The Concrete Blonde (#3 in the Harry Bosch series) by Michael Connelly

A Great Read!

Originally published in 1994

Synopsis: Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD shot and killed a suspected ritualistic serial killer in a controversial but "righteous shoot" several years before. Now, the killer's widow is suing the city for killing the wrong man and new victims of the serial killer are showing up - victims that definitely were killed after Bosch shot his man.

First - let's address the title. There are actually two concrete blondes in the book. One is the concrete statue of lady justice outside the courtroom. The other is one of the victims - a blond prostitute/porn actress who was found encased in the concrete floor of a self-storage unit.

Michael Connelly

Second - this is a great cop story. I won't go into much plot detail, but I will say that the story twists and turns in so many directions that it is hard to put down. Just when you think you have got it figured out, you find that Connelly has been waiting for you and your erroneous conclusions and he gleefully smashes them to pieces.

The Concrete Blonde almost caused me to be late to work two days in a row! I give this book an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Concrete Blonde.
 
Reviewed in February of 2005.

Undue Influence: A Novel by Shelby Yastrow

Tedium followed by tedium. Did I mention the tedium?

Originally published in 1990.

Synopsis:

83-year old Benjamin Stillman dies and leaves $8 million to a local synagogue in his will. No big deal, except that no one can figure out where this bookkeeper for a brokerage house got $8 million.

Oh, and there's one other little fact: Stillman was not Jewish and had never even set foot in the synagogue.

A legal wrangle develops and everyone "lawyers up": the synagugue, the brokerage house, Stillman's doctors come up with another will leaving all of the money to their cancer treatment center and there's even a class-action lawsuit is filed by a sleazy lawyer looking to make a name for himself.

The Review:

Undue Influence was tedious. It started out well but I soon got very tired of all of the legal wrangling. It just got irritating to me and it made me very glad that I did not become an attorney. This book's genre was legal "thriller" but I was tempted just to skip to the end in order to see who got the money and leave all of the tedium behind. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

Yastrow has another book and I doubt I'll be reading it. He was a former big shot corporate attorney for McDonald's and his name shows up quite often when you search him on Google. Like I said before, he really made me glad I did not become an attorney, assuming his book accurately portrays the legal wrangling.

This book can be found on Amazon here:Undue Influence: A Novel.

Reviewed in February of 2005.

Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona by Sandra McKee

Disappointing

So, Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona is yet another coffee table book. See, what it is is that I have a friend who knows I am a NASCAR fan so he didn't know what else to get me for Christmas so he got me 3 NASCAR books. One of them was this one and I was fairly disappointed, mostly due to the fact that the title does not accurately describe the book. Nor does it accurately describe Speedweeks, 

Daytona Speedweeks is a racing happening - a racing festival. There are a multiple motorsports events, culminating in the Daytona 500. Check their website!

This book, however, focuses primarily on the Daytona 500 (90%) and barely mentions the other events. In fact, some events it doesn't mention at all. I have no problem with the NASCAR Cup level focus, just give the book a different title, like The Daytona 500. This, truly, is a book that you cannot judge by its title.

I give this book 2 stars out of 5. The title thing annoyed me, but there was also nothing here about the history of the speedway or of the race. Beautiful book but not much here of substance.

This book can be purchased on Amazon here: Speedweeks: 10 Days At Daytona.
 
Reviewed in February of 2005 (edited in 2011 and 2025 to update the events offered during Speedweeks)..

America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections by Sandra Gurvis

Originally published in 1998.

As the title suggests, America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections is a tour of more than 100 bizarre little museums people (and a few corporations) have set up across the USA ( and a couple in Canada). Some include:

-The Museum of Menstruation (started by a single man in his 50s)

-The Tooth Fairy Museum (now closed)

-The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices (closed now, unfortunately)

-Spam has a museum.

-So does Combat, the bug spray company. They also have a contest in which you can send them dead roaches dressed up in dioramas.

-The Bull Hall of Fame.

