The Fixer by Joseph Finder, 376 pages

This was my first Joseph Finder book.  In this story former investigative journalist, Rick Hoffman finds lots of money hidden in a wall in his father's house.  His father had a stroke 18 years ago and cannot speak to tell Rick why the money is there.   Rick asks a few questions and alerts the wrong people and his life is suddenly in danger.  The story is set in Boston, and the money ends up being related to the Big Dig, the huge construction project in the 1990s that took forever and involved lots of corruption.

This was a good book, but I never fell in love with the characters.  It was a fun, quick adventure with a satisfying ending.

Beat the Reaper (Peter Brown #1) by Josh Bazell, 310 pages

"Beat the Reaper" is a profanity laden and hilarious adventure about medical resident Dr. Peter Brown who also happens to be a former hit man for the mob.  His real name is Pietro Brnwna aka "Bearclaw" and he is in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

He is a resident at a crappy hospital and walks into the room of a terminally ill mobster and they, of course, recognize each other.  Oops.

This is a book club book and I am expecting to be chastised for making the book club read a book that mentions the "f" word in about every other sentence.  However, I'll just blame Shirley for picking this one. 

Author Josh Bazell has a BA in writing from Brown University and an MD from Columbia.   What a wicked and lovely combination.  And after reading this, I am going to do my best to stay OUT of the hospital.

Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes 384 pages

During the day Genevieve is a white collar worker in London. In the evening she moonlights as a stripper in order to save enough money to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a houseboat. Not long after she realizes that dream and departs London for good she finds the body of her friend floating near her boat. Dark Tide alternates between the present day and Genevieve’s life on the boat and the not so far off past when she worked in a private men’s club. The answer to the mystery of the floating body lies somewhere between the two.

While this was an entertaining book and the passages of houseboat life were interesting and well written, there were way too many stranger-in-a-dark-alley moments that the character entered into willingly, that should have ended badly but somehow didn’t that I just couldn’t buy into it. This was another case of loving the author’s first book Into the Darkest Corner and wanting and waiting for this one to measure up. It never did.