_Dark of Night_, Suzanne Brockmann, Troubleshooters #14, kindle

Did ya get that? #14? And let me tell you, not only is this _not_ a good book to start with, it confused the hell out of me because it had been a few months since I read the rest of the series. I'm just saying.

Despite all that, this is a really interesting, altho incredibly flawed book. Earlier in the series, Brockmann (along with just about everyone else after that incident with the planes and the towers and so forth) portrayed what the military does/did and what black ops folk did in a relatively favorable light. Not completely, but when Alyssa snipes someone, there isn't really a lot of angst about anything except, say, does she have a shot, has her location been compromised, is it a really bad guy but this isn't sanctioned and he has protectors higher up etc. This is an angstier book, but Brockmann still dodges the major moral issues by making some of the Agency's worst acts the work of rogue agents.

This is Dave Malkoff's book, in a lot of ways, and he is a moron from start to finish. At times, his moron thoughts and actions make sense -- at others, not so much. We're used to Sophia being an idiot, so that's okay. It's nice to see Tracy really come into her own in this book. It's a lot of fun to watch her ordering Decker around.

The basic plotline is that there is one guy in particular from the Agency that formerly employed Jimmy Nash, Lawrence Decker and Tess whose-name-I-have-forgotten, one very bad dude, who has several other former Agency guys also very bad dudes, who is trying to determine if Nash is really dead and if he isn't, to kill him. Because Decker, Tess and Jules have faked Nash's death and not told anyone else at all (like, at all at all, and we'll get back to this in a minute) in an effort to protect him from these very bad guys, there's a whole lot of people not talking to each other about important stuff. There's also a whole lot of other not talking going on. Really, one grand glorious clusterfuck of not communicating. Think Romeo and Juliet, really. And everyone thinks their secrets are important to keep, won't hurt anyone as long as they keep them, etc. -- oh, and, by the way, everyone is comprehensively wrong.

I approve of this as a theme. I have a friend who a few years ago talked about how the culture of silence is Really Really Bad and she wasn't going to participate any more. I've heard other people say similar. I'm a big believer (which isn't to say I tell everyone everything, and even when I _do_ tell people stuff, I frequently shave off the names and serial numbers to protect the guilty, who would be me, for repeating some of these stories).

The problem is not with this as a theme. The problem is with this as a plot. Two major problems arise when Miscommunication or Noncommunication drives the plot. The first is reader annoyance: just fucking tell each other how you feel, damnit! Or what happened to you way back when. Or what's going on to distract you. Or whatever. The second is the tie-it-all-up vs. spaghetti dilemma. If you tie everything together, it's implausible. If you let it spaghetti around at the end, it's not satisfying.

So. Sophia doesn't want to talk about the nastiness of her past to Dave. Can't hurt him, right? Except Dave decides to go back and find out all about the nastiness, putting him in danger. Dave's a big boy; he can handle it (and does), but when Sophia finds out that Dave went back to K-stan, she completely freaks out because she can't cope with the idea that her past life is putting people in danger still today. Really kind of an annoying plotline. Dave thinking that all the attacks on the Troubleshooters having to do with his own past is maybe understandable, altho he really should have clued in when people told him it wasn't. But by then, he was delirious, so okay. But again, somewhat unsatisfying. And then the whole what does he know when he's tortured thing which starts in the prologue and leaves you hanging through the book?

Come on.

Not the best entry in the series, but possibly a sign that the series will improve. Or, then again, that it's basically over. Never can tell.

Needak trampoline/rebounder

The trampoline arrived today. R.'s comment was, that's smaller than I thought it would be. My reaction was, it's bigger.

This thing does not fold. It's a little more than 3 feet across. It has some kind of mesh-like surface, attached to the perimeter with some seriously beefy springs. The whole thing stands on short legs. You can buy a stabilizer bar for it, which I did not get because I felt that was just an invitation to lost teeth with a young child. Apparently, adults use this thing with the stabilizer bar to jog in place. I gave that a try. First, I would say that while I don't feel compelled to wear a bra on a treadmill (provided there aren't random strangers watching), even while jogging, boy, howdy, I need some support while rebounding. Second, it's a bit tricky to not get off center on this thing, and it isn't that far from the center to the edge. You definitely have to pay attention, at least at first. It is unclear whether this will turn out to be like the treadmill for R. (must always pay attention) or the treadmill for me (can safely zone out occasionally).

T. has had an interesting response to it. It is easy to redirect him from jumping on the bed or couch to jumping on the rebounder, at least today. (You never know what the future holds.) But he doesn't persist in bouncing on the rebounder as long as he does on the bed or couch. I have a theory on this. The way this thing affects my inner ear is dramatically different than the way jumping on a bed or other spring surface does. But I can't tell if that's because I still have a head cold. R. says it doesn't feel strange to him. It isn't a bad feeling, but it is wicked weird, and a little bit goes a long way. If T. shares this odd reaction, it may help explain why he quits fairly quickly. And if this satisfies whatever he's jonesing for when he's bouncing on the couch for 20 minutes, then I'd consider this an epic win.

I'll try to remember to post updates on this topic. The good news is, even if T. decides to avoid the rebounder, I'm going to get a ton of use out of it.