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JANUARY - FEBRUARY REVIEWS
UNKNOWN
MEANS
Evelyn finds little evidence at each scene.
When she learns her close friend is another victim critically hanging on
to life, Evelyn intensifies her efforts. Someone
stalks Evelyn and tries to finish the job on her friend, who is still in a coma
in the hospital’s ICU. She lashes out to save her friend and the murderer
turns to her. Without thinking,
Evelyn goes after him in the darkened hospital.
As Evelyn moves closer to finding the truth, the pace explodes and leads
to a surprise ending. UNKNOWN
MEANS is Elizabeth Becka’s second thriller.
Her first thriller, TRACE EVIDENCE, received critical acclaim for her believable lead
character, Evelyn James. Becka gives
interesting and detailed evidence that leads to the solution of these murders.
This in no way slows down the story line.
I hope there will be more Evelyn James thrillers to come.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. - Marion E. Cason
CAPITOL
REFLECTIONS
Gwen uses her status to request a scan through BioNet, a
computer database that collects medical happenings and other information.
Gwen wants the location of incidences of professional woman who smoked,
drank coffee, and had terminal seizures. The
clusters appear and die down after two months.
They then pop up in other areas. Unfortunately, the gatekeeper catches Gwen and reassigns her
to a make-work job. That just makes
Gwen all the more suspicious. Jack,
Gwen’s husband, is an ex-Secret Service agent who smokes a few cigarettes
outside the house. When Jack suffers
a seizure he survives, but is in a coma. An
agent keeps Gwen from visiting Jack, so she asks a professor who has security
clearance to check up on Jack and pass messages back and forth.
Even the professor is suspected of trying to uncover the conspiracy. Gwen digs in and recruits a couple of friends to do research
for her. Mark Stern is a Washington
Post columnist who does investigative stories on current issues and he jumps
at the chance to work with Gwen. Together
they uncover something chilling involving people in the highest positions of
public trust and greedy executives profiting at the expense of the best
interests of the public. Are we
ready to succumb to this manipulation? Interesting
thought, especially when there is no legislation to protect the interests of the
public. CAPITOL
REFLECTIONS is the first chilling thriller by Jonathan Javitt.
Javitt is well qualified to write this story based on a real possibility.
He has seamlessly meshed the medical and political thriller genres, and
his prose is crisp. Readers may want
to contemplate the events in CAPITOL
REFLECTIONS. Will we be ready to
decide for ourselves what is best for us and not let money drive us?
DELICATE
CHAOS
Between her job at DC Trust, managing her profitable
restaurant and arranging fund
raisers for her charity, Save Them, Leona’s life seems perfect.
Then she uncovers the doctored books at Coal-Balt.
Leona decides to do the honorable thing and not endorse the deal.
She locates Undaunted, Leona recognizes the signs of Buick turns the action on fast forward with events happening
one right after another. The twists
and turns compound Leona’s life as she deals with the deaths of major players
in the bank deal, her restaurant burns down, and a murderer gets close to
killing her. DELICATE CHAOS is a must read thriller. Buick has written another winner on the heels of the acclaimed SHELL GAME. I look forward to his next thriller. - Marion E. Cason A
PERSON OF INTEREST
In the opening scene, Lee is in his office at the college
where he awaits his students, if any, who need his help with his classes.
His clean desktop has an ancient Montblanc black ink pen and a yellow
legal pad placed squarely in the middle of the desk.
Lee monitors the hallway and grumbles at how the students respect but
ignore the older, tenured professors. The
students interact more with the younger professors who are more open with their
feelings. The volunteer student delivers the mail and then Dr. Hendley
arrives at his office next to Lee. He
waves in the general direction of Lee’s office, picks up his mail, and slams
his door shut. In his mail, there is
a package without the name of the sender. He
opens the package and there is a loud explosion.
Lee hides under his desk waiting for his bookshelves to collapse.
The bookshelves are attached to the thin wall that backs Hendley’s
office, yet they withstand the blast. Hendley’s
closed door minimizes injury to the students in the hallway who are waiting to
see him. Due to his actions and
demeanor, Lee becomes a person of interest when they call in the F.B.I. to solve
this mystery. The prose of A PERSON OF INTEREST is both lyrical and detailed, which gives the novel its slower pace and great insight into the age of terrorism. This is Choi’s third novel and I plan to add to my ‘to be read’ list her acclaimed novels AMERICAN WOMAN and THE FOREIGN STUDENT. -
Marion E. Cason NOVEMBER - DECEMBER REVIEWS
In
DARKNESS
After
the horrific death of his girlfriend two years ago, Erin Neal retired, seeking
peace and independence from the mad “fuel-hungry” world.
The international environmental community recognizes Neal as an expert
bio-engineer. He can genetically
develop a solution using bacteria to clean up toxic spills.
Homeland Security finds Neal in the Neal
recognizes part of the bacteria profile but then the formula takes off in a
different direction. This is not a
naturally occurring development but man-made.
What Neal discovers unnerves him, but his unique mind works on the
solution. He barely has time to find
the source before it destroys the planet. THE
LAZARUS STRAIN
“Do
you believe everything you’re told?” This
is the theme running through THE LAZARUS
STRAIN. When British
Intelligence learns Animal Rights loonies trashed the Crick Institute, they have
reason to be concerned. The escaped
primates may be contagious with a flu virus that is deadly, as deadly as the
influenza pandemic of 1918. With
that in mind, Dr. Steven Dunbar of Sci-Med, an elite investigative agency, goes
to Crick Institute to confirm or dismiss which type of flu virus the primates
are infected with, or if they were really test subjects.
Dunbar does not get a definitive answer and in talking with Inspector
Giles of the The
hunt is on to find al-Qaeda’s real target, and each incident points them in a
different direction. Is it the Crick
Institute where they are growing a virus or is it a vaccine for the flu for the
coming year? THE
LAZARUS STRAIN
is a taunt thriller and, towards the end, the reader feels the tension building
and events happening faster. The
ending has a twist I never thought about. All
very plausible. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. THE CROWS P.
J. Denton inherited her grandfather’s farm in the small, rural town of Baraka
whined in his crate indicating to P.J. that he needed to go out so she decided
to take Baraka for a walk in her woods. Baraka
is her four-month old Rhodesian ridgeback puppy.
Their relaxing walk turns ugly when the crows caw a warning.
Shots ring out and P.J. yells for Baraka to come back.
The shots come close to P.J. and she grabs Baraka’s leash and runs for
the house. Once inside she notices
droplets of blood on the kitchen floor that lead her to the dining room.
She sees a man shot in the back lying face down on her rug.
That
murder is just the tip of the iceberg. More
break-ins, or so P.J. says, have neighbors thinking she is as crazy as her
mother. Other incidents, mysterious
disappearances, and lies put P.J. in the hot seat.
Of course, a love interest with the sheriff complicates matters. Soule has written a light, funny, and suspenseful mystery that is a delight to read. One minor part does not ring true, but all the characters are believable. Soule has written romance novels and is now writing mystery/suspense with just a touch of romance. This is a nice touch and one I am sure will create a big following for her. - Marion E. Cason TEN
SPOT Bobby Emmet, ex- TEN
SPOT
takes place on the streets of Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge area of With many characters making up all the parts of the mystery, sometimes TEN SPOT is hard to follow. Using the street dialogue of the hip-hop world and rappers is typical of successful New York crime novels. There is a lot of street dialogue in TEN SPOT. -
Marion E. Cason
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