True-crime books notoriously put a section of crappy black-and-white photos in the middle. These photos are the first thing readers look at, usually spoiling any mystery as to exactly “who done it.” For that reason, I won’t be ruining anything by saying that Nancy Kissel offs her husband Rob in NEVER ENOUGH by Joe McGinniss.
Rob is an American who’s made it big in the world of high finance. Rob puts in more time at the office than at home, making him a rock-star finance whiz. He moves his bride and young children to Hong Kong, where he earns more money than they need or could ever use.
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The Harry Bosch franchise has quite a loyal fanbase, my dad included. Before I could even finish offering to loan him my copy of THE OVERLOOK, he had snatched it up and had delved into the first chapter. Truth be told, after reading ECHO PARK and becoming a Bosch fan myself, I was just as eager to read it. For the uninitiated, Hieronymus Bosch is Michael Connelly’s fictional, no-nonsense LAPD homicide detective – and sometime rogue – who seems to always get his man, policy and procedure be damned.
Originally released as a 16-part serialThe New York Times, THE OVERLOOK was reworked and released as Connelly’s follow-up novel to ECHO PARK. At a slim 240 pages with a bigger-than-normal font, this is the perfect summertime beach read, but don’t let the size fool you. Good things sometimes come in small packages.
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The title THE BEST OF TECHNOLOGY WRITING 2006 is a little misleading, given the fact that only writings published in 2005 were considered for the collection. The by-now-aged stories in no way hampered my enjoyment of them, however. For these aren’t your typical technology journalism articles; you won’t find any product reviews or how-to guides on obsolete products.
Edited by Brendan I. Koerner, the book starts with one of the best underdog stories I’ve read, “La Vida Robot” by Joshua Davis. This is the tale of four Hispanic illegals attending Carl Hayden Community High School who enroll in an engineering competition. They must design a working underwater robot and perform a series of tasks with the robot in front of a panel of judges. Oh, and they have a budget of $800 and are competing against MIT engineering students who have secured corporate sponsorship of $11,000. The article focuses on the brilliant engineering from the unlikely quartet, not the issues of immigration.
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1. STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS by Mary Roach – Roach gives death the humor treatment as she examines all things post-mortem, including the making of a skeleton, cremation and embalming and the use of cadavers for research. While very funny and witty, she is also respectful of the dearly departed.
2. SNOW CRASH by Neal Stephenson – Sci-fi for readers who don’t usually do sci-fi. The mafia is in control of pizza delivery and people have alternate lives within the “Metaverse,” a sort of futuristic Internet. Inside this computer-generated world, one can always spot an Avatar that’s gained entry via a public-access terminal because it is low-res and crappy-looking. And one can always spot an Avatar that’s fallen victim to the designer drug known as Snow Crash because their brain will be fried.
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Anglers and hunters all have stories about “the one that got away.” So do serial killers. Fred Rosen tells some of these stories in 
