Content tagged with “crime” under “My Library”

“I tried to read this years ago, but didn’t get too far. It’s a weirdly tough read. I picked it up in an airport on the way home from a conference and tried again. Gibson has an odd writing style. He’s done a lot of world-building, and he uses all sorts of nomenclature and jargon without much…”

“This was the first of the Fu Manchu novels. It’s over 100 years old, and I’m trying to take that into account when I discuss it. The book is written from the first person perspective of the British Dr. Petrie. On the first page, his friend Nayland Smith shows up at his house and tells him that he’s…”

“I know this is a classic, but I didn’t really enjoy it. It’s the story of an idiot who commits a murder. And when I say ‘idiot,’ that’s not flippant – he’s written that way. The character is a failed student living in Saint Petersburg in the 19th century (I think it was called ‘Petrograd’ back…”

“This is a book that describes the U.S. intelligence community so that spy novel writers can describe it more accurately. Note the subtitle: How to Write Spy Novels, TV Shows and Movies Accurately and Not Be Laughed at by Real-Life Spies The book delivers on what it says – it’s a very stark…”

“I keep buying these Murderbot books for some reason. I tend to get them on Kindle when I travel. They’re short. You can read one in 90 minutes. They remind me all the world of a primetime action show. Every episode has some self-contained story that will never come up again, and every episode moves…”

“One of my daughter’s friends left this in my car after she borrowed it to drive to a Pitbull concert in Omaha. So I read it. Five students get mysteriously pranked into serving detention together. One of them dies from an allergic reaction. Who did it? The format of the book is interesting. Each…”

“This is the second book of The Murderbot Diaries. Again, it’s a novella – only 149 pages. This picks up right after the first book. In this installment, she (1) helps a group of scientists get some research back, and (2) investigates a very bad episode from her past. In this sense, it’s like a…”

“This was recommended to me by a friend, and a Hacker News thread. It was recommended as a short work of fiction, and it is – it’s a novella, at best. ‘Murderbot’ (a name she gave herself) is a SecUnit – a cyborg security unit, hired to protected a surveying crew on a wilderness planet. Near as I…”

“Fascinating history of the Gucci family and company, from the patriarch and his humble origins as a leatherworker in rural Italy, down through the generations, including the sensational murder which was the focus of the 2021 movie, and then the current disposition of all the players and the destiny…”

“I literally picked up this book because I’ve always been intrigued by The Knowledge, which is the test of city geography that London’s black cab drivers have to pass before they get licensed. It’s considered one of the hardest tests in the world. This book has very little to do with The Knowledge….”

“Entertaining, but not the best Bond I’ve read. It involves Bond racing at Le Mans, which is new, and there’s a very interesting post-script about how this was Ian Fleming’s idea, and Horowitz used Fleming’s notes for the basis of the first part of the story. The main plot is pretty fantastical. It…”

“This is likely the definitive account of The Panama Papers – the massive data leak from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. It also covers some other sensational data leaks, like SwissLeaks and Offshore Leaks. It’s good, no doubt. But it’s confusing, and there’s no real way around that. There…”

“This is a story of a bunch of hacks, which the author has strung together. The claim is that NotPetya, WannaCry, the Korean Olympic hack, etc. were all the work of the same organization – a Russian GRU hacking group nicknamed ‘Sandworm’ (the name came from the book ‘Dune,’ from which there were…”

“This is compelling book in a weird format. It’s about two things: (1) the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and (2) a serial killer at work in the city during that time. The two stories are weirdly separate. The killer visits the fair, but doesn’t commit any murders there, so the…”

“I enjoy Suarez – I’ve been reading him since ‘Daemon,’ which was so good. He has a great ability to envision how technologies we deal with today would be manifested in extremes down the road. The visions of the future that he puts together are scarily realistic. You’re reading it and thinking,…”

“I’ve become a little obsessed with the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist lately, after listening to the ‘Last Seen ‘podcast. This book is by the definitive reporter to cover the crime – he’s been reporting on it, on and off, for 25 years. Sadly, the book is scattered. It’s not a…”

“I had just seen the movie, so I knew what the big plot twist was. In that sense, I was reading it less for the story, and more to get a feel for how Christie wrote. Turns out, she writes well – very clear, with a minimum of fluff. And perhaps unsurprising given the context of her hero, there’s…”

“Another book that I read for a women’s book club that I’m not actually in, but am following along with. Nothing I would ever choose to read myself, which made it that much better. It’s a wonderful, fast-paced mystery involving a family’s sordid past and a podcast (a thinly-veiled version of…”