Books

Apr 30 2013

The Racketeer By John Grisham

I read almost all John Grisham books as they are good reads, interesting and gets me hooked. The Racketeer is no exception and I really liked this book. However I do have to say that Grisham has the same kind of theme like in The Firm and other books of his and you get the feeling of deja vu as you go through the later half of the book. Still quite satisfying as you put the book down after reading the last page.

Malcolm Bannister, a former US Marine and small town lawyer in a 3 lawyer firm, is now in jail serving a 10 year sentence in a minimum security prison. A real estate transaction which he undertook in good faith turned out to have involved the purchase of a secluded hunting lodge where a crooked Capitol Hill lobbyist invited corrupt Congressmen for orgies with underage girls. When the scandal was exposed, Bannister was caught up in big a FBI sweep, his name was added to many others on a hundred-page racketeering charge sheet, his protestations of innocence ignored, and he got a ten-year prison sentence. 5 years later, when a federal judge is found murdered, along with his secretary, in his remote weekend cabin, Bannister puts his epic plan in place. Claiming to know the identity of the killer, Bannister contacts the FBI & gets out of jail and into the US Marshall’s witness protection program. The FBI apprehends the man, someone who was in the same prison as Bannister and who had escaped. Courtesy of the government, Bannister gets the reward money, a new face via cosmetic surgery and a new identity as Max Reed Baldwin. But things are not right as his identity & his new locations seem to be found by people  related to the “murderer”. Bannister / Baldwin gets annoyed with the US Marshalls & the FBI and walks away from witness protection.

What follows next is a plot filled with twists, deceptions, cunning and cleverness so large that even the FBI big wigs have to admire. See how Bannister plotted his escape with the help of his friend from prison, whose sister he is in love with and a cousin of the two. How they find & frame the real murder on another charge and gets him imprisoned in a Caribbean jail and the murdered reveals the place where he hid the gold taken from the safe of the judge. Bannister and his accomplices thumbs their nose at the US Government and the FBI, who put him in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, by committing several felonies and getting rich in the bargain. Second chances are something that this ex-lawyer schemed and thought out while sitting in a jail, innocent. Now he is out and he has a new woman in his life and he is wealthy. Excellent read for a lazy weekend.

By Roshan • Books • 7

Jan 23 2013

The Golden Room By Irving Wallace

Here’s a book I have read a few times and re-read today (it’s a small book) – The Golden Room by Irving Wallace. Published in 1988, two years before his dead, is about a brothel & the people involved with it and set in 1903′s Chicago. Minna & Aida Lester, two sisters and divorcees, change their last name to Everleigh and open up the fanciest, most popular & most famous brothel in the world, and maintain a dignified presence in the eyes of the people who like them. All their girls were hand picked for their beauty and were trained in the art of seduction. They were told to learn to talk, sit, appreciate art and culture and make an interesting conversation with the patrons. In the 3 storied mansion house that they converted into the Everleigh club in Chicago, there is a restaurant, offices, a large library and several rooms decorated with the finest & most luxurious style in different themes. They charge the most but you get the most for your money and the girls are best and they also get paid more.

However all is not going too well for them; newly re-elected major Harrison, who gets financial backing from rich meat-packer businessman Armbruster, wows to clean up the city and close down all the gambling houses and whorehouses, starting with the biggest one – The Everleigh Club! To make matters worse, Minna & Aida’s older brother has sent his son Bruce & daughter Cathleen to Chicago for 2 weeks and to live with his sisters – until Cathleen’s marriage to Alan, son of Armbruster! The sister sent away most of the 30 girls on a paid holiday to various hotels in the city, keeping only 6 girls to play as hostesses and pretend that they only run a fancy restaurant for the benefit of young Bruce & Cathleen. One of the girls who remains back is Karen, who is really Mayor Harrison’s secretary and who has come to work in the club as their newest prostitute in order to get enough evidence for the mayor to shut down the club once & for all. The virgin Karen has to pretend to be experienced and fools Minna into hiring her as a replacement for one of the girls who has gone missing. Only Karen didn’t expect to admire the sisters and also fall in love with Bruce.

