"A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent." William Blake

Ryan James, a promising minor league baseball player is playing the last game of the season when he gets the word that his wife, Chelsea and daughter, Ainsley, have been in a car accident. By the time he arrives at the hospital, his world collapses when he's informed that Chelsea died on the operating table.

Three years go by and Ryan is a morning talk show host on a local radio station. He's left baseball, suffers from insomnia and is raising Ainsley on his own.

Emma Carlisle is a bright, young trial lawyer in Providence, Rhode Island and couldn't put the Chelsea James case out of her mind. The case had gotten significant publicity in the area, due to the young mother dying and her husband's promising career.

As the third anniversary of Chelsea's death arrives, Emma finds a note on the windshield of her car. There is a newspaper story about the car accident in which Chelsea died and someone attached a note, "I know who did it."

Complications arise. Chelsea's younger brother, Babes, who suffers from Asperger's Syndrom, and is a naive, childlike man, goes missing. Emma believes that she sees him at the scheduled rondezvous where an informant will reveal what they know of Chelsea's accident. When Emma makes a motion to approach Babes, he runs away.

Then Emma talks to Ryan and inadvertently tells him that the suspect in the drunk driving is a political figure currently running for reelection.

The characters are what make this good feeling mystery interesting. Ryan, Emma and Babes are all characters that the reader gets to know and becomes drawn to so that we become curious to know what happens to them.

The author is very talented and just when the reader thinks that they might have an idea of the direction of the story, something is revealed and the story changes direction.

Readers will enjoy the story as we see a character's hopes for the future, dashed and later, when hope is turning to despair, there is an uplifting as if there was a greater power seeing that such love and life will have some meaning.

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"Down the way where the lights are gay...I took a trip on a sailing ship." Song Lyrics

In Elmore Leonard's new novel, he writes of Somalia pirates and life in the Djibouti area.

Dara Barr has been an award winning filmmaker. She reads about the Somalia pirates becoming more brazen and decides to do a documentary about them.

She is accompanied by a philosophical cameraman and confidante, Xavier LeBo, who stands six foot six and is a virorous seventy-two years old.

Dara and Xavier travel to Djibouti, in Northeast Africa, a country bordering Somalia. She views the pirates as the underdogs. These people have an average income of under $1,000. and have high malnutrition and mortality. However, they are brave enough to attempt to stop the massive tankers crossing their waters.

In their search, Dara and Xavier meet various people, none of whom seem to be what they appear, at first glance. There is a wealthy Texan, Billy Wynn, who lives on his yacht. His companion is Helene, a former model, who he promises to marry if she's proven acceptable by not becoming seasick or restless on the yacht. Billy has another side to him in reference to his dealings with the pirates and al Qaeda terrorists.

Xavier introduces Dara to her first pirate, a likable man named Idris. Idris is now retired and drives his Mercedes as a status symbol. He tells Dara that he can introduce her to other pirates and one of his friends is Jama, an African American al Queda Muslim, who becomes a cold hearted killer and wants to make a statement by setting off an explosive bomb.

The story was interesting and the characters were certainly different. It was bothersome how Dara could be so accepting of people who were going around killing others. Xavier is a colorful character and one who would remain in the reader's mind into the future.

I think that readers will enjoy this story telling a part of the Somalia philosophy that is not highly publicized. The pacing was well done and the dialogue masterful.

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"Broken hearted melody won't you bring him back to me." Song lyrics

The title of this novel could represent the status of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves.

Officer Lena Adams of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrives at the scene where a suicide note is left at a lover's lane spot, popular by area teens. The spot is at the side of Lake Grant. When divers recover the body of a young woman, Lena sees a stab wound to the rear of the girl's neck and knows she's not dealing with a suicide. The girl is identified as Allison Spooner, a college student and waitress at a nearby restaurant.

Lena accompanies acting chief, Frank Wallace, to Allison's apartment. On route, Lena smells alcohol on Frank and then observes him drinking from a flask. At the apartment, they are met by Brad Stevens, a young detective on the police force. When Brad looks in the apartment window, he sees a person they believe must be Allison's boyfriend, Tommy Brakam. He has a mask on and his holding a knife.

In the attempt to question Tommy, he becomes out of control and stabs Brad. Then Tommy is caught and jailed.

