Connelly is simply the best

Jack McEvoy met the same fate so many people are experiencing today. He's given his pink slip from "The Los Angeles Times." There must be 100 cuts and he's number 99. However, he's given fourteen days to train his replacement, Angela Cook.

As Jack is mulling over his fate, he gets a call from Wanda Sessums, Alonzo Winslow's grandmother. She tells him that the paper has the wrong info. Lo did not confess to murder as the paper claims. Please check the facts, he's being set up.

Jack sees a chance to write one more story. Maybe he'll save his job, or maybe teach the paper that they're letting the wrong person go. He even thought that it might be the chance to write the book he's wanted to do.

After checking, he learns that Lo only said that he saw a purse on the front seat of a car so he stole the car and after taking the money from the purse, he opened the trunk and found the body of stripper, Denise Babbit.

Angela Cook does some research and learns that another woman died in the same way as Denise. This woman was also a stripper and was found in the trunk of her car with marks on her arms similar to Denise's.

The reader learns about a place called the Farm and a man named Carver. He is one of the killers. He has a web site for trunk murder search and learns of Angela's inquiry.Thinking things were getting too close, he uses his spy ware and sees that Jack is coming to Vegas to interview the man convicted on killing the first victim.

Carver wants to disrupt Jack. He gets Jack's credit card numbers and calls the company saying they were stolen so put a stop on them, then he finds Jack's email to his boss and deletes it. Finally, he calls the prison and says the prisoner Jack is coming to see, has a hit on him and they need to put him in isolation for his safety.

With all the things going wrong, Jack turns to the only person he could trust, Rachel Walling, the FBI agent he had an affair with when they were working "The Poet" case.

Rachel hears what's happened to Jack and her intuition kicks in. She thinks he's being isolated to be framed or killed so she flies to Vegas and waits for Jack in his room. She doesn't know then but this spoils the attempt on Jack's life by Carver's protege.

Jack and Rachel return to Jack's home and find Angela Cook's body under Jack's bed. Angela calls in the FBI investigators. They are able to trace the emails to the Farm and begin the investigation on Carver.

As usual, Connelly is at his best when dealing out the suspense. The plot was somewhat confusing with Carver and his assistant both being killers. However, Jack is a nice protagonist. He is sincere and shows his ethics in not taking back his job at the expense of another employee. He is also brave and heroic. Rachel is also a good character and reminds me of Jodi Foster in "The Silence of the Lambs."

Recommended.

Death's mirror shines light on the living

4 1/2 stars!

Michael Sykora felt this world collapse when his love, Christina, was raped and strangled. Her killer was a steroid abuser with a history of sexual assaults. Michael knew he needed some closure so after his associate, Sean, found the murderer, Michael made sure the killer would never bother another person. Michael found killing evil doers was providing a new reason to live so began his career as a part time hit man pursuing those who prey on the weak.

One day, Michael got a call from an old friend, Nicki. She was a former prostitute who Michael had a relationship with. Now, Nicki had gotten out of the street life and returned to school. She achieved her associate degree and worked at a women's shelter. One of her clients, Isabel, was constantly being beaten by her boyfriend, Antonio Lott. Nicki recommended that Isabel leave Lott before he hurt her even worse. Antonio thought that Isabel was telling Nicki about his cocaine dealing and child pornography distribution and wants to silence her, permanently.

Nicki can't go to the police because of her former occupation "Who'd believe a former hooker?" In addition, Lott had hidden some cocaine in her apartment so if the police came there they'd find the drugs and discredit her statements.

Michael agreed to help Nicki but learns that Lott has a gang that includes two cousins and two others. He also learns that police are investigating Lott and want to find who he deals with in the pornography so they are following him. How will Michael get to Antonio before Antonio can silence Nicki?

