Series is Still Good but PC Penhale Character Knocks It Down to 3 Stars
356221
If I was asked to give a prognosis for "Doc Martin" in its sixth season, I would say, "the patient is basically healthy...although perhaps as it ages, it is growing somewhat repetitive (in that Doc Martin has a conflict with someone and winds up saving their life over and over).  The one thing that I would prescribe "amputation" for is the character of "PC Penhale."  I quite simply hate the character.  He comes across as so hapless, pathetic, incompetent, and ridiculous, watching scenes with him in it where he is "acting out" are like fingernails on chalkboard.

This isn't the fault of the actor playing him..it's just that "PC Penhale" is a character who would more belong in a slapstick comedy (maybe the "Thin Blue Line" or something).  He doesn't belong in "Doc Martin" because while that show is a comedy, it's a comedy with strong dramatic elements and serious story lines (and is not too hard to believe could be a story about real life characters).

Every time Penhale bumbles onto the scene, I cringe because I know that he's going to act in a witlessly incompetent fashion.  And it beggars belief that a small town would put up with its only police officer being an ineffectual twit of such magnitude.  So if you're reading this, screenwriters, PLEASE write him out of the story and bring someone in who is more plausible (like the police officer who was in the first 15 or so episodes).
4771442
I like this series a lot: it stars a strong woman in serious transition, many cute pets, and a good romantic element. The first two books in the series had somewhat weaker mystery elements- mainly somewhat random killers without a lot of good framework built into the stories to support them. This book, the fourth does a much better job with laying out clues and support elements. The editing in all of the books is strong, though not perfect. My main issue with this entry into the series is the author trying complicate the romantic aspects too much. It makes the characters less likeable for me.
451941
Crown of Midnight ad Throne of Glass were of similar quality and content. The cast, concept, world, and romance were all still good. The writing, POV shifts, and love triangle were still in need of improvement.

I did enjoy finally getting to see Celaena in action, rather than just listening to her brag. She is pretty lethal. This brought about a lot of incongruities in her character, however. She loathes how her past boyfriend, Sam, was killed so gruesomely, and a character in this book dies a similar death. She criticizes the killer, saying he wasn't allowed in the guild for being too sadistic. But then SHE does those things to people. She mourns the people she kills, but still purposefully unleashes herself into feeling nothing as she goes on killing sprees. And, similar toThrone of Glass,I can't tell if these contradictions are purposeful on Maas's part, or not.

I also enjoyed the direction this book is taking toward unveiling secrets, especially near the end. This series finally managed to catch me by surprise when revealing Celaena's secret. However, the reluctant revolutionary trope is getting kind of old in YA Fiction.

The combination of good and bad is why I gave this book a three star rating. It was pretty much exactly what I was looking for, a fun summer read that is more fluff than substance. I'm looking forward to finishing the series, but it's not like I'm running to the book store screaming my fangirl head off.
2476270
The Cruelest Month
Three Pines, Quebec, is a town so small that it does not appear on maps and is accessible by only dirt roads.  Yet Louise Penny has written eleven murder mysteries based on this tiny village and its guardian angel from Quebec Security, Inspector Armand Gamache.

This third episode takes a while to get going, as it gets bogged down in a couple of sances at the beginning , featuring a guest at the somehow- always-inhabited B&B.  The second seance is held in the communitys haunted house. Even Penny realizes that this is a bit too  evocative of teen-age slasher movies -  one cant help expecting someone to say Ooh, I hear a funny noise in the basement.  Wait here while I go down alone to check it out.  That didn't quite happen, but close.

As in earlier books, the action is seen from a variety of different points of view.  Sometimes the reader knows more than Inspector Gamache about what is happening and what motivations are bubbling beneath the surface, but this knowledge mostly illuminates the side characters and doesn't really include many clues to the murderer, nor does it really advance the action.

Quite a few of the plot threads which hinted of a sequel  in Episode 2 are pretty well tied up in this one: we learn a lot about the Arnot case, and we learn why Agent Nichol keeps reappearing.  There are new threads introduced which will certainly be explored in Episode 4.  Im not sure Im up to following them, though. By the time we get to Episode 11, who in the tiny town of Three Pines will be left to murder?
2160514
The books are really good with interesting characters. I'm just finding that Deacon is wearing thin. He's just starting to read as a bully and kind of an ass. It just comes off as something that an insecure person would do and takes me out of his story a little. It's like Superman posturing and cracking his knuckles, bowing up on people he knows are weaker than him. It just doesn't match up. Especially when he knows all the crap that his whole crew has been through.

