Finished 10-1-10, rating 4/5, thriller, pub. 2010

Do you believe in Fate?  I do, because I thought I’d never see you again-and then one day, there you were.  It all came back: how you sound, how you move-most of all, how you think.  If someone told you to think of a number, I know what number you’d think of.  You don’t believe me?  I’ll prove it to you.  Think of any number up to a thousand-the first number that comes to your mind.  Picture it.  Now see how well I know your secrets.  Open the little envelope.

Chapter 4

Retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney is living in the country with his wife, Madeleine, and a hobby of using mug shots of serial killers to make art.  His inability to move past police work frustrates Madeleine and their marriage suffers.  Dave is contacted by an old college friend for help in finding who is sending him provocative letters.  Dave wants him to go to the police, but he refuses, so Dave helps him the best he can.  Only it looks like his friend is not the only one in danger and Dave is sucked into a state-wide investigation.

The hook of this thriller is the letters.  Each one predicts a number that the recipient will guess between 1 and 1000 and the letter always knows.  The letters also promise exposure for a past sin unless the recipient send money.  I’m not usually one to figure things like this out without a lit of help and this was no different.  Looking back there was one clue that could have made it less of a surprise, but I missed it.  The hook was a successful one.

I liked the mystery of it, but I also really liked the story involving Dave and Madeleine.  In thrillers there is rarely time or effort put into showing relationships, but this one did address a crumbling marriage and it did make me more invested in the book.  I wanted to know what would become of the couple.

This is a great debut and if you are a thriller or mystery fan, don’t miss it.  It would also appeal to puzzle lovers.  I don’t know if he plans on writing more books about Dave, but if he does I’ll be first in line.

I received this book from Jenners at Life…With Books.  Thanks Jenners 🙂

Finished 8-31-10, rating 4/5, thriller, pub. 2007

Book 1 in the Kathryn Dance series

Kathryn Dance was often called a human lie detector, but that wasn’t accurate; in reality she, like all kinesic analysts and interrogators, was a stress detector.  This was the key to deception; once she spotted stress, she’d probe the topic that gave rise to it and dig until the subject broke.

Chapter 2

Kathryn is kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation and she has just been placed in charge of a manhunt for an escaped killer.  She had been interrogating the convict, Daniel Pell, before he escaped so she was able to get inside his head which helped her stay on his trail.  Pell had been the leader of a small cult and was hoping to start another after he set up after escaping.  Kathryn and Pell can both read people by their behavior and manipulate conversations and situations, so they were both evenly matched.

We first met Kathryn in The Cold Moon (a Lincoln Rhyme book), but you don’t need to have read that one to enjoy this fast paced thriller.  As with most of Deaver’s books I learned  a lot, not only about kinesics, but cult mentality as well.  I was disturbed by the interactions of the three women who had been with Pell before he went to prison.  I find the reasons behind joining a cult sad and the reality of it bizarre.

I enjoyed this one, but not as much as the Lincoln Rhyme series.  The characters were interesting, but not as well-developed.  It was a solid beginning to a new series and I plan on giving the second one a chance.

This is from my personal library and was chosen by Kristie, Margie, and Jason.  Here’s what they had to say…

“Great book!”  Kristie

“Really enjoyed it.”  Margie

Finished 8-23-10, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2000

Elfrida is a sixty-something retired actress who moves from London with her new dog Horace to a village in northern England.  She can afford a small cottage and has enough money to get by, but not much more.  She quickly makes friends with Oscar and Gloria who make her feel comfortable at their luxurious home.  When tragedy strikes Elfrida is thrown into an unlikely role, that of caretaker.

Elfrida is one of five people thrown together in a Scottish home over the Christmas holiday.  There is also a teenage girl, her aunt, an older man who has lost his faith, and a businessman moving there for work.  Elfrida has spunk, warmth, opinions, and I felt as taken in by her as the others in the house.  These people are all forced to live together because of events out of their control and manage to make Christmas work for them.

