Tar Baby, by Toni Morrison →

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Toni Morrison loves to tell to tell stories and this one is about the love between two Black Americans Jadine and Son.  Jadine Childs is a beautiful Sorbonne graduate and fashion model. Son is a black fugitive and strong-minded man who came from the Caribbean to New York. He represents everything that Jadine hates and yet she is attracted to him. They have an affair but can’t find a place where they both fit.

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Morrison uses their relationship to show the struggles between not just blacks and whites but between blacks themselves as well as the masters and servants in society.

Another major theme in Tar Baby is the conflict between nature and civilization. Morrison adds to the conflict by giving nature human like qualities.  An example is when she describes the strength of the water in the harbor as the assertive push of a women’s hand.

Quotes

“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.”

“It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenaged dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility and a dead end.”

“I wonder if the person he wants to marry is me or a black girl? And if it isn't me he wants, but any black girl who looks like me, talks and acts like me, what will happen when he finds out that I hate ear hoops, that I don't have to straighten my hair, that Mingus puts me to sleep, that sometimes I want to get out of my skin and be only the person inside-- not American-- not black-- just me?”

“All narrative begins for me as listening. When I read, I listen. When I write, I listen—for silence, inflection, rhythm, rest.”

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Tar Baby
By Toni Morrison
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Odd Hours by Dean Koontz

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Odd Thomas, the hero’s name, meets Annamaria on the pier of Magic Beach, California.  Odd, a fry cook and a person who sees dead people, saves Annamaria from some bad men and barely escapes himself. Odd runs trusting his instincts and two companions who are really ghosts. Frank Sinatra and a dog named Boo. Boo has replaced his old pal Elvis.

Throughout the story the world itself seems to be under threat and many could die. Odd has prophetic dreams and psychic encounters and struggles with his reality. Odd is very humble about it all and he knows he has come to this little town by the sea for a reason.

I really have liked Dean Konntz’s books, but this character is just too weird and the story is not exciting. Obviously characters and plots make a book good but they were both weak. I didn’t feel this book was good and would not recommend it.

What is really odd about this book is that it is part of a series?

See more on Dean Koontz at Favorite Authors Section (click here to link)

Odd Comments from the Book

“Of all the spirits I have seen, only Elvis and Mr. Sinatra are able to manifest in the garments of their choice. Others haunt me always in whatever they were wearing when they died.

This is one reason I will never attend a costume party dressed as the traditional symbol of the New Year, in nothing buy a diaper and a top hat. Welcomed into either Hell or Heaven, I do not want to cross the threshold to the sound of demonic or angelic laughter. ~Odd Thomas”

“It's only life. We all get through it. Not all of us complete the journey in the same condition. Along the way, some lose their legs or eyes in accidents or altercations, while others skate through the years with nothing worse to worry about than an occasional bad-hair day. I still possessed both legs and both eyes, and even my hair looked all right when I rose that Wednesday morning in late January. If I returned to bed sixteen hours later, having lost all my hair but nothing else, I would consider the day a triumph. Even minus a few teeth, I'd call it a triumph.”

“Evil men often easy to mislead, because they have spent so long deceiving that they no longer recognize the truth and mistake deception for it.”

“Life had not taught me to distrust ministers, but it had taught me to trust no one more than dogs.”

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The Cutting Edge, by Jeffery Deaver

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Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are what I expected to find out more about in this book since it is #14 in Jeffery Deaver’s Lincoln series but there really was not enough of either of them in the plot of the first half of the book or even the last to accomplish that. I was left unimpressed that an investigator in a wheelchair would carry what is expected from a Deaver plot.

Rhyme and Sachs return to New York from a honeymoon and find Manhattan’s diamond district terrified. Three people are tortured and brutally murdered in a secluded jewelry shop. Vimal Lahori, a young diamond cutter, walks into the scene and then runs barely escaping with his life.

We are left wondering about the motive of the perpetrator of the murders when a half million dollars worth of diamonds are left behind at the scene. Before long engaged couples are found murdered and the diamond on their ring fingers seem to be the motive. By this point Rhyme and Sachs are on the trail of the man now being referred to in the press as The Promisor. Vimal has gone into hiding since he knows that the killer is looking for him.

