The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets

This is book 3 in the Enola Holmes series. Enola, younger sister or Sherlock Holmes, is living by herself in London. She seems to be in hiding from her brothers. Enola finds out that Watson is missing. And she takes the case on.

The first clue is a weird set of flowers sent to Watson's wife. Enola sets up a sting, renting a house across the street from the Watson's. There she spies on a boy delivering similar flowers to the house again. She gives chase, and gets details from the boy on who asked him to deliver the flowers.

Enola sneaks into Sherlock's home and finds an address for disguises. She visits the store, planning to get some items to disguise herself. The owner's wife helps Enola. Later, Enola returns asking for details that the weird flower donor used to disguise themselves. The owner becomes agitated and irate. Enola finds this suspicious.

Eventually Enola spies on the shop owner and finds that the owner's sister disguises herself as a man. And the sister is the one who sent the weird flowers. The sister is also the one to arranged for Watson to be abducted.

Enola decides that it is best if one of her brothers goes to rescue Watson. She also sends an anonymous tip to the cops to collect the guilty parties. Enola decides that this episode confirms that she is detective material. So she poses as the secretary of a detective. But she will solve cases herself. The next case is the next book in the series.

Takedown - The Pusuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick

Shimomura has his computers hacked. He is a self proclaimed security expert. So he tries to find out who did it. He has some trails left behind by the hacker. He needs to go around the USA to get help from other sites used in the hack. He also needs the help from the FBI to perform "the takedown".

This guy is not a likeable dude. He was unable to graduate from high school or college. Yet he thinks everyone is stupid compared to himself. This big headed attitude extends to his views on the FBI. I don't think there is a doubt that his computers were hacked. But the guy lacks credibility. Who knows whether Kevin Mitnick was the one who did it.

Shimomura spends a lot of time trying to describe what is essentially an affair he is having with a girl. This really has no bearing on the hacking story. In the end, the FBI descends upon Mitnick, who is on parole and is already in trouble for some other crimes. As as aside, the book is co-authored by John Markoff, who previously wrote a book and New York Times articles on Mitnick.

Cherub Mission 1 - The Recruit

James lives with his mom and younger sister. The kids at school give him a hard time because his mom is way overweight. His mom runs a crime ring, so James is not hurting for money. James' stepfather comes over often to get cash from his mom. This latest time, he got mom drunk. That messed with her medications and killed her.

James ended up in an orphanage. His sister went with her dad. James was able to extract all the cash his mom had been hiding from her crimes. He starts hanging out with the wrong crowd at school. James is already in trouble to injuring a girl who teased him in his previous school, as well as a teacher that tried to restrain him. His new bad friends talk him into trying to steal some beer. In the end, they turn on him and get him arrested.

Little does James know that the Cherub organization has been watching him. They invite him to join their band of young spies. Boot camp is very tough. James teams up with a girl who failed boot camp previously, so she has a great advantage. James must push through learning to swim very fast. Somehow he makes it through boot camp, and with his partner, passes the final exam.

James gets invited onto a mission with him swim coach, who is years older than him. They infiltrate a group of supposed terrorists who are thought to be planning an attack against leaders of the oil industry. James needs to put his training to work to spy on the group. Turns out there are terrorists amongst them, but the intel was wrong on how they planned to kill the oil leaders.

CoCo

This book is subtitled "The Colorful History of Tandy's Underdog Computer". It chronicles the TRS-80 Color Computer from Tandy / Radio Shack. This was the first computer that my family owned. It was created in the 1980s among competitors like the Apple II, Atari ST, and Commodore 64.

The computer has a Motorola 6809 chip as the CPU. It had a cartridge slot on the side. Initially you could load and store programs from cassette tape. It ran at less than 1Mgz. The original version had 4k of RAM. You could upgrade to 16k or 32k. It had Microsoft BASIC in its ROM. There was an optional Extended BASIC that gave you better graphics, and a Disk Extended BASIC for floppy drive access.

My family upgraded to the CoCo 3 later on. This was a computer still based on the 6809 chip. There was more memory (128K by default). Although not all the memory could be accessed at once. The CoCo 3 had an enhanced GIME chip for graphics. Around the same time, an upgraded joystick was released.

The Rainbow Magazine was dedicated to the color computer. There was a host of companies providing third party support for hardware and software. The legion of Radio Shack stores carried the computer and official Tandy software. There was talk about a CoCo 4. But there were delays and not enough demand.

They Both Die at the End

Matteo is a recluse. He lives alone in an apartment. His dad is in a coma at the hospital. He has one friend that is a single mother. He gets a call that he is going to die today.

Rufus is an orphan. He is part of a gang. He wants to beat up the new boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend. His parents and sister previously died in a car accident. Rufus gets a call that he is going to die today.

There is a service for people who are going to die that allows them to meet up with other people. These two guys from really different backgrounds do meet and spend their last day alive together.

The title gives away the ending of the book. There is a nasty surprise towards the end of the book. It seemed out of place based on the background of the two characters that have been developed throughout the whole book. I give this book a thumbs down.

Confessions of a Curious Bookseller

Fawn Birchill is the owner of an old book store in West Philadelphia. She has a couple employees. Her business is failing. As a youth, she was forced to work at her father's general store. Her father is now in the hospital on his deathbed. Fawn will not visit him.

Fawn lives in the bookstore building. She has a tenant Jane who is elderly. Fawn often visits Jane and watches TV with her. Fawn eventually rents a room to Rainbow, a magician who wants to eventually perform in Las Vegas.

Fawn corresponds with a gentleman named Gregory. Fawn pretends to be a rich British heiress when writing to Gregory. Fawn also emails her mom and sister. Her sister is married with children. Fawn is also a frequent poster to a local blog.

Mark opens another bookstore close to Fawn's and became very successful. Eventually Fawn's employees either quit or are fired, and they end up working for Mark. This leaves Fawn running the store by herself until she gets a volunteer named Jack.

Jack is a bit slow. But it turns out his family is rich. Fawn's father dies. While at the funeral, Jack texts her that the store is falling into a sinkhole. Fawn immediately leaves the funeral to find out it is her competitor Mark's store that was destroyed. As Fawn realizes she cannot afford to maintain her bookstore building, she decides to sell it to Mark. Then Fawn takes off to travel the world with Greg, who also was embellishing the truth about himself.

Running for my Life

This is a book about NFL football player Warrick Dunn. His mom was a police offer who was killed while acting as security after hours. This occurred when Dunn was 18 years old. He had many younger siblings who became orphans. He decided to continue with his college plans. He spent 4 years in Florida playing football.

Dunn was a smaller running back. He played for the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He started a charity where they hook deserving families up with new houses. They require the families to do many hours of training. They make the down payment on the house. They also fill the house with all the things a family will need to be successful.

Dunn was for more than 10,000 yards in his career. He won the Walter Payton Player of the Year award. He served as the adult in his family while away at school and in the NFL. His younger brother and grandmother were the on sight guardians of his siblings.