Books Read: 37 - 39 of 52 in '08

It goes best if you read this as a Novel, not a Crime Thriller.  I bought it thinking it was a Crime Thriller and it wasn't until about half-way through I thought Nope, not the right genre.

That said, I enjoyed this.  It is evocative, thought-provoking and, although I quite wanted to get a hold of Joe and give him a good shake, you cannot help but feel for the protagonist.

I found the last section of the book too much in terms of plot - why was Joe being picked on in this fashion - otherwise this is a perfect slice of life.


From the Cover:  1939.  In the small, rural community of Augusta Falls, twelve-year-old Joseph Vaughan hears of the brutal assault and murder of a young girl, the first in a series of killings that will blight the community over the next decade.  Joseph and his friends are determined to protect August Falls against the evil in their midst and form The Guardians. But the murderer evades them and they watch helplessly as one child after another is taken. 

Even when the killings cease, a shadow of fear follows Joseph for the rest of his life.  The past won't stay buried and, fifty years later, Joseph must confront he nightmare that has overshadowed his entire life...

Recommended.

After finishing The Skinner a little while ago, and really liking that, I was heartily pleased to discover a second book set on Spatterjay.  It's not a sequel, as such, though it does have most of the same major characters in.

From the cover:  Sable Keech was a walking dead man, the only one successfully to have been resurrected by nanochanger.  Did he succeed because he was infected by the Spatterjay virus, or because he came late to resurrection in a tank of seawater?  Tracing the man’s last know seaborne journey, Taylor Bloc wants to know the truth.  He also wants so much else - adulation, power, control - and will go to any lengths to get them.

An ancient hive mind, almost incomprehensible to the human race, has sent an agent to Spatterjay.  Does it simply want to obtain the lethal poison, sprine?  If so, Janer must find it and stop it.

Meanwhile, still faced with the ennui of immortality, Erlin has her solitude rudely interrupted by a very angry whelkus titanicus, and begins the strangest of journeys.

Deep in the ocean the Spatterjay virus has wrought a terrible change that will affect them all.  Something dormant for ten years is breaking free, and once again the aftershocks of an ancient war will focus on this watery world.

And Sniper, for ten years the Warden of Spatterjay, finally takes delivery of his new drone shell.  It’s much better than his old one: powerful engines, more lethal weapons, thicker armour.  He’s going to need them.

Highly recommended but read The Skinner first - this could be stand-alone, but why deprive yourself of the knowledge the characters are operating with?

I had to buy this on Amazon Marketplace, seeing as how I stupidly bought the second book to feature Dogg the Data Detective first and, three pages into that, decided I wanted to read Book One first.

From the cover:  How much do you want to know?

Every move you take, every payment you make, creates data.  Personal data about you.  Facts that exist in a timeless present, because nothing can ever be truly erased.

Maybe it seems like individually, facts don’t matter.  It’s just a set of unrelated data, right?  Dream on.  Someone’s looking through it.  Sifting.  Data mining.  Discovering your secrets..

Someone like Dogg.  Data Detective.  The best there is.  Give him someone’s name and he’ll sell you a life story.  That’s what happens.  With one little fact, Dogg can unravel a hidden world.  What appears to start as an innocent investigation becomes an intimate intrigue of drugs, sex and suspicious deaths.

All Dogg had to do was start looking.  You could be his next client - or his next victim.  That indiscreet little office e-mail you penned last week - you think it has disappeared?  Not a chance.

Welcome to the end of privacy.

Frighteningly good… terrifying, not least because much of it is believable -Arena
A remote control love story with a sting in the tail…  A clever little classic - The Times

Highly recommended.  And scary.