Like any novel, it starts of with its list of characters. As the story evolves, most of the them are killed off. It makes a compact story with few characters remaining at the end. It goes back and forth between two time periods: the 60's and the present. I thought it would be an exciting story but it just seemed to drag on. There were boring parts that seemed to have no end. Don't think I'll be reading any more in this series.
This is the second in "The Hakenlye" series. It has an exciting opening giving you an anticipation of what is to come. But it is light reading, silly at times. Perhaps the author, on realizing this, decided to spice up the story with sex scenes, the worse being a gang rape. She also is trying to push the nun into something sexual. Not a way to make the book interesting. Gave it three stars.
Not all scam criminals are stupid, contrary to what some law enforcement and newscasters tell us. Take for example telephone scam artists. Some have put a lot of thought into this and over the years have become quite successful. They have a good idea who will fall into their trap, the naïve and elderly. I received a phone call yesterday at 6:20 AM. A woman said she was from VISA and was calling to check on two charges to my card. If I wanted to question these charges, press two. I did. A man with an Indian accent answered the phone. I was hardly surprised. Yes, he could help me. All I had to do was give him my credit card number. I laughed and hung up the phone.
This is a collection of 20 short stories, three of them Banks stories and one of them a novella. Some of the stories were good and a few were better. The story I liked the best was 'Carrion'. Took me in, hook, line and sinker. The novella I had read as a stand alone story and it was also included in another short story collection. Gave it three stars.
This is the first in the Inspector Frost detective series. It is the story of a missing child. I have read a number of detective series and was looking forward to a new one, but that will not happen with this series. I didn't get very far into the book because i disliked the dialogue. Found it ridiculous. Gave it two stars.
"When Eight Bells Toll" is a spy novel. It is characteristic of that genre written in the 50's. If you replaced the main character Calvert with James Bond, you would get a similar take on the book. It involves piracy on the coast of Scotland with the Secret Service to the rescue. The first part reminds me of the opening of a Bond film, instant excitement before the credits start rolling. Although the action was fairly fast paced, I was not too excited about the ending. The explanation for the sequences of events was long drawn out and tiring. Four stars for me.
