Ron's View

I wrote two posts ago about finishing Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin last night, closing with the observation that I was ready for something completely different. It didn’t take long for me to decide on the difference. This morning I downloaded Robert Crais’ latest crime novel Taken, which came out just this past Tuesday. It’s #15 in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, of which I’ve previously read entries #11-14.

After finishing the last one a year ago, I wasn’t convinced I wanted to keep going. I wrote at the time that “maybe reading three of them in 6 1/2 months wasn’t such a good idea. I didn’t enjoy this one as much. I don’t feel that I learned much more about Pike as a character, and I didn’t find him so interesting anymore. The plot drove me along. Crais is pretty good at that. But even that wasn’t so interesting.”

This morning I took a rosier view. After Bloodlands, leaving Eastern Europe behind for LA and the latest activities of Elvis and Joe sounded mighty attractive. So far, Crais is proving me right. I’m a fifth of the way through, and it’s all I could do this afternoon to put Taken aside so I could blog. Speaking of which, I’ll stop here so I can keep reading.