Mystery Book # 29 Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald

I didn't know much about Fletch except that it was made into a movie back in the 80's. The main character, Fletch, is an investigative journalist that is working undercover on a story about drugs at the beach. Fletch's life becomes even more complicated when a successful business man asks Fletch to murder him in one week. Fletch agrees but only so that he can investigate why this man would ask to be murdered.

The book was an entertaining read because Fletch is such a character... he has a two ex-wives that are bugging him for alimony, editors asking him to finish his story, lawyers harassing him, and yet he keeps his cool and manages to investigate two stories at the same time. His most successful investigating technique is to pretend that he is someone that he isn't and he's always lying about his identity. Both stories came to satisfying conclusions and made we want to read more books in the series. I'll give it an A-.

Mystery Book # 100 - A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

A Morbid Taste of Bones is the first book in a series about a mystery solving monk named Cadfael. In this book Cadfael's order tries to obtain the bones of a saint from a Welsh village and the most vocal opponent of the plan ends up murdered. Of course there are a bunch of suspects but Cadfael is able to figure out what really happened. The most surprising thing about the ending isn't that Cadfael solves the murder but that he actually helps cover up another death at the end of the book and convinces everyone that something mystical happened. I enjoyed it but I'm not sure if I'd read more books in the series. I'll give it a B+.

Mystery Book # 14 - The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

My favorite place to shop for books are at library used book sales. One of the best is the Santa Monica Public Library because it has everything on nice clean shelves and is actually pretty organized. So my latest find for a dollar was a huge omnibus of James M. Cain novels with an awesomely horrible and cheesy cover. The volume has two books on the mystery list so I just had to buy it.


The Postman Always Rings Twice tells the story of a drifter that begins an affair with a married woman and they end up planning on killing her husband for the money. Of course nothing goes right for the two and there are complications to their plot. The book is a quick read and has that nice pulp quality to it that you'd expect considering the storyline. I was hoping that the book would explain the title at some point, but it never does... oh well. I'll give it an A.

Times 100 Best Novels - Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs,

Ummm... I don't really know what to say about Naked Lunch. After reading it I still can't figure out what it was about. I think stuff happens in it and some parts are unpleasant. I guess heroin isn't conductive to writing something in a conventional sense. Well now I can cross this book of my "to read" list.