Book 18: Garnethill by Denise Mina

Number of frogs: 0

They could hear him ringing off. Maureen darted back to the settee. Liam came back into the living room and slammed the phone down on the side table. He looked furious. "She's gutted," he said. "She told her mother she'd smoked hash once and now she thinks Maggie's a drug-soaked gangster's moll."
Benny was puzzled. "Why did she tell her mother that?"
"Because she asked," said Liam with a superior air. "And Maggie's family don't lie to each other all the time."
"My God," said Benny. "They must hate each other."

A good book, with an original voice. But the author is a bit of a wanker - an interview in the back of the book, she refers to Patricia Cornwell's crime novels as "crap, really right-wing fiction." ?!?!?
Despite that, Garnethill earns:

Book 17: The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Number of frogs: 0, not even conceptual ones.

The idea of the floor, the carpet, the concept, feel, shape of the words in my head all broke apart on impact with a splash of sensations and textures and pattern memories and letters and phonetic sounds spraying out from my splashdown. I went under, deep, carried by the force of my fall and without the thought or image or any recollection of oxygen or breathing at all.
I came up coughing, gasping for air, the idea of air. A vague physical memory of the actuality of the floor survived but now I was bobbing and floating and trying to tread water in the idea of the floor, in fluid liquid concept, in its endless cold rolling waves of association and history.
********
Something huge rushed fast in the water under my body, pulling me in a mini whirlpool twist of unravelling thought drag in its wake. The thing from the static. Jesus. I kicked faster, scrabbling against liquid, trying to pull up a solid thought of dry land in my mind. But I could only beat out splashes and scatter sprays of mind fragments. Then another undertow and I'm pulled and buffeted, the thing passing under again and I'm knocked and rolled and ducked under by a fierce ripping after-wake.
Coming up for air coughing out: shark. The word coming in a tangle-breathed shudder and then me screaming: help. Shark. Help me.

Incredible stuff.

The Raw Shark Texts receives:

Book 16: The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

Number of frogs: 0

I don't know, I feel as if all those who raved about this book don't read crime novels often - seems like I've read a similar story many times.
I only give The Blade Itself:

Book 15: Lush Life by Richard Price

Number of frogs: 0

Eric had turned down the ride from the detectives, had walked in a daze from the jail to his building, through the small vestibule reeking of cat piss, damp, incense, and a hint of decomp, walls, stairs, doors, everything aslant to the earth, climbed the five flights to his floor, past the defunct hallway toilets, to his apartment, stepped inside, then he threw the double lock, took a shower without turning the lights on, puked in the toilet, took a second shower, brushed his teeth, came out into the parlor naked, turned on the TV, nothing on the screen registering but the gibber of voices as calming to him as a double vodka, which he got up and made for himself, then drained in a swallow before he could even get back to the couch, the shit-ass futon couch, then just sat there glass-faced, debating whether to get up and pour himself another. That was when he noticed the printout of his one fifth-done screenplay, his bullshit screenplay, Pushcart Pauline meets the dybbuk on Delancey, which was lying atop the steamer trunk/coffee table. He picked up the first page, tried to read it, but the words just slid off his eyes incomprehensible, as meaningless and blithery as whatever was coming out of the television; what the world needs not; dropped it back onto the velvet shawl that served as a tablecloth or whatever the hell it was supposed to be other than his supposed girlfriend's way of marking even this as somehow hers; got up, fell back down, got up, was abruptly revisited, saw, heard that deceptive pop, that sharp snap, the buzz of that steel bee, followed by the slow falling back of Ike, as slow as a flip-book, onto the pavement, Eric imitating it now and clipping a shoulder blade on the corner of the steamer trunk but no matter, he had it coming, that and more, got to his feet, walked past his girlfriend's bookshelves packed with literature both academic and sleazy on prostitution and bondage, with Southeast Asian phrase books and sex-tourist guides, with assorted fetish magazines and reproduced Tijuana Bibles, every fuck book, textbook, eight-page comic and titty magazine bristling with her hand-scrawled notations; unhinged the security grate on the window, went back to the bathroom, wrapped a towel around his waist, waded through the lone closet, the allegedly shared closet, jam-packed with zippered bags full of whatever they don't wear in Manila, found the hibachi on a high shelf lined with her boots, her shoes, brought it out to the fire escape, returned to the kitchenette, had another drink, rummaged through all the labeled pouches and widemouthed jars of her dried lentils and beans and spelt and fuckball until he found the small bag of briquettes, grabbed a box of kitchen matches. He was headed back to the fire escape when the sharp and sudden rap at his apartment door shot through him like an arrow, spun him like a top.

Lush Life:

Book 14: Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

Number of frogs: 0 (just a passing mention, once, of "the sound of bullfrogs"

When Martiya was in college, Tim Blair had taken her to a butterfly house. It was like a large greenhouse, with two sets of double-swinging doors to ensure that the butterflies never escaped. Now, Martiya had always liked butterflies just fine, pretty little things with brightly colored wings fluttering gently across a flowery meadow; but she had never really been around more than one or two butterflies at a shot, and as soon as she entered the butterfly house, she realized that when considered in large quantities, butterflies were insects. Big flapping bugs, with huge antennae, and buggy snouts, who wanted to land in her hair and crawl all over. That was pretty much when she knew it wasn't going to work with Tim, when he wanted to stop and play with each and every butterfly, and read the informative placards, and say "Hey Martiya! Check this guy out! He's got stripes!"; and all Martiya wanted to do was flee. Living with the Dyalo, Martiya was beginning to fear, was just a little like visiting the butterfly house: a few days in a village, an afternoon discussing an interesting rite, a field-clearing ceremony or two -- that was fine. But what she hadn't thought about back in Berkeley was that there would be Dyalo around all the time, doing tribal things all the time , talking in their weird language all the time.
And she could hardly blame them, really: they were here first. This was, after all, their home. She had come to them.

Fieldwork:

DVD 12: La Vie En Rose

Number of frogs: deux!

I'm tempted to dock the movie a star since I just read that Marion Cotillard is, believe it or not, a 911-truther.
But I won't.
La Vie En Rose:

Book 13: Bad Men by John Connolly

Number of frogs: 0 (I wish I had been there, with the thousands of yummy moths.)

To those looking in upon the island from outside, its history may appear bloody and strange. Yet those of us who have lived here for many years, and whose fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers lie buried in the island's cemetery, have grown used to the strangeness of Dutch Island. Here, paths through the forest disappear in the space of a single week, and new paths take their place, so that a man may one day walk a trail familiar to him, yet find himself directed toward new surroundings by the end of it. We are used to the silences and we are used to the sounds that are native only to this small patch of land. We live in the shadow of its history, and walk by the gift of those who have gone before us.

Bad Men receives: