The list is longish. It’s everything else (that I remember) that I haven’t blogged yet. Some were rather enjoyable, others were boring.
In no certain order:
Crime Scene-Inside the world of the real CSIs - Connie Fletcher.
I’m a big fan of CSI. I was a fan of Crossing Jordan (until it became incredibly stupid). I grew up a HUGE fan of Quincy. I know that the real world doesn’t work like TV but the chance to watch the shows and see the science of forensics has always enthralled me.
As a kid I wanted to go to medical school and become a coroner so that I could study and work with forensics, just like Quincy. Seriously.
I’m a fan of CSI and CSI NY. I won’t record them to watch when I miss them, but if I’m home I’ll watch them. Well, those and Law and Order, but that’s for a different reason. Not as much a fan of CSI Miami, but that’s just because the acting is way over done and they tend to abuse science more than the other two.
Anyway, I immediately grabbed the Crime Scene book when I saw it in the library (on the way out actually) and have been happy to have done so.
I haven’t finished it yet, but it doesn’t really matter, it’s not a story as it were. This is a book full of quotes and mini-stories told by the people who do this stuff day in and day out. They debunk much of the popular stuff you see on TV, but less in a complaint about the science being bad and more with the complaint of ‘we don’t have those tools’ and ‘dna does NOT come back that fast’.
This is the perfect book to pick up, read for a few stories (stores are as short as a line or two or as long as a few pages), put it down and absorb and consider.
Read it if you a) have an interest in this stuff ‘just cause’, or b) want to write a real book using the science 
Rating: 8/10
Buy it? Yes.
Leave Me By Dying - Rosemary Aubert.
This wasn’t so bad. The main character was flawed enough as an individual that you could believe in him and that’s something I like to see. That it was placed in 1960s Toronto was interesting, but the actual story itself was somewhat weak.
I won’t go looking for more books in this series, but I might pick one up if I come across it bored in the library.
Rating: 5+/10
Buy it? No. Library is good enough for this.
Darkness & Light - John Harvey.
This was well written and good to read. I won’t say that it dragged my attention into it and wouldn’t let go, but while I was reading I didn’t want anything to interrupt me. The main character here is a retired cop who has left the city and gone on to sit in solitude. A call to assist a friend of his ex-wife brings him back to the city and back to his first case, one he couldn’t solve those many years ago.
This isn’t a new premise, you see it a lot in books and movies, but this book brought it out well and I have a respect for the way John Harvey wrote the folks involved. I will look for his other books for sure.
Rating: 7-/10
Buy it? No, library is fine. But you should pick it up to read while you are there.
The Lighthouse - P.D. James.
I read a different P.D. James book, A Certain Justice on the advise of Joseph from the old office and I really did enjoy it. When I saw another book by the author in the same series with Adam Dalgliesh I was looking forward to a good read.
In this case though I really don’t think that PD James carried it through. The characters were weaker here and the obvious bias to class and place in society was beyond clear. The snobbery was enough to really take away from the story which wasn’t as strong to begin with.
Rating: 5+/10
Buy it? No. I wouldn’t add this to the collection.
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland.
This is likely one of the better books I’ve read in a long time. Douglas Coupland is a master of his craft without a doubt and carries his characters through so fluidly that I would have sworn he was a comp sci geek himself.
Perhaps it just resonates because of my tie to IT and being a geek, but I think that isn’t the case. This book was just really well done.
This falls into the category of ‘just read it’. Nothing I can say about it matters after that.
Rating: 9-/10
Buy it? Yes. While you are buying this, buy pretty well anything else he’s written.
The Assassin’s Touch - Laura Joh Rowland.
I’ve read a book, not too long ago I think, by Rowland and involving her main characters. At the time I said that I’d be going out to find more books by her and I completely forgot.
I came across Assassin’s Touch while trolling in the library and remembered my original desire to read more of her work so grabbed it and another (next in the list).
I’m still impressed with her writing and I still enjoy both the characters and the fabulously rich setting she gives them in 1690’s Japan.
I’ve always had an interest in Japan, Japanese history and language, so for me this was a great chance to drop into a world that I’ve only read about in historical reference. Add a murder mystery, strong characters and more than a couple of sword fights and I am hooked.
Fun and interesting to read.
Rating: 7/10
Buy it? I’m not sure. I really enjoyed it but I don’t know that I’ll read it again soon.
Red Chrysanthemum - Laura Joh Rowland.
