FEBRUARY 2017 - READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

11 books read in January - now 11 books read in February - WTF! Let's hope I can retain my reading mojo for the rest of the year.

They were...

John Murray (with Sharon Murray and Abby Jones) - Code Name: Papa (2015) (2)

Larry D. Sweazy - Where I Can See You (2017) (4.5)

Mick Herron - Dead Lions (2013) (4)

Patrick E. McLean - The Lucky Dime (2017) (4.5)


Georges Simenon - Maigret's Dead Man (1948) (4.5)

Thomas Pluck - Get Plucked: 13 Twisted Tales (2015) (3)

Joe R. Lansdale - The Steel Valentine (1991) (4)

Daniel Vlasaty - A New and Different Kind of Pain (2017) (4.5)

Frank Westworth - Third Person (2014) (4)

Larry Fondation - Common Criminals: LA Crime Stories (2003) (3)

Todd Luchik - The Children of the Transmission (2015) (2)

Book of the month - no 5 STAR read, but a few that ran close - all 4.5 STARS ......Larry D. Sweazy, Daniel Vlasaty, Georges Simenon and Patrick E. McLean - on balance The Lucky Dime - a short story from McLean gets the nod

Book of the month!

So 4 rated 4.5 STARS,

3 rated 4 STARS, a Joe R. Lansdale short, a Frank Westworth Stoner short and a Mick Herron - Slough House novel.

2  a 3 STARS - Larry Fondation and Thomas Pluck - both short story collections.

and a couple of 2 STAR disappointments - Todd Luchik with a short story that I didn't get and a co-authored bit of non-fiction nonsense that nearly bored me to tears - Code Name: Papa from John Murray and cohorts.

More useless trivia......

11 different authors.

5 of the 11 were new-to-me authors........simple maths tells me 6 authors have been enjoyed before.  . I'd be interested in reading more from most of them in the future.

I'm definitely done with John Murray.

Mick Herron - I'd read his shopping list.

Joe R. Lansdale - I probably have his shopping list on my shelves already.

Patrick E. McLean has his full novel out 1st May - The Soak, which I will probably get.

I've loved 3 books already from Larry D. Sweazy and have a fourth to get to - A Thousand Falling Crows.

Larry Fondation, Frank Westworth and Georges Simenon - I have more sitting on the Kindle and the library tubs to get to.

I'm up to date with Thomas Pluck, Todd Luchik and Daniel Vlasaty for now at least!

Gender analysis - no surprises here - 10.33 male reads, .67 female


I think 10 authors hail from the US, (3 contributed to the one book)
2 authors are English, 1 deceased was from Belgium.

10 were fiction reads, 1 was a memoir of an espionage-type-covert-secret-agent-life

2 were collections of short stories, 3 were short story reads that have been published on their own.

8 were published this decade - with 1 from 1940s, 1 from the 90s, 1 from the 00s.

4 of the 11 books were pre-owned - 1 an Amazon FREEBIE! 5 titles came from the publisher, 2 from the authors, courtesy of signing up to their websites for author updates..

Favourite cover? Larry Fondation - Common Criminals: LA Crime Stories.

Get Plucked from Thomas Pluck is my second favourite cover.

My reads were this long - 326 - 254 - 350 - 29 - 240 - 100 - 29 - 79 - 40 - 145 - 16
Total page count =  1608 (2687 in January)

4 < 50,
2 between 51 < 100,
1 between 101 < 200,
2 between 201 < 300,
2 between 301 < 400,
0 > 400 pages

Mick Herron's Dead Lions was the longest @ 350.