Reading In and Out

I am a reading machine! Ok, not really. I'm still not reading anywhere near as much as I used to, but I did finish some stuff. Let's discuss.

OUT

Desperation in Death by J.D. Robb - This 55th installment in the series was great. A 13 year old girl is found in a park impaled on a piece of wood. She had been reported missing 8 months ago. She had blood on her that belonged to another girl who went missing 10 months ago, but was not reported. But the dead girl definitely didn't look like she'd been living on the street for 8 months. Her nails were done, her hair was done, and she was wearing really nice bespoke clothing. Dallas works out that the two girls were held together and escaped. One got caught, but the other one got away, so the killer planted her blood on the dead girl to make it look like she was the killer. It turns out they were held in a place that takes young girls, trains them and sells them to the highest bidders for sex slaves or whatever. Ew. It was a huge, international operation. It was really well done, and the girl who escaped was a fantastic character.

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl - It took me exactly 29 days to finish this one. This is set in the days just before international copyright law became a thing. Bookaneers were people who stole book manuscripts for big buyers. Or they'd steal super high dollar rare books for the interested collector willing to pay for the service. Only with the copyright laws, there will be no more buyers. At least that's the story. I'm not sure why it means they are a dying breed, but that's the party line. There are only a few left. Our narrator is a bookseller who has befriended several of the bookaneers and kept their various secrets. He watches their movements and is fascinated by them. One of them finds out that Robert Louis Stevenson is living on an island in Samoa writing his final manuscript. Also, another bookaneer is on his way there to steal it. Davenport (our main bookaneer) is determined to beat him to it. The rest of the story is about Davenport and the bookseller (Fergins) and how they worm their way into Stevenson's good graces and watch him for signs of finishing the book. The other bookaneer does show up, disguised as a missionary priest. And the game is afoot. They are all pretty horrible people. Fergins is basically Watson to Davenport's Sherlock, if Sherlock was a scheming, pompous, manipulative, inconsiderate jerk.

Conclave by Robert Harrris - In a complete reversal of the last book, I finished this one in 24 hours. The pope has died and this means all the voting bishops have to come together and have a conclave. They sequester themselves away from all outside influence and choose a new pope by vote. Being the Catholic church, there are a bunch of rules to follow and rites to be said. So this one bishop shows up just before the cutoff time when they have to close the doors and be sequestered. He brings his papers showing that the pope made him a bishop In Pectore, which is why no one knows about him. So they let him in, and add him to the rolls. Here's the thing though. In the real world, that advancement of making him a bishop would have ended with the pope's death. He would have gone back to being whatever he was before. If a promotion made In Pectore is not publicized when the pope dies, then it is null and void. So the whole rest of this story could not happen in the real world. This kind of tripped me up. The story was great. The ending was a twist I didn't see coming. The ending was amazing. I really enjoyed it, but there's that one thing he didn't get right, or didn't explain away.

IN

Abandoned In Death by J.D. Robb - This is the next installment in this series. We have another killer dressing up his victims and leaving them in a public place, but this time they are all young women who resemble each other in size, age, coloring, etc. They are meticulously made up and dressed in clothing from the early 2000s (it's 2061 in the story). They each have the same lower back tattoo and piercings that he has given them recently. And they are posed with a sign on construction paper with BAD MOMMY written on it in crayon. Creepy!

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan - I'm only a couple of chapters into this. So far we have found the location for the facility and the women who have been hired are making their way to Oak Ridge, Tennesee to do they-don't-know-what, but it's going to help end the war. I didn't know that this was a partner facility to the site in Los Alamos, NM that I am relatively familiar with. This is promising to be quite interesting.

The House With a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs - I don't typically love middle grade fiction. I'm reading this to mark a square off my bingo board to read a book published the year you were born. The copy I have has a movie tie-in cover with Jack Black as Uncle Jonathan. I love Jack Black and I am having a good time picturing him as the uncle. So far, I like the uncle, so that's good. Anyway, I feel like I can probably wrap this up before the end of the month.

There you have it. The books I've finished. The books I've started. Have you finished anything recently?