The Golden Buddha by Clive Cussler

Also recommended is Golden Buddha, the latest Clive Cussler which he co-wrote with Craig Dirgo. I think it is the best Cussler yet. He has evolved. Instead of only using women as the objects of sex (not such a bad thing), he now uses them as parts of his team of operatives. The men are not entirely the equivalent of teenage-fantasy machismo (not such a bad thing either). I thought the dialogue was better and not the old silly banter, but he does some of that, too. This plot has to do with returning the Dalai Lama (you remember, he was mentioned in Caddy Shack) to power in . Very well done.

WC Don

The Secret Servant by Daniel Silva

this is from 10/08

Now that I’m actually on vacation, I thought I’d bring you up to date on what I’ve read so far. Two excellent books by Daniel Silva, The Secret Servant was his original, and it was great. It has to do with a terrorist plot centered in London and the unfolding of problems arising from the immigration of Muslims to Western Europe , especially . The Confessor is a great book that appealed to me, since like The Secret Servant, the hero is an Israeli. But, this one involves the and its dealings with about the Jews, the election of a new pope, and numerous twists. Given that I was in Rome as I read it, had just toured the Vatican, I had just been to the Sistine chapel where they hold the election, and he wrote about a fire fight in the book that supposedly took place about three blocks from where I was staying, this was thoroughly enjoyable. Even without being in Rome , this one was a winner.

WC Don

Map of Bones by James Rollins

As I recall WC Don has read some of Rollins' work. This was my 2nd. forgot to post this so I'm working from fragile memory. by titles, most of Rollins' books seem to be along the lines of DaVinci Code, a detective story with clues to things in the past.

A grizzly killing occurs in a Cologne cathedral and the bones of the Magi, the 3 Wise Men, have been stolen. An Italian detective and her priest uncle start the investigation, but specific clues and coincidences call in the SigmaForce, a super secret group of brainy US operatives, to join in. The race to find the killers and the reason behind the slaughter takes them from Cologne to Milan to Rome to Cairo to Alexandria and back to Italy, all in the span of maybe a week or so. They search for the secret to some unspeakable power that is somehow connected to secrets underneath the Vatican and elsewhere based on clues and riddles from mysterious alchemists from centuries past leading them on this chase. All the while trying to find the source of power before the bad guys get there.

This moves along a breakneck speed with this group's seemingly limitless storehouse of knowledge, especially the priest. Most all the Sigma operatives have technical PhDs to go along with martial arts and firearm skills. I found it almost cute how nearly each chapter ended with it's own cliffhanger. "Quietly he pulled the sack out from under the casket and turned to find a silencer pointed at his cheek." next chapter....that sort of thing

not bad. Rollins' books will keep your attention as you whiz around the world and try to follow the logic of the crew as they hash out clues...maybe I'll take another Rollins book on this next trip. may not be in the power rotation, but will certainly fill in gaps when I need a good read.

East Coast Don

The Two Minute Warning by Robert Crais

Max Holmen is a career thief on the verge of finishing a 10y stint for bank robbery. He has a son from a woman he should have, but never did marry. The son grew up to be an LAPD uniform officer. The night before his release, his son is one of four cops murdered in what seemed to be a retaliation killing. The explanation doesn't sit with Max so he starts digging around himself with the help of the now ex-FBI agent who put him away. Together they piece together clues that lead to police corruption and cover-up.

To me, the main hook here is Crais' ability to present Holmen as a sympathetic and likable character as he deals with his loss while attempting to not slide back into his former life. The boy's mom had said in a letter "he's not like you" and that theme follows the story line. I liked this and will put Crais into the power rotation. I'm leaving for 2 weeks this saturday, so I'll check out another Crais book for the trip. Not as gritty as Price or Pelecanos, but a winner for good crime fiction. If his other books are as good, Crais is definitely worth your time.

East Coast Don

Breaking Cover by J.D. Rhodes

Rhoades is a lawyer living in Carthage, NC...a outlying small town from Raleigh that is slowly becoming one of the trendy places for people who can afford the gas to drive to Raleigh or the business park here known as Research Triangle Park (so named cuz of the 3 corners of the triangle-Raleigh and NC State, Durham and Duke, Chapel Hill and UNC). I stumbled across him at a B/N reading one evening. This is his 4th novel. His first 3 followed a Wilmington NC (that's the eastern terminus of I-40 for you west coasters-better known as the hometown of Michael Jordan) bail skip tracer. The genre of book is a subspecialty of crime fiction termed redneck noir...in my book, that alone is reason for reading.

