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Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons
An action-thriller focusing on an accident investigator. Kind of trashy with a strong element of gun-porn. Some of the technical aspects of the accident scenes are interesting, but veer off into minutiae and improbability (though allegedly all are based on real world events). Our protagonist gets wind of large scale fraud going on, backed by Russian bad guys. While I didn't exactly enjoy it, I'm sorry Simmons apparently didn't manage to sell the rights to make a film, because it would make a successful (albeit bad) action thriller.
Machinehood by S.B. Divya
OK, something written more recently. A Sci-Fi action thriller focusing on a professional bodyguard. In the future, bioengineering and drugs give people almost superhuman powers. Soft AIs handle a lot of work in concert with people, but one group is working to make a greater fusion of man and machine (and AI). Cyberpunky, bio-futurism, explosions. It rollicks along quite explodingly, but the climax and conclusion seemed very incomplete, unmotivated, tacked on. Author didn't know how to stick the landing, so just walked away.
I'm about 80% of the way through Jake Arnott's The Long Firm, the first of a trilogy of works about fictional 1960s London gangster Harry Starks (who happens to be gay NTTAWWT). Really liking it so far. I liked his The House of Rumour, and this is making me a fan. It's told in a somewhat strange way, in a half dozen sections, each narrated by a different person who comes into Harry's orbit for a greater or lesser time -- some coming to bad ends, while others manage at least a temporary exit. Apparently there's a TV miniseries with Derek Jacobi, but it doesn't appear to be streaming, and the DVDs are region 2.
Lastly, I'm a fair way through Jason Sheehan's Cooking Dirty: A Story Of Life, Sex, Love, And Death In The Kitchen. Turns out I don't need to write a review, because the AV Club has already hit it on the head:
"Sheehan protests several times that his book is the antidote for the artificial, antiseptic world of celebrity chefs and the Food Network, but because he has to out-Bourdain his unacknowledged predecessor, the excesses he chronicles often stink of playground boasting and general bullshit."
Having read and enjoyed Bourdain's book, certainly I hoped for something similar. And I got that in spades, but it's only believable because I believe Bourdain, and Sheehan takes things to extremes that not even "well, it got a little better in the retelling" can excuse. And what use is a memoir when you think the guy is lying (sometimes)? But some of the writing is amusing (even if things didn't necessarily actually happen as described).