My favorite is The Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) in Massachusetts.

Since I am a proud Hoosier, I'm pleased to note that Indiana offerings include:

-The Old Jail Museum in Crawfordsville

-The Dan Quayle Center and Museum in Huntington

-Drake's Midwest Phonograph Museum in Martinsville

-The Bird's Eye View Museum in Wakarusa.


Anyway - fun book. Makes you wonder a bit about your fellow man and his collecting habits.
 
I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here:
America's Strangest Museums: A Traveler's Guide to the Most Unusual and Eccentric Collections  

Reviewed in February of 2005.

Nest of Vipers by Linda Davies

Not so hot.

Originally published in 1995.

Nest of Vipers features Sarah Jensen, a young, gorgeous, exceedingly bright (When are we going to have a book about an ugly, old not-so-bright heroine?) currency trader who is asked by the British version of the Federal Reserve President to go undercover at a trading house and see if they are using inside information to make millions of pounds. Much trouble ensues.

The female lead is a little too well-connected (she always knows just the right person to help her when she needs something) and I was kind of bugged that the characters used dollars and pounds interchangeably in their financial wheelings and dealings. Maybe that's the reality of international currency exchange and the power of the United States. If so, "Go USA!"

Back to the book - It's better than reading nothing, but you might want to read an old National Geographic instead.
 
I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon here:  Nest of Vipers 

Reviewed in February of 2005.

Lizard Skin by Carsten Stroud

Great book, except for the end.

Published in 1992.

Lizard Skin features veteran Montana state trooper Beau MacAllister, a wise-cracking good ol' boy who has great instincts and is not too concerned with protocol. Beau is called to a truck stop to stop a robbery in progress - but the whole thing seems fishy to him and he ends up shooting the supposed victim in the butt during a 3 way fight between Beau, the "victim" and several Indians using compound bows. Beau suspects something is amiss and tugs on this loose thread until 

The characters in this story are well-written - Beau is particularly well developed, especially for a cop novel. The DA character (Vanessa Ballard) is quite memorable and "feels" like a real person, rather than a caricature. Even McAllister's nemesis, Dwight Hogelan, shows signs of growth during the book.

Carsten Stroud

All of this makes the end of Lizard Skin very disappointing. The first 90% of the book is a great cop thriller - but the end is very hoaky and formulaic. It is like he finished the book under pressure and ran out of time. For example, he was maneuvering an Indian character into becoming a second Crazy Horse destined to lead a spiritual revival of the Plains Indians. However, 50 pages of character development was quickly dismissed in one page at the end. Why bother?

Due to the disappointing end of this novel I have to lower the rating for this book from 5 stars to 3 stars.
 
Reviewed in February of 2005. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Lizard Skin

The Fourth Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders

A formula book with some redeeming features.

First things first. Lawrence Sanders wrote formulaic murder mysteries. The Fourth Deadly Sin one was also formulaic, but better than most of his stuff.

A New York psychologist gets murdered with a ball peen hammer in his own office and a dark and stormy night. A retired detective is pressed back into duty to lead an interesting team of detectives that is sorting through some of his patients, friends, employees and wife to try to figure out who did this dastardly crime.

Lawrence
Sanders
(1920-1998)

The old cop, Delaney, has one interesting vice. Rather than drinking when depressed over the progress their making, he eats cold sandwiches made of leftovers over the kitchen sink, which irritates his wife to no end.

An interesting theme is developed - Delaney asserts that truly beautiful women (in this case the wife - literally everyone comments about her striking looks ) often are (self-)limited in other capacities because they can get by with just their looks. For example, they don't have to develop specialized skills or learn to how to get along with difficult people or situations because everyone caters to them.

Anyway, I'll give this book 3 stars out of 5.  The detectives and their different styles were interesting, but I had pretty much figured out who did it about half way through.

This book can be found on Amazon here:The Fourth Deadly Sin (The Edward X. Delaney Series Book 4)   

Reviewed on February 12, 2005.