2006: #107 – Chase (Dean Koontz); #108 – The Body Farm (Patricia Cornwell)

Book #107 was Chase, by Dean Koontz. The back of the book reads:

Benjamin Chase, Vietnam War hero, finds himself the target of a sociopathic killer when he interrupts a murder in progress.

I listened to this in the car and while raking leaves, and was surprised at how short it was. I’ve previously mentioned my love/hate relationship with Koontz, and I think I can place this one on the “like” side of the equation. I wasn’t expecting the story to resolve so quickly — I expected Chase to play with the killer a while after he found him. Overall, a mildly entertaining read (listen?).

Book #108 was The Body Farm, the 5th book in Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series. The back of the book reads:

When an eleven-year-old girl is found murdered, Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia, gets another chance at stopping one of the most heartless and horrifying serial killers of her career: the demented Temple Gault.

Frankly, this one was very blah for me. The book was not so much about the case as it was about the relationships between Kay and Marino, Marino and Benton Wesley, Kay and Wesley, and Kay and Lucy. Oh, and Kay and her sister. Blah. Too much angst for a crime novel. And I figured out who the bad guy was waaaaaaaaaay early.

Book count: 108

Pages in book: 368
Page count: 44,802
Words in book: 92,855
Word count: 13,155,022

1,000,000 words surpassed — 2/2/06
2,000,000 words surpassed — 2/14/06
10,000 pages surpassed — 3/10/06
3,000,000 words surpassed — 3/16/06
4,000,000 words surpassed — 4/3/06
5,000,000 words surpassed — 5/30/06
50 books surpassed — 6/12/06
20,000 pages surpassed — 6/29/06
6,000,000 words surpassed — 6/29/06
7,000,000 words surpassed — 7/21/06
8,000,000 words surpassed — 8/18/06
30,000 pages surpassed — 9/3/06
9,000,000 words surpassed — 9/6/06
10,000,000 words surpassed — 9/27/06
11,000,000 words surpassed — 10/9/06
40,000 pages surpassed — 11/3/06
12,000,000 words surpassed — 11/4/06
100 books surpassed — 11/17/06
13,000,000 words surpassed — 12/5/06