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JANUARY - FEBRUARY REVIEWS THE ACCIDENT MAN
The
“what if” premise is still to this day a topic of discussion in the real
world – what if Princess Diana’s death was truly a cleverly plotted
assassination, and not an accidental, unfortunate event? That’s
where Cain’s protagonist, Samuel Carver, comes in.
He is the “accident man.” As
an assassin hired by many different “employers,” some legitimate, others
not, his technique of killing a “worthy” target is to make it look like,
well, an accident. The reader is
quickly introduced to Carver in the very first pages of THE
ACCIDENT MAN as we observe him execute one of his assigned tasks. Then
he is asked by his “talent agent” if he can step into a contract with little
time to spare. Carver finds himself
in With
the French and the British intelligence community and others looking for him, he
must find out who was behind the plot and why, otherwise Carver is either going
to be killed or sent away for the rest of his life.
Carver uses the assistance of a few of his faithful companions as well as
a seductive co-conspirator and former Soviet spy, Petrova, who may or may not be
on his side, in order to figure out what is going on and why. Cain
does a great job accomplishing the trifecta of a thriller - keeping the action
going at a lightening speed, writing a plausible story, while at the same time
giving sufficient time to developing and providing the background of the main
characters. THE ACCIDENT MAN also brings to life several European cities,
encouraging the reader to go see the locations as you follow the story line. THE ACCIDENT MAN
is no accident – it’s a great thriller to pick up and tear through as I
nominate it a definite winner for 2008. Let
me know your thoughts. STALKED
Lieutenant
Jonathan Stride, with his girlfriend and now private investigator Serena Dial,
has recently returned to All
hell breaks loose in STALKED after the escape of a long term sentenced criminal.
Maggie
Bei, Stride’s right hand and partner, appears to be the likely suspect in the
murder of her husband, and a fellow detective has his sights singularly set on
convicting her because of past history involving his former partner. Serena
Dial is hired by the local prosecutor, who is looking to rise to a higher
political position, to address a blackmail problem, which results in dark and
deadly consequences. A
local eccentric and beautiful citizen goes missing without any witnesses or
traces. These
separate incidents appear at first glance not to be related, but Stride starts
to piece together clues that show a possible and disturbing connection.
But in order to solve the crimes, Stride must get Maggie Bei to divulge a
dark and hideous secret which might only help her to be convicted of her
husband’s murder. These
intersecting mysteries are expertly told and written by Brian Freeman, and kept
my emotions churning in more ways than just turning the pages until the final
epic conclusion. STALKED
again confirms Brian Freeman’s place at the top of the game of police
procedural thrillers. One
final side note, if you haven’t read the first two Stride thrillers, I suggest
you do so before devouring STALKED. Let
me know your thoughts. THE SECRET SCROLL
Right
from the outset of THE SECRET SCROLL
the protagonist, Josh Cohan, an archeologist on vacation in Cohan
in good conscience negotiates the surrendering of the artifact to the Israeli
Department of Antiquities, and begins to help the governmental agency determine
the authenticity of the object. But
there are those in Israel who do not want the scroll to see the light of day and
prove that certain biblical teachings may be wrong after all these millennia.
Hence, the thriller of THE SECRET
SCROLL. Cohan involuntarily
finds himself helping to try and protect the artifact from being stolen.
Cohan must also discover who is behind the conspiracy in order to stop
the continuing murders of certain members of the team who are examining the
artifact, and save the woman of his dreams from her captors.
Cutler
is quite accurate with the conflicts, politically and religiously, in A
commendable debut effort by Ronald Cutler, and I look forward to his next
adventure. Let
me know your thoughts. THE
RISK OF INFIDELITY INDEX
At
the outset of THE RISK OF INFIDELITY INDEX, Calvino has just successfully
completed an investigation for his key client, attorney Andrew Danielson, at a
prestigious law firm, regarding deceptive corporate practices involving
counterfeit manufactured drug products. All
Calvino has to do is present the evidence to Danielson and get paid handsomely,
as he eyes the possibility of making a move upwards in the economic chain by
applying for a job with the United Nations. As
Calvino’s luck, or bad luck, would have it, Danielson dies under suspicious
circumstances before Calvino is able to collect his monies.
