The Midnight House

The Midnight House, Alex Berenson, 2010, G.P. Putnam's Sons, Genre: Spy Thriller. 385 pages. Finished 7/26/14.

LesOpinion: This fourth installment in a series of international spy thrillers featuring CIA agent, John Wells, is well written, fast paced, intricate, intelligent, and, frankly, sad. Wells is a terrific character precisely because he isn't impossibly skilled and superhuman. Although this is the only Berenson on the shelf, I'll be looking for others to read.

Beast

Beast, Peter Benchley, 1991, Random House, Genre: Thriller. 350 pages. Finished 7/23/14.

LesOpinion: As you might expect from the inimitable author of Jaws, this is a rollicking good adventure featuring a giant squid terrorizing tranquil Bermuda. But it's also Benchley's opportunity to rail against the predations of humankind on fish populations and fragile reefs. Unlike stories told by his lesser imitators, this morality tale ends with us finally getting what we deserve.

Spy

Spy, Ted Bell, 2006, Atria Books, Genre: Spy Thriller. 483 pages. Finished 7/18/14.

LesOpinion: This is one installment in a series of novels starring the wealthy, athletic, handsome, intelligent, debonair spy for Her Majesty's Secret Service, Alex Hawke, and his colorful colleagues, dreamy military toys, and lady loves. It's well written, sprawling, and much good fun. The element of violence and bloodshed on the US-Mexico border is timely in light of recent news, and the bad guys ultimately get theirs.

Four by (I'm Not Kidding, Gentle Reader) Glenn Beck

The Christmas Sweater, Glenn Beck (with Kevin Balfe and Jason Wright), 2008, Threshold Editions, Genre: Pablum. 284 pages. Finished 6/29/14.

The Overton Window, Glenn Beck (with Kevin Balfe, Emily Bestler, and Jack Henderson), 2010, Threshold Editions, Genre: Political Thriller. 292 pages (not counting all the polemics at the end). Finished 7/4/14 (no, really!).

The Snow Angel, Glenn Beck (with Nicole Baart), 2011, Threshold Editions, Genre: Pablum. 279 pages. Finished 7/6/14.

Agenda 21, Glenn Beck (with Harriet Parke), Threshold Editions, Genre: SciFi. 277 pages. Finished 7/12/14.

LesOpinion: Mr. Beck is a well-known right wing pundit who managed to wrangle actual writers into helping him compose books. The two "pablum" books are straight from the Mitch Albom school of simplistic, sentimental slop. The other two are standard-issue page-turners. Unless you see eye to eye with Mr. Beck on things political, spare yourself, Gentle Reader, from the lengthy polemical justifications for the story line that appear at the end of the novels. These oddly defensive appendices come across as first-rate conspiracy theories.

Another You

Another You, Ann Beattie, 1995, Knopf, Genre: Literary Fiction. 323 pages. Finished 6/27/14.

LesOpinion: This perfectly decent novel, sandwiched as it is between M.C. Beaton's computer-generated genre schlock and conservative pundit Glenn Beck's surreal attempts at polemical fiction, was like that one little gasp of air you get just before you are sucked back under the surface of the water--it was just enough to keep me going on the Quest.

Another You is the stream of consciousness tale of a professor caught up in his wife's affair, a colleague's turmoil, and his stepmother's death. The author weaves in a mysterious correspondence that leads to an appropriately unsatisfying ending for everyone (except the reader, of course, who happily gets to know it all while the characters flounder).

How can there be only one Ann Beattie on the shelf but four Glenn Beck books? This proves that the injustices in the world are small enough to haunt even the shelves of a New England village library.

Damn You, Agatha Raisin, Quit Sneaking Up on Me

The Deadly Dance: An Agatha Raisin Mystery, M.C. Beaton, 2004, St. Martin's Minotaur, Genre: Cozy Mystery. 233 pages. Finished 6/4/14.

Kissing Christmas Goodbye: An Agatha Raisin Mystery, M.C. Beaton, 2007, St. Martin's Minotaur, Genre: Cozy Mystery. 234 pages. Finished 6/7/14.

Death of a Prankster: A Hamish MacBeth Mystery, M.C. Beaton, 1992, St. Martin's Press, Genre: Cozy Mystery. 151 pages. Finished 6/7/14.

Death of a Dentist: A Hamish MacBeth Mystery, M.C. Beaton, 1997, The Mysterious Press, Genre: Cozy Mystery. 129 pages. Finished 6/9/14.

LesOpinion: Just when I thought I'd exhausted the S. White Dickinson's supply of Agatha Raisin mysteries, I stumbled across a few more. I have nothing new to add about those. But then I embarked on Beaton's other oeuvre: the Hamish MacBeth cozies. These tales of a Scottish Highland village constable are a slightly better version of lightweight cozy mystery. You can read one in a day, making them perfect for a television-free vacation.

Here's a weird quirk of M.C. Beaton's novels: She loves the word "howled" in place of all the (often more sensible) alternatives (declared, exclaimed, cried, stated, said, whined, etc.). Saying that "Agatha howled" a few times over the course of 20 novels wouldn't seem so bad, but saying "Agatha howled" 10 times in the same novel? Is anyone editing this stuff?