This was a very satisfying read.  I enjoyed Elfrida immensely and the house felt so alive and warm with the stories of the characters.  Some of the happenings seemed more than a little improbable but I closed the book having spent time with people I liked.

This is from my personal library and was chosen by Linda, Margot, FleurFisher, and Sandy.  Here’s what they had to say…

“Set in my part of the world.”  FleurFisher

“I love her books and wish there were more of them.”  Linda

Finished 8-11-10, rating 4/5, fiction/mystery, pub. 1998

She was a good detective, and a good woman.  A good woman in a good country, one might say.  She loved her country, Botswana, which is a place of peace, and she loved Africa, for all its trials.  I am not ashamed to be called an African patriot, Mma Ramotswe.  I love all the people whom God made, but I especially know how to love the people who live in this place.  They are my people, my brothers and sisters.  It is my duty to help them solve the mysteries in their lives.  That is what I am called to do.

Chapter 1

When Precious Ramotswe loses her beloved father she gains independence in her inheritance.  She decides to open a detective agency in Botswana and becomes the only female private eye in the country.  At first she gets only a few small cases and has some mishaps that are both funny and endearing.  The cases get more involved and Precious shows her spunk and common sense.

This isn’t exactly what I expected, but I enjoyed it.  I thought it would be a mystery and while Precious did solve cases, none of them took too much time, so it didn’t feel like a typical mystery.  I really enjoyed the first part of the book as we got to know about her life and the wisdom she accumulated, but it did seem separate from the second half about her agency.  I liked Precious and the Botswana setting and can see why so many people enjoy these books.  Precious is the reason to read the book and has more appeal than the mystery aspect. Now I want to see the HBO movie based on the book.

This book is from my personal library and was chosen by Hannah, JoJo, Sharon, Alita, Bonnie, Sarah, Wendy.  Here’s what they had to say…

“A heart-warming novel about a lady’s detective agency established in Zimbabwe, the many adventures of its owner as she goes about her detective work, as well as wonderful characters in the village.”  Sarah

“Sweet mystery series based in South Africa. I love the characters and the mood of these books. A wonderful series.”  Bonnie

“Love it! I’ve read this whole series and loved every one. It is not an edge of your seat story, but pulls you along. You wish you could know this woman.”  Sharon

“Because it’s a fun, quick, uplifting read with a hint of mystery and a strong female lead. Plus, it’s set in Africa!”  Hannah

Finished 8-7-10, rating 4/5, fiction, pub. 2003

My name is Odd Thomas, though in this age when fame is the altar at which most people worship, I am not sure why you should care who I am or that I exist.

I am not a celebrity.  I am not the child of a celebrity.  I have never been married to, never been abused by, and never provided a kidney for transplantation into any celebrity,  Furthermore, I have no desire to be a celebrity.

first lines of book

Odd Thomas is a 20-year-old fry cook who lives in a small California town whose big aspiration is to someday go into selling tires or maybe shoes.  You see, Odd has a gift, he sees dead people.  These ghosts are stuck in Pico Mundo because they have not yet crossed over and Odd is sometimes able to help them do that.  A few people know his secret, his girlfriend Stormy, the police chief, and Little Ozzie who convinces him to write this book.  Odd finds it easier to live within in the confines of Pico Mundo, I mean who knows how many ghosts he may be inundated with in a large city, and to live with low ambitions.  To do anything else might threaten his sanity, he thinks.

Then one day the bodachs arrive and Odd is scared.  Bodachs are evil beings, not ghosts and not able to hurt the living, but they follow evil and Pico Mundo has just been overrun with hundreds and thousands of them.  Odd needs to find out what’s going on before his town is devastated by unseen evil.  With the help of his friends and a ghostly Elvis as a sometime companion, Odd is on the case.

