“Drop Shot”   by Harlan Coben

2011 Book Review #35

   Publishers Weekly Review

Quirky, sarcastic sports agent, Myron Bolitar makes his second appearance pursuing the killer of a 24-year-old has-been tennis star on the verge of making her comeback. When someone shoots Valerie Simpson near the Food Court during the U.S. Open, Myron learns she was urgently trying to contact him.

Rapid-fire dialogue reminiscent of Gregory McDonald's Fletch books keeps the pace whirring as Myron, sometimes aided by his elegantly lethal pal, Win Lockwood, prowls New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey.  

Dry humor and a self-deprecating attitude make Myron an appealing hero and minor characters are delineated with attitude and verve. The exception, Myron's girlfriend, Jessica, is so flawlessly beautiful, brilliantly accomplished and oversexed (rescued from an attempted gang rape, she immediately wants to make love), that she seems more a fantasy than a character. 

My Thoughts:  I like the characters and I liked this book.

“Murder, She Wrote…

The Queen’s Jewels”

by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain

   

 2011 Book Review #34

                     

          Summary

In the brand-new novel in the USA Today bestselling series, Jessica Fletcher takes a cruise through some rough…and deadly-seas. Jessica Fletcher has always wanted to take a transatlantic voyage on the legendary Queen Mary II. Now, she's finally getting her chance.

She's hoping to fly to London, spend a few quiet days visiting and then depart on the high seas. When she calls her old friend, Scotland Yard Inspector George Sutherland, to let him know she's on her way, he mentions the case of an enormously valuable diamond that was stolen from its wealthy owner, who was murdered during the heist. Jessica is well aware of the story. But, when she finally boards her dream ship, the deadly mystery appears to have followed her up the gangplank.

Now, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, she must try to enjoy the sumptuous seaborne surroundings while she tries to find a priceless diamond…and the killer desperate enough to take a life for it.

My Thoughts:  I really liked this book.  I watched the whole Murder She Wrote series on TV and Jessica Fletcher is one of my favorite characters!

"Running Blind"   by  Lee Child
A Jack Reacher Mystery

2011 Book Review #33

Booklist Review

Jack Reacher fits the profile of a serial killer being tracked by the FBI. Plus, he's connected to the victims, all of whom filed sexual harassment cases against the military. (Jack was the military policeman who investigated the women's cases.) 

The Feds don't think Jack did it, but they force him to help them find out who did. 

The crime scenes are elaborately bizarre yet bereft of clues. Reacher, skeptical of the official profile portraying the killer as a resentful anti-feminist, looks for other possible motives. One of them hits pay dirt, sending Jack on a deadly cross-country race with the killer. 

This fourth Reacher thriller is easily the best. The plot is a masterpiece of misdirection, red herrings, and veiled motives. Reacher himself is an evolving, ever more likable moralist who sometimes gives in to his inner thug. He belongs at the same table with the genre's leading tough-tender sleuths: Parker's Spenser and Burke's Robicheaux among them. 

My Thoughts:  Child is another one of my favorite authors and the Reacher stories just get better and better.  There is a surprise ending and I love those!

"To Have And To Kill"  
       by Mary Jane Clark

2011 Book Review #32

Booklist Review

Struggling actress Piper Donovan moves back in with her parents in New York City. With no immediate prospects for work, she helps out with the family bakery business. When her friend Glenna, star of a daytime soap opera, gets engaged, Piper agrees to create the wedding cake.

Then Glenna's costar, Travis York, dies at a charity auction of cyanide poisoning. There's no shortage of suspects, including Glenna's fiancé, Casey Walden, and her ex-con ex-husband, Philip. But who was the real target?

When Piper learns that Glenna has been receiving threatening letters, she decides to investigate, with the help of her ex-neighbor Jack, an FBI agent.

Clark's latest mystery is the first in a new series, in which all the entries will involve wedding cakes. The intriguing premise will interest fans of foodie crime.

My Thought:  I liked this book.  The plot was believable and the characters are fun.

