Brenner and God - Sophmoric at Best

Brenner and God by Wolf Hass, translated from German, is one of the most contrived writing pieces I have read in a long time.  The book is 215 pages and I had to put the book down on page 60 due to the constant repitition of thoughts running through the main characters head on the dissapearance of the young girl he was driving around. 

The ida of the book is interesting, along the lines of Carl Hiaasen, who the publishing house paid to positively review the book???  First person, inside your head mystery.  Sadly falls short.  Brenner doesn't have a brain worth reading about.  Hass's writing style is collegiate at best.  The mystery is secondard to the bad writing.

There is an outline of a plot.  Big money kidnaps a little girl.  But that falls aside to the intrigue of who slept with who, that is not well connected to the plot.  The constant use of the word cesspit, meaning cess pool is also beyond annoying.

Don't waste your time.  At this rate, I could even get publish.  (OK- maybe not, but you see my point!)

Off the Grid by Nick Rosen

Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America by Nick Rosen:  Kat Edmonson - Be The Change

John Mayer = Raymond Chandler???

How does John Mayer connect to mystery books.  Does a song ever put you in mind of a book or a favorite character?  Free Falling and In Your Atmosphere have this effect with Raymond Chandler's - Philip Marlowe books.  (And the vampires move west down Ventura Blvd...  Ok, that's Anne Rice ;-)

Farewell My Lovely
The Lady In the Lake
The Big Sleep (Good move too!)
The Long Goodbye
The High Window
The Little Sister
Trouble is My Business
The Simple Art of Murder
Playback
Poodle Springs (w/Robert Parker)

Mission to Paris by Alan Furst

This book starts out well, but then turns into a common work of fiction.  The story line is Paris pre-WW2.  There's a movie actor making a picture, Apres la Guerre, there are girls, and there is war.  Predictable if nothing else; but the book is readable.  You could set this book to a Kat Edmonson CD; only I liked the CD better.  Sorry Mr. Furst.

Bernini - His Life and His Rome - Amazing!

Bernini - His Life and His Rome by Franco Mormando is an absolutely amazing read!  I was set on this path by reading Four Seasons in Rome and viewing the transforming Apollo and Daphne in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy.  The book goes into both Bernini's life and that of Baroque Rome of the 1600s.  Not only was Bernini a sculpture, he was an artist and architect too.  He lived to be very old and worked for many popes.  The book brings alive the Rome of the day.  Absolutely amazing!

Four Seasons in Rome - I Wanna Go Back!!!

Four Seasons in Rome:   On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr was an outstanding travel diary of a family in Rome for 1 year in 1999.  The book was descriptive and funny and about living in Rome.  Highly recommended if you like Rome, Italy or travel diaries.

White Heat Not White Hot!

White Heat by MJ McGrath was not the book I thought it would be. Set in the artic, Ellesmere Island,  the lead character,  Edie Keglatuk has to solve a mystery of two explorers killed while she was guiding them on Craig Island.  Then the mysterious suicide of her step-son.  The deaths keep piling up as does the passage of time.  The story was plausible, but the passage of time in the novel was not.  (Partly to do with alcohol abuse by the lead character.) 

I don't know, but somehow the book was just too long for the story the author wove.  It was not my favorite, though the pace did pick up at the end.  I wasn't crazy about this book.