Only 47?

47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers by Troy Cook

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The title captivated me and once I got beyond the gore, the senseless violence, the incest, the anti-social behavior, the "guy humor" - I relaxed and enjoyed the story.  It was a quick read.  Tara was raised by her father to be a bank robber.  One of those 47 rules is No Crying because she blubbed after accidentally shooting him in the foot.  Tara needs excitement in her life, and so does Max, the son of a local sheriff.  Max doesn't need Tara's help to get in trouble, but he decides having her in the mix adds spice to life.  Unfortunately, her father doesn't approve of her choice in men - ever.  The book is peppered with unforgettable characters (whose names escape me at the moment, but names were never my strong suit) on both sides of the law.  Cook toys with the concept of good and evil, so don't expect any black and white distinctions here.  You have good cops and bad, and good bank robbers and bad, good psychos and really, really bad ones.  You want to root for the robbers, but if you're like me, you feel guilty about it. 



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Mad? MAD?! Who Are You Calling "Mad"?!

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was quite a potboiler!  Reminded me of that Thomas Hardy book, Desperate Remedies that was published in the years following, especially the part where someone attempts to burn their way out of their problems.  I had to stop halfway through because it was about to turn into something that I find even more disgusting than burning someone to death: calumny.  Lady Audley embarks on a scheme to discredit her persecutor by insinuating that he is mad, that there is madness somewhere in his family, and that his behavior towards her is a sort of mania.  Why she abandons this very effective ruse and instead tries to fry two birds with the same arson is beyond me - except that she has to lose in the end. 
Her antagonist (who is, I suppose, the protagonist in this story, being the "hero" and all, but Lady Audley is at least titular character) is "Bob" Audley, a lazy dullard who hands over all the clues and witnesses he has amassed so that she can (a) steal them, which she does or (b) kill them, which she never quite gets around to, but she has the information just in case she needs it! 
All is sorted out because this is a Victorian novel and Lady Audley must have a punishment that fits the crime and everyone else must live happily ever after, getting married and having adorable children. 
I was able to finish this book by sneaking a peak at the Wikipedia article about it and learning about the happy solution of setting fire to people instead of convincing their friends and relatives that they are mad.  Originally I read it to see if I could fit it in with my Cozy Mysteries discussions, but decided against it and moved on to P. G. Wodehouse instead.  The writing styles are similar in the more light-hearted sections of Audley where the author stops to describe love and that idiot Bob. 
This was a Gutenberg Project book read on the Kindle



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Oh, Gawwd, Nooooo!

Ghosts by Paul Auster

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


[Just tossing words out] This must be one of those deconstructed, existential, minimalist detective stories for people who consider the genre beneath them.  It spent a whole lot of time going nowhere, which I suppose is the point, and then ends suddenly and Spillainely.  Perhaps it is just a send-up of the genre in an artier form for the cognoscente, but the observer/observed and writer/reader confusion was done to death by the 1960s and done by much better writers (Borges, for example). I kept hoping Mr. Blue would get the point sooner and ask Caleb Carr to help him with that Mr. Gold conundrum so something interesting might happen, but alas it was not to be.  Mercifully, the book was short, however it took me two weeks to read 96 pages. 



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Fortunately, His Writing Got Better ... I Think

Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Whatta potboiler this was! And as lame his use of mystery conventions (I was fairly groaning at the creakiness of it all) was, the heavy-handed manipulations had my heart rate up and drove me on to the end of it.

As for the characters, the main ones weren't very round or realistic (the young Cytherea was as wet a crustacean that ever got herself stuck in a pot and transferred to boiling water), but that was probably indicative of the time it was written. The heroine, assigned to do some research to help her case threw up her hands after one session of looking through newspapers and went palpitatin' to a chair, leaving her brother and lover to do all the legwork.

Who really believes that you can actually catch your death of cold out at night following a miscreant or that you can take to your bed, have what sounds like a stroke at bad news, be told you will recover, but because you've had them before know for certain that you won't?! What sense does that make?!

Read it for the laughable situations (keep that table between you and the Bad Man!) and dramatic hyperbole which have to be seen to believed, but there are some nice descriptions and amusing rude mechanicals. Oh, and a punchline at the end!


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[Insert epithet here]

The Franchise Babe: A Novel by Dan Jenkins

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
It looked to me from the cover (as pictured) that they were trying to appeal to the sort of readers that like Carl Hiaasen or Tom/Tim/Jim Whatsis* - the Florida mystery guys. And who would that be, marfita? Oh, you know - Guys.

There isn't much of a mystery - that's more of an aside really. The story (and real mystery) is about how Dan Jenkins can get away with being deliberately politically incorrect by having his First Person spouting as much Republican WASP Country Club rhetoric passing as humor while the love interest winces, but still loves him.

I recommend this to anyone WITH a six-figure income, a three-car garage, and a country club membership or for someone who is HOPING for that life. You'll be absofrickinlootly delighted.

You know what I thought the best part was? The final golf tournament. And, you know what? I hate golf. It was genuinely exciting and I was really pulling for the vapid teenager.




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* I meant Tim Dorsey, just actually forgot his name. Usually enjoy his books as well as Hiaasen's, although I might like Hiaasen's a teensy bit better.