The book that introduces Serge A. Storms, the hy­per­ac­tive serial killer, and his stoner sidekick, Coleman.

The frenzied plot follows a large cast of characters chasing $5 million of drug money down Florida to the Keys. Most of them are Unnice People who will come to well-deserved bad ends.

Dorsey is not in control of his plot. Random flashbacks lay down the backstory for newly introduced characters. The plot jumps about with wild abandon, revving on all cylinders. Somehow it comes together at the end, with some funny moments along the way.

(I read the …continue.

This book concludes Robinson's trilogy about en­vi­ron­men­tal collapse, begun in Forty Signs of Rain and continued in Fifty Degrees Below.

Set in the near future, major climate change has already begun: freezing winters, melting icecaps, and rising sealevels. Senator Phil Chase has just been elected President and his aide, Charlie Quibler, must help the new ad­min­is­tra­tion tackle en­vi­ro­men­tal collapse head on. Frank Vanderwal, formerly of the National Science Foundation, follows his boss to the White House when she becomes the new pres­i­den­t's science advisor.

Robinson draws a fright­en­ing and …continue.

Sequel to The Wrong Kind of Blood, in which private eye Ed Loy returned to his native Dublin after 20 years in Los Angeles.

Loy is asked to find Emily, a teenager from the pres­ti­gious Howard family, after porno­graph­ic photos of her are sent to her father. He locates her easily, but not before he finds a body, the first of several murders that will rip the Howards apart, unearthing long-buried secrets.

Loy is a hard-boiled private eye, somewhat in the Marlowe vein: "a man of honor, by instinct, …continue.

(Image courtesy of The Learning Center.)

Up to now, all of the books that I've reviewed have been ones that I have bought or borrowed.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a publicity manager at Harper­Collins in reference to my review of The Wrong Kind of Blood. She offered to send me a copy of the next book in the series if I would be willing to review it on my site. No strings were attached. I agreed. The review will follow in a later post.

It's time for me to establish a formal review policy, so as to maintain trans­paren­cy.

No good deed goes unpunished might be the motto of this sequel to Rats, Bats, and Vats.

In the previous book, a motley assortment of grunts destroyed a hive of the alien invaders. The military es­tab­lish­ment don't really appreciate being shown up as in­com­pe­tent buffoons, and do their best to persecute and prosecute the human leading the grunts, as well as the military in­tel­li­gence major who spotted what they were up to and sent in help.

Our heroes are forced into a con­fronta­tion with …continue.

A bunch of grunts, trapped behind enemy lines, wreak havoc on the hive of the Magh invaders. No ordinary grunts these, they include a dozen uplifted rats and bats, a vat-grown human sous-chef turned conscript, and the rescued daughter of a very rich Share­hold­er. The rats revel in Shake­speare­an names and ribaldry. The bats have stage-Oirish personas, socialist leanings, and expertise with explosives.

Due to forceshield technology, they're fighting a World War I-style trench war on the planet Harmony and Reason, The generals, like the rest of the …continue.

Henry Perowne undergoes a long, stressful day on Saturday, February 15th, 2003–the day of the giant anti-Iraq war march in London. Perowne is a middle-aged neu­ro­sur­geon, happily married to Rosalind, a lawyer, and father of Theo, a rising blues musician, and Daisy, a newly published poet living in Paris.

His day begins very early when he sees a flaming plane in the sky (not an attack but an engine fire); a morning drive turns nasty when his car is sideswiped by a thug known as Baxter; his normally friendly squash match …continue.

Kivrin is a student historian sent back in time to December 1320 to observe a medieval Christmas in an Ox­ford­shire village. Back in the Oxford of the mid-twen­ty­first century, her tutor Dunworthy grows extremely worried, as the tech who sent her back collapsed into a coma, mumbling something about slippage.

The book alternates between Kivrin and Dunworthy. Kivrin falls sick just after she lands. She wakes in an isolated, snowbound country manor, being nursed by Lady Eliwys and her mother-in-law Lady Imeyne.

Dunworthy becomes ever more worried when Oxford and its environs …continue.

A fast-paced comedy about an almost likable serial killer. Who'da thunk it?

There must be something about the coffee they serve in Florida newsrooms. Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, and Tim Dorsey. All Florida-based newsmen now known for their funny writing.

This is the first book that I've read by Dorsey. According to Wikipedia, all of his books feature Serge A. Storms, said serial killer, though he's not always the prime character.

Serge spends much of the book racing around Florida, chasing hurricanes with his stoner sidekick, Coleman. He's feeling put upon because …continue.

This is the latest in Tony Hillerman's long-running series of police pro­ce­du­rals featuring Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Sgt. Jim Chee of the Navajo tribal police.

Leaphorn has retired recently and misses the job. An old, old case of his comes to life when he is shown a recent picture of a priceless Navajo rug long thought to be destroyed in a fire that killed a man on the FBI's most-wanted list. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion leads him into finding what really happened to the rug and the long-dead killer.

Hillerman, as ever, …continue.