Posts filed under 'Thriller'
Edna Buchanan, author of the Britt Montero series, returns with a new character in her latest book, Legally Dead. Michael Venturi is a deputy U.S. Marshal with the Witness Protection Program until a witness in a union corruption case commits murder after being relocated to a small New Hampshire town. Before he can quit the program in protest, Michael becomes the scapegoat and is fired.
Venturi’s new life leads him to Florida where he and former Marine buddy Danny Trado assemble a secret group of friends to create new identities for innocent people whose lives have been ruined and deserve fresh starts. Their clients include wrongfully convicted molesters, a threatened judge and a wealthy widow whose children want her declared incompetent so they can collect her fortune. Venturi and his friends fake deaths, create new names, appearances and identities and relocate people to obscure locations overseas.
This scheme remains successful until complications occur. Informants Venturi placed in the Witness Protection Program start turning up dead. In addition, the identities of the recent “legally dead” clients are discovered and they begin to die. The race is on to find the murderer before more innocent people are killed.
The scenarios for creating these new lives were clever and really moved the story along. But there were too many coincidences and friends with just the rights skills at the right time to make this a total rave.
November 6th, 2008
Lesley - Central
As an audiobook reviewer for Library Journal, I am often given books to review that I would not normally pick up on my own. The Turnaround by George Pelecanos was one of those and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. Pelacanos has a way with the gritty urban experience as evidenced by his writing for the very popular HBO’s series The Wire.
The Turnaround is a well written, complicated, and engrossing story, one that shows the results of youthful indiscretions, and how adults recover (or don’t) from those youthful mistakes. It is set in Washington D.C. and begins in 1972 when three teenagers drive a car into a black neighborhood and set off a chain of events that leaves one person dead.
Fast forward to 2007 and one of the white victims, Alex, is running his father’s diner. Alex has a wife and family and a son recently killed in Iraq. His world begins to intersect with the Monroe brothers, 2 of whom were involved in that long ago crime. James has served a prision term for killing a young man and his brother Raymond is a physical therapist. Another figure fromt he past is Charles Baker. Charles is the man who beat up Alex. He has also been in and out of prision and, unlike the Monroe brothers, is still pursuing a life of crime.
The book is read by a veteran actor, Dion Graham (who also acted in The Wire). Graham does an excellent job with the different characters and creates just the right ambiance. So much so that I am now interested in looking for some of Pelecanos’s early books.
October 13th, 2008
Mary K. - Central
I’ve been on a thriller kick lately. Something about the fall makes me want to hunker down and dive in. Oops, sorry for the mixed metaphors but you get the picture. Good thrillers thrill. Sounds so simple but in reality it takes real skill to manage the pacing, characterizations and plot to thrilling effect. Three of my recent reads excelled in all these ways.
Takeover by Lisa Black is a debut novel. Lisa Black, a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, put her expertise to work in creating her protagonist Theresa MacLean. Theresa is a forensic scientist who works for the city of Cleveland. As her day begins she’s called to the scene of a murder. But what starts out as a routine investigation soon veers into more dangerous territory when bank robbers target the Federal Reserve Bank and take hostages, including Theresa’s fiance detective Paul Cleary. Though Theresa spends less time on the forensics then I could have wished, Black’s debut still intrigues with the puzzle of the bank robbery. Oh, and on a side note I loved that the negotiator and his team set up their command post in the library across the street from the bank!
The Actress by Elizabeth Sims takes a different tack. Rita Farmer is a single mother who’s struggling to make a living as an actress in L.A. And struggling is the key word here. To help make ends meet she performs a storytime at the library (hey another library connection <g>) and is spotted by celebrity attorney Gary Kwan. Kwan is currently defending a socialite accused of murdering her own child. His problem is that Eileen is about as unsympathetic a defendent as you can get and he wants Rita to use her acting skills to coach Eileen. Rita, who has sunk to pawning her grandmother’s bracelet, takes the job and is soon caught up in this high-intensity, media driven case.
And finally the darker, psychological thriller by Lisa Unger (who wrote a great mystery series as Lisa Miscione). Black Out delves into the life of Annie Powers. Annie has a picture perfect existence. She lives in a gated community in Florida, she has a husband who loves her and a beautiful little girl named Victory. But her peaceful present is shattered when the ghost of her past appears. Though Annie has a hard-won normal life now, it wasn’t always that way. And as her past comes out, so too do the dangers. This is a gripping exploration of the difference between being a victim and a perpetrator and the fallout from being both.
As the days get shorter and the weather colder you can’t go wrong with books that will make you forget the loss of summer.
October 3rd, 2008
Jane J. - Central Library
I feel like I’m going to write a back-to-school report entitled
“What I Read on My Summer Vacation”. I’m just back from a trip to Isle Royale National Park and since the island has no tv, telephone, computer, or radio, there was time to read in the evening after hiking all day.