2 young Raleigh boys are kidnapped by a sex predator. a shadowy resident of the small town of Pine Lake spots the kids in a van, follows it to a decrepit trailer, blows the perp away then runs off. an intrepid reported tracks down the hero only to find out he doesn't want to be found. turns out he's an undercover FBI agent who disappeared off the grid 4 years earlier when a job went south. With the publicity, those bad guys, and i do mean bad guys, as well as the FBI, come back looking for him.

Before this group expanded, i had told WC Don about this author and as I recall from his comments, JD Rhoades wasn't going to be on his power rotation of authors. but he is for me. may be the locations, may be the red neck theme, may be the ridiculously high body count, I don't know, but I'm up to date on his books and will continue to stay that way. A- to B+ for me. 330 pages of a 5x8 book with, what seemed to me, wide margins so it went really quick.

gtg

East Coast Don

Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham

remembered I thought I'd give it a try so I reserved it at my local library and promptly got the call. Good timing what with West Coast Don heading for Italy.

Playing for Pizza, by John Grisham. I've read a number of Grisham's legal novels and enjoyed most (Firm, Client, Time To Kill, Pelican Brief), but not all (Brethern, Runaway Jury, Street Lawyer). I only tried one non-legal book (Painted House) that I thought was unreadable. But the liner notes of this looked promising, so I thought I'd give Grisham another shot outside of the legal arena. What the hell. The Olympics were over. I needed a sports fix.

Rick Dockery is a career 3rd string QB who lives out of a suitcase in short term rentals...cannon arm with no touch, a penchant for interceptions and a need to avoid contact. Bad luck forces him into the 4th Q of the NFL championship game and 17pts ahead, but still manages to have the worst performance in NFL history, causing the Browns to lose (again) to the hated Broncos. Needless to say, he is summarily released and shunned by any team in North America.

His agent makes one more call before dumping him and gets him a starting QB slot for the mighty Panthers of Parma....Italy. From here the story is a fish out of water looking for acceptance and redemption. While it's pretty predictable, I thoroughly enjoyed Rick's overcoming culture, history, language, women, cathedrals, parking tiny cars, the Judge, and post practice pizza.

A few years ago I read another Italian sports book called The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinnis. the true story of a very low level pro soccer team, from an area of Italy no tourist would venture, that manages to climb to the Serie B of the italian pro soccer league. This is the equivalent of a winter rookie instructional baseball team finding themselves competing in AAA. A genuinely outstanding story full of colorful characters and situations. I suggested WC Don read it and I seem to recall he spoke highly of it. While reading Playing for Pizza, I frequently thought back to this book. Of the two, the McGinnis book is far superior, but this was decent...a little tweaking and Pizza could be a made for TV movie while the McGinnis could be a full season series...that's the difference in the range of depth of character and situation development.

262 pages, 6"x9" hardback. in the absence of other intrusions, like life or golf or jogging or (horror of horrors) the Democratic convention, this could be read in one or two sittings, it flows that easily and is fairly short. To me, it seemed like Grisham was on vacation and managed to write off a trip to Italy with a book when he discovered American football was played for pride in Italy. wish I had his imagination.

Pretty good, you won't be dissapointed. WC Don will either read it before, or during, his upcoming Italy trip.

East Coast Don

Palahniuk's Survivor

Holy Crap...that was one of the wierdest stories i have ever read...WTF moments every couple pages or even every couple paragraphs. I used to think Vonnegut was on drugs but how else could he have thunk up this story without some assistance? Reading about Tender Branson's rise and fall as a media celebrity made me think of the media frenzy around Obama...one of those parallels that sort of makes you go Hmmmm? Read that the story was optioned for a movie but put on the back burner after 9/11, what with an impending plane crash as a plot line, but I can't imagine how this would get filmed...guy skewers religion, the media, even manufactured homes and landfills...a John Waters clone would have to do it with 'cult classic' in mind.

did you ever go to his website? as strange as he seems to be...

and oh, yes I will return to another Palahniuk story. a suggestion from those of you who have read others will be welcome...

East Coast Don

Timely note:

Karla and I went to see Tropic Thunder yesterday (hilarious!). I saw a movie poster for Choke (another Palahniuk novel) coming this fall. Whether or not a movie deal is a good thing I don’t know. I saw one of my favorite Robert Crais novels, Hostage, turned into a terrible movie with Bruce Willis. I also heard Pelecanos speak in San Diego 6-7 years ago and he talked about the miserable experience he had signing King Suckerman to a movie deal. P Diddy was supposed to be the lead. After producers tried to totally change major parts of the story, he pulled out and vowed never to do another movie again.

I’ll probably read Choke and then decide whether or not to see the movie.

Chris Boedeker