Perilous Reading - 1

I finished the first book in my Perilous Reading read-a-long thingy.

It was Speaking In Tongues by Jeffrey Deaver. Dave and I are huge Deaver fans. He wrote The Bone Collector which is the first of his that either of us read. My favorite from him is The Devil's Teardrop. It involves a document authenticator in the quest for who-dunnit. A Devil's Teardrop is when someone writes an i and the dot looks like a teardrop.

Deaver makes forensic science fascinating! He's gotta be doing so much research on most of his books, it's unreal. I love a book that can thrill you to death, scare the crap out of you and educate you at the same time. Plus his books almost always have this neck-snappin' twist at the end. Can't beat that!

The first time I tried reading Speaking, I was using it as my workout book. I would pick a book I really wanted to read and would only allow myself to read it while working out. This book was the third or fourth of my workout books and it just wasn't doin' it for me. I couldn't get into it. The characters were all whiners who pointed the blame at others. I put the book down.

That's something I never do. No matter how bad a book is, I have to finish it. I hate not knowing the end of a story. This book wasn't necessarily bad, I just couldn't get into it. When I picked it up this time for this read-a-long, it still had the bookmark in it from my last attempt - on page 136. I started from the beginning again (I'd put it down about 2 years ago) and apparently, I should have kept at it for a few more pages. Soon after page 136, the book takes off! It was Deaver's usual very good stuff!

I read short stories between books, to clear my brain from the last one. I finished, I was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. It's pretty funny. The cover touted her as a female David Sedaris. I don't know about that, but she was funny!

I'm continuing my quest to read/listen to everything by James Patterson. Man, is he good! I was listening to Kiss the Girls while making my keychains. I was reading Speaking at the same time and they were getting a little mixed up in my head as they both involved kidnapped females and crazed killers.

I wonder who came first. I'm pretty sure Patterson is the first I ever read that uses the style of really short chapters (averaging around 300 pages, his books usually have over 100 chapters per book). He also has that maddening technique where one character is in dire peril and the chapter ends and the next chapter goes to some other character and, well, whatever, Patterson makes you wait to see what happens to the threatened character.

Deaver, Dan Brown (of The Da Vinci Code fame), and countless others use that same style. It's breakneck speed and it sucks you in. D and I stay up so much later then we intend to because of these books. The short chapters are what do you in. You just keep telling yourself, 'It's only a few more pages, I gotta know what happens' and then suddenly it's past midnight.

Started my second book last night. I'm on page 20 and it's already creepy! Yay!

Loving the fake scary, Ruth!