I’ve got three books that I recently finished (ish), and if you know me at all, none of them will come as much of a surprise.

The first is Taylor Steven’s The Informationist, which I read in ebook format, but we also have several print copies. This is the first book that features the character Vanessa Michael Munroe, the ‘informationist.’ What’s that? Well, in this book, it’s someone who has an uncanny ability to go to places and find whatever information someone needs. Usually that means creating some sort of socio-political/financial dossier on a locale for someone who wants to do business there; this time, though, she’s sent to South Africa to find a girl who went missing four years previous. Just so happens that Munroe is from South Africa, and has a suitably dark and violent past there.

There are some similarities between Munroe and Lisbeth Salander–both are willfully independent, tough as nails, hyper-intelligent and emotionally stunted. Munroe, though, is a lot more social, and perhaps not quite as inherently damaged as Salander, so her persona is a bit more believable and has more life to it. I liker her character, I liked the settings, and while the story played out like I thought it would, it had enough energy to keep me reading.

Second up…the delicious Chococo Chocolate Cookbook. I had a major sweets craving recently (okay, I always have one), and decided to make a dessert instead of buying one. This book was on the New shelf, and I opened it right to the recipe that I ended up making–marbled ginger bars. Super easy no-bake, very chocolatey, and the ginger was a fresh and unique flavor. I put some Almond Dream ice cream and strawberries on them, and it was a great dessert–vegan, too, although the entire cookbook is not. Chococo is a British chocolatier, and their cafe is called Cocoa Central; the recipes in the book are for the luscious things you would find there.

Finally, I began the latest installment in the Aimee Leduc series, Murder at the Lanterne Rouge. I did not finish it. Aimee, you sound like a broken record! I swear, every time someone behaves oddly or gives a strange look, they’re either cheating on someone or on the scam. In this case, Rene, her business partner, has a girlfriend who seems to have something to do with a murder victim; Aimee takes pages to get past the idea that it all stems from the woman wanting to pull a fast one on Rene. It was too much. I don’t mind an investigator going through the what-ifs while they try and figure things out, but she needs some new what-ifs, toute de suite! The most exciting thing in this book, at least in the chapters that I got through, was that it appears that Aimee has dyed her hair blonde.

Two good books out of three isn’t so bad, though. Right?