Book Log 2019 #44: The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

The sequel to Old Man's War, it introduces us to the Ghost Brigades, the special forces units of the Colonial Defense Forces. Where their regular troops are elderly, living people who get their mind transplanted into young, new, enhanced bodies, the Ghost Brigades are created from the DNA of dead people, and optimized for combat. 

I won't go into too many plot details to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that creating new beings out of DNA doesn't always go as planned. 

Kind of funny that I read this after The Obelisk Gate, as they're complete opposites in many ways, but they both excel at the sort of reading experience they're aimed at giving, so maybe it's not that odd?  

 Book Log 2019 #43: The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin

I read this book two and a half years ago (I'm backfilling the Book Log, the publish dates are the finish dates I have on Goodreads), and I don't remember much about it, other than I really liked it. I'm also wondering if there was a lot of time between reading this and the first book in the trilogy, The Fifth Season (which I've not logged here as it looks like I didn't add start or end dates in Goodreads, so it's not showing up in the chronology of my read books), as I recall having to refresh myself a bit on characters and events. Anyway, you should read the trilogy if you haven't yet.

 Book Log 2019 #42: The Likeness by Tana French

Cassie Maddox - who we met in the first Dublin Murder Squad novel - has left the squad, but gets pulled back in due to a very unusual circumstance. Turns out that a body turned up that not only looks strikingly like Cassie, but has an ID with the same name the Cassie used in an undercover case. In order to find the killer - and figure out just exactly who the victim actually is - Cassie agrees to go undercover as the victim, an especially challenging role given that she shares a house with several other people. One of whom is most likely the killer.

I really enjoyed this, and if you've not read anything in this series (and are interested in contemporary murder mysteries) I'd highly suggest you start reading these.

 Book Log 2019 #41: The Fallen Architect by Charles Belfoure

At what should have been a highlight of his career, the theater designed by London architect Douglas Layton suffers a collapse. After serving a prison sentence for the deadly results of the collapse, Layton finds a new job in the theater - scene painter - but soon becomes involved in a series of murders which seem to be connected to the theater collapse. Layton thus begins to look for the killer, thinking that if he catches that person he'll also catch the person responsible for the theater disaster.

I thought Belfoure's first book, The Paris Architect, was good for a first novel, and was glad to see that this book didn't repeat some of the things that I thought detracted from the first one. I'm also still taken with the use of architecture in the mystery/thriller genre, and hope that future works will blend the two as well as this book (and the first one) did.

 Book Log 2019 #40: The Girl Who Takes and Eye for an Eye by David Langercrantz

The fifth book in the Millenium series, and second penned by Langercrantz, sees Lisbeth Salander in prison, where she protects a Bangladeshi prisoner from other inmates who want to do her harm. She also has a visit from her former guardian, who gives her information on her past. Salander was part of an experiment that took exceptional children and put them in different circumstances to see what effect it had on their growth. Salander asks journalist Mikael Blomkvist to investigate this, and if you've ready any of the previous books in this series you have an idea of what sort of hell this winds up unleashing.

I did like this book better than Langercrantz's first entry in the series, but I do agree with some of the criticism that the book focused too much on new characters and had a marked absence of Salander. Hopefully Langercrantz will return to the more established characters for the next book, which he's announced is his last in the series.