In My Mailbox : Roald Dahl and other assorted books

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted at The Story Siren.


Anyone can participate. IMM is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.

Bought:

The Twits by Roald Dahl

Mr. and Mrs. Twit hate everything, including their trained monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, who now want revenge.

The BFG by Roald Dahl

This is the well-loved story of a big friendly giant who spirits a child out of bed to the land of the child-eating giants. This edition has a great new cover by Quentin Blake as well as a whole new exciting end section about Roald Dahl and his world.

George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl

George's grouchy grandma needs a taste of her own medicine, and George knows just the right ingredients to put into it!

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

Danny’s dad had a secret, but now the secret’s out and it’s going to lead Danny on the adventure of a lifetime.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

The gates of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory are opening at last . . . and only five children will be allowed inside.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl

Charlie and Willy Wonka are back, this time in a fantastic journey to outer space in their glass elevator.

The Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

A brilliant FBI agent, rotting away in a high security prison for a murder he did not commit. His brilliant, psychotic brother, about to perpetrate a horrific crime. A young woman with an extraordinary past, on the edge of a violent breakdown. An ancient Egyptian tomb about to be unveiled at a celebrity-studded New York gala, an enigmatic curse released. Memento Mori

The Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer

It is only days before Britain declares war on Germany. Harry Clifton, hoping to escape the consequences of a familyscandal, and realizinghe can never marry Emma Barrington, has joined the Merchant Navy. Whena German U-boat sinks his ship, Harry and a handful of sailors are rescued by the SS Kansas Star, among them an American named Tom Bradshaw. That night, when Bradshaw dies, Harry seizes a chance to bury his past—by assumingthe man’s identity.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

[ What I spent on the books : RM 133.25 ]

Review : The Bone Thief by Jefferson Bass

Title : The Bone Thief Author : Jefferson Bass Reading Dates : 30 Sep - 5 Oct 2012 Total Pages :385
The Body Farm Carved in Bone Flesh and Bone The Devil's Bones Bones of Betrayal The Bone Thief The Bone Yard The Inquisitor's Key
From Amazon : Dr. Bill Brockton has been called in on a seemingly routine case, to exhume a body and obtain a bone sample for a DNA paternity test. But when the coffin is opened, Brockton and his colleagues, including his graduate assistant Miranda Lovelady, are stunned to see that the corpse has been horribly violated. Brockton’s initial shock gives way to astonishment as he uncovers a flourishing and lucrative black market in body parts. At the center of this ghoulish empire is a daring and prosperous grave robber. Soon Brockton finds himself drawn into the dangerous enterprise when the FBI recruits him to bring down the postmortem chop shop—using corpses from the Body Farm as bait in an undercover sting operation. As Brockton struggles to play the unscrupulous role the FBI asks of him, his friend and colleague medical examiner Eddie Garcia faces a devastating injury that could end his career. Exposed to a near-lethal dose of radioactivity, Dr. Garcia has lost most of his right hand and his entire left hand. Out of options, he embarks on a desperate quest: both of his ravaged hands will be severed at the wrist and replaced with those from a cadaver. But unless suitable ones are found soon, the opportunity will be lost. As Brockton delves deep into the clandestine trade, he is faced with an agonizing choice: Is he willing to risk an FBI investigation—and his own principles—to help his friend? Will he be able to live with himself if he crosses that line? Will he be able to live with himself if he doesn’t? And as the criminal case and the medical crisis converge, a pair of simpler questions arise: Will Dr. Garcia survive—and will Brockton?

Book Review of The Bone Thief.

The Bone Thief was a better read than the Bones of Betrayal. While what Dr. Bill Brockton does most of the time still doesn’t jibe with what I had thought the job of a forensic anthropologist to be, these seemed more incidental than intentional.

While it strikes me as strange that all these people want to involve the protagonist in what should be their job, at least this seems more plausible than what happened in Bones of Betrayal. It is still too coincidental for my tastes but I suppose it is within the realm of possibility that he would be consulted in anything with a scientific bent or the handling of bodies.

Bill Brockton also seems to have grown on me although I find him too straight-laced at times. There are limits to being nice. Wrongly handled, and characters can come off as boring. More than once, I was irritated by his reaction to the situations he finds himself in, a situation he should have expected in the first place.

