Author Archives: bseat

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

Posted on August 14, 2015 by bseat

Life on a farm in Iowa from 1920 to 1953 wouldn’t seem like a great topic for the first of three novels, but Jane Smiley proves that memorable characters, a deep understanding and appreciation for the rhythms and values of … Continue reading →

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Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon

Posted on August 7, 2015 by bseat

Alex Meier has made a devil’s bargain. In exchange for making the McCarthy Committee’s investigations into his youthful fling with communism before World War II go away, the CIA wants him to return to Berlin and act as their spy. … Continue reading →

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Friday Nights by Joanna Trollope

Posted on July 31, 2015 by bseat

Eleanor is retired and noticing her own loneliness, now that she is cut off from the normal social interchanges she had while going to the office. Over several days,while drinking her tea and looking out the window, she notices that … Continue reading →

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Heresy by S. J. Parris

Posted on July 24, 2015 by bseat

Bruno Giordano, a former priest and now excommunicant, has been running from the Inquisition in Italy because of his proclivity for reading books that are considered heretical, like Erasmus’ Commentaries or Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Finally, after many narrow escapes … Continue reading →

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The Hour of the Cat by Peter Quinn

Posted on July 17, 2015 by bseat

It is 1939 and Fintan Dunn, is a PI, struggling to find work in New York City. He had a great lead on a divorce case; a woman wanted him to catch her husband in flagrante delicto in order to improve her … Continue reading →

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The Dealer and the Dead by Gerald Seymour

Posted on July 10, 2015 by bseat

The villagers knew that they could not survive if they didn’t get help. Their little town was in the path of the advancing Serbian paramilitary forces and the villagers knew only to well what happened to the inhabitants of the … Continue reading →

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Descent by Tim Johnston

Posted on July 3, 2015 by bseat

Sometimes, even though a book is well written and has believable characters, the subject matter may be so challenging that all you want to do is look away. It is a mark of a good writer, then who in spite … Continue reading →

Posted in Detective novel, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller | 2 Comments

The Bone Tree by Greg Iles

Posted on June 19, 2015 by bseat

In this second installment of a trilogy which began with Natchez Burning, Iles takes us deeper into the morass of racism, hatred, violence and corruption that lies underneath a thin veneer of southern gentility in Mississippi.  Penn Cage, who is now the … Continue reading →

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The Prophet by Michael Koryta

Posted on June 12, 2015 by bseat

Michael Koryta is one of a few writers who shifts from genre to genre even though it is considered career suicide to do so. Koryta however, seems to actually thrive on it!  Known as a crime/suspense novelist, Koryta shifted into … Continue reading →

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Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Posted on June 5, 2015 by bseat

It is 1966 and a woman and her husband attend the opening  at MOMA of a photographic exhibit by Walker Evans. The exhibit is of portraits Evans took of ordinary New Yorkers on the subway using a hidden camera. Among … Continue reading →

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