“For more than half a century, there [was] no manned presence on the lunar surface. That was about to change …”
One of my fondest and most vivid read“For more than half a century, there [was] no manned presence on the lunar surface. That was about to change …”
One of my fondest and most vivid reading memories is my first reading of Tom Clancy’s THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, arguably English literature’s first techno-thriller. I recall holding my breath, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, and swallowing deeply as defecting Soviet submarine Captain Marko Ramius played a deadly silent game of hide and seek in the mountainous undersea terrain of the Reykjanes Ridge off the coast of Iceland. EAGLE STATION riffs on the same themes by moving that international chess match into the air, into space, and onto the surface of the moon, as a Sino-Soviet alliance wages covert (and officially undeclared but very, very hot) warfare (with extreme prejudice) against the USA over control of the lunar surface and the mining of the moon’s helium-3 resources.
There is no shortage of brilliantly exploited, fast-paced themes here to thrill even the most hard-core technology, political, and military junkies – hard-nosed international diplomacy; deployment of the recently created US Space Force; hard-core military tit for tat that treads ever closer to the boundary of a declared world war; high speed aerial battles; advances in weaponry that would make your head spin; and, of course, government decision making under the stress of all of these conditions.
EAGLE STATION is a snap to recommend to fellow readers and the latest nominee for my Top Ten of 2024 reading list.
On a side note as we rapidly approach the fateful November day on which the US will decide whether its future will include democracy and the rule of law, I shuddered when I tried to imagine a certain Donald J Trump in place of EAGLE STATION’s president, John Dalton Farrell. The possible results for the world as I pictured Trump making decisions in the same scenarios were simply terrifying. Food for thought … !
A jaw-dropping exposé of the realities of American presidential politics and US voting culture!
The premise of NO SAFE PLACE is simplicity itself. It’A jaw-dropping exposé of the realities of American presidential politics and US voting culture!
The premise of NO SAFE PLACE is simplicity itself. It’s a fictional biography of Kerry Kilcannon from a rough and tumble youngster, the child of Irish immigrants, through to his election as a senator climaxing with his contesting the crucial battleground of the California primary as the Democrat nominee for president. It’s dramatic, provocative, evocative, frightening, gut-wrenching, compelling and awesome in its realistic depiction of the insanity that is the American electoral system.
A handful of quotations will serve to portray the flavor of Patterson’s brilliant achievement:
On the character, capabilities, and competence of 20th century politicians: “Politicians were … petty men taking small chances for selfish reasons, trying to manipulate just enough of a cynical public to keep themselves in office.” or “A candidate should make speeches … not decisions. Decisions are too important.” and the succinct characterization “… everything that’s wrong with politics in the nineties – cowardice masked as cleverness, leadership b poll, symbolic gestures, careful attention to special interests.”
One might go so far as to say that NO SAFE PLACE was a door-stopper size condemnation of the entire political process in the USA which, in my opinion, is eminently warranted and absolutely deserved.
On racism and illegal immigration: “You and I will never live to see the day that being a white guy isn’t a better deal. And you have illegals in California partly because whites want cheap labor.”
On the 2nd Amendment: “The notion that James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights so that racists and sociopaths and madmen could slaughter innocent men, women, and children with assault weapons or handguns is one of the most contemptible notions that an irresponsible minority has ever crammed down the throats of its potential victims.”
On electioneering and political campaigning: “ … we have a ‘shoot to kill’ political culture premised on permanent scandal, where people in both parties don’t just try to win but to destroy each other with charges and countercharges. And I’ve stopped counting the number of special prosecutors there are.” (Aileen Cannon, are you paying attention? But I digress!)
On the country’s attitude toward its own military and veterans: “One of the ugliest truths of Vietnam was that the Americans who died there were disproportionately poor, disproportionately black, disproportionately less educated. And one of its ugliest legacies is the elitist notion the only men and women who now need serve our country are those for whom the military is a jobs program.”
