Book recap: What I read in 2024

It's been over five (!) years since I've done one of these, but it's a good starting pointing for the revival. I thought that I'd fallen out of reading mysteries and thrillers last year because it didn't seem like I had read that many. There is a grain of truth to that when compared to how much I read over all for that year: 65 books. It wasn't until I checked my Goodreads today that I discovered that I had read ten. Not a lot, compared to the 26 science fiction works I read, but I'm fine with it. 2024 was the year where my reading horizons expanded in other directions, so some genres were bound to suffer a decline. Hell, I only read five fantasy books last year. But, I'm planning on upping my intake this year and get back in the saddle, so to speak. I'll expound on that in another post, however.

Anyways, here's what I read last year:

Sideswipe by Charles Willeford, read by Stephen Bowley.

The Hoke Moseley series became one of my favorites over the past couple of years. I can't even remember how I came across them, but I was hooked from the start. The whole series was on Audible for free (at the time. I'm not sure they're free anymore), so that was a nice bonus.

Sideswipe is the third and penultimate book in the series, and has Hoke fleeing back home to Singer Island after reaching his limit with all of his life's troubles. Alongside this is another plot concerning a career criminal's plan to stage a robbery with a less than stellar group of compatriots.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Zero Tolerance by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that I listened to this. Never was two hours and some change more wasted than on this dreck of an Audible Original. I could write a whole post about how bad this was and all the problems with it, but I can find better use of that time, like dropping a deuce in the toilet.

Rating: 1 out of 10, but I'm seriously considering adding a 0 to this rating system just for Zero Tolerance.

The Way We Die Now by Charles Willeford, read by Stephen Bowley.

Much to my own sadness, The Way We Die Now is the fourth and final book in the Hoke Moseley series. Charles Willeford was actually working on a fifth, but unfortunately passed before finishing it.

In this one, Hoke is sent undercover as a transient in order to investigate a farm whose owner is suspected of killing Haitian farmhands. The b-plot involves a man that Hoke sent up the river for murder being released after a decade and deciding to move in right across the street from Hoke, his two daughters, and his former police partner (and her newborn baby). Maybe it's just me, but you can tell by the way this one ends that it wasn't meant to the finale and it's a damn, crying shame that Willeford wasn't able to gift us more Hoke.

Rating: 8 out of 10, but I'm tempted to bump that up to a 9.

Don't Let Go by Harlan Coben.

My first Harlan Coben and probably not my last. The plot concerns Napoleon aka Nap Dumas, a small town police detective still haunted by the deaths of his twin brother and his girlfriend back when they were in high school. When Nap's own ex-girlfriend reemerges in connection to a cop killing after being missing for decades, he's drawn into a mystery involving the government, a decommissioned military base, and more.

I generally liked Don't Let Go, but I found the plot twists at the end to be a bit much. I'm fine with plot twists and red herrings, but not when they alter the plot so much that it feels like the time I invested in reading the book was a bit of a waste.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Dietrich by Don Winslow, read by Ed Harris.

One of two short stories I came across on Audible. I wanted something to listen to while at work and hey, it's narrated by Ed Harris.

It was fine. The story follows a NYPD homicide detective who's trying to solve one murder, then another even as his life and mental health crumble under the weight of alcoholism and a failed career.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Heron by Don Winslow, read by Ed Harris.

I'll be 100% honest: I've almost completely forgotten everything about this one except the ending. The eponymous Heron was a moneyman working for a mobster or some such and is hiding out after stealing money? Out of the two, Dietrich was the better story.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Shadow Prey by John Sandford, read by Richard Ferrone.

So funny story about this book: I originally started reading Shadow Prey a few years ago when - and I kid you not - the George Floyd Protests broke out. Needless to say, a novel where the main character is a officer in the same police department that in real life caused nationwide protests against police brutality didn't feel like an appropriate read, so I set it aside with the plan to possibly return to it later.

It just took me a few years.

This time I opted for the audiobook because it was free on Audible and that's my favorite price.

I liked it. Lucas is always a fun character to follow and there was plenty of drama and a few funny bits.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block, read by Richard Ferrone.

The Bernie Rhodenbarr series has been one of my favorites since I read Burglars Can't Be Choosers and I've been listening to them when I can ever since. In this one, Bernie is the owner of a antiquarian bookshop when he gets roped into a plot involving a long lost Rudyard Kipling poem and of course gets framed for a murder that he has to solve.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Last Word by Elly Griffiths, read by Nina Wadia.

The fourth book in the Harbinder Kaur series. Kaur is barely even in this one, however, with the primary focus being on the trio of Natalka, Benedict, and Edwin. I fell in with these characters when I listened to The Postscript Murders years ago, which was the second book in the series. I still have to read books one and three to complete the set, which I plan to do this year.

Anyways, the trio investigate the death of an obituary writer and the mysterious deaths of several people he wrote about. It was a fun romp.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

And that's all, folks. I'm happy with how many mysteries I read last year, even if a couple were lemons. My original plan for this year was to read five, but that was before I found out that I had read double that last year. Obviously, I'm not regressing, so I'll aim higher and try for between 12-15 mysteries this year.

