Reading List 2021

I spent a lot of time reading in 2021.

A friend gave me the book Zero Day by David Baldacci for Christmas 2020 so it was my first book for 2021. I enjoyed it so much that I immediately bought the next three books in the series. Later on in the year I discovered the Memory Man series and the Will Robie series.

The Memory Man series by David Baldacci has a fascinating main character. Amos Decker had a bad football head injury that, “left him with an improbable side effect–he can forget nothing.” Later in life he is a police detective. One day he came home to find his family had been murdered. A perfect memory turns out to be both a blessing and a curse. Most of us (especially as we get older) would love a perfect memory. However, Amos Decker has a few bad memories that he wishes that he did not remember in perfect detail. It does make him a hell of a detective and makes him excellent at questioning witnesses and identifying inconsistencies and connecting details.

Another new author for me this year was Colin Falconer. I clicked on a Facebook ad (book ads are one of the few I will click) for one of his books and was taken to Amazon.com. The summary of the story read,

The Holy Land, 1260: Templar knight, Josseran Sarrazini is chosen to escort the Pope’s emissary, a Dominican friar, on a diplomatic mission to the all-conquering Mongol horde in an effort to broker a peace deal. To do it, they must undertake one of the most extraordinary journeys ever made.

Silk Road: A haunting story of adventure, romance and courage

This sounded like a great adventure story to me!

I ended up reading three more books in the series. The book Aztec (renamed The Feathered Serpent) was fantastic! It’s the story of Hernan Cortes conquest of the Aztec nation. The book Lord of the Atlas turned out to be another favorite. The Amazon summary of the book says,

Marrakesh, 1893: Two former army officers are offered a small fortune to help the Sultan of Morocco quell a rebel uprising. It seems like the easiest money they’ll ever make. But they couldn’t be more wrong.

Later on the summary says, “This is adventure on a breath-taking scale, evoking the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth-century Morocco, and transporting the reader to a now-lost world.” I agree!

I actually purchased The Bone Collector back on June 17, 2019 but never read it until 2021. I remembered it was made into a movie starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. I loved the book! Jeffery Deaver has Lincoln Rhyme using some fascinating forensic science techniques to solve crimes. A big part of his technique involved using database technology to catalog and match evidence samples. Throughout the year I eventually read the entire 14 book series. I also watched the movie and a new series based on the novels.

I really enjoyed the book A Ripple in Time by Victor Zugg. He seems a fairly new author on Amazon.com, with the first book listed only published in 2018. Amazon describes the story,

It started as a routine Miami to Charlotte flight for the passengers, crew, and Federal Air Marshal Stephen Mason. But a freak storm over the Atlantic propels the airliner unexplainably back in time to the early 18th century. They find themselves on the sparsely populated coast of the Carolina Colony.

A Ripple In Time: A Historical Novel Of Survival

It turned out to be a fantastic story and since then I have read several other novels by Victor Zugg.

The new Dune movie finally came out. Before it was released I read the book again (I have read it several times over the years). I gained a new appreciation of the challenges that a film producer had when telling this story. The novel Dune has an interesting structure. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from fictional books written by Princess Irulan and Paul Atreides. Some of the excerpts gave us background information that the screenplay writers have to find a different way to present it to the viewers. I really enjoyed the movie and am looking forward to part 2.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler was a recommendation from my friend’s fifteen year-old son. He read it for an assignment at school and really enjoyed the story. It turns out it was a time travel story. A black women from the 20th century named Dana gets transported back to the early 1800’s in Maryland. It was fantastic! She ends up traveling back and forth between 1976 and various years in the early 1800. Every time she seems to be sent back to save the son of a slave plantation owner named Rufus. The story was able to explore aspects of slavery in addition to comparing cultural norms and attitudes of people in the 1970’s and the early 1800’s.

