Mystery Book # 30 -Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

For a spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a bit boring but overall okay. Maybe having seen the movie ruined it a bit for me since I knew how it ended. It is basically about a former spy having to return to duty to investigate his former division to see which of the head members is actually a Russian mole. There really isn't that much action... most of the book is the main guy Smiley reading through old papers and interviewing people. He's described as an old short fat guy too... so this isn't a James Bond type of adventure. I'll give it a B.

Mystery Book # 98 - The Steam Pig by James McClure

The Steam Pig starts out promisingly. The book is set in South Africa and was written during the 1970's so it has a pretty unique setting for a mystery book. The main characters are a white cop, Kramer, and his African assistant, Zondi. Together they solve crimes and have to deal with apartheid in every aspect of their lives. But besides the initial premise of the series, the book doesn't have much else going for it. The crime they have to solve is pretty routine (the murder of a young woman) and most of the secondary characters are fairly uninteresting. Even the eventually revealed motive for the murder isn't that unique. It wasn't a bad book though... just average. C+

Mystery Book # 87 - The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald

The Dreadful Lemon Sky is the 16th book in the Travis McGee series which is about a guy that lives on a boat and solves mysteries. My main question is how does a guy that lives on a boat have so many adventures to have at least 16 books? This time an old friend of Travis' dies in a suspicious accident and he sails his boat to the area where his friend lived and proceeds to investigate. And of course the mystery ends up involving other people that also live on boats. I'm sure in a months time I'll remember almost none of the plot, but at least it was mildly diverting. C+

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.