The law firm will not pay him since, unbeknownst to Calvino, the attorney
initiated the job as an off-the-books assignment. How
then is Calvino going to get paid? Well
luck does come into play when Calvino is introduced to a group of foreign branch
corporate executives’ wives who want to know if and to what extent their
husbands are fooling around in Bangkok, as a popular local book “The Risk of
Infidelity Index” indicates is probably going on in a rampant fashion
throughout Thailand. This wives’
group includes the deceased attorney’s wife, and therefore Calvino believes
this will help him collect his monies! Little
does he understand that he should have written off the debt and kept to his
quiet life. As he digs into his
domestic assignments and he tries to get closer to Danielson’s wife, he finds
that the recent apparent suicide of a masseuse in the store front below his shop
might not only be connected to the death of Danielson, but to an insidious drug
gang that he was investigating in the first place. Moore
not only has written a chilling and fast-paced mystery, but the author also
provides an honest description of the local landscape and social underworld of
Bangkok, as Calvino and his friend Colonel Pratt desperately try to solve the
mysteries before they are permanently retired by the powers that be in
government and in the gangs.
Let me know your thoughts. -
Paul Anik
NOVEMBER - DECEMBER REVIEWS HIGH
SEASON Things
are not going well in Provincetown, Recently Frank Coffin was demoted to basement
officer, a politically motivated move; but he’s brought upstairs to help
figure out why deaths are piling up faster than the tourists lining up at the
local fish restaurants. First,
it’s a vacationing television evangelist “in-the-closet” cross dresser who
is reported missing by his wife and is subsequently found murdered at the
popular local gay beach.
Then the human dominos quickly fall. With the able assistance of his partner, Lola
Winters, Coffin is given the insurmountable task of trying to find out who the
local serial killer is so that city hall and the local businesses don’t run
into a major financial crises, while also trying to stay out of the way of the
state police who are “on the case” -- in Loomis’ view ineptly. Providing interesting back stories and colorful local
characters, Loomis plies his poetic craft with wit, charm and a little intrigue.
One drawback to HIGH SEASON is
the side story of the stalking episode involving Coffin’s girlfriend that I
did not find added any true value to the mystery other than a weak diversion
before finding the reason behind the murders and the identity of the killer. Otherwise,
HIGH SEASON confirms that you don’t
need a major city as the site of a good homegrown mystery.
I definitely look forward to the next Frank Coffin installment. Please
let me know what you think of HIGH SEASON. -
Paul Anik THE
VENETIAN BETRAYAL Dedicated
readers of Steve Berry’s unique thrillers are in for another fast-paced and
historically laced thriller with THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL. Steve
Berry continues to deftly tie-in unanswered mysteries with political intrigue,
as the author launches his protagonist, Cotton Malone, the “retired” US
secret organization’s Magellan Billet agent and now a “simple” book
dealer, into a race to discover and prevent a world-threatening plot by a female
despot, who has dreams of becoming the next Alexander the Great, and her
co-conspirator, who has his own plans for world monetary domination. THE VENETIAN BETRAYAL
finds Malone’s close friends, Cassiopeia Vitt, the mysteries and deadly
efficient modern day warrior, Henrik Thorvaldsen, the wealthy and very informed
entrepreneur, personally chasing down the last owners of medallions from the
days of antiquity and struck after Alexander the Great’s death that may help
lead to this conqueror’s final burial site.
Malone is unwittingly relegated to helping his friends out when he is
almost murdered at a rendezvous location arranged by Vitt.
Sure enough, Malone’s former boss, Stephanie Nelle, is also thrown into
the plot. The Central Asian Federation Supreme Minister Zovastina
and a drug manufacturer mogul are the evil nemesis of Malone this time around as
Zovastina, too, is searching for Alexander the Great’s burial site and the
secrets it might hold as to a legendary cure, while the drug czar is seeing more
green dollars as his final goal. Not
only is Berry superb at producing page turners, but he always takes the time to
develop his characters as he weaves his story to its climatic ending.