We learn a great deal of information about diamond cutting and the industry in general from this novel. The book is divided into five sections named for the stages that a rough diamond goes through before becoming a finished diamond: plotting; cleaving; sawing; bruting; and brillianteering. If these section names have relevance to the process used to investigate the crime it seems weak.

It was a twist and turn plot full of unexpected developments but that was not enough to make this book what it was expected to be.

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Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko is a story based on actual experiences of those who worked in support positions for Alcatraz in the 1930’s when Al Capone as a prisoner.

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Moose Flanagan and his family have moved from Santa Monica and he tells us right how he feels saying: “Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. Alcatraz sits smack in the middle of the bay…” His Dad, Cam, has taken two jobs as a prison guard and an electrician.

Moose is big for a 12-year-old, his older sister Natalie has autism and he looks out for her and concern for her consumes his mother Helen.

Moose becomes friends with the warden's daughter, Piper, and they get into trouble when she talks him into being part of her money-making schemes, like having inmates on the island do laundry for the kids at school.  Piper and Moose hope Al Capone can help them when the trouble starts.

An interesting plot with some funny situations.

Quotes

“Nobody knows how things will turn out, that's why they go ahead and play the game...You give it your all and sometimes amazing things happen, but it's hardly ever what you expect.”

“Now I understand. When you love someone, you have to try things even if they don't make sense to anyone else.

“Life is amazing, isn't it? You can't ever tell what will happen. Nobody knows until they go ahead and play the game.”

“You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.”“What they say about females being the weaker sex is the biggest lie in the world.”

“I’m big as a linebacker, and a seven-year-old girl treats me like her errand boy. Does she smell weakness on me?”

“Oh, we have everyone who is bad. Except Bonnie and Clyde on account of their being dead,” she says.”

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

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The story of Blockade Billy by Stephen King is told by the fictional character George "Granny" Grantham  as he is tells Stephen King in an interview about the 1957 Major League Baseball season, when he was the third base coach for a now-defunct team, the New Jersey Titans and when fictional character William "Blockade Billy" Blakely briefly played for the New Jersey Titans.

The team loses both of their catchers’ days before the start of the season, so they bring on a minor league player as a last-minute replacement. The replacement, Billy Blakely, seems to be slow witted but turns out to be a great player.

Billy’s skill helps him become accepted by the team and a star pitcher, Danny Dusen, sees Billy as his good luck charm to what he believes will be his best yet and a record season.

In what turns out to be the last game of the season umpire Hi Wenders, who the team had never liked  makes a bad call and Granny, who is coaching this game, is thrown out and when he argues against it the crowd starts yelling  "Kill the ump!". Things don’t turn out for the team, Danny, or Billy.

Stephen King said of the book, “I love old-school baseball, and I also love the way people who've spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense. People have asked me for years when I was going to write a baseball story. Ask no more; this is it. “

The book took King two weeks to write. It is 112 pages long and I finished it in a few hours. I wanted to find an example of King’s writing that was different from his normal genre to see if it was still as good and it was indeed. 

See more on Stephen King at BJ’s Favorite Authors (click here)

Quotes

“Baseball is a good thing. Always was, always will be.”

“I prefer the Yankees,' one of the blueshirts chimes in.”

'If I want your opinion, I'll rattle the bars in your cage,' Lombardazzi said. 'Until then, shut up and die right.”

“Baseball is also a game of balance.”

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A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens →

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

These first lines of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens are often quoted and when you bring the book up they come to mind. It is a historical novel that takes pace in London and Paris as the French Revolution approaches during those dark days. The story twists and turns.

The story contrasts the social and political events taking place in Paris and London and draws comparisons between the two cities in how they deal with crime, poverty, aristocratic greed and capital punishment.

The main characters are Dr. Manette, his daughter Lucie, and her eventual husband Charles Darnay. Jarvis Lorry, a banker and Sydney Carton, a lawyer's clerk. Miss Pross, a servant and Monsieur and Madame Defarge.

