May Wrap Up

I was looking at the list of books I read in May, and Man! does it seem that was a long time ago. Let's see if I can remember anything about these books.

Connections in Death by J.D. Robb - This is the one about the gang members. The plotting here was really intricate. It starts with a former gang member who had got out of prison and turned his life around. He was not using drugs, he lived with his sister, he had a job, and he was getting his gang tattoos removed. Then he was found dead in his sister's living room of an apparent overdose. It was meant to look like he was back on drugs, but the murderers couldn't resist taking some things from the apartment and indicating it was not what is looked like. Dallas went to the head of the gang and accused him of the murder. It was clear he didn't know about it and he was pissed. Another gang member was pushing the leader to retaliate, but the leader was not falling for it. Turns out, this leader was skimming money off the gang's accounts and had a side gig as a slum lord. He was in business with a guy who had been disbarred and who still offers legal advice to the gang. See what I mean about the intricacy of the relationships here? It was pretty good.

Glory In Death by J.D. Robb - This second in the series was pretty good for a sophomore novel. Two famous, beautiful women are murdered on the street. That's basically the only thing that connects them, so who is doing it? Then Dallas' new friend Nadine, a top crime journalist on the local news channel, is targeted, only the murderer got the wrong girl. Then the mistakes start piling up. Once she puts th pieces together, Dallas knows exactly who it is.

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar - This is the first book I finished on my 4-day weekend vacation. It's very short, but it packs a lot in those small pages. It reads a lot like a fairy tale. The sisters live near the river on a tree farm where they take care of the tress by singing to them. A really obnoxious, pushy guy wants to marry the older one, but she only has eyes for a guy from the other side of the grove (fairy land). Pushy guy figures if he can't have her nobody can and drowns her in the river. At this point the river flows backward and delivers her into fairy land where her beloved and his mother resurrect her. Once she is well, and hears that the pushy guy is after her sister, she wants to go back and warn her, but if she goes back as herself, she'll be dead. So she gets turned into a swan and her man takes her back to her home at the engagement dinner for her sister and pushy-guy. Her man accuses the bad guy and the swan sings the sisters' secret song so her sister will believe her, and saves the day. This was beautifully written. I read it in two sittings.

Morgue: A Life In Death by Dr. Vincent Dimaio and Ron Franscell - This started out like a basic autobiography. We learn about the grandparents that moved to New York from Italy, how his parents met, and his idyllic childhood in NYC. Then you find out that he was a pretty important Medical Examiner for many years. He was the Chief ME in San Antonio, TX. He got called in on some really interesting cases over the years. He was part of the team at Kennedy's assassination. He was part of the team that exhumed the body of Lee Harvey Oswald because there was a conspiracy theory that the body in the grave was actually a Russian spy. It wasn't. He reviewed the bodies of the three boys in West Memphis that Damien Echols and friends were convicted of, but later exonerated (see a book later on this list.) He also was called in on the Trayvon Martin case. He's kind of a big deal. The writing wasn't great, but the events were fascinating.

Somewhere Only We Know by Maurene Goo - Now, I guess I need to go see Roman Holiday to see if it is the same story, or if this one takes liberties. Lucky is a KPop star who is exhausted and just not feeling it anymore. She sneaks out of her hotel to get a hamburger, but she's taken her sleeping meds and she's not thinking right. She gets on a bus and falls asleep. There is a boy on the bus who takes pity on her, thinking she's drunk and her friends deserted her. He eventually takes her to his apartment and puts her to bed. Then he figures out who she is. He just happens to be trying to get a regular job with a gossip rag and this could be the golden opportunity. The next morning, he pretends he doesn't know who she is and they decide to have a day of doing only fun things. Meanwhile he's snapping secret pictures of her. Eventually it comes out that he's been lying and using her, and she feels betrayed as she heads back to her fancy life. Is he going to use the pics or not?

Immortal in Death by J.D. Robb - And here we are at the last audiobook available in this series. It's the third in the series and features a new drug on the market and the arrest of Dallas' best friend for the murder of a famous model-turned-actress. The bad guy was a pretty big surprise, really. The best part, though, was at the end when Dallas and Roarke get married. Yes. In book 3. Looney toons.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - I've said it over and over, but I really don't like middle grade novels, generally. I needed to read something for a bingo square that is middle grade, and this one not only checked that box, but it was a fun read.

IQ by Joe Ide - Isaiah is a 17 year old high school student with a big brain when the brother who is raising him gets hit by a car right in front of him, and dies. The car drives away. Isaiah spirals. He drops out of school and refuses to leave the apartment except to look for the car that killed his brother. His friend Dodson moves in and they start doing heists and making some big money. Eventually Isaiah decides he can't keep going down this path; his brother would be so mad. So he starts using his brain to solve mysteries for local folks. In the current timeline, he is hired to find out who tried to kill a famous rapper by turning a vicious dog loose in his house. The rapper is now refusing to leave the house and is starting to go a little crazy. Dodson is a great sidekick. He adds the humor and plays off Isaiah's very dry, reserved personality. It's a little gritty, but I really enjoyed the setting in ghetto LA.

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe - If I was the London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard, I would be real pissed about this book. It pretty openly states that they fell down on the job during the investigation of this case (or lack thereof), and they may have done it on purpose to not piss off the rich Russians that were fuelling the economy in London. Which is interesting because the two guys at the center of the case were Indians by way of Uganda. A middle class high school kid gets it in his head that he needs to be rich and live fancy. He gets into a fancy boarding school where he lies about who his parents are and his wealth and whatever else he thinks people will believe. Then he meets these Indian guys and convinces them he is the son of one of those Russian Oligarchs and gives them a fake name and everything. When they found out he was lying, they were not happy. He throws himself off a fifth floor balcony into the Thames. Did he plan to die? Was he hoping to land in the water? What was he trying to get away from in that apartment? Nobody who knows is talking, and the police don't even bother asking half of them.

Okay, that's 9 books I finished in May. That's bananas. I can't wait to see what June brings.