MobileRead June 2010 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[pilotbob]

Help up choose a book as the June 2010 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. We will start the discussion thread for this book on June 20th. Select from the following books.

Thin Blood by MR member author Vicki Tyley
A stockbroker’s wife disappears. Blood on his hands and an adulterous affair with the missing woman’s younger sister sees him charged with murder. With no body and only circumstantial evidence he walks free. Ten years later, journalist Jacinta Deller decides to investigate, only to become embroiled in a warped game of delusion and murder. Available at smashwords.

Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane
The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this remote and barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades--with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems. But then neither is Teddy Daniels.

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.
Reviews on Amazon say: An effortless adventure classic that spans the void between dime shocker and quality literature. The rapid elaboration of the plot, that is so well known that it has passed many images into popular conciousness, is still satisfying after many reads....It was not until recently that actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and others learned and revealed the information that John Buchan, author of "The Thirty-nine Steps" as well as the highly successful Greenmantle series, had been the head of the secretive British domestic intelligence agency which parallels the FBI in the United States, MI-5. With that knowledge it is increasingly easier to see how the Scotland-born Buchan was able to write such penetrating spy stories, which contain such a strong tone of believability....John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps is the prototype of the modern thriller novel, what he called a "shocker." In it, Buchan introduced Richard Hannay, the prototype of the resourceful, intelligent, and tenacious hero of the modern thriller. And while the story may not be as intricate or exciting as its descendents', The Thirty-Nine Steps still succeeds at what Buchan set out to do--entertain.

Last Man Standing by David Baldacci.
Quote:
It took ten seconds for Web London to lose everything: his friends, his team, his reputation. Point man of the FBI's super-elite Hostage Rescue Team, Web roared into a blind alley toward a drug dealer's lair, only to meet a high-tech, custom-designed ambush that killed everyone around him. Now coping with the blame-filled words of anguished widows and the suspicions of colleagues, Web tries to put his life back together with the help of his psychiatrist, Dr. Claire Daniels. To do so, he must discover why he was the one man who lived through the ambush--and find the only other person who came out of that alley alive...a ten-year-old boy who has since disappeared.
Web's search leads him from inner-city Washington, D.C., to the rolling hills of Virginia horse country--while people connected to him are violently silenced. Acting on his instincts, Web believes he knows where the killer will strike next. Only this time, he may not survive the attack. LAST MAN STANDING is an explosive psychological thriller about a man desperate to find answers--from the secret terrors he has kept from himself to his unbearable guilt. His fight to save himself and those he cares for will come at a high cost...and threaten everything he has grown to believe in. With vividly realized characters and a breathtaking pace, this is another spellbinding novel from David Baldacci, one of today's best storytellers.

Resurrection by Gabriel May
On the eve of a new Millennium, Jon York expected midnight to come and go without incident. Instead, a brutal home invasion left Jon in a coma, his wife dead, and his daughter beaten and raped.
Eight years later Jon awakens from the coma with no recollection of the attack. Fueled by rage, he will stop at nothing to avenge what has been done to his family.

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay-demons that urge him to do horrific things.
When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into serious conflict with Jimmy. And then there is Dave, who came home covered in someone else's blood the night Jimmy's daughter died. While Sean attempts to use the law to return peace and order to the neighborhood, Jimmy finds his need for vengeance pushing him ever closer to a moral abyss from which he won't be able to return.
A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love, loyalty, faith, and family.

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
Wikipedia:
Inside an almost isolated Skåne farmhouse in Lunnarp, an old man, Johannes Lovgren is tortured to death and his wife Maria savagely beaten and left for dead with a noose around her neck. Inspector Kurt Wallander, a forty-two-year-old Ystad police detective, and his team – Rydberg, an aging detective with a rheumatism; Martinsson, a 29-year-old rookie; Naslund, a thirty-year veteran; Svedberg, a balding, forty-something-year-old detective; Hansson; and Peters – are put on the case. Maria Lovgren is taken to a hospital, but dies anyway. Her last word: "foreign"
Rydberg has been examining the noose around Mrs Lovgren's neck and "has never seen one like it before". He thinks that Mrs Lovgren's last word is accurate, and that the murderers are foreign. But his conclusion leads to several racially-motivated attacks after the information is leaked to the press.
The story focuses on Sweden's liberal attitude regarding immigration, and explores themes of racism and national identity.

Casino Royale (1953) by Ian Fleming
The allure of James Bond was best described by Raymond Chandler, who insisted that 007 is "what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her sheets." Who can argue with that? This month marks the 40th anniversary of the film release of Dr. No, which was the first Bond adventure to make the big screen, and two big coffee-table books are being published to honor the occasion (LJ 10/1/02, p. 96). Shockingly, Fleming's original novels have gone out of print, but Penguin here reproduces a trio of the British secret agent's early outings, released in 1952, 1958, and 1959, respectively, sporting stylish cover art. These stories were racy for the nifty Fifties but are quite tame by today's standards. Still, they can be fun.

Killing Floor by Lee Child
All is not well in Margrave, Georgia.
The sleepy, forgotten town hasn't seen a crime in decades, but within the span of three days it witnesses events that leave everyone stunned. An unidentified man is found beaten and shot to death on a lonely country road. The police chief and his wife are butchered on a quiet Sunday morning. Then a bank executive disappears from his home, leaving his keys on the table and his wife frozen with fear.
The easiest suspect is Jack Reacher - an outsider, a man just passing through. But Reacher is not just any drifter. He is a tough ex-military policeman, trained to think fast and act faster. He has lived with and hunted the worst: the hard men of the American military gone bad.

