Author: Mike Pihlman

Book Review: “Stone Cold” by David Baldacci

Genre: Thriller Rating: 4 Water Towers Stone Cold by David Baldacci is the third installment of the trials and tribulations of “The Camel Club”, an eclectic band of fighters for truth and justice. This is an excellent, briskly paced, story that seamlessly weaves several plot lines together while adding additional depth to the Camel Club…

January 16, 2008
Book Review: “Pendragon The Lost City of Faar” by D.J. MacHale

Genre: Children’s Fantasy Buy it! Hobey-ho! Pendragon: The Lost City of Faar is the second book in the Pendragon series. My daughter told me I would enjoy the books more and more as I read them (she has finished the latest, number eight, out of a planned ten). She was right.I was instantly enthralled and…

January 1, 2008
Book Review: “Evil, Inc.” by Glenn Kaplan

Genre: Thriller Rating: 4 Water Towers “Success Can Be Yours!” is the title of the paperback book treasured by the young teenager who had just started a fire that killed an entire family. Evil, Inc. by Glenn Kaplan opens with that intentional fire and continues at a blistering pace delivering all the ingredients of a…

December 22, 2007
Book Review: "Next" by Michael Crichton

Genre: Thriller Rating: 3.5 Water Towers Reality meets fiction. I was watching KCRA-TV (Sacramento, CA) this past Friday morning when they aired a segment featuring genetically altered cats that glowed in the dark (fluorescent). As he did with State of Fear and global warming, Michael Crichton tackles another controversial topic raising awareness of genetic testing,…

December 15, 2007
Book Review: “The Alexandria Link” by Steve Berry

Genre: Thriller Rating: 2.5 Water Towers Steve Berry is a gifted author. His previous efforts were all four or five WaterTowers. Unfortunately, my expectations for The Alexandria Link were higher than what was delivered. This is the second installment with Cotton Malone as the hero (“The Templar Legacy” being the first). This book seems forced…

November 26, 2007
Book Review: “Hard Rain” by Barry Eisler

Genre: Thriller Rating: 3.5 Water Towers John Rain is a scary individual. As Hard Rain opens, Rain kills the owner of a gym, Ishihara, while Ishihara is lifting weights. As usual, the death looks natural: a weightlifter trying to bench press more weight than he should. Picking up where “Rain Fall” left off, John is…

November 4, 2007
Book Review: “The Innocent Man” by John Grisham

Genre: Non-Fiction Rating: 5 Water Towers I went way out of my normal genre to read John Grisham’s (who also for the first time wrote a non-fiction book)The Innocent Man. If you read only one book this year, read this one. It is a superb story detailing the life of Ron Williamson. If you think…

November 2, 2007
Book Review: “I is for Innocent” by Sue Grafton

Genre: Mystery Rating: 4 Water Towers The next time you look into the door peephole to see who is there, make sure you are not staring down the barrel of a gun. Six years ago, Isabel Barney was home for the evening when someone appeared at her door. Isabel got up, and being a careful…

November 2, 2007
Book Review: “Open Season” by C. J. Box

Genre: Mystery Rating: 5 Water Towers Every now and then I read a book that I simply cannot put down. Open Season is one of those books. This is the debut novel (published in 2001) by C. J. Box and the first time I have read a C. J. Box novel. I can guarantee you….I…

November 2, 2007
Book Review: “Pendragon, The Merchant of Death” by D. J. MacHale

Genre: Kids Fantasy Rating: 3.5 Water Towers Buy it! “I hope you are reading this Mark. Heck, I hope anybody’ s reading this because the only thing that’s keeping me from going totally off my nut right now is getting all this down on paper…..” So starts the adventure of Bobby Pendragon. At age 14,…

November 2, 2007