Book Log 2022 #21: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

The story in this book runs in three timelines - one set during the 1453 siege of Constantinople, one in present day Idaho, and one in the future on a spaceship delivering colonists to an exoplanet.  What each timeline shares is an ancient Greek story of a person who wants to be turned into a bird so they can go to a utopia in the sky. We see how the story affects the characters in each timeline, and the influence it has on them and, in some sense, the other timelines.

The book gave off Cloud Atlas vibes for story and character, and how these connected over time. I don't know that I liked this book as much as that one, but I did like it quite a bit. The page linked above tries to tie this in with Doerr's previous book, All the Light We Cannot See, but I don't think there's much of a connection. That shouldn't dissuade you from reading either book.

 Book Log 2022 #20: Collusion by Stuart Neville

After a string of killings in Northern Ireland, Gerry Fegan has gone to New York and the ex-wife and daughter of Belfast police detective Jack Lennon have gone into hiding.  While Lennon presses to find his daughter (with resistance from official channels), Fegan has to return home and face a rival hitman, hired by a survivor of Fegan's violence to exact revenge. 

The book was fine, I was on the fence about the series after the first book and am no more convinced either way as to whether or not I should continue on with it.  

 Book Log 2022 #18: The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The second book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, this is actually set before the first book. 

Daniel Martin survived a difficult childhood (thanks in part to the Sempere and Sempere bookstore) to become a writer of books about Barcelona's underworld. He moves into a deserted house with a murky past, one that appears to be slowing shaping his present. It impacts not only his writing - primarily a commission by a shadowy Frenchman to write a religious-themed work - but in his personal relationships with his patron, the daughter of the patron's chauffeur, and a devoted fan.

This all leads to an atmospherically gothic ending that may put some readers off. I figure if you can accept a story where a house is imposing its history on its current resident, the ending isn't that unexpected.

I think if you liked the first book you'll like this one. 

Book Log 2022 #19: The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva

This is the first in a very long series of spy thrillers featuring Gabriel Allon, who is trying to put his past in Israeli intelligence behind him to return to his real passion: art and art restoration. That doesn't quite work out, as he is drawn back into service after the Israeli ambassador to France is assassinated. The killing is the work of the same terrorist who killed Allon's son and caused permanent mental damage to Allon's wife, so Allon's return to spy work is part professional experience with the terrorist and a chance at revenge.

I'd been thinking about starting this series for a while, unsure if I wanted to start a new series. In the end it turned out to be a perfectly serviceable example of the genre, firmly in the airport read zone if a little better than what I think of as the average book of that type.  I think the involvement of the art world gave it just that small difference to separate it from standard spy fare. I'll probably keep reading these, they move pretty quickly and do scratch that genre itch.