I absolutely love this one!
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Dead on Demand..I continue on
The beginning of Chapter 2 introduced Yosef, and his first born son. We learn that as time passes, at a very young age, his son is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease. It is incurable, and his son will slowly lose his sight, hearing, and the ability to move and breathe on his own. He will die very young. They will make him as comfortable as possible, but he vows to himself he will not let his son suffer in agony. (We all see where this is going, right?)
Back to Edwin, who decides to not off his wife, because of course he is going to get caught. Yet as the debt piles up, he again revisits the idea, and posts a straight-to-the-point post looking for someone to do the deed for him. He gets a reply rather quickly, and starts figuring out how he would pay for this service. In between all of this, he is job-searching, and has a great prospect lined up.
Realizing he cannot pay cash or touch any money in his bank, he decides the best option is to trade one favor for another. He now has to post a new advert on the internet.
At the beginning of chapter 4 we are introduced to Vanhi, a prostitute in central London. (Did I forget to tell you that this story takes place across the “big pond”? Sorry about that.) After she takes care of a client, she cleans herself and her apartment up before Jaison, her boyfriend?, gets back from work. He is a cleaner.
I am sensing an Alfred Hitchcock story going on here. Strangers on a Train, anyone? I love that movie 🙂
So I will keep plodding along on this story. Apparently it was written in less than 90 days (intentionally) and has seriously mixed reviews online. Apparently numerous spelling and punctuation errors as well, which I haven’t seen yet.
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Dead On Demand-Daniel Campbell & Sean Campbell
I am really hoping that the best thing about this story is not the title. I have to say I have only read the first chapter, but all through that first chapter I kept asking myself “Do I really want to keep reading this?”
Why was I thinking this? Mainly because this story does one thing I do not like in the books I read: it introduces a whole town’s worth of characters and all the twisted ways they may or may not be linked together. Most books take a while to do this, but I think this book did it all in the first chapter. At least I hope they did it all in the first chapter, because if the next one or two chapters do this, it will be the second book in my lifetime that I could not finish. It reminds me of reading “The Casual Vacancy” by J.K. Rowling. The only book I read from front to back and had no idea what I had just read when I finished it. (Honestly, I would sell that book at a yard sale or donate it to my local library but I would not want to be responsible for someone else reading that book).
So in chapter one, we meet Edwin, over-worker to avoid his wife, Eleanor. Drew, their son that died, and Chelsea, their daughter that lived. Betty, who is Edwin’s secretary. Derek Wood, the owner of the newspaper that Edwin works for. Wood’s personal assistant, so-far unnamed. Palmer, advertising employee for the paper. Mark, Edwin’s brother-in-law. Caroline Flack, Edwin’s just obtained divorce attorney. Jeremy Kyle, news reporter and likely Eleanor’s new boyfriend.
Now, they did not give a huge backstory for all of the characters I just mentioned (just most), but they were all mentioned; in the first chapter. 16 pages.
Now the first sentence of chapter two, and when I stopped reading this morning? “When his first son was born, Yosef Gershwin had paced back and forth frantically.” (page 17).
Having a sneaking suspicion I was about to learn all about Yosef, his son, and his extended family, I had to stop reading. I will pick it back up; but if too many more characters get added to this story, it is going back on the bookshelf, gathering dust, never to be looked at again.
The meaning of this story? Edwin is online, looking for someone to take care of a problem he has. Yep; that problem.
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Friday’s Fun Facts
Author: Lewis Carroll
Born: January 27, 1832
Died: January 14, 1898
Wrote: Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark, Sylvie and Bruno.
Interesting Facts: Lewis had a stutter as he was growing up. He began writing stories and poetry at a very young age. He also had a knack for mathematics. He continually encouraged letter-writing, inventing a penny stamp holder, and wrote and received over 90,000 letters.
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Did I Miss Something?
Okay, truth be told, it is 5 am, I cannot focus on my statistics book, and it is Friday, which is when I usually search for and find free books for my Nook. Which I am on right now (Friday fun facts will post later; I need my actual laptop for that!)
