Why I Love Vacation

Mark and I spent a week in Cozumel earlier this month. It was a great vacation! I spent the whole week lying around on the beach reading fun vacation books and napping. (I am very grateful to the inventor of SPF 70 sunscreen) This is what I read:

Phantom Prey by John Sandford



This is the 18th(!) book in John Sandford's Prey series. I am not usually a fan of the cop/mystery genre, but I make an exception for John Sandford. He is a former Pulitzer prize winning journalist turned novelist. He's a good writer and his books are always a quick and enthralling read. Lucas Davenport is a former Minneapolis homicide cop who has risen up in the political ranks, but still helps solve crimes once in a while. When the daughter of a prominent family disappears, he is enlisted to help figure out what happened, learning a lot about the Goth community in the investigation. I have read these books for years, but they became even more fun for me after I moved to Minnesota and was able to recognize the places in the stories.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

This is Aravind Adiga's first novel, which won a Man Booker prize. The author is an internationally-educated Indian who moved back home to Mumbai to work as a journalist. This is the story of Balram, a Bangalore entrepreneur, who has risen from a very poor, rural family. He leaves home to become the driver for a wealthy family, and eventually becomes a business owner, but he has a secret. I liked this book. It was a quick read which shows how class and caste are still important in India.

Hit Parade by Lawrence Block

This is the third book in Lawrence Block's "Hit Man" series. Keller is a hit man with some idiosyncrasies (for a hit man), like dog ownership, an agent named Dot who loves iced tea, and philately. This book delves into the dark underbelly of the stamp collecting world... Very entertaining, but start with the first book, "Hit Man."

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson

John Sandford (writer of Phantom Prey) personally recommended this book to Mark at a book signing in Minneapolis. Alex Berenson's won an Edgar award for best first novel for this book. He is a journalist for the New York Times. The book is about John Wells, the only CIA agent to infiltrate Al Quaeda. He comes back to the US for the first time in ten years "on assignment" from Osama bin Laden. I don't want to give away the end, but he either saves America or fails miserably. You'll have to read it to find out! It's a great vacation/airplane read, quick, easy, and current. I'm actually reading the second book now, called "The Ghost War."