Electoral reform, abortion, right-to-life and evangelical Christianity (obviously) popped up their heads repeatedly for consideration in a novel that, in a single phrase, needs to be read.
A great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, hoA great debut to what promises to be a creepy (and thoroughly entertaining) series!
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is definitely a blend of genres – paranormal, horror, psychological thriller, and murder mystery. Whether there is intent or malevolence remains an open question, even as the novel reaches its closing pages, but it is certainly true (as the title coyly suggests) that one would be truly unfortunate if one was to upset Truly DeCanter, a young girl apparently suffering from repressed memories of childhood abuse.
Drawing on whiffs of the supernatural abilities of Stephen King’s eponymous character CARRIE, C.A. King places Truly at the heart of a pattern of unexplained deaths in Knollville. The police investigators acknowledge that the solution to the mystery, if it is even possible to find one, lies beyond the realm of normal human experience.
TRULY UNFORTUNATE is short and sweet but it’s a gripping page-turner and a novel that will definitely raise your eyebrows with hopes to follow up on further entries in the series. And, more than that, I’ll definitely be looking for other novels by the same author. Kudos to an up and coming Canadian author I had the good fortune to meet at a recent local book festival.
“There were riots in Paris, but there are always riots in Paris”
Post-apocalyptic and dystopian, cynical, cautionary, satirical, hilarious, concern“There were riots in Paris, but there are always riots in Paris”
Post-apocalyptic and dystopian, cynical, cautionary, satirical, hilarious, concerned, realistic, evocative, ominous, thought-provoking … MR ADAM is all of the above and a good deal more besides.
Consider a hypothetical world in which a nuclear accident sterilizes every man on the planet except Mr Adam, a rather unassuming, mildly introverted man with a definite case of low self-esteem, who happened to be working deep in a mine shielded by vast quantities of lead deposits at the time of the accident. Pat Frank’s brilliant (but hopefully not prescient) tale tells the disconcerting story of a shocked world’s reactions to the situation from a variety of possible perspectives – young vs old; male vs female; government or military vs citizens; nation vs nation; and, of course, Mr Adams vs the rest of the world who see artificial insemination (with him as the sole source of semen) as the only possibility for the continuation of the human race (as if that is necessarily a good thing, LOL!).
Easy, easy, easy to recommend to other readers and a definite incentive to explore Pat Frank’s more widely known classic, ALAS, BABYLON.
A dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation toA dead end street – nine houses, nine neighbours, nine creepy little horror shorts!
The host of a street dinner party makes the startling revelation to his guests that the original residents of their houses were a coven of nine witches who made a pact to keep “the spirits bound to the other realm”. But, in time, that magic has been weakening, “barely holding on by a thread”. If the residents fail to strengthen the number nine in their lives, then the resulting failure of that binding could free those spirits. “Terrible things could happen on Nine Street”. And THAT is the basis for a thoroughly entertaining collection of tales indeed!
TWISTED TALES OF A DEAD END STREET is a bravura collection of fast-paced horror shorts with themes of murder, animal abuse, paranormal, and malevolent spirits delivered with humour, a cast of characters with tongue-in-cheek Dickensian names, and suitably gothic atmosphere. Although each of the chapters stands on its own merits as a compelling short story, the linkage between the stories provides the basis for a clever ending twist in the final chapter.
This is the first of three books that I purchased when I met the author at a local book fair. I’m definitely looking forward to the other two and I’m thrilled to have made the acquaintance of such a skilled local author that I can happily recommend to fellow readers.
“On a stone hearth in the centre, a fire of yak dung burned brightly and an old Tibetan woman was crumbling brick tea into a cauldron of boiling wa“On a stone hearth in the centre, a fire of yak dung burned brightly and an old Tibetan woman was crumbling brick tea into a cauldron of boiling water.”