“Tick Tock”   By  James Patterson 

                              and Michael Ledwidge

A Detective Michael Bennett Novel

2011 Book Review #31

                                                           

                                                                Summary:

NYC's #1 detective, Michael Bennett, has a huge problem…the Son of Sam, the Werewolf of Wisteria and the Mad Bomber are all back. The city has never been more terrified!

Tick--a killer's countdown begins, a rash of horrifying crimes tears through the city, throwing it into complete chaos and terrorizing everyone living there. Immediately, it becomes clear that they are not the work of an amateur, but of a calculating, efficient, and deadly mastermind.

Tick--Michael Bennett is on the chase. The city calls on Detective Michael Bennett, pulling him away from a seaside retreat with his ten adopted children, his grandfather, and their beloved nanny, Mary Catherine. Not only does it tear apart their vacation, it leaves the entire family open to attack.

Tock--your time is up.  Bennett enlists the help of a former colleague, FBI Agent Emily Parker.  As his affection for Emily grows into something stronger, his relationship with Mary Catherine takes an unexpected turn.  

All too soon, another appalling crime leads Bennett to a shocking discovery that exposes the killer's pattern and the earth-shattering enormity of his plan. From the creator of the #1 New York detective series comes the most volatile and most explosive Michael Bennett novel ever.

My Thoughts:  I love all of James Patterson’s mystery books and this is no exception.  He just gets better and better!

“Crooked Heart”   by Cristina Sumners

A Reverend Kathryn Koerney Novel

2011 Book Review #30

  

  Booklist Review

Chief of Police Tom Holder is middle-aged, 40 pounds overweight, and trapped in an appallingly bad marriage. When a suburban housewife goes missing, it doesn't take Tom long to conclude that she is a kindred soul who has decided to run away from her despicable husband.

However, the case soon becomes more complicated, and he enlists the bright, attractive Reverend Kathryn Koerney (with whom he is secretly smitten) to help question a child who believes she has witnessed a murder.

Sumners shapes a case that mirrors the emotions of the lead characters. The simmering erotic tension between Tom and Kathryn, which they refuse to act on, constrained by their faith and their roles, is reflected back to them in the course of their investigation of two people who acted on their attraction with disastrous results.

Sumners also explores the nature of unrequited love--is it cowardice or conscience? What happens when you play it too safe? This is smart, engaging writing in what one can only hope is the beginning of a series.

My Thoughts: Sumner has written a couple more books since this Booklist Review was written.  I have reviewed two others previously.  I like the characters and the plots in all of them.   The author is becoming one of my favorites.

“The First Rule”  By Robert Crais

 

2011 Book Review #37

 Publishers Weekly Review

When garment importer Frank Meyer and his family are executed in their Los Angeles home, at the start of bestseller Crais' adrenaline-fueled second thriller to feature PI Joe Pike, LAPD detectives soon connect Meyer to Pike, who knew each other from their days as military contractors.

 Pike is convinced that Meyer, who left soldiering to start a family, wasn't dirty, even though his murder is the seventh in a series of violent robberies where the victims were all professional criminals. Determined to clear his friend's name, Pike discovers that Frank's nanny and her family have ties to Eastern European organized crime.

With the help of PI partner, Elvis Cole (the lead in Chasing Darkness and eight other books), Pike engages in a dangerous…and not always legal-game of cat and mouse with some of the city's most dangerous crooks. Pike emerges as an enigmatically appealing hero, whose lethal skills never overshadow his unflappable sense of morality. 

My Thoughts:  This is a new author for me and I really liked the characters and this book.

“Sam’s Letters to Jennifer” 

by James Patterson

 

2011 Book Review #29

 Publishers Weekly Review

Though Patterson is best known for his Alex Cross thrillers, one of his biggest-selling titles has been Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas (2001), an affecting love story awash in tragedy and hope. This new, less powerful but compulsively readable novel is cut from the same sentimental cloth, with the narrative hook here being not diary entries but letters that an elderly woman writes to her beloved granddaughter.

