It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.



I'm late posting as we were still on our mini-road trip on Monday and Tuesday, only getting home late Tuesday. 
This week's read: I was on vacation so  I had planned on reading a couple of books which I did.
BLOODLAND by Alan Glynn. 
Book jacket synopsis:
A tabloid star is killed in a helicopter crash and three years later a young journalist is warned off the story. A private security contractor loses it in the Congo, with deadly consequences. In Ireland an ex-prime minister struggles to contain a dark secret from his time in office. A dramatic news story breaks in Paris just as a US senator begins his campaign to run for office. With echoes of John Le Carré, 24 and James Ellroy, Alan Glynn’s follow-up to Winterland is another crime novel of and for our times – a ferocious, paranoid thriller that moves from Dublin to New York via Central Africa, and thrillingly explores the legacy of corruption in big business, the West’s fear of China, the role of back room political players and the question of who controls what we know.


This is an action packed thriller full of corruption and conspiracy which totally kept my attention. It is full of characters, all male, all powerful and selfish, hellbent on making more money except for the young journalist (who is also male).
The women are all bit players, hangers on. They don't play any roles in any of the sub-plots. 


It is a globe trotting book, landing in New York, Dublin, London, Paris, Verona and the Congo.
At the beginning I thought I might need a spreadsheet to keep track of the characters, plots and locations.


It points out our largely consumeristic economy, dwells on the economic shift in Ireland's Celtic Tiger to it's now dire straits, the complex barbaric war in the Congo and the relationship of the west with China. 


All in all I totally enjoyed this book and would recommend it.


The second book I read I could absolutely NOT put down until I finished it.


THE END OF THE WASP SEASON by Denise Mina 

I have read several of this Scottish writer's books before and always enjoy them.


When a notorious millionaire banker hangs himself, his death attracts no sympathy. But the legacy of a lifetime of selfishness is widespread, and the carnage most acute among those he ought to be protecting: his family.
Meanwhile, in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is found savagely murdered. The community is stunned by what appears to be a vicious, random attack. When Detective Inspector Alex Morrow, heavily pregnant with twins, is called in to investigate, she soon discovers that a tangled web of lies lurks behind the murder. It's a web that will spiral through Alex's own home, the local community, and ultimately right back to a swinging rope, hundreds of miles away.
The End of the Wasp Season is an accomplished, compelling and multi-layered novel about family's power of damage-and redemption.


This book also focuses on the UK financial crisis and how it relates to the ordinary person. This book is all about its characters and you believe you know each of them. 
I was sorry that I didn't realize there was a predecessor to this called Still Midnight which first introduces us to the female detective Alex Morrow who is trying to motivate her staff to do their jobs. 
As always her books are creepy and a little disturbing. We meet the two teenage boys responsible for this heinous crime also immediately, however we can't quite determine which is the actual murderer.


We have rich kids gone bad, money grubbing father, drugged out mother, mysterious money, a prostitute, horrible boss, nice old lady, unengaged cops, suicide, idiot lawyer, struggling single mother - everything that adds up to gripping characters.


WHAT AM I READING THIS WEEK?





Book cover synopsis:
Tom Violet is 35 years old, but his life hasn’t turned out the way he imagined it. He thought he’d have followed in his father’s footsteps by now and become a famous author in his own right. Instead, he only has written one, unpublished novel that he recently completed after years of work. He has a beautiful wife, but their relationship is difficult at best. He’s unquestionably attracted to a young woman he works with, and his office job is at the worst sort of corporate hack of a company. As things just get worse and worse, Tom finally decides he has to take control of his life if he is ever going to find real happiness.