My nightstand has so many books on it, there’s hardly enough room left over for the reading lamp and the alarm clock. I sleep better when there are plenty of yet-to-be-read books there. When they’re gone, I’m worse than a chain smoker who’s run out of cigarettes.

Running out of books is not an option. After finishing Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” I started reading two books simultaneously since one of them is on my computer. Yes, I know, if I had a Kindle, I could read e-books in bed.

By night, I’m reading Montana Mist: Winter of the White Wolf by Doug Hiser. In addition to the wolves, this novel is filled with memorable characters and mountains. I couldn’t resist.

Publisher’s Description

In the remote Montana wilderness, a mountain man, once a professional athlete, lives his life in seclusion protecting and raising orphan wolves until he gives his heart to Sassy, a young woman hitchhiking across America. He guards his secrets and the other woman in his life, a beautiful blind woman, known as “Shy Girl.” The wolf pack roams the mountains as he searches for the white wolf, Mist; that he raised and released into the harsh snowy forested peaks, his ties with the wolves as close as the bond with his new love. Montana Mist is the story of one man’s secrets, the two women in his life, and the wild world of wolves of the remote forest in the last untamed region where man has not put his imprint on the land. A man shaped by the mystery of his past and the complication of his future while the adventure of his heart threatens to destroy his solitary precious world of mountain, wolverine, moose, elk, and wolf.

By day, I’m reading Razor’s Revenge by Paul Chandler. I enjoyed Chandler’s previous novel Peeper, and was happy to see the new release. This is very different (as its cover suggests) from Montana Mist, but equally absorbing.

Publisher’s Description

In 1958, a group of unscrupulous men use fabricated evidence, perjured testimony, and a crooked judge to steal Samuel Razor’s company. For ten years Razor allows them to believe they’ve gotten away with their crime. They continue to believe it until the day Razor comes for them.

Five decades later, Samuel Razor is a billionaire and an icon in the business world. His revenge taken, his youth long gone, and his health rapidly failing, there is one last important thing he wants to accomplish before he leaves this world, one more villain he needs to deal with.

The legal justice system-the very system that made the theft of his company legal and binding-is laughably easy to deceive. All it takes to defeat it is something that any human being can do: tell a lie. And from that lie come lawyers, trials, incompetent verdicts, and inevitably, unsatisfying compromises.

To ensure that the law only serves and does not victimize, there can be no lies, no lawyers, no biased judges. Samuel Razor has the money, the influence, and the motivation to reinvent the system. It will be his last and final act of revenge.

Coming up next, Snare by Deborah J. Ledford. The novel has has been nominated for The Hillerman Sky Award and follows Ledford’s outstanding 2009 novel Staccato.

Publisher’s Description

Native American pop singer/songwriter, Katina Salvo’s career is about to take off. There’s one problem: someone wants to kill her. Katina and her bodyguard, Deputy Steven Hawk, are attacked during an altercation at her first live concert. Could the assailant be a mysterious, dangerous man from her youth? Or her estranged father recently released from prison for killing her mother?

Performed against the backdrop of the picturesque Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina , and the mysterious Taos Pueblo Indian reservation, SNARE is a thriller fans of Tony Hillerman will appreciate.

These will keep me busy for a little while, though I’m already looking for more so I don’t run out. What great books are waiting on your nightstand that I ought to be considering?
–

You might also like: Quick Sex, Weekend Relationships and Short Books

Malcolm