Love and sacrifice are interconnected themes in the book . Genuine love involves sacrifice and this is shown with Carton's sacrificing his life for his love for Lucie Manette .Another theme is resurrection and it helps the characters tie their destinies together . Sydney Carton is resurrected in spirit at the novel's close of the story. Dr. Manette is presented having a rebirth from the living death of his incarceration. Dr. Manette’s 18 years in prison is referred to by saying, "Buried how long?" The character Jerry Cruncher’s story reflects the theme being referred to as a "Resurrection Man", a person who digs up dead bodies to sell to medical men.

At the end of the novel, Sydney Carton is executed at the guillotine along with many other French prisoners. Dickens ends the novel with imagining what Carton might have said.

Quotes

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

“You have been the last dream of my soul.”

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

“‎And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.”

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self”

“There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair.”

“A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.”

Writing To Persuade, by Trish Hall

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The former editor of the New York Times Op-Ed page tells us in the books preface she “was immersed in argument, in passion, in ideas.” The book promises help: “Whether you want to compose a convincing cover letter, pitch a story for publication, or win over a college admissions officer.

“Writing To Persuade” is a definitive resource on the neglected art of persuasion. The books 5 parts has, each with their own chapters, Part 1: Lessons From My Story, Part 11: What’s Your Story?, Part 111: Winning People Over, Part 1V: Tips On Writing, and Part V: The Psychology Of Persuasion.

Hall’s advise goes beyond just good writing, as she discusses the attitudes and methods that will persuade. Her writing feels good and the messages she wants to convey are clear. The book is creditable, in part, because Hall’s background is so solid, but also because it makes sense. I was surprised. I usually read books on reading just out of habit but this was a good experience.

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Home, by Harlan Coben

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It has been ten years since the kidnapping of two 6-year-old boys from two wealthy families. A ransom was demanded but then everything went quiet with no clues until now. An anonymous letter arrives telling of a sighting of the boys in a sleezy part of London. Myron Bolitar aided by his powerful friend Win are both friends of the families and they go to see if he can find the boys.

Fat Gandhi controls the area in London where the boys were seen in and before Myron can reach the boys he has to deal with the psycho. Eventually he finds Patrick, one of the boys and he returns to the United States.  

Is this the real Patrick, and where is the other boy Rhys? The lives of both families has really been destroyed over the years and Patrick’s return opens wounds with Rhys’s family. The story is about family, friendship, deceptions and the meaning of home.  It is #11 in Coben’s Myron Bolitar series. As expected from Harlan Coben the plot twists and turns and you have no answers to what has happened until the end and even then there are still surprises.

See BJ’s Favorite Author Section on Harlan Coben

Quotes

“If you want to experience love, then you have to be ready for pain. One doesn’t come without the other. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have to worry about losing you. If you want laughter, expect tears.”

“Man plans and God laughs,”

“When you’re young you don’t get how great it is to be loved unconditionally.”

“Some people are conduits for misery.”

"A novel is like a sausage. You might like the final taste but you don't want to see how it was made."

“The homes were beautiful and picturesque and had all the warmth of a chain motel. ”"..

."better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down." ~

Harlan Coben expounds on Writing! Does his net worth of 25 million give him insight?

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Home
By Harlan Coben
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The Never Game, by Jeffrey Deaver

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This book is the first novel in a new series by Jeffrey Deaver, introducing Colter Shaw who is a “reward-seeker” who just travels looking for missing persons to help find. A college student is missing in Silicon Valley and he takes the job. The investigation takes him into the heart of Silicon Valley and the billion-dollar video gaming industry.  After the second victim is murdered it appears that an attempt to play for real the video game called The Never Game where the player has to survive after being left abandoned is acted out in real life.

The game provides clues: “You have been abandoned.” Colter finds the missing girl abandoned in an old building.

Another clue is to “Escape” if you can.” The game The Whispering Man is identified as the model for the crimes where the victim is left with five random objects left in a dangerous remote setting.

The victim is expected to use the objects left to escape “Or die with dignity.” In the investigation we meet eccentric game designers and dangerous gamers.

The Never Game brings uses the gaming industry to weave a unique plot that twists and turns and likely will serve to make Colter Shaw and interesting star in the new series by Jeffery Deaver.


Quotes


"She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder."

"I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block. When I find myself frozen-whether I'm working on a brief passage in a novel or brainstorming about an entire book-it's usually because I'm trying to shoehorn an idea into the passage or story where it has no place."

