Mike's goal of 144 and out the door.

#1 The Cider House Rules by John Irving
A story about the early 20th century in rural Maine. Dr. Wilbur Leach becomes medical director of St. Cloud's Orphanage. He has seen two women die of botched abortions and feels that he wants to provide medically correct abortions for the women in need.
There is no discussion of the right or wrong of abortions and the women who come to the orphanage are not given counseling or told of other options.

#2 Prayers for Rain by Dennis Lehane.
A novel with Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro.
They investigate a woman's last days before she committed suicide. What caused a happy, innocent woman to want to end her life so soon after Patrick helped her stop a stalker from bothering her?

#3 The Edge of Forever by Jeff S. Chimenti
A first novel by a Texan doctor which tells about an event that may end the world as we know it. Michael Hansen and his family must discover what awaits them and plan how they might move to a safe location.

#4 A Death in a Town by Hillary Waugh
A teenage girl is raped and murdered in a small New England town. The town has a ficiticious name but is Guilford, Connecticut where the author lived and had served as town selectman.

#5 Chat by Archer Mayor
Joe Gunther of the Vermont Special Investigations Unit investigates the death of two men who had been using internet chat rooms and had child pornography on their computers.
Were they lured to the area by someone seeking revenge for a sex act?

What a great start for the new year. If you keep reading at this rate, you'll surpass your 144 book goal! I read The Cider House Rules years ago and liked it well enough. Have you read A Prayer for Owen Meany by the same author? It's one of my favorite books.

Yes, I've read most of the earlier books by the author. Haven't read the recent ones.

#6 Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter
Reread this 1994 book about three men escaping from prison in Oklahoma and going on a murderous rampage. A state police Sgt. makes it his personal mission to catch them.

#7 Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn
The story picks up after the events in "Extreme Measures."
A number of terrorisits are on the loose and Mitch Rapp and his associate, Mike Nash, want to stop them before they can kill again.

#8 River of Darkness by Rennie Airth
In England in 1921, the country is still recovering from WWI when a serial killer begins his crime spree.
Inspector John Madden is called in from Scotland Yard.

#9 The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Lisbeth Salander is accused of killing three men. The newspapers find her guilty even before the police investigation gets underway. However, Mikael Blomkvist and a few loyal friends want to know the truth and aren't swayed by the public view.

I've heard wonderful things about The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo as well. Both are on the TBR pile. So many books....

Lorie;

You won't be disappointed in the two novels by Larsson. Leave yourself enough time to enjoy them.

#10 Dead Heat by Caroline Carver
An interesting view of the outer area in Australia.
Georgia Parish is on a plane trip and the plane crashes, sabotage. When two people die, she feels compelled to find answers.

#11 City of Fire by Robert Ellis
A fine suspense novel with a plot twist that is unbelievably well done.

#12 Mania by Craig Larsen
Nick Wilder is a crime scene photographer. Someone is killing people in various cities but they can't explain why. Nick has nightmares about his past. Could these things be related?

#13 Die Trying by Lee Child
Reacher helps a woman with a cane as she struggles with her packages. Three men approach with guns and abduct them. They are taken to the land in Montana where the men live in a para military setup. Something is being planned against the government and the woman, FBI agent Holly Johnson is the key.

#14 Shot Girl by Karen E. Olson
Annie Seymour goes to a backelorette party and goes out for a cigarette. She finds her former husband Ralph dead. Since the police find bullets and there is a gun in Annie's car with missing bullets, she is a suspect.

A fun romp around the New Haven, Connecticut area.

#15 Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
Dr. Temperence Brennan is brought in to investigate when a plumber who is renovating a home discovers a secret room and a skull at the center of an altar. It appears to be devil worship.

#16 Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta
Investigator Wayne Weston is found dead, his wife and daughter missing, police claim suicide. Wayne's father hires PI's Lincoln Perry and his partner Joe Pritchard to look into it and find Wayne's family.

#17 Two Rivers by T. Greenwood
Harper Montgomery works at a train station and is haunted by his wife's death 12 years ago and his participation in an incident related to her death.
He lives with his 12 year old daughter, a train derailment brings a young women into their lives and brings back the thoughts of the past.

#18 Plea of Insanity Jillianne Hoffman
Young assistant prosecutor Julia Velenciano gets the chance to take responsibility for prosecuting Dr. David Marquette for murdering his family.

#19 Go By Go by Jon A. Jackson
A realistic description of the events surrounding a miner's strike in Butte, Montana, in 1917 and the attempts by the Copper Kings to stop the strike.

#20 Never Look Back Linwood Barclay
Excellent novel about a man's wife's disappearance and his search through deception to find her and the reason for her disappearance.

#21 I, Sniper by Stephen Hunter
Bob Lee Swagger is asked to look into the evidence against another former Marine sniper, accused of killing four people.

#22, The Cardinal and the Kremlin Tom Clancy
Jack Ryan is at work helping the United States get the technology to develop a Star Wars technology that would allow the shooting of enemy satelittes in space. The Russian military advisor who has given the United States information about Russia's progress with this system must leave Russia and Ryan must help.

#23 The Missing by Tim Gautreaux
A beautifully told story of a time just after WWI and the abduction of a little girl and the search for her along the towns of the Mississippi.

#24 The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson
Walt Longmere searches for a killer in between changing his life from a boozing, overweight, Viet Nam vet living in a home without a door on the bathroom.

#25 The Betrayed by David Hosp
Sydney Chapin's elder sister is tortured and killed. She has her sister's laptop computer and can trace her sister's most recent work. Sydney wants to find what her sister was working on the caused her murder.

#26 Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline
A confidential informant is murdered and through a number of plot twists, the Asst. D.A. and the person who was going to be testified against, join forces to find the killers of people they both cared about.

#27 City of the Sun by David Levien
Paul and Carol Gabriel's son Jamie goes missing while delivering newspapers on his morning route.
A year goes by and they have almost lost hope when they learn of P.I. Frank Behr.

#28 The Sweetness at the Bottom of Pie Alan Bradley
Eleven year old Flavia de Luce finds a body in her garden. After notifying the police, she decides she wants to take part in the investigation.

I keep on hearing the best things about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - I really must track down a copy!

I enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The second book in the series, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag comes out today, so I'll be stopping by the bookstore after work today!

#29 The First Rule by Robert Crais One of Joe Pike's former mercenary associates is murdered.
Joe is questioned by police to see if the man was doing anything illegal. Joe decides to investigate to clear his friend's name and payback the killers.

#30 Mobtown by Jack Kelly
The time is 1959, rock and roll, dirty politics and inner city strife are all a part of "Mobtown." P.I. Ike Van Savage has three cases that he's working on, an arsonist burning down a slum landlord's buildings, a wife whose husband is having an affair, and a mobster's wife who tells Ike that her husband plans to kill her.
A fun read.

#31 True Blue David Baldacci A fun read, somewhat implausable but still with lots of action.

#32 Pegasus Descending by James Lee Burke
Dave Robicheaux is working on mulitple cases and New Orleans is getting the early warning signs of a storm that turns out to be Hurricane Katrina.

#33 Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
A Viet Nam story that alternates between action in the field in Viet Nam, and imaged action as Paul Berlin and his unit follow a soldier who decided that he had enough war and was going to walk to Paris.

#34 Payback by Thomas Kelly In the '80s building boom in New York, the sandhogs build the tunnels and are in a dispute with the Mob who want to take over the Irish labor union.

#34 The Midnight House by Alex Berenson
John Wells, CIA agent, is asked to find out who is killing the members of a ten-member interrogation unit that worked out of a secret location in Poland known as the Midnight House.

#35 One of Ours by Willa Cather
Cather's Pulitzer Prize Winner about Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska farm-boy, his development during the time prior to WWI and his road to joining the army and going to war.

