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Archive for the ‘Thriller’ Category

Reviewed by Allen Hott

If you are a Michael Connelly fan you already know that Harry Bosch is one of the investigators Connelly uses in his stories about crime and police work in the Los Angeles area. Bosch sometimes is on his own in the story and other times he works with Mickey Haller (the Lincoln lawyer) and other times with Terry McCaleb.

In this one Harry Bosch starts it out by trying to interrogate a guy in a drunk tank at the police station. As is probably the case nine out of ten times in these situations it just doesn’t work out for him but strangely enough that small item does come back later in the story to be an important piece of evidence.

It also seems that Terry McCaleb has been forced into medical retirement after having had a heart transplant so at least theoretically he is out of the picture. But in A Darkness More Than Night he gets drawn back into police work when a former associate of his comes to him for some advice.

Jaye Winston, the former associate, brings him a green binder and tape. McCaleb recognizes them as gathering places used by cops in a murder investigation. When Winston asks him to go over the items and see if he can shed any light on this unsolved crime he at first backs down. He explains not only about his medical condition but also the fact that his wife wants him to be a stay at home dad to their new daughter except for the charters he runs from his fishing boat. She definitely doesn’t want him to get back into police work. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Dead Man’s Grip begins with a horrific automobile accident involving a car, a van, a truck and a bicycle. The bicyclist, an American student, is killed. The student was in fact, the grandson of the New York City mob boss. The mother vows revenge and states that she wants the drivers involved to suffer and she wants them dead. Readers can see right away where this is going. The drivers of the vehicles start dying and Grace races to find the killer before the last driver is murdered. Meanwhile, Grace’s personal life has a few bumps as well for him to worry over. His girlfriend experiences a few problems with her pregnancy. He wants to marry her before the baby is born, but body of his wife who vanished ten years ago was never found, so he will need to have her declared dead before he is free to remarry.

James shifts the point of view around quite a bit throughout the book giving readers the chance to keep up with the movements of the killer, a couple of the drivers involved, one of the driver’s son and with Grace as he investigates the case. Normally this shifting helps to build suspense for the reader, but in this book not so much. In fact, it seemed to slow the storytelling down. The plot is fairly straight forward except for a thread that goes to the back story and then quite a surprising twist at the end of the book. The former leaves this reader anxious to for the next book to see where it is going, while the latter smacked a bit of a put on and didn’t seem to fit with the character involved at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Douglas R. Cobb

Atticus Gunner was known as the “Hawkman” during WWII. He served under Major Gaperman in Germany in a unit known as the Night Hawks. Gunner’s special skills set made him an invaluable addition to the Night Hawks, whose job “was to identify and hunt down escaped Nazis suspected of war atrocities.” He was “considered the best hunter in the unit,” which earned him his nickname. Since those days, however, Atticus has adopted a more sedate life as a high school administrator, and as the thrilling and page-turning novel The Moonhawker by George A. Fox opens, Gunner lands a plum job assignment in Michigan to be the new assistant principal at Madison West. Things seem to be going well for Atticus, who is divorced and is the father of two daughters–he will be earning a larger salary, and will be able to spend more time with his girls. But then, when he receives a job offer to become the principal of a high school on Washington Island, his career and life takes yet another turn. His past comes back, and it appears that he still might find a need to call upon his considerable skills at hunting down Nazis and bringing them to justice.

When his friend, Principal Bob Thrison, offers Atticus the position as the assistant principal of Madison West High School, Gunner jumps at the offer. Why shouldn’t he? He will get the chance to work alongside his friend, he’ll be making more money, and have great job security. But, when the attorney who represented Atticus in his divorce proceedings meets with him and out of the blue introduces him to another attorney, William Markup from New York, who presents him with another job offer, it is one that is too tempting to refuse. If he accepts the offer, he will get paid $310,000 and will get, as a further incentive, “a brand-new thirty-two-foot sailing sloop.” The name of this $276,000 sloop is–you guessed it–the Moonhawk.. He’s given a $5,000 check straight off for expenses. There are a few conditions the attorney attaches to the deal, but it is so tempting to Atticus that he accepts. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Nancy Oakes

Lehrter Station is book number five in David Downing’s John Russell series, a mix of historical fiction, espionage and suspense set mainly in Germany just after the end of World War II. The Allied powers have divided the country into four occupation zones and refugees are returning home, although many are still missing. The country is largely in ruins, people are starving and in the midst of all of this turmoil, Russell and and his girlfriend Effi Koenen leave England and make their way back to Berlin.

