2 BY HARRY DOLAN

Another author who I think I will like but haven’t actually yet tried.

Still at least I only got 2 books and not 10, though I do like the sound of his 3^rd which is out next year.

 These were recommended to me by a friend over on Goodreads, and his judgement has been reasonable sound so far, with him giving me the heads-up on David Corbett's Do They Know I'm Running which I enjoyed earlier this year.  

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

The man who calls himself David Loogan is leading a quiet, anonymous life in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's hoping to escape a violent past he would rather forget. But his solitude is broken when he finds himself drawn into a friendship with Tom Kristoll, the publisher of the mystery magazine Gray Streets - and into an affair with Laura, Tom's sleek blond wife. When Tom offers him a job as an editor, Loogan sees no harm in accepting. What he doesn't realize is that the stories in Gray Streets tend to follow a simple formula: Plans go wrong. Bad things happen. People die.

Elizabeth Waishkey is a single mother raising a fifteen-year-old daughter. She's also the most talented detective in the Ann Arbor Police Department. But when Tom Kristoll turns up dead, she doesn'nt know quite what to make of David Loogan. Is he a killer, or an ally who might help her find the truth? Loogan, for his part, would like to trust her, but he has his own agenda. He suspects his friend's death is part of a much larger puzzle, and he's not going to wait for someone else to put the pIeces together.

As Loogan and Elizabeth navigate their way through the Kristolls' world, they find no shortage of people with motives for murder, from a young graduate student obsessed with Laura Kristoll to a trio of bestselling writers, all of them with secrets they don't want uncovered. But as the deaths start mounting up - some of them echoing stories published in Gray Streets - Loogan begins to look more and more like the most promising suspect. Soon it becomes clear that only Elizabeth can find the path to solving both the murders and the mystery of Loogan himself. But by the time she unravels the twisted skein, Loogan may be indicted for murder - or, more likely, become the next victim.

“Bad Things Happen is a very smart, well-written roller coaster ride that is always threatening to hurl the reader out into roaring empty space. Go along for the thrill ride!"

James Patterson

Do you run for the hills when you see a book by James Patterson on the shelf, or next best (worst) thing, a book blurbed by James Patterson? Me not really, I don’t have a problem with him and in his own inimitable way he has probably encouraged more reading amongst folk who wouldn’t otherwise be inclined to pick up a book, and he’s probably helped a few writers get a leg-up at the same time in a difficult career choice.

Anyway back to Dolan I reckon I will enjoy this one.

VERY BAD MEN

A new book in the nationally bestselling series that has wowed critics and readers alike.

David Loogan returns! Loogan is living in Ann Arbor with Detective Elizabeth Waishkey and her daughter, Sarah. He's settled into a quiet routine as editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets -- until one day he finds a manuscript outside his door. It begins: "I killed Henry Kormoran."

Anthony Lark has drawn up a list of names -- Terry Dawtrey, Sutton Bell, Henry Kormoran. To his eyes, the names glow red on the page. They move. They breathe. The three men on the list have little in common except that seventeen years ago they were involved in a notorious robbery. 

And now Anthony Lark is hunting them down, and he won't stop until every one of them is dead.  

Second book with David Loogan and it also looks interesting. I haven't read the obligatory-cliched serial killer book for a while, but I think it might be a bit different from the normal affair - I hope so!

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Book 3 is The Last Dead Girl and is out in the UK in January, 2014. It's unlikely that I will have read any of these two by then. 

On a rainy night in April, a chance encounter on a lonely road draws David into a romance with Jana Fletcher, a beautiful young law student. Jana is an enigma: living in a run-down apartment and sporting a bruise on her cheek that she refuses to explain. David would like to know her secrets, but he lets them lie—until it's too late.

When Jana is brutally murdered, the police consider David a prime suspect. But as he sets out to uncover the truth about Jana, he begins to realize he's treading a very dangerous path—and that her killer is watching every move he makes.