The Scavenger's Daughter: A Tyler West Mystery by Mike McIntyre

Thoroughly enjoyable book, quite different and unique

Tyler West, suspended Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the San Diego Sun, is desperate for a scoop that will save his career. Defying a spiteful publisher and a vindictive homicide detective, he investigates the baffling deaths of several of San Diego's powerful, rich and famous. Police call the murders unrelated, but Ty uncovers a common link: torture devices last used during the Dark Ages, including the Iron Maiden, the Pear of Anguish, and the most sinister of all—the Scavenger's Daughter.

Ty is plunged into a mysterious world of medieval torture scholars, antiquities collectors, museum curators, and sadomasochists. Aided by photojournalist Melina "Mel" Koric, a former Bosnian War refugee, Ty must break the brilliantly conceived series of slayings that has cast a dark shadow over a city better known for its sun, sand and surf. The elusive killer goes by the name Friar Tom, in tribute to his hero, Tomás de Torquemada, the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. As Ty scrambles to unmask the monstrous zealot, he pursues his lost love, Jordan Sinclair, an assistant district attorney and single mom. With the city caught in an escalating nightmare of medieval mayhem, Ty is drawn into a lethal game of cat and mouse that could cost him everything.

Lightning-paced, intricately plotted and wildly suspenseful, The Scavenger's Daughter grabs the reader early and doesn't let go until its heart-pounding climax.

Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

This is one of the best Witch Mountain Films i have seen, thoroughly enjoyable.

A Las Vegas cabbie enlists the help of a UFO expert to protect two siblings with paranormal powers from the clutches of an organization that wants to use the kids for their nefarious plans.

Pretty Witches all in a Row by Lisa Olsen

This was a different and interesting book, thoroughly enjoyable.

Pretty Witches All in a Row delivers a compelling crime procedural that kept me guessing the whole way through. Throw in a supernatural twist with magic and a coven of witches, and we're in for quite a ride. Author Lisa Olsen balances the thrills and chills of paranormal mystery with a generous helping of humor, quick banter and well developed characters. Sergeant Nick Gibson is our sympathetic hero; his playful wit and down to earth relationship with his teenage daughter made me root for him from the first chapter. Annaliese, the pretty witch helping with the investigation, is an enigma; you want to trust her, but there are enough questions that you resist letting your guard down, and you end up hoping Nick isn't a fool for placing his faith in her. I hope we'll see this cast of characters again; it'd be a crime not to see where they go next.

My Birthday

Another awful year over..................

Today i worked at calendar club all day, then we went to the Silver Spoon and had a meal and then went to the Majestic for a drink and then we watched The Hobbit in 3D an awsome film.

Wedding

Greyfriars, King's Lynn

More car troubles

On the way to visit my ladies today, the car broke down, i called steven out and he had a look, then we went to Calendar Club for me to take over and Bob go and have a look, Chris also came by and said the Cambelt had gone, probably it had gone brittle because of the car being not used for a while.  This happened less than a week after we had new exhaust fitted.

So Bob called the RAC and 3.5 hours later they turned up,  Poor Bob was sat in the bitterly cold freezing fog for all of that time.

Cinema

So Last Night we were discussing the cinema and Bob Davies said

When he went to see The Rainman he lost his umbrella
When we went to see The Deep we got stuck in a flood
When we went to see Stargate Steven Davies ran him over

The Rock by Robert Daw

Not a long book, but i thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Rock. Gibraltar. 1966.

In a fading colonial house overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, the dead body of a beautiful woman lays dripping in blood. The steel handle of a knife protrudes from her chest, its sharpened tip buried deep within her heart.

The Rock. Present day.

Detective Sergeant Tamara Sullivan arrives on The Rock on a three-month secondment from the London Metropolitan Police Service. Her reasons for being here are not happy ones and she braces herself for a tedious and wasteful twelve weeks in the sun.

After all, murders are rare on the small, prosperous and sun-kissed sovereignty of Gibraltar and catching murderers is what Sullivan does best.

It is a talent she shares with her new boss, Chief Inspector Gus Broderick of the Royal Gibraltar Police Force. He's an old-fashioned cop who regards his new colleague with mild disdain.

But when a young police constable is found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment, Sullivan and Broderick begin to unravel a dark and dangerous secret that will test their skills and working relationship to the limit.

Dietician

This morning i went to see the dietician Rebecca Hayes at Heacham Surgery, I really felt that there was nothing she could do and was clutching at straws.

She suggested
cutting down to
1 hot chocolate
1 weetabix

She said protein filled you up more than carbohydrates

She suggested eating more

Chicken
Vegetables and Salad
Drinking Fruit Teas

She said my calorie count was within the right range

She discussed exercise and suggested i try swimming. She also had doubts how useful the gym would be because of the pain.

I felt there was nothing new to be learned here, it seems i am not making any drastic blunders and she said nothing i didn't already know.

My next appointment is in a month.

The Front Door Murders by Suzanne David

An unusual book with 3 storylines running side by side, i loved it a great read.

Mollie Parkinson was destroyed professionally by a mystery she couldn’t solve. Even though she moves on to other crimes, in other countries and is successful, she cannot rest until she finds The Front Door Murderer.

Mollie is a Yorkshire woman who has moved with her partner to Australia and developed a successful career in the New South Wales police where she has risen to the rank of Superintendent. Her success makes her something of a legend in local police circles until she takes on the serial killer investigation into what the press call the Front Door Murders.

The apparently motiveless murder of women on their front door steps makes for sensational press headlines and the media repeatedly question the efficiency of the police. Pressure from the press for a solution to the murders leads Mollie’s team to wrongly implicate a veteran of the Vietnam War, a quiet family man whose story the press trumpet as another example of police failure. Under pressure from her bosses and the media and without any leads Mollie feels compelled to resign from the New South Wales police force.

Ultimately she starts a new career as a private investigator in California and develops a successful business based in San Francisco and Los Angeles where many of her clients are Hollywood stars, and we see an example of this in the case of a starlet murdered on the set.
Mollie will never rest until she can find the Front Door Murderer and when her Californian business becomes established and successful she returns to Sydney to try again to find the killer.
The story moves from Sydney in Australia to Yorkshire and Bath in England, to California and then back to Sydney. A group of friends who think they are commentators on the murder find out they are more involved than they could have imagined.