#36 Denial of Sunlight by Robert Troy
Two scientists discover a way to solve the world's energy needs. They keep their discovery secret and sell it to the Chinese who plan to use it to rule the world. The United States finds out about the Chinese scheme and takes their own action.

#37 Nemesis by Jo Nesbo
Norwegian Det. Harry Hole is assigned to investigate a bank robber who ordered a bank teller to give him money before he counts to twenty-five. When he doesn't get the money fast enough, he kills the cashier and escapes with the money.

#38 The Fifth Horseman Larry Collins and Dominique Laperriere
Libyan Col. Mummar al-Qaddafi has constructed a nuclear device which he threatens to explode in New York unless the US will agree to set up an independent Palestinian state. There is a time of thrity-six hours to agree to his demands or he'll explode the device and blow New York off the maps.

#39 The Codicil Tom Topor
A multimillionaire dies and had changed his will prior to his death, to include a child he fathered when serving in Vietnam. Now the child is grown and must be found, to claim her inheritance.

#40 A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
In 1952, the apartheid laws have just gone into effect in South Africa.
A white police captain is murdered and Detective Emmanule Cooper must dig through racial difficulties, family protectionism and small community supersitutions to find the killer.

A Beautiful Place to Die does sound interesting. Do you recommend it?

Yes, I completely recommend A Beautiful Place to Die I enjoyed it thoroughly.

#41 Trumpets Sound No More by R. van Wyck Mason
This story about a unit of Virginia cavalrymen returning home after Appomattox was disappointing. The lead character was never a person that would generate sympathy for, instead, he seemed someone that fate had dealt one misfortune after another, so many, that it became repiticious.

#42 Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley
A young news reporter comes back to Starvation Lake and takes over the newspaper.
Later, he begins investigation his old hockey coach's disappearance.

#43 The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith A follow-up to the author's "Child 44."
After Stalin's death, the old methods of torture are felt to be wrong and criminals are considered to be innocent victims. One woman is released from prison and wants revenge on the KGB officer who sent her there.

#44 A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield
A well written debut novel. An abused woman takes matters in her own hands and stops the abuse of her husband permanently. Then other women come to her to help resolve their abusal situations.

#45 In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff
The Edgar Award winning novel for best first mystery written in 2009, this tells the story set in New York around 1905. A woman's niece is murdered and New York Detective Simon Ziele works with criminologist, Alistair Sinclair to find the killer.

#46 In the Woods by Tana French A young boy goes into the woods outside of Dublin. Two of his friends disappear.
Twenty years later, the boy has become a detective and has to investigate a murder in the same area. He begins having flashbacks to the incidents around his friends' disappearance.

#47 U is for Undertow Sue Grafton
A well done story where Kinsey Millhone is asked to find the grave that a young man had seen when he was playing in the woods and observed two men bury something. This happened just after a little girl was kidnapped and the young man thinks this is the girl's grave.

#48 The Weight of Silence Heather Gudenkauf A seven-year-old girl with selective mutism disappears from her home one morning. Her best friend is also missing. A search is mounted with hope that the search will find the girls alive. Told from multiple viewpoints.

#49 The Lord God Bird by Russell Hill
A young couple become obsessed with the rare Ivory-billed woodpecker and travel to the Louisiana bayous to find one before the woodpecker's become extinct.

50 Death Wore White Jim Kelly In Norfolk, England, eight cars are stranded on the coastal road when someone kills the driver of the first car. When police arrive, they are surprised to see that there are no footprints in the snow around the murdered man's car.

#51 The Long Firm by Jake Arnott
A romp through the British club scene of the 1960s and Harry Starks, a gay club owner and mobster.

#52 Revenge Served Cold Jackie Fullerton
When Elliott Spruce is killed by a hit and run driver and his wife Kathy is accused of killing him while drunk, she turns to amateur sleuth, Anne Marshall for help.

