Monday, August 3, 2009

Aunt Kathy's Books of the Week

Something new... five picks for the week... Here are the first three!!!

 
After discovering her husband plans to leave her, one woman goes to extreme lengths to change her spending habits and save money for her divorce. Written with wit and charm by Sarah Strohmeyer The Penny Pinchers Club,  is a suburban shopoholic tale that forces one woman to examine her life and recognize that value is not always the price of the things you own. 





If you haven't read Greg Isles before you are in for a treat with his latest
Natchez, Mississippi  based novel about riverboat gambling. The unsavory investors and gamblers it attracts are just the
beginning of  problems faced by the small town mayor (a continuing Isles character the multi-talented Penn Cage, also a writer and former prosecutor) in  The Devil's Punchbowl. Murder, riverboat gambling, dogfights are the core around which we see Penn's relationships with his family, girlfriend(s), childhood friends as well as law enforcement play out in this thriller. Penn matches wits with thugs who play nasty and cruel and  the tension builds along with the body count. Like any Isles book it is a page turner.


I admit to being a huge fan of Brad Thor and the character he has made famous Scot Harvath. So it is no wonder I enjoyed The Apostle.
Set in Afghanistan it focuses on a kidnapped American physician who happens to be the daughter of a high profile and monied contributer to the new US president.

The fictional change in administration's moves Harveth's character to the private sector and it also keeps the reader guessing how much is fact  in behind the scenes White Ho use staffing, policy changes and presidential authority. 
 
Can Harveth break an AlQueda prisoner out of prison to exchange for the American doctor? Can he let a terrorist go free?  Weaving Harveth's latest adventure through the underworld of the Taliban and AlQueda, presidential politics, plus assorted murder and  may
hem, Thor writes one of his best novels yet and my favorite  political thriller of the summer.