Catching Up on Some Authors

In the past few months, I've read novels by some authors that I had abandoned for some time. I read lots of their earlier stuff, then stopped at some point because their novels began to disappoint. But I've gotten reacquainted with 4 different authors with mostly positive results:

John Grisham: "The Innocent Man" is his first non-fiction work. It reads like a novel and the fact that it is true makes it all the more fascinating. In Iraq, the rule is that Saddam Hussein had to be executed within 30 days of the guilty verdict. It's a good thing we don't have that law here. The title of this book says it all, and if you are poor and cannot get good representation, then you just may be on your own in our criminal courts.

Stephen King: "Cell" is his latest novel to hit paperback and the first I've read of his since "The Stand." That could be why I had problems with it. The premise is intriguing. Some signal comes through all the cell phones turning people into zombies. A group of survivors are compelled to travel to Maine for some reason. Sort of similar to "The Stand" in which most of the population is wiped out and the few survivors are compelled to travel to Colorado. I didn't finish this novel. Something about it just didn't hold my interest. The characters weren't all that interesting, and despite the great set-up, it just didn't seem to do much with it.

Michael Crichton: "State of Fear" could be called the flip side of "An Inconvenient Truth." Basically, Crichton is saying, through a fictional story, that the whole global warming thing is a piece of crap. He makes some good arguments and the story itself is very good (which most of his are). Not sure why I stopped reading his novels. It's a little preachy at times but still a good read.

Dean Koontz: "Velocity" isn't his latest, but it's the one I decided to read to reacquaint myself with Mr. Koontz. His earlier novels were great, particularly "Twilight Eyes," "Lightning," and "Watchers." But at some point, I began having trouble getting through one of his novels. This is the first I've read in about 15 years. The plot is simple. A guy gets a note that if he calls the police, someone will die. If he doesn't call the police, someone else will die. The choice is his. In Koontz novels, lots of people do indeed die and the killers are usually pretty ferocious. But in the end, the hero comes out just fine. I really enjoyed this and will probably go back and begin reading some more of his that I missed.