While the other officers accompany Brad to the hospital, Tommy commits suicide in the jail. In looking at his background, we learn that he was a flawed, or broken individual. He was just nineteen-years-old and had an i.q. of around eighty.

Dr. Sara Linton arrives at her parents' home for Thanksgiving. She had been married to the former chief of police and blames Lena for her husband's death. Sara was also the former coroner. Prior to Tommy's suicide, she had been asked to come to the jail and speak to Tommy.

When she finds that Tommy had committed suicide, Sara learns that Lena had interrogated Tommy. Thinking that this is another case of Lena failing to do her job, Sara calls in Special Agent Will Trent to investigate a possible case of police neglect.

Of the characters, Lena is a broken or flawed person due to her guilt over the former chief's death. Although she had been cleared, she still felt responsible.

Acting Chief Wallace appears to be an alcoholic and overreacts to the situation.

Sara's flaw is that she cannot forgive Lena and wants her to pay for causing Lena's husband Jeff's death.

In an interesting plot, we see the police investigate Allison's murder and Tommy's suicide. Will Trent is an appealing character. He is dyslexic and had grown up in a foster home. He has overcome his dyslexia to a point but has difficulty reading police reports.

There is an interesting portrayal of the town and the university. The university doesn't want any bad publicity and often covers up crimes.

I enjoyed Lena's characterization. She's easy to sympathise with and is a sincere person and wants to do the correct thing, even if it costs her job or her freedom.

The novel was very interesting and the story seemed as if it could have been taken from the local newspaper of a city that has a large university in it.

Recommended.

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"No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly." Miguel De Cervantes

This is a story that shows a woman's transformation from an unattractive, submissive wife into an assertive and lovely woman who knows what she wants and how to go about it.

Nell Calder wasn't born beautiful, a fact that even her unfeeling mother informed her about. How she was able to grow normally in an home with an unloving mother was a tribute to an inner strength she didn't know she had.

She married well but at a party on an island in the Aegean Sea, her husband, Richard, a banker, and her precious four-year-old daughter, Jill, were murdered. Nell fell from a balcony during the struggle with a killer and was so badly injured that she needed plastic surgery.

After the reconstructive surgery, Nell's appearance changed to that of a lovely woman but inside, she was still a shell. When she learned that her family had been murdered, she went into a depressed state.

Nicholas Tanek was at the party and felt somewhat responsible for the killings. He tells Nell that the man responsible for the tragic killings is Philippe Gardeaux, and that the killings were carried out by Gardeaux's man, Paul Maritz. Gardeaux is a criminal and attempting to gain prestige and position with the Colombian drug lords. After learning of the man who ordered her family murdered, Nell has a new reason to live, revenge.

The author does a nice job in describing Nell's progress into a woman possessed with the need to seek revenge from the killer of her family. We also see Nicholas bring out a softer side of Nell, as an artist. However, she keeps this in the background as she is undergoing physical strengthening and learning offensive skills to use against the killer.

Nicholas is a criminal of sorts and a rival of Gardeaux but he doesn't deal in drugs. He brings Nell to his ranch to train and admits that he is an adversary of Gardeaux and will continue to pursue him for Nell but she insists that she wants to be part of the revenge, with his help.

This is a fast moving novel with a number of interesting characters. At one point, Nell signs up for training in a para-military facility in Florida and meets a young man named Peter Drake who had been sent there by his father so that he could become tough. Peter is a childlike person and slow mentally. Nell's relationship with him as a form of big sister, was a pleasant sub-story.

I enjoyed the novel and the plot development. The author provided a surprise toward the end that was well done but perfectly logical.

An enjoyable read.

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"We did come from the land of ice and snow." Song Lyrics

Maura Isles, a Boston medical examiner, attends a conference in Wyoming. She meets an old friend from medical school and decides to join his companions on a ski trip.

In the heavy snow, they make a wrong turn and become stranded on a deserted road.

Seeking help, they arrive at a group of homes to find that they are all empty and look as if they have been recently deserted.

One of Marua's companions becomes seriously injured and another tries to ski back to a populated area to find help. When this person doesn't return, Maura feels that she is the best one left to attempt to get help.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, Maura's friend, Daniel Brophy, a Catholic priest that she has been seeing, becomes concerned when she doesn't arrive at the airport on her scheduled return trip. He tries calling her with no success and finally asks Maura's friend, Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli, for help. Jane and her FBI husband, Gabriel, make some queries and feel worried enough that they travel to Wyoming to search for Maura.