I'll still buy the new one when it comes out, I just found myself wondering when someone was going to punch him in the mouth and make him deal with his own crap.
4413599
As an avid fan of the series, I was a little let down with this middle child. It is certainly darker with numerous plot twists that will take many by surprise. Yet some of the characters that were so pivotal in the third book recieved little or no mention in the follow up.
It is fast paced and stuffed with action, making it a good read, and the cliff hanger at the end leaves you chomping at the bit. There are myriad directions in which the next part of the series can go, almost too many, and with a few of the characters I am left wondering what is going on with them. One in particular seems to have missed the left turn at Albuquerque and gone straight off the map.
Regardless, our young heroine shows her strength of character once again despite dire circumstances, keeping her as real and inspiring as always.
1898080
Tongues of Serpents is a decent entry into Novik's Temeraire series and fans who have read all the previous books will likely keep reading and enjoy this book as light as I did myself.  I feel though that Novik has kind of fallen in between genres, scope and ambition.  While I appreciate some of the more philosophical questions this series brings up (dragons/human rights issues) I think Novik isn't really playing up to her strengths.  The best parts of these series revolve around the action, the dragons interacting with each other, the dragons interacting with humans, and the situations that result in the absurdity that comes from dragons interacting with humans.  Unfortunately, Novik has too many humans interacting with humans scenes and while necessary for plot development, they should just be fewer and far between.

I did enjoy the addition of Cesar to the cannon and found him wildly entertaining.

Overall I will keep reading probably as long as Novik keeps writing but I hope for some slight changes for the future.
3436298
The series is a great one, but this particular book is not the best of the lot. Spending time with Georgie Rannoch is always a treat, but sometimes her mother becomes annoying, if not downright hateful, as do other minor characters. I even felt that Georgie herself was borderline hateful in her attitude towards her inept maid. I realize that the '30s were a different time, but Georgie comes across as not likeable in several scenes. Also, her relationship with Darcy O'Mara is becoming tiresome with the lack of romance, as well as his and her inability to plan for the future. In short, I love this series, but perhaps it's time to think a bit more about Georgie becoming more of a modern girl, for her time.
3461253
I've just started this series and I really like the major characters Stabenow is developing in these short novels. I also like the reality that not every case has a satisfactory conclusion. When I came to this book I noticed that it wasn't rated nearly as well as virtually all of the others. Now I know why. Reverend Seabolt is a true villain and there are a "few" like him (though even a few are too many); however, Stabenow essentially becomes the literary counterpart to his brand of religion with her heavy handed treatment of faith in this book. She clearly has some personal issues (that's OK) and uses this book to basically vent. She's not the first, and won't be the last, with such issues and many of her issues have validity, but this book certainly got bogged down in them. Fortunately, this appears to be an outlier in the series, so I'm looking forward to moving on.
743854
This is a great series, the author is so talented, and the characters are so lovable, but this one isn't  my favorite. For one thing (I noticed this in every book of the series I've read), the younger apprentice's character is barely developed (I think they only even mention his name once in the entire series).
There's also (imho) a theme of women submitting to men. Although the women protagonists are smart and strong, when the "good" men in the series make mistakes, the women are typically expected to fix everything and/or stroke the men's egos. It's unusual for the men to ever admit they were wrong (I can't recall them explicitly saying so in the series).
The  author talks a lot about how women manipulate men, which is at times funny, but it can get old. Many conflicts in the books involve women undoing another "manipulative woman's" effect on a "good man." It's as if it's a woman's job to protect men from other women, and that being manipulative is a characteristic of women.
Although there are countless times that men are manipulative, if they're "good men," their manipulations are typically overlooked, excused, and sometimes the women even submit to it BECAUSE the manipulative people are "good men."
Being manipulative is part of the human condition & has nothing to do with gender. There are people who are that way, and people who tend not to be, and there are people of every gender that are manipulative for "good" reasons, versus those who manipulate others to achieve bad/evil ends. The author makes it more about gender (imho) and seems to excuse it in men if they're "good."
If you like the series, you'll probably like this book. I love the series, but this one isn't my favorite.
1669183
I love this series. I pre-order every instalment, zero hesitation. And overall Maelstrom was fantastic.

But.

Really, by now, I can't believe we're still using Stupid as a plot device. It's blindingly obvious who the bad guy is in this book, and yet both Whyborne and Griffin (you know, the experienced detective) overlook the obvious in favor of someone who very clearly isn't the antagonist.

I expected more of an emotional punch when the stolen items are put to their inevitable use, but instead it fell a bit flat.

Whyborne fluctuates throughout the series from Mary Sue to genuinely likeable, and he's full-on Mary Sue throughout Maelstrom. The stolen items should have been a serious threat, but they were over and done with so soon that I can only hope they're stashed away for future use.

