It’s been a week taken up by admin, but good admin, planning a trip to Bavaria next week to stay at the house of an old friend. I’ve been to Munich many times on business, but this will be my first time as a tourist and my first time visiting the small towns of Lower Bavaria, starting with Landshut, the town on this week’s graphics.
Here in England, summer has continued to arrive and then leave from day to day, moving us from Amber Warnings for heat, to grey rain-laden skies.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been reading and buying this week and what I’ll be reading next week in Bavaria.
This week, I read one book that didn’t work for me, although it was well done; the fifth book from a crime series that’s always entertaining, and a cosy paranormal book that wasn’t on my list but which turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
The apocalypse will be televised!
You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.
Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the Dungeon. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series is one of the hot hits in publishing at the moment, spearheading the LitRPG subgenre. I’ve had the first book, ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ (2020), sitting on my shelves for a year already, so I decided that it was time to give it a try.
It was based on an Innovative idea and was executed with flair. It perfectly captured the exploitative nature of gamification. It was populated with vividly imagined creatures and game rules and punctuated with spectacular fight scenes. All told with gentle humour. Having a talking cat as Carl’s partner was inspired. I can see why this caused such a sensation and why the series has attracted so many fans,
BUT…
…this wasn’t for me. Part of my problem is that I’ve never enjoyed RPGs. I also hate gamification in any form. I can see that the book is also anti-gamification and that the game is positioned as a cruelty-for-profit product that seems like the highest evolution of Imperialistic Capitalism. Even so, I found it hard to sustain my interest in repetitive slaughter-for-loot scenes, so I set this aside at 66%.
My review is HERE
Called to an isolated farm to check on an elderly widow, Sheriff Bree Taggert finds a brutal double homicide. One of the victims is Eugene Oscar, the bitter and corrupt former deputy she recently forced out of the department.
Working with criminal investigator Matt Flynn, Bree discovers that she isn’t the only one who had a troubling history with Eugene. But someone doesn’t want Bree digging up the past. She becomes the target of a stranger’s sick and devious campaign calculated to destroy her reputation, career, family, and new relationship with Matt. To make matters worse, she’s the prime suspect in Eugene’s murder.
When her chief deputy goes missing while investigating the case, Bree refuses to back down. She won’t let him become the next victim. His life and her future depend on finding a killer nursing a vengeful rage.
I read the first Bree Taggert book, ‘Cross Her Heart’ (2020), last March and liked it well enough that I bought the next seven books in the series. ‘Dead Against Her’ was my fifth visit with Bree and was just as much fun as the others. The opening murder scene was graphic, the mystery was interesting, the misogynistic use of Deep Fake pornography as a weapon against women was topical, the action scenes were exciting, and I enjoyed watching the relationships between the ensemble cast develop.
Two women. Three kids. No money.
Jess lost her husband. Libby’s husband lost his mind — or at least his sense of responsibility. With their lives upended and their finances in freefall, the two friends do the only thing they can: pool their resources and buy the one property in St. Sebastian that nobody else wants.
The haunted one. Obviously.
They expected creaky floors and cold spots. They didn’t expect to actually see the ghost, a long-dead mortician who has apparently been waiting for exactly the right people to move in. When word spreads that Jess and Libby can see him, it attracts attention they weren’t looking for.
Including a job offer Libby can’t afford to turn down.
The catch: she has to solve the mortician’s murder. A crime decades old, buried deep, and apparently important enough that someone is willing to pay for answers. Libby and Jess are in no position to say no.
But the deeper they dig, the more they have to wonder — some things stay buried for a reason.
I bought ‘Dead Companions’ (2023) because I liked the idea, and it was on sale for £0.77, so why not?
I hadn’t meant to read it this week, but I checked out the opening chapter and just kept going. This is a fun, feel-good book, but it’s not saccharine or tropey. I loved the book’s positive energy. The dialogue sparkled. It made me laugh, and it quickly got me engaged with the characters. Jess and Libby have been friends since childhood, and their kids have grown up together. Now one is facing an unexpected divorce, and the other is a widow, and they and their kids are starting somewhere new – a spooky old house in a town with a history of hauntings. The dynamics of the friendship between Jess and Libby felt real. Their kids were fun. Add in a resident ghost and a murder mystery, and what’s not to like?
I’ve already bought the second book in the series.
I bought four books this week: a standalone Science Fiction novel about a Samurai working as an enforcer for a big corporation on a far-future planet, the second book in the Jess and Libby cozy paranormal series, the first book in a new Nordic Noir series and the latest collection of Don Winslow stories.
Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend has to come to an end.
When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow-to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her legacy.
But when a competitor offers her a final mission, it’s one she can’t refuse.
Soon, she’s thrust deep into a world of corporate espionage, duty-bound duels, and shadowy secrets.
What she uncovers will change humanity’s existence in the stars forever.