Jack Drummond, an involuntary retiree from the British Navy, now makes his living as a mercenary gun-runner, a smuggler to order if you will, following the money he needs to live and prepare a dubious retirement. One last mission is in the cards delivering weapons to Tibetan guerillas in their hot/cold struggle against the Chinese Communists. But that idea goes down in literal flames when his plane, such as it is, is destroyed and Drummond is left with no choice but to help the local head man deliver his ailing son safely across land to the Indian border. The Chinese, including a treacherous turncoat double agent, see the child as a potential symbol that they can groom and use to secure their hold over the area. And it’s clear they’ll take whatever desperate measures are necessary to stop Drummond from delivering the child to safety.
THE IRON TIGER is an interesting, credible, and fast-moving adventure tale that entertains but, frankly, suffers somewhat by comparison to Higgins’ more popular novels such as THE EAGLE HAS LANDED. That said, Higgins is to be commended for providing a progressive female romantic interest in the novel with skills, backbone, some strength, and the determination to set her own path. Well done.
Recommended as an entertaining example of the quasi-military adventure novel typical of the mid 20th century.
“People … it appears we have a problem of some magnitude here.”
A heat wave in northern New England, a fearsome storm, a fog, and then an all-encom“People … it appears we have a problem of some magnitude here.”
A heat wave in northern New England, a fearsome storm, a fog, and then an all-encompassing mist traps a motley collection of shoppers in a grocery store. The mist is pure evil and what it brings to life with it will raise the hackles on a reader’s neck.
THE MIST is a fast-paced, gruesome, gothic, imaginative, creep-fest that showcases Stephen King’s flair for creating a cast of characters with a myriad of reactions to what is pure over-the-top Hollywood horror. But it’s great entertainment and, goodness knows, it’s easy to recommend to lovers of the horror genre.
On the surface, MIDNIGHT AT MARBLE ARCH is an exciting story of murder, sexual assault and serial rape in the hig“Decent women do not get raped.”
On the surface, MIDNIGHT AT MARBLE ARCH is an exciting story of murder, sexual assault and serial rape in the highest levels of Victorian society. Under normal circumstances, the rape of a wealthy merchant banker would fall outside Thomas Pitt’s jurisdiction as newly appointed head of Special Branch. But Pitt’s involvement becomes inevitable as the investigation leads to what appears to be a serial rapist who has preyed upon the daughters of international diplomats. The solution of the crime becomes more urgent as money, markets, international finance and potential skullduggery in South African investments lead Pitt, his brilliant wife, and his former superior, Victor Narraway down twisted paths. Then there is the looming catastrophe of a potentially wrongfully-convicted man facing imminent execution.
Perry’s atmospheric descriptions of the moneyed levels of Victoria society are evocative and graphic:
“Pitt … looked across the glittering ballroom of the Spanish Embassy in the heart of London. The light from the chandeliers sparkled on necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Between the somber black and white suits of the men, the women’s gowns blossomed in every color of the early summer: delicate pastels for the young, burning pinks and golds for those in the height of their beauty, and wines, mulberries, and lavenders for the more advanced.”
The exquisite sensitivity of the entire list of characters in the novel to their position in England’s 19th century class structure is portrayed to a fault. It was clear that one false move by anyone in society or a presumption to status above one’s place in the recognized and inviolate pecking order would result in censure and scorn. Misogyny was an integral part of societal thinking and, to a great extent, even the most progressive women accepted it as just and normal. It was an unshakable belief that sexual assault or rape happened only to those women who transgressed and had somehow invited the crime by virtue of some inappropriate behaviour. To believe otherwise was to admit to the possibility that it could happen to anyone and that was simply not on!
MIDNIGHT AT MARBLE ARCH is easy to recommend - an enjoyable, gripping historical mystery by an author that most readers would characterize as a master of the genre.
WHITE FIRE places Corrie Swanson, Pendergast’s precocious protégé, at center stage while Pendergast lurks A disappointment from a series I once loved!
