Junk Food Books

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Ah, the three hour book. I've been reading this book on China for two weeks. Then I pick up the new Robert Crais and it goes away in a sitting. Whew. I thought I was losing my touch. Granted the book on China will stay with me while I won't remember the Crais plot in a week.

Usually Crais books revolve around Private Eye, Elvis Cole, but in "The Watcher", Elvis's silent partner and I do mean silent, Joe Pike takes center stage in the adventure. Cole shows up but his parts are wierd as if the author didn't quite know the character's voice.

Joe Pike is super cool and never takes off his shades because he doesn't want people to see through his eyes that he is dead inside. He's hired to protect a rich hollywood girl that has bumbled into some nefarious doings. In the first chapter only seven people are shot by Joe as he struggles to protect his ward.

In true detective fiction, Joe picks up leads on who is trying to kill the girl. He gets help from Cole and friends at CSI in following up the information. There are flashbacks into Joe's past that help show what an honorable guy is Joe. It's all about protecting people from bullies for Joe.

It's light and fluffy and comfort food for the mind. But it's time to get back to the opium wars and the Qing dynasty

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Robert Parker and Harlan Coben were no match for my super reading prowess. It's a good thing they were library books. Although, I haven't bought a Parker in years. I usually just camp out in the bookstore and read them there. No refrigerator for refreshment in the Bookstore, though.

Robert B. Parker takes a break from Spenser and concentrates instead on his two other characters with series, Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall. It's ostensibly a Stone book but Randall shows up to continue the Stone-Randall loveline.

Bad things are happening in Paradise, MA. Mr. Weeks, a popular radio talk show host is found dead. A day later his girlfriend is also found dead. Let the hunt begin. It does amidst the wisecrack between the members of the Paradise Police force and the Stones remorse about his ex-wife and new lover. It moves from Paradise to New York and Baltimore as clues are turned up and leads tracked down. Mr. Parker has his formula and there is no swaying him from it. Most chapters are long dialogue sequences with a dash of action thrown in every now and then. There is a bit of mystery, but not much. You just don't really care. I think I read them for the banter which is entertaining. Along the way, you have to deal with ruminations about love and it's complications.

Harlan Coben's big hero is Myron Bolitar. It's been six years since the last adventure for Bolitar and "Promise Me" is cut from the same cloth as the previous six. Bolitar is a sports agent who trouble finds. He is surrounded by a supporting cast of odd ducks who all have super talents, for instance the stock broker/billionaire who is also the best martial artist in the world.

Bolitar gets involved with the runaway of one his neighbors. He gets involved because he asks the girl to call him if she ever feels unsafe. He has overheard the girl talking about going home with a drunk driver. His aim is to avert the tragedy. Sure enough two nights later she calls and he goes out to get her. But rather than taking the girl home, Bolitar drops the girl at a friends house. The girl goes missing.

Bolitar gets to talk tough with the cops, have fisticuffs with local mob boss who's daughter is also missing and get into gunfights. It's just your usual time for your average sports agents. I'm guessing there is a template out there for mysteries with wise cracking P.I's and when I find it, I'm writing my own. Although I'm pretty close to what the template is right now.

More fluff, but not horrible fluff. Both writers know what they know how to write best and do it. Maybe it's time to upgrade to Stephen King?

[Drunk Monk]

Which book on China are you reading? Need some recommendations?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

It's pretty good. I'm somewhere in the Qing dynasty. But the library wanted their frickin book back, so I had to give it to them. Grrr. I guess I'll just buy a copy.

[Drunk Monk]

I haven't read that one yet, but I've heard it's good. It's all about the Ming Qing when you visit Beijing - that and the Great Wall, of course.

If you have the time, I'd recommend at least one modern China travel book, so as to ease the culture shock.
Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux is great. It captures an older China, back in the days of FEC.
And I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend my good buddy's book American Shaolin by Matt Polly.
http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=550. He writes about modern China through the martial lens, which will be your perspective as soon as you get to Emei.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Where I do my intensive martial arts training for three days. Where I learn to break boards with only the aid of a humble handsaw.

[Drunk Monk]

What? You can't use your question mark key?

FYI, the question mark is spoken in Chinese. You end a sentence with the word ma in a rising tone, like a question, to denote that you are asking a question. So you'd say 'ni chi ma?' (literally 'you eat question?' - a standard way to say 'hello' in China, because not everyone eats every day). Ni chi means literally 'you eat' although it's sometimes spoken that way as an abbreviated form. Same goes for ni hao (you good) or the longer more proper ni hao ma (you good question), the other common greeting.

That maybe as far as you get in Chinese, Greg. But I'll try feed you some useful terms as they come to mind.

Lesson 1: cesuo zai nar? (seh-so-ahh zigh nar) literally 'stink place where?' (where doesn't use ma for questions). Where's the bathroom?

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

You know G-Man is just yanking (or "Yan-King") your chain about going to China. He can't be parted from Doritos and Diet Coke any more than Dracula can be parted from his grave dirt.

...Any more than I can be parted from a decent cup of coffee. So no China for me, either.

Now if you were leading a martial arts tour of, say, Rome, I think I could find time to get a bit of enlightenment.

