REVIEWS FROM JOHN A. BROUSSARD

John's e-mail address is:
broupome@hawaii.rr.com
He has been writing and selling fiction, including novels and short stories, for several years.

Eleven of John's books are now available in Kindle editions via Amazon.com.  Click on John's name below to view selections.     

POSTED OCTOBER 30, 2011

DEATH OF THE MANTIS         
MICHAEL STANLEY         
Harper Trade PBO 9/11

The Kalahari Desert has many secrets, and Botswana Detective David "Kubu" Bengu suspects that at least one of them is connected to the murder of Game Ranger Tawana Monzo. CID Detective Sergeant Phinda Lerako thinks otherwise. He's stubbornly convinced that the three Bushmen found at the crime scene -- who insisted they were simply trying to revive the dying man -- were in fact the murderers.  Another killing in the same general area, this time of a private investigator, casts doubt upon the Bushmen's guilt... especially since the discoverer of this second body, Namibia businessman Wolfgang Haake, shows up at the police station driving a car bearing two fresh bullet holes. He claims those shots had scared him away from the corpse. Kubu pursues various leads: to Haake's girlfriend, to the businessman's former employer, to the dead ranger's bank account containing large unexplained deposits. In addition to being an absorbing mystery story, DEATH OF THE MANTIS is a study in culture clash, showing a primitive hunting people being further and further displaced by a complex and, to them, incomprehensible civilization. Stanley is a master at describing this conflict, as well as the barren land that serves at its backdrop. But he's at his best in the descriptions of his protagonist, a thoroughly human individual who loves his wife Joy, his baby daughter, his dog, his job, his food and wine. Overweight (his nickname means "hippo"), and nagged by Joy to adhere to his diet, Kubu nevertheless regularly succumbs to the comforts of the table. Despite these indulgences, he continues his determined pursuit of whoever may be responsible for the murders occurring in the unrelenting heat of this vast Kalahari wasteland.

CEMETERY GIRL         
DAVID BELL       
New American Library Trade PBO 10/11

She was twelve, just taking her dog for a walk. The dog came back home; Caitlin Stuart didn't. Four years pass with no word, no whisper, no demands for ransom... nothing. That's when the pastor of Abby's church convinces her that her child is dead and that, against her husband's will, she should hold a funeral for her and place a tombstone in the cemetery. Unlike his wife, Tom continues to cling to the belief that Caitlin is alive, and he struggles unsuccessfully to hold their crumbling marriage together. Then, shortly after the "funeral", a witness shows up who insists she's seen Caitlin with a much older man. But is the witness, a lap dancer with a history of drug abuse, credible? Then there are more sightings, and Caitlin herself is found wandering alone along a country road. But this is a very different person from the girl who disappeared while walking her dog. She wants to go back to her abductor, and refuses to say what happened to her during those missing years. CEMETERY GIRL's main element is the father's painful attempt to break through to the child he'd lost those agonizing years ago, and he's haunted by the thoughts of what happened to her during that time. Abby takes more and more refuge in her religion and the counsel of her pastor, especially after the kidnapper is captured by the police. But the evidence against him is weak, since Caitlin absolutely refuses to testify against the man she insists is her "lover," and he's released after posting bail. Bell has produced a deeply perceptive psychological crime novel. Abby, Caitlin, the abductor, and especially Tom are fascinating people caught up in a web spun deep in their own pasts and coming together in strange but fascinating ways as a result of an event that has forever changed their lives. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

