Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich

"Motor Mouth"is the second in the Alex Barnaby series by Janet Evanovich. Not as good as her Stephanie Plum series but still fun.
Barney is working on Hookers racing team. They were also in a relationship, but Hooker cheated. Now Barney suspects a competitor on the racetrack is cheating and she and Hooker have to help a friend and get caught up in the murder and mayhem. Repeat visits from the characters in "Metro Girl", entertaining, light read. One quote on page 147.

"Well, that was friggin' embarrassing," Hooker said. "I just
got my ass saved by a woman with a six-pack of soda."
"What were you doing back here with them?"
"They said they wanted to talk to me."
"And they couldn't do it by the bench?"
"Looking at it in retrospect..."

When you look like your Passport Photo...

I usually really enjoy reading Erma Bombeck and laugh out loud, but "When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time To Go Home" just wasn't as good. There were a few good moments, but overall just 2 *'s.
One quote I did find interesting since I enjoy mythology. Page 177.

"This is the spot where Artemis-Cybele was worshipped," he said.
"They were a group of women who were dedicated warriors -archetypal women's
libbers." He paused and his eyes met mine. "These women had sex with
men once a year so that the race might not die out. The male children were
left to die at birth." He had my attention. "Artemis is always shown
as an Amazon," he continued, "one breast bare, the peplum draped over the right
shoulder to hide the scar where the other breast had been cut off to allow full
freedom for the bow arm." I nodded blankly. "But then you could
relate to that." He smiled
I looked down at my own bust and wondered what he meant by a crack like
that. And all that because I opened my own car door.

Phantom Prey

Read Phantom Prey by John Sandford on my day off Monday and LOVED it!


Alyssa Austins daughter is missing, probably dead and Alyssa doesn't think the cops are doing enough to solve the crime. She bumps into her friend Weather and asks her to talk to her husband Lucas Davenport, an officer with the BCA. Lucas thinks Alyssa is a spacey hippy, but agrees to look into the case.
At the same time a mysterious Goth Fairy is on the trail to get revenge on the killer.

As usual Sandford has interesting things to say about humanity and psychology. Quote from page 282 &283.

Thought about Austin, and what she'd said about insanity, about how it was
nothing more than an extreme version of everyday quirks...

Good theory, he thought. Lucas had a theory of his own, sociological,
rather than psychological.
Some people, he believed, looked at
the world and saw a clockwork. Events happened and triggered off other
events, people did what they were programmed to do, and the results came out the
other end: love, hate, war, murder, children, whatever.

Other people, Lucas among them, looked out the window and saw nothing but
chaos: accident, chance, stupidity, intelligence, avarice, idealism, all rubbing
against one another in an unpredictable stew.

Last quote page 400.

She said this friend - she said his name was Loren- said there were riverboats
of souls going down the Mississippi, and some of these were glorious riverboats,
and some were like slave ships. The bad souls, obviously. She
thought Frances might still be here, but on a different plane. Not on a
boat yet."