I could just copy everything from the Assassin’s Touch and put it here, but I’ll just point up the page a bit instead.
I’ll read more. Although, I should say I liked Assassin’s Touch a bit more than Chrysanthemum, but felt that the latter had a better story, just less adventure in it’s own way.
Rating: 7-/10
Buy it? Again, no. But read it for sure.
Born in Death - J.D. Robb (actually Nora Roberts).
I’m pretty sure that I picked this up thinking that it was someone else because of the initials and the ‘writing as’ header on the cover. I probably figured it was P.D James and not J.D Robb or something like that.
I can understand why Nora Roberts wrote under a pseudonym for this book, and, I extrapolate based on quality, for all of the Lt. Eve Dallas books.
This was just bad fiction. I have read many fantastic fiction books that were written by women and loved them. I’ve never believed the generalization that women can’t write good sci fi heroes.
That being said, if all I had to base my decision on was the Eve Dallas character in the ‘Death’ series, I’d have to agree.
This character and the ones around it are as bad as Cussler’s Pitt and for all the same reasons. Just my opinion of course and who knows if I could do better. I can tell you that I don’t think I could do much worse.
Rating: 4-/10
Buy it? No, not even as a joke.
The Dead Sit Round in a Ring - David Lawrence.
I’m a big fan of British police procedurals. The best in the past few years has, of course, been just about anything by Ian Rankin and specifically his Rebus character. A new writer has come on the scene though, David Lawrence with his DS Stella Mooney character. Dead Sit Round In a Ring is his first novel with this character and she is very well written and someone I look forward to reading more about.
Lawrence isn’t going to be taking food out of Rankin’s mouth yet, but the characterization and setting show signs of serious promise and I’d like to see where they are in another 10 years of experience.
The Mooney character is very real. Flawed and human but yet still someone who has characteristics we aspire to emulate in more ways than one.
The story itself is also interesting and fun to follow like any good police procedural, but in some ways it is just a backdrop for the development of the character. I think that will change as more writing experience is gained.
Rating: 7-/10
Buy it? Not yet, but if the writing trend continues I can see wanting to pick up these older ones as well.
Nothing Like the Night - David Lawrence.
Look up, look waaaay up (ok, you’d have to have grown up with the Friendly Giant to get that joke). Actually, look up one review to Dead Sit Round in a Ring. Nothing Like The Night is the second book with DS Mooney and the character is just that bit more developed and just that bit more interesting and real.
Again, the story is very interesting in it’s own right, but still seems a bit like a backdrop for character development.
Rating: 7-/10
Buy it? Still not yet. Give it a couple of more books.
Death Match - Lincoln Child.
I picked up on Lincoln Child in his series of books with Douglas Preston. The books were fun, but the fantasy level seemed wrong for what they were doing. Not really wrong, just a bit off.
Death Match is more sci fi than fantasy, but again, things are just a bit off. That being said, I really liked the premise and the way it was laid out. I figured out the ‘bad guy’ fairly quickly, but it was fun to read through how it was going to happen and what was going on.
I probably liked this more than it deserved while I was reading it, but thinking back on it I can’t remember why.
Rating: 6-/10
Buy it? No.
The Messenger - Daniel Silva.
Silva has written a very fun spy thriller from a different perspective than the norm. Like the majority of pulp fiction spy thrillers, of which there are a LOT in the past few years, there isn’t any major surprise about who lives, who dies, and most of the large details in the middle are pretty basic.
What differentiates this from other spy thrillers is that the main character, Gabrielle Allon is a spy for Israel and not for the United States like everyone else. This puts a very different slant on policy and procedure that make a largely common plot quite fresh.
Rating: 6+/10
Buy it? No, but I will read more of his work for sure, just to see how he deals with things from that different slant.
Dzur - Steven Brust.
I talked about this book in my post on the book meme that was sent over by Milla ages ago as that’s when I was reading it.
For whatever reason though I never actually did a real review and it sat on my white board awaiting attention (same thing with The Messenger and Death Match actually).
This series could quickly hit the ‘guilty pleasure’ level that would have me devouring them over a long weekend. Sorta like I did with Xanth when I first came across it, or with M.Y.T.H Inc. before that.
It was fun, silly and completely popcorn for the mind. I loved it.
My enjoyment rating: 7+/10
Content rating: 5+/10
Buy it? I don’t know, I would get a kick out of having them all and lending them out to friends, but I don’t know that I would enjoy that enough to have to buy the whole lot. We’ll see.