Monthly Archives: May 2024

Shooter by Caroline Pignat (2017) – BR00252 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
May 26 2024

Plot or Premise

A lockdown happens at school, and five kids on the third floor end up in the only unlocked room they can find — the boy’s washroom.

What I Liked

I downloaded the book because my son was reading it for high school, and given the potentially intense “shooting in a school” scenario, I wanted to be able to talk with him about it if needed. His response to the book was more like mine — “meh”. Good, but not great. It’s great that the five kids are all different…Alice is an introvert, her brother Noah is autistic, Isabelle is the popular clique type, Hogan is a bad boy jock, and Xander is a camera nerd. As they realize it’s not a simple drill but instead that there is an active shooter in the school, the tone of the experience and anxiety levels mount. You find out that everyone has a darker secret or issue they’re dealing with, and the aftermath is mostly decent after the requisite action sequence ending.

What I Didn’t Like

Obviously, the entire premise is a rip-off of the Breakfast Club. It’s more “action-oriented”, and more contemporary for themes, but even some of the sub-themes are identical (and not simply as high-school tropes). And while suitable for some more mature middle-age readers perhaps, I expect most high-schoolers would see some of the plot elements come into focus WAY faster than the characters in the story…the involvement of one of the characters in the overall plot, what Xander took pictures of that got him into trouble, why Hogan is messed up (and why doesn’t anyone in authority know what’s going on, since he’d have about 5 different social worker types on his case?), and what’s going on with Isabelle’s love life. Finally, I found the portrayal of the cops clearing the building to be extremely unrealistic. Almost all large cities have trained their police forces in Active Shooter Response tactics, and they wouldn’t be all hanging out in other parts of the school doing nothing. I also find it also extremely coincidental that of the five people in the bathroom (which btw does have a lock, belying the original premise!), not only are three of them in the same grade (Alice, Hogan, and Isabelle), they actually do all know each other while pretending vaguely that they don’t.

The Bottom Line

Could be decent premise for remake of The Breakfast Club

The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry (1979) – BR00251 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 25 2024

Plot or Premise

Charlotte Ellison is an unmarried woman who tends to be blunt and outspoken rather than dissemble when speaking with men. She is vaguely in love with her sister’s husband and a little bored with life, until a murderer claims a neighbour. And then a couple of maids. Who will be next? Who is killing the young women of Cater Street, a Victorian-era upper-middle class neighbourhood? Inspector Pitt is investigating the case, suspecting everyone equally until they can be eliminated. When he isn’t becoming increasingly smitten with Charlotte.

What I Liked

The setting makes the romance side of things surprisingly decent, more subtle and understated rather than the harsher more brash aspects of contemporary romance mysteries. I had read the book some 20 years ago and only had a vague recollection of the killer (I knew why, but a little off on who).  The tension is good as is the elements of suspecting various friends and neighbours.

As an aside, a long time ago, I was a member of an online group whose rules of etiquette were the standard ones you see in any social media group, except they had one content element — no discussions of Anne Perry’s personal life. Apparently people had previously gotten off topic more than once when discussing her books, and it led to acrimonious arguments about the writer, not the books. I sought her work out PRECISELY because people thought it was relevant; after I read it, I decided I didn’t care. I like the books, don’t care about her old criminal behaviour.

What I Didn’t Like

I would have liked to see more of the Inspector with Charlotte discussing non-crime-related topics, sharing more casual intimacies than was suggested up to the denouement. However, by contrast, there is a lot of time spent on women openly discussing double standards or a long-time mistress of one of the main characters, neither of which were likely for the time portrayed. The mistress thread even lends a red herring with no real subterfuge or payoff.

The Bottom Line

Come for the murder, stay for the romantic intrigue

An updated milestone — 250 book reviews

The PolyBlog
May 20 2024

Back in October 2022, I reached 200 book reviews. My goal is to be all caught up at some point on reviews, no backlog, but I don’t know if that is really doable. When I’m in the groove for writing them, it’s great. But I get bored writing them all in a batch, I stop, and then it’s hard to get back into it. Which just allows the backlog to grow again.

