Inferno by Dan Brown

This showed up on my doorstep unexpectedly - thanks to Dad who sent it as a surprise!  Another book starring Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code, this one follows Langdon as he wakes in Florence suffering from amnesia.  

An adventure from the start, he embarks on a fast-paced chase around several pieces of art Dante's Inferno.  Interspersed with Langdon's travels across Europe around the Inferno are several chapters around an eccentric leader of a "transhuman" movement - one that believes that overpopulation is imminent and deadly, and that changes to our genetics can change human history for the better.

I liked this book more than Brown's last one, The Lost Symbol.  This seemed to be better written (as airport reads go) and though many hundreds of pages long, I didn't see many places that I would have cut.  I was kept entertained throughout the book and had trouble putting it down.

The Panther by Nelson DeMille

Jo was reading this when she visited after the baby was born and I figured its airport-read style would be good for my sleep-deprived ever-shortening attention span.  Little did I know that she left her copy with my parents for me, and they would schlep it from Florida up to Boston.  I bought my own copy - which was a hefty 800 or so pages.

This is the next book in the John Corey series that follows the irreverent retired NYPD detective and his FBI wife Kate through their work on an anti-terrorism task force.  While it is not necessary to have read The Lion, or any of the other previous books in the series, to appreciate this one, it does make it more fun.

In this book, John and Kate (yes, John and Kate, sans Eight) go to Yemen to hunt down "The Panther" - the operative believed to be behind the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 Americans.  Teamed up with some other Americans from the CIA, they embark on a dangerous plot to draw out The Panther in Yemen, a country where they find you can't trust anyone.

I had fun reading this book.  Corey's persona can be a little annoyingly flip at times, but that's part of his charm.  The story itself was great - with lots of intrigue, great new characters, and the element of surprise.  I will look forward to the next DeMille book, the plot of which was teased in the last scene of this book.

The Litigators by John Grisham

I hadn’t read a John Grisham book in a while and Web had this one around the house.  On a whim I asked him to bring it to Paris for me.

The story is about a small “ambulance-chasing” law firm.  Shortly after hiring a new associate (a young burnt-out attorney from a big firm) the firm takes on a giant pharmaceutical company in a case that quickly becomes that which will make or break the partnership. 

It was pretty standard Grisham.  Fast-paced, quickly-drawn good characters, and didn’t take itself too seriously.  Good airport read.

Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carre

Picked this book up in the Toronto Pearson Airport.  I had enjoyed The Spy who Came in from the Cold, and after a long week of business travel it was time for something easy. 

The book is about a young British couple who meet a Russian mobster while on vacation in Antigua.  Unsuccessful in extricating themselves from his friendly overtures, they find themselves in the middle of a dangerous negotiation. 

What I liked most about this book was that the point of view the story was told from was very unique.  Most of the spy novels I have read follow a career spy into a new situation, or follow a new spy into his or her first escapade.  This, delightfully, did neither. While a quick plot-driven airport read, the book also paid great attention to building the characters. 

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

I have been saving this sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for vacation, so when we left for Belize I started it on the plane.  While the first book in this series had a raft of characters to develop and describe, this book focused on a subset of those characters.  In particular, this book is really about Lisbeth Salander: she becomes more obviously the central character than she was in the first book.

Salander begins the book more balanced and adjusted than we've seen her in the past.  She deals with real estate problems and updates her appearance.  She does ultimately kick ass and take names, but before that happens, her character has matured and we get to know her better, including some detail about her early life.  We also follow Mikael Blomkvist, the publisher from the first book, who decides to publish an expose on the sex trafficking industry.  Blomkvist and Salander begin the book in unrelated storylines but ultimately (not without Salander's hacking skills) their paths cross again.

I enjoyed this book even more than I did Dragon Tattoo.  I thought the characters were more compelling and the story easier to follow.  I also appreciated Larsson's continued themes around exposing abuse of women as a major social problem.  I can't wait for my next vacation to read the final book in the trilogy.

The Lion by Nelson Demille

I noticed this book at Jo's house - Dad had gotten her a copy - and when I got home I put it on my library queue.  Until I started reading it, however, I had forgotten how much fun it is to read a Nelson DeMille book, in particular one that stars John Corey. 

John Corey is a recurring character in many of DeMille's books.  A retired NYPD detective, he works on an anti-terrorism task force with his wife, Kate, an FBI agent.  Like in previous books, he is sarcastic, irreverent, clever, and successful. 

In this book, he is up against Asad Khalil, a terrorist with whom he matched wits in The Lion's Game.  Khalil has returned to New York for revenge on him and Kate.  The book chronicles Corey's strategy in protecting himself and his wife from Khalil, while also trying to find Khalil and bring him in...i.e., kill him.  It was fun to revisit some of the other characters from the previous books - many of Corey's coworkers re-appeared, as well as Boris, who had been contracted to train Khalil to kill many years back.

This was a fun, quick read that was hard to put down.  As a bonus, Corey was written with more depth than in the previous few books.  A+ airport read if you're a fan of his.  DeMille's or Corey's, that is. 

The Appeal by John Grisham

After fighting with a book of Carlos Fuentes' (and its winning), I needed something easy to read. John Grisham to the rescue. This book was about a chemical company who loses a major personal injury case and decides to fund the campaign of a supreme court judge who will guarantee their winning on appeal. The concept was fun to follow and I enjoyed reading the back-room machinations that were necessary to craft his campaign.