When Jennifer, a grieving widow and columnist for the Chicago Tribune, hears that her grandmother Samantha has fallen and is in a coma, she races to Sam's town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. At Sam's home on the shores of the lake, she finds a packet of letters addressed to her; their text, recapping Sam's life with an abusive husband but, also, with a mysterious lover she calls "Doc," occupies half the novel.

In counterpart runs Jennifer's romance with a childhood friend, Brendan, she reunites with, only to learn that he is dying of brain cancer…a romance that allows her to heal her grief for her dead husband, Danny, who drowned the year before.

The novel's structure works brilliantly, with Patterson as usual using brief chapters and simple prose to propel the reader onward; more thrust comes from the plot questions: Will Sam survive? Who is Doc? What will become of Jennifer and dying Brendan? The answers will leave readers satisfied but not as stirred as they were with Suzanne. This is a slighter tale, but also one that few if any will put down as Patterson again shows how it is done. 

My Thoughts:  I was surprised that a man wrote a book like this!  I loved this book.  I have not read Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas, but, I will!

"The Harbor"   by Carla Neggers

2011 Book Review #28

Publishers Weekly Review

Patrick West, chief of police in Goose Harbor, Maine, is murdered following a visit to his 101-year-old aunt, Olivia. Olivia passes away after hearing of her nephew's death but not before trying to say she knows who murdered him. 

The murder remains unsolved, and in the year following Patrick's death, his daughter Zoe virtually self-destructs, abandoning her police career and secluding herself in Connecticut.  Zoe returns to Goose Harbor after her sister Cristina calls to say that someone has broken into her house. 

Around the same time, burnt-out FBI agent, J.B. McGrath rolls into town claiming to be on vacation. Inevitably, Zoe and J.B. team up to solve a string of inexplicable crimes that are somehow related to her father's murder. The relationship between Zoe and J.B. is well paced and believable, and a secondary thread concerning J.B.'s connection to Olivia is a nice twist.

My Thoughts:   I liked this book better than ""Stonebrook Cottage".  The characters were believable. 

“The Vanished Man”   by Jeffery Deaver

            A Lincoln Rhyme Novel

2011 Book Review #27

 Booklist Review

Often, it's the details that help solve crimes, and no one does detail better than Deaver, particularly by way of the forensic expertise of Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, most recently paired in The Stone Monkey.

When a student is found dead, the clues lead Amelia and Lincoln on a hunt for a magician--an escape artist, no less, who also happens to have the talents of sleight of hand and illusion on his side.

Amelia and Lincoln enlist the aid of Kara, who studies under the mysterious master magician, David Balzac. As more dead bodies pop up accompanied by the same calling card, the team homes in on the perp, dubbed the Conjurer. As Kara tells it, all magic comes in two parts: effect and method. The effect is what you want the audience to see, and the method is the technique used to elicit that effect.

This theme continues throughout the novel; wheelchair-bound, introspective Rhyme compares this duality to his crime-solving process, and the bulk of the book is divided into two like-named parts. Well-researched and exciting, this has all the elements of good crime fiction: likable leads, a colorful supporting cast, fascinating scientific analysis, and a look at the secrets of an otherwise unknown world.

My Thoughts:  I love Lincoln Rhyme and all the other characters in this series of books.

This one is complicated and has a surprise ending!  Even better!

"Stonebrook Cottage"   
          by Carla Neggers


2011 Book Review #26


From…Publishers Weekly Review

In the hopes of bringing some balance into her hectic life, high-powered defense attorney Kara Galway moves back to her childhood home in Texas after years of living in New England.

Then, Connecticut governor "Big Mike" Parisi, is murdered in his pool. Not long afterwards, Kara's best friend, new governor Allyson Stockwell, begins receiving sinister crank calls that she is concealing, and her two precocious preteens disappear from their Texas summer camp only to reappear, terrified, on Kara's doorstep with a stalker at their heels and a possibly forged note from mom begging Kara to bring them back to the town where they witnessed Mike's death.

To do so, Kara illegally, and somewhat illogically, "borrows" her lawman brother's gun and private plane, but readers needn't worry long. Strong, sensitive and seductive Texas Ranger Sam Temple is hot on her trail and ready to come to the rescue.

