Adam Shields

Summary: A journalist tries to stay alive while tracking down a story about abuse of power by a rogue agent.

Several years ago I was turned onto Keith Thomson when John Wilson (editor of Books and Culture) talked about Thomson’s earlier book Once a Spy.

Once a Spy was part of my getting back into spy novels that lead to me reading a number of John le Carre’s books and other classic and contemporary spy novels.

I picked up Seven Grams of Lead when it was the Kindle Daily Deal a couple weeks ago (and on sale for $1.99).

On the whole this was a much more traditional thriller than the Once a Spy/Twice a Spy books.  Russ Thornton is a journalist/blogger that is known for his investigative reporting on government and big business.  When an old friend calls asking for help (and ends up dead),  Thornton realized that he was the one that inadvertently gave away her secret because his body had been bugged.

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Summary: Georgie tries living on the wild side.  Things do not go well.

Almost five years ago when I started the blog that eventually turned into Bookwi.se, I significantly reduced the number of series books that I read.  Not because I do not like series books (although many series lose steam), but because it is hard to say much more about a series after you are several books into the series.  It is also hard not to give away spoilers. And for review readers, these later books are not interesting to read about if you have not read the earlier books.

Naughty in Nice is the fifth book in the Her Royal Spyness series.  And the series is progressing nicely.  I want to keep reading them. The storylines keep allowing the characters to grow without violating what works in the books.

In the book, Georgie starts in London as normal.  Except her Brother and Sister-in-Law are living with her in the London house and driving her nuts.  They end up going to Nice (but not inviting Georgie because it is too expensive).  And then they kick Georgie out of the London house to help justify the expense of their trip to Nice.

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Summary: An orphan from 1898 and a disgraced teen FBI agent from the present team up to survive (and hopefully defeat) a time traveling homicidal maniac.  

Eoin Colfer is best known for writing the very good Artemis Fowl series (as you can see on the covers of any book of his that is not Artemis Fowl).

I read and really enjoyed the whole Artemis Fowl series, but I was not a fan of his adult oriented thriller Plugged and Colfer’s attempt at writing a sixth novel in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was reviewed very poorly.

So if The Reluctant Assassin was not free on audiobook through the YA Sync program (two free audiobooks given away each week during the summer to encourage teen reading), I probably would not have picked it up.

Riley is the apprentice (kidnapped slave might be a better description) of Albert Garrick, an assassin and magician in 1898 London.  Garrick is a person that loves killing, but he needs a small audience.  So Riley has been forced to become his apprentice and witness all of his killings.

The book opens with Riley attempting his first assassination.  Riley cannot go through with it and Garrick is forced to kill the old man they were paid to kill.  That old man happens to be a refugee from the present, who invented a time machine and is hiding out in 1898 to keep it from being misused.

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