WHITE FIRE places Corrie Swanson, Pendergast’s precocious protégé, at center stage while Pendergast lurks in his very typical quiet, understated fashion backstage or in the wings. Swanson, majoring in criminology at a prestigious university with hopes to ultimately enter the field of law enforcement and forensic pathology, has begun her thesis reviewing the remains of a group of Colorado miners presumably mauled and eaten by a marauding grizzly bear. Pendergast, in the meantime, is seconded by an overwhelmed local constabulary to assist in the investigation of a serial arsonist with the rather gruesome MO of binding his victims, dousing them in accelerant, and burning them alive. In the entirely expected fashion of virtually every suspense thriller ever written, the story lines ultimately close with one another to a single story line and a hard-hitting climax.
Rather promising premise, wouldn’t you say? Sadly WHITE FIRE fails to deliver the goods.
Corrie Swanson is an unconvincing heroine. In fact, with a laundry list of negative characteristics (she’s spoiled, narcissistic, self-entitled, immature, irresponsible, reckless, ungrateful, and flighty, not to mention self-assured and arrogant to an entirely unwarranted degree), she is an entirely unlikeable young women that it is difficult to root for. Pendergast, on the other hand, remains Pendergast but his persona has devolved into a completely transparent (and sadly derivative) pastiche of a modern Sherlock Holmes imported into the body of a southern US gentleman and FBI special agent. His usage, for example, of far eastern meditation techniques to mentally reconstruct and examine crime scenes effectively in real time as they unfold verges on ridiculous.
I’m not prepared to give up on the series and put paid to my love of Pendergast on the basis of a single disappointment but I certainly hope that BLUE LABYRINTH, next up in the series, returns to the form I’ve come to expect.
“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outsi“Human beings have been eagerly devouring notions of evil and horror since we dwelt in caves and jumped at the shadows and noises occurring just outside the comforting range of firelight.”
“Canadians, especially, have always been concerned with notions of what lies beyond our normal existence.”
In ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING, author Mark Leslie went to great lengths to assure readers who shared his concerns that while paranormals might be creatures that inhabit that realm beyond our normality, they are definitely people too. People, in fact, with all the frustrations, foibles, fears, and failings that we “normals” deal with everyday in our lives. And, in crafting his cast of what Leslie characterized as “supernatural misfits (a studious fairy, a vegan vampire, a shy mermaid, a clingy werecat, and an extroverted troll)”, he also crafted a clever mystery and a brilliant master class in “show, don’t tell” character development!
How did he do it??
ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING is effectively a novel length reproduction of conversations in a series of therapy sessions between a confused patient (distressed werewolf and definitely paranormal though he may be) and his therapist. But Leslie has managed to alternate those periods of the eponymous Canadian Werewolf Michael Andrews’ directed self-examination with chapters of real-time interaction with the rest of his fellow abnormal paranormals in a cozy locked-room style murder mystery that makes the entire package genuinely enthralling, entertaining, humorous, and compelling.
Leslie’s development of Michael Andrews’ skills as an author and his personality and back story may not constitute a birth to present day autobiography (I mean … how could it? Andrews IS a werewolf after all!). But the extent to which Leslie injects himself into the Michael Andrews persona would please even the likes of Charles Dickens, author of the classic DAVID COPPERFIELD. The novel is absolutely jam-packed with film, music, television, and 20th century cultural references that reflect Leslie’s love of the world he lived in as he grew up. He even managed to sneak in a few cheeky references to his own writing by attributing it to work in Andrews’ bibliography. Fairy Ellie’s gushing praise of SILENT SCREAMS, Michael Andrews’ first and wildly undersold and distinctly unpopular first novel, was in fact a stand-in for one of Leslie’s earlier collection of short stories, ONE HAND SCREAMING which he prefaced with this comment concerning his propensity to mentally collect everyday occurrences for use in his writing,
“Silent screams bounce around inside my head like an impending storm brewing into a force that will escape in a wild dance of chaos and be lost forever if I don’t stop to jot them down.”
