Echo burning by Lee Child

Hitching rides is an unreliable mode of transport. In temperatures of over a hundred degrees, you're lucky if a driver will open the door of his air-conditioned car long enough to let you slide in. That's Jack Reacher's conclusion. He's adrift in the fearsome heat of a Texas summer, and he needs to keep moving through the wide open vastness, like a shark in the water. The last thing he's worried about is exactly who picks him up.

He never expected it to be somebody like Carmen. She's alone, driving a Cadillac. She's beautiful, young and rich. She has a little girl who is being watched by unseen observers. And a husband who is in jail. Who will beat her senseless when he comes out. If he doesn't kill her first.

Reacher is no stranger to trouble. And at Carmen's remote ranch in Echo County there is plenty of it: lies and prejudice, hatred and murder. Reacher can never resist a lady in distress. Her family is hostile. The cops can't be trusted. The lawyers won't help. If Reacher can't set things straight, who can?

Running blind by Lee Child

In Jack Reacher, Lee Child has created an epic hero: tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable. His first three Reacher novels, Killing Floor, Die Trying and Tripwire, were published to great acclaim; Killing Floor was recently awarded the Anthony Award in America for the Best First Novel, and Die Trying was selected as a Thumping Good Read by W.H. Smith in the U.K. Lee was also cited as one of the current hot talents in crime writing by Mark Timlin at the crime writers' festival, Dead On Deansgate.

It's tough being a high-flying woman in the Army. Very tough. When Sergeant Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook are found dead in their own homes—in baths filled with Army-issue camouflage paint, their bodies completely unmarked—Jack Reacher is under suspicion. He knew them both—and he knows that they both left the Army under dubious circumstances, both victims of sexual harassment. A former U.S. military policeman, a loner and a drifter, he matches the psychological profile prepared by the FBI, and is arrested by ambitious Special Agent, Julia Lamarr.

But when the body of another woman, Sergeant Lorraine Stanley, is discovered, killed with similar precision, Reacher is released. Everyone fears there is a serial killer on the loose. But the FBI have strong persuasive powers, and before long Reacher finds himself heavily involved in the murder investigation. What have these women got in common and why is someone out to do them harm?

The hard way by Lee Child

Jack Reacher was alone, the way he liked it, soaking up the hot, electric New York City night, watching a man cross the street to a parked Mercedes and drive it away. The car contained one million dollars in ransom money. Edward Lane, the man who paid it, will pay even more to get his family back. Lane runs a highly illegal soldiers-for-hire operation. He will use any amount of money and any tool to find his beautiful wife and child. Then he'll turn Jack Reacher loose with a vengeance—because Reacher is the best man hunter in the world.

On the trail of a vicious kidnapper, Reacher is learning the chilling secrets of his employer's past...and of a horrific drama in the heart of a nasty little war. He's beginning to realize that Edward Lane is hiding something. Something dirty. Something big. But Reacher also knows this: he's already in way too deep to stop now.

The only way to find the truth, as they used to say back in the service, is to do it the hard way. So Reacher starts over at square one. He sweats the details and works the clues. What started in NYC explodes three thousand miles away in the sleepy English countryside with Reacher striding alone in the shadows, armed and dangerous, and invincible.

Surface detail by Iain Banks

Another culture novel and as with all the others when reading it I feel that this is the best in the series.

I read this book on a mobile phone, HTC Desire HD. When I started, I did not think that I would enjoy the experience of not having a paper book in my hands, but I have to say, it was not as bad as I thought it would be and what tipped the balance to ebooks for me is that I do not have to carry a book with me at all times, and when one is coming close to an end I do not have to carry 2 books :-) I now have 11 books queued up on my phone.

In this novel we get more glimpses of the virtual worlds that exist within the Culture universe. A simulated war game is taking place to abolish virtual hells that some of the civilisations use to keep their citizens in line as well as really punish people practically for ever. And of course in the real world, a number of civilisations are maneuvering for power and influence.

As always the most fun characters are the ship minds and their behaviour. Hero in this is the Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints.

The Independent noted that this was a poor book to introduce new readers to The Culture, but "far from the worst introduction to Banks's series."
Alastair Mabbott of The Herald describes the story as having "murder, revenge, pursuit and subterfuge taking place against a backdrop of escalating tension [that] stands up very well, and makes the prospect of further books in the Culture series somewhat less imposing."
UK book review site The Bookbag remarked that "...what sets this book apart is the quality of the writing and the depth of the author's imagination.

White Fang by Jack London

This was one of the first e-books that I read on an Android phone, the HTC Desire HD and I have to say it was nt a bad experience. It made it easy to read in a variety of situations where I had a bit of time. And I did not have to carry a book with me at all times :-)

The story begins before the four-quarters wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team. The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, four more teams find Henry, after all his dogs have been eaten and Bill has been killed, in a ring of coals from his fire in an attempt to keep the wolves away. The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally manages to bring down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. The she-wolf gives birth to a litter of five cubs by the Mackenzie River, and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob its den for food for the she-wolf and her cub; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx's den. The surviving cub and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly after the she-wolf manages to successfully kill all the lynx kittens, prompting the lynx to track her down and a vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx but suffers severe injury, the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days.

The cub comes across five Native Americans one day, and the she-wolf comes to his rescue. One man, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as Kiche, his brother's wolfdog, who left during a famine. Grey Beaver's brother is dead, so he takes Kiche and her cub, christening the cub White Fang. White Fang has a harsh life in the Indian camp; the current puppy pack, seeing him as a wolf, immediately attack him. He is saved by the Indians, but the pups never accept him, and the leader Lip-lip singles him out for persecution. White Fang grows to become a savage, morose, solitary, and deadly fighter, "the enemy of his kind."

"In order to face the constant danger of hurt and even of destruction, his predatory and protective faculties were unduly developed. He became quicker of movement than the other dogs, swifter of foot, craftier, deadlier, more lithe, more lean with ironlike muscle and sinew, more enduring, more cruel, more ferocious, and more intelligent. He had to become all these things, else he would not have held his own nor survived the hostile environment in which he found himself."

When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon so that Grey Beaver can trade with the gold-hunters. There, he is sold—for a bottle of whiskey—to a dog-fighter, Beauty Smith. White Fang defeats all opponents, including several wolves and a lynx, until a bulldog is brought in to fight him. The bulldog manages to get a grip on the skin and fur of White Fang's neck, and slowly and surely begins to throttle him. White Fang nearly suffocates, but is rescued when a rich, young gold hunter, Weedon Scott, happens by and stops the fight.

Scott attempts to tame White Fang and after a long patient effort he succeeds. When Scott attempts to return to California alone, White Fang pursues him, and Scott decides to take the dog with him back home. In Santa Clara, White Fang must adjust to the laws of the estate. At the end of the book, a murderous criminal, Jim Hall, tries to kill Judge Scott, who had sentenced Hall to prison, not knowing that Hall was "railroaded". White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. As a result, the women of Scott's estate name him "The Blessed Wolf", and the story ends with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he had fathered with the sheep-dog Collie.