The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

Started: 7/18/13
Finished: 7/24/13
Year: 2007
Pages: 331
Genre: mystery
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from back cover): "On the South Side of Chicago, you're only as strong as your reputation. Danny Carter and his best friend Evan earned theirs knocking over pawnshops and liquor stores, living from score to score, never thinking of tomorrow...until, in the roar of a gun blast, everything changed.
"Years later, Danny has built a new life: a legitimate career, a long-term girlfriend, and a clean conscience. He's just like anyone else. Normal. Successful. Happy. Until he spots his old partner staring him down in a smoky barroom mirror...
"Now, with all he loves on the line and nowhere to turn, Danny realizes his new life hinges on a terrible choice: How far will he go to protect his future from his past?"
Opinion: A great debut book from Sakey. Great twists and turns with an ending that most would not predict.

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper

Started: 7/16/13
Finished: 7/17/13
Year: 2013
Pages: 285
Genre: suspense/horror
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): " Professor David Ullman is among the world's leading authorities on demonic literature, with special expertise in Milton's Paradise Lost. Not that David's is a believer-he sees what he teaches as a branch of the imagination and nothing more. So when the mysterious Thin Woman arrives at his office and invites him to travel to Venice and witness a 'phenomenon,' he turns her down. She leaves plane tickets and an address on his desk, advising David that her employer is not often disappointed.
"That evening, David's wife announces she is leaving him. With his life suddenly in shambles, he impulsively whisks his beloved twelve-year-old daughter, Tess, off to Venice after all. The girl has recently been stricken by thte same melanchly moods David knows so well, and he hopes to cheer her up and distract them both from the troubles at home.
"But what happens in Venice will change everything.
"First, in a tiny attic room at the address provided by the Thin Woman, David sees a man restrained in a chair, muttering, clearly insane...but could he truly be possessed? Then the man speaks clearly, in the voice of David's dead father, repeating that last words he ever spoke to his son. Words that have left scars-and a mystery-behind.
"When David rushes back to the hotel, he witnesses Tess perched on the roof's edge, high above the waters of the Grand Canal. Before she falls, she manages to utter a final plea: Find me.
"What follows is an unimaginable journey for David Ullman from skeptic to true believer. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David must track the demon that has captured his daughter and discover its name. If he fails, he will lose Tess forever."
Opinion: Having never read Paradise Lost I did not find myself lost in the references. This was full of action and excitement. A good read.

The Story of X by A.J. Molloy

Started: 7/13/13
Finished: 7/15/13
Year: 2012
Pages: 329
Genre: erotica/romance
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from back cover): "Shy American student Alexandra Beckman-X to her friends-arrives in Naples desperate for adventures beyond the sheltered life she has led. She is there to study the Camorra,  an infamous Italian crime organization. But in the sun-soaked, ancient city streets, her research leads her to a man like no one else she has ever met.
"Irresistibly handsome, Lord Marcus Roscarrick is an Italian aristocrat with a mysterious past. Yet underneath his refined exterior, X senses a man who is well acquainted with danger.
"Soon they begin a passionate affair, and X is drawn into Roscarrick's world-a world she never dreamed existed. But as she falls ever more deeply under Roscarrick's spell. X must decide whether she dares to submit entirely to this shadowy realm of dark desire.
Blurb: This wasn't full of erotica which I was glad to read. Enough action and romance mixed into the erotica.

The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes by Marcus Sakey

Started: 7/1/13
Finished: 7/2/13
Year: 2011
Pages: 388
Genre: Mystery
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "The only sign of life for miles is an empty BMW. Inside the expensive car he finds clothes that fit perfectly, shoes for his tattered feet, a Rolex, and an auto registration in the name of Daniel Hayes, resident of Malibu, California.
"None of it is familiar.
"How did he get here? Who is he? Who was he? While he searches for answers, the world searches for him-beginning with the cops that kick in the door of his dingy motel with guns drawn. Lost and alone, the man who might be Daniel Hayes flees into the night.
"All he remembers is a woman's face, so he sets off for the only place he might find her. The fantasy of her becomes his home, his world, his hope, And maybe, just maybe, the way back to himself."
Opinion: This was a really good mystery with a severe twist at the end. Great story.

