Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The President has an Academy Award and Who’s the Prime Minister of England?

The Labyrinth Index by Charles Stross

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So it turns out that you can have a decent Laundry Files novel without Bob Howard as central figure; The Labyrinth Index follows Bob’s colleague Mhari Murphy who was turned into a vampire in a previous novel (one I haven’t read) thanks to a computer program/advanced math/parasite infection thing. It turns out that England is now under the control of new Prime Minister N’yar Lat-Hotep, although he doesn’t use that name with the general public. Mhari though being formerly of the Laundry which now goes […]

A Beach Read on the Beach

Camino Island by John Grisham

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The wildest thing about this John Grisham book is that it’s not about lawyers. Our man John instead focuses on writers, books, heists, and French furntiure. It’s a welcome and pleasant departure for the reader as much as I’m sure it is for Grisham. It’s a fun little novel that would probably make a nice little Netflix limited run series. Or Paramount+, mayhaps. If you like fun but relaxing beach reads with a little bit of danger and sexiness – here you go.   Mercer […]

Light and fluffy cozy mystery about a senior citizen CIA agent saving hippies from the Bulgarian secret police in 1971

The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

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The Mrs. Pollifax series has become one of my reading comforts. When I’m tired or world-weary, it’s nice to pick up something familiar with a little mystery and adventure, but no real threat of danger, while some nice people make the world a safer place.  The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax is the third in the series, published in 1971. Life is back to normal for Mrs. Pollifax; she’s hosting her garden club for a rare blooming of her night-blooming cereus. Just as she’s thinking her short-lived […]

The Lady Hardcastle series is a cozy balm for troubled times

The Burning Issue of the Day by T.E. Kinsey

Death Beside the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey

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It’s ridiculous how far behind I am on book reviews. I’d like to say I have an amazing reason, like I’ve been busy discovering a cure for cancer. But honestly, the pandemic has had me down and made me too stir crazy to sit still long enough to write these. And now I need to write 10 book reviews. Le sigh. I found the Lady Hardcastle series a couple of years ago. It’s an adorable cozy mystery series set in England the early 1900s. Lady […]

Spy, Assassin, Telepath, Family?

Spy X Family, vol. 1 by Tatsuya Endo

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What happens when a spy needs to assemble a family unit for a mission, and the child he adopts and lady he marries are respectively a telepath and assassin, except none of them quite know what the rest of them are? A lot of fun is what. I saw a teaser excerpt of Spy X Family in a magazine, and I guess it worked since I bought the first volume about as soon as it was out. Twilight is a master spy, unfeeling and professional, […]

Historical cozy mystery set in a manor house with spies and ghosts

A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan

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It’s 1917 England and Kate Cartwright works in intelligence. Her boss, simply known as C, instructs her to attend a house party at Blackwater Abbey and to take her fiancé with her. Two problems: Kate has already declined the invitation to the house party, and she broke off her engagement. C tells her too bad, her presence at Blackwater Abbey is a matter of national security. Top-secret weapons plans from England have been discovered in Berlin, and C has heard that the traitor or traitors […]



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