Total Books: 5   Total Pages: 1468   Longest: 315   Shortest: 252

Genres: 4 (Biography – 1, Fiction – 1, Mystery – 2, Thriller – 1)

I started the month of June off reading another “you gotta read this! It’s so funny!” book recommendation from my sister. Then, she told me the title and I wondered if she was hinting at something…

The novel centers around Ashley, a successful career woman turned stay-at-home mom to an 8-month-old daughter. She feels like she is floundering to be the “perfect mom” and finds herself enrolled in a Motherhood Better boot camp run by an apparently perfect mommy blogger and mom guru (think Martha Stewart for moms). You’ll find yourself laughing out loud at some of Ashley’s predicaments and her homework assignment reports especially. After reading this, if you aren’t encouraged to help out a new mom, I’d be surprised!

This is the story of Marty Blazer, an investment advisor to athletes, whose downfall led to the FBI using him as an informant to bring down a lot of college coaches (mostly assistants taking the fall) at several Power 5 schools, including Rick Pitino at Louisville (peripherally), as well as some Nike and Adidas executives. What was amazing, as I read this account, was that Marty thought they (the FBI) didn’t go far enough, they only scratched the tip of the iceberg. Of course, this was just before the current Wild West ushered in by NIL and the collectives that has now permanently altered the course of college athletics – but that’s another story! This was a fascinating read, revealing a very dark side of both collegiate and professional sports.

As you might guess by the title, America’s favorite French cook Julia Child is a primary character. Set in Paris in the 1950s, the main character, the fictional Tabitha Knight, is a young American woman living with her French grandfather and uncle across the street from Julia and her husband, Paul (who worked at the U.S. embassy helping to implement the Marshall Plan in post-WWII Europe). Julia and Tabitha become good friends. A young woman is found murdered in Julia’s apartment building and it turns out both Julia and Tabitha have ties to the woman. Of course, a quintessential French detective is on the case, but Tabitha has ideas to solve it herself. There’s lots of cooking along the way and some plot twists and turns, and a very fun light mystery read. I can’t wait for Book 2 to be available on Kindle Unlimited!

Veridian is a recent art college graduate relentlessly seeking a New York City gallery to show and sell her work, so that she can get her own apartment in the city and move out of her single mom’s house in Hoboken. Unfortunately, the only thing in her portfolio catching anyone’s eye is a piece she accidentally included – a sketch of a Van Gogh from an art class. The next thing you know, she’s unwittingly involved in the world of art forgery. Besides art, many other deceptions are revealed as Veridian attempts to uncover what’s going on and who she can trust.

Hummer’s selection of the name Veridian for the main character seems very intentional. I didn’t know it until late in the book, but “viridian” is a shade of green from which the word “verdant” comes. Green can also imply youth and innocence. It is also my suspicion that Hummer spelled it with an “e” to also bring to mind the word “veritas”, the Latin word for truth. Veridian is a young, innocent woman searching for the truth. I really enjoyed this one and the door appears left open for a sequel, I’d love to read it if so!

Case is a former Delta operative, who lives on a dilapidated boat cruising the Intercoastal Waterway along the Atlantic Seaboard, when he isn’t working or visiting his mom and special needs sister. He gets contracts through a Swiss middleman agency and seldom knows who he is actually working for. The contracts always appear innocent at first, such as get information on company XYZ operating in Bolivia for company ABC that wants to invest or buy them. But the next thing you know, Case has lots of bad guys and spies from every agency (CIA, Mossad, MI6, China’s MSS, etc.) you can think of on his trail. He often ends up joined in his mission by one or more of his former Delta teammates, Marcus, Bo, and Catch, each with unique skills and personalities. Also, before every mission, he checks in with “Jules of the Clubhouse” who has her own network of spies and fixers providing intel. Jules is a diminutive, one-eyed woman who greets every visitor to the Clubhouse with a sawed-off shotgun and has a penchant for licorice and cigars!  

In The Cairo Job, Case gets a direct assignment from America’s top “spook”, Marilyn Townsend, who previously ran Case’s Delta team. She wants him to infiltrate an organization of MOTUs (Masters of the Universe) looking to form a one-world government and rumored to be forming their own intelligence agency. She suspects moles in the CIA and wants his help as she doesn’t know who she can trust.

If you like quick-read, adventure, spy thrillers with lots of mayhem and great character development, then this series is for you! I initially read The Texas Job last April because Dave had downloaded it. I didn’t realize it was #9 in the series at first. While I enjoyed it, I was missing a lot of backstory on the characters, so of course I had to go back and read the series in order, which I highly recommend! In addition to the character development, Milam does a great job integrating and staying true to the geography, landmarks, history, and cultures of all the settings in the series.

Until next time, read what pleases you!