This is a well developed plot. The author states that she is influenced by Tami Hoag and James Patterson and her sense of drama might be due to that influence. Michael is a good protagonist. He has his humane features seen in dealing with his father's terminal illness, yet he cares for those less able to care for themselves. Nicki is also a well developed character. The author, Darcia Helle, states that she is also influenced by Janet Evanovich and Nicki seems like she could have jumped out of one of Evanovich's books to this one.

Overall, well done and recommended.

One generation plants trees, the next gets shade.

Gillian Flynn has created a novel with such a powerful ending that the reader will want to reread the book immediately.

Libby Day is only 7 when her mother and two sisters are massacred. She is the witness against her brother, Ben, who is found guilty of the crime.

Now, twenty five years have past and her money is running out. She gets a letter from the Kill Club, a group of crime solving wannabees. They feel that Ben has wrongly been sentenced for the crime. Libby agrees to meet with them and for a fee she agrees to look into the deaths of her family and report her findings to the club.

From this point the story flash backs in alternating chapters so we can see where Libby is with her investigation and back to the time just prior to the murders. We see what the family was going through. Libby's mother, Patty Day, was going through tough times in attempting to raise four children by herself. She feared the farm was going to be lost to foreclosure. Ben was fifteen, a lonely teenager with few friends and a meddling sister, Michelle, who taunted him.

As Libby gets closer to the answers of what happened that night, she is suddenly cast back to the same position she was in twenty five years ago, running for her life with a killer intending to make her a final victim.

There is power and uniqueness in this story. Libby is a dark, yet interesting character. She is flawed but brave and determined to find the answers to what happened to her family. The pace of the story is well conceived as if it had a heart-beat that sped up as the story draws to an end with the reader moving to the edge of their seat to see what happens to Libby.

The author, Gillian Flynn, has been nominated for an Edgar award for her novel, "Sharp Objects" which won two British Daggers. Movie rights to that novel have been sold and the author is working on the screen adaptation.

"Shattered" might keep you up at night.

In England, Joe O'Loughlin just finished teaching a class in psychology when the police ask his help in preventing a woman who is considering suicide. He goes with them and finds a naked woman on a bridge. He attempts to dissuade her but she says "you don't understand" and jumps.

Joe is a decent sort of guy and troubled that he couldn't save the woman. Later, a sixteen year old girl comes to his door. She says she, Darcy Wheeler, is the daughter of the suicide woman, Christine. Darcy tells Joe that she can't believe that her mother would commit suicide in such a manner since she was afraid of heights. She asks Joe to look into it.

He agrees and one person he speaks to is Sylvia Furness, Christine's business partner. However, he doesn't get anywhere so calls his friend, Victor Ruiz. Victor is a retired police investigator. Together they look into Christine's last hours. They find a note in her car "Help Me" and when they show that to the police, the investigation turns from suicide to murder.

Another body is found. Sylvia Furness, is the victim. She is also naked and handcuffed to a tree. She died of exposure. In the following chapter we read what Sylvia went through and learn that the killer checked facts on her daughter and then called Sylvia, claiming the he had her daughter and was going to rape her unless Sylvia would change places with her and agree to his demands.

With this death, the lead investigator, DI Veronica Cray, asks Joe's official help in finding the killer and stopping him before another woman dies.

The story moves well and in alternating chapters we learn the killer's plans and his history. The man is Gideon Tyler, an Afghanistan vet who worked in Intelligence and was a ruthless investigator. We eventually learn that Gideon's wife and daughter have vanished and he is looking for them while taking his hatred out on her old friends.

Joe is a nice character. He is intelligent but has his humaneness with his imperfections such as the Parkinson's disease and inability to help the first woman. He is also having difficulty with his wife and we don't know if this is the stress of his work or if something else is going on. Darcy Wheeler is also an interesting character and since this book is part of a series, I hope to see her in a future book.

"Shattered" has been nominated for a Barry Award and for the 2009 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and CWA Library Dagger award.

"The Fire" a washout

When I received an advanced reading copy of "The Fire" I anticipated an enjoyable read. This is the long awaited follow up to Katherine Neville's well reviewed "The Eight." However, I was disappointed with the book.