Bruce is asked by Armbruster to marry his daughter and thereby be welcomed into his business that could see him clear off his family debt but the young lad has eyes only for Karen and stakes his earnings on a horse to win the local derby, which it does. Add to the mix is the new doctor for the ladies of the club – a maniacal Dr. Holmes revels in winning over the young prostitutes, luring them to his huge house, where he has sex with them and then gasses them, chops off the dead bodies into pieces and then burns their remains. When Armbruster unknowingly gets his son to the club for dinner and a woman (as a rite of initiation) he finds out the truth about Cathleen’s family and calls off the wedding. With enough proof seen first hand and his bill, Armbruster provides the evidence for Mayor Harrison to close the club and arrest the sisters. However a visiting German prince, who wants to spend time at the club makes Harrison change his mind and he and Armbruster begs the sisters to reopen the club; which they do, provided the wedding of Cathleen and Alan takes place. However Dr. Holmes has trapped Cathleen & Karen in his house; will Alan & Bruce be in time to stop his killing them? Read the book. A good read 7 outta 10!

By Roshan • Books • 0

Jan 12 2013

The Second Lady By Irving Wallace

I’ve read this book a couple of times – once as a 13 year old and a couple of times more recently – and it’s a fun read each time. Irving Wallace, an author known for his heavy research and sexual themes for his books, died in 1990 but is known for some of his best sellers, including this one The Second Lady. This book, published in 1980, is about a fictional plot carried out by the Russians to gain a political edge against the United States. During a good-will visit to the Soviet Union, the American president’s wife is kidnapped and replaced with a Russian spy who is visibly indistinguishable from the first lady. The Soviets need a spy close to the president in order to learn the weaknesses of an American-backed regime in Africa that is currently the focus of a stand off between the superpowers.

The ambitious & outrageous plan is the brainchild of General Petrov, who followed the American elections closely and realized 6 months before the results that a beautiful stage actress Vera Vavilova looked amazingly like Billie Bradford – the wife of the presidential candidate tipped to win the race. He puts his plan in place using the help of Alexyi Razin, a Russian born & raised mostly in the US, to groom the young actress to imitate & play the role of a lifetime – that of the first lady of the United States. Andrew Bradford does win the race and is elected president, so the KGB has Vera operated on to make her look exactly like Billie. Razin grooms her and gets her language & accent lessons and they even have a the interiors of the White House duplicated so Vera can know her way in & out. 3 years from when she started her “training” the plan is set into action and Billie is rugged and switched with Vera. The plan is to switch them back after 3 weeks, after Vera finds out vital information from the President.

If it hadn’t been for former campaign writer, Guy Parker, who was attached the White House and writing a book on the first Lady and started noticing the changes & odd details about the first lady ever since her return from Russia, they would have gotten away with it. He talks to Billie’s press secretary (and the object of Guy’s lust) and although she initially brushes away his concerns, she later starts to share them. They find out about the imposter but who can they go to? Ultimately, the Soviets decide to kill both the spy and the president’s real wife using explosives. At the end of the movie  the plan is only partly successful – one of the women survives and the other dies with Razin, but it is not clear which. The reader is left to decide whether the woman who returns to the president is indeed his real wife or the spy, because the only one who knows for sure is the lady herself!

By Roshan • Books • 0

Nov 25 2012

The Confession – John Grisham

I read a lot of John Grisham novels. This is the latest one that I have read. Bought 4 weeks ago, I read it slowly and took my time. It’s 2010′s The Confession which is about a young man false accused of raping and killing his high school classmate. Nicole Yarber went missing in 1998 a teenage girl and high school student in Slone, Texas. Under duress Donte gives a fake confession, which is all the cops seem to need to put him away. A false eye witness by Nicole’s on & off jealous boyfriend is another nail in the coffin for Drumm. The actual killer, a serial rapist and multiple offender for other crimes, Travis Boyette watches by as the young African-American man, Donte Drumm, is picked up by the cops and interrogated harshly.

Boyette had raped Nicole multiple times, killed her and buried her in Missouri. Donte’s lawyer Robbie Flak fights hard for his client but Donte is convicted and sentenced to death. He has been on death row for nine years when the story takes place. While Drumm serves his prison sentence, Flak fights his case while Black Americans protest his false conviction, creating a law and order situation. While the years passed Boyette develops a tumour in his brain that seems to be inoperable and his health falters. He approaches Kansas priest Reverend Keith Schroeder and confesses his sin. Boyette says that he doesn’t want to come clean to the public but he doesn’t want an innocent man to get killed for his crime. It takes a lot of convincing but Schroeder takes the dying man takes him to Slone.

