Good Behavior by Blake Crouch (The Letty Dobesh Chronicles #1-3)

Good Behavior by Blake Crouch is not a novel but a collection of three novellas starring the same heroine, Letty Dobesh. Letty is a meth addict and a thief. Her behavior is so far from anything I've ever known or experienced that it's worth mentioning up front that you may find her a character impossible to relate to. That doesn't matter. The point is the taut plotting, the tension, the exciting action scenes, and Letty battling with herself, her needs, and her desire to stay clean and crime-free long enough to find and become mother to her son, again. While Good Behavior collects three Letty Dobesh stories under one title and the same title has been used for the TV series about Letty (which I have not seen), the stories don't all directly match up to the television episodes.

I read the Kindle in Motion version of Good Behavior, which was available from the Amazon Prime Library when I checked it out, a couple months ago. "Kindle in Motion" means there are some features you wouldn't find in a typical e-book, like gifs from the TV series, still photos, and the neon title flashing on the cover image. There is also some extra text describing the creation of Letty, the writing of both the stories and the series, which stories appear in the series and in what order, and the differences between the stories and the script.

The Pain of Others - In the opening novella, Letty Dobesh has recently been released from prison and gone straight to robbing hotel rooms with the help of someone who works in the hotel and has acquired a master key card. All is going well, for a time. Letty happily stuffs her bag full of electronics, jewelry, and the contents of the mini bars. Then, she hears a key card in the final lock. Unable to escape, Letty hides in a closet and overhears plans for the hotel patron to do a hit job. Should she call the police or stay out of it? Her decision will put her in danger, either way. What Letty decides is both fascinating, terrifying, and shocking. The ending will make you rethink the entire story and Letty's decision.

Sunset Key - The most heart-pounding of the three stories shows Letty with an everyday job, at the beginning. But, then she loses her job and is bang out of luck. Where will she go and what will she do? Whenever things go wrong, her first thought is getting a fix. But, then a dangerous man named Javier offers her an opportunity. A fabulously wealthy man is about to go to prison for the rest of his life and he wants to spend a single night with a beautiful woman. He owns a valuable painting. If Letty can snatch the painting and get off the island in the Florida Keys quickly, the payoff will be substantial. Letty is hesitant because it sounds more like prostitution than anything else, but she agrees when she hears her job is theft. Everything seems to be going well, but then the job is turned on its head and Letty realizes nothing she was told was the truth. Will Letty get off the island or will she die at the hands of a truly evil man?

Grab - Letty is tired of living from one drug fix, theft, or prison sentence to the next and decides it's time for a major change. So, she hits the road, intending to drive from the South to where her young son lives, in the Pacific Northwest. But, then she realizes she's being followed. Letty confronts the man and finds he's been tracking her because he heard she's good at what she does and he needs a very good thief to help him pull off a heist in Las Vegas. She's not that far from Vegas and the heist is a high-dollar theft. The only thing that keeps Letty from getting high when she's down is stealing. So, she agrees. But, things don't go quite as planned. Their getaway driver disappears and Letty's former therapist is in town, so she asks him to drive for them. He's suicidal. Will he show up at the right time? A surprising twist at the end of this story explains that absolutely nothing was as it appeared.

Highly recommended - I have not yet felt like Blake Crouch let me down. His stories are tense, his characters well-developed, the action thrilling. There's always something that isn't quite what you think it will be, but Crouch really used that to heart-pounding advantage in all three of these stories. Letty is a character that you don't have to relate to and don't even desire to. She's intruiging, kind of a nightmare, and a walking contradiction. You just want her to survive. But, you never know for sure if she will.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

There's an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa. I think of high school football games and the stadium lights blazing down on the players. I smell ripening apples, and the sour reek of beer from keg parties in the cornfields. I feel the wind in my face as I ride in the bed of an old pickup truck down a country road at night, dust swirling red in the taillights and the entire span of my life yawning out ahead of me. 