#53 The Hard Way Lee Child
Reacher sees a man drive from across the street where he was having coffee. This turns out to be a car being used by a person who kidnapped Edward Lane's wife and child. The car was leaving the scne after picking up the ransome.
Reacher offers to help find the man's wife.

Congratulations on reaching 50 books!

And I just picked up The Long Firm from the library - I'm looking forward to it, I enjoyed the BBC adaptation with Mark Strong from the last year or so.

#54 The Rule of Nine by Steve Martini
An extremist wants to change direction of the country by wiping out the Supreme Court.
Defense Attorney Paul Madriani seeks to find a terrorist who is planning some action but Madriani doesn't know the target.

#55 London Fields by Martin Amis
Nicola Six, a dominatrix who can see into the future, forsees her own murder but not the murderer. She attempts to find out who her killer is and stop him.
Absurd.

#56 Dangerous by Diana Palmer
FBI agent, Kilraven is attempting to look into the case of the murder of his wife and child seven years ago. He and police dispatcher, Winnie Sinclair, find an attraction toward each other that they attempt to fight but not too hard.

# 57 Blue Edge of Midnight by Jonathan King
Former Philadelphia police officer Max Freeman is in his canoe on a river in South Florida and finds the body of a dead six-year-old girl. This begins the entanglement with finding the killer and proving that he is not the killer, himself.

#58 Iron Lake by William Kent Kreuger In the Edgar Award winning novel, Cork O'Connor investigates the disappearance of a newspaper delivery boy and the apparent suicide of the local Judge.

#59 The Silent Hour by Michael Koryta
PI Lincoln Perry agrees to help paroled murderer Parker Harrison find Alexandra Cantrell the sister of a powerful Mob figure.

#60 The Bingo Palace Louise Erdrich
The story tells the growth and maturation of Lipshaw Morrisey and his return to the reservation.

#61 A Bad Day for Pretty Sophie Littlefield
Sara Hardesty returns from her adventures in A Bad Day for Sorry to help clear Neb Donovan's name. He is the suspect when a body is found under the snack shop at the demolition derby track at the fairgrounds.

#62 Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert Parker
Virgil Cole and Everett Hatch return to Appollosa and help dispense honest security for the residents.

#63 Last Man Standing David Baldacci
Web London's FBI Hostage Rescue Team is lured into a trap and slaughtered.
Now he searches for answers.

#64 The Greenway by Jane Adams
Cassie Maltham is age ten when she is with her twelve-year-old cousin and the cousin, Suzie, disappears in The Greenway, a covered path in the Norfolk, English area. Now Cassie is twenty years older and wants to find the answers.

#65 Into Protection by Terry Chaudhuri
Derek Shepard follows his father into the Chicago Police Force in order to catch and punish his father's killer.

#66 Fallen by Kathleen George
Elizabeth Ross's husband, Dan, is murdered leaving her bewildered and grief stricken.

#67 A Rule Against Murder byLouise Penny
Inspector Gamache and his wife go to a resort for thir 35th anniversary and find murder.

#68 Night Train by Martin Amis
N.Y. Police Det. Mike Hoolihan has to tell her former boss that his daughter has been found dead, apparent suicide.

#69 Doctor Frigo by Eric Ambler Dr. Ernesto Castillo becomes involved in politics in St. Paul les-Alizes.

Oh, I read my first Eric Ambler last year - The Mask of Dimitrios. I did rather like it, but haven't sourced any of his others since. Must track a few more down!

Well, I like Graham Greene very much, so I guess that's why I liked Eric Ambler too.

#70 The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale
In East Texas, during the depression, a number of black women are murdered. Constable Jacob Crane fights against the prejeduce of the time and investigates the murders.

#71 Fragment by Warren Fahy
A group of scientists land on the isolated Henders Island and find creatures there that make the reader think of "Jurassic Park."

did you like The Bottoms and/or Fragment? They both look good to me and I've read nothing by either author.