This book was not what I expected.  I love much of what Dean Koontz writes, they are often fast paced and intense, but this one was more introspective than the others I’ve read.  Odd is a character that is fully fleshed out and his story grabs your heartstrings while at the same time engaging the reader in a thrilling mystery.  There is humor and evil and heartbreak and Odd, a character you won’t soon forget. So, while I expected maybe more of a gripping thriller I was completely satisfied with the more fully realized story of Odd. 

Koontz has written more books about Odd and I do plan on reading them. 

This is from my personal library and was chosen by Donna, Sandy, and Sharon.  Here’s what they had to say…

“A great book with wonderful characters. My whole family just loves Odd.”  Donna

“I love Odd, he is a gentle soul.”  Sharon

Finished 7-10-10, rating 4/5, thriller, pub. 2010

Book #20 in the Lucas Davenport Prey series

Lucas and the gang are all back and ready to find the bad guys.  Weather is involved in a very high profile operation to separate conjoined twins and she unwittingly sees the inside guy of the pharmacy hold up at the hospital.  When one of the four men kills the pharmacist mere robbery turns to murder and the police are even more motivated to find the culprit.  The bikers who were responsible decide to bring in a hired gun to take out each other but they also decide that Weather must go too and this brings Lucas front and center.  Lucas trusts his friends Virgil Flowers, Jenkins, and Shrake to protect Weather and he is free to do what he does best, track down killers.

I’ve read every book of the series and the past few have only been okay for me, so I was happy to find myself completely engaged with Lucas again.  Maybe it was because this was as much about Weather as Lucas and the contrast worked.  And the bad guys were really bad.  The inside guy at the hospital was a real piece of work, even more so than the scary hired gun, Cappy. 

There was no mystery, only a compulsion to turn the pages to see how it would all play out, not only with the bad guys, but with the conjoined twins too.  The separation operation took up a lot of the storyline and it wa a nice change of pace.  Lucas and Weather seem to have a healthy home life with teen Letty and baby Sam, although they seem to have little interaction with the kids.  So, the one thing that struck me as odd was when Weather said she wanted another baby.  She never held the baby, even when she was housebound and under police protection fearing for her life.  But other than that this was a spot on thriller.

Another great addition to the series.

I checked this book out of the library.

Finished 7-3-10, rating 4/5, thriller, pub. 2010

“the establishment is bigger now, more entrenched.  The Roosevelt and Truman expansions were ratified by Eisenhower.  Kennedy’s and Johnson’s abuses were ratified by Nixon.  Bush Jr.’s extraconstitutional moves have all been ratified by Obama.  It’s a ratchet effect.  There hasn’t been a federal law in the last sixty years that’s done other than increase the government’s power and influence, and the power and influence of the corporations that manage the government by extension.  The leviathan only grows.”

Chapter 41

Black ops soldier Ben Treven is back in this political stand-alone thriller and the clock is ticking on his job of recovering 92 tapes of extreme torture that have been stolen.  If they are released to the public heads will roll and the people will rise up in horror.  Treven knows how to intimidate and kill without remorse and that is what makes him so good at his job, but the man with the tapes is even more impressive than Ben since he is the one who is performing these acts of unspeakable torture.  The CIA, FBI and other clandestine government groups all want the tapes for different reasons and in Ben’s pursuit, he becomes tied to a sexy FBI agent.

I read the first book with Treven, Fault Line, and liked this one better.  I was intrigued by the story of the tapes (Abu Graib anyone?) and how relevant the story is in today’s political climate.  It is timely, scary, and left me with disappointment in the government.  And I’m not choosing sides either, all politicians deserve my disgust at times. 

It moves fast and there is much to appreciate if you are a political junkie, like me.  The author spent three years in a covert position with the CIA, so he knows a thing or two about how things work.  The one thing I did dislike in the book was the one sex scene, which I found to be a little too much for me.  And I’m not opposed to sex scenes, but this one was too violent for my tastes.  But overall I liked the book a lot and it led to a great discussion with my husband on the Fourth of July.  The end also left an opening for the next Ben Treven book and I am hoping there will be one.

This book was sent to me by the author.