Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Don’t you hate when a book starts out strong only to disappoint you?

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

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I so thoroughly enjoyed 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle that I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Stuart Turton’s latest novel, a mystery set aboard a 17th century East Indiaman trade ship sailing from Batavia (now Jakarta) to Amsterdam. Within pages of meeting Sammy Pipps, a detective or “thief-catcher” of Holmesian perception, and his bodyguard/Watson/Boswell Arent Hayes, I was hooked. That’s the difficulty of strong openings: The rest of the novel has to live up to them. Now I’m sadly in the position of […]

Big Summer is a Big Departure

Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

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Daphne Berg and Drue Cavanaugh were once best friends until that one day where Drue pushed Daphne just way too far. They haven’t spoken since.  Looking back, Daphne realizes the friendship was a little one-sided and had a slight frenemies vibe. Six years later, Daphne has moved onffrom her friendship with Drue. She’s made a comfortable life as a social media influencer, she just made a major plus-size brand deal and she’s feeling comfortable in her body. Then Drue pushes back into her life. Drue is […]

Well, I’m goin’ to New Orleeeans…

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

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This is book is something. A lot. Too much. Entertaining. Frustrating. It really runs the gamut. It would probably be easier to review it by listing the good and the bad… Good: -Deep sense of atmosphere. -Two twisty mysteries for the price of one. -Tries a lot of different genres and, for the most part, mashes them up well. -Uses art and history in an intriguing way, especially when describing the killings (I was getting Hannibal tv show vibes) -Really well-plotted for a first mystery book, especially […]

My first non Murder Squad Tana French, and I still liked it

The Searcher by Tana French

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In 2020, I was super excited to read a Tana French book I found in my (virtual) bookshelf that I thought I had not yet read.  To my disappointment, it was just one of her (in my opinion) lesser novels, that now, a mere one year later, I have forgotten the ending to again.  This time, I made sure that this wasn’t a repeat.  EIther way, I’m sure that this would have been a memorable book because it is the most different from all other […]

When Nothing Else Matters

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

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The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is fairly easy to describe: an alternate history mystery tale set in a Jewish colony in Alaska that’s about to be handed over to the United States. But it’s so much more. This book pays homage to the great hardboiled traditions of the past but has a big beating heart in the middle. And it also functions as a hilarious and sad commentary on Jewish life post-World War II. I’m aware of how acclaimed Michael Chabon is but I’ve not had much […]

Bayou Bengals

Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke

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When I was a kid, I used to go with my dad to visit his parents, who retired to a bayou in north Louisiana. And while north Louisiana is almost a drastically different state than south Louisiana, the flourishes of French culture combined with the marshlands, cypress trees, and petrostate aesthetic are still prevalent in that neck of the woods. So whenever I need to do some bayou reading, I look up the next David Robicheaux book from James Lee Burke. I plan on pouring […]



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