Russell, Effi and their extended family were earlier given safe passage to England in exchange for Russell handing over atomic secrets to an NKVD agent and making the proverbial deal with the devil: Russell will be obligated to do more espionage work for the NKVD at some point in the future. It is now payback time. He is met by Soviet agents at a soccer game where they outline what it is they want him to do back in Berlin, and he is also instructed to offer himself as an American double agent. His offer is accepted; leaving his family behind, he and Effi make their return to war-torn Germany. As Russell gets settled in, meeting with his various intelligence masters and trying to find a story that will satisfy his journalistic ambitions, Effi sets out to search for lost friends and to discover any news about the father of Rosa, a little girl she rescued during the war and brought with her to England. But it isn’t long until their respective activities land them both in dangerous, life-threatening situations.

Downing sets his readers squarely into the early postwar atmosphere of occupied Berlin, including the burnt-out and bombed-out buildings, people desperately searching for missing friends and loved ones, and gangs stealing anything of value they can trade on the black market for food. He describes various Jewish organizations that differ in their postwar outlook — some looking for revenge on a personal scale, others who believe in a more concentrated and mass-scale approach, and still others who are busy working to get Jews on their way to a new homeland in Palestine, despite British opposition and despite the irony of the proven perils of nationalism. The black market is also a postwar reality, where deals are done under the noses of or even with authorization from occupation authorities. Not even hospitals are exempt: the black marketeers deal in much-needed medications, and thrive “on the misery of other people’s lives.” And while he adds a touch of sympathy for people who try to honorably do what they can to survive in extraordinary situations, Downing also points out that sometimes survival means working within a context of gray areas where a person may not have that choice. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Nancy Oakes

Joe Lansdale is back with yet another Southern Gothic tale, a work of historical fiction set in Depression-era East Texas along the Sabine River. It is also a dark adventure story, geared mainly toward young adults or to readers of YA fiction, and is related through the viewpoint of the main character, a teenaged girl. While the story is focused around this girl and her friends, Lansdale also manages to weave into his narrative a light exploration of social issues of the time, and his sense of place brings the reader right to the East Texas countryside and the Sabine river, complete with thick mud, trees along the riverbank, snakes that pop their heads up like cobras, and the people who inhabit this landscape.

The story begins and wastes no time getting to the discovery of a body. It belongs to a young girl named May Lynn, who had been anchored down with wires attached to a sewing machine then dumped in the river. After the body washes up, her friends Sue Ellen, Jinx and Terry decide that they would honor her memory by taking her ashes to Hollywood, the place of May Lynn’s dreams. The friends plan to go down the river to the nearest town, hop on a bus and make their journey, not just for the sake of May Lynn’s memory, but they are all eager for a new and different life, anything but the ones they have now. They also stumble upon May Lynn’s diary, where she has drawn a map of the location of a stash of money stolen by her brother in a bank robbery. Her brother died, but the money is still there. The friends pick up the money, steal a raft, collect an unexpected passenger, and off they start on their big adventure. Ah — if things were only that simple! As it turns out, someone figures out that they have the cash and it isn’t long until the travelers find themselves threatened — not only by the people on their trail, but also by a strange and legendary character whose very name causes fear in those parts, hired to track the three friends down.

While the story of the friends and their journey is entertaining and filled with trademark Lansdale dark (and some rather squeamish) moments, Edge of Dark Water is not simply a story about the adventures of a few friends. It is also an exploration of social issues and values of the time, told through the stories of the individual characters. The main character and the narrator of this tale is 17 year-old Sue Ellen, whose mother has virtually abandoned her for the “cure all” she takes, probably a mix of laudanum and alcohol that keeps her in a dream state, “where she liked to live.” With docile Mama out of the picture, Sue Ellen has to deal with her alcoholic stepfather, and keeps a piece of stove wood at hand to fend off his unwanted advances. Her friend Jinx is African-American, living with her mother while her father is away up north to earn money for his family. The Depression is bad enough for white people, but African-Americans might be lucky to earn a quarter for an entire day’s work. Because there are no schools available to Jinx, her father taught her how to read and write. Then there’s Terry, the only boy in the group, whose mother used to be a teacher until she married his stepfather, an oil man who believes he should be the only breadwinner in the family. Terry is well spoken but misunderstood, likes school, and at the same time he’s carrying around some very burdensome secrets. The values of “good” Christian folk along the river are also examined, as is the law in these areas, and there is also a look at the change in fortune brought on by the Great Depression and other social and economic upheavals. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Vickie Dailey

After movie music composer Chris Lowndes’ wife dies, he moves back to England, purchasing Kilnsgate house sight unseen. After meeting Heather, his real-estate agent he learns that it was the sight of a “famous” murder that has ties to his childhood. Grace Fox was hung for posioning her husband. Chris embarks on a journey through the past to prove Grace’s innocence of the crime. The chapters of the book are interspersed with trial notes and later with excerpts of Grace’s own journal.

