Lisa reads Exponential Apocalypse – Dead Presidents by Eirik Gumeny
Okay, this one is just weird. Bizarre, a little gory, pretty funny. You’d sort of like to have a drink with the sort of guy who comes up with an idea like this, but you’re a little afraid the drink might be grain alcohol, or maybe absinthe.
In Eirik Gumeny’s Exponential Apocalypse: Dead Presidents
“After the world ended for the sixteenth time, the Aussichtslos Drogensucht Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, a frozen sausage company out of Germany, manufactured an absolutely absurd number of genetic reproductions of political leaders from across the globe, hoping to land a profitable contract with the United States government, either as a steady source of on-demand experienced political minds or as a supplier of a new kind of lunch meat. They weren’t picky.” [Read more →]
, by sportswriter G.B. Joyce, has a lot of things that I love — a good mystery, a flawed hero, and a bit of action. But it is all somehow a bit awkward.
by Kate White comes along just as I am doing going through a bit of personal career evaluation, so there are definitely tips and tricks in this book I can use.
by Karl Taro Greenfeld. It’s a decent novel. It meanders a bit, tells the stories of the lives of a group of Tribeca residents. The stories are identified by address, with a lot of overlap and some surprising revelations about their residents.
by George V. Higgins (originally titled Cogan’s Trade). I picked this up in the airport bookstore and figured it would be a good way to pass the time on the plane. (I admit it. I had three other books in my carry-on, but this one appealed to me right off the shelf. Don’t ever let anyone tell you cover art doesn’t matter.) 
jumps back in time, back before the shooting the left Hanne in a wheelchair. This gives us more background on Hanne and what she was like as a detective, before she became the bitter woman we met in the first book.
was, “Oh! It’s a Norwegian And Then There Were None.” I love a good mystery, and a good locked room mystery? Even more fun. Put that locked room in a snowed-in resort high in the mountains? Love it.
on my recent vacation.
by Tobias Buckell is an engaging thriller that would make a terrific movie. It’s set in a not-too-distant future where global warming has radically changed the surface of the planet. Caribbean islands are completely underwater, the Arctic tundra has become prime real estate, and nation-states fight over dwindling natural resources. A mega-corporation has come up with a plan to reverse the warming trend and potentially save the planet, but at what cost? 
by Rachelle Bergstein is really a book about women’s shoes. There are mentions of men’s shoes, but not many — let’s face it, men’s shoes are boring. Most of this book is about women’s shoes and how they evolved and what influenced them.
by Edward P. Jones for a book club and counted it as a gem that I would probably have never read otherwise, and I would put 
by Elizabeth Strout in the same category.
— I see a lot of flight attendants in the course of a week’s work, and it looks like an interesting, exciting job. Like most jobs, though, it’s not quite what it seems. 
marks the beginning of yet another new mystery series for me. I was unfamiliar with Deborah Crombie, but she has apparently written a whole shelf full of novels featuring two interesting detectives, Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. The newly-married couple are both police officers (Gemma is a Detective Inspector and Duncan is a Superintendent with Scotland Yard) and they are drawn into a case involving an Olympic hopeful, a disabled veteran, and a decades-old secret.
, the wonderfully fun and zany novel that Lisa Lutz wrote with her ex-boyfriend. (
is pretty entertaining, for the most part. It’s a continuation of The Spellman Files, a series of novels about a rather dysfunctional family detective agency. Isabel Spellman, a 30-something year old detective, working for the family agency, is in the middle of several cases. Her father has a secret. Her mother is behaving bizarrely and no one seems to comment on it. Her brother and sister are feuding and neither will tell Isabel what the problem is. Her boyfriend’s mother is coming to visit and her tiny niece, Sydney, calls everything a banana. It’s enough to push anyone to a breakdown. 
is the kind of book that you get about 75% through, then you set it down because you don’t want it to end…then you spend the next hour looking at it, sitting on the table, until you can’t take the suspense and you grab the book and finish another chapter or two. I cannot wait for the movie.
has a dramatic beginning: it’s the evening of Carmen and Matt’s wedding and they are surrounded by their family and friends. It’s a non-traditional, very Bohemian wedding at a farmhouse owned by Alice, Carmen’s sister, and Jean, both artists. It’s the wee hours of the morning and several party guests — drunk, stoned and sleepy — are making their way home when there is a tragic accident. A young girl is killed on a dark country road. One guest will take the blame, but they will all carry the guilt.
, but it’s hard not to root for him.
by Thomas Enger, Henning Juul is a veteran investigative reporter, returning to work after a series of personal tragedies left him changed and fragile. An apartment fire killed his son, ended his marriage and left him physically disfigured. He is struggling to deal with his fears and a case of PTSD that has left him unable to work for more than two years. A lot has changed in the world of internet news, he feels shaky, his sources and contacts may have moved on, but he needs to prove himself, prove that he can still do the work — even if his new partner is dating his ex-wife. He’ll have the perfect opportunity: a gruesome murder committed in one of the city’s public parks. As Juul is drawn deeper and deeper into the case, both the danger — and the potential payoff — increase. 
