2006: #90 – A Certain Justice (John Lescroart); #91 – Year Zero (Jeff Long)

Book #90 was A Certain Justice, the first book in John Lescroart’s Abe Glitsky series. The back of the book reads:

When the angry white mob poured out of the bar on San Francisco’s Geary Street and surrounded an innocent black man, Kevin Shea was the only one who tried to stop them. He failed, and now, thanks to a deceptive news photo taken during the melee, he is wanted for the murder himself-and the real culprits have threatened his life if he says a word.

As riots rage and politicians posture, Lieutenant Abe Glitsky finds himself under pressure to bring Shea in at all costs. And as respect for the law crumbles-even among those sworn to uphold it-true justice is the only thing that can prevent the death of another innocent man.

This is either part of the Dismas Hardy series or part of a separate Abe Glitsky series, depending on your source. I really enjoyed this book. Hardy hardly appears in it at all, so you really get to know Abe Glitsky. The “fugitives” are also very likable characters.

I mostly had it figured out by the end (which I don’t mind), but I forgot that I already knew about one of the twists from later books.

Book count: 90

Pages in book: 527
Page count: 38,544
Words in book: 142,370
Word count: 11,510,790

Book #91 was Year Zero by Jeff Long. The back of the book reads:

In Jerusalem, an American archaeologist working on Project Year Zero — the search for the historical Jesus — crosses the line between science and theft when he helps plunder an old Roman landfill beneath the crucifixion grounds known as Golgotha. Nathan Lee Swift’s crime will have devastating consequences. When an ancient relic is opened on the black market, a two-thousand-year-old plague is unleashed — and the dying begins.

As the pestilence threatens to wipe out humanity, he finds a chance for redemption — by finding the cure. Skirting the edges of civilization, Nathan Lee sets out to find his younger daughter and travels to Los Alamos, where a desperate tactic has been adopted: the use of human lab rats cloned from Project Year Zero remains. Now Nathan Lee will come face-to-face with one special cloned human who may hold the key to salvation — in more ways than one. Patient Zero claims to remember who he is….

And his name is Jesus Christ.

This book had a lot crammed into it. Religion, cloning, plague, messiahs… The basic premise is that a man searching for physical proof of Jesus unknowingly releases a Bibical age plague with no cure onto the world.

I believe this was a first-time author, and in places it shows. It got a little lost somewhere in the middle. A great deal was made about a few characters who then disappeared until the very end.

Overall, it was quite an interesting story with an ending I didn’t expect.

Book count: 91

Pages in book: 416
Page count: 38,960
Words in book: 132,692
Word count: 11,643,482

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