Fair Warning

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly, 399 pages.
Reporter Jack McEvoy, late of the Velvet Coffin, and of the Los Angeles Times before that, is now a reporter at the  consumer watchdog website FairWarning. He is still relentless about pursuing the stories that interest him and he is still making the same mistakes when it comes to trusting people close to him.
McEvoy is more or less dragged into a murder investigation when the LA police question him when a woman he dated once a year ago turns up dead. It turns out she had still his contact information  and had said something to a friend about a stalker. The police push McEvoy hard, wanting to believe he is a suspect, McEvoy pushes back, beginning his own investigation.
Connelly gives us glimpses from some of the guiltier parties (trying to avoid spoilers, they are all bad people in these POVs), and does a great job keeping us guessing about the identity of the killer.
Connelly also brings back former FBI profiler Rachel Walling, alumna of previous McEvoy novels and a few from the Bosch series. All in all a very good thriller. 

June totals

Christa  12/3088
Jan  3/888
Josh  2/481
Kara  28/9844
Karen  4/1266
Linda  8/2279
Patrick  3/456

Total: 60/18,302

Just Kids

Just Kids by Patti Smith, 279 pages.

The noted poet, singer, and songwriter won the National Book award for her 2010 memoir. In it, Smith recounts a bit of her pre-New York life, but the memoir really begins with her move to the city in 1967. Starting out there, broke and somewhat desperate, the author relied on friends and kind strangers to help her get by as she searched for work and a place to stay. She reminds the reader of how devastated many were when Coltrane died in July of that year. Smith does an excellent job of painting a picture of hope and borderline despair in the summer in New York; a hot city in a turbulent time. Strange to hear that the Doors were such an influence on her as a young woman.
Smith finds a job at a Brentano's bookstore and there meets Ropert Mapplethorpe. A short while later Mapplethorpe saves Smith from a creepily awkward date and their lives together begin. The couple live and work together as their art becomes their focus. At first they're lovers, but Robert realizes he's attracted to men and Patti meets others, including Sam Sheppard when he was drumming with the band The Holy Modal Rounders.
An excellent book that evokes a time and a place. The people who pass through the story are amazing; Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Alan Ginsburg, and Jim Carroll all appear. I read this after finishing her third and then her second autobiographical  works, Year of the Monkey and M Train. I listened to both of her later works on Overdrive; Smith is an sublime narrator, telling her stories with a raspy sincerity that adds a layer of intimacy to the work.

Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook

Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Raymond Obstfeld, Joshua Cassara, Luis Guerrero, and Simon Bowland.

Abdul Jabbar's Mycroft is hired by Queen Victoria's govenrment to find a madman who has in his possession the Apocalypse book, which has allowed him to produce hundreds of massive weapons. The villian's plan is to auction of the weapons to the highest bidder and to then produce more weapons. It's fairly straightforward, and is a decent addition to the genre. I prefer the author's novels, but this is fine.

Evoking Tang : An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry

Evoking Tang : An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry by Qiu Xiaolong, 162 pages.
Early in the pandemic, wandering around the empty library, I found this book. I wanted to read a book of Chinese poetry and was delighted to find this signed copy of verse translated by local author Qiu Xiaolong. The poems featured here were written between 618 and 907. The poets highlighted in this volume include Bai Juyi, Wang Wei, and Li Bai. The love poems of Yu Xuanji, who was executed in her late 20s for fatally disciplining one of her fellow nuns, include:

"Look Out from the Riverside"

Myriads of upon
myriads of maple leaves
silhouetted against the bridge,
a few sails return late in the dusk.

How do I miss you?

My thoughts follow you
like water in the West River,
flowing eastward, never-ending,
day and night

Trouble Is What I Do

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley, 166 pages.
I would have sworn that I had read all of Mosley's books, then thought about how many he has written and how lazy I am, and changed that to "most of them," but I am still somewhat surprised that have missed all of the Leonid McGill books. Trouble is the fourth in the series, so I have got some catching up to do.
Private eye McGill lives by a code, a series of rules that are all very noirish in nature and designed to keep his clients alive and his honor intact. This story is straightforward in its convoluted plot, fast paced, cynical, and unsentimental. McGill is hired to safely unite an old blues singer with his granddaughter. The task is complicated because the man's son wants to hide his roots and is willing to have his father killed to keep his secret safe. A good solid story from a masterful writer.