With all the upsets last weekend, my NCAA brackets have now found the shredder.
But Janet Evanovich's Sizzling Sixteen didn't. We recently went on another madcap adventure with Stephanie Plum, Lulu, Grandma Mazur and her two on again off again lovers, Ranger and Marino as they search for the next big bounty.
One for the Money, Evanovich's first book, is currently in theaters starring Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy fame.
Now, I haven't seen the movie but based on the Sixteen that I've read of Evanovich's, I think theses books would be better suited for a TV series, with each book being a weekly episode. What do you think?
Looking for a light, hysterical read? Pick up Evanovich and follow Stephanie Plum through the streets of New Jersey, as she hunts bounty, shares donuts with Lulu, burns cars and torches her love affairs.
Oh and by the way, good luck with this weekends Sweet Sixteen!!
I have a bone to pick with someone. Time is flying, January was here, February and now March is almost over. Wasn't it just the holidays?
Having a bone to pick with someone is something Temperance Brennan might say. Temp, a forensic anthropologist, is Kathy Reich's character in a series of mysteries and the basis for the TV show, Bones.
With the first two editions now buried ( Deja Dead and Death Du Jour ), the next 12 in the series I hope to uncover by the end of 2012. That is if the remaining nine months of the year doesn't go way of February where I only bagged two books, James Patterson's Private Games and Reichs' Death Du Jour
With my quest to read every book ever published, March is for Myron, as in Myron Bolitar, sports agent, lawyer and investigator of Harlen Coben's. Coben mixes in sports in each of Myron's adventures. In Deal Breaker: The First Myron Bolitar Novel , it was basketball, Drop Shot was tennis, back to basketball in Fade Away; and now golf in Back Spin which I'm currently reading. Myron a basketball phenom out of college, found his dream shattered with bone crunching knee injury. Nothing to do, so he set out into the world of sports management. Toss in murder investigator and Myron is far from bored and neither is the reader.
No matter what ball it is that bounces, Bolitar along with his "caped" crusader, Windsor "Win" Horne Lockwood III and trusty, sassy, former wrestler now secretary Esperenza, keep the reader juggling in these classic who-done-its. If you're a sports fan, the Myron Bolitar series is highly recommended.
If bouncing, dribbling, lobbing, spinning, putting or shooting a ball isn't in your book bag, pick up Coben's stand alone books: They have the intensity like none other - from the first word to the last!
Although the PGA golf tour started in January, a month of Woods refers to the man who holds a pen and not a club.
As one series ends another starts. Life goes on while others don't. The ending of the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker not only coincided with the end of 2011, but the finality of the series left me at a crossroad. Should I continue to read it now that Parker has passed away? How does one write in the after life? Au contrair, Parkers estate has allowed Ace Atkins permission to continue to the series. So, I'll anxiously await the next one due out in May called, Robert B. Parker's Lullaby.
In the meantime, I was in search of a new character. The greatest thing that I've discovered in reading fiction and sometimes non-fiction, is depending how its written, you can escape into the world of that character.
So for the month of January ( yea, I'm alittle behind on this post)...Meet Stone Barrington, an ex NYPD cop turned attorney turned investigator.
Elaine's , yes the famous eatery in Manhattan; put to lyrics and melody in Billy Joel's Big Shot.
Those are Stone's trusted friends, places, vices and lustings.
The Barrington series starts off with the death of a TV News anchor in New York Dead. Followed by Dirt , a novel about slanderous rags we find on the news paper stand at the grocery checkout counter. Dirt ranks right up there with Rupert Murdoch's hacking scandal at the News of the World.
Dirt, which you find when you scuff a golf ball on the fairway and or hit it fat and right into the water leads us directly there - - Dead in the Water. Barrington's next adventure as he awaits for his soon to be fiance in a castaway island resort only to find another bathing beauty sailing to shore.
Coastal travels plays into Barrington's repertoire as he finds himself in L.A. Dead and Cold Paradise.
Then in The Short Forever, which can also be construed as a three foot putt that must go in, Stone takes his talents to London.
We closed out the month of January with Dirty Work which is Woods best and boldest effort thus far as the 9th in the 23 book series. The other Woods although he's playing a little better in recent tournaments he has yet to regain is pre-scandal form( now he's "injured"). Perhaps his own past Dirty Work is still effecting this game?!
Now, you may agree or disagree with his political views and you may agree or disagree with Al Franken's as well, but given Rush Limbaugh's last flub of the lips, Franken may have been correct back in 1996 when he penned his book, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. Now, Rush, by calling Sandra Fluke, a 'slut' or 'prostitute' what then does that make you? On the other hand, Mr. Franken tosses a softer volley by calling Rush a big fat idiot. Which is worse? I suspect the moniker spewed by Rush. But that's only an observation and not a judgement.