"My books are primarily plot driven but the best plot in the world is useless if you don't populate them with characters that readers can care about."

"Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise."

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Sula, by Toni Morrison

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As children growing up, Nel and Sula’s family life and circumstances are contrasted. Even though they were best friends growing up, one is shown as evil and the other as good. Morrison uses the differences to show how they becomes blurred with their friendship interdependence.

Nel comes from a stable home, that has many social conventions. She is unsure of the type of conventional life he mother Helene wants for her. Her grandmother had worked as a prostitute when she was younger and when Nel learns of this it just makes her more concerned about her mother’s influence.

Sula's lives with her grandmother Eva and her mother Hannah, both of whom are seen as eccentric. They open their doors to boarders and have three boys that although not adopted are part of the family.

Sula and Nel grow apart during their teenage years and after high school, Nel chooses the conventional role of wife and mother. Sula goes a different direction becoming independent and turning her back on social convention. She leave the home in the Bottom, a black neighborhood in Ohio, looking for independence. She has many affairs, some with white men, but she eventually find that people everywhere still lead boring lives and after being away for 10 years returns.  

lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Shortly after Nel's wedding, Sula leaves the Bottom for a period of 10 years. She has many affairs, some, it is rumored, with white men. However, she finds people following the same boring routines elsewhere, so she returns to the Bottom and to Nel. On Sula’s deathbed she tells Nel she has no regrets saying:

“‘You think I don’t know what your life is like just because I ain’t living it? I know what every colored woman in this country is doing.’‘What’s that?’ ‘Dying., Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.’”

Morrison’s book is a pioneer in establishing a black feminism. Her characters show that all black women are not the same. The interesting characters made the book come alive.

click here see BJ’s Favorite Author section posting on Toni Morrison


Quotes

“It was on that train, shuffling toward Cincinnati, that she resolved to be on guard—always. She wanted to make certain that no man ever looked at her that way. That no midnight eyes or marbled flesh would ever accost her and turn her into jelly.”

“The narrower their lives, the wider their hips.”

“Her once beautiful leg had no stocking and the foot was in a slipper. Nel wanted to cry—not for Eva’s milk-dull eyes or her floppy lips, but for the once proud foot accustomed for over a half century to a fine well-laced shoe, now stuffed gracelessly into a pink terrycloth slipper.”

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HUMANS BOW DOWN, by James Patterson & Emily Raymond →

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The Great War ended. The human race lost and the machines one.  The robots are replicas of humans in every way, except they lack feelings and emotions. Over time, these same robots evolved into something of better suited to be a replacement for humans called Hu-Bots.  

The Hu-Bots require all humans to bow down when asked or be killed.  They must serve their new masters or be banished to the Reserve where the landscape and environment is unforgiving and where it is a crime just to be human. It doesn’t seem really clear what the Hu-Bots really expect from the humans since they still have their own robots doing the work.

The evil leader of the bots is planning to first capture all the humans in the Reserve and make them bow down but then he also wants to eliminate every human.

The humans are just referred to by number and Six is a very determined woman who lost her parents in the Great War and whose brother and sister are in a prison. She has a trusted partner, Dubs, and they are running for their lives. They discover a secret that may help them free the humans.

It seems odd that the most interesting character is Hu-Bot, MikkyBo. She undergoes a moral awakening and her struggles are interesting. The book seems to lose something about halfway through. It isn’t clear why the Hu-Bots look at things the way they do, and the plot seems to narrow into a last-minute revelation of the Bot’s leaders’ motive. No explanation as to why it took so long to come out.

