44 (Jools Sinclair)

I suppose if you're a young adult still in, or maybe a few years out of high school, you can relate to the daily life of 17-year-old Abby Craig, a high school senior who lives with her older sister, Kate, in Bend, Oregon. I found it pretty juvenile stuff to read.

It isn't until we get halfway through the story that things begin to get somewhat interesting. The innocuous high school-ish babble doesn't quite stop, but at least there's something to get your interest up.

That said, Abby is a rather special person. Once a promising soccer athlete, her life of normality ended when she fell into a frozen lake and drowned. Dead. As in "pronounced dead." But then, she emerged from that icy hibernation and came back to life.

Abby has a recurring dream: She's float-sinking under water; she can't get free, just continues slowly downward. Then one night, something new is added – an old guy with a mermaid tattoo on his neck is sinking with her. The vision corresponds to a recent story Kate, a local reporter for The Bugler, did about homeless man found dead with just such a tattoo. It's the same man.

Then, it happens again, although this time, it's a woman drowning in a bathtub. The vision proves out as a woman is found dead in her bathtub. Was it an accident, as police suspect? Or is there a killer loose in Bend? What is happening here? Why is she having these dreams? Maybe what she really needs to do first is remember why she walked out on the frozen lake in the first place.

If you read 44 and anticipate something wonderful in the conclusion, a bright enlightening that will make your investment of reading time worthwhile, you're going to be disappointed. I know I was. And what exactly is the significance of the title? I haven't a clue. Good thing the e-book was free at Amazon.com.

I couldn't give it a single bookmark. The author wrote a sequel. I certainly won't be reading it.

44 (2011)

Jools Sinclair

CreateSpace (Paperback, $7.99)

ISBN-13: 978-1463568269

The Long Walk (Stephen King)

One hundred boys start out on The Long Walk. Each must maintain a four-mile-an-hour pace. Fall below that and you get a warning. Three warnings. There is no fourth warning. Instead, you get a ticket. But, if after a warning you don't falter for an hour, it sluffs and resets to zero. They keep on walking until there's just one Walker left – the winner.

It's the national pastime, so they come from all over, the walkers do. Texas, New Hampshire, Maine, Louisiana, New Mexico, Washington DC, Illinois, Arizona, Mississippi, New Jersey. All competing for the big reward – "The Prize" and the money.

Six previous Long Walks crossed the Maine state line into New Hampshire, and one (only one) continued on into Massachusetts. Sixteen-year-old Raymond Garraty (#47) is determined to win this year. Other Mainers want him to win too, betting on him, taking 12-1 odds. It's a wagering race, like betting on a steeplechase where all the thoroughbreds save one bite the dust. In all, more than $2 billion is wagered on the Long Walk.

On and on and on they walk. To Limestone, Caribou, Oldtown, Freeport, Bangor, Augusta, Lewiston/Auburn, Freeport, Portland, the New Hampshire border, then on into Massachusetts, the first group of Walkers to accomplish that feat in 17 years.

The first to go down is a kid named Curley (#7), defeated by a persistent charley horse. So he gets his ticket, which is a euphemism for "they shoot him dead." Ewing (#9) is the next to falter, done in by blisters and "pus in his shoes." Then another, and another, and another. Garraty and his new-found friends – Peter McVries (#61), Hank Olson (#70) and Art Baker (#3) – simply stop keeping track.

A rich broth of memories, what- ifs and suppositions helps while away the mental monotony for the walkers, interrupted occasionally by tickets being meted out. Like Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, or William Golding's Pincher Martin, they define themselves with their thoughts.

And how 'bout those helpful hints designed to keep them in the game? Hint 6: Slow and easy does it. Hint 13: Conserve energy whenever possible.

They talk to numb the aches and pains – about enemas, sex, drinking, farting, laxatives, girlfriends ... about dying. Like the prisoners in George Root's Civil War song, they march. Tramp, tramp, tramp.

What a story. What. A. Story.

Stephen King must drive stickler-English word merchants crazy. For me, it's his saying "which" when he should be saying "that," or "further" when he means "farther" (he does those so frequently that I now tend to overlook it).

The Long Walk (1979, 1999)

Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman

Penguin Books ($7.99 list)

ISBN-13: 978-1101138182

Already Gone (John Rector)

Jake Reese, a university writing teacher, has a past that he's trying desperately to hide. He's been successful so far, but one night, he's taken down outside a bar and his finger is lopped off. Although they take his finger and the wedding ring still attached to it, he gets them back in the mail. Strange. And frightening as well.

With a case file holding reports of assault and battery, disturbing the peace, and assault with a deadly (brick) weapon, Jake is not your everyday run-of-the-mill innocent. Diane, an art buyer and his wife of one month, heads off to Arizona to meet with a client and to clear her head. Or so she says.

