I'm combining a few reviews.
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
This book has been in my queue for 2 decades. It was a depressing read for sure. But Definitely worthy of all the accolades the book received. Frank writes about his impoverished childhood in Limrick, Ireland. His dad is from Northern Ireland and an IRA supporter whereas his mom is a protestant. Like I said, a very depressing read but so compelling.
'Tis by Frank McCourt. This picks up where AA left off. Another very well written book but this one bothered me a bit more. In short, Frank pissed me off in this book and I'll leave it at that.
The Contact by Rossa McPhillips. This book caught my attention from a spybrary podcast. I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't know much about the history of the IRA and all the conflicts in Northern Ireland. As a result, I was really excited to read this book. Great plot and I found the characters very interesting.
The Crocodile Hunter by Gerald Seymour. Thanks to Tim Shipman, I'm just getting introduced to Seymour. He is an excellent writer. This has a good plot and is well written. My issue is with the main character, Jonas. I don't particularly like him..I don't dislike him either. I just couldn't connect with him. I need to like or dislike the main character...I want the main character to have personality to him/her...that's just my preference. Like I said, well written with a good plot.
Black Wolf by Kathleen Kent. The main character, Mel, is a CIA agent who's has this gift-like "super power" with facial recognition. Normally, if a "super power" is involved, I'm out (unless it's a movie/show with my 13 year old son and it involves Star Wars/Marvel/DC Comics...ha). However, that was not the case with this book. Kent did a good job writing about Mel's facial recognition skill. It wasn't over the top at all. I really enjoyed this book and I'm guessing this is a start of a series. If so, I'll be reading book 2.
The Cassandra Complex by Frazer Douglas. I came across this book from the Spybrarian's favorite books of 2022 that the Great Shane put together for us. Similar to The Frenchman, I desperately wanted to love this book. It started out promising but I just had an issue keeping up. It was constantly changing timelines, locations, introducing more and more characters, introducing more back/side plots...it was just too hard to keep up. I hate bringing it up because I'm the last person on Earth to criticize someone's writing/grammar, but I think there are a lot of grammar issues. So much in fact, that whole paragraphs had to be ignored because I couldn't understand the writing. At first, I thought it was me being an ignorant Yank who wasn't understanding the British lingo...and maybe it was? I did some research and I think this was self-published. If that's the case, I think with a good publisher and editor, this will be an excellent book.
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