COVENANT         
DEAN CRAWFORD          
Touchstone Books   October, 2011

There's no question about it. Lucy Morgan's discovery of a several-thousand-year-old burial deep in the Negev is that of something not quite human. But before she can take her find back to the labs for testing, the camp is raided and she's taken hostage - along with the mysterious body. Back in the States, Lucy's frantic mother Rachel seeks government help to find and return her daughter. The help that is offered comes in the form of Ethan Warner, a free-lance adventurer who has a reputation for finding lost persons. He accepts the job only with reluctance, especially since Rachel insists on going along. What the pair do not realize is that the remains were the reason for the abduction, that a private security firm (MACE) working for the American Evangelical Alliance carried out the crime, and that there may be more than one hypothesis as to the nature of the strange find. COVENANT, which began with the apparent suicide of three drug addicts, soon morphs into an international thriller with Ethan and Rachel being pursued - and captured! - by Bedouins, MACE, Palestinians, Israelis, and eventually the FBI. The level of violence increases, with explosions, frequent gunfire, harrowing escapes, aircraft chases, corpses galore, a few torture scenes, and a mad scientist convinced that Lucy's find is actually a fallen angel. Crawford has fashioned a convoluted plot in which the éminence grise is mega-church fundamentalist minister Kelvin Patterson (a thinly disguised replica of one of the better known of America's evangelists with a pipeline to God), a U.S. Senator who has his eye on the White House and is happy to make use of the minister to achieve that goal, and an arms dealer who is dedicated to keeping the Middle East pot boiling.

RESUSCITATION          
D. M. ANNECHINO         
Thomas & Mercer Publishers Trade PBO 10/11
ISBN: 978-1612180717

This serial killer is something different. The bodies are fully clad in expensive clothing, with no obvious indication of the cause of death... at least not until the torso is exposed. Then, clearly, the murders are the work of an expert, someone skilled in surgery who, after having fatally damaged the victim's heart, carefully sews up the wound, then abandons the tidied-up bodies for the police to ponder over. Only a combination of unforeseen circumstances puts homicide Detective Sami Rizzo, still recovering from her own horrendous encounter with a serial killer, in charge of the investigation. She is talked into going back to work early in order to replace her live-in boyfriend, who is taking leave from the department to care for a sister that has just been involved in a near-fatal accident. RESUSCITATION shifts frequently from the point of view of the killer to that of his pursuer, giving the reader considerable insight into the mind of a surgeon, sworn to do no harm, who feels compelled to conduct deadly experiments because "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few." In the course of tracking down the killer, Rizzo has to overcome numerous hurdles, both personal and official. She has to deal with the problem of a rocky love affair, with her mother suddenly having to undergo major cardiac surgery, with hostility within the police department, and with the rigid bureaucracy of the medical establishment. Annechino has created a clever plot, where the early pages seemingly provide the setting and virtually the final answer to the story's major mystery. But the reader is in for a surprise.

RIP TIDE          
STELLA RIMINGTON         
Bloomsbury   September, 2011

Once? Could be happenstance. Twice? Maybe a coincidence. But the third time a ship with an especially expensive cargo is singled out by Somali hijackers, the only explanation can be that someone has tipped them off. And that someone had to have access to the manifest at the United Charities' Shipping Organization (UCSO) based in Athens. British intelligence agencies become interested, and an undercover operative is placed in the foundation's office. When she is murdered, presumably because her true identity has been discovered, MI5's Liz Carlyle, head of the counter terrorism section, takes the lead. From there on, it becomes increasingly evident that something far more deadly is brewing than a leak in UCSO, and that whatever it is, it's far closer to home than the waters off the Horn of Africa. RIP TIDE starts off slowly, but frequent shifts in location and points of view increase the pace as the story unfolds. The expanding drama encompasses London, Birmingham, Paris, Athens and Somaliland. Rimington, herself a former Director General of MI5, doesn't just focus on the present-day concern with terrorism, but explores some of its underlying causes, such as the depletion of Somaliland's main source of food by vast international fishing fleets. The resulting and inevitable turn of Somalis to piracy then spreads and, as with the drug trade, more proficient and powerful organizations move in to monopolize this flourishing enterprise. The author has done an outstanding job of depicting the West's concern with the ongoing threat of an enemy which finds endless recruits for its cause - recruits eager to die to avenge their grievances against the West. Her descriptions of the conflict are fascinating, she does a good job of exploring the interpersonal problems that both sides have to deal with, and her ending is a dramatic one indeed. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

THE NIGHTMARE         
NANCY MEANS WRIGHT          
Perseverance Press Trade PBO 9/11

