What Fiction are you reading this week, October 19, 2025?

[hermetic]

This discussion thread is pinned.

I'm reading To Fetch A Thief by Spencer Quinn, a Chet and Bernie mystery. Top-notch suspense, humor, and insight into the ways our canine companions think and behave make this a totally entertaining and irresistible book. Loving it.

Listening to The Trap by Ava Glass. A British spy races against the clock to stop the Russians from carrying out a high-profile assassination in this gripping thriller. She has just one week to stop a killer. I'm enjoying it.

Thanks for doing such a great job yesterday, DUers et al.

[cbabe]

1. The Displacements/Bruce Holsinger

Suggested on this site. Thanks.

FEMA gets the call as cat 6 hurricane approaches Miami.

‘You want me on the plane to Miami today?’

‘You don’t understand. There will be no Miami tomorrow’

Wealthy white family flees in hybrid suv. Runs out of gas. Family becomes IDP, internally displaced persons in an Oklahoma field of thousands of tents.

For starters.

Not The Stand but something to think about. Especially after Alaska last week.

[hermetic]

2. Yes indeed

Thanks.

[mentalsolstice]

5. Finished it yesterday

You describe it perfectly.

[cbabe]

10. Thanks. The mom is not likeable which keeps me from

liking the book much. I also wanted more of the FEMA camp captain and her daughter.

Mom trying to enroll kids in local school and being denied brought up thoughts of Japanese camps. Not real Americans.

Also realize not everything can be included but no bugs, no disease, no real crime.

You?

[mentalsolstice]

13. I agree about the FEMA Captain

I did like the way the different ethnicities divided amongst themselves. I grew up in Ft. Lauderdale, so that resonated with me. Although it would’ve resulted in a much longer book, more details could’ve helped.

[cbabe]

15. Maybe a few mentions of rattlesnakes and tarantulas to set the scene.

[txwhitedove]

3. Sunny Sunday! Yay, Chet book #3. Peanut is awesome.

Now reading Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell. Oh my, the vibes, the suspense, a geat read and an entirely plausible scenario. "Nina Swann is wooed by an old friend of her recently deceased husband. She's a bit vulnerable to his charms but her daughter, Ash, is immediately suspicious because Nick Radcliffe gives her the creeps. Some of the things he says don't add up, so she starts looking into to his background. In a nearby town, Martha, a florist with her own successful shop, becomes increasingly distressed when her husband, Alistair, keeps disappearing on sudden, extended, business trips. ... the past wont stay buried forever."

[Bayard]

4. Finished, "Horse," by Geraldine Brooks last night

Haven't been able to read as much this week.

I loved this book! Its not only the story of one of racing's greatest horses, but tracing a wonderful cast of characters Many are based on real people, so its also a history lesson, including portions of the Civil War.

I haven't been to the Museum of the Horse in many years at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, but have been meaning to get back there. They have the actual skeleton of this horse, Lexington, on display. It may sound kind of gruesome, but it shows how phenomenally this stallion was put together.

Highly recommend!

[hermetic]

9. Agreed

Wonderful story. Would love to visit that museum but I kinda don't foresee ever being back in that area again.

[rsdsharp]

6. I read The Gun Man Jackson Swagger by Stephen Hunter.

Last edited Sun Oct 19, 2025, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

This is the 21st entry in the Swagger family series of books. (12 for former marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, 4 for his Medal of Honor winner father Earl, 2 for his Arkansas sheriff grandfather Charles, and two for his Army sniper son Ray Cruz.)

Jackson would be Bob Lee’s great- great grandfather. The first born of the Swagger men have an unnatural skill with guns; amazing accuracy with rifles and unbelievable speed with handguns. This one is set in an Arizona railroad town awash in vice in 1897. Jackson has a very personal reason for being there.

It only took two days to read, so I tried Hunter’s one nonfiction book, American Gunfight, about the attempted assassination of Harry Truman in 1950. I couldn’t make it through the recitation of 75 year old Puerto Rican revolutionary politics, so I read Michael J. Fox’s Future Boy, about the making of Back to the Future at night, at the same time he was doing Family Ties during the day. It was so engaging (and short) I finished it in one day.

Now I need to find something to tide me over until the new Reacher book comes out next month.

[Jilly_in_VA]

7. I'm stuck

in The Autobiography of Henry VIII, by Margaret George. It's quite a wonderful book, but so looooong...900+ pages! I may have to take a break after this wife (Anne Boleyn) and read something else in between. Ms. George does a masterful job, as always, buoyed up by tedious research I'm sure, of portraying her main character, with commentary by his "fool", Will. I've always been fascinated by Henry and wondered if many historians haven't given him a bad rap. Ms. George presents him, warts and all, as a very complex character, which I think he was. It's quite an interesting book, just LONG!

[mentalsolstice]

8. "Handle With Care" by Jodi Picoult

It’s about a child born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, and her parents’ struggle with raising her.

Have a great week everyone!

[MIButterfly]

11. Good Bad Girl by Alice Feeney

Actually, I just finished it. My local library has a thing called Shelf Awareness and you sign up for it and they give you a book of their choosing to read. Last month the topic was Banned Books and this month it's Something Wicked This Way Comes. I was not familiar with this author before I got this book. I generally don't like to read books by British authors because some of them use so many British colloquialisms and slang that I don't know what they're talking about, but this one was pretty good. I can't say it was great, but at least it held my attention and kept me wondering what will happen next which every mystery should.

Now I think I'll check out other books she's written.

[hermetic]

12. Sounds good

"..a thriller in which nobody can be trusted and the twists come fast and furious."

I just checked my library and they have 19 of her books and every one is checked out right now. So, I got on the list.

[MIButterfly]

18. After you've read it, let me know what you think.

I went to the library today and got her first two books.

[Polly Hennessey]

14. Just started another David Rosenfelt book.

This one is “Sudden Death”. Boy, do I enjoy his books. Also, starting Anthony Horowitz’s, The Word Is Murder. Let you know next week how it’s going.

[Jeebo]

16. I'm re-reading Encounter with Tiber.

One of the authors is an astronaut himself, Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon. The premise is fascinating. Artifacts are found of an extraterrestrial civilization that visited Earth and interacted with humans after crashing here 20,000 years ago and living out their lives stranded here. One of the best science fiction novels I've ever read, and I have read a lot of them. It came out in 1996 and I'm surprised it's not a classic already. (Hollywood, this novel would make a GREAT movie, IMHO.)

— Ron

[hermetic]

17. Oooohhh

That sounds really good. Must find.