First up was Kristan Higgins’ Just One of the Guys. This one
is packaged as a romance but reads more like chick lit. Chastity “Chas” O’Neill is a broad-shouldered, almost six-foot-tall woman who has returned to her hometown in upstate New York. When her current boyfriend dumps her because she was able to carry him for half a mile on a hike, Chas feels doomed. How does a healthy woman who grew up with four brothers find a date. Much less the love of her life? That last part is both the easiest and hardest bit of the equation since the love of her life is an honorary member of the family and has made it clear he wants to remain friends. Funny and sweet at turns, this was just the thing for the ferry ride to the island (don’t ask about the ferry ride back).
On a quiet Isle evening I read John Connolly’s The Reapers - probably not the best choice for a dark night. Charlie Parker is back. And if you haven’t read Connolly yet, start with Every Dead Thing. Charlie Parker, a former NYPD detective, is similar to Lee Child’s Jack Reacher in that he uses unorthodox (often violent) means to solve people’s problems. In The Reapers, the person in trouble is Charlie’s friend Louis. Someone is stalking Louis, and when he and his partner Angel go missing, Charlie enters the fray. Connolly writes beautiful prose describing ugly and gritty events to awesome effect.
After the excellent, but somewhat grim Connolly, I needed 
something lighter to round out the trip. Sarah Dessen’s The Truth About Forever was just the ticket. This YA novel covers some fairly serious stuff with humor and charm. Macy Queen is known as the girl who watched her father die. That catastrophe has forced Macy into shutting down. When asked how she’s coping, everything is fine. Her attempts to maintain this front have changed her. A fact she only realizes when she takes a job with Wish Catering and gets pushed past her comfort zone. Dessen excels at creating relatable and likable protagonists who deal with life’s ups and downs, if not effortlessly, then at least with some grace and honesty.
So that’s my report. Now let’s hear about what you read on your summer vacation.
August 26th, 2008
Jane J. - Central Library
According to Wikipedia, generation loss is “anything that reduces the quality of the representation when copying, and would cause further reduction in quality on making a copy of the copy”. After reading Elizabeth Hand’s book Generation Loss, this term makes a lot more sense to me.
Cass Neary used to be a successful photographer. When her book of avant-garde photos of the punk scene was first published, she seemed to be at the beginning of a bright career. However, as punk died, so did her inspiration and, thus, her career. Thirty years later, she’s given the opportunity of a lifetime: a chance to meet and interview Aphrodite Kamestos, an elderly reclusive photographer whose work Cass has always admired. However, when Cass arrives at Kamestos’s uninviting private island to begin the interview, she finds that Kamestos wasn’t expecting her, nor is she willing to be interviewed. While Cass is stuck waiting for a boat off the desolate island, she discovers some disturbing things about Kamestos, an old mystery, and herself.
If you’re looking for a book that you won’t be able to put down, I’d highly recommend that you pick this one up. Cass’s experiences on the island are thrilling and occasionally frightening, and Cass is my favorite kind of character - one with plenty of attitude and a sense of humor. (She does have a pretty dirty mouth, though: be prepared for some colorful language.) Elizabeth Hand has written several novels and many short stories, but this is her first work that doesn’t have any element of science fiction or fantasy in it. Though this story is realistic, her incredible imagination is evident in the way she describes the bleak island and the characters’ artistic and criminal passions. I’d say her first foray into the “normal” is quite successful, but I also love her short story collection Saffron and Brimstone, which is filled with plenty of strangeness, along with the wit and excitement found in Generation Loss.
August 22nd, 2008
Kylee
Hold Tight, Harlan Coban’s new suspense novel poses a lot of
“what ifs?” For example, what if your troubled son is not communicating with you after the suicide of one of his friends and you install spyware on his computer to try to monitor his activites? What if a teacher makes an unfortunate remark that ridicules the appearance of one of his students?
Mike and Tia Baye, the parents of sixteen-year-old Adam have been monitoring his online activities and one day they read a crytic message about a party. After Mike tries to stop Adam from attending the party, Adam runs away and Mike starts a frenzied search for him and along the way learns a lot about what Adam and his friends have been up to.
Meanwhile, two women who turn out to know each other have been murdered, and one of them is the mother of the Baye’s daughter’s best friend. Although the two cases don’t seem connected, the Baye family gets involved.
While there is a lot going on, all of the plot threads are wrapped up at the end of this suspenseful novel. Coben does a good job of combining contemporary issues with thrills. And as narrated by Scott Brick, Hold Tight is a great audiobook. His reading style is perfectly suited to suspense novels. You can check out the compact disc from the library or download it from the Overdrive collection.
August 18th, 2008
Mary K. - Central
Way of the Wolf by E.E. Knight is the first book in his Vampire Earth series.
First off don’t let the vampire in the vampire earth series put you off, this is not another book about blood sucking count dracula types. The vampires refer to the Kurians, an ancient alien race that has come to earth to feed on the vital aura of human beings. To do this they first had to soften the earth up by sending disease & assorted nasty creatures, reducing civilization to a primitive state. The earth is now divided into free areas that fight the Kurians and those who collaborate with them.