What I had a hard time swallowing was his relationship with his assistant, Miranda. When she learns that she had misunderstood his earlier actions, there doesn’t seem to be any bitterness on his part. Even if he had knowingly caused the situation, I find it impossible to believe that he didn’t feel even the slightest bit of hurt or angered that she could so easily believe him to be a criminal. I would have expected some recriminations. Not a lot, but at least something.

My conclusions :

• Would I re-read the book ? No.
• Would I want to read the next book in the series ? Not really, not unless I could get the books on discounted prices.
• Would I want to own my personal copy if I didn’t already own it ? No.
• Who would I recommend this too? Crime fiction readers.
• For those looking to read the book, would I recommend buying or borrowing the book? Borrow it.

In My Mailbox

Teaser Tuesdays

Challenges : 2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge

Review : Bones of Betrayal by Jefferson Bass

Title : Bones of Betrayal Author : Jefferson Bass Reading Dates : 24 Sep - 30 Sep 2012 Total Pages :319
The Body Farm Carved in Bone Flesh and Bone The Devil's Bones Bones of Betrayal The Bone Thief The Bone Yard The Inquisitor's Key
From Amazon : Dr. Bill Brockton is in the middle of a nuclear-terrorism disaster drill when he receives an urgent call from the nearby town of Oak Ridge—better known as Atomic City, home of the Bomb, and the key site for the Manhattan Project during World War II. Although more than sixty years have passed, could repercussions from that dangerous time still be felt today? With his graduate assistant Miranda Lovelady, Brockton hastens to the death scene, where they find a body frozen facedown in a swimming pool behind a historic, crumbling hotel. The forensic detectives identify the victim as Dr. Leonard Novak, a renowned physicist and designer of a plutonium reactor integral to the Manhattan Project. They also discover that he didn't drown: he died from a searing dose of radioactivity. As that same peril threatens the medical examiner and even Miranda, Brockton enlists the help of a beautiful, enigmatic librarian to peel back the layers of Novak's life to the secret at its core. The physicist's house and personal life yield few clues beyond a faded roll of undeveloped film, but everything changes when Brockton chances upon Novak's ninety-year-old ex-wife, Beatrice. Charming and utterly unreliable, she takes him on a trip back into Oak Ridge's wartime past, deep into the shadows of the nuclear race where things were not quite as they seemed. As Beatrice drifts between lucidity and dementia, Brockton wonders if her stories are fact or fancy, history or myth. But he knows one thing—that she holds the key to a mystery that is becoming increasingly labyrinthine. For as the radiation count steadily rises, and the race to find the truth intensifies, the old woman's tales hint at something far darker and more complex than the forensic anthropologist himself could have ever imagined.

Book Review of Bones of Betrayal.

I picked up Bones of Betrayal and The Bone Thief both because I needed to fulfill one of my reading challenges and also because the books came at a discount. I’d like to say I was pleasantly surprised by Bones of Betrayal but the book just left me confused as to what a forensic anthropologist does.

I had the idea that it would be something akin to what Dr. Temperance Bones of the Bones series does but without the more exciting bits. Bones of Betrayal though had me wondering when would the science begin because it seemed that Dr. Bill Brockton’s job has more in common with that of police detectives. More than once, I was left wondering why is he the one doing the investigating and being approached by those with information to offer. And when would he start doing more than talk to other people.

Story-wise, the crime seems to solve itself with the victims and perpetrators conveniently offering up evidence as the tale unfolds. Except for some parts at the beginning and end, there didn’t seem to be much scientific work involved.

So, while I didn’t dislike the story, I didn’t like it either. Bones of Betrayal simply leaves me confused and wondering as to what the protagonist’s role is supposed to be.

My conclusions :

• Would I re-read the book ? No.
• Would I want to read the next book in the series ? Maybe.
• Would I want to own my personal copy if I didn’t already own it ? No.
• Who would I recommend this too? Crime fiction readers.
• For those looking to read the book, would I recommend buying or borrowing the book? Borrow it.

In My Mailbox

Teaser Tuesdays

Challenges : 2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge; Eclectic Reader Challenge 2012