Books

Lt Eve Dallas is used to murder in New York,  but when she gets a call to the scene of a triple homicide in Central Park, she discovers a crime unlike anything she’s seen before. A clinical hit, it could only be committed by a professional-military and/or police trained. So she calls in some favors.  Sorting through all the evidence, Eve is shocked to discover there isn’t one killer, but two. A mentor and a trainee. And Central Park is only the beginning.

Eve Dallas is back and facing one of her greatest challenges to date in the forty-third installment in J.D. Robb’s long-running futuristic mystery/thriller In Death series. Apprentice in Death opens the door to more action, mystery, and excitement as Eve and the NYSPD find themselves racing against time to stop a pair of deadly snipers whose still unknown agenda spells death for New York and its citizens.

Even forty three books in, Robb continues to combine solid writing, intriguing subplots, and dynamic characterization to keep her world evolving but familiar and comforting. Strong police procedurals keeps readers firmly engaged while subtle bits humor and lighter moments helps to offset some of the darker moments of the storyline.

It’s pretty clever!  Robb flashes between the police and the killers, allowing us to view Mackie and Willow as they set up for their next hit while Eve uses all her wits and talents to piece together the clues and evidence to form a picture that shocks even this hardened cop.

Robb begins to cross the two storylines and merge them together towards a climactic finale.   Eve and her team must work fast in order to try and predict where they will strike next. As per Robb’s style, a majority of the book focuses on the investigation of the case with well laid immersions of Eve’s personal life into the storyline.

Apprentice in Death is another intriguing addition to this series, giving readers an emotionally complex mystery to solve while enjoying the timeless couple whose love affair continues to capture our attention even forty three books later. Per usual, I love revisiting Robb’s version of the future and look forward to the next installment-Echoes In Death-set to release February 7, 2017.

John Connolly was hte first non American writer to win the US Shamus Award and the first Irish writer to win the Edgar Award. This is the 14th book in the series that sees the Hardened Private Investigator facibg down a strange isolated Appalachian mountain community called “The Cut” and a nameless evil they protect.

The novel gets going when Charlie Parker When he’s approached by Jerome Burnel, who just got out of prison, he doesn’t know what to think of the soft spoken man. At first. Jerome was a hero before he went to jail. He shot and killed two thieves during a convenience store robbery, putting himself in grave danger. Soon after the shooting, however, the authorities were alerted to child pornography found in his house and on his computer, and off to jail he went. He claims he’s innocent though, and Parker believes him. He also claims that his life is in danger from those that he claims set him up and asks Parker for help in bringing them down. This investigation will lead him to an insular and murderous West Virginia community called “The Cut.”

Supported by the swift and purposeful  Louis and Angel, the luckless and sad Jerome meets a sad end, while only these three figures plus a determined Sherriff’s deputy are able to bring Oberon and his treacherous sidekicks  in “The Cut” to justice of the flaming and deadly variety.

The Cut is a terrifying place, and just when you think they’ve exceeded the bounds of criminality, it’s obvious that they are truly beyond the pale, and repulsive is too nice of a descriptive. Fans of the series will not be disappointed, anew fans will find much to love in Connolly’s incredible talent for creating creeping, atmospheric dread.

“A Time Of Torment” is a good read, staying within sensible boundaries with characters that are as believable in the real world as your next door neighbour.

– 4 stars

It is always wonderful fun to open a package containing a book by a favourite author. And for many years I have tried to read everything written by Kellerman, almost as soon as it was written. This one has been out for a while, but I plead extended overseas travel as an excuse for only just getting to it.

Grace Blades is a psychologist with a very exclusive practice. She has a small list of loyal clients who come to her from great distances when necessary. Although she endured a very difficult childhood, clearly her life has turned around. Just before a short vacation, Grace receives an enquiry about a new patient, coming from Texas to talk to her. The first interview does not go well, and there is no chance of a second simply because the new patient is murdered. How, why, and who is this ‘stranger’ reappearing from Grace’s past. And then there is the attempt on her life…

Kellerman is back to his best with this new and fresh idea. This is a real page turner guaranteed to keep you reading until far too late at night. And if you have trouble sleeping, read this one only during daylight hours. You will be looking over your shoulder and listening for things that go bump.

Love a thriller? Don’t pass this one by.

Oh boy!  Meyer doesn’t hold back with her principal character in this novel! , an new adult thriller “The Chemist.”

Alex is  a medic and an interrogator who worked for a shadowy branch of the US government torturing terrorists before her bosses turned on her. Now she is a fugitive. Having already seen off three would-be assassins from” the agency,” she sleeps wearing a gas mask in whichever nondescript room she’s renting, various deadly chemical compounds rigged up to go off if anyone breaks in.  That’s a main character!

Known as “the Chemist,” because she used to squeeze the truth out of her suspects with excruciatingly painful drug concoctions, she was brilliant at her job, “batting a thousand”, she’s told at one point, with a perfect record. “I am the bogeyman in a very dark and scary world,” she says. “I frighten people who aren’t afraid of anything else, not even death. I can take everything they pride themselves on away from them; I can make them betray everything they hold sacred. I am the monster they see in their nightmares.”A little like “Miss Marfple of old, , we first meet her in a library, where she’s reading spy novels for ideas to keep her safe from her former employers. She doesn’t know why they want her dead, but she’s getting tired of running, and when she reads an email asking her to take on one last job for the agency, because “many, many lives” are on the line, she hopes her days as a fugitive might be at an end. At least, she hopes, she’ll be able to find out what they have on her. But as Alex delves deeper into the case – it involves biological warfare, and she’s able to rig up a few scenarios where her own particularly dark talents are made use of – she finds that nothing is as it seems, and that the corruption goes right to the highest levels.

The Chemist is not Meyer’s first adult novel – that was The Host, a story of alien invasion. There are no traces of the supernatural here, unless you count the preternaturally intelligent German shepherd that saves the day on more than one occasion. Rather, Meyer, clearly a major fan of the genre, has dreamed up a fast-paced thriller, and a tough, mysterious heroine with a penchant for decking herself out in dangerous jewellery, concealing syringes of poison in her belt and switchblades in her shoes. There are some great pitched battles leading up to a conclusion that it’s easy to imagine in the cinema