~pp. 11-12


This is the only thing I wrote in my Goodreads review of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch: "Could. Not. Put. Down."

And, really, that's probably all you need to know, but nah. I want to talk about this book. Dark Matter is about a scientist whose life has not turned out quite as he originally intended. Jason's never finished the project that he planned on making his life's work, instead choosing to marry, have a family, and teach. Although his life isn't perfect, he's happy. Then, one night, everything changes.

Knocked unconscious by a masked man and taken to a place that appears abandoned, Jason awakens in a hospital and finds that he hasn't returned to the same Chicago he left. Instead, he's ended up in a world in which he's unmarried, his son doesn't exist, and he's a successful scientist rather than a college physics professor. Pursued by people who claim to be his friends, Jason must figure out how his own invention -- the one he didn't get around to finishing or even figuring out -- functions. Only then will he have a shot at returning to the home and family he loves. Can Jason survive long enough to find his way home? Or will someone stop him before he runs out of chances?

Highly recommended - The science aspect of Dark Matter can be a little hard to follow, at times, and the story is definitely mind-bending as the Justin Cronin quote says on the cover, but I didn't have any difficulty following the logic of Crouch's world building. And, Dark Matter is by far the most gripping novel I've read in years. Jason and his family are likeable so I rooted for him to find his way home. I also thought the book was well written. Fast-paced books are often not crafted with as much care as one would hope, so I appreciated the competency and care of the author's writing.

The cover shown above is, I assume, the American version (or one of them). My copy was purchased from Book Depository and looks a bit different:

Dark Matter is my second read by Blake Crouch. I also read Pines and enjoyed it enough that I downloaded the following two books in the Wayward Pines series to my Kindle app (haven't read them, yet). Dark Matter is a stand-alone novel. I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to hang onto my copy to use as a slump breaker, in the future.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Weird Book #3 for #Weirdathon - Pines by Blake Crouch

I have totally lucked out, this month, reading weird books without even trying. Pines by Blake Crouch is definitely weird . . . and also the first in a series (future weirdness alert). When Jenny reviewed Pines, my interest had already been piqued by previews of the television series Wayward Pines, which is based on the books. Husband thought it looked too creepy and refused to watch it (which meant I didn't get to watch it because we really can only have one TV going at a time, thanks to the acoustics in this house).

Pines is the story of a Secret Service agent named Ethan Burke who awakens in a pine forest near a river. When he comes to, he can only remember 6 things, not including his own name. He's badly injured and doesn't know what happened to him or how he ended up in a forest. Across a field is a small town surrounded by cliffs. He stumbles into town but he has no wallet, no ID, no cell phone, no money so he can't call home or phone his office, can't buy himself a meal or pay for a stay in a hotel, can't prove his identity. Although it's clear he needs to get medical help, he's surprisingly wary of going to the hospital. Things start to get really weird when he hears a cricket and finds that even the cricket is not what it seems.

All sorts of bizarre things happen in Pines, leading Burke to the conclusion that Wayward Pines is no ordinary town. But, what on earth is going on and why can't he get answers from anyone?

You don't actually find out what's up till the end but it's loads of fun, surprising and super weird. I love it that Pines just happened to be such a bizarre story. I was expecting it to be creepy (and it is) but not quite so twisted. The only problem I had with the book is that the answers to why the town is so strange doesn't entirely explain why the people are so violent when someone doesn't fit in. At least, I didn't get it.

Recommended with a violence warning - Poor Ethan gets beat all to hell repeatedly and toward the end it becomes particularly horrifying just before he figures out what Wayward Pines is all about. I loved the fast pace, the creepiness, the strange atmosphere, and the fact that the answer to what was going on was even weirder than I imagined. Pines would definitely make a great RIP challenge book, in addition to being a terrific choice for #Weirdathon.

Side note: Pines was my very first Inter-Library Loan, ever! Wahoo for Inter-Library Loans! I should have tried this years ago.

©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.