Charlie Hardie is a drunk, overweight, damaged, professional house sitter that just happens to stumble into a wild conspiracy laden plot to kill action movie star Lane Madden. Directing this attempted assassination is ultimate bad girl Boobs McGee. Actually she goes by Mann, but seriously, she’s topless for the first ⅓ of the book. The only person Charlie can trust is Deke the FBI guy that keeps Charlie’s family in hiding and knows the dark secret that nearly destroyed him.
Non-stop action, fast paced, explosive; all the superlatives that usually go along with a blockbuster action movie can also be used to describe Fun and Games by Duane Swiercynski. Unfortunately, it also shares an abundance of underdeveloped characters and plot holes.
I like conspiracy theories and fast paced action so this was actually a pleasant read. I probably won’t remember it tomorrow, but it was better than watching a Michael Bay movie. And, you know, there’s a topless assassin.
Fun and Games is the first of 3 books featuring Charlie Hardie. I was intrigued enough that I’ll probably check out the second book Hell and Gone. Let’s hope it’s better than most Hollywood sequels.
Most highlighted quote from Kindle users: The world is divided into three classes of people: a very small group that makes things happen a somewhat larger group that watches things happen and the great multitude which never knows what happened. —Nicholas Murray Butler
If you like action movies, books about actors, and quotes from action movies, you’ll probably enjoy this.
Tags:
Book review
Book series
Duane Swierczynski
fiction
action
L.A.
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Under Wizard in the Yellow Pages, you’ll only find one result:
Harry Dresden - Wizard Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties or Other Entertainment.
As the only openly practicing wizard in the country, you’d think Harry would be rich and famous. You’d be wrong. Harry’s broke, down on his luck, mobsters, monsters and other miscellanious beings after him.
Set in gritty modern day Chicago, Storm Front is the first in the popular Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. It’s hardboiled crime fiction down to it’s core. From his duster jacket to his habit of pissing everybody off, including his friends, Harry could easily fall into a noir cliche. However, instead of using noir as a crutch, Butcher uses it as a framework to craft a complex and original character. Oh, and then there’s magic. Wizards, faeries, vampires, demons, they’re all there, just under the surface of everyday living. My favorite is Bob the skull. He’s Harry’s lab assistant, and kind of a party animal.
This book was a great introduction into Harry’s world. I look forward to catching up with the series. The mystery itself, ok, it wasn’t too hard to guess the killer. But the ending was climactic and action packed. If you got into the Sookie Stackhouse novels by way of True Blood and want to step up to a more complex and accomplished series, you should give this one a try.
Most highlighted quote by Kindle users: “Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.”
If you like Charlene Harris, but wished she wrote more like Raymond Chandler and less like Nora Roberts.
Tags:
Book Review
Book Series
Fantasy
Fiction
Jim Butcher
Mystery
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