Dead Again? "The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes"

The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes - Marcus Sakey

The naked man regained consciousness on a rocky beach, half-frozen; barely aware that he was human. He warmed himself in a car he found nearby; a luxury BMW registered to someone named Daniel Hayes, from Malibu, California. It was then that he realized he did not know who or where he was...

...yet once he'd checked into a cheap motel, he seemed to know exactly when "Candy Girls" would air on FX - and that the pretty brunette playing Emily was someone he ached for. In narrowly escaping a local Barney Fife, he discovered he had awakened in Maine, he was the Daniel Hayes who owned the car, and cops nationwide were on the lookout for him and the silver Beemer. He just didn't know why...

Stephen King's "Under the Dome" - At Least He Didn't Turn It Into a Trilogy!

Under the Dome by Stephen King

It's been a long time since I stayed awake into the wee hours, eyes propped open, finishing a book. My string ended over the weekend at the hands of thriller master Stephen King. It was definitely a guilty pleasure: no one ever calls King a literary genius, after all. The man can definitely put together a story, though; so when he puts the hammer down, it's "Katie, bar the door!" because that hammer ain't coming up until the last page! And by golly, his latest is no different...

Sue Grafton's "U is for Undertow" - It Has Nothing to do with Water

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Kinsey Milhone returns for episode twenty-one in Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. The irrepressible Milhone still lives in fictional Santa Teresa, owns that single all-purpose black dress, trims her hair with fingernail scissors, and – most importantly – still lives in 1988 where (or is it when?) she's about to turn thirty-eight. At least readers can be certain that, unlike Linda Fairstein’s Alexandra Cooper, Kinsey won't ever find herself in grave peril because her cellphone battery just died. Heck, Milhone still doesn’t even own a fax machine…

Harry Bosch Plays Frantic Father in Michael Connelly's "9 Dragons"

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

After decades in which Harry Bosch's only concerns seemed to be his trad-jazz collection and sticking bad guys behind bars, his creator apparently decided he needed a more human side. Over a span of several novels, Harry learned he had emotions after all. First he fell in love with Eleanor Wish, an FBI agent he'd partnered with on a case. After Wish had been drummed out of the Bureau (a result of their method of solving that case), he found her in Vegas at a new gig as professional gambler, where he learned to his surprise that their... ummm... "stakeouts" had created a daughter, Madeleine. Ten years later, Bosch is now part-time dad to 13-year-old Maddy, who lives with Mom in Hong Kong. He's also discovered a half brother, legal eagle Mickey Haller (the titular Lincoln Lawyer). For 9 Dragons, author Michael Connelly puts Bosch's family ties through the proverbial wringer: and it's not a pretty picture...

It started like any other homicide case: three bullet holes in the chest of a liquor store clerk, the cash drawer standing empty. A minor difference: Harry Bosch had vaguely known the dead man, John Li - all the more reason to put the perp in slam. Bosch and David Chu, a Chinese-American cop from the Asian Gang Unit and his latest semi-partner on the case, finger a triad bagman as the killer. Luckily, they nab him on his way to the airport to skip the country. It's Friday, so Bosch and Chu perform some backroom paper shuffling to keep him stashed over the weekend so they have more time to build their case. As Harry's sifting through the evidence, he receives a message that almost stops his heart: a video of Maddy, bound and gagged in an anonymous room. The message seems clear: drop the case, and you get your daughter back in one piece. Bosch being Bosch, no one - NO ONE! - else is good enough; so Harry's on the next plane to Hong Kong, hell-bent on doing anything to get his daughter back.

Unfortunately, in his hurry to leave, Harry Bosch forgot to say a prayer to the god of unintended consequences. He will regret that omission...

After years of carefully crafting one novel a year, author Michael Connelly's annual output has doubled in each of the past two years - and he's also taken to "cross-posting" his characters, such as Mickey Haller's cameo in 9 Dragons, or the double cameos of Haller and Bosch in 2009's Jack McEvoy novel The Scarecrow. While "factory writers" like James Patterson farm out at least part of their production, Connelly is doing it all himself. And if you ask me, the strain shows this time out.

Bosch, ever irascible, is even grumpier than usual (maybe if he stopped listening to heroin jazz all the time?) in 9 Dragons. Normally pushy and demanding, this time out he's simply arrogant and condescending; and at times just a little racist. While I'd assume that Connelly intended to depict Bosch in a different light with a plot that casts him as a frantic father, he came off more like TerminatorDad to this reader; a veritable bull in a China shop as he shot hell out of Hong Kong. I'll grant that Connelly managed to toss in some pretty wicked plot twists, but I caught on to the biggest one of all long before he even set it up. And at least one of those twists was, to be blunt, completely gratuitous.

Worst of all, however, is that Connelly's writing - the actual nuts and bolts of it - seems to have suffered as he upped his publishing output to two per annum. The flow is choppy, the dialog is sappy, and the plot is messy. Sorry, but Bosch is always at his best when he's thinking instead of going off half-cocked. This time out Connelly's turned him into a visceral killing machine who, frankly, needs to chill out.

Wishin' and Hopin' Wally had Done a Better Job

Wishin' and Hopin' by Wally Lamb
 

After the other nuns hauled Sister Dymphna, gibbering and drooling, back the convent; her fifth-grade class weren't quite sure what to expect. They definitely weren't prepared for the beret-wearing, French-spouting Quebecoise the principal of St. Aloysious Gonzaga hired to fill Sister D's sensible shoes. The fall semester, however, proceeded normally after the “incident” - normally for a fifth-grade class that is, which, when you think about it, is about as far from "normal" as you can get. Toss a wannabe bad boy (a twelve-year-old held back twice) and a precocious Russian pre-teen vixen into that heady mix, and Felix Funicello (yes, that Funicello family: she's his third cousin) was destined to have a school year to remember. At the very least, he would have a semester to remember.

As a lay teacher (how the fifth-grade boys giggled at that word, even back in 1964) in a parochial school, Madame Frechette had her work cut out for her. The kids didn't make life any easier, of course - they were fifth-graders, after all. But as the days grew shorter and the annual Christmas show approached, this particular group of little rascals pulled out all the stops. Could Madame tame her unruly charges and pull off the requisite Christmas miracle? Keep on reading...