What Fiction are you reading this week, June 7, 2026

[hermetic]

This discussion thread is pinned.

I'm reading the long-awaited The Last Mandarin by Louise Penny and Melissa Fung. "A fast-paced, all-too-real thriller...a study of absolute power and voracious greed, political terror and personal conviction." Started it last night and could not put it down. What a beginning!

Listening to The Girl from Devil's Lake by J. A. Jance "Arizona County Sheriff Joanna Brady solves her biggest case yet." A real thriller following a serial killer from Arizona to No. Dakota to Mexico. Good story.

[cbabe]

1. Those sound good. They slipped by me so thanks

for posting.

I read Judge Stone/Viola Davis and James Patterson. Page turner courtroom thriller. I think Patterson stepped back and let Davis take the lead. Much more readable than his recent work.

Ripped from the headlines sensational story.

Alabama doctor charged with murder for giving a raped 13year old an abortion.

The Judge tries to keep her court and small town from exploding. Her naivety and stubbornness in the face of building violence annoyed me.

Meanwhile, be warned. Multiple triggers of racism, sexism, lynching, proud boys terrorism, land theft, religious hypocrisy, etc.

Redeemed by family, community, backyard breakfasts. A crazy rooster. And a pregnant horse.

I think this would make a good book club book. Lots to discuss.

[LogDog75]

4. I read Judge Stone last week and it's worth reading

Patterson works with a lot of authors primarily letting them do most of the writing while he helps with the story line and characters. It also helps having his name as the primary author so it will sell more boos.

[mentalsolstice]

2. I finished "Fleishman Is in Trouble" by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone I don’t know very well. Now I’m reading Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven. It’s loosely based on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”. I don’t remember much about the show as I was only five when it ended and I don’t think my parents ever watched it. So far, so good. I need to check out that Viola Davis book, my parents lived close to Union Springs. The description of it sounds pretty close to how it was/is.

Have a great week everyone! ☀️🏝️

[Easterncedar]

3. Graham Greene The Captain and the Enemy

Short novel with big effect.

[LogDog75]

5. I've read two books and I'm on a third this week

Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong. This is the third book in the Haven's Rock series which is a continuation of her Rockton novels. Haven's Rock, like Rockton, is a small town built in the Yukon wilderness where people who need to disappear because their lives are in danger. There are no roads, resupply is by it's small airplane, no radio/TV/internet, and the town is camouflaged to prevent outsiders from finding them. Casey Butler is a detective living there who, with her husband and their deputy, handle any disturbances and crimes to the 80 plus people living there. Unfortunately, murders also happen in and around Haven's Rock requiring her skills to solve.

Tanshuman by Ben Bova. Luke Abramsom 75 years old and is a cellular biologist whose granddaughterAngela, has a terminal brain tumor. Luke tells his daughter, her husband, and the granddaughter's doctor he can save her life with an untried experimental treatment he developed but the refuse to allow it. Luke convinces his granddaughter's doctor to help him take Angela to a clinic Oregon where he can treat her. Now, an FBI agent is on their tail as is the security chief for the billionaire who funds Luke's research. To compound the problem, Luke is giving himself the treatment he wants to give Angela and it's making him younger.

First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong is the fourth Haven's Rock book. Casey Butler and her sheriff husband are on a hike outside Haven's Rock when they come across a husband and wife lost hiking in the area. The husband injured his ankle and Casey helps bandage the man's ankle and gives them directions to where the husband and wife are hiking to and away from discovering Haven's Rock. The next day, Casey and her husband check the area to make sure they couple have left and they discover the husband has been murdered and the wife is nowhere around. The question is who murdered him and where is the murderer now.

[cbabe]

6. Speaking of finding something new: Thomas Perry

has a new Jane Whitefield.

The Tree of Light and Flowers
Tenth in the series

"Jane Whitefield is used to protecting vulnerable people, but after she gives birth, the fugitives she must rescue are her own family…”

Jane Whitefield is a Native American (Seneca) character in a crime and mystery novel series by Thomas Perry, known for helping people disappear to escape danger. She uses her skills and cultural heritage to guide her clients to new lives, often facing various threats along the way.

[hermetic]

7. Cool

My library just got the audio so I grabbed it. I'll be listening this week. Thanks!

[cbabe]

9. Lucky you. I'm on the library hold list.

[txwhitedove]

8. Quiet Sunday for reading, so I've read half of author Andrea Mara's gripping

All Her Fault. This book seemed to start slow, but has become a can't put down thriller. "Marissa Irvine arrives at 14 Tudor Grove, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. But the woman who answers the door isn't a mother she recognises. She isn't the nanny. She doesn't have Milo. And so begins every parent's worst nightmare."

The thriller is seriously intermission between continued reading of non-fiction There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone. Book swapping between nightmares. This one is real. Imagine being forced to both live and work in your car...with your children. Laws, greed, gentrification... We need to take better care of each other.

[hermetic]

10. Now a major TV series

'Grips from the first page and keeps upping the stakes.' Sounds like a winner.

Indeed we do. Bless you, sweetie.