The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

Cheer. I always feel happy when I read one of Alexander McCall Smith’s novels. The fourteenth in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series is titled, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. Mma Makutsi is pregnant and that adds a lot to the development of the series. Mma Ramotswe finds herself with two cases: a beauty salon owner who seems to have an enemy, and an inheritance that is being claimed by someone who may not be the rightful beneficiary. As readers have come to expect, there’s a lot of life’s important lessons packed into a few pages. By the end, as always, I closed the novel feeling just a little better about human nature and the goodness that can be found in the lives around us. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon from amazon.com.

The Unknowns

Nerdy. The more I read Gabriel Roth’s debut novel, The Unknowns, the more I liked it. Protagonist Eric Mueller excels at writing computer code, and has struggled in relationships. The novel is narrated by Eric, so we see from his point of view the challenge of trying to apply the orderliness of code to the messiness of relationships. Roth keeps the narrative witty and clever, while building underneath a warm story of love, with a key question for all of us: is it always better to know? Readers who lean on the nerdy side are those most likely to enjoy this promising debut. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase The Unknowns from amazon.com.

The Prince of Risk

Combination. Christopher Reich packs two thrillers into one in his novel, The Prince of Risk. One of the thrillers involves a financial high wire act by a hedge fund manager who bets the house on a devaluation of the Chinese currency. The other thriller is a conspiracy to spy on 57,000 influential people around the world who are key players in business and government. Reich grabs the attention of readers with the violence he presents in the first chapter. The desire to answer the question, “what was that about?,” draws readers into the rest of the plot. Those readers who like action thrillers, especially when there’s a financial angle, are those most likely to enjoy the time spent with this entertaining novel. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase The Prince of Risk from amazon.com.

Doomed

Hilarious. Readers taken with thirteen-year-old protagonist Madison Spencer to hell in Chuck Palahniuk’s 2011 novel, Damned, are back on earth with her in the sequel titled, Doomed. I laughed often throughout this hilarious novel, still enamored by Madison as a tour guide to Satan and the afterlife. Palahniuk’s prose hits my funny bone just right. Read a sample to see if you’re likely to be as entertained as I was. If you agree that it’s a matter of perspective to see our current condition as being pre-dead, chances are you’ll like this novel. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Doomed from amazon.com.

Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower

Outsider. The most unusual business story readers may ever encounter is Michael Woodford’s Exposure: Inside the Olympus Scandal: How I Went from CEO to Whistleblower. By virtue of position as President of Olympus, Woodford should have been an insider. After he gets an anonymous email calling to his attention signs of financial shenanigans, he investigates and goes to the company chairman and to members of the board of directors with his concerns. He asks to become CEO to give him the authority to get to the bottom of the scandal. Weeks after he becomes CEO, he’s fired. Having already shared the concerns about the likely financial fraud with the company’s independent auditors, the cover up by the perpetrators is doomed from the start. Woodford relates his side of this story, showing how he tried to get the board to do the right thing. Any reader interested in business, especially in the challenges of global concerns, will find this book fascinating to read. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Exposure from amazon.com.

Mirage

Tesla. Readers looking for reliable entertaining action in a novel can find plenty of it in Clive Cussler’s novel, Mirage. Protagonist Juan Cabrillo, Chairman of The Corporation, is back on the Oregon, risking his life in heroic ways on land, under the sea and up in the air. This is a guy who shouldn’t be able to get a life insurance policy no matter what the premium, but somehow he survives every near-death encounter with his deadly foes. The key gimmick in this novel is something Nikola Tesla built a century ago, brought to life again by the Russians, and ready for exploitation by the Chinese. These worthy adversaries for Cabrillo provide fast-paced action and lots of high tech toys to deploy. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Mirage from amazon.com.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells

Tribute. My first reaction upon hearing that Sebastian Faulks was writing a new novel reprising Jeeves and Wooster was: don’t mess with my Wodehouse. It was with trepidation that I opened Jeeves and the Wedding Bells, fearing the worst. After a dozen pages or so, my fears diminished, as I read what I’d call a tribute. I feared reading parody or a bumbling attempt at re-creation. Instead, the familiar characters come alive for contemporary readers, while remaining true to both the time period and the books by P.G. Wodehouse that preceded this one. If you’re a Jeeves & Wooster fan, take a gander at this new take on the old chaps. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Jeeves and the Wedding Bells from amazon.com.