Since #200, I have reorganized my ebook collection, filling in a lot of gaps so I could have complete “sets” of some stories, and started using Amazon First Reads as well as library networks affiliated with the Ottawa Public Library.

Over the last 50, some truly memorable books are hidden in the numbers…#208, the Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, a fascinating story of an autistic man who has the chance to “cure” his autism. #245, The Running Grave, by Robert Galbraith, dealing with a cult. Lots of older mysteries with Lawrence Sanders. Some sci-fi by Andy Weir and William Gibson. And I’ve even reviewed some historical mysteries.

My ebook collection shows 46 books in my “Reviewing – New” collection, which are basically books that I’ve added to the collection and read over the last year or so. I also have a “Reviewing – Old” collection with some 187 other ones in there. Which means I guess I’ve cleared 25 or so from the backlog and written 25 other new ones.

As I approached #250, I was trying to decide what it would be. Perhaps The Martian by Andy Weir? Perhaps a classic mystery? Another one by a favourite author?

In the end, I did none of those. I chose a book that I read about six weeks ago where I felt like I was reading a brand new author of amazing skill (she’s not new, just new to me). And for the first half+ of the book, I felt like I was falling in love with reading again. The last quarter wasn’t awesome, a structural problem that would have been difficult to avoid, but still great nevertheless.

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis (2023) – BR00250 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

Onward to #300!

The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis (2023) – BR00250 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸🐸

The PolyBlog
May 20 2024

Plot or Premise

A bookstore owner can sense the emotions of previous owners of books.

What I Liked

The first 75% of the book is what garners the five-star review. It is lush with the main character, Ashlyn Greer, finding an old custom-bound book and feeling the emotion in it, the story of a love affair gone wrong. Another shop owner had shown it to her with a bunch of other stuff that came in, and she’s mesmerized by the book. A mystery surrounds where it came from, who wrote it, etc., as it is clearly not a commercial book. She manages to track down the person who donated the book, as well as a companion book, giving her two of them now — a he-said, she-said version of the love affair, with her feeling both sets of emotions as honest, true, and righteous in the break-up. She must know what happened, and to understand the true story. A romance blossoms with the donor, the son of a man who had been involved tangentially in both versions of the story and somehow ended up with the books. It’s a very Great Gatsby-like storyline, or for the more movie-minded, Titanic-esque for both timing and content. I got the book through Amazon First Reads, and it was well worth the offer.

What I Didn’t Like

I have to give a SPOILER ALERT. I debated back and forth if it was a five-star or only four-star book. Up until a certain point (75%), the story is awesome. But in the last quarter of the book, the spoiler is that the main characters to that point take an almost backseat to the climax, while it focuses on the characters from the books. While the “mystery” was front and centre, so was the “detective”. It’s almost like a Sherlock Holmes story where the client would solve everything and Sherlock wouldn’t really be around. In the end, the strong beginning and my emotional reaction to the storyline was too strong to detract. I am less enamoured with the ending, but the beginning is amazing.

The Bottom Line

Come for the tragedy, stay for the romance

Raylan by Elmore Leonard (2011) – BR00249 (R2024) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 20 2024

Plot or Premise

A guy tries to buy weed, and all it costs him is a little sample, $22K, and his kidneys.

What I Liked

I loved Timothy Oliphant as Raylan Givens in the TV series Justified. Enough to go looking for Leonard’s books with the character. I read other books by him like Get Shorty a long time ago, a few others here and there, but never any of the Givens’ books. It’s interesting seeing some of the same stories with different characters, arcs, and endings. The story arc is more a series of cases…the mountain deals, the kidney stealer, a bank robbery crew of all women, a female poker player, and some fun with Delroy wanting to play High Noon in a bar.

What I Didn’t Like

One of the things I love with the show is the background characterization. However, in the book, Boyd, Ava, Loretta, even Art/Tim/Rachel all get short attention in the stories.

The Bottom Line

Not as well developed as some of the series’ episodes