Thriller – Page 6 – Carol's Notebook

The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag

April 12, 2019April 12, 2019 by Carol6 Comments

Wow! The Wolf and the Watchman is the most engrossing novel I've read in a while. I want to tell you that you should read it and you should, but only if you like historical mysteries and don't mind some gruesomeness and brutality. It is not for everyone; it's dark and disturbing and if it was a movie I would have had to cover my eyes. It's also brilliant and I loved it. Stockholm in 1793 seems a terrible place to live unless you're rich. Crime, sickness, poverty, filth, corruption, rape, and death. Against this backdrop, two men with little to lose are on the hunt for a killer. Mikel Cardell, a former soldier with no family, no friends, one arm, and little money, pulls the mutilated body of a young dead man out of the lake. Cecil Winge, dying of consumption, takes the case in his position as consulting detective for the Stockholm police. Winge and Cardell are both interesting...

Killer Thriller by Lee Goldberg

April 8, 2019April 12, 2019 by Carol2 Comments

I recently read The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad about spies and violence and politics and it was very good. Killer Thriller is not "good" in the same way, but it is fun and funny and over the top, and it knows it. This is the second in the series and although it works as a stand-alone, the first one is a blast, so I'd read it first. Ian Ludlow writes cheesy thrillers and one is being turned into a movie. He and his assistant Margo head to Hong Kong to participate in some of the publicity surrounding the shooting and to do some research for the novel he's working on. The problem: once again Ian's plot, although outrageous, is too close to reality for him to be safe. This time, his story's about how the Chinese government is planning a coup of the U.S.A using sleeper agents in high government positions and the surveillance technology that they have hidden in...

The World Beneath by Rebecca Cantrell

February 13, 2019February 13, 2019 by Carol6 Comments

The World Beneath is just a fun book. Joe Tesla is rich and extremely intelligent, but can't go outside due to extreme agoraphobia. While in the tunnels under New York, he meets a man who is then brutally murdered near a long bricked in train car. Joe has to make sure he doesn't get killed too, and in the process stumbles into a nightmare of a conspiracy. Joe is charming and while obviously not fearless, he is determined and inventive. He's a whiz with computers, but also understands people, which is a nice change. His service dog Edison is adorable, and I was more worried for him than I was for Joe. He also has a couple people who are wholly on his side, and they each bring their own strengths. The plot is well-done. The tension holds throughSubwayout and even though the reader knows who all the players all, you still wonder what can happen next. And the fact that Joe...

Origin by Dan Brown

November 12, 2018 by Carol6 Comments

In the middle of Kirsch's presentation regarding a breakthrough that will change the way we look at humanity's past and future, he's killed. And he, of course, is the only one who can release the rest of the presentation, so Langdon and the beautiful woman, this time around it's museum director Ambra Vidal, have to follow clues to find out how to let the public know about Kirsch's discovery. They are also helped by Kirsch's amazingly advanced AI, Winston. This time the art is modern, which is a world Langdon isn't quite as comfortable with, but did make for an interesting change of pace. And I loved the tour of Spain. As always, Brown touches on history and religion,which is part of what I enjoy about his thrillers. His writing may be a bit repetitive and sometimes gives us information that we should probably already know, I enjoy them. There's nothing wrong with something that's just entertaining. I do tend to listen to...

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

October 16, 2018October 15, 2018 by Carol2 Comments

I'm officially done with the James Bond books. I enjoy the movies, but the books are just too incredibly chauvinistic and sexist. Usually I can take books for when they were written, but when characters say things like, "All women want to be swept off their feet. In their dreams they long to be slung over a man's shoulder and taken into a cave and raped." or when one scene is literally naked gypsy women fighting to the death over a man. Rape was never okay, not then, not now. Our Bond girl, Tatiana, is gullible and too sweet and beautiful and Fleming actually has her ask Bond, "You won't let me get so fat that I am no use for making love? You will have to be careful, or I shall eat all day long and sleep. You will beat me if I eat too much?" I want to say at least the plot was good, but I'm not entirely...

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

May 28, 2018May 25, 2018 by Carol6 Comments

I read Ware's In A Dark, Dark Wood a couple of years ago and was underwhelmed. At the time, however, I wrote "I think she's an author worth giving another chance, even if this book had problems." I'd been hearing a lot of positive things and The Death of Mrs. Westaway seemed like one of the to-read books of this summer. I just don't think I'm ever going to be a Ruth Ware fan. Hal is a bit desperate. She owns money to a loan shark and is barely (not quite) making end meet as a tarot card reader. Out of the blue comes a letter about an inheritance. Hal knows it must be a mistake, but she's out of options, so she takes the gamble and heads out to Trepassen House. I liked Hal for the most part. She's a survivor. And the atmosphere at Trepassen House was appropriately spooky and gothic. I guess, maybe Ware can be a bit heavy-handed and...