The crux of this story is the 18th Century artist Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare, which shows a woman asleep in bed, with a grotesque dwarf seated on her torso and the frightening disembodied head of a horse hovering in the background. When the painting is stolen from Fuseli's home, he becomes blind with rage and accuses fellow artist Roger Peale of the theft. He manages to produce enough damning evidence to have the man charged and imprisoned to await trial. Mary Wollstonecraft becomes involved when Peale's fiancée begs her to use her influence with Fuseli to drop the charges. Believing Peale to be innocent, Mary accepts the mission, but soon finds herself entangled in a deadly situation. Fuseli's footman, the one witness who may actually have seen the thief, is killed in a carriage "accident" before he can testify to what he saw. And then a literary woman (a bluestocking, in the parlance of the times) who was part of the same circle as Fuseli, Peale, and several well-known dissidents, is found strangled with a blue stocking, her body then posed like the woman in Fuseli's painting. As a result, Mary becomes convinced that her own life is in danger; yet she continues to search for the missing artwork, not only in hopes of exculpating Peale, but because she's now convinced that the thief is behind the killings. THE NIGHTMARE is well anchored in the age of the late 18th Century, with the French Revolution continuing unabated across the channel, English dissidents proudly proclaiming their support for the revolutionaries, and Mary feverishly writing essays and books about the plight of Englishwomen in their male-dominated society. Wright has included many of the significant intellectual figures of that generation and, fortunately for the average reader, includes some brief notes about them. The depiction of Mary seems to genuinely reflect a personality that was, in many ways, far ahead of her day, but who would probably also have been considered eccentric in any time and place.

YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CRIMINAL         
MICHAEL VAN ROOY          
Minotaur Books   July, 2011

In a sense, Montgomery Haaviko is the Canadian equivalent of the Lone Ranger. He's committed to righting wrongs and bringing criminals to justice. And who better suited to the task than a former lawbreaker who has given up drugs and booze and gone straight, finding satisfaction in a steady job, a loving home with wife Claire and their toddler, the family dog, and even a well-fed pet mouse? The opening pages find him waiting his turn in a bank when two masked robbers enter. He quickly succeeds in disarming them. YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CRIMINAL consists almost entirely of a flashback from this point on, where he skirts the edge of the law to help smuggle political and exploited refugees into the United States. It's while he's working out details of the program for Marie Blue Duck, who has dedicated her life to helping these dispossessed souls, that a long-time acquaintance from Monty's felonious past shows up at his doorstep. Smiley insists that he, too, wants to go straight and has come to ask his help in doing so. Is he to be trusted? Though Claire and Monty are dubious, they allow Smiley to stay with them until he can find a job - but not without taking extensive precautions in case he has ulterior motives. Considering the backgrounds of his main characters, Rooy's plot line is, not too surprisingly, replete with brutality and mayhem. The repartee is rapid-fire and clever, the suspense is constant, as vigilantes Monty and Smiley make extensive use of the skills and knowledge they each acquired back in their days in the underworld.

RINGER         
BRIAN M. WIPRUD          
Minotaur Books   July, 2011

Morty Martinez is obviously the ideal person to go to New York to recover the ring stolen from a Mexican diocese some fifty years ago. He retired to the small town of La Paz after acquiring a small fortune, but he was born and raised in East Brooklyn. He doesn't mind doing the local priest this small favor, and the task seems simple enough. The current possessor of the ring is an American billionaire who evidently isn't aware of the its provenance. There are, however, complications. Billionaire Robert Tyson Grant has a stepdaughter who is causing him no end of grief. Purity definitely does not live up to her name, having acquired a long police record and gained notoriety for her life on the wild side - all of which adversely affect Grant's business interests. He decides to solve his problem by hiring a killer through an organization that recruits such persons from Mexico. The story becomes one of misidentification, with Morty being mistaken for the assassin and convicted of murder, while the real hit man leaves a trail of "incidents" behind him as he smuggles himself across the border on an erratic trip to New York to find his victim. Toss into the plot a fortuneteller who convinces Grant that the ring bears a curse; the fortuneteller's lovely niece, who is recruited to steal the ring; Grant's current girlfriend, enlisted by Morty to help him get the ring back to its lawful owner; and a host of other equally bizarre characters. RINGER is a comedy of errors, comprised of plots within plots. Written from Morty's viewpoint as he awaits his execution date, the humor is occasionally heavy-handed. Yet, for the most part, Wiprud manages to keep the story flowing nicely through a complex series of failed - and occasionally successful - murder attempts.