Despite their adventure and Boyette speaking to tv journalists and declaring himself as the real killer, the execution proceeds on and Drumm is executed by lethal injection. Boyette then reveals the resting place of Nikki and DNA samples show signs of rape and assault on her body. She finally comes home and is given a proper burial as does Donte, where at the funeral his lawyer is able to announce the proof of his innocence. In the aftermath, it turns out that Travis’s tumor is not malignant and the cane is there for protection in his half-way house. His seizures however, and intense headaches, are real. He evades the cops and goes back to finding a victim to rape – but he is beaten by a rescuer and arrested. Keith takes some flack for taking Boyette to Texas and he and his his wife leave Kansas for Texas where he takes up a position in a church there.

Really good novel, drags in some places especially when the riots and fights in Slone are described but otherwise I recommend that you pick it up and have a good read.

By Roshan • Books • 1

Jul 29 2012

Book Review : The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a novel by celebrated best selling authour Stephen King, who is my favourite of all time. I have read several of his books (IT is his best) several times and really enjoy this master of the macabre. The book is about a girl, Trisha, of 9 who is lost in the woods in upper Maine and neighbouring New Hampshire, while out hiking with her recently divorced mother & hostile brother. Trisha separates from her family as she takes a pee and is lost for over a week. She has some food in her backpack and a walkman, through which she gets her comfort – listening in to baseball games of her idol, Tom Gordon, and his Boston Red Sox. She wears a Red Sox jersey with Tom Gordon & 36 printed in it & also has a Red Sox cap which is autographed by Gordon. She survives by wisely eating as little of her supplies and then on berries & nuts. She has to resort to drinking dirty water which makes her sick and gives her pneumonia, diarrhea and makes her vomit. She gets fever and shaking while in the rain and makes a makeshift shelter. She starts hallucinating; she sees images of people in her life including Tom Gordon, speaking to her. King does not let on if the monster that she feels and has glimpses of is real or hallucinated.

She comes across the carcass of a dear and sees claw marks on a tree. She makes it to an old road and takes shelter in an abandoned truck from which she see a glimpse of her stalking apparition during a rainy night. Meanwhile, her parents are searching for her and have united in their fear for what has happened to their daughter. Trisha keeps listening to bits of commentary of Red Sox games. A symbol of her girlie attempts to keep upbeat despite her situation is demonstrated in her singing along with a jingle whenever it plays on the radio between commentaries. Finally she faces her stalker who looks like a huge bear to her but with black sockets for eyes and maggots, flies and other insects crawling inside it. However, it seems like a normal bear to a passing hunter and he shoots at the bear just as Trisha throws her now battery-dead walkman in a baseball curve at the bear’s head. The “bear” is chased away and the hunter carries Trisha to a hospital, where as she recovers, she is reunited with her brother and her reconciled parents. The book is split up in the form of innings (nine) and a ‘pregame’ (the morning before she got lost and starts her adventure) & a ‘postgame’ (as she recovers in the hospital).

It’s not one of his best and it kinda drags on and on without much happening and it isn’t as exciting as a lot of his other work. All in all it’s a good read but I wouldn’t be able to finish it at one go.

By Roshan • Books • 1

Jul 19 2012

What Have You Been Reading Lately?

I’ve been trying to read more these last couple of months. I tried reading a few old novels that I had lying around. I re-read The Da Vinci Code for the 4th time recently. I also re-read The Bretheren & The Vampire Lestat last month – the former for the 3rd time and the latter for the 2nd time. Not mind boggling titles but it’s still stuff that I like a lot and will probably read a few more times before my death. I am now almost halfway through Stephen King’s Thinner which I have read 3 times before.

I’d like to read a lot more as there is a ton of good books but I don’t really go out to buy new books as 1) I don’t want to spend too much money on books 2) I don’t want to clutter up my place as space is at a premium and my two shelves are already filled up with my collections and other stuff. I have a bunch of books collecting dust in a big built in cupboard that I have read at one point and have no interest in reading again at this point (but might change my mind a while later) and I either need to clean them up and try reading them or sell them and get new books which I can store in the same space. I want to get all the Game Of Thrones books (or whatever the books that inspired the tv series are called) by George R R Martin at some point this year. Unfortunately, I have only seen them being sold as a set in one of the premium book stores which means I cannot buy them one at a time to adjust with my budget. I tried looking for the same set at a discount and/or used book store but they hadn’t eve heard of it! (Blasphemy)

By Roshan • Books • 0

Jun 4 2012

The Litigators – John Grisham

The Litigators is John Grisham’s 25th book and one of his best. And that’s saying quite a lot as he has lots of page turners and some real classics. The master author makes this a David vs Goliath legal novel (and coincidentally  as the lead character’s name is David) an interesting read and you will find yourself unable to put the book down as you root for the underdogs.