A book review omnibus

I was planning on doing individual posts for each of these books, but given how faulty my memory is when it comes to books I've read weeks or months ago, I decided just to do a quick review in a single post.

NYPD Red - James Patterson & Marshall Karp. Not a bad book, but I'm not sure if I'll read any of the sequels. Very much reads like one of those cops shows you'd see on a broadcast network like ABC or CBS.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Sins of the Father - Lawrence Block. I'm most definitely a fan of the Matthew Scudder series. I think this is where I decided that I was going to like detective fiction. Scudder is a flawed, but noble man. I plan on writing a whole post about him sometime this year.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Time to Murder and Create - Lawrence Block. See above.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Godwulf Manuscript - Robert B. Parker. So I pretty much read this because I have vague memories of watching reruns of Spenser: For Hire with my mom back when I was a kiddo. The book was very short, but told a good story for its length. Not a great book, but good enough to make me want to read more in the series.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Last Bus to Woodstock - Colin Dexter. This book had more red herrings like a cannery. Did not expect the reveal of who the killer was at all and I loved it. The only thing keeping me from reading the next book is that none of the libraries in my area have it.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

2017 in review

2017 ended several weeks ago and I have to say, it was a most fruitful year for my reading. Here's a list of all the books I read:

1. Tooth and Nail - Ian Rankin
2. Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb
3. His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik
4. Old Man's War - John Scalzi
5. The Ghost Brigades - Scalzi
6. Night Train to Rigel - Timothy Zahn
7. The Last Colony - John Scalzi
8. Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey
9. Phule's Company - Robert Asprin
10. Trading in Danger - Elizabeth Moon
11. Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
12. Marque and Reprisal - Elizabeth Moon
13. Shotgun Saturday Night - Bill Crider
14. Cursed to Death - Crider
15. To Tame a Land - Louis L'lamour
16. Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
17. The Warrior's Apprentice - Bujold
18. The Mountains of Mourning - Bujold
19. Pacific Vortex! - Clive Cussler
20. Killing Floor - Lee Child
21. The Mediterranean Caper - Cussler
22. The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
23. The Baker's Boy - J.V. Jones
24. Spinneret - Timothy Zahn
25. Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne
26. Devlin's Luck - Patricia Bray
27. Devlin's Honor - Bray
28. A Call to Duty - David Weber, Timothy Zahn
29. Rules of Prey - John Sandford
30. Altered Carbon - Richard K. Morgan

The good: While I only read four more than what I did last year, I'm more than satisfied with thirty. I'm also pleased with the increase in the number of SF from I believe nine in 2016 to fifteen in 2017. I also like that I read nine SF books in a row because I've never read nine books of any genre in a row before. I usually manage two, sometimes three in a row, but never nine.

Another thing I'm happy with is the variety of books. I read more mysteries and added in some classic lit, thrillers, and even a western. I plan on continuing this trend in the 2018, but that's another post, I suppose.

The bad: All good must have a bad and for me, it was the decline in my fantasy reading. The year before last I read eleven, but could only muster five last year. Even more startling is the the five month gap between the second fantasy book, His Majesty's Dragon, and the third, The Baker's Boy. I had picked up other fantasy books in the interim between the two, but The Baker's Boy was the only one I read to completion. I can honestly say that I have no clue why I went through such a drought but it happened and hopefully I can move on from it.

2017 also marks the last year that I'm focusing on the quantity of books read. I originally did it because I just wanted to track how many I could read in a year and after more than doubling in 2016 what I read in 2015, I wanted to see if I could go further. I did and I'm realistic enough to recognize that thirty books is probably my limit. I still plan on keeping track of what I read, but I'm not shooting for a specific total.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the quality of what I read and try to broaden my horizons, but that's another post for another day.

Rules of Prey is done with

I said I was going to try and finish it by Thursday and I did. I really enjoyed it. The ending felt a bit rushed, like Sandford was trying to end the thing as quickly as he could without running the entire train off a cliff. It doesn't hurt story, but the resolution just felt abrupt.

Rating: 8/10.

A twofer: Shotgun Saturday Night & Cursed to Death by Bill Crider (Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries)

A photographer I ain't.

I don't read a lot of mysteries, but occasionally one will cross my path that I'll find myself reading posthaste. In this case, it was two books that I breezed through in two days. Because they're so short, I decided to include them in the same post rather than separately.

Title: Shotgun Saturday Night
Author: Bill Crider
Series: Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries
Genre: Mystery
Published: 1987 (originally), 1989 (Ivy Books reissue)
Publisher: Ivy Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 169

Rating: ★★★★☆ 4 out of 5 stars.

The series, as the above says, centers on Dan Rhodes, the Sheriff of fictional Blacklin County, Texas. Shotgun Saturday Night is the second of the series and I started with it literally for no other reason than because none of the public libraries in my area have the first book, Too Late to Die. In any case, Blacklin is a small county of only twenty thousand and its sheriff department is even smaller, accounting only Rhodes, deputies Buddy (I don't believe his last name is ever given or if Buddy is even his real name) and Ruth Grady. I don't know if this is all of the deputies Rhodes has or not, but that seems awfully tiny for a sheriff's department. I know that Andy Taylor made do with just Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, but Blacklin County isn't exactly Mayberry.

