Tag Archives: hardcover

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (1995) – BR00064 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
November 29 1999

Plot or Premise

This book introduces Stephanie Plum, a good girl down on her luck, who falls into bounty hunting to pick up some cash and avoid having to move back home. She lives in the suburbs of New Jersey, and dances around the question of whether she wants to bed Joe Morelli again — the local cop who stole her virginity when she was young and foolish, and then wrote about it on the bathroom walls and the stadium bleachers. She got revenge years later by almost running him down with a Buick. No cream puff here, she is also not exactly an expert at being a “fugitive apprehension agent”. More like an apprehensive agent, and the descriptions are hilarious.

What I Liked

Stephanie is supposed to find an elusive man — Joe Morelli! Yep, her cop foil and first love is wanted for allegedly shooting an unarmed suspect. Morelli claims there were other guys in the apartment, and there was a gun, but that doesn’t change the fact that Plum needs to bring him in to get the money. And she isn’t experienced enough to match wits with him for most of the book. But she has help from a lot of extra support characters — Ranger, the experienced bounty-hunter; Vincent, the bail bondsman; and Plum’s family.

What I Didn’t Like

Her grandmother is a little over the top but so are Lulu and Jackie, hookers in the downtown neighbourhood; and one seriously disturbed boxer, with a passion for hurting women.

The Bottom Line

Excellent first in the series.

Mortal Memory by Thomas H. Cook (1993) – BR00086 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 11 1999

Plot or Premise

A young boy loses his mother, sister and brother to an apparent killing spree by his father. Years later, an author tracks down the boy, now a man with a wife and son, and asks him to remember the details of their last few months together.

What I Liked

The basic plot is somewhat interesting in that it deals with the young boy’s impressions of life, now recolored and filtered through the eyes of an adult, and the sudden realizations of what he actually saw and heard in adult conversations which made no sense at the time, but which are all too clear now. A reinterpretation of history, in a sense, that allows the context to show more clearly than a simple linear telling might have done.

What I Didn’t Like

Two aspects stand out as negative factors. First, there is the confused telling of the story. At the beginning, it seems far too disjointed, and the continuous references to the future to build suspense actually fall flat. Secondly, there is a sense of detachment throughout the story, almost a clinical feel that keeps you removed from the main character and limits the novel to simply “telling” the story rather than having the reader “live” it through the eyes and actions of the characters. The fact that the ending is all too predictable is not necessarily a negative factor in this story, as it doesn’t detract from an interesting read into the psyche of a slowly disintegrating family, and there are twists at the end that show the dangers of reinterpreting history from a cracked lens. Not everything happens the way the little grey cells remember, nor the way reality would tend to dictate.

The Bottom Line

Not everything happened the way you remember.

Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs (1999) – BR00071 (1999) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

Twisting sub-plots make it hard to describe as one common theme, but in essence, Dr. Temperance Brennan is back with a problem — dead people, including babies, are popping up all over the place as a result of a religious cult. Even her sister gets involved, not to mention a young female relative (can we say Kay Scarpetta’s niece?). In fact, the majority of this book comes even closer to a rip-off of that other series, but closer to the lousy writing near the end of the Scarpetta series than the tight stories that launched the female coroner genre. The story starts in Montreal, and then moves to Carolina, and then eventually back again to the Montreal area. Unlike the first book, you never get the same sense of place.

What I Liked

A difficult question…the story is interesting, just with a lot of holes and loose threads. One really good thing that is missing from this story that was in the previous one is the removal of the francophone / anglophone dynamics, that is not only annoying, but also inaccurate for the timeframe.

What I Didn’t Like

The list is growing…First, and most important, I hate the way it mirrors the Kay Scarpetta stories, essentially ripping off the work that has gone before. Second, Reichs has a really bad habit — trying to build suspense and mystery by an old trick of hiding certain things. At least two major “clues” in the sub-stories are not revealed, instead having Temperance kind of taunt the reader in an I-know-but-the-reader-won’t-until-I-feel-like-revealing-it-to-them way. None of the “clues” are that big, nor are they worth waiting for, and the reader is just left feeling irritated and cheated by the story. Either the waiting has to be worth it, by making the news so unbelievable that you say “WOW!”, or you have to play fair with the reader and share the news as it comes along. Finally, I have to say that not only is this book not particularly great, but it is also a real let-down from the first one. It reads like Reichs threw it together from two separate stories, and with a lot of extra characters thrown in, none of which are any more than wooden extras.

The Bottom Line

A let-down from the first one.

Scarpetta’s Winter Table by Patricia Cornwell (1998) – BR00087 (1999) – 🐸⚪⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

A cookbook disguised as a novel.

What I Liked

Nothing.

What I Didn’t Like

It was ADVERTISED as a combination of a cookbook with stories about Dr. Kay Scarpetta, and in that light, it fails on all counts. There IS no story, and nothing happening in the non-story — and worse still, none of the characters act like they do in the novels. The recipes are interesting, but far from revolutionary. This book seems to have been issued for one reason and one reason only — to milk some money out of the fans and to give them almost nothing in return.

The Bottom Line

Worthless.

Pathways by Jeri Taylor (1998) – BR00084 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

The Voyager crew are separated from the ship and captured by an alien race. The crew are placed in a prison camp full of various races. While awaiting rescue by Captain Janeway, the members tell stories from their pasts to each other at night to help pass the time.

What I Liked

Chakotay’s tale is of his rejection of his tribe’s ways and embracing the Starfleet ideals, and then joining the Maquis to chase the Cardassians. Harry Kim’s focuses on his privileged upbringing, discovering Starfleet hikers, meeting Boothbie, and his rough adjustment at the Academy. Kes’ tale is a bit odd, seems off from her character on the show, but covers her short life before meeting Neelix (told through some sort of psychic link with her essence that has already left Voyager) including pushing the Elders to reveal the history of the Caretaker and her decision to explore the surface. Tuvok’s backstory includes his double career with Starfleet, namely first joining Starfleet as a young man, and then leaving Starfleet, returning home to raise a family, having a spiritual quest in the desert, and deciding to rejoin Starfleet, reviewing Janeway’s first mission as part of his duties, and then being posted to her ship only to butt heads repeatedly with her over her impulsive nature.

What I Didn’t Like

I wasn’t totally comfortable with B’Elanna’s story about never being part of the life of either Klingons or humans, her decision to leave Starfleet Academy and work on a freighter, and meeting Chakotay and Paris in the Maquis. It seems at odds with her very Klingon personality at the start of Voyager, as if she didn’t have much experience with humans. Yet the backstory talks about even her first serious boyfriend having been human. Paris’ story doesn’t reveal much, it’s mostly rehash of excerpts from other episodes — his relationship with his Admiral father, joining Starfleet and starting a ski team, an chance to be the pilot for the Enterprise, an accident with his flight team (similar to the character he played on TNG episode with Wesley Crusher), his joining the Maquis, his imprisonment for firing on a Starfleet ship to protect the Maquis, and finally joining Voyager. Neelix’s story probably had the most potential as being different and unique, i.e. growing up on a quiet planet on the edge of war and the loss of his family and trading partners, and then meeting Voyager’s crew, but the story went nowhere.

The Bottom Line

Decent views of the various backstories.