Seems like it's been a while since we did one of these. Time to remedy that.

Just went to Maui and plowed through six books while I was there. It was all easily digestable stuff, but I enjoyed some of them quite a bit:

A Catskill Eagle by Robert Parker - Never read a "Spenser For Hire" novel before. Heard this one was good. Dialogue and the references are a bit dated, but plot moved just fine. Some decent action. Solid, if unremarkable.

Savages by Don Winslow - Really enjoyed it, even though it's clearly been marketed as one of those books for the "YouTube generation" or whatever.

Fear Itself and Fear of the Dark by Walter Mosley - Each as good as many of Easy Rawlins novels, even though the intricacies of the plots are often close to inpenetrable. Really wish Mosely would write another one of these.

Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson - I liked the first 2/3 of it, before it fell apart, plot-wise. Dialogue was always extra clunky, but I cared about at least some of the characters. Then it ended up focussing on characters that didn't interest me nearly as much. I can see how Spielberg is gonna turn this into a blockbuster tho.

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn - A mess. Read it because I liked Thumbsucker a lot and thought the movie had an interesting concept. A few kernels in it, but mostly Kirn is crawling up his own ass here. Long passages of it in the final third were insufferable. I think the movie version of it was flawed, but in this case, the movie>>>the book.


And now reading:

The Handle by Richard Stark. Eighth of the PArker novels, started it before I left and forgot to take it with me.

Darkness, Take My Hand by by Dennis Lehane. Started it on the plane back. Reads fine so far.

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