#148. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Title:	Catching Fire
Author:	Suzanne Collins
Genre:	Future/Dystopian/Thriller/Young Adult
Synopsis:	After the impossible victory in The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta must survive the political fall-out that follows as a society already prepared to boil over begins to heat up.
Verdict:	The progression of the rebellion, the machinations of The Capitol and the Quarter Quell are all well drawn and help further flesh out the picture of what the world has become. Still very compelling.
Pages:	472
Read:	July 2012

#147. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Title:	The Hunger Games
Author:	Suzanne Collins
Genre:	Future/Dystopian/Thriller/Young Adult
Synopsis:	In the remains of North America, in a harsh future, every year two young people from each District are sent to take part in brutal gladiatorial games in which there can be only one survivor. When Katniss Everdeen steps forward to save her sister, she and her male counterpart must face their own mortality and the stark reality of the totalitarian society they live in and what else might be taken from them.
Verdict:	Books written in the first person are fairly rare because they’re hard to pull off but it worked really well here. It allowed me to see things through the character’s eyes without the world-building seeming intrusive or taking up too much of the text. The reserved nature of the main character also helped building tension and keeping things moving.
Pages:	454
Read:	July 2012

#146. Dangerous Deception by Sandy Curtis

Title:	Dangerous Deception
Author:	Sandy Curtis
Genre:	Thriller/Crime
Synopsis:	A woman is attacked by assailants demanding something not in her power to give. When her assailant is killed, she goes on the run, desperately trying to work out what is going on and how to survive it. Meanwhile a man searching for his missing brother finds his search tied up in the fate of the missing woman and her fractured family.
Verdict:	This book was overly descriptive, told where it should have shown, the characters weren’t very deep and the motivations weren’t strong. If you were expecting something dramatic and a bit airport paperback romance, you’re set. If you wanted anything more than that, you were out of luck.
Pages:	348
Read:	July 2012

#145. Killing The Shadows by Val McDermid

Title:	Killing The Shadows
Author:	Val McDermid
Genre:	Crime/Police Procedural/Forensic/Thriller
Synopsis:	Someone is killing the writers of serial killer novels in the very way their fictional characters were killed. Profiler Fiona Cameron, afraid for the life of her author partner, is drawn into the investigation against her will.
Verdict:	As with a lot of these technical detail rich novels (usually in the forensic or psychology fields), there were some points where the details or procedure made things feel a bit dry but it was more than balanced out by the quality of the writing and the plot.
Pages:	561
Read:	June – July 2012