Drive-By Review: The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Liza Marklund

Hey guys, this is another drive-by review. A big thanks to everyone who participated in the New Year's Revolution! Now let's jump into the review.

This is my second James Patterson book; my first was Private which came out shortly before this book. It was also co-written with another author (as is this one). For some reason, the past couple of years (I believe) he has been using co-authors for a portion of his books.

I personally like his books, FallenVamp has told me she doesn't like him at all, but I like his books because they generally have a very intriguing murder storyline. Somehow he works in a love interest in there and it becomes a little lovey about 5% of the time (that may be the parts where his co-authors come in, just an assumption). His books are usually easy reads for some reason, and it could very well be because the chapters are only about two or three pages long; occasionally there will be the four to five page chapter. There's nothing wrong with that either, I think he utilizes short chapters in his books.

Here's a summary:

NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him--he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer.

Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.

Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm--and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet.

Now, if you have read The Millennium Series (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc. by Stieg Larsson) you might think this story takes the popular location of that book and puts it in this one because the majority of the book takes place in Sweden and surrounding area. Also, notice the woman lead character's last name is Larsson. I don't think James Patterson stole these elements from the book, but I think that book writers in general have seen how successful The Millennium series has been so they're moving into that territory. That's just my take on it.

I'm not going to do a favorite quote like I did in the last drive-by review, because this isn't really a book that had a funny/important to humanity quote. It was a good book and I'm sure any James Patterson fan will pick it up (probably already have, it's been out for almost a year), and I definitely recommend it to any Patterson fan. If you're not one of his fans, you'll probably have to get used to his style and it might be an immediate turn-off for a lot of readers. In spite of how negative I'm sounding, it was very well written and the plot was original, engaging, and quite possibly plausible given the deranged person has the tendency to kill tourists.

I'll give it a 7 out of 10 and if you want to read it, my advice is to just borrow it from someone or get it from your public library. In my opinion, it was a short and easy read (but interesting!) so I wouldn't pay the Barnes & Noble price for it ($27.99). Then again, I buy a very little percentage of the books I read thanks to my public library. So support your public library and don't be ashamed to get books from a library: you're saving money and you're taking advantage of the government's tax dollars! (I think, does the government pay for public libraries or what? If you know, leave the answer in the comments because I would like to know.)

That's it for this drive-by, check back for more book-related posts and fun (and free!) giveaways, and be sure to become a follower (look to the left of this post).

Drive-By Review: Hot Six by Janet Evanovich

Hello everybody and Happy New Year to you all!

So this morning after sleeping off the New Year's hangover (kidding, I don't drink) I set a goal to finish one of the books I borrowed from the library; not a New Year's Resolution but merely a daily goal I set for myself. I read from the second chapter to the end in one sitting so I was pretty proud of myself considering it only took a few hours.

The book I read was Hot Six by Janet Evanovich, which is the sixth book in the notorious Stephanie Plum series that is still being written today (the most recent is Sizzling Sixteen, which you guessed it: is the sixteenth book in the series).

Because I like to ramble and because I read so many books, I don't actually have time to do a full review of each and every book I read, so I'm going to start doing "drive-by reviews"; however, on occasion I might do a full-blown review on a book if it was just that amazing. Now this book was good but this series is a pretty easy read (considering it took a few hours to read), but "easy read" does not hold a negative connotation by any means.

In these "drive-bys" I will give an excerpt from the first chapter, a couple of sentences on my opinion of the book, and my favorite part(s) of the book. So here goes:

Excerpt: "Truth is, I didn't for a minute think she'd jump. For one thing, she was wearing a four-hundred-dollar jacket from Wilson Leather. You just don't jump off a bridge in a four-hundred-dollar jacket. It isn't done. The jacket would get ruined. Carol was from the Chambersburg section of Trenton, just like me, and in the Burg you gave the jacket to your sister, then you jumped off the bridge."

Favorite parts:

#1 "Munson knocked the two of us aside and streaked down the stairs. He ran the length of the house and out the back door. I was close behind, and Lula was about ten feet behind me. His foot had to be killing him, but he ran flat out through two yards and then cut off to the alley. I took a flying leap and caught him square in the small of his back. The two of us went down to the ground and rolled around, locked together, swearing and clawing. Munson was trying to scramble away, and I was trying to hang on and cuff him. It would have been easier if he'd had clothes to grab hold of. As it was, I didn't really want to grab what was available.

"Hit him where it hurts!" Lula was yelling. "Hit him where it hurts!"

So I did. A person reaches a point where she just doesn't want to roll around anymore. I hauled back and gave Munson a knee in the gonads.

"Ulk," Munson said, and assumed the fetal position.

Lula and I pried his hands away from Mr. Sad Sack and cuffed him behind his back.

"Wish I had a movie of you wrestlin' with this guy," Lula said. "It reminded me of that joke about the midget at the nudist colony who kept sticking his nose in everyone's business."

Mitchell and Habib had gotten out of their car and were standing a few feet away looking pained.

"I could feel that all the way over here. If we get the word that we have to rough you up, I'm wearing a cup." Mitchell said.

#2 "It's his legs," Lula said. "They froze up in a seated position." She pulled a lawn chair off a stack at the back of the garage and set the chair next to the dead guy. "If we put him in a chair he'll look more natural, like he was waiting for a ride or something."

