109. Thin Air by Lisa Gray

#1 Jessica Shaw, wandering PI
listened on Audible - have on Kindle, too
narrated by Amy Landon, who was excellent
Unabridged audio (8:44)
2019 Thomas & Mercer
288 pgs.
Adult Mystery, Series
Finished 7/25/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.87 - 39,273 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary Los Angles area, CA

First line/s: "I park the car four streets away, and walk the rest of the way."

My comments: Jessica discovers herself as a stolen child  when she was three years old.  We start with her discovery of that information.  She had had absolutely no idea.  Her mother had been murdered, herself as a baby gone. Raised in NY, she is now on the road in California, just a year or two after her much-loved father's death.  Of course she jumps into the case, which proves very interesting.  She's pretty smart and tracks down many clues, of course solving it.  She likes to drink and hit the road for the unknown....and that's how the book ends, with her hitting the road for parts unknown.  Sort of a female Jack Reacher, but without all his physical skills (and brilliance, lol).  I'm going to definitely check out other books to come in this series.  Next one is called Bad Memory, with number three coming out in November 2020.

Goodreads synopsis:  She investigates missing persons—now she is one.
           Private investigator Jessica Shaw is used to getting anonymous tips. But after receiving a photo of a three-year-old kidnapped from Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, Jessica is stunned to recognize the little girl as herself.
          Eager for answers, Jessica heads to LA’s dark underbelly. When she learns that her biological mother was killed the night she was abducted, Jessica’s determined to solve a case the police have forgotten. Meanwhile, veteran LAPD detective Jason Pryce is in the midst of a gruesome investigation into a murdered college student moonlighting as a prostitute. A chance encounter leads to them crossing paths, but Jessica soon realizes that Pryce is hiding something about her father’s checkered history and her mother’s death.
           To solve her mother’s murder and her own disappearance, Jessica must dig into the past and find the secrets buried there. But the air gets thinner as she crawls closer to the truth, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe.

82. The Boy From the Woods by Harlan Coben

listened on my Audible, purchased
narrated by Steven Weber!!
Unabridged audio (
2020 Grand Central Publishing
384 pgs.
Adult Mystery/Suspense
Finished 5/21/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.07 - 16,725 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary upstate NY

First line/s:  "How does she survive?  How does she manage to get through this torment every day?"

My comments :  Another excellent mystery from Harlan Coben.  The protagonist is a man who, as a boy, was found living by himself at seven or eight years old, in the middle of the woods in New York state, with no memory of his past, his name, or even how he knew how to read.  As an adult he is somewhat of a super-guy: smart, fearless, military background and loyal to a local family that became HIS family of a sort.  The 70ish year old matriarch of that family, a female lawyer, is investigating a perplexing mystery with all sorts of twists and turns involving a wealthy family, a spoiled teenage son, a bullied girl, and a shady guy in politics.  Read brilliantly by Steven Weber, this was super enjoyable.

Goodreads synopsis:  In the shocking new thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Run Away, a man whose past is shrouded in mystery must find a missing teenage girl before her disappearance brings about disastrous consequences for her community . . . and the world.
          The man known as Wilde is a mystery to everyone, including himself. Decades ago, he was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. After the police concluded an exhaustive hunt for the child's family, which was never found, he was turned over to the foster system.
          Now, thirty years later, Wilde still doesn't know where he comes from, and he's back living in the woods on the outskirts of town, content to be an outcast, comfortable only outdoors, preferably alone, and with few deep connections to other people.
          When a local girl goes missing, famous TV lawyer Hester Crimstein--with whom Wilde shares a tragic connection--asks him to use his unique skills to help find her. Meanwhile, a group of ex-military security experts arrive in town, and when another teen disappears, the case's impact expands far beyond the borders of the peaceful suburb. Wilde must return to the community where he has never fit in, and where the powerful are protected even when they harbor secrets that could destroy the lives of millions . . . secrets that Wilde must uncover before it's too late.

30. Blood Relations by Jonathan Moore

listened to audio/Audible
narrated by David Colacci
Unabridged audio (12:12)
2019 Mariner Books
357 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 2/14/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.92 - 222 ratings
My rating:  4 (but 5 with a different narrator
Setting:  Contemporary San Francisco, with forays to LA, Mendocino, and Carmel - and Boston

First line/s:  "The first time I saw Clare Gravesend she was already dead."

My comments: Super interesting story, great plot and extremely interesting characters.  I loved the setting - from San Francisco to LA and all along the California coast including Carmel, Monterrey, Mendocino, all places I know fairly well and have a strong picture in my mind.  My biggest - and only - problem was with the narrated voice of the protagonist.  It didn't match what I would have considered his personality in even the slightest way.  His voice was deep, gruff, and much older sounding than I think he was supposed to be.  It threw me off completely with what I physically pictured and I didn't like that part of it at all.  And I think that means I have to take my overall rating down.  I would love to have another book in the series, but I felt the same way about the last book I read by this author and no second book as appeared for that one, either!

