LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART EIGHTY-ONE

Hopefully approaching the end of the physical book logging exercise, tub eighty-one and maybe 10 more to come.

Tub 81

Ross MacDonald, Tom Piccirilli, Thomas H. Cook, Bill Pronzini x 2, 

Thomas H. Cook - not an author I've tried yet.

Rich in character, complex in plot, Cook's second Frank Clemons novel, after the much-praised Sacrificial Ground , finds the former homicide detective relocated in New York. Now a private eye, Frank lives with Karen on the upper East Side, but he is falling out of love and becoming increasingly aware that his real sympathies lie with Manhattan's less-privileged citizens. That's one reason why he is drawn to the case of Hannah Karlsberg. Hannah, in her 70s, was brutally murdered (her right hand chopped off) in her apartment; her employer, a high fashion designer, hires Frank to locate Hannah's next-of-kin so the body can be released and buried. But Hannah's past is full of gaps and contradictions, and Frank is soon on a trail that begins in the Lower East Side sweatshops of the 1930s, where Hannah was a forceful strike leader for the American Garment Workers' Union. The scent then leads to a small village in Colombia, and ends in a settlement house in Brooklyn. Frank's investigation is steeped in a deep personal, lyrically evoked sorrow; talking with Hannah's old co-workers, he uncovers dark deeds and omissions that resonate with his own growing sense of isolation and betrayal. Cook constructs a many-layered and shimmering tale in which the history, locale and personality build to an unsuspected, satisfying end. BOMC alternate; Detective Book Club and Mysterious Book Club main selections.

John R. Maxim x 2, Bill Pronzini, Seymour Shubin, Brian Freemantle, 

Freemantle's Charlie Muffin series book!

On-the-run spy Charlie Muffin investigates the destruction of an ocean liner

They call Charlie Muffin a traitor. He has been on the run ever since the blow-up in Berlin, when British intelligence declared him obsolete and tried to kill him. Charlie outsmarted them then, and he has done so ever since, staying one step ahead by forgoing any semblance of an even halfway normal life. Now he is alone in Hong Kong and his only protector and friend, Rupert Willoughby, is a hemisphere away.

Now Rupert is in trouble. He has invested £6 million in a massive new ocean liner but the ship is destroyed by arsonists, burning completely down in a Hong Kong harbor. The owners blame Chinese agents, but Charlie smells a rat and agrees to investigate. But the conspiracy is more dangerous than anyone knew, and it's not long before Charlie realizes that his good deed could be his last.

Rod Stewart, Barry Maitland x 2, Darragh McKeon, Ian Rankin,

Ron Rash, Barry Maitland x 2, Brad Smith, W. T. Tyler,  

Ron Rash - short story collection

In Burning Bright, the stories span the years from the Civil War to the present day, and Rash's historical and modern settings are sewn together in a hauntingly beautiful patchwork of suspense and myth, populated by raw and unforgettable characters mined from the landscape of Appalachia. In "Back of Beyond," a pawnshop owner who profits from the stolen goods of local meth addicts - including his own nephew - comes to the aid of his brother and sister-in-law when they are threatened by their son. The pregnant wife of a Lincoln sympathizer alone in Confederate territory takes revenge to protect her family in "Lincolnites." And in the title story, a woman from a small town marries an outsider; when an unknown arsonist starts fires in the Smoky Mountains, her husband becomes the key suspect.

In these stories, Rash brings to light a previously unexplored territory, hidden in plain sight - first a landscape, and then the dark yet lyrical heart and the alluringly melancholy soul of his characters and their home.

Sam Hawken, Barry Maitland, Garry Disher, James W. Ziskin, Dennis Tafoya,  

David Mitchell, Max Allan Collins, Charles Alverson, Peter Robb, Stella Rimington,

Aussie noir from the last century!