I read the book Rendezvous with Rama before, but it was many years ago. When I saw there was a Kindle version I had to get it. Even thought Arthur C. Clark was a science fiction writer, he had a excellent grasp of the practical side of science. The Rama ship design concept of the enormous tube with the living area on the inside surface is brilliant. Having the craft rotate could provide the artificial gravity. The Star Trek Next Generation episode named Relics used a similar concept with the Dyson sphere where they enclosed a sun with a large sphere and the inhabitants lived on the inside surface.

I also read next book in the series which is named Rama II. Clark wrote this story in partnership with Gentry Lee. I think they did a better job with the drama and conflict between characters compared to Rendezvous with Rama.

1. Zero Day (John Puller 1) – David Baldacci
2. The Forgotten (John Puller 2) – David Baldacci
3. The Escape (John Puller 3) – David Baldacci
4. No Man’s Land (John Puller 4) – David Baldacci
5. Silk Road – Colin Falconer
6. Stigmata – Colin Falconer
7. Aztec (renamed The Feathered Serpent) – Colin Falconer
8. East India – Colin Falconer
9. Toxin – Robin Cook
10. Memory Man – (Memory Man Book 1) – David Baldacci
11. The Innocent (Will Robie Book 1) – David Baldacci
12. The Last Mile (Memory Man Book 2) – David Baldacci
13. The Hit (Will Robie Book 2) – David Baldacci
14. Tom Clancy’s Shadow of the Dragon (Jack Ryan Novel) – Marc Cameron
15. The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme Book 1) – Jeffery Deaver
16. The Fix – (Memory Man Book 3) – David Baldacci
17. The Coffin Dancer – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 2) – Jeffery Deaver
18. The Fallen – (Memory Man Book 4) – David Baldacci
19. The Empty Chair – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 3) – Jeffery Deaver
20. The Stone Monkey – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 4) – Jeffery Deaver
21. Redemption – (Memory Man Book 5) – David Baldacci
22. Code of Honor (Jack Ryan Novel) Marc Cameron
23. Another Time, Another Place (Chronicles of St. Mary’s) – Jodi Taylor
24. The Vanished Man – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 5) – Jeffery Deaver
25. The Twelfth Card – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 6) – Jeffery Deaver
26. Walk the Wire – (Memory Man Book 6) – David Baldacci
27. The Cold Moon – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 7) – Jeffery Deaver
28. The Broken Window – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 8) – Jeffery Deaver
29. The Burning Wire – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 9) – Jeffery Deaver
30. The Kill Room – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 10) – Jeffery Deaver
31. The Skin Collector – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 11) – Jeffery Deaver
32. The Steel Kiss – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 12) – Jeffery Deaver
33. The Burial Hour – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 13) – Jeffery Deaver
34. The Cutting Edge – (Lincoln Rhyme Book 14) – Jeffery Deaver
35. Time Tourist Outfitters, LTD – Christy Nichols
36. The Ferguson Rifle (re-read) – Louis L’Amour
37. Fast Ice – Clive Cussler
38. Lord of the Atlas – Colin Falconer
39. The Lions of Lucerne – (Scott Halverth series #1) – Brad Thor
40. Path of the Assassin – (Scott Halverth series #2) – Brad Thor
41. State of the Union – (Scott Halverth series #2) – Brad Thor
42. Blowback – (Scott Halverth series #4) – Brad Thor
43. A Ripple in Time: A Historical Novel of Survival – Victor Zugg
44. Aftermath – Levar Burton
45. Rules of Prey (Lucas Davenport #1) – John Sanford
46. Shadow Prey – (Lucas Davenport #2) – John Sanford
47. Takedown – (Scott Halverth series #5) – Brad Thor
48. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared – Jonas Jonasson
49. The First Commandment: A Thriller (The Scot Harvath Series Book 6) – Brad Thor
50. Stardust – Neil Gaiman
51. Dune (Re-read) – Frank Herbert
52. The Eighth Detective – Alex Pavesi
53. Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
54. Saving Time – Jodi Taylor
55. Rendezvous with Rama (Re-Read) – Arthur C. Clarke
56. The Bourne Identity (Re-read) – Robert Ludlum
57. Harlem Shuffle –
58. Rama II – Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
59. The Target (Will Robie Book 3) – David Baldacci