If you’ve got more time and patience than you know what to do with, perhaps you might want to re-read ONLY MONSTERS IN THE BUILDING with a view to snagging and listing all of the cultural references or Leslie’s meta-references to his own previous novels, novellas and short stories. An aspiring future scholar of English literature might choose to use that as in a Masters or PhD thesis after Leslie has attained classic status as a horror humorist.
Definitely recommended as one of my Top Ten favourites for this year.
Paul Weiss
P.S. Recommended that is with the very strong caveat that this is NOT a stand-alone novel and would make very little sense without an understanding of the Canadian Werewolf back story. But, fret not, do yourself a favour a go back to A CANADIAN WEREWOLF IN NEW YORK, #1 in the series. You're in for a real treat!...more
“She was a slut, she was loud and crass, and she had the attention span of an insect … but she was so good, so much fun to have around.”
This was o“She was a slut, she was loud and crass, and she had the attention span of an insect … but she was so good, so much fun to have around.”
This was obviously not a murder victim it was easy to get a read on! But DCI Erika Foster, a young widow still in mourning, recovering from the untimely murder of her husband, and dealing with her own personal demons, is on the job and on the hunt for a relentless serial killer.
THE GIRL IN THE ICE is a gripping suspense thriller with a well-crafted compelling and suitably bizarre and gruesome plot. How could one fail to be drawn in by the death of young wealthy socialite followed by a series of three prostitute murders in which the victims were found hog-tied and strangled with the corpses unceremoniously dumped in bodies of water around the city of London? But, more than that, it’s also a brilliant, personality-driven series debut with a masterful “show, don’t tell” bit of character development that will serve as the superb foundation for what is obviously going to be an exciting series to follow.
Definitely recommended. DCI Erika Foster is obviously a character with plenty of literary mileage to come that will appeal to lovers of the suspense thriller and police procedural genres. I’m definitely looking forward to the second novel in the series, THE NIGHT STALKER.
“If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrillingly good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wron“If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrillingly good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wrong book”
Count Olaf’s nefarious plans for a marriage with Violet Baudelaire and the theft of the children’s inherited wealth were foiled in A BAD BEGINNING and THE REPTILE ROOM, BOOK THE SECOND. Mr Poe remains blind and hopelessly insensitive to the children’s danger and Count Olaf proves that, while he was down, he most certainly isn’t out. He continues to lust for the children’s bankroll. The children’s hopes for a safe and comfortable life with an elderly aunt who is a relentlessly pedantic grammar Nazi aunt terrified of everything from doorknobs to telephones are, of course, dashed on the rocks of continuing “unfortunate events” including, for goodness’ sake, being handed over to the “guardianship” of the Count.
Snicket’s unique, dare I say bizarre, stylistic hook, the interminable offerings of doom and gloom to a most delightful family of children continues to work and exudes a very puzzling kind of charm. The children’s love for one another and their endearing ability to squirm their way through the tiniest of holes and the tightest of fixes is quite heartwarming.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS is definitely recommended for both children and for young at heart adult readers who enjoy dipping their toes into lighter fare from to time. On an even more positive note, I will commend Snicket’s writing style as being very “grown-up” in tone, never patronizing or condescending to young readers for even a microsecond and, in the bargain, quite educational and useful for building a young person’s vocabulary of more “adult” words.
“Well, it was probably one of us,” he says icily. “and you don’t know which one. I guess you have a problem, don’t you?”
Shari Lapena is a favourite C“Well, it was probably one of us,” he says icily. “and you don’t know which one. I guess you have a problem, don’t you?”
