What are you reading in general?

[Cord Hurn]

Finished The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner . It's a collection of short stories set in industrial Great Britain in the 1940s and 1950s. There's a gloominess and vengefulness about in most of these nine short stories by Alan Sillitoe, and only one of the characters, the narrator at the end who just happens to be named "Alan", actually seems to make it out of the economic/mental/emotional rut all the characters find themselves in. Most of the rest of the characters are resigned to keep stealing things and to keep getting drunk. Didn't like it.

[Cord Hurn]

Now reading Serpico by Peter Maas.

[Fist and Faith]

Wow! I haven't read it, but an old, big movie.

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Finished The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mZTKzgCLLE

Anyway, I'm taking a break from Fantasy after Malazan.

Busy reading The Brotherhood of the Rose, Early 80's espionage / assassination thriller (I guess), by David Morrell, author of First Blood, (a novel quite different from it's more famous film adaptation starring Sylvester Stallone).

It's the first of a loose trilogy of books, this one about renegade extra-judicial government assassination, followed by The Fraternity of the Stone, (fanatical religious assassins), and finally The League of Night and Fog in which characters from the other two books find their stories intersecting.

Good reads, I recommend them all, as well as some of his other books, esp Covenant of the Flame, (fanatical eco-terrorists) and The 5th Profession, (ninja's basically).

--A

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Well, finished Fraternity of the Stone, now nearing the end of The League of Night and Fog, last (and best really) of the trilogy.

Not sure where to from here...

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Finished Peter Maas' nonfiction work Serpico, a book first published in 1973 about a policeman who wouldn't stay silent on the corruption going on in the ranks of law enforcement in New York City. Mainly it's about what Frank Serpico witnessed (payoffs to the police by gambling and prostitution groups). For years he complained about the crookedness of the NYPD, particularly of the 7th Division of the Bronx, and most of the superior officers he went to, like Philip Sheridan, keep stalling him with promises of action that are mostly unfulfilled. And in the process he makes many more enemies than friends on the police force. The following passage details the informal reception Serpico gets from his fellow police officers the first day he walks into the offices at Manhattan North, where he has been transferred to get him away from the Bronx.

From pages 225-227 of Serpico:

Serpico was even less enchanted about being assigned to Manhattan North when he learned that his new commander was Philip Sheridan, who had become a full-fledged inspector--undoubtedly promoted, Serpico jeeringly imagined, because of his ace detective work in uncovering corruption in the 7th Division. When Serpico reported for duty, his reception was exactly as his friend predicted. It was as if he were a nonperson. There were perhaps a dozen men in the Manhattan North borough plainclothes office, sitting and standing around, drinking coffee and gossiping among themselves. Serpico was elaborately ignored. No one said anything to him or even looked at him.

And then it happened.

As Serpico stood alone, a plainclothesman, Irish, with black curly hair and watery blue eyes, walked up to him. He stopped about three feet from Serpico, and reached into his pocket and took out a knife. He cradled the knife, unopened, in his hand. The others in the room fell silent. Out of the corner of his eye Serpico could see some of them smirking. The plainclothesman with the knife said, "We know how to handle guys like you." He extended his right hand, the one with the knife in it, pressed a button in the handle with his thumb, and five inches of steel blade leaped out, pointing up. "I ought to cut your tongue out," the plainclothesman said.

Serpico tensed. He looked at the plainclothesman, at the knife, at the watching, smirking faces in the room. It was incredible that this was actually happening inside a police station and he remembered thinking, They're trying to put me down. He knew he had to do something, but he didn't quite know what.

Serpico saw the knife move. He did not wait to find out what the movement was, where it was going. All his reflexes sprang into action. His left forearm swung up savagely and chopped against the man's wrist. The knife clattered to the floor.

In one fluid motion Serpico gripped the man's right hand across the palm with his own right hand, and twisted it back and down. The plainclothesman cried out. Serpico kept twisting his hand back and down, and the man had to turn and follow it, or his wrist would have snapped.

The plainclothesman was now completely helpless, doubled over toward the floor, still moaning in pain and surprise, when Serpico let go of his hand and shoved him forward with his knee. He landed heavily on the floor, face down. The knife was a few inches away from his outstretched hand. Serpico was over him at once. He whipped out his Browning automatic, cocked it, and pressed it against the base of the plainclothesman's skull. "Move, you motherfucker," Serpico said, "and I'll blow your brains out."

The man's body went limp, his face was jammed so tightly against the floor that he could not speak. Serpico kept the gun on him, and looked around the room. Everyone was frozen in place, and no one was smirking any more.

Perhaps thirty seconds passed before one of the other cops in the room coughed nervously and said, "Jesus Christ, is that a forty-five?"

"No, nine-millimeter," Serpico said.

"Oh, so that's the new Browning, huh? How many rounds does it hold?"

"Fourteen."

"Fourteen? What do you need fourteen rounds for?"

"How many guys you got in this office?"

"Hey, look, we were just joking."

"Yeah, so was I," Serpico said. He stepped back from the plainclothesman on the floor.

The man swiveled his head cautiously and looked up at Serpico, and gasped, "I was only kidding. Mother of God, I was only kidding!" Then, as Serpico put the Browning back in its holster, he scrambled to his feet and darted out of the room.

"Um, I guess I better show you where the coffee is," another plainclothesman said.

Normally I don't like crime dramas, except when they are mysteries in the mold of stories associated with Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie. But this being a true story about a brave cop who couldn't be corrupted made this book at least moderately entertaining for me.

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Re-reading the Millennium series, starting with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

--A

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On to book 2, The Girl Who Played With Fire.

--A

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Finished book 3 last night...I don't know what it is about these, but I find them massively compelling every time I read them. I've literally stayed up until 3am reading these last few days, taking effectively only a day or so on each of the last two books.

I'll probably go on with the posthumous books now, although they are not as good as the originals. I do see there are a couple I don't have yet, and that the latest has had a change of author, so I'll probably get that as well and see if the new one is any better.

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Now reading Deep South by Nevada Barr. It is apparently one of a series of mystery books starring the park ranger character Anna Pigeon. I am liking it so far, but have always been partial to mysteries.

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The Girl In The Spider's Web, first in the 2nd "Millennium" series, by David Lagerkranz. It's...ok. Big step down from the original series, and the translation also seems a bit...meh.

--A

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The Girl Who Took An Eye For An Eye, bk 2 of the 2nd trilogy. (I must say, book 1 improved toward the end, so I don't have much to complain about.)

--A

[Cord Hurn]

I have finished reading Deep South by Nevada Barr.

Barr's lead character Anna Pigeon is a park ranger who relocates with her black Labrador retriever dog Taco and her orange tabby cat Piedmont from Mesa Verde Park in the southwestern Colorado desert to the Natchez Trace Park in the humid jungle of Southern Mississippi, because a promotion for Anna is involved.

Anna has to deal with two assistant rangers that are slovenly and resentful of her trying to get the Ranger District better organized. She wins one of her assistant rangers over well enough to get his considerable assistance in solving the murder of a local high school prom queen whose body was dumped in a nearby part of the Trace and found by Anna.

This story has unexpected twists to it, and even has a plot link going back as far as General Ulysses Grant's invasion of the Trace area back in the year 1863. I generally like mysteries, as previously posted, and Nevada Barr's book was fairly well written, with strong characters and good location-related descriptions. I will consider reading another of her books in the future.