The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

This is the first book in the The Kingkiller Chronicle series, the second due out in a week or so. It is very long, an adult Harry Potter type story of a young man undertaking battles against large foes. It has the best ratings of any book I've seen and that is what drew me to it. It's not generally my cup of tea but the story is so solid that I enjoyed it and may read the next book. PW: Kvothe, a young man who grows to be one of the most notorious magicians his world has ever seen. From his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that transports readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

A pleasant surprise, I'd read another in this series. PW: Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a fourteenth story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.  It’s actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way. With the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves.

Rain Fall by Barry Eisler

The first in the series is enjoyable but comparatively weak, you can see how Eisler improves as a writer in later works. PW: Set in a memorable noir version of Tokyo (jazz clubs, whiskey bars, "love hotels"), Eisler's rich and atmospheric debut thriller winds its way around the city's extensive rail system and its upscale Western boutiques Mulberry, Paul Stuart, Nicole Farhi London, Le Ciel Bleu, J.M. Weston. The author an American lawyer who has lived and worked in Japan brings to life a complex and most interesting hero: John Rain, a hard and resourceful man in his 40s with an American mother, a Japanese father, a childhood spent in both countries and a stretch with Special Operations in Vietnam that literally made him what he is today a highly paid freelance assassin. The book begins with Rain arranging the death (on the subway) of a prominent government figure by short-circuiting his pacemaker and making it look like the man died of a heart attack. But Rain's relatively simple life suddenly becomes very complicated when he finds himself involved both romantically and professionally with the dead man's lovely daughter, Midori, a talented jazz pianist. Formidable adversaries a nasty CIA agent from John's Vietnam days; a right-wing guru who uses Shinto priests as spies and yakuza gangsters as enforcers; a tireless old cop seem intent on exposing Rain and eliminating Midori. There are several excellent action scenes, an amusing and touching young computer nerd who is Rain's only reliable ally and, most of all, an intriguing and intimate evocation of Japan's intense love-hate relationship with America.

Kill Shot by Vince Flynn

I'm a closet Flynn fan, read everything he's written and I enjoyed this book. It's one of his weakest attempts, spending too much time on back stories for characters that aren't central to the plot. The storyline finally picks up about half way through but then ends abruptly. PW: For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of men, bullet by bullet. With each kill, the tangled network of monsters responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians becomes increasingly clear. He is given his next target: a plump Libyan diplomat who is prone to drink and is currently in Paris without a single bodyguard. Rapp finds him completely unprotected and asleep in his bed. With confidence in his well-honed skills and conviction of the man’s guilt, he easily sends a bullet into the man’s skull. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes. The door to the hotel room is kicked open and gunfire erupts all around Rapp. In an instant the hunter has become the hunted. Rapp is left wounded and must flee for his life. The next morning, the news breaks in Washington that Libya’s Oil Minister has been killed along with three innocent civilians and four unidentified men. The French authorities are certain that the gunman is wounded and on the loose in Paris. As the finger pointing begins, Rapp’s handlers have only one choice - deny any responsibility for the incident and pray that their newest secret weapon stays that way, avoiding capture and dying quietly. One person in the group, however, is not prone to leaving things to chance. Rapp has become a liability, and he absolutely cannot be allowed to be taken alive by the French authorities. But it will soon become clear that nothing is more dangerous than a wounded and cornered Mitch Rapp.

One for the Money: A Stephanie Plum Novel, Book 1 by Janet Evanovich

A chick book that is really funny but in between the funny bits the plot is too slow. Think I'm done with Evanovich, if I want this style of book I'll read Molly Harper. PW: You’ve lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car’s been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month’s rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you’re Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter; you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad. And not just any cop. She goes after Joe Morelli, a disgraced former vice cop who is also the man who took Stephanie’s virginity at age 16 and then wrote details on a bathroom wall. With pride and rent money on the line, Plum plunges headlong into her first case, one that pits her against ruthless adversaries - people who’d rather kill than lose.

1st to Die: The Women's Murder Club by James Patterson

Patterson is just not my style and his stories are too violent. PW: Four women - four friends - share a determination to stop a killer who has been stalking newlyweds in San Francisco. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving one another a hand.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center by Tom Clancy , Steve Pieczenik , Jeff Rovin

Just OK. The narrator Michael Kramer is excellent. PW: A terrorist bomb explodes during a South Korean celebration of the anniversary of the election of its first president. Alarms are raised in Washington. No one is claiming responsibility. The first suspect is North Korea. Could it be making a power play against South Korea and unification? If so, how will the U.S. respond? Paul Hood, Director of the Op-Center, must answer these questions. The Op-Center, a largely autonomous new agency which takes on the government's toughest security problems, is only six months old, and has never been given a foreign crisis until now. Hood's team, which includes a general, a former ambassador, a psychologist, and a computer specialist, tries to find the solution, only to discover a factor that could change the new world order.

Ten Thousand Islands (Doc Ford) by Randy Wayne

Doc tripping is a little funny, and all in all this requires a huge suspension of belief, but hey it's enjoyable. PW: Ford is finagled away from his beloved fish and his stilt house off Florida's Gulf Coast to investigate the grave robbing of a long-dead adolescent girl who had a remarkable gift for finding archaeological artifacts of a long-gone civilization of Calusa Indians. The centuries-old gold medallion that may have been buried with Dorothy Copeland has mysterious powers--at least, that's what a big Florida developer whose son is being groomed for high political office seems to believe.

Dead Men's Money by Joseph Smith Fletcher

Slow but enjoyable. This was part of the public domain collection and each chapter had a different narrator - sounds like volunteers, some new to English. PW: Nothing is what it seems, and dead bodies abound in this classic 1920 murder mystery from the British crime author and journalist, J.S. Fletcher.

Mangrove Coast by Randy Wayne White

I enjoy this Doc Ford series but after 4 books I'm noticing that the plots are pretty simple with a lot of filler, but it's still an enjoyable listen, and the narrator Ron McLarty does a real fine job. PW: The seductive daughter of a dead war buddy calls marine biologist Doc Ford in need of help--her mother has vanished without a trace in South America. Doc's efforts to find her take him from the jungles of Colombia to the streets of Panama--and onto the trail of the most vile nemesis he has ever come up against...