A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Ian Rankin is the well known British author of the Inpector Rebus series and other novels.   The Complaints introduces a new character, Inspector Malcolm Fox.  The second Fox novel caught my eye on the list of new arrivals on the online catalog, and I decided to read the first one before I read the second one.  Overall, this is a good mystery with old fashioned detective work--gathering of information and following the threads of connections until the true story emerges.  In a way it feels like this kind of story--one where the main character's career is targeted for a take down as part of a deal to make something else go away--that comes later in a series rather than right out of the gate in the first book.  But no matter: it makes for a compelling read. The setting is the gritty city of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the early months of 2009 while the city is in the midst of the real estate bust and teetering toward an economic downturn.  These developmen...

I know, I know.  It's been a very long time since I've posted a review--because it's a very long time since I've read a book.  I'd started a few, but finished none and was fretting about how long this dry spell would last when along comes Shock Wave by John Sandford.  It is the latest installment in the Virgil Flowers series, and it picks up about six months after the end of the last novel in the series.  There was a wait for the book--and I think there still might be a long list of holds for the book.  It was a very fast read--it only took me a few days to read it. Shock Wave is so titled because of the rash of bombings at the story's center.  It tells of the latest, big investigation for Virgil Flowers, the sometime writer and eternal fisherman who is also the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's top investigator and the governor's "third most favorite troublemaker." On his day off, Virgil is called in to investigate when a bom...