I’ve just read “Tom Clancy’s Under Fire” by Grant Blackwood. Jack Ryan Junior meets up with an old friend for lunch and gets dragged into an attempted coup. A decent enough story, these are based on many of the same characters that Tom Clancy wrote about in books such as “Rainbow Six” and continued after his death. It’s been a long time since I read an original Clancy, but I didn’t feel that this was a poor relation.
Do you mean someone is writing under his name?
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Because they’re using his characters and trying to tell stories in his style, they’re publishing them under his name, but it shows another author. Like this:
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As Dave said, the book titles seem to start with “Tom Clancy’s” to highlight that they’re characters he developed. Arguably his name is as big on the cover as the actual author, at least on the two I’ve recently read, but I don’t think it’s an attempt to fool anyone.
In some cases I think these authors were collaborating with Tom prior to his death. I’ve noticed I’ve got some later Clive Cussler books that were written after his death, and they’re the same kind of arrangement.
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I’ve just finished “Past Lying” by Val McDermid. Featuring DCI Karen Pirie and the historic case unit, a manuscript from a deceased author’s archive seems to have some disturbing parallels to a real missing persons case, and the team need to figure whether it helps them to solve the disappearance of a young girl. Set in the first lockdown period, it’s a good story, I always enjoy these.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
I’ve just finished “Grave’s End” by William Shaw. The body of a man is found in a freezer at an empty house, and suspicion is on the backers of a new housing development as he was a vocal protestor. Things escalate and start to involve some more important players. A decent story, I don’t think I’ve read any by this author before.
Good interview to Josh Grisham, about the decline of people reading books in America, 40% since 2003. And his opinion about it. Also talk about his latest book and other goodies.
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0mjb83d/john-grisham-on-why-he-still-writes-as-trends-shift
In my opinion I thik is bad that we read less books being fiction or not fiction. Reading allow to immerse in your own way into the story. I don’t know why I have never seen a movie that is better than the book that it is based.
What do you think?
A man came to fix my cooker the other day, commented on the piles of books I have around, and confessed that he has never read a novel, his attention span is not long enough to sit through many hours of a book when he can see the film in a couple of hours. I can’t imagine not reading books, but then when I was growing up, there wasn’t any real “on demand” viewing - even watching a film on a video player at home was very new, VHS tapes of new movies used to be very expensive. So, if I wanted to entertain myself on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I’d raid my Dad’s pile of Clive Cussler / Tom Clancy / Wilbur Smith and the habit has stuck. Now there are so many other ways to be entertained, I’m not surprised reading is declining.
At Christmas time in my wife’s family, each year we organized a Secret Santa. A few years back, I started to buy a book, hoping to raise some interest in reading.
Neither am I.
I am a huge fan of reading in different ways. I used to enjoy reading monthly or weekly magazines about different topics. I remember the feeling of going to the newsagents’ each week or month, wondering what the topic would be, and leafing through my copy. I still have a lot of them stored somewhere, coming back from the 80s.
When I go back to my home country, Switzerland, I remember having grabbed my luggage at the airport, sprinting to the local newspaper agency, and buying a whole bunch of mags to read on the train on the way to my folks. Each year that passes, the number of available decent magazines has gone dramatically down.
Although I reckon that living now in a remote area and being able to read books online is great, I still prefer reading in print. Nothing beats that feeling.
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I’ve just read “Lost Souls” by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman. A deputy coroner is called in when the remains of a baby are found during some excavation work, and he attempts to discover who the child was, and why it was buried in that location. A wealthy man approaches him to attempt to trace his sister who went missing decades previously, and the two tales interlink. A good read, I’ve always enjoyed Jonathan Kellerman books though I’ve never read one that was co-written with his son.
I’ve recently finished “Northanger Abbey” by Val McDermid. I usually enjoy her stuff, but this was quite poor by comparison - a girl from a small town is taken as a guest to the Edinburgh Festival, meets some people, some are nicer than others, goes to a creepy mansion with some of them, then goes home. Nothing really happens. The sleeve notes mention it being a Jane Austen-style story, I didn’t realise that’s quite what it meant. I’ll read them a bit better next time.