Always a critic of electronic readers, I do still buy books. But, I cannot just walk into Barnes & Noble and take several (or even one) book home without paying for it, right? Right. And I have discovered some great authors through these free books whose other works I will now be purchasing for my bookshelves.
With that being said, what is up with all of the books about BDSM (or whatever the hell its initials are), women falling in love with ghosts, and people are really still writing about women falling in love with werewolves? Still? Yes, I read through all of the Twilight books like a crazy person and I’m not embarrassed to admit it; and yes I also read the 50 Shades books.
But good gracious, is no one capable of coming up with an original idea anymore? Have all the good storylines and plots been used up? Is this what we have to look forward to? Recycled and regurgitated stories with new names for the characters, a different city, and the same ol’ same ol’?
This is one of the reasons I read To Kill a Mockingbird at least once a year. And luckily, there are still a few classics out there that I haven’t gotten to yet. And if you read these type of same storyline/different author books and I just pissed you off, I would apologize but this is nothing more than my humble opinion, and no; I will never apologize for my opinion.
Is it really just me who gets annoyed by this type of writing? What annoys you (other than this post) about books?
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That Book I Can’t Put Down!
Yep, that’s it! This book has been occupying all of my time; my free time, my wish-it-was-free-time, and my should-be-sleeping-time.
I could probably put it down if I was not determined to get a B or better in this class (paying for it if I get a B- or lower is the best motivator!). I have to say, the more I read it, the more it makes sense.
But I will be glad to move beyond null hypothesis, random samples, z-scores, and confidence intervals. 4 more weeks to go, and then on to hopefully a less grueling human resources class. I will never again forget what the mean, mode, and median are 😀
I apologize for my lack of posts, my blogs are my relaxation time! I do plan on starting a new story tonight; a light, fun read, likely a mystery. So as I try to get smarter, I will make sure I still make time for “me”.
Are you reading anything right now because you have to?
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I Love This Quote!
Words are [powerful] seeds. Once planted… words will bring forth flowers or weeds, health or disease, healing or poison. You carry a great responsibility for their use.
Dennis and Barbara Rainey, in Building Your Mate’s Self Esteem
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That’s It For This Edition of Janet Maple
The Bad Guy Is Caught
Janet and Dean/Dennis keep working the case together, although she will not cut him a break and stop being angry with him. She just cannot see that he truly does like and care for her; something he had promised himself would never happen again.
The next step to find the missing link? That is with Tom. And who is going to work over Tom to get this much needed information? Right again: Janet. (She is sorry she even asked!) She sees it as much needed punishment for herself though for what she is doing to Lisa. They may have their issues, but she was still her best friend, and likely about to ruin her wedding plans and lock up her fiancé, even though he appears to be as clueless about the situation as Lisa.
Janet calls up Tom to have him meet her at a bar; Dean/Dennis just happens to show up there as well. An earlier deal with the bartender had Tom sloshed beyond belief and Janet and Dean/Dennis sober as a church choir. They get Tom’s drunk self home, and rush back to Janet’s with Tom’s laptop in hand. Dean/Dennis has no trouble getting past the initial password, and finds what he was looking for.
Apparently Tom can handle his liquor better than anyone thought; barely minutes after they hack into his laptop and get what they need, he is ringing Janet’s intercom, asking to come up to her apartment.
Back to Jon in the office. The first lawsuit comes in, as well as a subpoena from the SEC. He knew this was just the tip of the iceberg, and left work for the day. As he never leaves work for anything, his wife knew there was something terribly wrong, and he spilled everything to her. She vowed to stand by him, no matter what, and told him he needed to do the right thing and confess everything, likely for a more lenient sentence.
And now we’re back to Lisa. Sitting in her office, daydreaming about her wedding. Until her paralegal brings in a copy of The New York Post. She plays it off as nothing to worry about, until she is again alone in her office. Then the panic sets in.
Janet meets Dean/Dennis’s boss, and he offers her a job at the Treasury. She is too shocked to answer, but takes the envelope with the details of the offer with her and promises to call. And she still will not forgive Dean/Dennis, whom she also just at that very moment found out his real name was Dennis. Why don’t you add some more fuel to the fire, Dennis?
