Amy’s August 2022 Picks and Pans

  I spent much of August traveling, so I am a trifle embarrassed by my monthly total. It was an interesting month of reading; no 5-stars books, and more 3-stars novels than is typical. Maybe it was a post-vacation let-down? Still, I suspect every reader will find something to add to his or her TBR list here. My blog will have a major renovation later this fall. First, it will have a new name: “Gourmet Bookworm” to highlight my two favorite pastimes… cooking and reading. The format will also change. Not only will I be reviewing the books I read each month, but some posts will also include author interviews […]

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Total Power Book Review

Total Power is my 19th installment in the CIA super-agent Mitch Rapp series created by fellow Minnesotan Vince Flynn. Since Flynn’s untimely death in 2013 of prostate cancer, author Kyle Mills has taken the helm. The Mitch Rapp saga isn’t as good, but these thrillers still have great storylines and are fun to read. In Total Power, Mitch captures ISIS’s top technology expert while he is on his way to meet a man who claims he can take down the American power grid. Despite the Agency’s best efforts, the terrorist accomplishes that very thing; computers and communication networks crash, fuel doesn’t flow from gas stations, water and sanitation systems are […]

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October Reads: a Little Bit of Everything

The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich “Patrice had come to think that humans treated the concept of God, or Gizhe Manidoo, or the Holy Ghost, in a childish way. She was pretty sure that the rules and trappings of ritual had nothing to do with God, that they were ways for people to imagine they were doing things right in order to escape from punishment, or harm, like children. She had felt the movement of something vaster, impersonal yet personal in her life. She thought that maybe people in contact with that nameless greatness had a way of catching at the edges, a way of being pulled along or even entering […]

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18 Books Later, Mitch Rapp is Still a Badass

I love escaping into a good spy thriller, and #18 in the Mitch Rapp series transported me to the Middle East, Mexico, and Washington DC to watch the world’s most deadly good guy lick terrorists, drug cartels, and corrupt politicians. Lethal Agent (a brilliant double entendre) has pulse-pounding action, and a delightfully intertwined plot and I cheered on a brutal killer as he thwarted evildoers. If you enjoy audio books, narrator George Guidall is one of the best in the business. 4 stars.

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