James Patterson and Emily Raymond’s book, Humans Bow Down, is a genre change for Patterson with the dystopian world in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.  (Rated 2 star out of 5)

See Favorite Authors for more on James Patterson

Bowing Down Quotes

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance." ~ Bell Hooks

"And once I knew a meditative rose That never raised its head from bowing down, Yet drew its inspiration from the stars. It bloomed and faded here beside the road, And, being a poet, wrote on empty air With fragrance all the beauty of its soul." ~ Henry Abbey

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children." ~ Khalil

"Painful for a person is rebellious independence, only in loving companionship with his associates does a person feel safe: Only in reverently bowing down before the higher does a person feel exalted." ~ Thomas Carlyle

If you like James Patterson you will like Jeffery Deaver. Click for review of The Never Game

Lessons From Lucy, by Dave Barry

The Simple Joys of an Old Happy Dog

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Dave Barry is 70 years old, the same age in dog years as Lucy his 10 year old dog, so he has started thinking more about how much time he, Dave, has left. He said: “If our lives were movie credits, we’d be way down at the bottom, past the assistant gerbil wrangler. If our lives were Cheez-It bags we’d be at the stage where you hold the bag up and tilt it into your mouth to get the last crumbs. In other words: the end Is in sight.” Stephen King said of the book “If you have grown old along with Dave, who is now seventy, you will want to read this book.”  King is also in his seventies and a good friend of Dave, but his advice is still good.

The first of the seven life lessons he learns is the to “Pay Attention to the People You Love (Not Later. Right Now.).” Lucy lives in the moment. She does have moods and even gets mad. When the garbageman comes, she “objects vociferously—she cannot believe we allow this to happen—he is taking our garbage,” but as soon as he leaves, Lucy has forgotten him and moves on to the next moment in her life. Barry tries to apply this lesson but finds it hard to be present, rather than looking at his phone.  

Another lesson he learns from Lucy is “Don’t Lie Unless You Have a Really Good Reason, Which You Probably Don’t.” Lucy doesn’t lie as we learn when she knocked down the Christmas tree. She greeted the family when they came home “whimpering and flattening herself on the floor in the yoga position known as Pancake Dog.” Barry takes a lesson from this but thinks he is doing ok with this lesson.

The last lesson in the book was an add on inserted after the epilogue and tells a touching story of the Barry families recent near tragedy. It adds some meaningful depth to the book.  

The book is one of Barry’s best.

Quotes

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic."

"Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege.”

"Your hand and your mouth agreed many years ago that, as far as chocolate is concerned, there is no need to involve your brain."

"Proofread carefully to see if you any words out."

"The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club"

"I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, so I took his shoes.

"Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing."

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The Postcard Killers by James Patterson & Liza Marklund

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Jacob Kanon, a New York City police investigator travels to Europe to hunt down the murderer of his daughter Kimmy who has killed young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm. In Sweden Kanon joins up with journalist Dessie Larsson who has gotten a postcard from the killers.  For each of the murders a postcard has been sent to the local newspaper.

The two young attractive killers stalk other young couples almost following a script and coaching their victims back to their hotel room to kill them.

The plot twists and turns and holds you but slows down a little at the end.

See More about James Patterson at Favorite Authors Tab click here

James Patterson Quotes

"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered."

"Your mind creates your reality. If you expect nothing, you open up the universe to give you options. If you expect the worst, you usually get it."

"Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories."

"You see, one of the best things about reading is that you'll always have something to think about when you're not reading."

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

 

Bad Luck and Trouble, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child

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Bad Luck and Trouble is what Jack Reacher finds when he starts hearing about the death of old friends. One with two broken legs is pushed out of a helicopter 3000 feet over the California desert in the middle of the night. Others on the former elite ex-army investigators are also being hunted down when Reacher is tracked down to help.

Finding him is no small feat as he has nothing but the cloths on his back and a ATM card and no address constantly wandering.  Frances Neagley who served with him in the old elite team finds him by putting an anonymous deposit to his bank account which Reacher automatically analyses the amount. The deposit of $1030 which Reacher recognizes as their old army code, 10–30, for urgent help needed.

Reacher and Neagley find that 3 of the old team of 5 are missing but the others work together to find out what has happened. The team trusts each other but the twists and turns of the plot keep us on the edge of our seats to the very end.

See Favorite Authors for more on Lee Child click here

Quotes

“You do not mess with the special investigators.”


“Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.”

“Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.”

“We investigate, we prepare, we execute. We find them, we take them down, and then we piss on their ancestors’ graves.”

“Facts were to be faced, not fought.”

“You tell a lot of lies, Ms. Berenson,” he said. Berenson said nothing. Neagley said, “She’s Human Resources. It’s what they do.”