The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre

With one of the most baldly obscene opening paragraphs of any modern novel, The Sacred Art of Stealing slaps its way into orbit with more expletives than prepositions. But get through the gang-rap obscenity nonsense and there's a clever, off-beat storyline handled with funky dexterity. 30-year-old Detective Sergeant Angelique de Xavia is taken hostage in a bank robbery, run by a bizarre quintet of robbers dressed as clowns who entertain the bank staff by creating artworks on the blanked-out windows. De Xavia connects uncannily with Zal, one of the gang, and there is a mutual magnetism, even though the only part of him she can see through his mask is his fearsome blue eyes. Siege over, robbers on the run, they meet up face to face and she is much taken by the art-loving Las Vegas criminal. He understands her, the pressures of her job - well, he would, wouldn't he?

I loved this book. It starts out a bit like Lock Stock or Snatch. And it has some fabulous twists which, if you've been paying attention, you'll know usually make a book for me.

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Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult

Jack St. Bride was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' prep school - until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his career and reputation. Now, after a devastatingly public ordeal that left him with an eight-month jail sentence and no job, Jack resolves to pick up the pieces of his life. He takes a job washing dishes at Addie Peabody's diner and slowly starts to form a relationship with her in the quiet New England village of Salem Falls. But just when Jack thinks he has outrun his past, a quartet of teenage girls with a secret turn his world upside down once again, triggering a modern-day witch hunt in a town haunted by its own history...

It was okay. The same formula mass-produced flavour of her other books I've read. At least this one had a happy ending (compared with The Pact) and an ending at all (compared to Keeping Faith). So I guess she is improving. I still can't quite understand why people rush out to buy her books yet, tho. It's the sort of thing I'll read if it's around ... me, I need mystery, intrigue and a serious twist in the ending for a book to rank worthy ;)

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Wicker by Kevin Guilfoile

When his teenage daughter is killed, and no one is arrested for the crime, Dr. Davis Moore does the unthinkable: he clones the unidentified murderer from the genetic evidence and has the child adopted by an unsuspecting couple, the Finns, who name him Justin. With his partner as Justin's pediatrician, Moore is able to follow the child's development, hoping to eventually identify the killer through their similarities. But that's not as easy as it sounds.

This was brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it had a lovely twist, a couple actually, at the end that even I didn't see coming. If you like murder mystery, read this one.

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Chart Throb by Ben Elton

"Chart Throb" is the ultimate pop quest. Ninety five thousand hopefuls. Three judges. Just one winner. And that's Colin Simms, the genius behind the show. Colin always wins because Colin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers and blingers whom he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted 'search' for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing. The 'real' is about to be put back into 'reality' television and Colin and his fellow judges (the nation's favourite mum and the other bloke) are about to become ex-factors themselves. Ben Elton, author of "Popcorn and Dead Famous" returns to blistering comic satire with a savagely hilarious deconstruction of the world of modern television talent shows. "Chart Throb" is about one winner and a whole bunch of losers.

It was okay. I appreciated it more when I caught a bit of American Idols on tv last night. It wasn't nearly as good as I remember High Society being.

Lopz reviewed this book on 16 October 2007:
This book is absolutely brilliant. Ben Elton is a master of satire and deconstructing the often ridiculous elements of pop culture today. He takes us through a 'behind the scenes' look at Chart Throb, the fictional "bigger, better" version of Britain's hottest talent show, The X Factor, produced in real life by Simon Cowell. Calvin Simms is the Simon Cowell figure, and the other two judges mirror perfectly the characters of Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne. Elton uses the our current obsession with reality TV to smash all perceptions of a talent show that exists to make people's dreams come true. Instead, he exposes the money and power hungry moguls behind shows like X Factor and American Idol, and the desperation and delusion of the majority of contestants. His take on this booming industry is cynical, hysterical and so spot on you find yourself gasping frequently at the obvious truths what reality TV is really about.

Of course, whether Elton's exposes are indeed just a product of a clever imagination or they have more than just a resemblance to reality is for the reader to decide. The book is a work of fiction, but you can't help but feel it is uncomfortably close to the truth. Personally I believe it is a little of both. I enjoyed every second of this book, but there is a downside: I will never again look at TV shows like this in the same way, and my housemates have started to yell at me when my newfound cynicism rears its head during X Factor. ;-)

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