PORTRAIT OF A SPY           
DANIEL SILVA          
Harper   July, 2011

Adrian Carter, Director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, finds himself in the embarrassing position of having to call on the Israelis to find one of the agency's defectors. The turncoat is Rashid al-Hussemi, now head of a revitalized Al-Qaeda, and responsible for disastrous bombings throughout Europe. Even though Carter is badly paid and overworked, he struggles against the odds to prevent the current administration from allowing Islam to dominate the world. Faced with the prospect that the U.S. will be next in line for an attack, he enlists the aid of former Israeli spy Gabriel Allon, who won't be hampered by the American legal system as he deals with Rashid and his crew. One of the first steps Allon takes is to enlist the aid of multi-billionaire heiress Nadia al-Bakari, who devotes her energies to improving the lot of Muslim women. She's willing to help ferret out Rashid because she hates the fanaticism he represents. The gradual injection of Nadia into the good graces of this new terrorist organization and the elaborate plans to assure her safety constitute the core plot element of PORTRAIT OF A SPY. Unlike most modern spy novels, there are few new weapons, nifty gadgets, or science fiction innovations here, except for virtually microscopic listening devices. Aside from the initial bomb attack in London at the beginning of the book and the action of the final few chapters, Silva devotes most of the plot to... plotting. The strategy is elaborate. Attempts to anticipate every possible contingency are made. Unfortunately, the Israelis don't take into account the important fact that the CIA has a long history of being riddled with moles, and naturally there is one here who is privy to all those carefully formulated plans. So the end result is not unexpected, though there's still much here to please the spy-story devotee.

John's reviews of
THREATS AT THREE by Ann Purser
 and
VOYEUR by Daniel Judson
appear on the PAPERBACK PAGE .

EL GAVILAN          
CRAIG MCDONALD         
Tyrus Books  November, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3194-1

In his first days as police chief of New Austin, Ohio, Tell Lyon meets an important colleague he will be working closely with: Horton County Sheriff Able "El Gavilan" Hawk. Despite Able's hang-up over the illegal Mexican migrants flooding into their jurisdictions, Tell is convinced that the two of them will get along well. Some members of law enforcement in the surrounding counties may not be as easy to work with, however... especially Vale County sheriff Walt Pierce, who has a reputation for brutality, especially against any Mexicans he happens to arrest. But life seems to be going on as usual in the area, as typified by Shawn O'Hara, reporter, editor and general handyman on the weekly New Austin Recorder. Currently he's carrying on a torrid affair with Patricia Maldonado, a lovely young Chicana; but matters go rapidly downhill with the relationship when Patricia suddenly calls it quits, and Shawn goes out drinking instead of staying the night with her. The next morning, he finds himself in bed with Thalia Gomez, and has little memory of the night before beyond the wild sex they had engaged in. Slipping out quietly while she's still asleep, Shawn is unaware that his life will change dramatically from that moment on. The following morning, Thalia is found brutally raped and murdered, and Shawn is arrested and charged with the crime. The plot of EL GAVILAN centers on this homicide, on the problem of overlapping police jurisdictions, on "getting justice where and when the law can't", as one of the characters puts it, and on the racial tensions that are always close to the surface in this community. McDonald brilliantly captures that atmosphere as Tell and Abel work their way through the case, while romance blossoms between the new Sheriff and Shawn's former girlfriend, and El Gavilan faces the problems and frustrations of raising his teenaged grandson. This is a fascinating and remarkably suspenseful tale. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

THE RONNIE GENE         
JON MILLS         
Five Star   November, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2516-4

When the Jamos Company went bankrupt, it left Stanley Jamos and his close friends and fellow executives Dave Mosit and Pete Tilden high and dry. Stanley, suffering from Parkinsons, and Dave, who is developing Alzheimers, are especially hurting because they can't afford private health insurance. While waiting for the bankruptcy settlement, which is going to be a drawn-out affair, the two create a new enterprise - Jamos & Mosit, Inc., Private Investigators - in order to obtain the much cheaper business insurance. Of course they never really expect to get any clients. But one does show up; it's Ronnie Dumat, Stanley's much-remembered lover of four decades before. She had wanted to talk to Pete about a thriving website the company had purchased prior its Chapter 7 filing. But when she learns that Pete has just been killed in an apparent burglary of his home, she instead hires Stanley to run down Pete's notes. THE RONNIE GENE is a complex tale of modern day moneymaking activities that are not easy to unravel. The story becomes even more convoluted as many of the players in the drama turn out to be quite different from what they first appeared to be. Double-crossing abounds. Mills has done a remarkable job of intertwining Stanley's bizarre long-term crush on his college sweetheart with the intricacies of commercial enterprise and a murder that becomes a major element in a scheme gone badly awry. Even though it's difficult to follow all the intricacies of these business dealings, the novel still adds up to first rate entertainment.

TOO MUCH STUFF         
DON BRUNS         
Ocean View Publishing   December, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60809-017-4

Marie Trueblood is convinced her great-grandfather squirreled away tens of millions in gold somewhere in or around Key West. She hires a private investigation company to find the treasure, but when the two investigators on the case disappear, she turns, in desperation, to the firm of Lessor and Moore. This is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel, since James Lessor and Skip Moore are a pair of bungling incompetents at best, who just happen to be in town on a visit. Even so, they do manage to follow a few promising leads. With the additional help of Skip's girlfriend Em and a few locals, they go from library research, to scuba diving, to digging in a cemetery, to panicked escapes from guard dogs. A body discovered in their hotel room slows them down a bit, especially when the police temporarily hold James as a suspect in the homicide. It's all a rollicking vacation along the Keys, with wild motorcycle rides, a smattering of gunfire, and a corpse that seems reluctant to stay dead. Much of TOO MUCH STUFF is tongue-in-cheek. The starring trio of Skip, James and Em exchange barbs, vie with each other in quoting memorable dialogue from old films and, in spite of themselves, stumble on more and more hints that the cache of gold is for real and accessible. Bruns has produced a fanciful tale where something nefarious is going on behind the scenes... something more obvious to the reader than to the protagonists, which puts a serious crimp in their treasure hunting venture. The results are plenty of action, several cliff-hangers, and a lot of barhopping through some of Key West's more memorable hangouts.

THE TERRITORY          
TRICIA FIELDS         
Minotaur Books  November, 2011

A dead-end town with a population of less than three thousand should be a peaceful settlement; but this one happens to be bordering Mexico, and there's a steady flow of traffic between the two countries. It's drugs and illegals going north, while guns and money move south. Artemis, Texas is located right on the banks of the Rio Grande, opposite Piedra Labrada, where a pair of rival drug cartels are busy slaughtering each other, and anyone else who happens to be handy. When the rivalry spills over to her side of the border, Chief of Police Josie Grey and the County Sheriff, with their understaffed departments, have their hands full. To make matters worse, Red Goff, the leader of a local right-wing militant group, is murdered, and the suspects include a good share of the town's population. At first, there seems to be no relationship between this homicide and another clearly cartel-related one, but when it becomes evident that Red was selling guns to one side in the ongoing warfare between the two groups, the list of suspects is considerably widened. THE TERRITORY is a rip-roaring, shoot-em-up tale of the Wild West brought up to date. The most memorable scene is a car chase involving several police cars and a convoy of drug traffickers racing along a boulder strewn desert road in the midst of a dust storm, with night approaching. Gun battles also abound, with the gangs wielding automatic rifles, while law enforcement makes do mostly with handguns. Equally memorable is Fields' protagonist, Josie Grey. Devoted to her job, having to deal with a penny-pinching and hostile bureaucracy, fighting a one-sided battle with the drug dealers who cross over with impunity into Artemis, while at the same time trying to straighten out her own confused love life, Grey somehow comes through at the end. And - oh yes - she does also manage to run down Red Goff's killer.