However, I became disintereted in the story about 2/3 of the way and did not even really care who won the case in the end. Grisham let his desire to make a political statement come at the cost of the storytelling.

Wildfire by Nelson DeMille

I bought this book (and Michael Crichton's Next) at Costco a few months ago before several business trips, thinking they would be good airport reads. Something about the cover art turned me off and I just got around to reading it now.

This is a very typical DeMille John Corey book. In case you are not familiar with this series, the John Corey books feature a very sarcastic protagonist who retires as a New York City detective but works for the FBI. He is always getting himself into trouble and uses very unusual tactics to solve crimes. Incredibly, he has a beautiful and talented girlfriend / wife who plays his straight man (woman?)

This particular story was about an elite group of business people and government officials who hatch a plan post-9/11 to address the growing terrorist threat. Problem is, their plan is itself terrorism and Corey rightfully disapproves and figures it out just as it is being executed. He throws himself into trying to stop the events from taking motion.

I liked it. Completely what I wanted from this type of book.

Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

This is the first book in a long time that I stayed up late (too late!) to finish. This is hard-core science fiction, a la Asimov, but absolutely readable and totally delightful.

It is the story of a married couple in their eighties, and it begins in the year 2048. The wife, Sarah, is a famous scientist who decoded an alien communique thirty years earlier. When the aliens contact Earth again, Sarah is asked to work on the new message. Sarah is offered a "rollback", a chance to return to being in her twenties, physically, so she can work on the decryption. She accepts, with the caveat that her husband Don gets the rollback as well. It works for him, but not for her. And that's all in the first few pages.

The book alternates between the time period that begins in 2048 with the second message from the aliens, and the time period that began in 2009, when the first message was received. It's funny to be in the 2048 world with all its technology and see 2009 as the quaintly simple time. The story also shares third-person narration between Sarah's point of view and Don's. Sarah struggles with decoding and aging; Don struggles with not aging and conceiving of another sixty years of life he didn't expect.

I liked this book because I liked the plot and the characters. The story of Earth's communication with a distant galaxy, including the message with which the galaxy replies, is creative and unique. Sarah, her husband, and the other ancillary characters are likable with realistically familiar hopes and fears. That is what I love about good science-fiction writing: once you suspend your disbelief, there are complex characters in interesting circumstances with a good dose of social commentary thrown in.

The social critiques in this book were not severe. The rollback obviously critiqued our society's adoration for everything youthful, physically. There wasn't that much negative discussion of technology replacing humans or replacing interpersonal interactions. There was even a friendly heroic robot. This book did offer a theme of universal values across not just people, but galaxies. The aliens, who we never meet (well, not exactly), still develop strongly as characters with valid desires. In that way, it reminded me of how Star Trek can suddenly make you think about the universal nature of existence.

Perhaps my favorite line from the book, in all its campyness, is spoken by Sarah: "The Aliens from Sigma Draconis have responded to the radio message my team sent all those years ago." It was such a throwback to a 1950's sci-fi movie that I had to chuckle at how out of place it seemed in an otherwise well-written, serious book.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

This was a fun and easy book, set in France and thus perfect vacation reading this summer. The Kirkus Review said it was "of higher literary quality than the Da Vinci Code, to which it will inevitably be compared." I didn't find the writing much better than that of DVC, although I did think the story was incredibly well-researched and well-crafted. Web was surprised that I picked it up to begin with, claiming it seemed to be more his speed than mine, but I think my tastes are widening a bit.

The story follows Alice, who is on an archaeological expedition in France and finds something unusual there. For reasons she does not understand, she is drawn to ignore the protocol of working with a partner and alerting the people who are running the dig to her findings. This item ends up putting her in danger , and we follow her through France as she tries to solve the mystery associated with this item and subsequently regain her safety.

Several hundred years earlier, we meet Alais, also a strong woman who lives by her own rules in an otherwise male-dominated world. Alice's modern day discovery is a result of Alais' membership in a secretive society, the continuation of which is still being sought by other characters in the book, some good and some evil.

While I did not find the writing exceptional, I did enjoy both stories. That is unusual; usually there is one time that holds my attention more than the other. The scenes in the past were well-described and evoked a very clear picture of the times. There were some exceptionally sad scenes that have stayed with me that occurred when Alais' town was attacked during the Crusades. Both Alice and Alais were strong, well-developed characters. As the book unfolded, and the connections between the time periods became clearer, I was anxious to know what was the resolution would be.

The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum

Since Robert Ludlum's passing, I've been dreading the end of his half-done manuscripts, and this was the first book "of his" that I read that felt different. It was a perfectly good airport read, but something about it just wasn't as good as his past books. A cross between Lehane's Shutter Island and Grisham's Broker, the plot was interesting and kept me turning pages. Decent, but don't get your hopes up if you're looking for vintage Ludlum style.

The Broker by John Grisham

I always forget how much I like John Grisham until I read another of his legal/political books and fall in love again. Bleachers aside, he is a master at what he does, and this was no exception. With a likeable criminal as its main character, The Broker did not disappoint as a page turner and very high quality airport read.