Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A cozy mystery for coffee geeks

On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle

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I decided for a change of pace with On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle, the first Coffeehouse mystery. I like coffee, but I really like humorous pun book titles even more. I also LOVE me some cozy mysteries. I’m patiently waiting for the Christmas romances to disappear and the return of Hallmark mystery marathons. They are a balm to the soul whether on screen or the page. I like how the mystery tends to be solved swiftly and how easily I can devour the pages. […]

Man of La Mafia

The Kiss Off by Jim Cirni

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The downside to having an abundance of READ THIS listicles on the internet is that sometimes, books slip through the cracks. Rarely do I go into a library or bookstore without knowing exactly what I’m looking for. Sure, in the pre-Covid era, I could spend hours browsing but when it came time to check out, I’d usually go with what I know I wanted. There was a time when my shelves were just stacked with books I know I would never read and I’m seriously […]

Pandemic Through My Generation

Severance by Ling Ma

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I tried to read this gem the first few weeks after the pandemic broke out in New York. Couldn’t do it. As it is significantly better than the other pandemic reads (Killing Williamsburg and Zone One), the fact that it dealt with a terrifying virus from China was hitting too close to home. It took months to work up the gumption to return to it. And I’m glad I did, because it is really good. Yes, the focus of it is a pandemic ruining the world. Shen […]

Best Buds

A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself by William Boyle

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My William Boyle journey has been an interesting one. I’ve tried to read Gravesend three separate times with no success. They have the feel of those George Pelecanos style character-driven crime tales that I feel like I should enjoy more than I do, in part because the writer is too close to their home territory to let the story breathe. At the beginning of the pandemic, I finally sat down and finished The Lonely Witness, which I found to be fine but lacking, aside from a great protagonist. […]

BadFellas

Murder Machine by Gene Mustain & Jerry Capeci

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Kind of wonder what could have been if Martin Scorsese had gotten his hands on this book before Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguy. This is Goodfellas, only if the murder montage was like half the movie. I knew the name Roy DeMeo and that he was the head of perhaps the most murderous crew in Mafia history but I didn’t know exactly what is story was or how it operated. On a bit of a mob kick, I finally picked this one up. It’s a brutal tale and both writers […]

Babylon Brooklyn

A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc. by Michael Cannell

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Look, I am very simple. I like mob books, especially but not limited to ones set in New York City. If you write a good mob tale, fiction or non-fiction, I’ll devour it and give you your credit. So that’s what I’m here to do with this one. I’ve been curious about the Abe Reles story ever since reading Kevin Baker’s flat, unoriginal The Big Crowd. His ghost seemed to loom over everything mob and politic related in New York for decades. The head of the mob’s […]



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