MURDER IN MOUNT HOLLY         
PAUL THEROUX         
Mysterious Press  December, 2011

They are a strangely mismatched foursome: Herbie Gneiss, who wants to stay in college; his mother, whose major interest and constant occupation is eating while watching television, and who inveigles him into dropping out so he can cater to her needs; Mr. Gibbon, an old retired soldier, convinced the country is being taken over by commies, Jews and Democrats; and Miss Ball, middle-aged kindergarten teacher who runs a boarding house to earn extra money so she can support her lover, the school's Puerto Rican janitor. Drafted to go off and fight the Viet Cong, Herbie leaves Mount Holly before the remaining three devise a plan to save the nation from subversives and the persons of color in charge of the local bank. The scenario becomes a fantasy world replete with slapstick humor accompanied by bloody mayhem, and with disposal of the resulting bodies becoming a major problem for the schemers. MURDER IN MOUNT HOLLY is a mix of Keystone Cops, situation comedy, and wild flights of the imagination. Theroux pulls out all the stops, with nothing too outrageous to be included in this novelette. Readers who thrive on heavy-handed clowning will love it.

DEATH, TAXES, AND A FRENCH MANICURE         
DIANE KELLY         
St. Martin's Trade PBO 11/11

Working for the Internal Revenue Service sounds like a recipe for boredom. But the routine quickly gives way to excitement for rookie agent Tara Holloway. One of her first investigations involves an unhappy tax dodger who comes at her with a box cutter but, luckily, she escapes with only a minor cut. Her next job is tracing the unreported income of an ice cream vendor whose purchases seem way beyond what he would be likely to make from selling ice cream bars to kids along his route. Both Holloway and a female drug enforcement agent suspect that not all of his wares come on a stick. The hazards involved in that case are much greater than in the previous one, but the two investigators manage to escape without serious injury. Holloway then moves on to the big time: the possible involvement of a major Dallas bank executive in a foreign money exchange scheme involving a con artist and perhaps millions of unreported dollars from a Ponzi scheme. While she's well on the way to breaking the case, Tara finds herself falling in love with Brett Ellington, who may be supplementing his architectural salary by taking part in the scam. The crux of the plot is her dilemma as to whether she should allow herself to become involved in an increasingly steamy relationship with a man she more and more suspects of being involved in the case she's working on. DEATH, TAXES AND A FRENCH MANICURE is a cleverly-written suspense novel, with an amusing cast of characters, including several of the minor ones. Kelly may have exercised considerable literary license in portraying the lives of IRS auditors; but the fact is that, in real life, some of them do come to grief at the hands of the taxpayers (or non-payers). The novel ends on a wild note... which is not surprising, considering the nature of the protagonist.

KILL SWITCH         
NEAL BAER & JONATHAN GREENE         
Kensington Books   December, 2011

Dr. Claire Waters has won the forensic psychiatry fellowship she had set her sights on, and she uses the endowment to work with mentally ill prisoners at the Rikers Island penal colony. Her new mentor evidently expects her to "sink or swim", since her first client is seriously disturbed exhibitionist Todd Quimby, who is about to be paroled on condition that he continue in therapy. He does continue, but the treatment goes badly awry. The doctor's screams save her when her client attacks her, but then he's off to serial rapes and homicides on a grand scale. Nick Lawler, the lead detective in these cases, is at first reluctant to listen to Waters, who is desperate to find Quimby before he commits more of these crimes, so she might become an impediment to the investigation. Realizing that her expertise can help, however, Lawler finally gives in. KILL SWITCH is first and foremost a suspense novel, as the pair follow a trail of mutilated corpses to close in on the perpetrator. There seems little doubt, early on in the mystery, that Quimby is the homicidal maniac they suspect him to be, but Lawler and Waters also begin to realize that there is something far more complex behind the murders than the actions of a psychopath. Baer and Greene have added to the suspense by giving the major characters deeply disturbing pasts which seriously affect their current attitudes toward the ongoing crimes. In addition, Lawler's failing eyesight adds a significant complication to his efforts. Regrettably, the very complexity of the plot calls for coincidences that will stretch the reader's credulity.