Author: Veselin

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Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I’m glad I bought the second book in the Tracy Crosswhite series. The first one was a good thriller, but it also had some disappointing moments. The second one is great. I couldn’t figure out who the killer was. It fooled me well.

To some extent, the first two books are connected, as the murder is introduced in the first book, although it is only mentioned. In the second book, we will see Tracy Crosswhite work on it.

Here are some good parts about the book:

  • No superheroes or super-heroic traits. Any success is achieved by regular police work
  • More than one case at the same time, reminding me of the best books by Michael Connelly
  • Characters behave logically. We had some cases of comical stupidity in part one and while real life is full of that, I don’t like reading it in thrillers
  • More than one meaningful character. It’s not all about Tracy. Her colleagues and partner help significantly

Overall, a clear 5*/5. I’m already half-way through the third one, and the fourth is rolling on the floor next to my bed. It’s a solid series, won’t be surprised if it gets mentioned in the annual reading summary.

Which author I’d like to meet

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Which author would you love to have dinner with?
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There’s a saying that you should never meet your heroes and after meeting some of mine, I stand by it. However, I checked and Linus Torvalds wrote a book so if I could have a dinner with 10-ish nerds and Linus being there in a way that the other 9 maintain the conversation, while I just stfu and listen, that would be fantastic. I had one of these with Monty Widenius, and while I don’t remember much of it because it was a long time ago, the setup was fine.

As for popular science or fiction writers, while there are plenty I’d love to see at a book signing, having an actual meaningful conversation would be too much.

I climbed Musala for a second time this year

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

One of my annual goals was to do three real hikes in 2026. A week ago, I did a semi-unplanned hike to the highest peak in Bulgaria, Musala, which is 2925 meters high. Kids couldn’t come with me because one got motion sickness, and the other didn’t want to come out of solidarity. However, they got inspired and wanted to go to the peak as well.

So this week, we attempted a retry. This time, phones were banned in the car, I drove extra carefully, nobody vomited in the car, and all four of us managed to get to about 2500 meters. Then the big kid got signs of altitude problems and had to give up.

The little one (aged 7) kept going, flying ahead of me for the most part, and we reached the top. Took us 3h, only 20-30 minutes slower compared to doing it on my own. He didn’t want to do any breaks. I’m not sure what to do now because I have one of the kids achieving this relatively difficult goal, and the other – not. Maybe we need to come for a third time this summer. We can still improve the organization because we lost 1h waiting for the gondola. The optimal hike would start with buying the tickets the day before and then going to the line at 8:15. Does it matter all that much if you start at 8:30 or 9:30 – probably not. You need to be super slow to miss the lift, which works until 18:30.

The final step count for the day was almost 30K, which is my personal best since I started tracking. I couldn’t imagine I would ever be able to do that 3-4 years ago, when I had trouble walking up to the 4th floor without a break.