Shari Lapena is a favourite Canadian thriller authors so my expectations were high when I pulled this one off my shelf. Rats … SOMEONE WE KNOW was a disappointing failure – a melodramatic soap opera non-thriller murder mystery with an unwieldy collection of poorly developed, unlikeable characters and a very unclear solution with what was supposed to be an ending twist that left me simply scratching my head. Like Lapena’s character who didn’t know which one, I guess I had a problem!
An adulterous wife with round heels who seemed willing to fall into the sack with most anyone she met is murdered in the first chapter. Suspicion of course (both police and readers’) is aimed immediately at the lengthy list of sex partners. To muddy the melodramatic waters, Lapena adds two problem teenagers – one who is an out of control drunk and the other who seems addicted to a combination of cyber-stalking and breaking and entering! Ultimately, everyone seems to be sleeping with everyone else as a second murder puts the cap on the goings on in a very creepy neighbourhood!
The average rating for SOMEONE WE KNOW would suggest that my opinion is an outlier and, accordingly, I’m willing to accept that perhaps I just wasn’t in the right frame of my mind to allow this one to win me over. But … it is what it is and I’ll have to let you make your own decision as to whether to read it and how you might feel about it.
I’m not going to recommend it to anyone! But I’ll cautiously add that I have other Shari Lapena titles on my shelf that I’m still willing to read at some point in my limited reading future. Time marches on relentlessly!
“We do it by raising dark money to fund policies and candidates that we like”
What Baldacci’s END GAME lacks in credibility, it makes up for with t“We do it by raising dark money to fund policies and candidates that we like”
What Baldacci’s END GAME lacks in credibility, it makes up for with the timeliness of its cautionary note against the incursion of neo-Nazism in US politics.
Will Robie and Jessica Reel are deadly, lethal assassins – fearsome weapons in the CIA’s black ops tool chest to be deployed anywhere in the world that their terrifying skills might be called for. In END GAME, they have been given the mission of recovering Blue Man, their missing handler who disappeared on a fly fishing vacation and whose interrogation by unfriendly foreign powers could seriously undermine national security.
That lack of credibility I mentioned? It’s truly jaw-dropping. Readers witness, for example, a solo mission against 17 enemies loaded for bear with the directive to assassinate 16 of them and secure the sole remaining enemy for questioning (of the “enhanced” variety, no doubt); marksmanship of the never-miss, one-bullet, one-target-hit variety regardless of the environment or the speed and direction of the movement of the target or shooter; religious cults à la Branch Davidian variety; hard-drinking, bullying neo-Nazi skinheads; and, of course, sweaty sex complete with the earth-shattering, bedspring damaging climax; a climactic escape toting guns loaded with blanks from a locked-down hardened missile silo against seven armed opponents!!
Robie and Creel seem to be endowed with a skill set that would put Rambo, MacGyver, John McClane, John Matrix, Jason Bourne, and James Bond to shame (not to mention Katniss Everdeen, Lara Croft, and Daenerys Targaryen).
It’s all quite laughable when you really stop to think about what you actually read and yet somehow Baldacci manages to pull it off and make END GAME a competent, thoroughly enjoyable thriller of the extended shoot-‘em-up interminable car chase variety with a satisfying ending that seems to put a cap on the Will Robie and Jessica Reel series.
Definitely recommended but leave your literary expectations in park for the duration of the novel!
“I said, ‘Haven’t you ever been up north?’ He pondered. ‘Barrie. I’ve been to Barrie.’ ‘Barrie! Good God … Barrie’s not north!’ ”
Many’s the pampered sou“I said, ‘Haven’t you ever been up north?’ He pondered. ‘Barrie. I’ve been to Barrie.’ ‘Barrie! Good God … Barrie’s not north!’ ”
Many’s the pampered southern Ontario resident of Toronto who imagine that Barrie, a mere 120 kilometers out of the north end of the city, is a distant snow-buried representative of Ontario’s sub-arctic northland. But residents of real-life towns such as Sioux Lookout, Pickle Lake, Timmins or Moosonee shake their heads and laugh at such a ridiculous notion.