-PPFY,
The Ugly American

[The Queen]

Lesson 1: cesuo zai nar? (seh-so-ahh zigh nar) literally 'stink place where?' (where doesn't use ma for questions). Where's the bathroom?

Stink place -- so much more accurate than bathroom!

That reminds me -- got to go get some more air freshener...

[Drunk Monk]

Yes, yes, life with Greg. We know, we know. Been there, done that, at least some of us. We feel for ya, TQ.

Diet Coke, Doritos and decent coffee can be found in Beijing. Coke and good coffee can be found in most of the major metropolises of China now - not so sure about Diet Coke and Doritos. Not sure about Emei. We'll be near Chengdu, which is the fifth largest city of China, so I imagine most of the amenities will be available there, but who knows?

stink place - some say that Chinese grammer is more like baby talk. There's no articles, no verb tense, and very simplistic sentence structure. On teh flip side, it's highly idiomatic, there are meausre words and the tones, my god, the tones....

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Please define "good coffee".

[Drunk Monk]

So in the international districts of Beijing, along with some 4- and 5-star hotels, the house coffee is sometimes a decent Ethiopian bean. It's really quite good, especially if you're looking for a dose of civility. Of course, that's not what the people drink. China is really all about tea, obviously.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I only fart rose petals, thank you very much. It's the dogs who are gassy. And let's not go into the whole pot calling the kettle, shall we?

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I seem to be spending a lot of time solving mysteries on the shores of Lake Superior. I'm getting plenty of references to Whitefish Bay and The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (The legend does live on from the Chippewa on down to the big lake they call Gitchegoomee). I know how to cross the into Canada through the border waters. Maybe not so much.

I don't how these two writers got to covering the same basic territory but it happened. Kreuger writes about Cork O'Connor who lives in the wilds north of Minneapolis-St Paul. Hamilton writes about Alex McKnight who lives north of Sault St. Marie or the "Soo" for those in the know, which is on the upper Michigan pennisula. It's called the yoop, also for those in the know. Both men are reluctant. O'Connor is the reluctant sometimes sheriff who always seems to be getting into trouble. McKnight is a former policeman reluctant sometimes private detective who always seems to be getting into trouble. Both have lots of cases arising from characters from their past who suddenly show up to start them on their chases. The one interesting thing about both men despite figuring out who did what, no one is ever brought to justice. I guess that's the new noir for you.

Kreuger's first book is Iron Lake and I've read about four books in the series. I think average reading time for the books is about four hours. These books are a little more mystical than your average detective fiction owing to O'Connor's indian heritage. At least once a book he heads to the reservation to talk to Henry Meloux. There is a strong flavoring of Native American culture to the books plus lot of talk about new casinos on the reservations and how it is changing the Indian's world.

They are formulaic and the more you read of them, the more you get to know the formula. They all are well written and I'm getting to learn a lot about Northern Minnesota.

I just finished The Hunting Wind and North of Nowhere by Steve Hamilton which made me revisit this thread. Alex McKnight is the non-PI who doesn't want to solve cases, yet he keeps finding himself in the middle of them. He lives in Paradise, Michigan. He's a former cop. He's got a bullet still in his chest, too close to his heart to remove. His cases stem from his friends and relatives getting involved with bad characters or from people from his past coming to him for help. I guess your past is always rising up to throw monkey wrenches in your path. McKnight was also a minor-league catcher who never made the bigs. That's another theme for the book.
He spends a lot of time alone in his cabins on the shore of the lake reading. The only time for me the books really come to life is when he crosses paths with Captain Maven from the Soo. They hate each other and the dialogue picks up a notch when they meet. The book without Maven was the worst one so far. There are about six books in this series so far.

If you like resolutions and people brought to justice, these might not be the books for you. In both cases the protagonists get caught up in the whirlwind of events and then are abruptly flung out at the end. There is usually comeuppancee. None of the guilty in the Hamilton books are brought to justice. The cases are always solved, but it bugs me people are getting away with murder.

If your looking for airplane reading, I suggest these authors.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

A little under two hours for this new Spenser novel, Now and Then. It has a bit of a plot, but as usual each plot chapter is balanced by a chapter of Spenser talking to his girlfriend Susan about their relationship. Just to be topical, this book involves the FBI, CIA and a homegrown terrorist cel. It kind of works. The joy of Spenser is his interaction with other people. He can be the smartass or the toughguy or the sensitive guy. You read these books for the dialogue and fortunately that's all they are.

Patriot Acts is the seventh book by Greg Rucka about Atticus Kodiak. Kind of tough to live down that name. Atticus used to be a bodyguard in NYC but in the last book he joined up with one "The Ten", a group of the best assassins in the world. Now he is one of them. He had to train to be a great assassin to go toe to toe with another great assassin to protect his client, also an assassin. At the end of the last book, Atticus and his client killed the other assassin. But now they are on the run, suspected of murder and other crimes.

Patriot Acts tells of Atticus quest to find out who hired the other assassin and clear his name. He also gives in to his love for the client. In the end of course, they find out the US government is partially responsible for his plight. Ooooh, the drama. It ends weakly. No big shoot out. No mano y mano on the top of the captial dome. I guess the tension was Atticus committing his first assassination. I would have preferred the big show down.

Words of wisdom from the book. When you hire a killer, everyone knows it's murder. When you hire an assassin, no one knows it's a murder