So I used the picture at the top of this post to introduce the new focus of this blog. All of the items were purchased on our last trip to Goodwill for the hefty total price of $6.00! I love the prices and I love to support Goodwill. They worked tirelessly with my son Nick to help him get a job!
Anyway, while the prices were great on both the CDs and books, the better aspect of the purchase is that the books and the CDs are all from favorites.
The Books
The two books I bought were Blue Labyrinth from the writing duo of Preston & Child and The English Spy by Daniel Silva.
Blue Labyrinth is book # 14 of the 19 book in Preston & Child’s Agent Pendergast series. While The English Spy is the 15th book in Silva’s Gabriel Allon series.
The lead characters of both series are outstanding characters. Here is a brief biography of Agent Pendergast from Wikipedia…
Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast is a fictional character appearing in novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. He first appeared as a supporting character in their first novel, Relic, and in its 1997 sequel Reliquary, before assuming the protagonist role in the 2002 novel The Cabinet of Curiosities
Pendergast is a special agent with the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He once worked out of the New Orleans Field Office of the FBI, but resides in New York City and works out of the New York Field Office; he frequently travels out of state to investigate cases which interest him, often those appearing to be the work of serial killers.
While Agent Pendergast is a fairly typical character in many ways i.e. he works for FBI the books always have a woo-woo vibe throughout.
Dan Silva’s lead character is Gabriel Allon who is a Gabriel Allon, an art conservator and assassin. Here’s a little about Gabriel from Wikipedia….
Gabriel Allon is the main protagonist in Daniel Silva’s thriller and espionage series that focuses on Israeli intelligence. The main characters refer to their employer as ‘the Office’, although it is not specified that it is Mossad(known internally in the Israeli intelligence community as HaMisrad [עברית: המשרד], literally ‘the Office’). Allon’s career began in 1972 when he, Eli Lavon and several others were plucked from civilian life by Ari Shamron to participate in Operation Wrath of God, an act of vengeance to hunt down and eliminate those responsible for killing the Israel athletes in Munich. Wrath of God is referenced in the books throughout the course of his life. Read More
As I said before both are terrific characters and I really like the books. However, I haven’t read books from either series in a long while!
It’s Been How Long Since I Read Books from These Series
Good God! I just looked at my Goodreads bookshelf and the last Gabriel Allon book I read was in 2006!! It’s not like I don’t have any of the books in my TBR shelves! In fact I have seven of the books in my shelf I think it’s about time I read one of them.
It seems the last time I read an Agent Pendergast book was also was 2015. I also read Gideon’s Sword the first book in their Gideon’s Crew series in 2015. As well as, The Forgotten Room, Book 4 in the Jeremy Logan series from Lincoln Child.
The bottom line is that it’s beyond time to read new books from these authors. Here’s my TBR pile of books by Preston and Child ….
LOL! and from Daniel Silva….
In order to save you from counting I’ll tell you the total is 15 books! That’s a little less the a third of all the books I’ve read in 2020. Can you say too many books to little time!
One of the reasons that I haven’t read any of these books is that I keep putting off reading the book that is the next in the series that I haven’t read! I think what I’ll do is read either the book it’s the highest rating on Goodreads or the one I have that is the closest to the current release!!
Anybody with a thought or recommendation??
Now this post is longer than I anticipated so I will write about the three CDs I bought at Goodwill in my next post.
Links for the Further Exploration of the Books from Preston & Child and Daniel Silva.
Preston & Child Website
Daniel Silva Website
Books I’ve Reviewed
As I said earlier I will write about the CDs I bought at Goodwill in one of my next posts. However right now let’s go “into the night” with my favorite track from Manassas’ first album “Johnny’s Garden”