Although Neggers includes a few far-fetched plot turns, her skill at creating colorful characters and deliciously twisted story lines makes this an addictive read. 

My Thoughts:  Although I found the actions and reactions of some of the characters in this book slightly unbelievable, the plot kept my interest throughout.  

“Treachery in Death”   by  J.D. Robb

A Lieutenant Eve Dallas Novel  (Year 2060)

2011 Book Review #25

  

Publishers Weekly Review

Lt. Eve Dallas and her squad take on corrupt cops in Robb's 33rd full-length novel featuring the New York Police and Security Dept. homicide detective, a fast-paced, intricate, and deadly dance of well-matched opponents.

When Dallas's partner, Detective Delia Peabody, overhears an angry exchange between Lt. Rene Oberman and Detective. William Garnet that reveals an unlawful killing and ongoing skimming, Dallas's reaction to this news is decisive: "the blue line breaks for wrong cops."

The setting may be slightly futuristic, but the procedures are familiar: Dallas puts together a solid team that meets in her home to avoid leaks as they compile evidence. At the same time, she initiates confrontations with the dangerous Oberman, whom she begins pushing toward a trap.

From this pure good guys versus bad guys scenario, Robb (aka Nora Roberts) wrings plenty of exciting strokes and counterstrokes before reaching the satisfying climax.

My thoughts:  I love Lt. Eve Dallas and her Staff!  This series of books are based on cop work in the 2058-2060 years.  It is futuristic but, not unrealistic.  If you enjoy police suspense, you'll not only enjoy this book but, the entire series of  "in Death" stories! 

"Fatal Error"   by J.A. Jance

2011 Book Review #24

Booklist Review

After successfully completing training at the Arizona Police Academy, Ali Reynolds is furloughed by the Yavapai County Sheriff's Department because of budget cuts. So when Brenda Riley, a former TV journalist gone to seed, asks for help in finding her online fiancé, Ali is game.

A background check by Ali's boyfriend's computer-security company, High Noon Enterprises, reveals Brenda's fiancé to be Richard Lowensdale, an engineer laid off by failing defense contractor Rutherford International.

It turns out Richard has a history of cyber-stalking vulnerable women. Then Richard turns up murdered, and Brenda, after being labeled a suspect, disappears. Ali's search for Brenda puts her in pursuit of a cold blooded killer and in the midst of an FBI investigation involving Rutherford's unscrupulous dealings.

A pushy broad who's about to become a grandmother, Ali has the savvy and the resources (wealth from her late husband and technical assistance from High Noon) to go where an investigation leads.

My Thoughts:  I love Jance's  J.P. Beaumont and Joanne Brady characters.  Ali Reynolds is a new character for me, but I find I like her too!  This is the first book with the Reynolds character that I have read...the plot is a little complicated, but interesting.  I hope no one in real life would be as gullible as the victims in this one.  I just can’t imagine anyone getting engaged to someone they meet in a chat room online and have never even seen!

"Strategic Moves"   by Stuart Woods

A Stone Barrington Novel

2011 Book Review #23

Booklist  Review 

Stone's hapless client Herbie Fisher has married the daughter of a financier who might be guilty of embezzlement. Stone gets involved with Herbie's wife's aunt, but their relationship is cut short when she's shot execution-style in her apartment.

Before Stone can delve into the murder investigation, he's tapped by another client to oversee a joint mission with the CIA to retrieve arms dealer Pablo Estancia, who stages a dramatic escape and then turns up in Stone's office requesting his legal counsel.

 Meandering and slow moving, the story loses all its early steam when it switches gears from the embezzlement-and-murder story line to send Stone on the improbable mission to Iraq, followed by chapter upon chapter of dull negotiations with the CIA.

Woods even manages to make the usually appealing Stone unlikable when he advises his client to wait to share crucial information with the intelligence agency. Woods' recent novels have been fast paced and exciting; alas, this is a clunker.

My Thoughts:  I agree with this reviewer.  I have read all the Stone Barrington Novels and I am very disappointed with this one.  It's not Barrington's character at all!