Ghosts and Legends of the Carolina Ghosts by Terrance Zepke

Started: 6/29/13
Finished: 6/30/13
Year: 2005
Pages: 159
Genre: Paranormal
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from back cover): A collection of twenty-eight stories ranging from hair-raising talks of horror to fascinating legends from the folklore of the North and South Carolina shores.
Opinion: Some interesting historical stories about the past on the Carolina shores. Would be nice to visit some of the areas mentioned in the book.

At the City's Edge by Marcus Sakey

Started: 6/19/13
Finished: 6/25/13
Year: 2008
Pages: 346
Genre: Mystery/suspense
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb: Brother, former soldier, comes home and seeks to change a community and revenge for his brother's death.
Opinion: Lots of action and obvious that Sakey did his research on gangs. Great book.

Fifty Shades of Dorian Gray

Started: 6/24/13
Finished: 6/25/13
Year: 2013
Pages: 233
Genre: erotica
Grade: C
Reason for reading: borrowed from the library
Blurb (from back cover): "Meet artist Rosemary Hall and follow her inevitable downfall brought by her lust for the famous Dorian Gray-a tale both familiar and new in this brilliant erotic mash-up of one of the world's most beloved novels. With a mix of old fashioned Victorian debauchery and erotic, twenty-first-century lut this cleverly sexed-up classic will leave you wanting more!
Opinion: I felt that this was more of a parody of the classic Dorian Gray novel. The erotica was there in the beginning and about  non existant from halfway in the book.

Kinsey and Me by Sue Grafton

Started: 6/17/13
Finished: 6/19/13
Year: 2013
Pages: 283
Genre: Short stories
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "The nine stories that open the book are each gems of detection. So much has happened in the decades since Kinsey made her debut that it's easy to forget she was part of a seismic shift in the private-eye novel, as women ceased to be loyal sidekicks and came into their own, with strong voices and decidedly strong opinions. The same fiesty voice, rapier with, and irreverent observations readers fell in love with in A is for Alibi permeate these stories, proving just how fully formed Kinsey was from the beginning.
"The thirteen stories that form the second part of the book were written in the decade after Grafton's mother died. These stories feature Kit Blue, a younger version of Sue herself. They are dark with their undercurrent of sadness and muted pain. Grafton's family was troubled, as so many families are, but her wise and sensitive telling traces a remarkable voyage, from anger to understanding to forgiveness, and finally, to the realization of a profound love. The emotional impact is enormous.
"Sue has in the past briefly mentioned the alcoholism of both her parents, which seems to have begun around the time her father returned from the war. Some things we never discover about our parents, and Sue did not know what led to this dependency. But with it came a childhood lacking in supervision. She was free to read everything and roam everywhere, to let her imagination take her as far as she could go. But the dark side of such limitless freedom was emotional turmoil.
"Sue is a very private person and has never before opened this up to public view. That she does so now speaks to her having come to terms with the past. Still, as she writes, 'we live in a confessional age, but I don't want to be perceived as plundering my own sorry story for fun and profit. At the remove of some fifty years, I still find myself reluctant to lift the veil on a period of my life that was chaotic and confused.
"'I wish life could be edited as deftly as prose. It would be nice to go back and write a better story, correcting weaknesses and follies in the light of what I now know. What I've noticed, though, is that any attempt to trim out the dark matter takes away some of the good that was also buried in the muck. The past is a package deal and I don't believe there's a way to tell some of the truth without telling most. Wisdom comes at a price, and I have paid dearly for mine.'"
Opinion: The Kinsey stories are typical Kinsey material-entertaining and fun. The more personal stories were interesting and lets readers into Sue's personal life.