From my review of A TOWN CALLED SOLACE:
“Solace is a typical northern Ontario town. Home base to millions of mosquitoes in countless lakes; a year comprised of two seasons – winter and July; surrounded by marsh, swamp, rivers, and boreal forest with only one road in and one road out – the opposite sides of the same road that eventually wends its way south to Toronto; fun evenings out and dating restricted to watching the hockey games at the local rink, shopping at the Hudson’s Bay Store or asking the waitress at the local café for the daily special with a plate of pie à la mode to close out the evening festivities!
A reader’s natural inclination might be to yawn and wonder what possible stories might be told about such a dreary location.”
With the sole difference of having a topography forgiving enough (one hardly need add “barely”) that a masochistic farmer could scrape a hard scrabble living off some cleared land, CROW LAKE was a town set in the boreal forest of the Canadian Shield cut from the same rough hewn cloth.
Unlike A TOWN CALLED SOLACE which could be characterized as a mystery, CROW LAKE was definitely a much more slow-burn, character driven family melodrama set over several generations – love, lust, and hate; marriage, families, children, and estrangement; birth and death; murder and suicide; morality and not so much!
Mary Lawson is unquestionably an eloquent wordsmith but CROW LAKE, for me at least, was a distant second to the gripping story that I fell in love with in A TOWN CALLED SOLACE. Your mileage may vary and I’d be willing to bet that reactions to this novel will be widely varied depending on readers’ personal tastes.
That said, it might be instructive to quote a lovely example of Ms Lawson’s musings on a roadside stop for a wilderness kidney relief break (a common enough occurrence, I dare say, for those familiar with the sparsity of public restrooms!)
“I got out of the car and picked my way through the underbrush to the pines. They were growing in a shallow dip between bare ribs of granite; around them tough wiry blueberry bushes fought with the grasses and the mosses and the lichens, all of them struggling for foot room. In some places there is so little topsoil you wouldn’t think it was worth the effort of trying to grow, but they manage. They thrive, in fact. They find every crack, every crevice, every crumb of soil, and send out their tough little roots and dig in, and cling on, and hoard every dropped leaf, every twig, every grain of sand or dust that’s blown their way, and gradually, gradually build up enough soil around themselves to support their offspring. And so it goes on, down the centuries … I squatted down behind the scant shelter of the pines, flapping my hands behind me to fend off the blackflies, and peed into a brilliant green pillow of moss, and ached with love for it.”
You have to admit that that’s a long, long, beautiful way from what many might picture as a simple hurried act of squat, squint, squeeze, and squirt, LOL!
Newly minted FBI agent, Caitlin Hendrix, on her first assignment with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit hHis wife “… had vanished. She was the fifth”
Newly minted FBI agent, Caitlin Hendrix, on her first assignment with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit has obviously been tossed into the deep end with no PFD. She’s facing her first Unsub, a savage serial killer who seems to have the ability to grab his victims within sight and sound of dozens of witnesses but to make them disappear more quietly and more completely than David Copperfield’s Statue of Liberty. INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE leaves the proverbial station on a single track, the engine puffing slowly but steadily, checking each clue, gaining traction and steam with each turn of the wheels, inevitably closing in on the suspect, a solid but really quite fascinating and compelling police procedural. Then, just past the halfway point of the novel, the wheels come off, the tracks split into a wild and twisted myriad of possible routes, turns, dead-ends and sidings. INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE has definitely become a high speed, edge-of-the-seat, hang-onto-your-hat suspense thriller.
If you’re a fan of television forensic shows such as CRIMINAL MINDS, or forensic thrillers à la Jeffrey Deaver or Tess Gerritsen, then INTO THE BLACK NOWHERE will be right down your alley. And (no big surprises here), there’s clearly a sequel coming. Definitely recommended.
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