One of my favorite authors in a somewhat earlier story about Joe Pickett, the Game Warden who works mostly at the beck and call of Spencer Rulon, governor of Wyoming. Pickett is a top game warden but he has some bad habits in that he either gets involved in some very serious crimes while he patrols his territory or he inadvertently destroys the equipment that the state gives him to use. His involvement in crimes is not that he commits them but that he somehow manages to stumble onto some of the strangest types of crimes that can be imagined. And they always in one fashion or another happen while he is doing his normal game warden job. And the equipment gets damaged because invariably he is chasing down some criminal or he is being shot at by some miscreant that Joe has determined to be a bad guy!

This story begins when several hunters are found murdered in the area that Joe is covering. Not only have the hunters been shot but they are left hanging from several tree limbs in a position that mimics how a hunter would possibly hang a dead animal that he has killed. Not only are they hung but they have had their throats slit and they have been disemboweled much like a hunter would do prior to taking his kill home to eat. It definitely appears that someone is sending out word to hunters that they will be treated as they treat their kills.

About the time the Governor calls Joe in to do his thing and solve the problem another one develops. This time it is an animal rights activist named Klamath Moore who stirs up folks wherever he goes with his flamboyant approach and always right attitude. He is coming into the area because of the deaths of the hunters as he realizes that the eyes of the world will be on this situation. At the same time that he arrives at the local airport Joe is there to pick up a noted tracker and mercenary that the governor hires to be of assistance in tracking down the killer.

Joe’s best friend, Nate Romanowski, could do a better job but he is presently in jail on a trumped up charge and the Governor doesn’t want him released because Nate although a great hunter and tends to skirt the law quite often.

One more twist to the story develops when it is discovered that Klamath Moore is married to an Indian woman who is from the reservation right there in Joe’s home town. This puts even more pressure on everyone involved.

The story is another well written piece of work by Box and one in his series of Joe Pickett’s adventures. Box writes well and moves the story line along without profanity or sex. Instead he gives the reader a really good picture of the Wyoming landscape and mountains as he has Pickett doing his job. Good story line, really well written and enjoyable.

Sabina Carpenter as a former Pinkerton operative and John Quincannon, a former Secret Servie agent joined forces to establish their own private detective agencies in San Francisco during the 1890s. Unfortunately for the two, they are joined by the mysterious Sherlock Holmes, or a man pretending to be the supposedly deceased investigator. Or is Holmes alive and well and willing to help in San Francisco?

Sabina is in pursuit of a local pickpocket who preys on wealthy men. This female criminal usually attacks her victims by stabbing them in the side with her hat pin. While the victim is reacting to the pain, she quickly empty his pockets.

John is currently looking for a thief who prefers to break into the houses of prominent businessmen while they are out during the evening. He is employed by the insurance firm that happens to insure these wealthy homes. The company greatly prefers to hire the agency to retrieve the stolen goods rather than having to pay for the value of the stolen property.

Through past experiences both investigators examine the well-known culprits and decide to begin questioning the most likely candidates who have similar habits in continuing their criminal life. John closely analyzes those who have already been robbed and notices a relationship which lets him conclude who the next victims might be. As he plans to watch for the thief at a particular house, he is joined by the legendary and annoying know-it-all Sherlock Holmes.

THE BUGHOUSE AFFAIR is a fast-paced, mystery novel alternating between the two investigators while they attempt to avoid the involvement of the supposedly dead and questionable Sherlock Holmes.

The story is realistic with problems and distractions for both Sabina and John while they continue in an organized and logical way. They have an unusual relationship which leads to tension between the two that could develop into a romance. However, with the past for both of them, caution is well understood. Who knows what looms in the future?

The authors, Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, are a husband/wife writing team with both being successful independently. Marcia Muller has written more than thirty-five novels and received the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award in 2006. Bill Pronzini also received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers in America in 2008 which makes the two, the only living couple to share this honor. Together they have written three previous novels.

The Bughouse Affair definitely demonstrates what two experienced award winning authors can do collaboratively. I look forward to more of these well-written novels with the delightful characters of John and Sabina in the future.