Dead(ish) by by MR member author Naomi Kramer
Linda’s had a bad day. First her boyfriend killed her. Then she woke up, still on this boring plane of existence, and with an odd obsession about her missing body. Mike won’t tell her what he did with her body, and she can’t find the stupid thing herself. There’s only one thing she can do - torment the bastard until he coughs up the information.

[John F]

.....

[John F]

Here is description of Dead(ish) from smashwords:

Linda’s had a bad day. First her boyfriend killed her. Then she woke up, still on this boring plane of existence, and with an odd obsession about her missing body. Mike won’t tell her what he did with her body, and she can’t find the stupid thing herself. There’s only one thing she can do - torment the bastard until he coughs up the information.

And I believe the author is a MR member.

[edbro]

My vote went for Thin Blood. We need to support the indies.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Shockingly, Fleming's original novels have gone out of print

Er, what? When have the James Bond novels ever been out of print? Or am I missing something?

I voted for Casino Royale. The movies are good, but the books are better.

[pdurrant]

I voted for Thin Blood too. But not to support the Indies.

I just want a good reason to bump it to the top of my TBR pile... it seems to be an excellent mystery/thriller novel, judging by the sample and reviews at Amazon.

Originally Posted by edbro

My vote went for Thin Blood. We need to support the indies.

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Er, what? When have the James Bond novels ever been out of print? Or am I missing something?

Mike, I worked for Borders in the late 90s, and I was as surprised as you that at that time they were all out of print.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Er, what? When have the James Bond novels ever been out of print? Or am I missing something?

I voted for Casino Royale. The movies are good, but the books are better.

I read Casino Royal. The book was just ok. The second movie was way better (IMHO).

[JSWolf]

I have read other David Baldacci books and I have to say he's an excellent author. My wife really enjoys his books as well. If you've never read any of his books, give him a vote and give Last Man Standing a read and you won't be sorry at all.

Here is a review by Judi Clark....

Last Man Standing is a complex psychological thriller in which the suspicions run rampant as to who set up Charlie team. At the center of this novel is a team of alpha males in which Baldacci reveals the characteristics of the type of guy that would want to do this poor paying job that boasts a motto of "Speed, surprise and violence of action." These are the good guys in a world with a lot of bad guys and they would just as soon be unemployed but the bad guys won't let them. And even though they might have love affairs with their weapons, they are earnest about trying not to use them. That said, they never fire warning shots. And they keep a hell of a lot of weapons on hand. These guys are heroes, and although they are part of the FBI, they keep their distance. After all, it is the FBI that makes the judgment call that sends them into action, so when there is a screw up, as there was in Waco, the blame tends to go directly to HRT.

Web London as the epitome of the HRT guy is a strong, loyal friend especially to his team members and their families. He, naturally, has issues dealing with his own issues. Yet, in this instance, he is unusually motivated to continue his therapy since he's the one that really wants to know what happened. As much as Baldacci paints HRT as real American heroes, by delving into this psychological side of the story he also points out the character deficiencies that cause these men to go through the most grueling training and then to subject themselves to the greatest danger. It also fills out this multi-layered plot.

This is a thick novel, a total of 548 pages, which, for someone who devours books like I do, it is well worth the money. Before I began reading it, I couldn't imagine how the author could extend what seemed to be a simple plot into so many words, and not being familiar with this writer, I was a little skeptical. I had nothing to fear, as promised, Baldacci really does know how to tell a story and to keep it moving. He delivers tactical detail without getting overly technical, but at the same time he doesn't gloss over the subject matter. It doesn't matter if its learning about HRT training, the business savvy of running a drug business in the millennium or taking a tour of Billy Canfield's horse plantation, we are fully educated in the subject matter. And none of the knowledge is wasted since it gets used in the plot. He is also a master at giving the reader just enough information so we are ahead of Web London and the FBI on solving some aspects of the case. For example, we know where the boy, Kevin Westfield, is being held hostage but Web London does not. However, we don't know who's responsible for a long time. And even as the end gets near and we think we know, there are still surprises.

Baldacci's also gets good grades for building believable characters, so much so that when their behavior is predictable, that you could almost accuse him of creating stereotypes. But that's unfair. Like in real life, we get to know people because they remind us of someone, then we know them really well, we forget that initial cast. Although all of Baldacci's novels so far are standalone, there's about a half dozen characters that I'd like to see again and the way the book ends leaves this novel wide open for a sequel. But if there isn't one, it's OK. The ending works just fine for a guy like Web London.

If you like a complex, action-packed thriller laced with the most elite of the alpha male, then don't miss out on this one.

[Kevin2960]

I want to vote for 3 books, all 3 are great, and I want to support our MR Authors,

So TOUGH to choose just the 1 ....

THINKING

[asterion]

Originally Posted by Kevin2960

I want to vote for 3 books, all 3 are great, and I want to support our MR Authors,

So TOUGH to choose just the 1 ....

THINKING

Don't worry, there is a lot of time until the end of the poll, and anyway all of them seem very good choices.

[lilac_jive]

Hrmm, I'm not sure what to vote for! I've read several books on that list already, including those by MR authors.

[JSWolf]

Don't choose a book just because the author is an indie or logs on to MR. Choose a book because you want to read it.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Don't choose a book just because the author is an indie or logs on to MR. Choose a book because you want to read it.

I totally agree with that...

Wait... what just happened?

BOb

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I totally agree with that...

Wait... what just happened?

BOb