So how does it end? Hanging. Dennis asks Janet out, and she agrees. And that is it. There is no resolution to what happens to Bostoff Securities, Jon, Paul, or Lisa. Does this bother me? Not at all. It was a good read, easy and fun, and I will definitely be reading the next one in this series, “Catching the Bad Guy”. An except for book 2 lets us know that she did indeed take the job at the Treasury, is working with Dennis, they are strictly friends, and they are also both attracted to each other but refuse to admit it.
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Friday Fun Facts!
Author: Jules Verne
Born: February 8, 1828
Died: March 24, 1905
Wrote: A Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Mysterious Island, From the Earth to the Moon, and numerous others (over 70)
Interesting facts: Jules earned a law degree and set up a practice in France in 1850. He is the 2nd most translated author, behind Agatha Christie. His nephew, Gaston, tried to murder Jules. He shot at him twice, hitting him once in the knee, for which he had a limp the remainder of his life. He is referred to as “The Father of Science Fiction”.
Quote: Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.
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What Have You Gotten Yourself Into Janet Maple?
The Jack Russell Terrier? That’s Janet’s dog, Baxter. He does not help solve any crimes.
It seems as if Janet Maple is realizing she should have stayed unemployed, instead of taking a job with her friend Lisa Foley.
Some more of “To Catch a Bad Guy” by Marie Astor….
Immediately at the start of Chapter 7, Janet is trying to figure out if Bostoff is a clean company, or if they are crooks. After a week on the job, she had not had 1 single task that she could take credit for.
In the meantime, Lisa gets engaged to the Boss’s son, Paul Bostoff, just as she predicted. Likely something to irritate Janet some more, no doubt. Big brother Jon isn’t too thrilled about it either.
An upcoming SEC audit has Janet looking over some client files to verify everything is in order; missing addresses and ownership information was not a good sign.
And then we are back to Dean/Dennis for a moment. He begins contemplating bringing Janet in on what he is doing there; he believes she would be a good ally and could help him blow the case wide open.
Chapter 10 pretty much clears the air that Jon and Tom are both the ones behind whatever the illegal activity is that is going on, and Paul really doesn’t know anything about it at all. (I’m getting the feeling there are going to be a few people in this story who were in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time, including Janet and Lisa).
Next we dig into a bit of Dean/Dennis’s background, and learn that he himself was once in finance, he went to work for a less-than-honest company. Once he was let in on the secret, he was approached by the Federal Government before he could find employment elsewhere. They offered him a deal to help them with their investigation, give up his securities licenses, and they would not prosecute him any further. He really had no choice.
Janet brings up her concerns to Lisa, who could not care less; telling her to let the operations department deal with it. Janet tells operations she was granted access, so operations hands her a password to information she really shouldn’t be seeing.
An engagement party at Lisa’s parent’s home, and a cousin of Lisa’s who turned into the same jerk he was when they were growing up put quite the damper on Janet’s evening. Lisa doesn’t seem to think she is responsible for anything, and the two end up barely speaking.
Jon Bostoff agrees to take part in a shady deal with a client, for the largest amount of money he’s ever risked. This could be the one that brings him down.
Janet meets Dean/Dennis at a bar, not knowing he knew she would be there and he planned it all. After a pleasant evening together, she asks Dean if he noticed anything odd about the company they work for. He chose that time to say his good-byes for the night.
Tom later spends a quiet evening trying to woo Janet, but his intentions are mainly to make sure she knows nothing about the scheming Jon and he are doing. Dean/Dennis tells Janet who he really is, and she is furious; feeling as if she had been used for information.
Now she needs to tell Linda, who won’t shut her mouth (my words) about her wedding. Janet tries to tell her; and never gets the chance. She agrees to help Dean/Dennis, but only if he keeps Lisa and Paul out of Jail. Lisa he can promise to, but not Paul, he is too high up on the food chain, even if he really knows nothing.
So, the fall is about to happen; how many are going to get taken down?
I will have this finished up tonight, and will be moving on to another book 🙂
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