read a lot last week but also had a busy week at work (a good busy). Every time I tried to write a review on one of these books, all of them good, I just didn’t have the time or energy. So here’s a big update dump of the stuff I read in the last week and I’d be glad to tease them out more in the comments if anyone is curious… “The True History of the Kelly Gang” I enjoyed large parts of […]

Murder, They Wrote (And Directed)

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas by Glenn Kenny

The Big Fix by Roger L. Simon

The Damsel by Richard Stark

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I went on a bit of an unexpected reading tear these last few days, which is good because I need to clear some space off the TBR pile in advance of reading Barack Obama’s new book.   Moonflower Murders 4 Stars ::Trigger Warning:: Tragic homosexual plot And how sad it is because the book didn’t need it. I was curious as to how Anthony Horowitz was going to follow up with his superb Magpie Murders series. He does so by giving us most of an Atticus Pünd novel, […]

Quarantine Reading

Conviction by Denise Mina

Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death by Donald Westlake

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Been doing a lot of reading to pass the time during the quarantine. I finished these two books back to back, both were good in their own respective ways. So here are the reviews… Conviction I didn’t mean for this to be my first Denise Mina book. I’ve tried and failed twice to get into Garenthill. But the premise seemed too good to pass up and I thought it would be a fun pleasure read. It starts off rocky. The main character, whose perspective we get first […]

Lost It At the Movies

Double Feature by Donald Westlake

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I was fortunate to snag one of the new Hard Case Crime releases just before everything shut down. And it’s a good thing too because Donald Westlake is one of my favorite writers. I love how versatile he is, doing everything from mysteries to broad noir tales to geopolitical thrillers to biting satire works. When I saw that this would be a re-release of two movie-based novellas, I got excited. This is probably the most eager I’ve been for a new HCC in a while. […]

Somebody Set Me Up

The Cutie by Donald E. Westlake

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cbr11bingo – Reader’s Choice, replacing “Two Heads Are Better than One.” Donald Westlake has one of those “writer’s writer” reputations, so I’ve always meant to check out his work. This is one of his earliest novels, originally published under the title “The Mercenaries” and re-issued by Hard Case Crime. The main character and narrator is George “Clay” Clayton, right-hand man for crime boss Ed Ganolese. As Clay and his live-in girlfriend are settling in to bed one night, they are disturbed by a knock on […]



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