Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Crime Spree

Skin Deep by Sung J. Woo

The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

Hell in the Heartland: Murder, Meth and the Case of Two Missing Girls by Jax Miller

Later by Stephen King

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I binged a lot of crime fiction (with one non-fictional exception) as there was a lot of traffic on my already long commute this week, allowing me to synergize eyeball reading with audio. Plus I took off the weekend so I had some extra time… Skin Deep 3 stars So rare, entertaining and enjoyable to have a transracial adoptee as a protagonist. While author Sung J. Woo doesn’t lean too hard on Siobhan’s background, he weaves it in to make her a fully realized person. The […]

Urban Blues

Paper Gods by Goldie Taylor

Violent Spring by Gary Phillis

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I read two great gritty urban mystery reads this past week. Both uniquely told in their own way but both addressing the politics and social systems of Atlanta and Los Angeles respectively in a way that I found compelling… Paper God (TW and minor spoiler: Book has a trans character in which a threat of violence is implied and a tragic love story is involved. Nothing happens to them but it’s also not the most trans-positive story) I’ve read a lot about Atlanta this past […]

Sunset Strip

Little Green by Walter Mosley

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One of my all-time favorite movies is Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. Featuring Elliot Gould in a great star turn as Phillip Marlowe who is deposited in the 1970s as a fish-out-of-water cynical private eye, Altman does a fantastic job of contrasting the post-war male angst of the 50s with the post-60s hypershift in American culture. And oh yeah, there’s a mystery to solve. Chronologically, there’s no gap between Little Green and Cinnamon Kiss, Mosley’s previous Easy Rawlins book. The former picks up a few months after where the latter […]

Them Kids

Not Long For This World by Gar Anthony Haywood

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Gar Anthony Haywood’s Aaron Gunner series is very good and also a great example of the racism inherent in the publishing industry. I read a lot of books, as my archive on this site can attest to. I’ve read hundreds, maybe thousands of mystery/thriller type books. Admittedly, the vast majority of writers I’ve read are white. I’m not exculpating myself in the problem here. But what does frustrate me, and what I think is worth nothing, is that Haywood’s books are so much better than […]

take a look! it’s in *this* book!

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

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Why not take a break from the world with a strangely soothing tale of a library fire? That question appears to be pure chaos, but seriously: wouldn’t it be nice to let a meticulous journalist and storyteller narrate a well-researched account of history, memory, and true crime? Good news: you can do it! Just plug your headphones in and let Susan Orlean and The Library Book transport you to a different world. Orleans covers more than just the true-crime glitter that is strewn around the  […]

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 […]



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