Purse book: "Lucifer's Tears" by James Thompson, a police procedural by an American who has lived in Finland for many years. The main character's American freeper sister-in-law shows up in this one.

The only other thing I've read of hers was her "Hellblazer" issues with John Constantine. Was at an interview once, done by Val MacDermid, and she is a very interesting woman. Bounces around in a lot of things. Also, apparently, answers the same question different ways at different times She may have an authorial character as well.

Alex Berenson's former spy John Wells goes underground in East Africa to track four kidnapped Americans and the Somali bandits who snatched them.

by Cory Doctorow; a sequel to "Little Brother."

These are his first attempts at ya fiction; I read a lot of ya to keep up with my students.

I don't really consider either one of these truly "YA;" they fall into that category because the protagonist is, in the first novel, in high school, and in the second novel, a year or two out of high school. The subject matter is purely political, with a strong dose of techno-geek that the author spends a lot of time explaining. Even with all that explanation, they are both riveting, and the real-world correlations are frankly horrifying.

It's also satisfying for me, because the protagonist and his friends are not fucking centrist/neoliberal or right-wing; the antagonists are.

In the first book, a 2nd terrorist attack happens in San Francisco, and homeland security swoops in with an authoritarian lockdown, citizens disappear and are tortured, and the protagonist gets caught up in the action. In the book I'm currently reading, he's getting involved with an independent campaign while his past problems with homeland security come back to haunt him.

I highly recommend both.

It is living up to the praise.

We all be readers here!

I've been reading more modern noir the last year and thought I'd go back to an early practitioner.

Thing that I'd forgotten: The book breaks neatly in two halves, almost like two acts of a play. The only comparable thing I've seen recently of the modern authors was John Connolly's _Every Dead Thing_, the first Charlie Parker novel.

Thing I'm noticing this time around that I hadn't before: Chandler uses color description a lot. There are not many pages that don't mention a color somewhere. Don't know what that means, just noticing it.

Listening: More Falco -- _Time to Depart_ by Lindsey Davis. Petro, Falco's closest friend, manages to take down Rome's biggest organized crime kingpin (outside of the palace, anyway), which at first seems like a good thing. After the kingpin is exiled, though, a gang war opens up in the vacuum of power, a not very good thing.

2013: 16 and counting

I'm also getting caught up on Anglo-Saxon kings.