Finished: I Will Find You (Coben) A great new book by Harlan Coben, my favorite thriller/mystery author! It's the story of David Burroughs who is in prison for murdering his three year old son, Matthew, five years earlier. When his ex-sister-in-law brings a picture to the prison and insists that he needs to look at it, he sees what she sees. It's Matthew, alive and well! He just knows, and so does she. David is in extreme danger in prison, as the people who set him up and concocted the elaborate scheme that took his son away from him, want him dead. Until this moment, David had not cared what happened to him. His marriage was over, not to mention his entire world shattered, at the death of Matthew. Once David sees the picture, and believes that Matthew is still alive and was taken from he and his ex-wife, he concocts a plan to get out of prison, and begins confronting people from the past to try and find his son. It's another page-turner, with several twists and turns. I love Harlan Coben's voice of each character, and how he always manages to bring in at least one character from one of his previous books! He's a great story teller and I just wish that I didn't read his books so fast. :-) 

 Finished: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk) Pulitzer Prize winning book that follows the life of Ensign Willie Keith, a wealthy young man who gets assigned to a run down mine sweeping destroyer during World War II. We see the ship through his eyes, and watch as Willie does things we agree with and don't agree with, all the while coming into his own aboard the ship. When a new captain is placed on board not long after Willie arrives, none of the crew knows what a nightmare they are in for. The executive officer of the boat, Steve Maryk, has his hands full being responsible for all the men, being an example to Willie, and being 2nd in command to Captain Queeg, the new captain. As it turns out, Queeg is basically a coward who would rather berate men for the tiniest little details (i.e., shirttails untucked, etc.) rather than get anywhere near actual gun fire. Many incidences occur aboard The Caine which are a result of his incompetence, but he always blames the reasons on the crew to his higher ups. At a critical point in the South Pacific, the ship is hit by a typhoon, and with his irrational behavior, and after weeks of watching the captain deteriorate mentally, Maryk relieves the captain of his duties via an emergency navy rule. Maryk calmly saves the ship that was about to capsize, and when the crew returns to home base, Maryk is court marshalled and stands trial, with Willie named as his accomplice. I've had this book on my list to read for awhile, but was always a bit daunted by its 500+ page length. I'm so, so glad I finally read it! Wouk is such a good writer and develops each character to a tee. His descriptive prose takes you right to each location as well. If you've seen the movie, it really doesn't do the book justice...but it's a pretty good condensed version. :-) 

 Finished: The Last Party (Mackintosh) A very good whoddunit! Luxury condos for the wealthy have been built on the shores of remote Lake Mirror....on the exact border of Wales and England. The wealthy man responsible for the building is Rhys Lloyd, a local Welsh "boy" who left his hometown village and made it as a famous opera singer. Using the land inherited from his family, Lloyd comes back to Lake Mirror with his wife and teenage twin daughters after his career begins to wane. His land, in the years before, had been settled to be officially in England...so he's one of the wealthy people who comes to build and live at the upper, upper crust neighborhood, The Shore. The town members of Cwm Coed, who live and work and raise children across the lake in Wales, are not happy. Not only is the view of the landscape drastically changed, but the difference between the wealthy "summer home" owners and townspeople, who barely make ends meet, is tremendous. When the first handful of lake front homes is complete, the wealthy owners start moving in. We meet all kinds of interesting characters, both home owners and townsfolk. Rhys Lloyd and his wife, Yasmine, throw a New Year's Eve party and, along side their wealthy neighbors, the entire town is invited to come. By the end of the night, Lloyd is dead! His body washes up on shore at the annual New Year's Day dip in the lake. The Detective Constable in charge on the Welsh side is Ffion Morgan, a thirty year old divorcee who lives with her mother Cwm Coed. She's outdoorsy, very truthful and holds a painful past close. The Detective Constable on the English side is Leo Brady, also a divorcee and father of a young son, who has just relocated from London to the area. DC Brady has problems of his own, as his ex-wife is holding a secret over his head to keep him from seeing his son as the custody arrangement states. He's more the meek type and is surprised by the outspokenness of DC Morgan when he meets  her. Neither one is happy being saddled with the other as a partner, but they must work together to figure out what happened. It gets particularly dicey when Leo begins to discover that Ffion has secrets that may be directly involved with the evening in question...and she has lied to him about it. You can't help but like both characters and root for them to at least become friends and lean on each other. Eventually Ffion's secret, and how it relates to Rhys Lloyd, does come to light just in time to throw them together into another tricky situation. All The Shore neighbors are suspects, as well as many of the townspeople, even  Ffion with her motive. The story does a good job of weaving together all the characters and their stories and why, as it turns out, nearly each and every person who knew him despised Lloyd, and with good reason. I was hoping by the end of the book that Ffion and Leo might work together again on another case, and was just happy to read that this is apparently book #1 of the DC Morgan series! Can't wait for more. :-)