The Tower by Simon Toyne
When I picked this up I did not know it was actually the third in a trilogy after ‘Sanctus’ and ‘The Key’. I read it and enjoyed this slightly odd Dan Brown knockoff. Though I have no interest in reading books 1&2.
A man named Gabriel suffers from a plague in an ancient city. A woman named Liv has to make a desert oasis her new home. And in the far more interesting story arc, rookie FBI Agent Joe Shepherd investigates sabotage at NASA and a conspiracy to do with the coming End Of Days. It all comes together in the end in this good if bizarre book.
Best Lines:
“We hear them screaming each time you abandon them.”
“She found me in the stinking basement of a building in Detroit along with an assortment of junkies, winos and methheads. I was only on the booze, which in some ways is even more pathetic. I wasn’t even a proper washout.”
~
A Stroke Of Midnight by Laurell K Hamilton
From 2005, comes this 4th entry in the ‘Merry Gentry’ series. This has the usual clumsy writing, endless descriptions of clothes and guns and deaths in the sithen. Add in joyless sex, characters named Ivi and Hawthorne and this was abysmal.
Best Line:
“I was dressed in Christmas, Yule, red and green.”
~
A Lick Of Frost by Laurell K Hamilton
From 2007, comes this 6th entry in the sinfully bad ‘Merry Gentry’ series. This has ridiculous plot contrivances, a character named Crystall, the crazy evil Queen being crazy and evil and the perv uncle being pervy. Merry finally is pregnant and was terrible.
Best Line:
“I had won the race to sit on the throne of the Unseelie Court and it was bitter ashes on my tongue.”
~
Precinct 13 by Tate Hallaway
Alex Connor lands a job as a coroner in South Dakota. It is all part of her plan to make a new life for herself after unpleasantness in the past. But during an autopsy, the body gets up and walks out.
This starts out promisingly but turns into dreck as all the characters are stupid, oblivious to the obvious and are incompetent morons. This was a real disappointment.
Best Lines:
“He grabbed his liver from where I had left it in the scale.”
“I am perfectly fine these days and haven’t seen a fairy in months.”
“If there was a bar fight on any given night, it seemed my friend here had been pulled out of it.”