Finished (E-Reader) - "End of Watch" - Stephen King

I used to read Stephen King, as fast as I got the cash together to buy second-hand copies of his books while I was in high school.  Lately, I've read some of his newer books (e.g. "22/11/63").

His newer books, compared to my "king memory" are less horror books and more novels that have an odd twist to them - no killer dogs or evil clowns.

#3 - Bill Hodges Trilogy

"End of Watch" is the third (and final) book of the Bill Hodges trilogy.  The basic storyline is of a young man who is fascinated with pushing other people into suicide - he runs a car through a crowd of people, killing several, and then plays a sadistic game of taunting the owner of the car used in the killing until she commits suicide ("Mr. Mercedes").  He also plans to commit suicide at a concert and take as many with him as he can ("Finders Keepers").  The end of that story results in him becoming brain damaged and comatose for a number of years.

#1 - Bill Hodges Trilogy

End of Watch has him discovering that he can inhabit people, even though his own body is damaged.  He uses this "power" to, again, coerce suicides, and plans to complete, or continue his mass murder plan from book 2.

#2 Bill Hodges Trilogy

All in all, each story stands alone, and enough reflection is provided to allow non-sequential reading of the stories.  All three books were fast and interesting reads, though maybe not as haunting as I recall his older works (though I was also much younger at that time).

Finished (E-Reader) - "Duty and Honour" - Grant Blackwood

I have been a fan of Tom Clancy for many years, particularly the mainline Jack Ryan stories (e.g. Cardinal of the Kremlin, Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games...).  However, as Tom Clancy has died, Grant Blackwood has taken over the writing of the Jack Ryan books.

I must say that I look forward to reading this series, but have been somewhat disappointed that the depth of the stories seems lacking in the Blackwood versions over the prior Clancys.  What I liked about the Clancy books was that they'd take you "behind the scenes" and you'd get a feeling of understanding what the world looks like from an undercover CIA operative, or a retired special forces guy working for an undercover spy agency.
The Blackwood "Ryan" books seem to lack that level of depth, and move more toward a simple villain chasing story with lots of "Hardy Boys" level of lucky escapes ("Good think the gun jammed, or I'd have had it").

I was also able to run through the book pretty quickly, which removed some of the pleasure of "living with" the characters for a while.

This won't stop me from reading the next one though.

Finished (E-Reader): "Thurderstruck" by Erik Larson

It seems like forever since I took the time to read a book (I must have missed some on this blog).

I read another Larson book - "Thunderstruck".  I've liked Larson's books - a novel-like telling of historical events, mixing a few together.  "Devil in the White City" covered a series of murders in Chicago along with the World's Fair being planned to showcase the coming of age of Chicago.

Thunderstruck covers a murder-mystery in London, and the history of wireless communication (the Marconi story) at the turn of the last century.  Larson does a good job of reminding us of what "magic" wireless communication actually is - hard to remember in the WIFI and Bluetooth generation.

What was astounding to me was how Marconi did so much without having a clue as to the physics of radio communication.  His trials, all very public, worked but almost by chance and by golly.  As the experimental evidence accumulated, he found that there were much cheaper and reliable methods than what he was trying (huge, powerful and dangerous transmitters).

The murder mystery follows a meek doctor and his overbearing wanna-be actress wife across a couple of continents.