30+ on tap

I am such a book hog. I have 30 - yes, more than 30 - books checked out to read, a mix of fiction and non-fiction, true crime and poetry, history, political, health and eating, dogs, favorite authors, recommends. I can't seem to pass one by. I am so afraid that someone else might grab something that looks interesting and I'd miss out somehow on reading it, that I just keep checking out and checking out. I am a madwoman. Well, this is the weekend I must sort and return all but the most desirable. Control, control.

Finally got and quickly read Vincent Zandri's Moonlight Falls. He has a strong new protagonist, Richard Moonlight(!), an ex-cop in trouble with the cops after an illicit sex affair with the alluring and beautiful Scarlet Montana, his ex-cop boss' now dead wife. Was it suicide, accident, did Moonlight kill her, or did the husband? Zandri writes very readable prose, full of twists and turns and set right here in good old Smallabany, which is fun. Zandri seems to be making ripples to a much larger audience than ever. Lots of promotion and good press going on.

Also finished Caught, another fast read by Harlan Coban who is the best at crime fiction. An attractive television reporter, a widow with an engaging teenage son, is being upstaged by a younger rival and then fired after outing a pedophile on national tv. The cops are investigating him in the disappearance of a high school girl when he is beaten and murdered and Wendy begins to question his guilt. The plot thickens, as they say, with the introduction of the Father's Club, a group of unemployed guys who hang out at a coffeshop. Everybody has secrets. Nobody writes a more entertaining tale than Coban. Whipped through this one and want more.