This Man’s Proposed January Reads…..
This year 2022, the number of books I have listed on my Goodreads Reading Challenge is the same as 2021 60 books. To reach that goal I need to read 5 books per month. After creating this site and reacquainting myself with authors I have read through the years, I am going to include in the books I hope to read books from those authors. In most of those cases it will be books I have missed in their series. My goal will be to read at least two of those books each month.
Additionally, I will be keeping up with the series and standalone books from the many authors whose books read yearly. I will also be reading those series hat I have begun to read over the last five years or so. And finally, I am always on the look-out for new authors and series. In 2021, I read11 books that were either the first book in a new series or one that is only 3 or 4 books long!
Summarizjng my goal is to read 60 books that are a mix of older series either by filling in books I’ve missed or keeping up with a series I have read for many years. That mix will also include books from series that are more recent. And finally NEW SERIES, ” you can never have enough “SERIES” books to read!!
Now with all that in mind, here are my proposed January reads……(there are only 4 books here because I have already read my first book of 2021. Lightning Strike (Book #0) in the Cork O’Connor series from William Kent Krueger
My Proposed January Reads…..
The Bouncer (Joe Brody #1)- David Gordon
The Bouncer is the first book in David Gordon’s Joe Brody series. My first encounter with this series was last November when I read book 3 in the series Against the Law.. Joe Brody….
….. is just your average Dostoevsky-reading, Harvard-expelled strip club bouncer who has a highly classified military history and a best friend from Catholic school who happens to be head mafioso Gio Caprisi.
In Against the Law Gio and the rest of the New York crime underworld is being impacted ny a shadowy new figure on the drug scene Zahir. Zahir has been hijacking herion shipments and dealing on Ne York streets. Soon Joe is offered a heafty reward for taking out Zahir. Ad how it happens is one wild ride!!
I’m currently reading The Bouncer and enjoying it just as much!
The Witchfinder (Amos Walker # 12) – Loren D Estleman
The next of my proposed is part of the Amos Walker series from Loreen D Estleman. The last book I read in the Amos Walker series in order was book 10 Sweet Woman Lie, I read it in 1990! Again after writing about Loren Esteman during the creation of this blog i discovered that unlike what I thought Estleman has been writing Amos Walker books for many of those 30 years! The latest book is 2019’s When Old Midnight Comes Along (Amos Walker, 28) Yikes!
Anyway, when I was at the local branch of my county library system the other day, I checked out The Witchfinder (Amos Walker # 12). Hmm, if I read one book a year to get to book 28 I need sixteen years and by then I’ll be 86! Boy I better get reading!!!! to speed up that timeline! LOL
Let It Burn (Alex McKnight # 10)- Steve Hamilton
Let It Burn is book 10 in Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series. It is also the only book in the series I haven’t read. From Goodreads
Alex McKnight swore to serve and protect Detroit as a police officer, but a trip to Motown these days is a trip to a past he’d just as soon forget. The city will forever remind him of his partner’s death and of the bullet still lodged in his own chest.
Then he gets a call from his old sergeant. A young man Alex helped put away—in the one big case that marked the high point of his career—will be getting out of prison. When the sergeant invites Alex downstate to have a drink for old times’ sake, it’s an offer he would normally refuse. However, there’s a certain female FBI agent he can’t stop thinking about, so he gets in his truck and he goes back to Detroit.
Alex McKnight left Detroit for the wilds of Michigan’s nouthern penisula, PAradise Michigan to be more accurate. I’ve never been to PAradise, but thanks to Steve Hamilton I sure feel like I have vistide there many times! The first book in the series won both the Edgar and Shamus awards of best first novel and launched Hamiliton into the top ranks of crime writers. It’s a terrific book , so check it out! Along with all the other books Alex and his friends are great characters and the stories are alwways grerat!
A Blizzard of Polar Bears – (Alex Carter #2) – Alice Henderson
The last of my proposed January Reads is A Blizzard of Polar Bears by Alice Henderson. After spending some time with Alex Carter last winter as she studied Wolverines in the wilds of Montana, I’m ready for another adventure. The aspect of Hendserson Alex Carter series is the great job she does of blending science and action. And the reason that the science is believable is that…..
Alice is a dedicated wildlife researcher. Using a variety of methods including bioacoustic studies, she undertakes wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on lands that have been set aside for conservation. There she ensures there are no signs of poaching and devises of ways to improve habitat. Using geographic information systems (GIS), she also designs wildlife corridors and builds habitat suitability models and species distribution models. She has surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, spotted owls, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats, and more. Read More
And in A Blizzard of Polar Bears…..
Fresh off her wolverne study in Montana, wildlife biologist Alex Carter lands a job studying a threatened population of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic. Embedded with a small team of Arctic researchers, she tracks the majestic bears by air, following them over vast, snowy terrain, spending days leaning precariously out of a helicopter with a tranquilizer gun, until she can get down on the ice to examine them up close.
But as her study progresses, and she gathers data on the health of individual bears, things start to go awry. Her helicopter pilot quits unexpectedly, equipment goes missing, and a late-night intruder breaks into her lab and steals the samples she’s collected. She realizes that someone doesn’t want her to complete her study, but Alex is not easily deterred. Read More
So there are my proposed reads for January 2022…..two books from old series that I used to read on a regular basis. Along with two series that I started rerading last year. So excuse me, I need to get reading!!