Six all-new short novels:
The multi-million-dollar casino heist is impossible—it can’t be done. That’s what makes it irresistible to a legendary robber facing the rest of his life in prison for his “The Final Score.”
An ambitious, hard-working college-bound teenager has a side job delivering illegal booze to “The Sunday List” until a crooked cop, a seductive customer, and a fake guru threaten to end his dreams.
Two wise guys tell each other a “True Story” over breakfast at a diner. It’s all bullshit and laughs until someone else has to pick up the check.
An otherwise honest patrolman has to make an excruciating choice between his loyalty to the job and his love for a ne’er-do-well cousin in “The North Wing.”
The entitled, substance-addicted movie star that surfer/PI Boone Daniels and his crew are hired to babysit in “The Lunch Break” is a problem. She also has a problem—someone wants her dead.
Finally, the one terrible, momentary mistake that a devoted family man makes sends him to prison and on a “Collision” course between the man he wants to be and the k
Jess and Libby’s side hustle is becoming a full-time job.
Ghosts are everywhere in St. Sebastian, and it turns out houses aren’t the only things that get haunted. Little Jelena Blazevic has an invisible companion, a lady who started out friendly and is becoming something else entirely. The crying. The sleepless nights. The strange fixations that nobody can explain.
Jelena isn’t scared. Her parents absolutely are.
Jess and Libby take the case and find it considerably more complicated than expected. The ghost is in distress — that much is obvious. What she can’t do is explain why. And whatever is driving her grief is escalating, which means Jess and Libby need answers fast.
Did something terrible happen in the Blazevic house? Is the secret buried in the ghost’s past? Or is it something else entirely — something that connects more than one family’s history in ways nobody saw coming?
With their own kids in tow and no shortage of ghosts willing to weigh in along the way, Jess and Libby are about to risk everything to untangle a mystery that runs deeper than anyone suspected.
The truth they’re uncovering stretches far beyond St. Sebastian. A little girl’s invisible friend was just the tip of the iceberg.
When 19-year-old Iselin Hanssen disappears during a run in a popular hiking area in Bodø, Northern Norway, suspicion quickly falls on her boyfriend.
For investigator Jakob Weber, the case seems clear-cut, almost unexceptional, even though there is some suggestion that Iselin lived parts of her life beneath the radar of both family and friends.
But events take a dramatic turn when another woman disappears in similar circumstances – this time on the island of Røst, hundreds of miles off the coast, in the wild ocean.
Rumours that a killer is on the loose begin to spread, terrifying the local population and leading to wild conspiracies.
But then Jakob discovers that this isn’t the first time that young women have vanished without a trace in the region, and it becomes clear that someone is hiding something – and another murderous spree may have just begun. . .
As I’m going to be in Germany this week, I’m going to read a German Science Fiction novel and a German crime novel. I’m also reading a book from my Sci Fi Summer 2026 list.
A strange find at an archaeological dig site in Isreal may change our view on human history and religion.
When science fiction author Peter Eisenhardt is called by the multimillionaire John Kaun to help at the site, he does not understand why. At first.
Once he finds out that the team in Israel has found a manual of a modern video camera in an ancient tomb, he begins to see why Kaun asked for him. Due to his research, Eisenhardt is an expert on fictional time travel and many of its theories. If this manual is not a joke and is actually 2000 years old, Eisenhardt may help answer two simple questions. Where is the camera? And what could be on it?
In my view, not enough German Science Fiction is translated into English. Andreas Eshbach has published sixteen novels for adults, and only four of them have been translated into English. I picked ‘The Jesus-Video’ because I liked the premise and because it was available as an audiobook (albeit an all-cast audiobook).
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found, and Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.
He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study geology and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the settlement of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.
Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy the settlement ship before they land. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.
I bought this because it’s the first book in a Space Opera series and it got great reviews.
I like the premise, and I’m hoping the enemies-to-lovers trope isn’t the main driver of the novel.
A serial killer is on the loose in Hamburg, targeting dancers from The Acapulco, a club in the city’s red-light district, removing their scalp as a gruesome trophy and replacing their hair with plastic wigs.
Chastity Riley is the state prosecutor responsible for crimes in the district, and she’s working alongside the police as they investigate.
Can she get inside the mind of the killer?
Her strength is thinking like a criminal; her weaknesses are pubs, bars, younger men and dingy light, but as Chastity searches for love and a flamboyant killer – battling her demons and the dark, foggy Hamburg weather – she hits dead end after dead end, and it may be too late. For everyone…
This will be my third Chastity Riley book. I’ve already read ‘Blue Night’ and ’The Kitchen’.
I started with ‘Blue Night’ the sixth book in the series, because, back in 2020, it was the only book available in English.
I’m happy to say that almost all of Simone Buchholz’s books have now been translated, and I’m hoping to read all of them.
Mike Finn's Fiction 