His two attackers show up one day at the university. Jake takes his wife's advice and calls the police, but they arrive too late. To make matters worse, Diane disappears by the time he gets home, only to be found dead in a traffic accident.

The police haven't been much help, so he decides to take matters into his own hands. He calls Gabby Meyers, owner of Gabriel's Custom Wood Furniture, who had taken Jake in when his father died. Gabby comes through, presenting him with his two assailants. Some answers are forthcoming, but oh boy, are they disturbing, leading only to more questions.

Things get really ugly from there.

Lisa Bishop, a Sedona, Arizona, psychic whom Diane went to see, knows something but won't talk; so Jake pays her a visit. Impatient, impulsive and impetuous, all he does is step deeper into Diane's past and into a big surprise. He just complicates things and makes matters worse.

Jake is just so gosh darned naive, is all.

Red herrings and dead-ends galore had me guessing a lot, and coming up with nothing. Unfortunately, that meant the conclusion isn't as exciting as it might have been. The climax was good, but the denouement took much too long to close out the story.

Already Gone (2011)

John Rector

Thomas & Mercer (Paperback $14.95 list)

ISBN-13: 978-1612180878

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (Lee Goldberg)

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse is Lee Goldberg's first Monk novel. Told from former San Francisco Police Department detective Adrian Monk's assistant Natalie Teeger's point of view, the opening narration gives us a good overview of who she and her obsessive-compulsive boss are.

In this episode, Sparky, a North Beach firehouse Dalmatian, has been murdered, struck on the head with a pickax while the men were out fighting a fire. Additionally, Esther Stovall, 64, a miserable, disliked old lady, dies in a fire believed to have been caused by her cigarette while she sits on her couch.

Monk and Natalie become involved in both cases when Natalie’s daughter, Julia, “hires” Monk to find the dog’s killer, and they later investigate the fire-death scene with Police Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer and Lt. Randy Disher. Monk is sure she was murdered.

The two cases begin to intertwine as Monk does his magic, interviewing Mrs. Stovall’s neighbors and investigating both scenes. As often happens in Monk movies and books, a number of funny sequences develop: Selecting a hotel room for Monk to stay in while his apartment building is being fumigated, Monk trying to lip read and getting it all wrong, Monk trying to find evidence by plowing through trash at the waste disposal warehouse, and Monk doing the”Coyote Ugly” thing at a bar.

Monk is the master, solving another murder by just walking into an apartment, looking around for a few minutes while seemingly occupied with other obsessive thoughts, then announcing he knows who killed the victim, why s/he was murdered, and how the murder went down.

As far as the Sparky and Mrs. Stovall killings are concerned, the murderer finally exposes himself when he gets his dander up ... literally.

Goldberg captured the flavor and essence of the hit television show perfectly. And since I'm a fan of his Monk books and the TV series, the mental images his words evoke make my heart sing. References to previous cases loosened bits of recollections, reminding me that I'd seen them on TV, further expanding my frame of reference.

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (2006)

Lee Goldberg

New American Library, reissue edition (Paperback, $7.99 list)

ISBN-13: 978-0451217295

Just Run (Chris Culver)

Dr. Renée Carter, a math professor at Bluffdale College in Ohio, stumbles upon the dead body of her colleague, Dr. Mitch Byram. Before she can call for help, she's attacked, chloroformed, and left at the scene.

When the murder is discovered, Trent Schaefer, lead detective with the Special Investigations Unit of the Ohio Attorney General Office in Cincinnati, is assigned to investigate. It's no mystery who killed Dr. Byram. It was a rogue FBI agent working under the guidance of mob veteran who naively believed this was his last job before retiring.

Renée's early attitude toward Det. Schaefer is extremely aggravating and petulant. That is, until he saves her from certain death at the hands of a member of the Organizatsiya, the Russian Mafia.

Trent learns that Renée developed a computer program that uncovered games rigged at an online poker site, a scam that raked in $5-6 million a month on a certain type of win when they should have made just a few hundred thousand dollars. Dr. Byram, he's told, had verified her math.

The rogue agent stays a step ahead of them, getting in touch with Trent's boss, forcing the two to cut and run, to disappear so Trent can figure out what they should do. From the Midwest to Washington, DC, they hide and mingle, steal cars and spend nights in hovels, avoiding the authorities, fully aware that their lives are at stake.

That reminds me. Just who is this Trent Schaefer anyway? Some of the stuff he does and knows mark him as more than just a cop.

Just Run is good reading. It tracks well and moves along at a healthy clip. The denouement is satisfying, even if it does confirm suspicions. Chris Culver did a good job in this, his second novel.

Finally, if I may be allowed some nitpicking, there are a few instances where the author is confused about the difference between "furthest" and "farthest."

Just Run (2011)

Chris Culver

Amazon Digital Services ($2.99 list)

ASIN: B005OTEEHC