E.E. Knight was born in Wisconsin, and it shows. There is a good chunk of the book where the hero, David Valentine, is running through Wisconsin, and his descriptions of the area add a nice local touch.
It’s a great rip roaring trip, with elements of science fiction, horror, and military fiction. A great summer read.
July 26th, 2008
Gregg - Sequoya
We’ve had a bit of rain around these parts this summer and nothing beats curling up with a good gothic tale during a stormy night. I’ve been on quite a gothic kick since having read The Thirteenth Tale, and after re-reading Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (and watching the Masterpiece Theatre and Hitchcock versions) and revisiting Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (still on the hold list for the new Masterpiece Theatre DVD - I cannot wait!) I contemplated reading the Mysteries of Udolpho (as referenced in Northanger Abbey) but decided I just couldn’t commit to 676 pages of emotional terror and wet, dimly lit castles. So I started at the beginning. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is widely recognized as the first gothic novel and it’s a doozy (and under 120 pages, so the terror is short-lived). Here is a brief rundown:
- Set in a gloomy castle with secret passage ways, caves and trap doors. Lots of terror and suspense. Passion. Insanity. Ancient prophecy. Mistaken identity and hidden heirs.
- Sickly Conrad, son of Prince Manfred of Otranto, is betrothed to beautiful Princess Isabella but dies in a freak accident (crushed by giant helmet) on their wedding day.
- Manfred decides to hell with his wife, daughter and dead son - he will marry the beautiful Princess Isabella himself and sire lots of new heirs.
- Princess Isabella is not especially down with this and escapes with the aid of a peasant who is hiding in the secret passage.
- Something is up with the peasant. Oh my, he is actually the son of Father Jerome, who is actually the Count of Falconara.
- Manfred is still hell-bent on divorcing his wife and marrying Isabella. Everybody is racing around searching for the missing Isabella. A masked knight tries to rescue her. Oh my, the knight is actually Isabella’s father and rightful heir of Otranto, presumed dead for decades.
- Much ludicrous activity ensues, all while Manfred shows himself to be a true tyrant. Who will Isabella marry? Will true love prevail? Will the good name of Otranto be restored?
Goodness, gothic novels are fun. Mix the swooning and the passion and the jealousy and the greed with the spooky setting and you’ve got a story that entertains centuries later. Does anyone have any other recommendations for me? I’m still not ready for Udolpho.
July 16th, 2008
Molly - Central
A rash of star-studded murder-suicides has shaken the San Francisco Bay area more than the recent earthquakes and widowed forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett has been called in to investigate. Her specialty is the psychological autopsy, in which her expertise as a trauma medical doctor and her skills as a psychiatrist are used to determine what the victims were thinking and feeling prior to their deaths.
All of the murder-suicide victims have ties to an exclusive club, The Dirty Secrets Club, and all of the victims have something to hide. Beckett has 48 hours to figure out what’s going on before more victims die.
Meg Gardiner has created a fantastic character with Jo Beckett. Beckett is young and talented, with close ties to her family and a comical relationship with the goofball next door. The added layers of having lost her husband, Daniel, in a tragic accident, the grit and gruesome nature of performing psychological autopsies, and a possible love interest in Gabe Quintana, a search and rescue colleague, make her character just the right level of complex.
Throw in a Halloween party with guests dressed up like their World of Warcraft avatars, a wicked monkey on the loose and enough coffee to swim in and you get an idea of Gardiner’s style of writing. I can’t wait for more of this series.
July 9th, 2008
Molly - Central
I’m always on the lookout for new crime writers who can join the company of authors such as Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos. I think that I’ve found one in The Calling. The pseudonymous Inger Ash Wolfe has written an engaging and suspenseful crime novel. I hope these characters are back in a new story.
A grisly murder of a local elderly woman with terminal cancer is not what Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef, acting commander of the Ontario Police Services Port Dundas detachment, needs. Her department is understaffed. She is trying to recover from a surprise divorce and to stay sober. In addition, she has a bad back and lives with her acerbic 87-year-old mother. What starts out as a single murder turns to the discovery that a serial killer with a purpose is making his way across Canada.
Hazel and her team are the only ones who can stop him, although Hazel’s not so sure that they can stop him. The suspenseful action is goes back and forth between the killer and Hazel and her team. As the bodies pile up, Hazel puts herself at risk in order to catch a killer. The ending is both climactic and surprising. I hope this cast of characters returns for a command performance.
June 10th, 2008
Kathy K. - Central
Previous Posts
Edna Buchanan, author of the Britt Montero series, returns with a new character in her latest book, Legally Dead. Michael Venturi is a deputy U.S. Marshal with the Witness Protection Program until a witness in a union corruption case commits murder after being relocated to a small New Hampshire town. Before he can quit the program in protest, Michael becomes the scapegoat and is fired.
