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Posts Tagged ‘book review’

Reviewed by Julie Moderson

Wow! Allan Retzky’s debut novel is really a great book. He is an author to watch for, as I am sure his next book will be amazing and one that I can’t wait to read if you can improve on a perfect mystery.

Vanished in the Dunes is about Amos Posner who lost his job as an international trader and left Manhattan to go to their summer home to lick his wounds. He is a very unhappy man who is unsure of the direction his marriage is going and he is spending his days alone watching the waves. When a young beautiful woman asks for directions he helps her out and his life goes into a direction he never sees coming. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Bruce Kohler and his long time friends Barbara and Jimmy have snagged a “share” at a beach house in the Hamptons for the summer. They of course know each other, but they don’t really know any of the others staying in the house for the summer. Since the house is a “recovery” house, the set up is even a little more unusual because, just like in the various recovery groups the people belong to, no last names are used. So when on the very first morning when Bruce, Barbara and Jimmy come across the body of one of their housemates on the beach, they really have very little they can tell the police.

As the investigation continues, more bodies pop up, each with a tie to the beach house and each with previous ties to someone in the house. Barbara, a self proclaimed nosey snoop, uncovers dirt on nearly everyone staying at the house with several of the housemates having previous relationships with each other or others in the community. There is the sex driven vixen and the stud who hands out necklaces with a special meaning. There’s a parent-child combo in the mix and photographer to the stars who has a tragic cross to bear. Overall, there were enough motives amongst the characters to yield even more murders than actually occurred! Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Allen Hott

Looks like a new leading character for David Baldacci. However he has pretty much maintained the same general location (our nation’s capital area) and same type of plot. Oh yeah he has definitely maintained his style, which without a doubt is one of the best in mystery/political thrillers.

The Innocent is in fact a young girl who has been orphaned when her parents were caught up in a political skirmish brought about by their military involvement from years past. At about the same time that she is trying to find out why it happened to her parents along comes Will Robie who happens to be completely at a loss as to what happened on his most recent assassination attempt. Yes, that’s right. Will Robie is an assassin who works for the United States government. Do you believe that these folks exist? I feel certain that they do and David Baldacci has built a terrific story about one of them.

It just so happens that Robie gets on to a bus to make his getaway from the blown assassination attempt (which also turned out to be the perfect setup for later subplots). While on that bus he manages to save Julie Getty. The fourteen -year old Julie Getty is in fact The Innocent. After Robie saves her from probable death on the bus, the two of them exit the bus and start up the street just as the bus explodes. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Julie Moderson

District Attorney Rachael Knight keeps getting the feeling someone is watching her but she blows it off, even with the feeling of the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Rachael gets her nose bent out of joint when a prosecutor refuses to refile a case to keep a perp in jail so when the prosecutor gives her crap she says she will take what seems to be an easy case and win it.

This case is anything but a slam-dunk. It is a hot mess and it keeps you guessing and cheering for Rachael, her best friend and police detective Bailey and Tina her fellow DA. It seems impossible the trouble these gals can get into but they do will do anything to get the real killer into jail. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Teri Davis

For many of us growing up as children in the middle of the twentieth century, we expected to have our dreams fulfilled, love, marriage, education, a successful career, …

Hindsight always gives a person an advantage. However, in A Bitter Veil, an American girl, Anna, meets an Iranian boy, Nouri, who is studying engineering in Chicago. They meet in a bookstore and begin to discuss Persian poetry. This is the beginning of their loving relationship. It seemed like the perfect match even though she was blond and he had dark hair. Both had that Aryan look about their eyes. At that time not many people in this country had married someone from this area of the world. Being That in Iran at this time had about 46,000 Americans living there and appeared progressive with technology, styles, and habits, no one could have predicted how things could and would change in a very short time.

Anna had never been close to her family so her love for Nouri fulfilled her and she eagerly anticipated having an extended family, even if it is in Iran. Fortunately, Nouri’s family was wealthy and greatly benefited from the Shah’s reign basically living a Western life in Tehran. As the couple begins their new life in the modern Iran of 1978, the southern section of Tehran is having demonstrations and riots due to the inequality of opportunities inside this country. The southern part of this city is poor, the northern section where this couple lives, appears not to even be aware of the problems.

When the Shah leaves and the Ayatollah returns to the country, many people are eager for the change, this should fulfill their hopes and dreams. However, when the U.S. Embassy is attacked and those inside are held hostage, the attitude towards Americans and modernization quickly changes. This reversion to the old beliefs is difficult for those who were in favor with the previous governmental powers.

