Books I've Read

Zen, salad, and Police Chief Mario Balzic retires. .

Ex-Chief Mario Balzic comes out of retirement to investigate an old case for the Attorney General.

Chief Balzic has recently retired and Dectective Sergeant Carlucci is filling in and investingating the assault on a woman at the Rocksburg Pre-Cast Concrete Company. .

Detective Carlucci investigates the shooting of an rich owner of a steel factory.

Chief Mario Balzic is badgered to investigate the death of a jerk named Joey. Typically good!

Police Chief Mario Balzic straightens out a fraud. .

Dr. Laurie Montgomery investigates mysterious drug overdoses by mistake, still good!

Doctors Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery go to Africa

Medical Examiner Jack Stapleton wants to find out why people are dropping dead of rare diseases in a New York hospital.

Dr. Jack and Laurie, mostly Laurie, investigate MRSA deaths at a group of specialty hospitals.

Drs. Angela and David Watson move to a seemingly idyllic small town and find a body in the basement under the stairs. Good story.

When her grandmother dies in India after surgery, med student Jennifer goes to take charge of the body. She is suspicious of the circumstances, and well she might be!

Dr. Kim Reggis fails to note the import of the half=cooked hamburger his daughter eats at the local Onion Ring fast food restaurant.

Dr. Jack Stapleton investigates a case of anthrax involving a Russian taxi driver and skinhead patriots.

I probably read a hundred pages of this but decided it wasn't the book for me. It's nicely written, I love the image of the deep forests it gives me. I'd recommend it. Maybe I'll pick it up some other time.

Starts out with an Indian boy, Little Hawk, during Colonial times, going on his three-month "test of solitude" to become a man. I really enjoyed reading this story.

A magical, mischievous being accidently ends up in a Canadian family's house. A very good story!

I've read this before, of course, but I found a copy laying about and read it again. I forgot the Will was only eleven years old. I also forgot that the book is centered around the Christmas season. So much darkness in what should be a happy time! Nicely done.

I've a nit to pick: On page 156 Will receives a new bicycle, one with "eleven gear-speeds". I don't want to go into a great deal of detail why, but I don't think so. A typical freewheel was five gears, so double chainrings would give you ten "speeds", and a triple would give you fifteen. Not necessarily all useful, of course.

Patrick's mom is mad because her husband forgot her 40th birthday, so she spends the night at her deceased mother's house. In the morning she is 12 years old, and her mother is cooking breakfast. A nice mixture of fantasy and reality.

Very interesting story of a man who became a high school teacher after graduating college, and yet was functionally illiterate.