Doug Cornelius .com

In his second crime novel, William Landay weaves together the story of three brothers, the death of their policeman father, Boston’s urban renewal projects, and the Boston Strangler. It’s Boston in 1963. Kennedy has just been assassinated. Real estate developers are bulldozing Boston’s West End to put up shiny new towers. A mob war is being waged. The Boston Strangler is terrifying the city.

If this sounds interesting, you can read chapter 1 of The Strangler online.

I need to let you know that Bill (yeah, I know him as Bill) is a friend. Our sons went to the same preschool. We have been to each others’ homes and countless kids’ birthday parties. And if you buy his book through one of the links in this post I get a very small commission from Amazon.

I thought it was great book. You see see the flow of violence and changes to the city of Boston through the eyes of the three brothers: Ricky, the burglar; Michael, the lawyer; and Joe, the cop. The story gets complicated as all you jump around through the eyes of the brothers and the backdrop of criminal activity.

The crime is not just in the background. Joe, the cop, is a bad gambler who gets behind on his debts and starts working for the bad guys. In the first chapter, Ricky steals some jewelry from a hotel room at the Copley Plaza Hotel.

The Boston underworld in the book is a brutal place. It may be too violent for some readers. Just as violent is the destruction of the physical city as 46 acres of homes and small businesses in the West End are bulldozed to make way for a handful of residential high rises.

You also may have noticed from the picture that I read The Strangler on my new Kindle. This is the first book that I’ve read on the device and I’m not sure how much that influenced the reading experience. I really like the portability of the device. It’s lightweight, easy to carry and easy to hold. I also like that it dedicated to reading, so it doesn’t have Twitter, Facebook, email and all the distractions that would come with an iPad. I can focus on the reading.

I think Bill would appreciate a device without distractions. He just finished writing his third book using an AlphaSmart Neo. That allows him to focus on writing, without all the distractions he would get a full blown laptop.

The Strangler marks the 22nd book I’ve read in 2010. (I am continuing on my quest to finish 52 books for the year.) Next up is Sleepless, a novel by Charlie Huston.

HALLDOR KOLBEINS/AFP/Getty Images

The volcano won the first battle.

Last week, we were supposed to have a long-planned vacation to Belgium. On Thursday morning the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted from its glacial hibernation in Iceland. Flights across Northern Europe were canceled to avoid the dangers of flying through the volcanic ash plume.

It gave us an opportunity to teach The Son about Iceland, volcanoes and volcanic ash while we waited to see if the volcano would calm down, upper air currents would change and, ultimately, whether our flight would be canceled. (See these great pictures from Boston.com’s Big Picture: Iceland’s disruptive volcano and More from Eyjafjallajokull.)

Five hours before our Friday night flight, British Airways canceled our flight with little prospect for re-booking a new flight in the near future.

We had gone through the hassle of getting passports for the kids. (In case you were wondering, it is very hard to get a two-year old to stand still for a passport photo.) Since the easiest way to travel internationally from Boston is to head North, we scrambled for a Plan B trip to Canada.

We looked at Montreal, but a municipal strike had shut down many venues and others were not yet open after their winter closings.

Toronto was the winner. They had some great kid-friendly places to go. We had a back-up plan for the volcanic disruption.

We first stopped at the Simon Pearce factory in Quechee, Vermont to eat a delicious lunch and watch some glass-blowing, pottery wheels and their waterfall. Then we went on to the Vermont Institute of Natural Science to see their great raptor center. Finally, we spent the night in Burlington.

After a long drive from Burlington to Toronto we settled into a great hotel and went to the CN Tower, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Ontario Science Center. All three were great for the kids (and us).

The next stop was Niagara Falls. The kids loved the scenery and the ride on the Maid of the Mist.

Our final stop was Syracuse to visit my sister and her kids. The cousins had a blast playing together.

More to come on some of the individual highlights of the vacation.

The volcano won the first battle, but we seized the victory.

Sure the view of the Texas Stadium implosion was cool from the outside. An 11-year-old named Casey Rogers, the winner of a local essay-writing contest, pushed the button that triggered the implosion, and set off 1.5 tons of explosives that brought down the stadium.

But imagine what it looked like from inside the stadium.

Even better than imagination, the Cowboys filmed the implosion from the 50 yard line: Farewell to Texas Stadium.

I don’t think the camera made it out in one piece. It looks like one of the girders came crashing down on it, ending the video before the entire stadium came down.

At least you can see the entire thing from the outside:

That is what Blendtec wanted to know:

[Don't try this at home.]

Other great Blendtec videos/

If you’re looking for a suspenseful crime thriller, this is the book for you.

When we first meet Pekkala in 1929 Siberia, he is a barely human prisoner living in the wilderness, marking trees for the labor camp to chop down.

We soon learn that Pekkala was the Emerald Eye, a special inspector for the Russian Tsar. The Tsar had given Pekkala enormous power.

“You shall have absolute authority in the fulfillment of your duties. No secrets may be withheld from you. There are no documents you cannot see upon request. There is no door you cannot walk through unannounced. You may requisition any mode of transport on the spot if you deem it necessary. You are free to come and go where you please and when you please. You may arrest anyone whom you suspect is guilty of a crime. Even me.”

Pekkala was captured shortly after the October Revolution. He is freed from the gulag because there is a story that the Tsar is not dead. Pekkala, as the most respected detective in the recent history of Russia and most knowledge of the Romanov family, is tasked with the investigation. He takes on the task and reappears in the service of Stalin, as the eye of the Red Tsar.

Since the book is a crime novel based in the Soviet Union/Russia, there are some comparisons to Gorky Park. I remember enjoying Gorky Park 20 year ago when I read it, but I don’t remember much about it. I vaguely remember it being a dark crime novel in Soviet Russia, but not much else.

Eye of the Red Tsar is a classic page turner of a crime novel. And a good one. I devoured it in just  a few days.

The publisher was nice enough to send me a pre-release copy. Look for it when it goes on sale April 27th.

For me, that’s 20 books read so far in 2010. I’m still on pace for 52 books for the year.

[Get this widget from LibraryThing]

With the rest of the state underwater, why has the City of Boston stayed dry? After all that same Charles River that runs along the Back Bay is the same river that has over-spilled its banks throughout Metro West. You would think that Storrow Drive, the Esplanade and the Hatch Shell would be under water.

The answer: the New Charles River Dam. The six pumps in the dam are pushing over three million gallons of water per minute from the Charles River Basin into the harbor.

Here is the NECN story:

I have mixed feelings about this book.

It’s about ten-year-old Shoshi, her eight-year-old brother, Moshe, and their pet dragon Snigger as they escape the Cossacks of Russia to the streets of New York City in 1898. Kids and a dragon in a story are usually a great combination. Kids love to read about dragons.

My six-year old had hard time getting into the story. I had to make us stick with reading the book for the first several chapters. Eventually, he started enjoying the story more. Once we finished, he asked me started again from the beginning. That was a big endorsement from him.

I enjoyed the book much less than he did. All of the adults come across as mean, uncaring, criminal or suspected of being criminal. Even Mrs. Kaputnik, the mother of Moshe and Soshi, comes across as mostly mean and uncaring in the book.

I had a big problem with the name of the dragon. It’s too easy to drop the “s” from snigger. I think I will pronounce it with a hard “I” on the second time through.

The publisher was nice enough to send me a pre-release copy of the book. It goes on sale April 13.

In the end, if my kids like the book it gets a positive review, even if I don’t like it as much.