Winner of Wednesday's Book Review Link-up

     *all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews!

Be sure to check out Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

Spotlights from Around the Web - Book Edition

This is a round up of some bookish internet spotlights.

Enjoy!

1. Melville House: Writers in Underpants

On a recent afternoon, in the middle of some research for an upcoming book, I fell down a Google rabbit hole and landed on a Polish blog post with the delightful title (according to Google Translate) “Writers in underpants.” You might expect to find Ernest Hemingway or Truman Capote in such a gallery, but who knew there were shirtless photos of Franz Kafka? Or Melville House author Imre Kertész? What other surprises could be found out there?

2.  What Should I Read Next?

Enter a book you like and the site will analyse our huge database of real readers' favorite books to provide book recommendations and suggestions for what to read next.

3.  Anybody else feel this way?

4.  Quick and Clever Halloween Centerpieces, BHG.

Have a great weekend!

Beachbrights

(guest blogger)

#Book Review Link-up Starts Now!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list.

-CYM

A Classic Thriller Review by Guest Blogger David Bischoff

SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR 
By James Grady

Back in the Watergate Era, a novel came out that was snapped up by Hollywood even before it became a bestseller.

This was James Grady’s SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR. Starring Robert Redford, the movie’s title was condensed to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, since the screenplay gave it a different time span, presumably for artistic purposes.  Today, in the era of 24 and that TV thriller’s vital ingredient, cell-phones,  no doubt it would be called simply DAY OF THE CONDOR.

Anyway, SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR is a great thriller. It’s no wonder Hollywood pounced on it.   The concept is so high, it makes the reader dizzy.  

Suppose there’s this branch of the CIA in a non-descript building near Capital Hill.   An innocuous office, it does what most of the CIA does -- collect routine information.   But also suppose that an office worker there gets a little nosy about some strange shipments from the Far East and makes a report that may blow the cover of  a rotten section of the CIA.  What should the bad guys do to get rid of the office worker without calling attention to what he might have discovered? Why, slaughter the entire staff of the office building and make it look like some kind of outside enemy action, that’s what. However, a mistake is made.  

A CIA operative named Ronald Malcolm, whose specialty is analysis of  methodologies of murder mysteries  (he’s been working on Agatha Christie and locked-room moysteries lately), happens to have left for an early lunch and the killers forget to count who they’ve killed and leave before he returns.

When Malcolm returns to this scene of carnage, he immediately knows he must be a target.  He goes into hiding.   But when he calls in to CIA headquarters in  Langley, Virginia,  who answers but one of the bad CIA agents. “Meet us at the Circle Theaters in Georgetown,” say the bad agent.  “And we’ll bring you in safely.” Safely dead, of course. The rest of the book, naturally, is a grand cat and mouse chase as Malcolm seeks the answer to this mystery. Who are the bad CIA guys? Why did they kill his co-workers and friends? He meets a girl who helps him, he runs around a lot, there’s plenty of twists and turns and surprises. And a very nasty but satisfying end. And wait -- this is the best part.  All of this happens in less than 200 pages! 

This book harkens back to the day of shorter thrillers and it achieves its compression through technique and style and a remarkable omniscient narrative that has just enough background information on CIA operations and Washington DC to make it vivid and believable.  Still, this tight thriller is mostly action, bloody fun and the sense of growing evil inside a soulless bureaucracy of amoral killers masquerading as patriots.

How does it do this so well? The ink well that James Grady dipped his quill into was different than our modern collective pool.   His ink is soaked with character sketches, a way with words -- and above all a rich sense of irony that suspense short stories could contain in the mid 20^th Century; irony in the tradition of Guy de Maupassant, Saki,  and Somerset Maugham.  But, and above all, Grady was obviously aware of the classic thriller writer of that day, Graham Greene. Mind you, James Grady is no Graham Greene.   This novel tilts more into perverse MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E territory than OUR MAN IN HAVANA land.  But with the right sense of history and an appreciation for quick efficient reads, this is really a good book and should be reprinted.

Perhaps with a forward by President George Non-W Bush, a CIA honcho himself back in the 70’s.

-David Bischoff

Books by David Bischoff

Bio on David Bischoff

Winner of Wednesday's Book Review Link-up!

    *all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to The Calico Critic!




Be sure to check out The Calico Critic and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

#Facebook #Friday {Get Ready!}

FACEBOOK

FRIDAY

All day Fridays, I will be randomly giving away books on Facebook.

Make sure we are friends.

www.facebook.com/cymlowell

I just love Giveaways!!

-CYM

#Book Review Link-up Starts NOW!!!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list.

-CYM

#Book Review: A Lonely Death by Charles Todd

A Lonely Death
by Charles Todd
(Wm Morrow, HarperCollins 2011)

Have you ever wanted to seek revenge for long ago traumas? Do you hear a voice in your head at crucial times?

Ian Rutledge is an investigator for Scotland Yard just after the end of World War II. In a small town in the Sussex countryside, a series of murders occurs disturbing the tranquility of the community. There is no apparent connection between the deaths of the young men, gruesomely dispatched with a garrote while alone and helpless. There is also a longstanding mystery concerning a death at Stonehedge during a Druid ceremony.

