FullReviews Index - page 3
The Monsters of Gramercy Park
Any description of Danny Leigh's book "The Monsters of Gramercy Park" is likely to include words like psychological and suspense and should include fantastic. Although neither a typical thriller nor a traditional mystery, <i>Monsters</i> is a perfectly paced work of suspense that keeps you guessing until--and, in some ways, beyond--the end.
The Camel Club
David Baldacci is the author of ten previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers and #1 international bestsellers: Absolute Power, Total Control, The Winner, The Simple Truth, Saving Faith, Wish You Well, Last Man Standing, The Christmas Train, Split Second, and Hour Game, as well as his Freddy and the French Fries children's series. In The Camel Club, David Baldacci paints a frightening portrait of a world that could be our own soon.
Bangkok Tattoo
John Burdett's Bangkok 8 (2004) chronicles the adventures of Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a police detective in District 8 of the Royal Thai Police. Sonchai is a devout Buddhist, driven into the religion by a childhood sin and exiled by monks into the police force to make a statement and lead by example. Bangkok Tattoo, the 2005 sequel, is no less strange and wonderful, starting as it does with the other fascinating character of the books, Sonchai's brothel-owning, entrepreneurial mother.
The Hot Kid
With tommy guns, hot cars, speakeasies, cops and robbers, and a former lawman who believes in vigilante justice, all played out against the flapper period of gun molls and Prohibition, "The Hot Kid" is Elmore Leonard true to form: great dialog and the fast narrative, never bogged down or distracted.
Close Case
For Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's thirty-second birthday, she gets an unusual gift: a homicide call out. The crime scene: the elite Hillside neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. The victim: hotshot investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw, who has been bludgeoned to death in his carport. With Close Case, Alafair Burke delivers her most suspenseful and powerful novel yet.
Haunted
Haunted is a novel made up of stories: twenty-three of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you'll ever encounter—sometimes all at once. Appallingly entertaining, Haunted is Chuck Palahniuk at his finest—which means his most extreme and his most provocative.
SilverFin
What does it take to become the greatest secret agent the world has ever known? In this thrilling prequel to the James Bond series, readers meet a thirteen-year-old schoolboy whose inquisitive mind and determination set him on a path that will one day take him all over the world, in pursuit of the most dangerous criminals known to man. Acclaimed British writer Charlie Higson has written a tale that ingeniously uncovers the story of a boy who became one of the most iconic figures of our time.
Rosa
"In the last days of the First World War, socialist revolution swept across Germany, sending Kaiser Wilhelm into exile and transforming Berlin into a battleground. But for Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner and his young assistant, Hans Fichte, the revolution is a mere inconvenience. Four women from the slums of Berlin have turned up dead, all with identical markings etched into their backs, and Hoffner and Fichte have spent the better part of six weeks trying to crack the bizarre case."
Improbable
David Caine is a gambler. He gambles at cards and life, always with the belief that his almost savant ability to determine probabilities will keep him afloat. What he doesn't factor into his equation are the devastating epileptic seizures that have been arriving with increased frequency. Up until now, they've hardly impaired his visits to some of the seediest underground poker clubs in New York City, where he's used his probability calculations with cunning and for profit. Up until now.
State of Fear
Michael Crichton's techno-thriller State of Fear takes the reader from the glaciers of Iceland to the volcanoes of Antarctica, from the Arizona desert to the deadly jungles of the Solomon Islands, from the streets of Paris to the beaches of Los Angeles. Like Crichton's previous works, "State of Fear" fuses science fiction and adventure into a plot-driven whirlwind. Unfortunately, in "State of Fear," Crichton appears to have an agenda tripping him up along the way.
Prey
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles — micro-robots — has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. As fresh as today's headlines, Michael Crichton's most compelling novel yet tells the story of a mechanical plague and the desperate efforts of a handful of scientists to stop it.
Absolute Friends
In Absolute Friends, John le Carre delivers the masterpiece he has been building to since the fall of communism: an epic tale of loyalty and betrayal that spans the lives of two friends from the riot-torn West Berlin of the 1960s to the grimy looking-glass of Cold War Europe to the present day of terrorism and new alliances. This is the novel le Carre fans have been waiting for, a brilliant, ferocious, heartbreaking work for the ages.
Double Shot
New York Times bestselling author Diane Mott Davidson has taken readers by storm with clever mysteries filled with tantalizing plots and mouthwatering recipes. In Double Shot, her twelfth novel, the ingenious storyteller whips up a rich soufflé of murder and mischief starring caterer and amateur sleuth, Goldy Schulz.
Tearjerker
In Daniel Hayes' darkly humorous debut novel, Evan Ulmer takes matters into his own hands after his writerly dreams of fame and recognition have stalled. He kidnaps renowned editor Robert Partnow and cages him in a basement. Evan shares his desperation with Bob, Bob reveals his own secrets, and together they watch the media spin this situation into a lurid tale of abduction and infidelity. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and real life, "Tearjerker" unfolds in startling directions.
High Country Fall
Read without knowledge of the music and you will enjoy a perfectly fine mystery. Add knowledge of the music and you will find a literary basis seldom if ever achieved in the mystery genre. High Country Fall contains enough layers and permutations, allusions and metaphors to rank in the top level of literary efforts. For example, the country music mentioned in the novel is more than just good music; the words enhance and deepen the characterizations of various characters.
The Manchurian Candidate
Compelled by his book club to choke down The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, this reviewer finds his patience in the face of sophomoric and choppy prose rewarded generously with gripping plot and intriguing characters. Originally brought to film in 1962, a new film version of "The Manchurian Candidate" starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep hits the screen this month, and, timely enough, Pocket Books re-releases Richard Condon's novel in September.
Monday Mourning
Monday Mourning is Kathy Reichs' seventh Temperance Brennan novel. It is as chillingly good as her first, Deja Dead, a NY Times bestseller which won the 1997 Edgar Award for best first novel. One of the book blurbs for Monday Mourning says she is as "good as Patricia Cornwell at her best." Wrong. Reichs is consistently better.