Sal's being tried out as a hitman and being dumb's no problem. Baz is a wannabe celebrity chef - he can't cook, and he's got a secret.
Fayette's fourteen. She just wants to kill her step-father and have fun. Pig's Blood is about people with dreams. It ends badly. People die. A confronting yet comic novella that develops fully the darkness and violence that lurks in Robb's non-fiction books, as well as the irony and wit that also characterises his non-fiction writing. “So amoral and blackly comic that one feels that they are deliberately infected spitballs thrown against the virginal and pretentious window of Australian literature… one has a sense that, for Robb, too much excess is never enough.” - Sydney Morning Herald

P. B. Yuill, Leonard B. Scott, Len Deighton, Reginald Hill, Dick Lochte, 

Dick Lochte

First Holmes and Watson, then Nero and Archie, Now Leo and Serendipity--two detectives, two narrative voices, twice as much sleuthing and double the fun. First, imagine Katherine Hepburn at fourteen. Next, in your mind's eye, replay Humphrey Bogart, at his middle-aged best, as Sam Spade. Now picture this oddest of couples as the newest duo in detective fiction and you'll have a perfect portrait of the memorable leads in Sleeping Dog." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

Sleeping Dog won the Nero Wolfe Award and was nominated for the Edgar, the Shamus, and the Anthony Awards. In 1999, the Independent Mystery Booksellers's Association named it one of their 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century.

Magnus Mills, Adrian McKinty, Mark Pryor, Susan Froetschel, Todd Robinson, 

Todd Robinson - head honcho at Thug-lit

Boo Malone lost everything when he was sent to St. Gabriel's Home for Boys. There, he picked up a few key survival skills; a wee bit of an anger management problem; and his best friend for life, Junior. Now adults, Boo and Junior have a combined weight of 470 pounds (mostly Boo's), about ten grand in tattoos (mostly Junior's), and a talent for wisecracking banter. Together, they provide security for The Cellar, a Boston nightclub where the bartender Audrey doles out hugs and scoldings for her favorite misfits, and the night porter, Luke, expects them to watch their language. At last Boo has found a family.

But when Boo and Junior are hired to find Cassandra, a well-to-do runaway slumming among the authority-shy street kids, Boo sees in the girl his own long-lost younger sister. And as the case deepens with evidence that Cassie is being sexually exploited, Boo's blind desire for justice begins to push his surrogate family's loyalty to the breaking point. Cassie's life depends on Boo's determination to see the case through, but that same determination just might finally drive him and Junior apart. What's looking like an easy payday is turning into a hard bounce--for everyone.

David Hurst, Matt Haig, Derek Raymond, Duane Swierczynski, John Sandford, 

Charlie Hardie series book from Duane Swierczynski, 

Left for dead after an epic shootout that blew the lid off a billion-dollar conspiracy, ex-cop Charlie Hardie quickly realizes that when you're dealing with The Accident People, things can get worse. Drugged, bound and transported by strange operatives of unknown origin, Hardie awakens to find himself captive in a secret prison that houses the most dangerous criminals on earth.

And then things get really bad. Because this isn't just any prison. It's a Kafkaesque nightmare that comes springloaded with a brutal catch-22: Hardie's the warden. And any attempt to escape triggers a "death mechanism" that will kill everyone down here--including a group of innocent guards. Faced with an unworkable paradox, and knowing that his wife and son could be next on the Accident People's hit list, Hardie has only one choice: fight his way to the heart of this hell hole and make a deal with the Devil himself.

M. L. Eaton, Lynne Raimondo, Mike Resnick, Ed Chatterton, Karin Slaughter, 

Mike Resnick - Eli Paxton mystery,

Hired to guard a high-priced yearling of "Trojan," a recently retired classic winner in Lexington, Kentucky, Eli Paxton is only days into the job when the yearling's young groom goes missing. Asked by the boy's parents to investigate his disappearance, Paxton focuses on the Lexington breeding farm. It turns out that another staff member has disappeared in the past couple of months. As Paxton worries that the missing boys may never be found, he becomes a target himself when a secret threatens to derail the world of professional horse racing.

Tub 81 - put to bed!

HIGHLIGHTS....... I'm looking forward to trying Thomas H. Cook, Barry Maitland, Derek Raymond, Peter Robb, Max Allan Collins, Brian Freemantle among others.