When Shirley Peters is found strangled, it initially appears to be an open and shut case when the police arrest her common-law husband, Tony Macliesh. He has a history of violence, a police record, is insanely jealous and they’ve been split up for eighteen months. Shirley also had a restraining order against him.

However they soon find out that Tony is not guilty when the second woman is murdered while they have Tony in custody. As they dig deeper into both murders they find that the only things the two women have in common is that they had shared an interest in the local newspaper’s Lonely Hearts column.

Lonely Hearts introduces the reader to Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick. There are eleven books currently in the Resnick series and I look forward to reading all of them. Lonely Hearts left me wanting to read more about DI Charlie Resnick and his team.

Los Angeles Homicide Detective Milo Sturgis works with Doctor Alex Freeman on this really unusual case. Dr. Freeman is a noted psychologist and is often a main character in Jonathan Kellerman’s mysteries. In this one both he and Milo have their hands full as they try to determine exactly what all is going on at Windsor Prep, a noted prep school in Los Angeles that numbers among its attendees the son of the L.A. Chief of Police.

A part time teacher and tutor at the prestigious school has been found dead in her bathtub completely buried in dry ice. The question is why the dry ice and who would have killed her. Before Milo and Alex get there however a DVD was found in her effects and turned into the police department. The DVD is of Elise Freeman, the dead woman, speaking to the camera and she tells about three faculty members at Windsor. Supposedly these three have been sexually making her life miserable for the past two years. She claims they have been forcing her into brutal sex and sexually harassing in many other ways.

The Chief of Police has made everyone connected with the case keep quiet as he does not want any kind of bad publicity at his son’s school. He expects Milo and Alex to solve the mystery quietly and without any word of it getting to the press. Elise has been tutoring his son as well as several others to help improve their grades on the college entrance exams. He feels that any bad publicity will harm his son’s getting into Yale as well as do damage to the school’s name.

As they begin their investigation the two find that there is a lot of other things connected with the school and some of its attendees. Strangely enough they find out that Elise was very promiscuous but that there seems to be no evidence of the three teachers at the school having committed any outrageous sexual misconduct. It appears that due to Elise’s behavior these three and others have been involved with her for some period of time but nothing extremely malicious.

It does appear however that several of the students and perhaps their friends have been involved in other criminal activities. As the investigation continues into exactly what is going on another murder is committed and a student suddenly turns up missing. That student was also seen with Elise quite often and a piece of incriminating evidence was found that appears to tie him perhaps into her murder. They believe he may have gone into hiding.

Before Kellerman brings the entire story to an end however there are many other sides to the story as well as twists and turns that the reader would never have expected. These all go together to make Deception a very interesting read. The conclusion is pretty well what is expected but even it has a big twist to it. Kellerman moves his reader quickly through the entire story with not a lot of extra unnecessary description, preaching, or teaching. Just a very great story well told!

If you are like most Sidney Sheldon fans you have missed the excitement of opening a new book by Sheldon. Well now his style of writing is alive again because Tilly Bagshawe is writing using his style and co-writing with the deceased author. I thought that was odd too but it gets so much better; it is almost like Sheldon is alive and writing again.

Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory is the fasted paced book ever. Does the past follow you or does it just sneak up and bite you in the ass. Something terrible happens to Toni and Billy – an accident and it was a terrible secret they both tried to forget but it gnawed away at them and finally it broke free. When the truth was known it destroyed lives, marriages, and families and even some of the British government. This is an amazing book and I wish that it would have kept going but there was nothing left to tell so all good things do come to an end.

Alexia DeVere is the best thing that has happened to the British government, well at least the conservative side of it. She has everything she could ever want; a drop dead gorgeous son and a beautiful daughter and a husband who loves her with all his heart. Her best friend, well her only friend, Lucy Meyer is her next door neighbor at her vacation home is in Marthas Vineyard. Lucy has a daughter and Lucy wants nothing more than their children to marry.

If that were all that was in this book it would be a boring book. This story is like a run a way train heading for a wreck – you think you know where the story is headed and it changes directions. If you want a romance novel this is not it, not to say it doesn’t have romance; it does and lots of it but it has suspense, murder, intrigue, and everything else that we have come to expect in a Sidney Sheldon book.

