Absolute Power

Absolute Power is a 1997 thriller starring Clint Eastwood, Laura Linney, Gene Hackman among others based on the book by David Baldacci. Clint Eastwood is Luther Whitney a master thief, who goes into the mansion of billionaire Walter Sullivan in order to rob his jewels and cash. While there he witnesses a murder scene involving the President of the United States and Walter's young wife. Walter happens to be a close friend of the President and was in fact responsible for putting him in the White House. The President and Walter's wife are both inebriated and try to have sex but it goes wrong, a scuffle takes place between the two and in the process secret service agents break into the bedroom and fire shot which kills Walter's wife. Meanwhile Luther has witnessed all these and he escapes from there subtly while picking up the pen knife which was used in the scuffle. Luther has a daughter Kate (Laura Linney) who is a public prosecutor but who is also estranged from her father. Meanwhile detective Seth Frank (Ed Harris) starts investigation of the event. Kate agrees to meet her father at a café but while there he is shot at by two people, one of them being secret service agent and another a sharp shooter hired by Walter. Kate is then forced off her car into a cliff which seriously injures her. Luther saves her and is at the hospital when one of the secret service guy tries to kill her there, but Luther intercepts and puts him to rest. The case reaches its conclusion when Luther becomes the stand by driver of Walter and tells him the whole story. Nice gripping movie with good performances by Clint Eastwood and Laura Linney. 

Marathon Man

"Marathon Man" is by Bill Rodgers otherwise known as Boston Billy who won the Boston and New York Marathons 4 times each in the late 70s. Boston Billy has personally autographed this book which was given to my dear friend Bhasker Desai who had ran at this year i.e. 2013 Boston Marathon. Bhasker finished the race and was in the medical tent when the bomb blast took place.

It is a very enchanting and enthralling book with a throbbing narrative in collaboration with Mathew Shepatin. Basically it is an account of his early life and his Boston marathon experience of 1975. The narrative is very interesting in the sense that each chapter starts with his Boston 1975 progress during the race and the later part of the chapter devotes to flashback to his early life as a college student, running with Amby Burfoot who is his original inspiration, his "conscientious objector" status during the Vietnam war, his degree at special education, struggle at getting a job etc. He was a natural born runner with a great capacity for hard work and a body which could take any amount of hard work with very little injuries. The realisation that he could be a top notch marathon runner came to him only during a race with Amby Burfoot in which he raced alongside the great Amby for about 15 miles of a 20 mile race. The seeds of inspiration which Amby sowed in him made him take up competitive racing including marathons. Boston Billy alongwith Frank Shorter, Amby Burfoot and Jeff Galloway were the pioneers of long distance running first in America which then spread to other cities in the world which has since then grown exponentially. His latter attempts at Montreal Olympics of 1976 and thereafter founding a successful running business alongwith his college buddies makes for a good story. It is an excellent book, very inspirational, very nice story of an easy going hardworking American who loves running dearly. Highly recommended for anybody into long distance running. Goodreads 5/5

The Sleeping Doll

I like Jeffery Deaver books because he provides so much of twists, double twists, re-twist, reverse twists to the plot that you actually wonder where it is leading to. His Lincoln Rhyme the master criminologist series were all good books. This one featured Kathryn Dance, interrogator and kinesics expert - a kind of study of body language. Daniel Pell has been incarcerated in Capitola jail for mass murders of a wealthy family, the Croytons of whom he left only little girl behind, who was hiding behind dolls, and hence the name of the book. From the book cover, you may think it is a horror book, but thankfully it is not. Pell manages to get  himself to another facility for interrogation by Dance but in the process he escapes and thereafter the plot starts getting interesting. The cat and mouse game being played between Pell and Dance is intense. To his favour Deaver has kept the interest intact but as expected in his genre, he has sprung many surprises. Dance keeps going back to her basics which is kinesics to break down the real story. Even after the plot ostensibly ended, Deaver has kept going on for a couple of chapters more, thereby intensifying the suspense. For one twists to many, I give Goodreads 4/5 

