This alternate universe story was...OK, but I didn't think it was as good as the rest of the series.
Quote:
"Girl Scout Cookies," he announced. "There is a child in this building, just a little bit of a thing, and it is her ambition to outself all the other members of her coven."
"I think they call it a troop," Carolyn said.
The last hike boosted the sales tax to 8 1/4 percent, and there are people who can figure out that sort of thing in their heads, but they probably can't pick locks. God gives us all different talents and we do what we can with them.
Well, I kinda figured out who did it, but on the other hand I didn't see those two who were gonna do it. If you know what I mean.
Quote:
"...An old man like that, you worry about his heart, or maybe he had a fall, things like that. The guy was seventy-one."
"I didn't realize he was that old."
"Yeah, seventy-one..."
Matthew Scudder #1. I must of read this before 1998 because it isn't on my list of books read, and I know I read a ton of the Matthew Scudder books. Well, they are so excellent that I can just read them again!!
Matthew Scudder, #2. Scudder is drinking in this one, I guess he hasn't started AA yet. An acquaintance, a blackmailer, is murdered and Scudder finds himself trying to figure out who done it. Great story!
Quote:
I got to my feet and brushed myself off. I was shaking, and badly rattled. She said, "Mister, if you could spare..." then her eyes clouded slightly and she frowned at some private puzzlement. "No," she said. "You just gave me money, didn't you? I'm very sorry. It's difficult to remember." -- So touching!!.
Manhattan Noir, #1. Fifteen Noir stories taking place in Manhattan, duh! Mostly pretty good!
Contents:
The good Samaritan / Charles Ardai
The last supper / Carol Lea Benjamin
If you can't stand the heat / Lawrence Block
Rain / Thomas H. Cook
A nice place to visit / Jeffrey Deaver
The next best thing / Jim Fusilli
Take the man's pay / Robert Knightly
The laundry room / John Lutz
Freddie Prinze is my guardian angel / Liz MartÃnez
The organ grinder / Maan Meyers
Why do they have to hit? / Martin Meyers
Building / S.J. Rozan
The most beautiful apartment in New York / Justin Scott
The last round / C.J. Sullivan
Crying with Audrey Hepburn / Xu Xi
Paul's family moves to Florida, where the citrus trees have been cut down for housing developments. Awful stuff is eventually revealed about his jerk older brother. Very good story, I had a good sense of time and place.
Maddie is a teen that hasn't left her house since she was a little girl, for a reason that she cannot name, but WE suspect it has something to do with the sinister town library, don't we? And just WHO could the mysterious prisoner in the library basement be, eh?
Owen and his uncle (who adopted him after his parents died) rob wealthy Republicans at dinner parties for a living. but uncle Max is starting to lose his mental faculties, and Owen wants to go to acting school.
A violent and profane book, with a bit of humor. I enjoyed it.
Read:
6/2009
Quote:
...home had turned into a house made of knives; there was nowhere he could move that did not hurt. (pg. 255) -- Now, there's a phase after my own heart.
A sequel to The Compound, which I have not read. Yet. How to sum up? Teen boy restored, with most of his family, to civilization after living underground for years (see previous book), has a lot to deal with.