Plastic flowers never fade

44. La Conspiration du Temple by Steve Berry


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Entertaining in a shallow, thin on character development, short, short, borderline ADD chapters (a la Dan Brown). Not really my usual cup of tea but the subjects kept me reading : Venice history and Alexander the Great aka the search for his final resting place. The whole Federation of Central Asia political plot with bonus power crazy lesbian dictator (is there any other kind of woman leader really *sarcastic tone here* I really, really could have done without the crazy part. The biological natural war weapons was at best a thin, very thin ploy.

So why did I keep reading? Well, the Alexander plot point and the pseudo archaeology ploys where well done. Alexander wanting to be buried along side Hephaistion (see how the gay guy wasn't treated like a power hungry crazy gay dictator *sarcastic tone here again*). The whole chase after the tomb was entertaining reading. By the end, I skipped most of the political stuff to get the Alexander parts.

View all my reviews >>

Because merryish inspired me to post these.

My beautiful kitty Grisette... she loves to play hide and sink.





She loooves to play Where's Grisette? Can you find her...

41. L'étranger by Albert Camus


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
First read this in my late teen. The 3 stars are correct. The alienation, the void of Meursault's life are what shine out for me. But the violence against women, the animal abuse, the racism even if they were in character and of the time just made me recoil. I had forgotten about them or I was too young for them to register the last time I read it.



View all my reviews >>

39. The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Nothing is like it seems and Pickax is not a quiet little town 400 miles north of everywhere. Qwill soon finds out that the town has dirty little secrets and some are quite dangerous to investigate.

The overall plot is interesting if somewhat thin but that's expected in this series but since it's early days in Moose County, the gallery of characters I came to love are just paper thin dolls in this instalment.

We meet or get to know more the infamous Amanda Goodwinter, shop owner and designer; her cousin Melinda Goodwinter, the young doctor Qwill is dating; Junior Goodwinter, the young journalist of the Pickax only newspaper; the Goodwinter lawyer siblings : Penelope and Alexander; Chef Brodie; his daughter Franceska; Mrs Cobbs is welcomed back into the fold and Arch Riker, Qwill ex-editor from Down Below also visits.

Lots of characters that only pass through the story not really feeding it, just mostly doing figuration. Which is not what I remember from later titles in the series but I might be mistaking. The late titles have a reverse problems: no plot and only quirky characters passing through. I'm hoping my memories of the middle books are not just embellished memories.

View all my reviews >>