Bundu Reviews

I am not sure if it is because I have gotten older and more critical of the books I read but Dean Koontz really seems to have gone off the boil in the last year or so for me.

The Frankenstein series, I have really enjoyed with Koontz putting his own twist on the Frankenstein legend and the fight for the human race being settled in Book 3 in the middle of New Orleans. Readers saw Victor Frankenstein (Helios) dying at the hands of his own creations as his “New Race” imploded.

However Book 4 sees Helios being revived, with a new backer and a new race trying to take over a small Montana town. That means that retired cops Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison alongside the original Frankenstein monster Deucalion, must now step up to the plate again and take on the new Helios….

Sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it…?

Except that the bloody story ends in the middle of nowhere and you now sit and wait for Book 5 to be released.

Rated the book a 2 and a half out of 5 just because it irritated me that it just ended again and I don’t like being fed drips and drabs.

If you started the series you probably want to keep on reading it but can’t say I was gripped by this most recent installment.

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R141 or you can click here or on the book cover above to get it from Kalahari.Net.

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Brad Thor is another new author for me and I kicked off reading his book “The First Commandment”.

The book features special agent Scot Harvarth, a former Navy SEAL and general bad-ass who appears to be a repeat character from other Thor books.

The story kicks off with a number of high-profile and very dangerous prisoners being secretly released from Guantanamo Bay under mysterious circumstances.

Suddenly Harvarth finds the people around him being killed in extremely brutal ways and he starts investigating and finds that the President of the United States has been complicit in the release of these prisoners which might tie into the attacks on him and his friends and family.

When Harvarth says he wants to go after the bad guys, the president makes it clear that he won’t permit it which means a pissed of Harvarth naturally goes looking for trouble while evading the cream of the US security services.

This was one of those books which was passable without being thrilling. If you want an armchair read to pass the time then you could do worse than this one but you know when you watch one of those really bad episodes of CSI Miami and the heroes are just too good? Well this book gives you a few moments like that!

We rated the book a 3 out of 5 and you can buy this book from online retailer Loot for R68.

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This book has actually come up for mention twice in the last two days and because it is a South African author, I thought it was important to highlight it on this blog.

I have not read it, but I am very keen to get feedback from anybody who has read the book. The two people I know who said they have read it, said they were blown away by the quality and the story line.

Here’s the preview of the book:

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things. To save herself, she has to find the hardest thing of all…the truth. Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a client turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons. Being hired by famously reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass, marked by their animals, live in the shadow of the undertow. Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the underbelly of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own. Set in a wildly re-imagined Johannesburg, it swirls refugees, crime, the music industry, African magic and the nature of sin together into a heady brew.

Title: Zoo City

Author: Lauren Beukes

ISBN: 978-1-77009-818-3

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R122 by clicking here or you can buy it from Kalahari.Net by clicking here or on the book cover:

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Jack Morgan is a war hero. Returning home from Afghanistan after being wounded, Jack is called into California State Prison to visit his father, Tom, who is serving a life sentence for extortion and murder. Before being incarcerated, Tom ran a private investigation firm called ‘Private’. Tom wants Jack to re-start the company, to make it great again, and gives him access to a $15 million dollar account in the Cayman Islands to do it with. Five years later and Jack has set up offices spanning the globe. Private’s services are much sought-after and Jack has clients ranging from movie stars to politicians

There are a couple of major cases running parallel in the story.

One involves one of Jacks’ best friends whose wife has ended up dead, another is a gambling ring that may be plaguing the NFL and thirdly there is a serial killer on the loose stalking young girls all across the state.

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I bought this book on the recommendation of a mate who reckoned that this was one of the books he had read in a long time. He is something of a conspiracy theorist amd raved about this book saying it explained some of the ills of the world.

John Perkins was supposedly what he terms an “Economic Hitman” who shaped major political and convinced developing nations to get deep into debt with US financiers and engineers. When the debts get too deep they end up owing huge favours to US political players.

Some of the issues and events he tackles includes:

A) How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big business
B) The role of Israel as a fortress and America in the Middle East
C) Tragic repercussions of the IMF and an Asian economic collapse
D) The current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracy
E) U.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and Venezuela

If you are into these kind of things then the book will work for you, but if you are looking for a light read, I am not sure this is for you. One of the things I really battled with was the writing style of the author – I really battled with the style and it didn’t flow particularly easily.

Title: Confessions of an economic hitman
Author: John Perkins
ISBN: 9780091909109

Rated the book a 3 out of 5 but not sure it will be for everyone.

You can buy the book online from Loot for R125 or click on the book cover below and buy it from Kalahari.Net

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It is still vampires left, right and centre on the bestselling books list:

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1. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella – Stephenie Meyer
2. George Washingtons Sacred Fire
3. Women, Food & God – An unexpected path to almost everything
4. Delivering Happiness: A path to profits, passion and purpose
5. The Overton Window
6. Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum) – Janet Evanovich
7. The Red Pyramid – the Kane Chronicles, book 1
8. Theodore Boone – Kid Lawyer
9. Mokingjay – The Final Book of the Hunger Games
10. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

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A couple of new faces appear on the bestsellers list this week – particularly on the Amazon.com listing with a new top seller. In eighth place there is the very interesting Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern which is getting something of a following.

Would love some feedback on that particular title!

Kalahari.Net
1. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella – Stephenie Meyer
2. Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
3. Eugene Terre’Blanche: My Storie – Amos van der Merwe
4. Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
5. The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally Transform Your Body – Jon Gabriel
6. Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
7. Dis Koue Kos, Skat – Marita van der Vyfer
8. The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson
9. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest – Stieg Larsson
10. The Return: Nightfall – LJ Smith

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One of our community members has reviewed two titles for us. Feel free to submit your own reviews via newsdesk@rival.co.za:

Books review by Pat. Book 1 – Leaving The World by Douglas Kennedy,

A chick book that is not a chick book. The quality of the language and knowledge of musical and understanding of the human psyche make it compulsive to read though it does get quite heavy on the literary front. The main character is a woman (Jane Howard) who as a Doctorate in Philosophy from Harvard but is screwed up by her dysfunctional parents.

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Being interested in financial markets, I have been meaning to read the Barry Sergeant book – Brett Kebble – The Inside Story – for a while now. One of my colleagues gave me a copy and I just finished it this morning.

Have to say it was a bit of a mixed bag and if you have no interest in mining, the Kebbles or stockmarket investing then this book will just be one big question mark for you.

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Another Sunday night and again we check out what books are selling well at the various online retailers.

No real newcomers in the lists this week although I am surprised to see the Marita van der Vyfer title at the top of the Kalahari list.

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1. Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything – Geneen Roth
2. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson
3. George Washington’s Sacred Fire – Peter A. Lillback
4. Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10) – Charlaine Harris
5. Spoken from the heart – Laura Bush
6. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner – Stephenie Meyer
7. The Red Pyramid – The Kane Chronicles
8. The Real George Washington – American Classic
9. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine – Michael Lewis
10. Storm Prey

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