LOWLIGHTS...... nothing really, though I think I've misfiled a couple of these as I'm certain the Pryor and McKinty books have recently (in the past two or three years) have been enjoyed already.

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS:

AUTHOR		TITLE	YEAR	SERIES
ALVERSON	CHARLES	NOT SLEEPING JUST DEAD	1977	JG2
CHATTERTON	ED	DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN	2013	DIFK2
COLLINS	MAX ALLAN	QUARRY'S GREATEST HITS	2003	Q6
COOK	THOMAS H.	FLESH AND BLOOD	1989	FC2
DEIGHTON	LEN	SPY STORY	1974	HP5
DISHER	GARRY	SNAPSHOT	2006	HC3
EATON	M. L.	WHEN THE CLOCKS STOPPED	2013	MM1
FREEMANTLE	BRIAN	THE INSCRUTABLE CHARLIE MUFFIN	1979	CM3
FROETSCHEL	SUSAN	FEAR OF BEAUTY	2013
HAIG	MATT	THE HUMANS	2013
HAWKEN	SAM	THE DEAD WOMEN OF JUAREZ	2011
HILL	REGINALD	RULING PASSION	1973	D+P3
HURST	DAVID	RUMOUR FUELLED SOCIETY	2000
LOCHTE	DICK	SLEEPING DOG	1985	LB+SD1
MACDONALD	ROSS	THE WAY SOME PEOPLE DIE	1951	LA3
MAITLAND	BARRY	DARK MIRROR	2009	B+K10
MAITLAND	BARRY	THE CHALON HEADS	1999	B+K4
MAITLAND	BARRY	NO TRACE	2006	B+K8
MAITLAND	BARRY	THE MALCONTENTA	1995	B+K2
MAITLAND	BARRY	THE VERGE PRACTICE	2003	B+K7
MAXIM	JOHN R.	BANNERMAN'S PROMISE	2001	B5
MAXIM	JOHN R.	THE BANNERMAN EFFECT	1990	B2
McKEON	DARRAGH	ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO AIR	2014
McKINTY	ADRIAN	THE COLD COLD GROUND	2012	SD1
MILLS	MAGNUS	THREE TO SEE THE KING	2001
MITCHELL	DAVID	CLOUD ATLAS	2004
PICCIRILLI	TOM	THE COLDEST MILE	2009	C2
PRONZINI	BILL	EPITAPHS	1992	N20
PRONZINI	BILL	SHACKLES	1988	N16
PRONZINI	BILL	JACKPOT	1990	N17
PRYOR	MARK	THE BUTTON MAN	2014	HM4
RAIMONDO	LYNN	DANTE'S POISON	2014	MA2
RANKIN	IAN	STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN'S GRAVE	2012	R18
RASH	RON	BURNING BRIGHT	2010
RAYMOND	DEREK	THE DEVIL'S HOME ON LEAVE	1985	F2
RESNICK	MIKE	THE TROJAN COLT	2013	EPM2
RIMINGTON	STELLA	CLOSE CALL	2014	LC8
ROBB	PETER	PIG'S BLOOD	1999
ROBINSON	TODD	THE HARD BOUNCE	2012
SANDFORD	JOHN	NIGHT PREY	1994	LD6
SCOTT	LEONARD B.	CHARLIE MIKE	1985
SHUBIN	SEYMOUR	REMEMBER ME ALWAYS	1994
SLAUGHTER	KARIN	COP TOWN	2014
SMITH	BRAD	ALL HAT	2013
STEWART	ROD	ROD: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY	2012
SWIERCZYNSKI	DUANE	HELL & GONE	2011	CH2
TAFOYA	DENNIS	THE WOLVES OF FAIRMOUNT PARK	2010
TYLER	W. T.	ROGUE'S MARCH	1982
YUILL	P. B.	HAZELL AND THE MENACING JESTER	1976	JHM2
ZISKIN	JAMES W.	NO STONE UNTURNED	2014	ESM2