David Zinc leaves a high pressure job in one of the biggest law firm in Chicago and the nation having had enough of the place after 5 years. The 31 year old leaves the office building without warning one morning and heads straight to a bar where he proceeds to drink his first day of freedom away. He somehow manages to find a small  two-partner & two member law firm, Figg & Finley of the ham & egg, ambulance chasing variety. David promises to pull in some business and joins them as an associate. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are two different type of lawyers; as Figg mops and moans through the day, wishing he could divorce his wife of 30 years, a 4 time divorced and recovering alcoholic Wally dreams of the cash cow.

Wally’s various schemes have never brought in the high payoff case but he seems to have found one in Krayoxx, a drug that lowers cholesterol and manufactured by pharmaceutical giants Varrick Labs. Hoping to hitch a ride on a mass tort case done by much bigger firms, Wally convinces Oscar & David that they need to round up clients in Chicago. At first the case seems to be a simple opportunity to sign up patients who took the extremely popular cholesterol reduction drug, Krayoxx, which was the number one prescription for obese patients. Wally finds 8 death cases of heart attack victims who used to take Krayoxx. Convinced that the drug is responsible, Wally signs up the 8 including the first case and joins mass tort lawyer Jerry Alisandros and his firm.

Varrick hires David’s former employers Rogan Rothberg who assign the case to Nadine Karros, a legal ace who has never lost a case in her career. As the trial date approaches, Wally’s dreams of milking in the big bucks vanish when Alisandros backs out as reports of the drug being quite safe come out. However the judge wants the first case to be tried and the trio of Figg, Finley with David go to court. However Figg suffers a heart attack on day 1 and needs surgery leaving Wally as lead counsel. In 3 days the pressures of trying a losing case gets the better of Wally and he starts drinking and disappears on David. Now it falls on David to try the case and he does a fine job on the final day, creating dents in the armour of Varrick but the jury finds the pharma giants not guilty. Not that David or anyone else expected them to rule in favour of the plaintiffs. The case is over and all future cases against Krayoxx are pulled. David helps Wally get to a rehab center as Oscar recovers from his surgery.

The secondary story is about David & his wife Helen finding a Burmese immigrant family whose son suffers from illness & brain damage after playing with a toy called Nasty Teeth – fake fangs. The paint chips in the fangs and he ingests the lead used to manufacture it, which causes the damages. David uses some of his own money to help the family and finally traces the company that now owns the toy makers and represents the boy’s parents. He settled the lead poisoning product liability case for $6.5 million, including $1.5 million in legal fees, which he uses to pay off the firm’s debts and include a bonus for their secretary. The rest is split between the 3 lawyers. He attempted to become equal partners as Finley, Figg & Zinc.The partnership did not work out as 63 year old Oscar retires and Wally is unwilling to try big cases and was dissolved after twelve months. Zinc opened his own product liability practice, David E. Zinc, Attorney-at-Law.

By Roshan • Books • 2

May 21 2012

Deception Point – Dan Brown

Rachel Sexton is the estranged daughter Senator Sedgewick Sexton, a presidential candidate who is more popular than incumbent President of the United States Zachary Herney. But she is also an Intelligence Analyst who works for the NRO. The Prez sends her to the Milne Ice Shelf to validate the findings made by NASA – a meteorite which struck the earth around 190 million years and embedded within an are insect fossils very similar to, but not the same as, species on earth. NASA claims this as proof of extraterrestrial life.  The President also sends four leading civilian scientists (Michael Tolland, a famous oceanographer and TV personality; Corky Marlinson, a brilliant but eccentric astrophysicist; Norah Mangor, a prickly glaciologist and Wailee Ming, a palaeontologist) to the Arctic to verify the meteorite’s authenticity as unbiasedly as possible.

