Book Notices | The Switch by Joseph Finder / Tips for Living by Renee Shafransky

Joseph Finder, The Switch

Amazon   This is one of those stories where an average-ish Joe winds up in incredible circumstances that he has to deal with without any specialized training. Our average Joe is Michael Tanner, the CEO of a Boston-based coffee company, who accidentally picks up the wrong laptop at an airport. This lands him in a load of trouble because the laptop just happens to have top-secret intel on it. So what do you do when you're privy to state secrets and your knowledge of them is a threat to some high-ranking officials? That's what Tanner has to figure out. I really enjoyed this book and thought it was close to perfect for much of the story. Certainly the first half flew by. But I had two main issues. (1) I think that Tanner made life much more difficult for himself than he had to by not immediately handing over the laptop. And there were other occasions too when he seemed to me to make some stupid decisions. (2) The story began to sound preachy on the subject of government surveillance. When one character in particular (Earle) talked about it, it sounded like we were listening to the author's rant on the subject and not his character's. That took me out of the narrative on a couple of occasions. (Similarly, I was jarred out of the narrative by this sentence: "He stopped at a red light, even though the intersection was empty in all directions." Note that this isn't an extraordinary situation, where he might be expected not to stop. So this was just weird for me.)

Renee Shafransky, Tips for Living

Amazon   Nora used to be married to a big name artist, but that fell apart a few years before this book begins: Hugh got another woman pregnant and left Nora, and now he's back to make her life miserable again. He's moved with his new family to the small town where Nora's been piecing her life back together. Worse yet, the other woman has joined Nora's yoga class. Even worse, the irritating couple winds up getting themselves murdered on a night when Nora can't exactly account for her whereabouts. You see the problem. I really enjoyed this book. The main characters are likable. The story holds together very well. And I was totally hooked on the mystery and wondering who done it until the big reveal came. If I had to criticize something about this book, I'd say that it takes too long to wind down once the murderer is revealed. I didn't exactly dislike spending that extra time with the protagonist, but the book was a little slow after that.