The suspense mounts as the local police do not seem very forthcoming. Then there is a report of finding bodies of a man and woman burned beyond recognition but there is evidence that the woman may have been Maura.

The author provides exceptional pacing in this novel. As law enforcement personnel approach the suspected mastermind of a number of deaths, it is as if Tess Gerritsen was a composer and the reader listening to music such as the "1812 Overture," as the action reached its climax.

After this high point, the author provided an unforeseeable plot twist that succeeded in taking me by surprise. I found this part of the book anticlimactic and would have liked it just as well if the novel concluded prior to the plot twist. I also felt that the author had one major character being attributed to acts that would have been out of character with the way the character was described prior to that point. This change was difficult to accept.

The author did deal with a number of sensitive subjects in the novel such as cults and the manner in which women can be relegated to a lower role in cults. Gerritsen also provides information on the children born from cult families and how, sometimes they are neglected.

Overall, a fun read.

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"When you're growing up in Brooklyn, the Bridge is like a friend." Barry Manilow

In August, 1978, Samantha Bonti, is a fifteen-year-old, living in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn with the dream of someday becoming a writer and crossing the Brooklyn Bridge to become a success in Manhattan.

Samantha "Sam" is half-Jewish, half-Catholic in a neighborhood that is predominantly Catholics of Italian heritage. She is sometimes shunned in this Italian neighborhood. Luckily, as she begins high school, she meets Janice Caputo, a senior at the school. Janice is street savvy and becomes Sam's best friend.

At the Feast of Santa Rosalia, mixed with the sound of the elevated subway and the sizzle and aroma of sausage and peppers, Janice introduces Sam to a twenty-year-old named Tony Kroon. Kroon is also of mixed heritage being Dutch-Italian. He is a construction worker with the muscles to prove it, along with his blond hair.

Sam becomes infatuated with Tony and believes that she has met her dream man. She writes about her experiences in the manuscript she is working on and feels a happiness unlike anything she's felt before. She is conscientious with Tony because of her sick mother and the fact that she and her mother live on Sam's grandmother's social security and Sam's mother's welfare checks.

Although happy in her relationship with Tony, Tony is controlling and wanting to advance their romance to a degree that Sam isn't ready for. She creates boundaries and demands his respect.

The novel continues with their relationship and the Italian friends of Tony who are obviously doing illegal things. When Tony begins spending large amounts of money on Sam, she is concerned where the money came from.

In a moving story, we see Tony go from the controlling person to steps in abuse and see what happens to Sam. She is a courageous person with dreams that won't be dimmed.

The dialogue is another strong point as is Sam's descriptions of her Brooklyn neighborhood. The novel is being developed into a movie and I can only hope that the movie is as good as the book.

This is a debut novel from an author of great promise. Recommended.

"You're searching for good times...but you'll come...back...to me." Song lyrics

In a well acclaimed, tender, coming of age story, "The Time Traveler's Wife," opens with Claire Abshire, age twenty, and Henry De Tamble, age twenty-eight, accidentally meeting at her library.

Claire immediately recognizes Henry from her past but Henry is at a point of time travel where he hadn't met her yet. He suffers from Chrono-Displacement Disorder and moves through time without control.

Claire is a sweet woman who appears like a special next door neighbor or the girl you fell in love with in the eighth grade. Her love for Henry is intricately described so that the reader knows just what Claire is feeling as she finds her love, as he had promised she would, in the past.

The novel moves back and forth between other times and is told from both character's points of view.

We are also privy to Claire's and Henry's difficulties with time travel. Henry tells us that at one point he sees a young child die in an accident and wishes that he could go back in time so he could warn the child's mother to be careful. However, he has learned that with time travel, he can't change history.

Claire has the difficulty of keeping Henry's appearances secret. When she becomes a teenager, there is also loneliness in the time that Henry is not there and she feels alone and segregated from her friends since she can't tell her friends about Henry.

There is some difficulty in keeping track of the character's ages at the various times they meet since this happens out of sequence in the novel. Later in the story, Henry tells a friend that Claire first met him when she was age six. She met him in 1977 but he first met her in time travel in 1991.

The love story was a pleasure to read about and how the characters overcame the difficulty with time. I felt that there were times when the story seemed to meander but for originality and characters that the reader can feel empathy and fondness for, this was a superior novel.

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