Thursday, September 25, 2014

Michael Robotham and others...I read in summer 2014



My colleague and friend introduced me  another nice author, previously unknown to me... Michael Robotham.
I just finished reading two of his books i.e. The night ferry and Watching you. Enjoyed both.
Ordering other books by  this author and hope the other books are as thrilling as these two.  The night ferry is a thriller told in first person by a Sikh lady born and brought up in England and working in the police force. It tickles me to think that a male, non-Asian person wrote this!

Watching you is a thriller with a psychologist in it and as I am in the mental health field, I was sort of curious.

I hope I have a great summer with lots of great books to read! I am currently enjoying the TV show, Psych. My husband who usually refuses to see TV is also hooked to this and we see about 2 epidodes per day. I love this show! It is fun, not at all serious, the guys Shawn and Gus and all of the cast are fun. We do miss the shows we were watching and all of which have stopped now and will hopefully restart in fall. The shows we are hooked to and not airing now are Homeland, White collar, Justified, True detective, Republic of Doyle, House of cards, NCIS, NCIS Los Angles and God knows what else...I can remember only these now.

One of my dreams if I win a lottery ticket is to buy the dvds of all my favorite shows and give it to my friends in India who have no access to these shows. I would LOVE to do that! I want my friends, especially those who are having problems with their husbands to watch the shows such as Good wife, The Closer, etc...I feel it would empower them at least to some extent and make them stand up for themselves, more than they are doing now. I also think/hope that these shows would change the mind set of the people who continue to think that Indian culture is great, that women should obey their husbands, that family is the most important thing for a woman and that women sacrificing themselves is the only right way.
Surfing on Netflix I discovered a funny enjoyable , old show called The job...it is about a police Precinct in New York city and it's not serious and I feels relaxed watching this...I love the characters, and the fact that things were so easy -going and less grim or less criminal  in those days..or at least in this show.


A few of the other books I enjoyed in Summer of 2014:
Maximum city by Suketu Mehta This is a must read for people who want to understand the 'Real' India !


Lachlan Smith's Bear is broken and Lion plays rough...both are set in San Fransisco, are the first two books by this writer and is crime fiction and about Criminal Lawyers...What I liked about this book is that it is realistic.


Sara Paretsky's  Warshawski series about a female P I in Chicago  I liked these books but found some of them a bit slow... I was surprised to get a Detroit feel about the book (the poverty and crime made me think of Detroit). I liked it because it was realistic(I am over-using this word but cannot think of a different one!), and loved the fact that it is a female P.I...I have only seen male P.Is till now.
Loyalty by Ingird Thoft...this too has a female private investigator
The magician's accomplice by Michael Genelin...this is the first crime fiction set in Slovakia that I am reading. I really like it as it's fast paced, easy to read, believable characters. I  have already booked books by the same author, to read when I am done with this one.
One great non-fiction book, really well written is Human Traffic and Transnational Crime edited by Sally Stoecker & Louise Shelly.


Linwood Barclay's A tap on the window....I love most of his books as they are fast paced.


 And one more thing...Either because I am aging or because today's crime fiction is different I have observed one thing about myself. I  remember the plots clearly of the books I read 10-30 years ago. But the books I read today... i.e. modern crime fiction, I enjoy them as they are quick paced, well written and have characters I can identify with or like... but I  forget the book completely within a few days after finishing them! I am trying to figure out why.


The books I read ages ago but remember very well are all the classics, and  books by James Herriot, A.J.Cronin, Georgette Heyer, Dick Francis, etc and crime fiction by authors like James Hadley Chase, Alistair Maclean, Lawrence Sanders, Earle Stanley Gardner, etc


The books I read today but forget completely include those by Linwood Barclay, Harlan Coban, to name two. The books I have read recently but remember are books by Martin Cruz Smith, Stuart.M.Kaminsky's Rostinkov and Liberman series, Tom Rob Smith's trilogy, to name a few.
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books read in fall of 2014:
Random Violence by Jassy Mackenzie : female PI, set in South Africa (My first book with the story set in South Africa). It is very violent (I don't like this amount or this kind of violence) but the writing is fast paced and I would have enjoyed it more if the violence was a bit less
I have borrowed another book by this author but still to start i.e. Pale Horses







I will never go to Bombey Bhel at Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada ever again! It's an expensive rip off, serving sub-par tasting food!

 Today, October 14, 2023 I got chicken vindaloo paying 22$...All I got was 2 small pieces of chicken, 3 pieces of potato....and. very averag...