Children of the Thunder

Just got around to finish this book "Children of the Thunder" by John Brunner. It is a science fiction book and John Brunner takes a long time to get around to the story. It is about some kids who commit juvenile crime but of such proportions as to shock even the adult mind, crimes, such as running a prostitution racket, protection racket, murder etc. All these kids are ostensibly born out of surrogacy and there are doubts that all these kids might probably be from one donor. First there is an assumption of mind control in the sense that these kids have some kind of psychic power where they can read people's minds and they are brilliant but in a devious way. In between there are newspaper reports of some kind of catastrophe after another taking place somewhere in the world and there is also mention of a General Thrower who is a probably a menace to the society. Peter Levin is a science fiction writer who makes a living by digging up stories on calamities and Dr. Claudia is a science researcher from US who has developed the instinct that there is something violently wrong with these kids and could there be a connection between. Brunner has attempted to carve out a plausible story but it all ends up in one big disappointment, hence the 1 star.

Ultramarathon Man - Confessions of an All-Night Runner

Ultramarathon Man - Confessions of an All-Night Runner by Dean Karnazes is an absorbing and overwhelming story of his early athletic prowess in schools, loss of his sister to an accident, his subsequent forays away from running for 15 years, his rediscovery of running to running marathons, ultra marathons, crazy distances, unheard of before and impossible feats like running the South Pole marathon, running 199 miles non stop, etc. His heroic attempt at running the Western States 100 miler and Badwater Ultramarathon and failing the first time has been poignantly told. A nice inspirational story with dollops of quotable quotes for keeping in one's mirror or desktop. The paperback edition has given details of his diet, training, nutrition, strategy etc. so that becomes useful for people running ultra marathons. Dean has that rare gene which allows him to run continuously non stop unlike us mortals. He has also discovered the art of sleeping while on the run, albeit for  a few seconds. Dean has also run the 50 marathons in 50 states of the United States in 50 consecutive days, finishing the 50th day by running the NYC marathon. Goodreads 5/5 

Going Crazy

"Going Crazy" by Otto Friedrich is a kind of biography or a history of insanity or madness through the ages. Otto does a good job in keeping the narrative flowing throughout the pages with first hand accounts by many patients. Apart from celebrated cases he has also dwelt on the ordinary people's lives disrupted by what he calls as "craziness" - by all accounts all of us are somewhat crazy at some times or other - it only varies by degrees, but while majority are able to keep their thoughts clear there are many who lose control of their minds. He has also written about the cures which in medieval times ranged from cruelty itself like chaining the patients to drugs, therapies etc. It was surprising to read that so many celebrated people had problems in their lives. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in different genres like non-fiction, biographies etc. Rating 5/5

The Blood-Dimmed Tide

John Madden has retired as a detective from Scotland Yard and settled in his rural home happy with his surroundings. One day he and his wife Dr. Helen Madden were returning back to his house, when he chanced upon the body of a little girl, hidden, with a badly mutilated face and apparently raped also. His detective instincts kick in, despite protests from his wife, he gets involved in the case. Then another body is discovered in similar fashion but that disappearance was reported almost three years back. And another body in similar fashion. Case goes out of local police hands into Scotland Yard and slowly bits by pieces they stitch together a series of crimes being committed by a psychopath, all of young girls and all in similar fashion - rape and then post mortem mutilation and sometimes even post mortem rape. The gap of three years in the murders forces them to surmise that it could have been somebody who has been out of the country during that period. The murders are set in 1926 to 1929 period when Europe was in turmoil due to rising Nazism of that era. The case develops international ramifications but thankfully Rennie has not diverted too much attention to that part of the case. Rennie Airth's narrative is quite good and keeps the suspense intact. Goodreads 4/5