I’ve just read “A Killing Mind” by Luke Delaney. A dead body is found with similar injuries to one from a couple of weeks before, leading DCI Sean Corrigan to think that there may be a serial killer at work, who then contacts Corrigan to taunt him about his inability to catch him. A decent enough story, the “tortured detective” is a bit too much sometimes but I’d read another.
I’ve recently read a couple of books.
First was “The Thirst” by Jo Nesbo. A woman is found dead with her throat ripped out and some blood missing, and detective Harry Hole is brought back in from his teaching post to assemble a team to track down the killer as they strike again. A decent story, I’ve read a few by this author.
Next was “The first 48 hours” by Simon Kernick. A group of kidnappers are taking people for ransom, but they’ve got away with it so far as they insist on no police contact and always return the victim unharmed once the ransom is paid. But when something goes wrong and a boy is killed, the Anti-Kidnap Unit are in the spotlight and the plot gets more complicated. Very much enjoyed this as I have with most Simon Kernick books.
what a read book and many lessons can apply in real life
I’ve just finished “The Ice” by Laline Paull. A body is discovered in a melting Arctic Circle as a cruise liner is trying to find a polar bear, and it turns out to be that of a man who was lost in a cave-in several years before. Told in the context of the inquest into the man’s death it turns out that the accident was not as clean-cut as it first appeared. A decent story.
For once, it was an actual book that I purchased on my last trip to my home country. And it wasn’t the one I wanted to read: I remember having read the synopsis before buying it, and it doesn’t match the story I read. I must have put down the copy I had in hand and grabbed another one. Anyway, it was a very nice reading that I enjoyed; it’s called “Veiller sur elle”; it’s about a sculptor named “Mimo” Vitaliani, from his childhood to his deathbed, his relationship with Viola Orsini, the daughter of an aristocratic family, and his links to Mussolini’s government. Most of the story happens between the end of the First World War and just after the end of the Second World War, when an earthquake destroyed the village where Mimo was living. An English translation exists under the name of Watching Over Her, and it seems a movie is being planned.
I’ve just read “The Postscript Murders” by Elly Griffiths. An old lady is found dead, and everyone presumes that it was just old age until her carer and a couple of friends start to have doubts, and one of her friends is murdered. A decent story, quite different to the Ruth Galloway novels that I’m used to from this author, quite a bit of humour, I enjoyed it.
I’ve just read “Tom Clancy’s Duty and Honour” by Grant Blackwood. Jack Ryan junior survives two attempts on his life and decides to get to the root of the threat, but he’s on sabbatical from the secret agency that he normally works for, and doesn’t want to involve the various people he can call on from his position as son of the US President. A decent enough story, but I think the absence of any of the other usual characters from this series leaves it a bit lacking. I haven’t read the books in sequence so I don’t know why he’s on sabbatical and whether that mattered much. This is another continuation story which uses characters first created by the late Tom Clancy, and is written by one of the authors who co-wrote some of his later books.
I’ve read a couple by Quintin Jardine recently, with a bit more time to read because of the poor weather.
First, “Unnatural Justice”. Actor Oz Blackstone finds himself helping his father out with a spot of blackmail at the same time as trying to help his wife to fight an unwelcome takeover bid for the construction company that she runs.
Second, “Fallen Gods”. Cop Bob Skinner finds that his estranged brother has been killed when his body washes up during a flood, and when the local police don’t have the time to investigate decides to look into it himself, while the rest of the team look into an arson attack on a religious artwork, Bob also has to prove himself fit to return to work after a health scare and help his wife deal with the sudden loss of her parents in a different country.
Both enjoyable books, I’ve read plenty by this author before and they’re always entertaining. On the first one, there is quite a bit of background scene-setting in the first few paragraphs to make me wonder if it was ever going to get on with the new events, but it caught up in the end.