Shaye Townsend works with a not for profit conservancy that buys old ranches to preseve for their historical worth. Tanner Davis comes into town to settle his uncle’s estate which has just the sort of ranch Shaye’s organization works to preserve. That connection is what throws the two protagonists of Dangerous Refuge together. I call them protagonists, because that is what Shaye and Tanner are. While categorized as Romantic Suspense, this book is unlike many of Lowell’s previous books in that it is much more of a straight out mystery with hot sex thrown in rather than romance with suspense. This creates a pacing problem which is the one big flaw in Dangerous Refuge.

It is not far into the book before Tanner realizes that his uncle’s death is not as it seems. The rest of the book is devoted to Shaye and Tanner figuring out the who and the why of that and other deaths. Tanner being a “big city” cop has the mindset and skills to carry out an investigation and Shaye has the local connections to help grease the wheels for him. But there really isn’t so much building of suspense as there is unraveling of clues leading to the solution to the crime. This creates a slower pace which may not please Lowell’s faithful readers. However, on the romance side, the tempo is more along the lines of horny teenagers than attracted adults. There is virtually flirting, building attraction or coy wondering of will she or won’t she. She definitely will and the author spares leaves little to the readers’ imagination. The quickly escalating sex scenes seem a bit out of place given the overall slow pace of the rest of the book.

While I didn’t really feel like I knew or cared about either of the main characters, overall I enjoyed the crime to be solved in the book and found the sex perfect for summer poolside reading.

Joe Hunter is an ex-soldier and former member of a secret force called Arrowsake. He’s left the force after nearly being killed and he still has some painful wounds.

He is being asked to help Don Griffiths, also a former member, prove Don’s daughter was intentionally killed and not in a horrible car accident. Joe finds that a white supremacist wants to kill all of Don’s family, a daughter & 2 grandchildren, as Don had helped to put the leader of the group in jail from which he later escapes. It takes some doing by Don to prove this to Joe and get him to help him. One of the supremacist group is Vince Everett who is working on a project within the group. Early on Joe asks a former Arrowsake member and best friend, Rink, to help.

The battle begins and we begin to realize the horror of the supremacist group and also what the Arrowsake has done supposedly in the name of national security.

“A Cancer”, that is your purpose in the world.

When Fumihiro Kuki was eleven years old and living in present day Japan, his wealthy father told him that he was to carry on the family tradition and to become “a cancer”. “I created you to be a cancer on the world.” A cancer would be someone who attaches themselves to others as a parasite draining the life for their own personal gain. How would you react to this declaration?

For Fumihiro Kuki, being born into a wealthy family allowed him to receive extra tutoring to that he would excel in school. With no knowledge or evidence of his mother, his father chooses to be distant and unlovable. Doesn’t money solve the problem of not being loved?

Living in this house with Fumihiro and his father are many servants and a young girl who is also in his class. Kaori attends school with Fumihiro and becomes his best friend and love of his life. Why is she living with them? It also seems that she is motherless. What is her connection to the family?

Evil and the Mask is about Fumihiro while he lives at home with his father and how he adjusts to life. After being cursed, Fumihiro enjoys his growing friendship with Kaori but begins to feel revengeful towards his father and this curse placed upon him. When opportunity for revenge occurs, he makes a well-planned decision that changes his life and his character.

As he begins his adult life, his family resemblance to his father makes him uncomfortable so he chooses to have his face changed through plastic surgery and taking on a new identity. This new identity causes Fumihiro problems since the original owner of this face quite probably murdered his girlfriend. By changing your appearance, can you change who you really are inside?

The author, Fuminori Nakamura has won the Oe Prize which is Japan’s most prestigious literary award as well as numerous awards for his previous works, A Gun, The Boy in the Earth, and The Thief. Evil and the Mask is an engrossing account of Fuminori and the choices of life. In some ways, the story reminds me of Hannibal in that the evil becomes norm. The story is violent, revengeful, and often disagreeable but it still contains that hypnotic voice that makes you want to read more.