The Clairvoyant by Hans Holzer

Started: 6/13/13
Finished: 6/17/13
Year: 1976
Pages: 166
Genre: Biography
Grade: B
Reason for reading: Borrowed from the library
Blurb (from book jacket): "Uschi Troll was born in Vienna in the 1950's. She had her first psychic experience at the age of four; by the time she was eleven, she had bewildered and frightened her parents-and herself-with the extent of her powers. Only gradually was she able to accept her unusual gift, as she moved from school to school, from relationship to relationship...
"When Uschi decided that it was time to tell her story, she told it to Hans Holzer, knowing that he, a world-renowned expert on psychic phenomena, would tell it with insight and truth. Holzer traces Uschi's life from private school in a baroque castle in Salzburg to study and exploration of parapsychology at the University of Los Angeles, and then to London as a society clairvoyant. In her twenties, her powers widely known, Uschi went back to Austria, where she was finaly able to resolve two troublesome conflicts: feeling quality over using her talents to amass a fortune and feeling disillusioned with a world that neither fully understood nor accepted, but as always poised to take advantage."
Blurb: An interesting look at a psychic's life.

The Perfect Marriage by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Stated: 6/12/13
Finished: 6/13/13
Year: 2013
Pages: 174
Genre: Literature
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "Denise and Derrick Shaw are the perfecrt American couple. Happily married for fifteen years, they have a wonderful daughter, Mackenzie, successful careers, and a beautiful house in a posh Chicago suburb. They are attractive, respected...and hiding a shocking secret: a dangerous addiction to drugs.
"It started innocently enough. Denise occasionally used prescription drugs to help her deal with the long hours and demanding nature of her job. Derreck, also under pressure at work, began using cocaine socially with some of his colleagues.
"They can quit whenever they want to. At least, that's what Denise would like to believe..
"As her job becomes more stressful, Denise can no longer get through the day without a fix. Derrek realizes his harmless habit has become anything but, and desperately wants to get clean. However, his attempts are derailed when there is a sudden family tragedy. Once soul mates, now this husband and wife are quickly losing the immense love that had been the cornerstone of their marriage. With her parents spiraling out of control, Mackenie makes an unexpected move to take matters into her own hands. Is her sacrifice too late-or is there still hope? Is there a final chance to save the Shaw family?
Opinion: A powerful story in a short book. Readers immediately feel for this family and see how quickly innocent using becomes deadly.

Blood Money by James Grippando

Started: 6/10/13
Finished: 6/12/13
Year: 2013
Pages: 342
Genre: Suspense/mystery
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "It is the most sensational murder trial since O. J. Simpson's. The nation is obsessed with Sydney Bennett, a sexy nightclub waitress and good-time girl accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter fro cramping her party life. When he had agreed to defend Sydney, Jack Swyteck knew he'd be taking on the toughest and most controversial case of his career.
"Millions of 'TV jurors' have convicted Sydney in the court of public opinion.
"When the shockking verdict of not guilty is announced, citizens across the country are outraged, and Jack is bombarded by ther fallout: angry, profanity-laced phone calls and even outright threats. Media-fed rumors of 'blood money'-purported seven-figure book and movie deals-ratchet up the hysteria, putting Jack's client and everyone around her at risk."
Opinion: High-paced action with some side twists. A great read.

The Lively Ghosts of Ireland by Hans Holzer

Started: 6/6/13
Finished: 6/10/13
Year: 1967
Pages: 182
Genre: Paranormal
Grade: C
Reason for reading: borrowed from the library
Blurb (from book jacket): "Holzer and a medium, in most cases his psychic friend Sybil Leek, investigated may spectral phenomena, which took them from the rocky Kerry Coast to the windswept hills of Tara. They found disembodied Irish characters everywhere-clinging to castle walls and inhabiting drafty rectories-all anxious to reveal their melancholy stories.
Opinion: For the time that it was written, it gives good descriptions of possible paranormal activity in Ireland.

