Book Notices | The Walk by Lee Goldberg / Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan / Mr. Monk Gets on Board by Hy Conrad

Lee Goldberg, The Walk

Amazon   Lee Goldberg's The Walk tells the story of network exec Marty Slack's multi-day walk home from downtown L.A. after a massive earthquake levels a huge swath of California. He has adventures along the way--near-death experiences and acts of heroism, much of it in the company of a likable if two-dimensional bounty hunter named Buck. The plot line seems the sort of thing many television series are made of. A wandering man passes through the lives of the various characters he meets on his journey--think Bill Bixby's David Banner or, mutatis mutandis, Michael Landon's character on Highway to Heaven, or Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap. Except that Marty's walk can't last more than a few days, so, no series. At any rate, I really enjoyed this. The only thing that would have made it better is a map detailing Marty's travels, since I found the geography hard to visualize.

Joseph T. Hallinan, Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average

Amazon   It's been about a week since I finished this book. Usually I jot down my thoughts immediately after finishing a book, but this time I kept forgetting to do so. Maybe that's fitting in this case, because I found the book itself to be pretty forgettable. It was enjoyable in the reading, I know, but a week on now I would have to go back and read a summary of it to describe any of the contents. Probably this is just me, in my reading slump still, reading a book that didn't quite fit my needs at the moment, rather than any failing on the part of the author

Hy Conrad, Mr. Monk Gets on Board

Amazon   The Monk books tend to offer readers some combination of three elements: pathos, usually related to revelations about the depth of Monk and Natalie's relationship; humor, usually proceeding from the dialogue between Monk and Natalie; and storyline. In this latest installment I'd say that humor and pathos are all but lacking, while the storyline is quite good. The book is certainly a good read, but I do hope that the author makes with the funny next time. (I note that I found Hy Conrad's first installment in the series lacking in humor and pathos as well, so this is a disturbing trend.)