So we picked him up, set him into the chair, and backed away to take a look. Only, when we backed away, he fell out of the chair. Smash, right on his face.

"Good thing he's dead," Lula said, "or that would have hurt like the devil."

We heaved him back into the chair and this time we wrapped a bungee cord around him. His nose was a little smashed and one eye had been jarred closed from the impact when he fell, so one was open and one was closed, but aside from that he looked okay. We backed away again, and he stayed in place.

#3 "Amen," Lula said, and she made the sign of the cross.

"I thought you were Baptist?"

"Yeah, but we don't got any hand signals for occasions like this."

This book, like all in the series, is hilarious and even though they all have the same basis with Stephanie running around getting into shenanigans, they are quick reads and will provide entertainment so don't hesitate to read any of them. The first one was published in 1994 and she's written one a year since then. I will be moving onto the seventh book eventually and I look forward to the next "chapter" in Stephanie's life.

The Lovely Bones Review

Hello readers,

Well I am officially one step closer to my 50 book goal as of a few minutes ago. I finally finished The Lovely Bones which in all honesty lives up to its name, and then some. I will try not to mention much about the plot but in the first paragraph of the book you find out the main character is murdered. So I was a little skeptical how the book would hold my attention throughout my read-through seeing as it told me all the details (including the murderer!) within the first paragraph or so. But it definitely kept my attention. There wasn't a dull moment.

To give you a taste of the book, here's the first paragraph:

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. This was before kids of all races and genders started appearing on milk cartons or in the daily mail. It was still back when people believed things like that didn't happen."

I felt that the book was pretty detailed about certain things without being overly meticulous in the description of certain things, which I really enjoy in a book. The time period helped give a special setting to the book and the way Susie narrated made me feel like I was sitting with her and she was reading it to me. I think the author (Alice Sebold) told it like that on purpose, but if not, more power to her.

The place where Susie is stuck, which she calls the "Inbetween" (between Earth and Heaven) is heavenly in that she doesn't age (as the characters do in the story, she stays exactly the same as the day she died) but the people she meets and friends she makes still do kind of earthly things. She talks about going to school, except she "could run through the halls yelling and nobody would care."

I don't want to give a too in-depth review because it might spoil some things (or I may have already, in which case I'm sorry). There is a lot to love about the characters; there are quite a few main characters that progress the story after Susie dies. Her father, Jack; her mother, Abigail; her younger sister, Lindsey; her younger brother, Buckley; her grandma, Lynn; and her killer, Mr. Harvey (who is played by the amazing Stanley Tucci in the movie adaptation, and who subsequently got nominated for an Oscar for his role).

Speaking of the movie, which I saw several months ago before reading the book (I had no clue there was a book when I saw the movie), I thought that the movie was well written and superbly cast. It was directed by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong, District 9) and I felt that he did a pretty good job at staying as true to the book as possible. However, the book spans almost a decade after Susie's death whereas the movie spans only a couple of years after her death if I remember correctly. Also in the movie, I felt some of the characters did not get as much backstory as they did in the book. I do realize it's difficult for a book to be adapted into a movie because the people working on the conversion process have a lot on their shoulders (dealing with the fans of the book and staying true to it, while trying to create a good movie experience) but with this movie, I think they made it as good as it could be.

For those of you who have seen the movie or plan on seeing it before reading the book, you will know what happens for the most part, but you will be missing out by not reading it. The characters are not as fleshed out in the movie as they are in the book and the story goes quite a bit deeper into the lives of the others, whereas the movie doesn't really explore them.

Overall, I give The Lovely Bones a solid 8 out of 10. It's a great read, but it's not my favorite book of all time, mostly attributed to the fact that I read thrillers, murder mysteries, and the like. This book definitely has some thrilling points and there is a murder, but there's not much mystery being that you are told who kills the main character early on. I felt that the book was more about love and the compassion Susie has for her family, as well as the compassion they have for her, and the difficulty with having to let people go after death. It is a great read for book clubs (I believe it was on Oprah's list at one time) and is geared more for women; however, I think it is a classic in and of itself and would recommend it to anyone who loves reading just because it is a truly interesting read.

Thanks for reading and be sure to comment! Also be sure to pick up this book if it sounds like something you'd enjoy!

New Addition to the Blog

Hello all,

I suppose I've been formally introduced in the last blog post by its creator, so thank you for having me. I was called on to come and write posts occasionally about the books I read but hopefully I will be posting regularly. I will try to share things about myself that way you can get to know me and I will most definitely be bringing a variety of book genres to this blog.

The books I read tend to be more of the murder mystery and psychological thriller types, but I also enjoy a good humorous or satirical book. I also am trying to read some of the "classics" but overall I'm just exploring different genres in literature because I aspire to become a writer myself one day.

This was just a brief introduction and I hope to be blogging more soon to all you readers. With each post, I'll try to share at least one piece of information with you about myself and the book I'm currently reading.

This post's tidbit is that I'm currently reading Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. It is now on the Showtime channel and has been running for five seasons; it's been picked up for a sixth.

And a fact about myself is that this is my 32nd book since July 1st. I know that seems like a strange fact to keep up with the number of books, but I'll elaborate more in the next post as to why that's so important.

Thanks and Happy Reading!

J. Pardue

Be sure to check out my blog (which I've been slacking off with lately) at: http://www.fujitsumaniac.wordpress.com

And hit me up on Twitter: @Pardooki