Seeking Spirits by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson

Started: 6/2/13
Finished: 6/5/13
Year: 2009
Pages: 264
Genre: biographical/paranormal
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb: This is a following up to Ghost Hunting. More cases are discussed and more ghost hunting evidence/ways of examining are discussed.
Opinion: Some great cases and some that make you go Hmmmmm.

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell

Started: 5/27/13
Finished: 6/1/13
Year: 2012
Pages: 463
Genre: mystery
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from the library
Blurb (from book jacket): "A woman has vanished while digging a dinosaur bone bed in the remote wilderness of Canada. Somehow, the only evidence has made its way to the inbox of Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta, over the two thousand miles away in Boston. She has no idea why.
"But as events unfold with alarming speed, Scarpetta begins to suspect that the paleontologist's disappearance is connected to a series of crimes much closer to home: a gruesome murder, inexplicable tortures, and trace evidence from the last living creatures of the dinosaur age.
"When she turns to those around her, Scarpetta finds that the danger and suspicion have penetrated even her closet circles. Her niece Lucy speaks in riddles. Her lead investigator, Pete Marino and FBI forensic psychologist and husband, Benton Wesley, have secrets of their own. Feeling alone and betrayed, Scarpetta is tempted by someone from her past as she tracks a killer both cunning and cruel."
Opinion: Fits right in with Cornwell's other Scarpetta books. Did drag a little bit in the middle when cases were being introduced but in the end it all made sense.

Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman

Started: 5/24/13
Finished: 5/27/13
Year: 2011
Pages: 320
Genre: mystery
Grade: B
Reason for reading: borrowed from the library
Blurb (from book jacket): "The closing of their favorite romantic rendezvous, the Fauboug Hotel in Beverly Hills, is a sad occasion for longtime patrons Alex Delaware and Robin Castagna. And gathering one last time with their fellow faithful habitues for cocktails in the gracious old venue makes for a bittersweet evening. But even more poignant is a striking young woman-alone and enigmatic among the revelers-waiting in vain in elegant attire and dark glasses that do nothing to conceal her melancholy. Alex can't help wondering what her story is, and whether she's connected to the silent, black-suited bodyguard lingering outside the hotel.
"Two days later, Alex has even more to contemplate when police detective Milo Sturgis comes seeking his psychologist comrade's insights about a grisly homicide. To Alex's shock, the brutalized victim is the same beautiful woman whose lonely hours sipping champagne at the Fauboug may have been her last.
"But with a mutilated body and no DNA match, she remains a mysterious in death as she seemed in life. And even when a tipster's sordid revelation finally cracks the case open, the dark secrets that spill out could make Alex and Milo's best efforts to close this horrific crime not just impossible but fatal."
Opinion: The characters continue to be well developed and pick up just like you would expect them to. Great little twists and turns throughout the book.

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz

Started: 5/15/13
Finished: 5/23/13
Year: 2011
Pages: 451
Genre: Horror
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "The Pendlerton stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartlan city, a Gilded Age palace built in the 1800s as a tycoon's dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents-a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager among them-the Pendleton's magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.
"But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in the strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton's past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a deadly tide from which few have escaped."
Opinion: A decent horror book with several characters-different from his traditional couple with a dog facing an unknown demon.

