Reviews from EDEN EMBLER
JANUARY - FEBRUARY REVIEWS
BRENDAN DuBOIS*
FINAL
WINTER
BRENDAN DuBOIS
Five Star January, 2008
ISBN:
978-1-59414-619-9
In
2001, while the fires at the World Trade Center were still being fought, three
men from the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency (NSA ) were meeting
secretly in Washington, DC, making a plan to present to the President that would
establish Tiger Teams, an anti-terrorist taskforce which would be given
unprecedented power to fight terrorism.
Some years afterward, Tiger Team 7 is warned of the
possibility of a major terrorist act on May 29th (the anniversary of the fall of
Constantinople
to the Moslems). The specific threat is thought to be the simultaneous
introduction of anthrax into a large number of US cities.
In a worst case war game scenario previously conducted by the Tiger Teams
leadership and others, the outcome was projected to be devastating, with some
tens of millions of deaths, thus the code name for the scenario, "Final
Winter." Next , Team 7 learns
that nine members at Team 4 headquarters have been killed.
But they can't let that stop them, so they press forward with their plan
to immunize major cities secretly, using the resources of Air Box, a freight
airline founded by a retired Air Force General.
As the days progress, some people show up as not being what they seem and
many puzzling things begin to happen. But
even more puzzling are the things that aren't happening.
Events begin to move fast and furiously as May 29th gets closer and
finally, through treachery, the planes are loaded not with vaccine, but with
anthrax, and are airborne. The
anthrax is in canisters that open when the planes reach 3,000 feet and will be
released when the planes descend again below 3,000 feet at their destinations.
There appears to be no way to stop them, but in a gripping and
fascinating climax the issues are resolved, though not without loss of life.
This could be called a terror thriller.
It was an absorbing and exciting read that I literally did not want to
put down; but since it is also a long book I did have to read it in two days.
It has a thrilling, well-crafted plot and well developed characters, both
sympathetic and treacherous. It is a
picaresque story, moving from place to place and even time to time in a way that
kept things moving and kept me on the edge of my seat.
- Eden Embler
*PHOTO CREDIT: MICHAEL BuBOIS
TONI L. P. KELNER
WITHOUT
MERCY
TONI L. P. KELNER
Five Star January, 2008
ISBN:
978-1-59414-478-3
When
freelance writer Tilda Harper discovers that three cast members of an old TV
sitcom, "Kissing Cousins," are dead, she begins to think that a serial
killer may be at work. Attempting to
track down other cast members, she discovers that one, Mercy Ashford, is
missing, and none of her digging finds any trace of her.
If the order of the previous deaths continues, Mercy will be the next
victim. Nobody connected with the
show has heard from her since the show folded after three seasons and it is now
some years later. The more Tilda
digs, the less she comes up with, which creates a problem for her because she is
writing a series of articles entitled "Where Are They Now?" for a
Boston-based magazine and Mercy is the subject of her current article.
Tilda is facing a blank wall and her deadline is
rapidly approaching when another of the cast members is poisoned.
Finally, as Tilda explores the most far out possibilities, she sees a
picture of Mercy taken years previously with a man who looks very familiar. With
this to help her, Tilda manages to set a trap to catch the killer.
This was a fascinating book, both from the whodunit
angle as well as how Tilda conducted her investigation.
I learned a lot about the world of freelance writers and the use of the
internet for research purposes. This
is the first book in a new series by the author. I had read and enjoyed all the
books in her first series and this is even better.
Well written, interesting characters and a challenging puzzle.
Who can ask for more? HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED.
- Eden Embler
THE
SKELETON
MAN
St. Martin
’s Minotaur
January, 2008
In
1990, the inhabitants of Jude's Ferry in
England
were removed from their village by the Ministry of Defense which wanted to use
the village for military exercises. In
2007, during such an exercise, journalist Philip Dryden is there to cover it,
just as he had covered the evacuation seventeen years previously.
Bizarrely, a shot that goes astray damages an outbuilding in which the
troops find the skeleton of a hanged body. Attempting
to capitalize on the story, Dryden looks at the case of a woman who disappeared
at the time of the evacuation.
However,
the police soon announce that the skeleton is that of a man.
At the same time, two severed fingers are found in the river by a
fisherman, making the case of the seventeen year old skeleton less newsworthy.
Soon the victim is found in the river; still alive, but suffering from
amnesia. By chance, Dryden hears
that the victim, in his first few hours in the hospital, had been heard to
mention Jude's Ferry. Then a call
comes from a group of animal rights fanatics
who want a breeder of animals for laboratory experiments to stop and announce it
publicly. The breeder's family was
also from Jude's Ferry, so Dryden decides to see if the three cases might be
related. The more he
digs, the more tangled things become.
When
answers finally appear, they explain some things, but raise even more questions.
Soon Dryden is attacked by the animal rights group, but manages, with
help, to escape. At this point he
finds out the shocking truth about the old crime in Jude's Ferry, and despairs
because no on can be brought to justice.
This
is the fifth book in this series. I
have not read any of the earlier ones. I
found that it started slowly and it took a while before I really got interested,
but once I did it was absorbing, though most complicated in its various
threads and their permutations and combinations.
There is a final postscript which outlines the future and wraps up the
past of the main characters, always a nice touch.
I think that the beginning would have benefited from more stringent
editing, but it was a book I really enjoyed and I will be looking for the
author's earlier works.
- Eden Embler
Eden's review of MISSING
LINK by
Joyce Holms appears on the PAPERBACK PAGE.