All in all I still enjoyed it enough to rate it four stars. And the level of detail in the world created here is staggeringly good. This series is basically what all great Call of Cthulhu games should become over time. But after over three years at this sorcery and detective gig, I'm pretty sure the main characters should be a bit less thick about these things.
2456652
this could be skipped in the series,  kind of slow back story
2013612
It's always a very pleasant surprise to find that the estimable duo of Preston and Child have given readers a new Pendergast novel. Fans of the series eagerly await the exploits of their favorite strange Special Agent and his black suits, ability to see into the past through a shaky sort of meditation, and his usual flirting with supernatural events that always have a rational explanation by the book's end. Several of the novels in this series are absolutely five star reads, but "Crimson Shore", however firmly falls into the middle ground of three stars. Pendergast, a fascinating creation, seems to be bordering on superhuman at this point. This recent adventure is actually two novels that aren't meshed together very well, rushing through the first two-thirds of the story and then grafting the last third on as a set up for another future novel. Infuriating and predictable, as the authors seem to have fallen prey to their success and settled on a formula that will bring in more money.
  A few things here just don't feel right. Both Pendergast and Constance Greene are now pretentious snobs. There, I said it. Their upperclass breeding has gotten the best of them so they spend the entire time in a small seaside New England town looking down their noses at the locals, the cuisine, the way the lower classes behave, and so forth while getting themselves embroiled in another quasi-supernatural investigation. The wry irony that Pendergast used to evince is gone, he orders lobster rolls for himself and Constance to sample the local fare and ends up tossing the treat away because he doesn't know how to eat it. You can easily picture his white face scowling with "feline grace". Preston and Child are now so obviously in love with Pendy the descriptions of his charms are becoming embarrassing. Many other examples of  pretentious behavior pop up here and there, making you wish to punch the smirk off Pendy's face and take that stick out of Constance's backside.
  One wonders if the steam is running out of these increasingly formulaic novels. The most ridiculous thing in this book is Miss Constance actually finding a copy of H.P.Lovecraft's infamous "Necronomicon" in a witch museum in Salem. The supernatural elements in many of the series are always explained away by the novel's end, so this silly business of the forbidden book just lounging around in a dusty tourist trap feels forced.
  Then comes the abrupt end of the first part of the book and the tacked on horror movie potboiler that sets up the cliffhanger for the next Pendy jaunt. This is the literary equivalent of Indiana Jones surviving the atomic bomb by hiding in a refrigerator. It might have been nice to just have the soap opera story arc toned down and have the novel reach a positive conclusion with Pendy sitting in his epic Riverside Drive mansion of doom with a nice 10K bottle of wine, staring into its fruity depths with his silver eyes, wondering what the poors are doing.
1419130
I agree with some of the other reviewers.  The mystery in this story took a backseat to the "we are all great friends" storyline.  I enjoy the characters in this series but sometimes the dialogue goes on and on for pages and contributes very little to the plot. I really enjoyed this series up until book 8 when the author broke up Steve and Kelly.  Since then the last two books have been more about the Steve/Kelly romance than about solving the mystery.  In this latest book the Steve/Kelly "will they or won't they" has finally been resolved.  And I think that will do it for me with this series.
4756178
I have enjoyed this series over the years, but I am starting to be a little less interested in the recent books. Why? So much is about Charley's life as a god in another place and time. It was enough to deal with Reyes as the devil's son and his existence on another plane, and all the other gods, but now we barely see Charley unless she is handling god business. She is shifting back and forth and using the god catcher, dealing with supernatural beings almost all the time. Very little PI business is done. We haven't seen Beep...and it is unnatural that the parents just abandoned their baby like that.

I did like the sting set up for Amelia's stalker. I did like the trapping the Fosters, but oh not how that ended for some. I am just thinking maybe I should quit this series when the author drops the biggest cliffhanger of all on the readers. *Sigh* What to do now? Well imagined and creative writing earns high marks, but I can't heartily recommend it. :(
3088086
Love this series, but the third installment is considerably less interesting than the first two.
4784653
I've been a fan of Pendegrast novels for many years now, with the Cabinet of Curiosities remaining my favorite of the bunch. This novel is definitely not the strongest installment. The storyline and the setting are actually somewhat intriguing, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next novel. With that being, said, however, having Constance and Pendgerast as a team is not the best idea. Pendgerast's enigmatic and ironically snooty ways, when paired up with more down-to-earth characters like D'Agosta and Corrie, are endearing and familiar. Constance and he together are, however, insufferable. They are rude, condescending, and awkward without any trace of irony. As many said before me, the lobster roll tidbit was particularly grating (and I'm not even from New England!). At this point, I feel like Constance as a character has run her course and her presence is not propelling the story in any meaningful way, no matter how exciting it is to have a female character holding her own against Pendergast.