Chasing Ghosts, Texas Style by Brad and Barry Klinge

Started: 5/12/13
Finished: 5/13/13
Year: 2011
Pages: 223
Genre: Biographical
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: borrowed from library
Blurb (from book jacket): "The unusual is business as usual for brothers Brad and Barry Klinge, founders of Everyday Paranormal. With their state-of-the-art mobile ghost lab, the Klinges take a high-tech approach to investigating America's most notoriously haunted places, which has yielded some of the most definitive proof of ghosts' existence to date.
"In Chasing Ghosts, Texas Style, Brad and Barry reveal the events that led to the formation of Everyday Paranormal and their television show, Ghost Lab. They recall the eerie early experiences that convinced them that ghosts really do walk amond us, and vividly re-create their first forays into ghost hunting, their mishaps and close calls, and the bizarre characters they met along the way-both living and dead.
"A nonstop ride through America's haunted hotels, crumbling mansions, abandoned prisons, and other infamous sites, Chasing Ghosts, Texas Style is sure to captivate cynics and believers alike-and to change the way you think about ghosts."
Opinion: An interesting look at how the Klinge brothers became involved into studing the paranormal. I've always like their scientific approach to debunking and truly finding what out what is going on in "haunted"locations.

Good People by Marcus Sakey

Started: 5/4/13
Finished: 5/12/13
Year: 2009
Pages: 316
Genre: mystery
Grade: B+
Blurb (from back cover): "Tom and Anna Reed are young, middle-class, and in love. But financial pressures and the struggle to have a baby are wearing them down. So when they find $370,000 in their tenant's apartment, 'happily ever after' seems one risky decision away.
"But before the week is over, they'll know exactly where the money is from-and come face-to-face with brutal men who have been double-crossed. Men who won't stop until they get revenge.
"Nothing in life is free, and for Tom and Anna, happiness may cost more than they can bear to pay."
Opinion: A simple conflict taken to a whole new level. And it being done in a fantastic way. This is the first book that I read by Sakey and I will be reading more.

Chosen Prey by John Sandford

Started: 5/3/13
Finished: 5/9/ 13
Year: 2001
Pages: 294
Genre: Mystery
Grade: B
Reason for reading: grabbed off the TBR shelf
Blurb (from book jacket): "An art history professor and writer and cheerful pervert, James Qatar had a hobby; he took secret photographs of women and turned them into highly sexual drawings. One day, he took the hobby a step further and...well, one thing led to another, and he had to kill her. A man in his position couldn't be too careful, after all. And you know something? He liked it.
"Already faced with a welter of confusion in his personal life. Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport decides to take this case himself, hoping that some straightforward police work will clear his head, but as the trail begins to take unexpected turns, it soon becomes clear that nothing is straightforward about this killer. The man is learning as he goes, Lucas realizes, taking great strides forward with each murder. He is becoming a monster-and Lucas may have no choice but to walk right into his lair..."
Opinion: A decent thrill ride where the reader would think that it was solved much earlier on and then a surprise twist.

Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs

Started: 4/29/13
Finished: 5/3/13
Year: 1999
Pages: 379
Genre: mystery
Grade: B+
Reason for reading: grabbed off the TBR pile
Blurb (from book jacket): "Assaulted by the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, the American-born Dr. Temperance Brennan, Forensic Anthropologist for the Province of Quebec, digs for a corpse where Sister Elisabeth Nicolet, dead for over a century and now a candidate for sainthood, should be lying in her grave. A strange, small coffin, buried in the recesses of a decaying church, holds the first clue to the cloistered nun's fate.
"The puzzle surrounding Sister Elisabeth Nicolet's life and death provides a welcome contrast to discoveries at a burning chalet, where scorched and twisted bodies await Tempe's professional expertise. Who were these people? What brought them to this gruesome fate? And where are the children?
"Homicide Detective Andrew Ryan, with whom Tempe has a combustive history, joins her in the arson investigation, From the fire scene they are drawn into the worlds of an enigmatic and controversial sociologist, a mysterious commune, and a primate colony on a Carolina island. Tempe is overwhelmed by the case, confused by her mounting attraction to Ryan, and plagued by worries about her sister Harry's search for spiritual awakening."
Opinion: Some unique cases that are magically tied in with each other. Even though it is fiction, it contains some great detailed forensic work.