#72 Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli
A blind, former N.Y. cop is a teacher at a girl's prep school and someone with a score to settle with him, stalks him during the Christmas vacation.
Good drama.

#73 The Passage by Justin Cronin
A vampire virus is spreading, California declares itself independent and is a buffer against the monsters. A few good people band together and risk their lives to save the world.

#74 The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
A couple meet in Hong Kong in 1951 and begin an affair. Then the novel flashes back to 1941 and the events when Japan invaded Hong Kong and the actions of one of the characters.

#85 Dead Men's Dust by Matt Hilton
Joe Hunter is asked to find his half-brother, John who may be in danger.
A thrill-killer is also after John, for different reasons.

#86 Running Dark by Jamie Freveletti
Somalia pirates attempt to capture a cruise ship that is under the protection of Darkview, a U.S. security agency.

#87 Killing Floor by Lee Child
Reacher arrives in Margrove, Georgia and is immediately arrested for murder. He must prove that he is innocent and find the killer.

#88 The Girl who kicked a hornet's nest by Stieg Larsson
Well done finale to the Millennium trilogy.

#89 Mucho Mojo Joe R. Lansdale
Leonard Pine inherits a home from his uncle and while he and his friend, Hap Collins are fixing the home up, they find the body of a dead boy and some photos of children in sexual positions. They must find the killer to clear Leonard Pine's uncle's name.

Oh, I just finished The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest yesterday! I did enjoy it, and am slightly sad to say goodbye to Lisbeth.

#90 "61 Hours" by Lee Child.
In a winter storm, a bus, carrying Jack Reacher, has an accident in Bolton, South Dakota and Reacher is placed in the middle of a situation that he knows best how to help with.

# 91 Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale
Sunset Jones is being raped by her husband, the constable of the town. As this is happening, she reaches for his gun and kills him.
She is made the new constable and must solve the murder of a woman and the death of a baby in East Texas during the depression.

# 92 Star Island Carl Hiaasen
A Hollywood celebrity is constantly going to rehab for drugs and alcohol abuse. The family hires a double to fill in for her when she's "indisposed."
A member of the paparazzi kidnaps the wrong girl and humorous events transpire.

#93 Bare Facts by Katherine Garbera
A security firm with three attractive females is hired to protect a handsome CEO of an importing company.
Business and pleasure get mixed up.

# 94 Innocent by Scott Turow
Rusty Sabich is accused of murder, twenty years after his last trial when he was found innocent. This time he's accused of killing his wife.

#95 The Tin Roof Blowdown James Lee Burke
Hurricane Katrina smashes into New Orleans unleashing a crime wave. Dave Robicheaux is investigating the killing of a looter and the search for stolen property.

#96 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Jim Dixon, a lecturer in Medieval Studies attempts to butter up the head of his department to retain his position.

#97 The Book of Eli by Sam Moffie
Eli Canaan has a problem, he loves to have intercourse and not just with his wife. When she casts a spell on him, he wakes up in Heaven.

#98 The 9th Judgment by James Patterson
Two killers are at loose in San Francisco and Det. Lindsay Boxer is working to catch them both.

#99 The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
A soldier returns after the Civil War and must win the love of the woman he thought had planned to marry him.

#100 Foreign Influence by Brad Thor
Scot Horvath is in a secret spy agency. He is attempting to prevent a terrorist attack on Chicago.

#101 The Things they Carried by Tim O'Brien
A story of soldiers in Vietnam told in journalistic form.

I read The Things They Carried a few years ago. A very powerful novel.

#102 Caught Harlan Coben
Dan Mercer walks into a home of a young girl he thought was asking for his help. When he walks in, he is part of a sting operation to catch sexual predators.

# 103 The Narrowback by Michael Ledwidge
Tom Farrell plans a robbery and things go terribly wrong.

#104 Inside Out by Barry Eisler
Ben Traven is asked to locate a rogue agent who has stolen torture tapes from the CIA.

#105 Secret Prey by John Sandford
Lucas Davenport investigates the killing of a bank president and associated killings.