Although the murder took place 60 years ago, there are still key players alive that help Chris piece together the puzzle including Grace’s own grandaughter, who holds the most important key to Grace’s inner thoughts – her journal.

While the solution presented is not what Chris imagined it would be, all that we learn about Grace during Chris’ investigation makes sense. The final solution also brings a peace to Chris’ life bringing into perspective his wife’s death. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Julie Moderson

Nick Santora has a unique style of writing that I can only compare to John Grisham or Harlan Coben or a wonderful combination of both.

Fifteen Digits is such a fast moving story about five young men from five very different lives. His characters are so real from Eddie who is mentally handicapped, to Vice the con man that has a fast sense of humor, to Dylan the man trying to get out of the Puerto Rican gang to Rich the young man who had lost both parents in a boating accident and is going to night school to become a lawyer. They all have dreams of getting ahead. These men work at the prestigious law firm of Olmstead and Taft but they are not lawyers, they work in the basement as printers. They are simply blue-collar workers and receive no benefits. They copy, collate, and deliver sensitive legal documents to the rich lawyers that work upstairs. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Dead Like You introduces Peter James’ Roy Grace character to American readers. While it is actually the sixth book in the series, it is the first one published here. It is maddening for American readers when book series first published overseas are released in the United States out of order. Sometimes it leaves readers trying to figure out the back story of the characters and on going series’ plot threads but sometimes it works out fine. While it is clear that Grace has some personal issues that go far back, readers are given enough of the story to feel like they know Grace.

It’s New Year’s Eve and Roy Grace is trying to clear off his desk before heading home. While he looks through his active case files, he also takes a quick look through the cold cases he’s handled throughout the years. One of the cold cases he reviews is from 1997. Known as The Shoe Man because after raping and murdering his victims, he took one of her shoes, the killer disappeared after kidnapping is sixth victim. So it seems more than a little odd that the very next case Grace is called in on is a brutal rape that follows the same pattern. Grace immediately wonders if Shoe Man is back.

As police procedurals go, Dead Like You is top notched. While the book is well over 500 pages long, the suspense of the hunt for the killer keeps the plot moving. The author manages to build the suspense by shifting readers smoothly back and forth between the killer and the police investigation and from present day to 1997 and back again. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Cy Hilterman

I have read most of Michael Palmer’s books wondering how he could add more excitement and deeper involvement than in his preceding books. “Oath Of Office” is no exception as I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book wondering while advancing through the book how the author can be so knowledgeable as he delves into so many subjects in various fields and subjects? The story begins as Dr. John Meacham has a huge verbal fight with a patient, certainly not the type of thing he would normally do. As that patient stormed out of his office he started thinking beyond the normal box that all those in the office would give him trouble reporting the incident to the hospital and other boards. He decided he would just stop any of them from hurting his future and started shooting and killing any patients in the office and waiting room, his own staff, and any doctors in the immediate vicinity, followed by shooting himself. Dr. Lou Welcome was a good friend of Dr. John Meacham and couldn’t believe that this man could take the actions he had taken with such finality to everyone involved. Dr. Meacham had barely survived the bullet he put in his head and despite all the medical attention he was given, including some from Lou, he didn’t make it.

The wife of the President of the United States, Darlene Mallory, was a good friend of the Secretary of Agriculture, Russell Evans, and was hurt that he had been caught with a hooker and had to resign his cabinet job. She needed to find out if the story was true or not. Their meeting was done secretly, planned well with the help of one of the Secret Service agents assigned to cover Mrs. Mallory, Victor. Victor was a very good agent but also was top notch at helping the presidents’ wife do almost anything she wished to do, outright or secretly. Lou was beginning to suspect something was going on affecting the minds of some causing them to do some outlandish and not near normal activities that had started with his friend killing so many and Dr. Meacham’s wife not acting normal also. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Allen Hott

Quite a beginning. Herman Diggs, the chief investigator used by Paul Madriani and his investigative law firm, is lying in a hospital with what would probably be mortal wounds for most folks. But Herman is battling and as usual the big fellow will probably be victorious. In the meantime Madriani and Joselyn Cole are being grilled by the FBI for more information about Liquida, who although wounded by Diggs in their knife fight, is on the loose.

Martini has used these characters in previous books and has brought them all together again for an exciting and well thought out book. This time Liquida has decided that he will put an end to Madriani, his associates, and his daughter. However he also has business to attend to so he can keep his funds up for the style of life he leads.

As Diggs finally comes to enough to whisper to Madriani his first words scare Madriani very badly. Diggs mumbles “Sarah…..farm” and Madriani immediately realizes that Diggs is warning him that the Liquida is heading to the farm where Harry Hinds, Madriani’s partner, has hidden out with Sarah, Madriani’s daughter. Read the rest of this entry »