Tag / Isabella Maldonado

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Prolific Authors – 22 Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We conclude today with the sole author I’ve read 22 times, a level unseen two years ago.

Jeffery Deaver

In 1999, the first entry of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, The Bone Collector, was adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.  Around that time, I picked up a paperback copy, which I read in 2000.  I slowly added additional titles as I would find them as remainders, picking up new hard covers for $3 or $4.


Things increased in 2015, when I started picking up titles on deals through the Amazon Kindle store or from the library, leading to 17 additional books added to my read bookshelf.  In August of last year, I finished off the Lincoln Rhyme series with The Broken Window.  There is still room to grow, as I have three remaining entries of his Kathryn Dance series, although my local library does not have them available in an electronic format, and what looks to be a new series where he has teamed up with Isabella Maldonado.

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Book 53 (of 52) – A Killer’s Game

A Killer’s Game – Isabella Maldonado

When FBI agent Dani Vega goes undercover to infiltrate a team of killers responsible for the death of a congressional chief of staff, she understands that she is putting her life at risk.  When that team is led into a trap and forced to fight each other to the death in an elaborate game planned by a former client, she is really put in a precarious position.  Can her Army Ranger training keep her alive until the FBI can locate and rescue her?  Or has she finally reached the end of the line?

A Killer’s Game is my first time reading Isabella Maldonado’s solo work, following her collaboration with Jeffery Deaver last fall.  I liked the Dani character, even if the situation she found herself in was a little over the top.  Overall, a good effort and I hope to read more going forward.

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2024: The Year In Books

As 2024 comes to a close, my fourth full year of remote working, I managed to once again surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 61 books, two books more than my previous high set last year and my fourth consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in mid-November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read 22,622 pages, by far my highest total of all time and just the second time I’ve managed to surpass 20.000 pages.

Of those books, only five were non-fiction and, of the remaining 56 novels, only five were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with two hard covers, two paperbacks, 53 e-books and no audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 46 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 69% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 19 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Jessica Knoll Isabella Maldonado Kathleen McGurl Lisa Taddeo
Lisa Jewell Millie Bobby Brown J.M. Dillard Lee Goldberg
Avery Cunningham Margot Douaihy R.F. Kuang Jessica Simpson
Jeffrey Lang Dayton Ward Holly Wilson Karin Smirnoff
Walter Beede Michael Connelly Rob Harvilla

Karin Slaughter, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Elin Hilderbrand, Jessica Knoll, Michael Connelly, Minka Kent, Lee Goldberg, Rebecca Forster, Stephen King, and Sarah Pekkanen were the authors that I read multiple titles from during 2024.

17 of the books I read were released this year, while only three of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1997.

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Book 54 (of 52) – Fatal Intrusion

Fatal Intrusion – Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado

When a killer attacks the sister of a Homeland Security agent, she starts to investigate on her own.  Coming across an impenetrable encryption found on his phone, she turns to an old “acquaintance”: a hacker she arrested years before.  Against her better judgement, he joins the investigation, using his special skills to help track down the killer and the real motives behind his attack.

Long time favorite Jeffery Deaver and new-to-me Isabella Maldonado team up on Fatal Intrusion, the first entry in what is bound to become a new series.  The tale includes plenty of twists and turns that I’ve come to expect from Deaver, and the ending sets up future adventures for the duo.  I expect we will be seeing a new entry sooner rather than later.