#106 The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke.
Dave Robicheaux investigates the death of a number of young women and tries to keep his daughter, Alafair, from associating with men who have a shady past but promise that they can help her publish her first novel.

#107 Hard Cache by Charles B. Neff
A Ukrainian is murdered in the Swiftwater, Washington area and authorities must discover why the crime happened and who did it.

#108 Whiplash by Catherine Coulter
FBI Agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich hunt for the killer of a man outside a pharmaceutical company and try to solve the problem of a manipulation of a product the could help people undergoing chemotherapy.

#109 Presumed Innocent Scott Turow
Rusty Sabich is accused of killing a prosecutor with whom he had been having an affair.

# 110 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Claire Abshire and Henry De Tamble meet at various times in their lives as Henry travels back and forth in time travel. They fall in love and must overcome the separation that time travel imposes.

# 111 Ice Cold Tess Gerritsen
Maura Isles goes on a convention in Wyoming and doesn't return. Jane Rizzoli, Boston homicide detective and others go to her rescue.

# 112 The Ugly Duckling by Iris Johansen

Nell Calder's family is gunned down and after going through a period of depression she becomes intent on seeking revenge.

#113 Broken by Karin Slaughter
Officer Lena Adams investigated the murder of a college student.

#114 Djibouti by Elmore Leonard
Dara Barr, a filmmaker decides to do a documentary on Somalai pirates.

#115 Intent to Kill by James Grippando Ryan James, star minor league baseball player is called to the hosptial where his wife was taken after a car accident. He arrives to find that she died on the operating table.
Three years after her death, police receive a message, "I know who did it."

#116 The Insider by Reece Hirsch
An attorney gets set up in a scheme to get insider information to members of the Russian Mafia.

#117 Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are back on the case where they brought Amanda McCready home from kidnappers. Now Amanda is age sixteen and has disappeared.

#118 Deadly Portfolio: A Killing in Hedge Funds by John J. Hohn
Four affluent families in the Lake Hebron, N.C. area are affected when an investment advisor places funds in a risky hedge fund and attempts to get away with it when the fund crashes.

#119 Boundary Waters by William Kent Krueger A young Indian American country and western singer is missing in the Northern Minnesota area and someone is attempting to find her, so they can kill her.

#120 One Shot Lee Child Jack Reacher is asked to help a former marine sniper who was set up in a mass killing.

#121 Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs
Tempe Brennan attempts to discover the story behind a drowning victim who is identified as John Lowery. U.S. officials state that Lowery died in Vietnam, forty years ago.

#122 Blue River by Ethan Canin
This is the story of the relationship between two brothers.

#123 The Likeness by Tana French
Cassie Maddox goes undercover to try to find the killer of a victim who looked just like her.

#124 Tough Customer Sandra Brown
Dodge Hanly is called to Texas to help his daughter when she is threatened to be killed.

#125 The Brave by Nicholas Evans
Tommy Bedford begins a boarding school in England when he is nine years old. There is bullying and sadistic teachers. When he is age nine, his sister tells him that she is really his mother and now has the ability to care for him herself.

#126 Run the Risk by Scott Frost.
Lt. Alex Delillo of the L.A. P.D. attempts to stop a mad bomber from blowing up his device at the Rose Bowl Parade.

#127 Bury Your Dead Louise Penny
Inspector Armand Gamache investigates the murder of an amateur historian who was searching for the burial spot of Quebec's founder, Champlain.

#128 Sentimental MeCharles L Fields
Boston Attorney Charles Stone goes to Mexico to check on the beneficiary of a $500,000 insurance policy after the insured was murdered.

#129 Bad Blood by John Sandford
Investigator Virgil Flowers investigates four murders that happen in a small Minnesota community. There are possible religious connections.

#130 Blood of My Brother by James Le Pore
Attorney Jay Cassio's best friend is murdered and it looks like a professional hit.

Well written and entertaining.