Kevin’s reviews of other people’s books
Author Jane Suen says this book was inspired by a road sign in Alabama reading: Murder Creek. From that, she spins out a Novella about a college student (Eve), who crosses that same highway bridge and becomes entranced by how Murder Creek got its name. Eve begins digging into both a two-hundred-year-old war battle and … More Murder Creek, by Jane Suen [REVIEW]
Sports books often have little content that appeals to non-fans. This book is one of the exceptions. The baseball in this book is plenty for the sports fan to enjoy. But, what sets this book apart from the rabble is the non-sports story of this man – R. A. Dickey. If it were fiction, it … More Wherever I wind up, by R.A. Dickey [Review]
This delightful romantic sci-fi tale follows Jeremy, who took the wrong temp job. He ends up being shot at by the security muscle hired by the scientist running the experiments for which Jeremy was paid to be a test subject. The scientist doesn’t want anyone who knows about the revolutionary tech to have loose lips. … More In the Space of an Atom, by Bruce Perrin [Book Review]
Imagine going out with your best girl in 1955 to see the new movie at the local cinema. The curtain goes up, you take a bite of popcorn and wonder whether you’ll work up the courage to hold her hand. Then, the music starts and you get the “Don’t Dream It, Be It” swimming pool … More The Havoc Tree, by Layden Robinson
Sportswriter Jim Caple has written a sentimental and at times whimsical fiction story (certainly inspired by true events) about a WWII veteran at the end of his life, seeking closure. Roy, a 91-year-old former Navigator for B-24 bombers during the war, is wracked by an unknowing guilt about whether bombs his plane dropped near … More The Navigator, by Jim Caple
This police procedural is long on discussion about the hero’s dog, long on letting us see the villain’s first person perspective, and long on sentimental details about the hero cop’s mourning over his dead wife. It’s very short on suspense or mystery. The reader knows everything in the first few chapters – the hired killer … More Winter Song (Seasons Pass, book #1) by Susan C. Muller
Author David Myles Robinson can write a legal mystery in which the plot is intriguing, the writing is excellent, and the law is accurately depicted. This is quite a triumvirate, which few authors do well. Courtroom scenes are inherently dramatic. Making a deposition scene good reading without making it a mockery of how real law … More Tropical Doubt, by David Myles Robinson
I’m a big fan of Sara Paretsky and a big fan of her heroine, V.I. Warshawski. Dead Land, however, is not the best installment in the series. The author tells us that this is the first book she has written without the support of her now-deceased husband. Perhaps that partially explains why this book was … More Dead Land (A V.I.Warshowski novel), by Sara Paretsky
This book, and this series, has a lot to offer fans of police/FBI procedurals. I picked up this book during a free download offer and I was happy to discover a new author whose books I can now look forward to reading. There is some backstory from earlier books in the series that is sometimes … More Remnants (Brandon Fisher FBI Series #6), by Carolyn Arnold
Science Fiction author Robert J. Sawyer treads a different path in his new historical fiction (and SciFi) novel, The Oppenheimer Alternative. (Currently available for pre-order HERE.) The story is a fictionalized, but still very true to history, depiction of one of the main cogs in the Manhattan Project (or the Manhattan Engineering District, the code … More The Oppenheimer Alternative, by Robert J. Sawyer