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NOVEMBER - DECEMBER REVIEWS
SKATE
CRIME
ALINA
ADAMS
Berkley
Prime Crime PBO 12/07
Researcher
Rebecca "Bex" Levy has always wanted to produce one of the skating
shows she researches, and she is finally given her chance, an off-season tribute
to Lucian Pryce, a former US Pairs champion and highly successful skating coach.
Meanwhile, she is juggling her boyfriend Craig's marriage proposal -- she
doesn't know what to do, and it is made more difficult because he and his son
Jeremy are also attending the tribute. This
is because Jeremy's black skating coach, Toni Watson, is Lucian's former Pairs
partner. Bex's job changes very
quickly when Lucian falls to the ice and dies just as she is filming a
pre-tribute profile of his current day skating prowess, with Toni (whom he had
ruthlessly abandoned when they got no job offers after turning pro) watching
from the sidelines. While everyone
else is convinced it was an accident, Bex is sure it was murder.
And as more and more about Lucian is revealed, the more it appears that
any number of people had motives to kill him, from his former partner, his
current wife, his daughter, and a number of the students he coached.
The next thing Bex knows, this professional life intrudes on her private
life, as the dead man's daughter turns out to have been a high school friend of
Craig.
This is the fifth in the Bex
Levy series. I enjoyed all of them,
as I am a big figure skating fan, but this is definitely the best.
There is far more insight into the characters and their motivations than
in the earlier books. It was a beautifully drawn plot that pulled me into
the story and kept me riveted throughout. One
of the most interesting and amusing parts of the book is the reactions of
skating fans who post to a skating fans’ bulletin board.
RECOMMENDED.
- Eden Embler
MURDER,
NEW YORK
STYLE
RANDY
KANDEL, editor
L & L
Dreamspell Trade PBO 10/07
ISBN: 978-1603180320
This
is a book of short stories from the members of the Sisters in Crime New York
tri-state chapter. ( Disclaimer. I
am myself a member of Sisters in Crime, and I live in the
New York
area.) All of the stories are set
in various boroughs of New York
or in other nearby places.
As I started to read, I
started to note the stories I really liked.
After I had put the first five on the list, I decided that wasn't going
to work. And it wasn't, because they
were not at all similar -- they run the gamut of mystery styles from hardboiled
to cozies, to police procedurals, to PIs, to historicals.
You name it, they have it. They
are all really well done and well worth reading.
This is one of the best books I've read this year.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
- Eden Embler
THEY DID IT WITH LOVE
KATE
MORGENROTH
Plume Trade PBO 12/07
After
Sofie's father dies, her husband, Dean, suggests that they move from
New York City
, where she has always lived, to
Greenwich
,
Connecticut
, where life will be quieter and more peaceful.
Shortly after moving into a lovely Tudor home, Sofie is invited to join a
mystery book club made up of her neighbors.
As a longtime devotee of mysteries, she is delighted.
Nevertheless, she becomes increasingly disillusioned with suburban life
and wants to move back to the City. Dean
makes her promise to stick it out for a year and, if she still wants to go back,
they will. Then, one day, as she is
out walking with Priscilla, a neighbor and the book club founder, they discover
the body of Julia Snowe, another neighbor and book club member, hanging from a
tree, with an overturned chair beneath her.
Due to Sofie's observations, the police suspect that this is a homicide,
not a suicide, and the autopsy confirms it.
Naturally the police suspect
her husband, Alex. Alex comes to
Sofie to ask for her help in finding out who Julia was having an affair with,
since that person is also a perfect suspect.
Working with the police, Sofie is shocked to discover that the unknown
lover is her husband, Dean, and he is soon arrested for the murder.
Nine months later, at his trial,
he is found guilty and in a stunning denouement, an entirely different truth is
revealed. This book has some
interesting themes, some interesting psychological insights and many surprises.
As a book club member myself (though not, alas a mystery book club ) and
as an Agatha Christie lover, I really enjoyed the mystery and the book club
scene. I did find it rather sad that
Sofie, while living in the City, worked at the Black Orchid, a real mystery
bookstore that I had visited regularly and loved and which, unfortunately, went
out of business in September.
- Eden Embler
LONDON
FROG
JOSEPH PITTMAN
Five Star November, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59414-589-6
Elise Procopio, wife of wealthy cosmetics mogul Henri Procopio, has just won the
New York
lottery, adding more to the family's abundant wealth.
But she has also become the target of a con man, Todd Gleason, who is out
to latch on to some of that money for himself; something he has done regularly
to lottery winners over the years. Todd
has followed the Procopios to London
to see what he can do. However, the
first thing that happens is that he finds the body of his prospective landlord,
Vance Timberlake, lying dead in the flat Todd was to have rented.
Not wanting to be involved with the police, Todd takes off, only to be
picked up by two employees of Clive Remington, a
London
crime boss who suspects that Todd has killed Timberlake.
After Todd is finally released by them, things get even crazier as he
attempts to scam Henri and is approached by Elise who mentions Timberlake and
asks Todd to kill Henri. Then
Todd is picked up again by Clive's boys and told he will have to split his
profits 50-50 with Clive. Things go
rapidly downhill from there, with fast and furious action, and all sorts of odd
things happening. There are constant
successes, followed by reversals of fortune, leading to a final stunning climax
where everything that can go wrong does, while Todd Gleason manages to slip
away. This is a book with a number
of really far out threads -- what my English teacher used to call a picaresque
novel. This is not really the kind
of book I make an effort to read, but this is an extremely well done example of
the genre, one that I enjoyed as I raced through it.
- Eden Embler
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