My only criticism is that the story as a whole was
similar to Berry’s last popular thriller, THE
ALEXANDRIA LINK; as if he used the same formulated outline and simply
changed the bad guys and the historical information.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed THE
VENETIAN BETRAYAL, and can’t wait for his next historical mystery
thriller, but I would be interested if he did something completely different -
a stand alone police procedural maybe? Whatever Berry
does next I am sure I will not be disappointed.
The only disappointment for you readers is that he doesn’t give you
time to just relax when reading THE
VENETIAN BETRAYAL, and before you know it you’re turning the last page and
you are already hungering for his next book. Bring it on Steve Berry I can’t wait. Let me know your thoughts. PERSON
OF INTEREST One
word describes Theresa Schwegel’s latest mystery novel, PERSON OF INTEREST -- poignant.
Again, Schwegel delivers.
PERSON OF INTEREST is an
extremely well written story that involves the trials and tribulations of the
lives of police officers with an
emphasis on how it affects the family of an undercover detective through the
eyes of his wife and family. PERSON OF INTEREST is highlighted by one family: Craig
McHugh, the detective’s wife, Leslie, who has to deal with suspicions
involving the possibility of an extramarital affair, and the troubling
experiences involving their daughter and drugs. While Craig is attempting to bring to justice
certain individuals in the drug world, Leslie must contend with her own problems
that include questioning her own faith in marriage and as a mother. As
Schwegel expertly twists and turns the characters through an operatic tale, PERSONS
OF INTEREST spirals around with well developed interaction between the
main and supporting characters to its final tied in resolutions. PERSON
OF INTEREST should
have been titled PERSONS OF INTEREST.
Besides Leslie and Craig, the author spotlights many other
“interesting” characters, including several criminal types, and other police
officers who have issues of their own to deal with. Theresa
Schwegel continues to stride along in her own genre – police officer’s lives
-- that stands apart from any other mysteries that I have ever read, and has
definitely earned her a place at the top of the game. For those who want to move on to other than police
procedurals, noirs, private eyes and thrillers, PERSON
OF INTEREST is my suggestion as a deserving choice. Let me know your thoughts. THE
LAST STRIPTEASE Then all
hell breaks loose in Michael Wiley’s debut classic detective story, THE
LAST STRIPTEASE, winner of the long established PWA/SMP Best Private Eye
Novel Contest. Next thing Joe knows,
he is hired by his father’s former good friend, Judge Rifkin, to help the
Judge’s assistant, Bob Piedras, find out the true circumstances behind the
murder of Piedras’ high rolling, hard partying and secretive Vietnamese
girlfriend, Hannah; otherwise Piedras is going to jail for a long stay.
Korzmarski is at first not interested in helping the “back-stabbing”
Judge, but is intrigued to find out the real reason for his assignment. Wiley is very creative in twisting the story from one
direction to another and intertwining it with historical details as to Joe’s
past and his relationship with the Judge and others.
As Kozmarski digs around, he becomes aware that there is more to be found
than just the death of a girlfriend and there may even be a tie-in to the video
store owner’s murder. I was a bit surprised by two weaknesses in THE
LAST STRIPTEASE. One involves
the forced custody relationship of a cousin’s young son imposed on Kozmarski
by his mother, and the child’s involvement in a few unrealistic scenes.
Also, the few physically brutal encounters with Hannah’s brothers which
I just didn’t understand when Kozmarski was on their side trying to find the
killer of their sister. The
sharply descriptive views of Kozmarski and the mystery itself easily outweighed
the weaknesses. I collect all PWA/SMP
winners, from the first winner, Les Roberts’ AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MONKEYS to the previous winner, Michael
Kronewetter’s FIRST KILL.
Most of the winner’s are truly well deserving mysteries – and THE
LAST STRIPTEASE definitely is a rewarding tale. I look
forward to Wiley’s sophomore effort and hope that his editors will help him
avoid the pitfalls of leaving in scenes that don’t make sense. Please
let me know what you think of THE LAST
STRIPTEASE. - Paul Anik Paul's review of THE
STERLING INHERITANCE by Paul Anik is a business transactions attorney during daylight
hours. At night and |