In A Bitter Veil, the voice of Anna is realistic and believable. Libby Fischer Hellman extensively researched this time period, the changes in Iran, and those people who actually underwent this experience. This in-depth fictional story is well-organized, engaging, as well as informative of actual historical episodes and the effects on those Americans in Iran.

A Bitter Veil is a true historical experience. Even though it is a romance at first, it is also a mystery, and definitely reflective to the changes within Iran.

Hindsight always makes us reflect into a right or wrong situation. A Bitter Veil allows us to view the changes through the eyes of a naïve Westerner while also having the reader develop a deeper understanding of the people.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Sheehan

Edward Jenner, Medical Examiner, is filling in for his friend, Doctor Roburn, also a Medical Examiner, in Port Fontaine, Southwest FL. Jenner’s medical license has been suspended in NY and the offer of filling in came at a great time. His license had been suspended because he shot the person that had killed one of his friends and carved up another.

Out on a run he comes across the police who are trying to raise a car that went into the Everglades. The horror begins when the car reveals the body of Doctor Roburn, who has been tortured along with the body of his wife in the trunk. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Patricia Reid

A trip to Key West and a stay at the Brandenton Beach Resort is the latest on Delilah Dickinson Literary Tours. Fans of Ernest Hemingway were all looking forward to an adventurous vacation but no one, not even Delilah Dickinson, had any idea just how adventurous this trip would turn out to be.

The participants on the tour were a diversified group and some had something more than Hemingway on their mind. Luke, Delilah’s son-in-law and assistant, comes along on the tour and does his best to help Delilah keep everyone under control.

Walter Harvick who is on the tour alone feels that he knows more about Hemingway than the author knew about himself and does not hesitate to let everyone know that he is an expert. He even goes so far as to start a fight in “Sloppy Joe’s”, a bar with the same name as the bar that Hemingway was known to frequent. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Teri Davis

“Death, not time, is probably the only lasting remedy for hurt and even that’s just an educated guess.”

Moe Prager is the realistic protagonist in the latest book in this series by Reed Farrel Coleman, Hurt Machine. Moe is a private investigator who also happens to be Jewish, who spent years working as NYPD, but made the choice to do the right thing, rather than be promoted. His thoughts are on his recent diagnosis of stomach cancer with the upcoming surgery and having his daughter, Sarah, getting married. He doesn’t plan to tell Sarah about the cancer until after the wedding. The surgery is scheduled during her honeymoon.

A former investigative partner, Carmella Melendez, asks for Moe’s help with discovering the murderer of her sister, Alta. Alta was stabbed to death after a highly publicized incident where Alta and her
partner refused to give medical help to a dying man even though they were trained as EMTs. The press crucified the two which cost them their careers complete with public hatred. The partner was forced into complete isolation due to the public hatred. Why would two EMTs refuse to help a dying man? What logical reason could there be? What really happened? Why were there no witnesses who came forward regarding Alta’s death? Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Julie Moderson

Guilt by Association starts out with a bang and keeps you on your toes until the very last page. I love the characters in this book; they are so defined as to who they are and how they act. They have quick tempers, wit and intelligence and somehow solve the case that they aren’t supposed to be anywhere near without getting into too much trouble.

Rachael Knight, a prosecutor, realizes how little she knows about the people she works with because she doesn’t see most of them outside of work. When a co-worker Jake is found dead and seems to have committed a horrible crime, Rachel won’t believe it. When Rachel and her best friend Bailey, who is one of the best detectives on the LAPD force, team up there is no stopping them. They talk sassy and tend to bend the rules just a bit too far. Read the rest of this entry »

Reviewed by Caryn St. Clair

Jade de Jong, a private investigator from Jo’burg, South Africa had booked a scuba get away in St.Lucia with hopes that her boyfriend, police superintendent David Patel would soon join her. The whole idea of it was a bit of a stretch for Jade given that she was terrified of deep water, but David loved to dive and so Jade had decided to come early, take the scuba course offered at the resort and be ready to dive with him when he arrived. Which should have happened already, but David had been delayed by a last minute case and since Jade was going into panic attacks when she dove and had not yet passed the course, was probably a good thing. But things got worse. When David did arrive, he came wanting to have “the talk” that never bodes well for a relationship, and before Jade can adjust to that, her scuba instructor, Amanda is found stabbed to death.

David offers to assist the local authorities in their investigation and although things are not good between the two of them, Jade joins forces to investigate as well since she feels a personal connection to Amanda. The thing is, initially there is very little to investigate. Amanda seems to be the best liked, intelligent but quiet person who ever existed, so who would want her dead? But quiet people often run deep and Amanda was no exception. There was the fact that she was but a few months removed from her job as an air traffic controller and the post card found in her room with the mysterious message. Was Amanda not who she seemed to be? Read the rest of this entry »