Goodreads synopsis:  Who is Claire Gravesend?
          So wonders PI Lee Crowe when he finds her dead, in a fine cocktail dress, on top of a Rolls Royce, in the most dangerous neighborhood in San Francisco. Claire’s mother, Olivia, is one of the richest people in California. She doesn’t believe the coroner: her daughter did not kill herself. Olivia hires Crowe, who—having just foiled a federal case against a cartel kingpin—is eager for distraction. But the questions about the Gravesend family pile up fast.
          First, the autopsy reveals round scars running down Claire’s spine, old marks Olivia won’t explain. Then, Crowe visits Claire’s Boston townhouse and has to fend off an armed intruder. Is it the Feds out for revenge? Or is this connected to the Gravesends? He leaves Boston afraid, but finds his way to Claire’s secret San Francisco pied-à-terre. It’s there that his questions come to a head. Sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, he finds Claire—her face, her hair, her scars—and as far as he can tell, she’s alive. And Crowe’s back at the start:
          Who is Claire Gravesend? 

70. U is for Undertow - Sue Grafton

#21 Kinsey Milhone, Santa Teresa, CA

Audio read by Judy Kaye

11 unabridged cds  (14;00)

2009 Random House

403 pgs.

Genre/Audience

Finished 11/16/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.88

My rating:    4 - It was very good

Acquired PBS

1988 Southern California with flashbacks in the story to 1967

1st sentence/s:  April 6, 1988:  "When the past rises up and declares itself.  Afterward, a sequence of events seems inevitable, but only because cause and effect have been aligned in advance.  It's like a pattern of dominoes arranged upright on a tabletop."

My comments:  I got a good start on this about a year ago and for some reason never finished it. Listened to much of it on my trip back and forth to San Diego this weekend and it certainly helped wile away the hours-on-the-road.  Much like Eric Conger becoming the voice of Virgil Flowers, Judy Kaye has definitely become the voice of Kinsey Milhone for me - almost like having company as I drove.  Good story, very Kinsey Milhone.

Goodreads book summary:       It's April 1988, a month before Kinsey Millhone's thirty-eighth birthday, and she's alone in her office catching up on paperwork when a young man arrives unannounced. He has a preppy air about him and looks as if he'd be carded if he tried to buy a beer, but Michael Sutton is twenty-seven, an unemployed college dropout. More than two decades ago, a four-year-old girl disappeared, and a recent newspaper story about her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories. Sutton now believes he stumbled on her lonely burial and could identify the killers if he saw them again. He wants Kinsey's help in locating the grave and finding the men. It's way more than a long shot, but he's persistent and willing to pay cash up front. Reluctantly, Kinsey agrees to give him one day of her time.
          But it isn't long before she discovers Sutton has an uneasy relationship with the truth. In essence, he's the boy who cried wolf. Is his story true, or simply one more in a long line of fabrications?
          Moving effortlessly between the 1980s and the 1960s, and changing points of view as Kinsey pursues witnesses whose accounts often clash, Grafton builds multiple subplots and memorable characters. Gradually we see how everything connects in this twisting, complex, surprise-filled thriller. And as always, at the beating heart of her fiction is Kinsey Millhone, a sharp-tongued, observant loner who never forgets that under the thin veneer of civility is a roiling dark side to the soul.

54. Never Coming Back - Tim Weaver

#4 David Raker

2013 Viking Penguin

374 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 9/2/2014

Goodreads rating:

My rating:    (5) Awesome - a terrific read that I stayed up LATE to read....

Acquired TPPL

Contemporary  Las Vegas and Dorset, England (on the coast)

1st sentence/s:  "When the night came, it came fast.  The sky yellowed, like a week-old bruise, and then the sun began its descent into the desert floor, dropping out of the clouds as if it were falling.  The further it fell, the quicker the sky changed, until the sun was gone from view and all that remained was a smear of red cloud, like a bloodstain above the Mohave."

My comments:  Hot damn, this was GOOD!  A twisty-turny plot, two great settings (Las Vegas and the coast of England0, an ultra-interesting protagonist, lots of clues and hints to ponder, and a couple of surprises.  A perfect book that I devoured in just three days!  Although this was the fourth in a series and I had never heard of David Raker, it was pretty easy to pick up on.  Of course there are always questions, especially about Raker's relationship with the dark-and-doomed Healy....but that means more to look forward to figuring out in the future.  The fifth book in the series was just published two weeks ago, but I'm not sure if it's yet available in the U.S. Tim Weaver is a great new find for me!

Goodreads book summary: A bestseller in the UK, this gripping thriller of a family that vanishes into thin air is Tim Weaver’s American debut

           Emily Kane arrives at her sister Carrie’s house to find the front door unlocked, dinner on the table, and the family nowhere to be found—Carrie, her husband, and two daughters have disappeared. When the police turn up no leads, Emily turns to her former boyfriend David Raker, a missing persons investigator, to track the family down. As Raker pursues the case, he discovers evidence of a sinister cover-up, decades in the making and with a long trail of bodies behind it.
           Tim Weaver’s thrillers have been hugely popular in the UK, and now Never Coming Back will introduce his beloved character David Raker to American audiences. Set in Las Vegas and a small fishing village in England, the novel is a smart, fast-paced thriller sure to keep readers guessing until the very end.