Tanami by Kieran Kelly

Desert Trek through the Tanami
adventure and history

I really enjoyed this story. He brought both the camels and the landscape to life.

The Merchant of Menace by Jill Churchill

Although it is the holiday season, Jane Jeffry feels more harried than merry. On Friday night, she is hosting a caroling party. On Saturday, she is giving a cookie exchange party for the nrighborhood. On top of all that, she must meet the mother of her lover for the first time. To make matters worse for Jane, a well-meaning neighbor informs Jane that she has invited the scandal mongering reporter, Lance "The Merchant of Menace" King to cover the event and the tabloid journalist accepts the offer.

Though she prefers he did not, Lance arrives at the caroling party. Broadcasting from Jane's home, he hints to his TV audience that on his next show he will reveal a scandal here in suburbia. Later that evening, Jane looks out her window and sees Lance's body impaled on the antler of a reindeer in her neighbor's yard. The police believe a homicide occurred, as there is evidence the man was pushed from a rooftop. Jane believes that one of her guests wanted to silence Lance before his next show. As she has done before with her friend Shelly, Jane begins to investigate the murder with the support and encouragement of her boyfriend, a police detective who is investigating the case.

A nice cosy. I didn't work out who-dun-it or why, which is always a bonus.

Desert Dawn by Waris Dirie

Fashion model, UN ambassador, and courageous spirit, Waris Dirie is a remarkable woman. Born into a family of tribal desert nomads in Somalia, she told her story in the worldwide bestseller Desert Flower: enduring female circumcision at the age of 5; running away through the desert at 12 to escape an arranged marriage; being discovered by photographer Terence Donovan as she worked as a cleaner in London; and becoming a top fashion model. Although she fled Somalia, she never forgot the country or the family that shaped her. Desert Dawn is Waris Dirie’s profoundly moving account of her return to her homeland.

Waris returned to Somalia to visit her family after 20 years in London and New York. Looking back at her childhood through adult eyes shows her how much Somalia has stayed the same and how much she has changed

Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs

It is a beautiful spring day and in the quiet woods of the FBI's headquarters at Quantico, Dr Temperance Brennan is teaching a body recovery course. Then comes an urgent phone call recalling her to Quebec, where she is forensic anthropologist for the state. A gruesome duty awaits: a biker war is ragin and two of the foot soldiers have blown themselves up. The only person qualified to make sense of what remains is Tempe.

Like many in the region, Tempe cares little what les motards - the bikers - do to each other. Until the body of a nine-year-old girl is wheeled into the morgue, slain in biker crossfire.

When an exhumation brings to light more bones, Tempe works day and night to uncover the secrets they guard. But can she do so before other innocents die in the escalating violence? Entering the dark biker underworld, Tempe finds herself pitted against dangerous outlaws and organised crime.

A couple of different cases end up being the same case, as often happens in Kathy Reichs books. It was an OK read with a few not too surprising red herrings.

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Ember city is a city that is dying. Totally reliant on electricity it is a city that is surrounded by darkness. But light bulbs are running out - as is most of everything else - food, clothes, and electricity.

Doon and Lina have just turned twelve, and have been assigned their life jobs. But they are worried that something is happening to their city - what will happen when the generator breaks down completely and the supplies finally dry up?

When Lina finds a mysterious and fragmented note titled "Instructions for Egress," they think they have a way out. Can they escape from the stupid mayor and his soldiers? Can they figure out what the missing letters and words are in the message? And can they find their way out of Ember to safety?

We never learn why the city is where it is, the reader can guess that something has happened to earth and Ember is some sort of fall out shelter. Would it be possible for the population to be eating out of cans of food that are over 200 years old? And why hasn't there been overpopulation? Why hasn't anyone figured out how to light a fire?

There is a movie of this book that I would like to see.

One For The Money by Janet Evanovich

New Jersey girl Stephanie Plum is an unlikely bounty hunter. It's being absolutely skint, having her car repossessed and being reduced to sharing food with her hamster Rex instead of her accustomed diet of pastries that drives her to ask her dodgy cousin Vinnie for a job with his bail-bond agency. Vinnie doesn't have very much confidence in her but because he's short-staffed (his agents keep getting shot at), Stephanie's got a week to find her man for a $10,000 commission.

It's not that she has any trouble finding him. In fact whenever Stephanie finds herself in a hole, her quarry always seems to there to get her out of it and then humiliate her before scarpering again. And then she's got worse problems when a psychotic boxer starts to stalk her.

I really enjoyed this. It was genuinely funny without descending into farce or spoofing the genre. The holes that Stephanie falls into are believeable, and she grows on the job. I'm looking forward to reading more

The Treatment by Mo Hayder

Brockwell Park, a pleasant residential area of south London. A husband & wife are discovered bound & imprisoned in their own home. They are badly dehydrated, have been beaten, & the husband is close to death. But worse is to come: their young son is missing.

When DI Jack Caffery of the Met's murder squad, AMIT, is called in to investigate, the similarities to events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime with the necesary detachment. And as Jack digs deeper, as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both the past & the present, the real nightmare begins.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The subject matter was difficult, but the story was very well written and grabbed me almost from the beginning. I had to find out what happened at the end, and very sad it was that Jack was so close to finding his brother.