Rutledge must sort through the lives of the deceased, each of whom had served for the Brits in the trenches of France during the war. There are a collage of relationships and possibilities. Old romances, family secrets, family members who had disappeared, potential romance, and threats galore keep the pages turning of this the 13th Ian Rutledge mystery.

Charles Todd develops the characters with patience and skill. So vibrant is the explanation, that the reading of the well crafted words felt like watching the mystery unfold in front of me. The voice in Ian’s head is a charming element of the story. Each time it spoke, I imagined the voices I hear sometimes, usually with a cautionary message. If you have not become a fan of these fine stories, put one on your list.

Warms, Cym

AMAZON

Winner of Wednesday's Book Review Party

    *all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer!



Be sure to check out Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

#Facebook Friday Giveaway Starts Now!!

FACEBOOK

FRIDAY

starts

NOW!

All day Today, I will be randomly giving away books on Facebook.

Make sure we are friends.

www.facebook.com/cymlowell

I just love Giveaways!!

-CYM

#Book Review Link-up Party Starts Now!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list.

-CYM

Ratking by Michael Dibdin #BookReview

Ratking
by Michael Dibdin
(Faber & Faber Ltd. 1988)

One of the pleasures of reading broadly is that we come across all sorts of books, from a variety of time periods. Some friends are always on top of the current best seller list. Others are eclectic with their own tastes and specialties.

A dear English friend and long-time colleague loves British mysteries written by authors of a slightly earlier age. His favorite is Michael Dibdin, now deceased who wrote mystery series in the 1980s and 1990s. He is now deceased and ended his life living in the Seattle area.

Ratking is an Inspector Zen Mystery, part of a long-running series and U.K. TV series. The story takes place in central Italy close to one of my favorite cities, Sienna. There has been a kidnapping of a wealthy industrialist. Zen was disgraced by an alleged flaw in a case a few years earlier, resulting his being side-lined to desk duties in Rome. He is assigned to this case, traveling to the local community where he is hardly welcomed with open arms.

The victim’s family is a collage of rich, spoiled people, each with his or her own peculiarities. The group makes for an interesting story.

The ransom is finally paid. The victim is murdered. As the body is found by a family member, the kidnappers are apprehended. They got the money but claim that they did not execute the helpless man. 

Who did it? A spoiled child? One of the in-laws obviously joining the family to improve their own future. Or a longtime employee?

Zen is an interesting character, framed with an enjoyable English perspective. The same iconic style is used to identify the proclivities of the victim’s spoiled family, including a son who develops an interesting use for toilets not connected to a drain (worthy of a new Fifty Shades of Grey story).

I enjoyed this story told in a different voice than current U.S. mystery writers. I also enjoyed the Italian settings and people. We all love to be in Italy. Zen has a girl friend. The story could have used a dose of spice from this relationship.

My friend gave me one more in the series, which I will read with expectation.

Warms, Cym

AMAZON

Winner of Wednesday's Book Review Party

    *all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Silver's Reviews!



Be sure to check out Silver's Reviews and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

#Facebook Friday Giveaways Starts NOW!

FACEBOOK

FRIDAY

starts

NOW!

All day Today, I will be randomly giving away books on Facebook.

Make sure we are friends.

www.facebook.com/cymlowell

I just love Giveaways!!

-CYM

#Book Review Link-up Party Starts NOW!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list.

-CYM

ThrillerFest 2012

We attended the International Thriller Writers’ Association ThrillerFest in New York City again this year (11 to 14 July 2012).  ITW is designed to serve the full spectrum interest in thrillers, including avid fans, aspiring writers, bloggers, and world famous best selling authors.

The program is divided into three parts: 
(i) CraftFest (intended to teach the craft of thriller writing); 
(ii) AgentFest (intended to bring together agents or publisher editors in search of new clients or manuscripts); and 
(iii) ThrillerFest (intended to address the current range of issues for thriller writers, including interviews with our famous members and presentation of awards at the Saturday night banquet. 

The ThrillerFest part of the program is, in essence, the trade association meeting for thriller and mystery writers. It is an extravaganza. Whether you are an experienced writer (like David Morrell, Steve Berry, or Sandra Brown), an aspiring writer (like me), or just a faithful fan, the experience of ThrillerFest is exhilarating. For many years, it has taken place at the Grand Hyatt in the center of New York City.

The program is composed of skill sessions, with the best writers in the business offering their thoughts on specific topics, ranging from, say, the use of erotica in a thriller to social media promotion. There were a series of interviews with justly famous writers, awards, banquets, and cocktail parties (never a shortage of alcohol to facilitate active discussions).

Your favorite writers are present to visit, sign books, or pose for pictures, as did Sandra Brown with my precious wife.

One of my favorite elements is the Saturday morning breakfast, where new authors are introduced to ITW. These authors have had books published by traditional publishers during the previous year. Each year, the table grows. There were about 20 this year, ranging from young people in their early 20s to old folks like me (age 66). I hope to be there one of these years.

The Saturday night banquet is the final act each year, with Thriller Master awards distributed, lots of books at every table, a joyful dinner, table conversation, and, as always, lots of wine.

If you enjoy the thriller world in any capacity, come visit in 2013.

Warms, Cym

Winner of Wednesday's #Book Review Party

    *all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *
I promise!

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to 2 Many Good Books, 2 Little Time!



Be sure to check out 2 Many Good Books, 2 Little Time and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM