Spies and Nazis!

Dammit! Blogger ate my post! Now I have to start all over again.

Sadly, the above-mentioned spies and Nazis are not in the same book.

I finished up Matthew Dunn's 'Spycatcher' last night and it remained a page-turner right up to the end. There was a "twist" that, for anyone who reads many thrillers, wasn't much of a "twist" at all. But, I have to give Mr. Dunn credit for being able to hold my interest for more than 400 pages. Quite an accomplishment for a debut author, especially one who used to work for MI6. I was afraid the narrative would get bogged down in tradecraft or paperwork in an attempt at keeping the novel as realistic as possible. Thankfully, that never happened. (Though there were a couple of spots where the narrative got interrupted by our protagonist's need to describe in loving detail his complete designer wardrobe. Seriously, unless the type of shoes he has on his feet are vital to the plot, I do not need to know.) This is one of the only recent thrillers I've read that, while being perfectly complete unto itself, I am hoping spawns a series, or at least a sequel.

'Death Sentence' is the third book in Alexander Gordon Smith's "Escape from Furnace" series. This is one of those series that seems to get more outrageous with each book, and I mean that in a good way. In the first volume, our hero, Alex, is sent to Furnace Penitentary, which is a privately-run, underground (literally) prison for teen boys. He and a couple of his mates stage a daring escape, only to be recaptured in the second book. The prison is guarded by huge musclemen in black suits and creepy guys in gas masks. In book two, you get some of the story of the Black Suits and the Wheezers (the gas mask dudes), but this third volume gives a lot more background (which, yes, involves Nazis) and everything just gets creepier. This is the kind of series, like James Dashner's "Maze Runner" books, that makes me wish I had a nephew who was around eleven or twelve so I could share it with him. Alas and alack, my nephew is just a baby and my niece is too much of a girl.