Review - Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers 2007
Paperback 230 pages



This book is the perfect blend of science fiction, thriller and absurdity. The world is made up of "Bad Monkeys" and it is up to a secret organization to take them out, one at a time. Jane Charlotte, a former bad monkey in the making, is one of the field agents for this secret organization before she is taken into custody by the real police. In a series of sessions with a psychotherapist in the Las Vegas County Jail, Jane tells the story of her early life in San Francisco and her assimilation into the "Bad Monkeys," an organization devoted to fighting evil. And while we are trying to determine if Jane is crazy or sane, bad monkey or misunderstood, we find that nothing is quite what it seems as Jane's initial story of tracking a serial killer janitor comes under scrutiny and the initial facts about her brother, Phil, get turned on their head. The twists and turns this novel takes is enough to leave you guessing until the final mind bending pages where we learn that reality is often stranger than fiction.

Review - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson
Publisher: Alfred A Knopft 2010
Hardcover 563 pages



In the last book of the Millennium trilogy, the formidable Lisbeth Salander is recovering from being buried alive and shot by her estranged father, the criminal Alexander Zalachenko, who was also critically wounded during their last confrontation. The novel reconciles Salander's past and is more a police drama than an action packed thriller. As the book weaves through the often incompetent Swedish police establishment, there evolves a secret plot to discredit Salander by an internal faction of the special police obtusely named "the Section". This organization is discovered to be behind all of Salanders childhood misfortunes, in collusion with corrupted officials, doctors and social workers.

While not as thrilling as the first two books, it provides a nice sense of closure to this popular trilogy.

Review - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf 2008
Hardback 465 pages




I'm having a hard time describing this book to friends and colleagues. Actually, the problem is I can't do much better than the publisher, so I'm cheating for once and using their own description:

"A spellbinding amalgam of murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue. It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves. It’s a contagiously exciting, stunningly intelligent novel about society at its most hidden, and about the intimate lives of a brilliantly realized cast of characters, all of them forced to face the darker aspects of their world and of their own lives."

There are so many wonderfully complex characters in this book, and such stunning plot twists, that even at 465 pages I can honestly say that this book is one that is impossible to put down until the final, astonishing conclusion. If you like mysteries, psychological thrillers or just a really good character driven story, then I suggest you go out and reserve a copy at your local library today!

Review - The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Publisher: Doubleday 2009
Hardback 509 pages



I didn't really like this book. I know it received rave reviews, and fans of the Da Vinci Code will find this novel a fast paced thrill ride unveiling a Washington D.C. as unfamiliar as it is exciting. However I felt the novel read more like a screenplay, with the scenes moving so quickly as to make the story barely readable. I was fascinated with some of the concepts of the book, but quickly realized that this book came off just as preachy and full of junk science as The Da Vinci Code. Though I'm sure that searches for "Noetic science" and "Masons" spiked on Google with the publication of this book, people looking for Noetics to be a "hard science" will be sorely disappointed.