In "The Eight" the characters are unique and energized. In this work there is a lack of character development and the characters come across as stereotypes and cardboard figures.

Alexandra Solarin was in a chess tournament at the start of the story. If she won, she would become the youngest chess grandmaster while still under the age of 12.

Later, she is a young woman, she is attending the Culinary Institute and she is recruited by the CIA. Is this a play on letters? Culinary Institute is also CIA.

She travels to her mother's home in Colorado to attend a birthday party. The odd thing is that her mother never has birthdays. At the party is a room full of chess champions. The mother has disappeared but has left clues to her disappearance in the form of a chess game and riddles that must be solved. There has been some comparison of this novel to "The Da Vinci Code" with the puzzles but "The Fire" doesn't measure up.

There are alternating chapters where we are in present time and go back to ancient Persia. In many novels this is an effective tool to give background and history but here, in a slow moving story, it lessens any suspense and makes the novel more ponderous.

In addition, I had difficulty with the premise of the Magdalene Chess set that was the search in which the novel centered. The possession of the chess set contained a curse but also gives great power to the possessor. Therefore the set was scattered around and now Andrea was attempting to find the final pieces. She was also deemed to be the white queen. Preposterous.

Read the books in this series in order.

This is the fifteenth novel with the Troubleshooters, Inc. To the author's credit, it has become an immediate bestseller.

Alyssa Locke is a former Naval officer and FBI agent. She is the team leader for the nation's leading personal security company, Troubleshooters, Inc.

She's contacted to give a course in public safety to newly elected New York congresswoman, Maria Bonavita. The woman has had a number of threats against her.

Alyssa and her team, made up of former navy SEALs travel to New York and set up security around the congresswoman.

At the same time, the reader is given privy to the thoughts of a killer only known as The Dentist. Alyssa has hunted this man for a long time. Now his latest kill has been ruined and he wants to give himself up. He sees Alyssa enter a Starbucks and feels he can only surrender to her. However, when he enters the store, she is talking to someone else and The Dentist's moment is spoiled. It was so close, the last victim's body is still in the trunk of his car. However, now he feels that he has been given permission to kill again. He selects Alyssa as his next target.

Since the novel is the fifteenth book with this group of characters, the author must assume that the reader is familiar with the character's backgrounds. In this case, this novel is the first time I have read of the Troubleshooters. That being said, the characters do not have any real character development and come across stereotypical.

In addition, I felt that the antagonist's near invincibility until the end of the story was a reach. With the many SEALs and the New York police department after him, he goes on his hunt as if he didn't have a care in the world. Implausible.

I'm sure that the readers of previous books in this series would have a different opinion.

Reading history just makes me realize I'm old.

1897 in New York, someone attacks Senora Isabella Linares, the wife of a Spanish official. They hit her on the head and steal her baby.

The story is told from Stevie Taggert's point of view. Stevie is a former street urchin who is street smart but book ignorant. He is in a team of characters, Sara Howard who totes a derringer and has just opened a private eye business, John Schuyler Moore, a crime reporter, Marcus and Lucas Isaacson, New York City detectives.

They find details of the kidnapping and have Isobella go to an artest to make a sketch of the attacker. With copies of the sketch the Isaacsons check the police files and find a match for a nurse, Elspeth Hunter, aka, Libby Hatch, who was investigated for due to a number of infant deaths of the same respiratory ailment when the children were in her care. She is questioned and resigned.

The group go to her home. She lets them in but they don't have any evidence of the child. Later Stevie breaks in with a friend who has a dog that can smell scents. They find a hidden room but can't open the door due to the steel frame. The group gets hair fibers that they can identify but need more proof so travel by boat to upstate New York to learn more of Libby's background.

The book goes into such extensive detail that it becomes too long. The slow reading led to less interest in the resolution. It was very historical but the characters were somewhat enjoyable but also rather cardboard figures. Not much character build up but much historical information.

The ending was satisfactory but also a relief to get there.