Dream Team

Dream Team

Jack McCallum, 2012

In 1992, the Olympic committee began allowing professional players to compete in the games. This book chronicles the stories of players such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson, and tells about how the greatest basketball ever assembled came together at the Olympic Games in Barcelona.

I love basketball, but it's not something that I really grew up following. Other than knowing that Larry Bird and the Celtics were awesome, the Lakers were hated, and Michael Jordan was the best player in the world, I didn't grow up with a whole lot of basketball knowledge. I only really started watching basketball regularly in the past 5 years or so and have come to love the sport like I never thought I could. Because of this, I'm often left wishing that I knew more about what came before...

Enter this book. A wonderfully written account of a time when the best players in the world came together to form the greatest team ever. This book was an interesting account, not only of the Barcelona games, but of who each player was, how they played off of each other, and what the league was like at the time. One of the best books I've read so far this year. I don't know how someone who watched the Dream Team at the time would feel about it, but I'm pretty sure they would get just as much enjoyment out of the book as I did. A great read.

The Scent of Shadows

The Scent of Shadows (Signs of the Zodiac #1)

Vicki Pettersson, 2007

Joanna Archer, daughter of one of the richest men in Las Vegas, spends her days as a freelance photographer and her nights prowling the dark streets in the less pleasant side of town. But its not the criminals and vagrants that she has to fear, which she realizes when she is attacked - in her own father's hotel - by someone who she knows is not quite human. It turns out that she is coming into powers that will allow her to fight on the side of Light for the city of Las Vegas. But the agents of Shadow are very powerful, and the agents of Light have been dying off one by one for some time now. Joanna has to come to terms with what she is becoming, at the same time trying to discover if there could be a traitor among the agents of Light.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable urban fantasy novel. I sometimes feel like all the plots have been done - how many times can you have fantasy creatures battle it out and not have it become repetitive? - but this was just different enough that it kept me interested. Just people with a little extra strength and talent battling it out, good vs. evil. A fun, enjoyable read. I'll definitely keep going with the series to see how it turns out.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Tom Franklin, 2010

In rural Mississippi, the young daughter of a well-to-do family has gone missing. While there are no real clues as to what happened to her, the majority of the suspicion is directed at Larry Ott, a mechanic in the town who was suspected of murdering a girl back in the 1970s, when he was still in high school. While he was never convicted of the crime, the girl was never found and Larry was the last person to see her alive. Now, Silas "32" Jones, the town constable and former boyhood friend of Larry Ott, is tasked with finding the missing girl, and  what happened in the past just might be forced into the light.

This ended up being a really good mystery novel. I thought that the characters were very well-developed and sympathetic, even when what they did wasn't quite right. Even the minor characters were pretty well fleshed out. I was able to work out a few of the twists before they were revealed, but not in detail, and I thought that even though I saw some of them coming they were very well done and fit with the storyline very well.

In addition, I listened to this one on audiobook and I thought that the narrator did an excellent job with the reading, even giving distinct voices to the main characters that made them identifiable and gave them a little additional personality. 

An excellent mystery novel. Highly recommended.