Then there's Lawton and Hack Jensen. The former works as the department's jailer and the latter as the dispatcher. They're both well past retirement age, but work for the department for very little just for the sake of having something to do. My favorite running gag of the series revolves around them reporting to Rhodes about a call in of what at first seems like a serious crime but turns out to be nothing of consequence. They string him along by slowly revealing the details until finally revealing what it actually was. For example, in Shotgun Saturday Night, someone calls in about a dead body in a ditch. It's actually an inflatable sex doll.

Another important character is Ivy Daniels, Rhodes' girlfriend/fiancee. She acts as his sounding board and helps where she can with his investigations. Their relationship is a minor plotline, with him trying to process his feelings for her and if he wants it to lead to something more permanent.

Did I mention that this book has one of my favorite opening sentences?

Sheriff Dan Rhodes knew it was going to be a bad day when Bert Ramsey brought in the arm and laid it on the desk.

It certainly hooked me.


While Shotgun Saturday Night is only 169 pages, you get a surprising amount of story for how brief it is. It starts off with local handyman Bert bringing in the arm and news that he found three boxes fill with severed limbs while clearing brush from a property. From there, the pace picks up with Bert being blown away by a shotgun. So Rhodes has to investigate both the body parts, Bert's murder, and whether there's any connection to the two. If that wasn't enough, he learns from Bert's mother that she heard motorcycles (or as her and Hack calls them, motorsickles) the night her son died. He then discovers that the local handyman was once a member of Los Muertos, a biker gang known to traffic in marijuana. Mrs. Ramsey also accuses a newcomer named Buster Cullens of the murder because he rides a motorcycle and is currently shacked up with a woman named Wyneva who had previously been living with (or in sin, as Mrs. Ramsey puts it) her son.

Then four members of Los Muertos show up because why not? From there, the plot speeds up. We find out that the severed limbs are nothing more than medical waste. A doctor had dumped the amputated limbs after taking tissue samples because he had no way of incinerating them. Nobody would have known if Bert hadn't spotted them under the brush pile.

Meanwhile, Rhodes gets his butt kicked a lot. He certainly didn't get elected sheriff based on his fisticuffs. He gets into three fights in Shotgun Saturday Night and wins one. Barely. To be fair, he got jumped by three bikers in the first fight and blindsided in the second. The third fight was one on one, but the other guy had a motorcycle, so it was an uneven battle. I don't want to spoil the main plot, but Bert's murder is not who you expect it to be.

All in all, Shotgun Saturday Night is a quick read, but worth picking up if you can find it.

What I liked: The cast of characters are memorable. I also enjoyed Rhodes struggling with solving Bert's murder. I'm not a fan with "super-sleuth" detectives who can solve crimes easily, I like when a character has to work and work at it until the case is solved. It adds a lot of realism to the story. The budding friendship between Ruth and Hack was also good. The latter is uncomfortable with the idea of a woman being a deputy, but over the course of the book, Ruth works him over with bribes and flattery until he finally accepts her.

What I didn't like: Nothing that I can think of.

Title: Cursed to Death
Author: Bill Crider
Series: Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries
Genre: Mystery
Published: 1987 (Walker), 1989 (Ivy Books)
Publisher: Ivy Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 171
Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3.5 stars

These books aren't certainly short, aren't they? In this one, Dr. Martin, a local dentist disappears after being "cursed" by a witch who had been renting a house from him. Shortly thereafter his wife is found murdered in their home. Rhodes has a number of suspects ranging from the aforementioned witch, another renter, and his wife (before she was killed). Meanwhile, it's the Christmas season and Rhodes is still dealing with his relationship with Ivy and whether to make their unofficial engagement official.

Honestly, not much happens in Cursed to Death. Unlike Shotgun Saturday Night, there's not three different plots running concurrently, just Dr. Martin's disappearance and his wife's murder. The resolutions to those cases are both equally surprising not least of which is because of the resolutions is accidental.

Something that did bug me is Betsy Higgins, the self-proclaimed witch. It's revealed that not only is she not a witch, but that she's a "man". I'm using air quotes because they appear to identify as a woman and not as a man. I don't know if their trans or not, so I can't rightly say that the Rhodes and the other characters referring to them with male pronouns is transphobic. I mean, this book came out in the late 80s, so you can't expect Bill Crider to have been aware of trans politics back then.

Things I liked: The crimes. Like I said before, I like when characters have to work hard at solving the mystery and Rhodes certainly had do just that. Ruth Grady if for nothing else than her non-ironic use of sentences such as "Freeze, scumbag!" and "I mean it, sucker!" She rapidly became my favorite character aside from Rhodes and Hack.

Things I didn't like: The issue with Betsy Higgins' gender identity. If Cursed to Death had been written more recently, maybe this part of the book would have been treated differently.