This was a great detective novel set against an intriguing dystopian backdrop. Hank Palace is a young detective in New Hampshire, investigating what looks to be a suicide by hanging, but which strikes Hank as a suspicious death. He doesn't get a lot of support from his colleagues, who have seen a...
I listened to this on audiobook.This is a looong story of Jane Austen meets marine themed horror. I am not much of an Austen fan, so all the who said what to whom, who got engaged to whom, etc did not interest me much but the sly parodying of Austen's style did amuse me greatly. Infact, there was...
Society in Concord, New England continues to breakdown, which is not surprising considering the end of the world is only 77 days away. What is surprising is that Ben Winters continues to write entertaining crime thrillers against that backdrop. The second in the trilogy was always going to be the...
If you truly wish to appreciate the sarcastic humor in this one you should definitely revive your reading of Jane Austen's original novel since this parody relies heavily on it. I believe that Jane Austen, if she were alive, would definitely laugh a lot at this book since she herself wrote a sati...
Only 77 days left before the 2011GV1 asteroid will collide with Earth but that doesn’t stop Henry Palace to find a missing person. The feds have taken over Concord’s police station, thus unemploying Henry. Now an “ex-detective” Henry is asked by his former babysitter to find her missing husband. ...
"Jesus H Christ," you're saying. "Get off the Ben H. Winters kick, for the love of all that's holy and good. It's like you're feckin' stalking him, for crying out loud."Look. Let's just everybody calm down, okay?What *happened* was I was in the library. I was nearly done with The Last Policeman. ...
In some ways the hybridization that is at this book's core works really well. The risk of pulp sci-fi is that you might get big ideas without getting any heart or anything with much emotional heft; the risk with a romantic epic is that you're going to get stuck in something stuffy or overdramatic...
Apparently, having never read Anna Karenina nor had an enjoyment of steampunk, I shouldn't have gone for this novel.This review is pretty much to post "never say never," because I FREAKING LOVED THIS BOOK. When I realized that this was not written with the outrageous humor of the PPZ and SSS "qu...
I'm enjoying the idea, but there's an annoying little thing that keeps bugging me: the author keeps using first and last names together of the students, after they've been introduced, and some of those names are tricky. It really seems to slow down the reading aloud. Which is one reason why I ...
We called it Police House because that was the name the kids picked for it, a big isolated country house in western Massachusetts, near a dot on the map called Furman. A bunch of cops and retired cops and their kids and friends have banded together there to live out the last run of days in relati...
On Monday morning at 9:13, Susan stepped into the bonus room, cried out, and dropped her coffee cup. The ceramic mug smashed to pieces on the hardwood, splashing Susan’s legs with scalding liquid where they peeked out from her pajama bottoms. She screamed again, in pain and surprise, stumb...