However a plot is soon discovered to fake the fossils (actually a recently found earth lifeform but not yet published) and that the powerful NRO director William Pickering is the mastermind behind it. He did it to hurt Senator Sexton’s campaign, protecting the American people in his eyes and also to boost the NASA supporting President’s chances of reelection. Sexton wants to cut NASA’s fundings and promises to spend more on education if elected President. However President Herney himself is unaware of this plot and genuinely believes that NASA has found authentic findings. Pickering has his small squad of black ops soldiers kill Dr. Ming & Dr. Mangor when a flaw in the data is discovered.

It is up to Rachel, Tolland & Marlinson to evade the NRO Director and his men and get the evidence of the fraud findings out to the public. Add to this mix is Gabrielle Ashe – Senator Sexton’s aide and former lover – who finds out that the Senator is selling out to private companies & plans to make space exploration go public. He has been accepting large sums of cash from the companies to fund his campaign. When she finds out this and the fact that she was being lied to by the Senator, Gabrielle decides to help Rachel expose the Senator. Marjorie Tench the Senior Adviser to the President is also killed when she comes close to finding the conspiracy that Pickering had set in place.

A good political & deception thriller, although not as good as the other 3 books of Dan Brown that I had read. Still a good real.

By Roshan • Books • 0

Feb 25 2012

My All-Time Favorite Authors

Anne Rice : I love her books which I discovered after watching the movie version of her book Interview With The Vampire. But it was a few years down the line when I first got any of her books. I started with Interview, then The Vampire Lestat, Blackwood Farm, Merrick, The Queen Of The Damned, The Vampire Armand, Blood Canticle and Blood & Gold. I enjoy all the books although some are a bit dragging. I’ve always enjoyed reading Anne Rice’s books a a bar near my apartment when I would have either a couple of beers or vodka and then some lunch. The bar is reasonably well lit and with enough sunlight coming in from the large windows, it was a swell place for me to sit & read in their comfy, cushioned chairs while drinking and eating.

John Grisham : It took me a while to get into Grisham because his books deal with the law but after reading a couple, I got into his stuff big time. I have all of his legal drama books uptil 2009 and have read The Painted House, which I didn’t care for. His books are amazingly engaging and I just love The Firm, The Client, the King Of Torts, The Partner, A Time To Kill, The Pelican Brief, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, The Summons, the Last Juror, The Broker, The Appeal & The Associate. Whew, that’s a lot of books! I often read his novels multiple times as it is easy reading and the stories flow well.

The late Michael Chrichton : Like most people I became a fan of Mr. Chrichton post the Jurassic Park movie which was based on his novel of the same name. Since then I have read his Jurassic Park, The Lost World, The Andromeda Strain, Disclosure, Eaters Of The Dead, Timeline, Congo, Sphere & Rising Sun. I really enjoy all these books and have read them multiple times. Thank you for giving us such amazing works of words Michael!

Stephen King : And finally, my all time favourite, the King of Authors, the Master Of Macabre – Mr. Stephen King. Responsible for writing my favourite novel of all time – IT! I just love this giant book and have read it 16 times. I also love Carrie (which I first read on a 16 hour train journey from Bangalore to Cochin), Salem’s Lot, Christine, The Shining, Night Shift, Cujo (and the movie), The Running Man, Pet Sematary, Thinner, Skeleton Crew, The Eyes Of The Dragon, Misery, The Tommyknockers, The Dark Half, Four Past Midnight, Gerald’s Game, Needful Things, Dolores Claiborne, Insomnia, Rose Madder, The Green Mile, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts In Atlantis, Dreamcatcher – Whew!!! That’s a lot and I still want more. I want the Dark Tower series which is 7 novels.

By Roshan • Books • 2

Feb 18 2012

Discovering New Books

I wish I could read as much as I used to as it now takes me a month or more to read a single novel whereas I would devour 2 or 3 in a month in years gone by. I was a bookworm but I am no longer one. Now since I read at such a much slower pace I have to pick & choose what books I read. In such cases I go for the tried & tested authors or I get help.

The internet is a good option – read synopsis & recommendations from website or blogs that review books. Check what other people are reading and saying about the books that they have read. Facebook posts, Twitter tweets etc etc. These days it’s the best way to find not just a good book but also movies, music & recipes for food & cocktails.

By Roshan • Books • 3