Tag: Putnam

Review: Obsession in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
obsession in death by jd robbFormat read: print ARC provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: mystery
Series: In Death, #40
Length: 405 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: February 10, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Eve Dallas has solved a lot of high-profile murders for the NYPSD and gotten a lot of media. She—and her billionaire husband—are getting accustomed to being objects of attention, of gossip, of speculation.

But now Eve has become the object of one person’s obsession. Someone who finds her extraordinary, and thinks about her every hour of every day. Who believes the two of them have a special relationship. Who would kill for her—again and again…

With a murderer reading meanings into her every move, handling this case will be a delicate—and dangerous—psychological dance. And Eve knows that underneath the worship and admiration, a terrible threat lies in wait. Because the beautiful lieutenant is not at all grateful for these bloody offerings from her “true and loyal friend.” And in time, idols always fall…

My Review:

The case that begins when Eve starts receiving dead bodies as presents from an unknown admirer is one of the best books in this series in a long time. It is a particularly marvelous story for long-term fans, as the case forces Eve to look back at all the people she has let into her life, both her friends and her enemies. The case gives her a chance to reflect on the woman she might have been, which adds extra chills and thrills to a fascinating and deadly case of hero worship, without taking too long a trip to the angst factory.

It’s not the first crime scene that chills Eve down to her boots, it’s the note that the murderer left on the scene, labeling the victim as an enemy of Eve’s struck down by her “true and loyal friend”. Anyone who really knows Eve would know that she wouldn’t want a dead body as a present. Eve stands for the dead, bringing justice to those who have been murdered. While she has killed in the line of duty and for self-preservation, she wouldn’t want someone else doing it for her, even if the victim deserved it.

Which this one didn’t. She wasn’t even a real enemy, just a high-priced defense attorney who did an excellent job for her clients, even if those clients were wealthy scumbags. She and Eve had faced off on a couple of cases, and while the attorney scored points in the media, Eve mostly won. Even if she had lost, Eve wouldn’t consider an enemy someone who was doing their job the way it was supposed to be done.

But the mash note at the scene is a sign that the killer, no matter how organized they were in committing the crime, is actually emotionally deranged. (Think of the guy who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in order to “impress” actress Jodie Foster for a real life example.)

As the bodies left for Eve start to pile up, Eve and Dr. Mira work on a profile of the killer. Eve and several experts comb through all the “fan mail” that Eve has received over the years, looking for patterns and repeat correspondents.. Some of it is sweet, some of it is sexual, and a few bits are just plain sick. It turns out that there are quite a few people out there who think Eve would be their best friend ever (or more) if they just arranged to meet.

But some of the strange ones are sure that if Eve just got rid of all the people in the way, her best friend could finally get close to her. While Eve wants the killer to turn their attention from people who have crossed her over the years to Eve herself, Eve isn’t emotionally prepared to think about all the people in her life that she cares about who might become the killer’s next target.

As bad as Eve thinks it can get, and as much as she hates putting the lives of the people she loves and works with in danger, even Eve can’t quite manage to think her way into the mind of a killer who doesn’t care how big a body count she racks up in order to make Eve pay for not being the best bud that the killer thinks she should be.

When the killer drops Eve off that pedestal they’ve created, the killer wants to make sure that Eve goes out with as much collateral damage as possible when she crashes.

Escape Rating A-: I really enjoyed this one, and it was back on track as a mystery in a way that the last few books have not been, but it is definitely a story for long-time fans of the series. The killer’s motivations force Eve to take a look down memory lane at all the people who are now a part of her life, and that trip has much more resonance for people who have followed the series.

At the same time, the killer’s motivations, while chilling and made more personal if you know Eve, still track as something that makes (admittedly bad and deranged) sense. There have been real-life examples of people who kill or attempt to kill to gain the attention of some media star who they only think they have a relationship with. That Eve, in the context of her high-profile cases and her marriage to Roarke, would attract exactly this type of psychotic admirer is all too believable, which is what makes this story work so well.

Eve has a case to solve that touches on her personally and makes her feel just a bit guilty. Not that she has or hasn’t done anything to the killer, but that people are dying because of her and she can’t find who is doing it fast enough. She is putting the lives of the people she loves, and even those she just likes, into danger. And as the noose begins to tighten around the killer, Eve is even more guilt-ridden as they figure out that the murderer must be someone within the police department circle, either a cop or a clerk or someone at the morgue or the forensics lab. It’s a face that Eve has seen before and didn’t pick out of the crowd. Now that person has picked her out instead.

For long-term fans of the series, this one is a return to the under-pressure case solving that has made the series so much fun, while at the same time giving us more peeks into Eve’s life and the changes she has made. And we get to visit all the members of Eve’s “family” and see how everyone is doing.

Definitely a win.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Festive in Death by J.D. Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
festive in death by jd robbFormat read: ebook borrowed from the library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, large print paperback, audiobook
Genre: mystery
Series: In Death, #39
Length: 390 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: September 9, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn’t count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who’d been loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler’s enemies, she’s also dealing with her Christmas shopping list—plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband’s upcoming holiday bash.
Feeling less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim and solve the mystery of his death. There are just a few investigating days left before Christmas, and as New Year’s 2061 approaches, this homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.

My Review:

I love this series, and every time I read one, I get a different answer as to why.

For one thing, Dallas’ version of deadpan snarker makes me laugh every single time. She has all the gallows humor of a career police officer, combined with a nearly complete lack of reference to what other people think is normal.

There’s a running gag in Festive in Death that cliches and proverbs make zero sense when analyzed. Which is true in every single example that comes up. And every time Eve tries to parse one out, she sends Roarke down a verbal rabbithole that drags him completely off his original topic. They are absolutely marvelous together.

A lot of this particular story is about family. For Eve and Roarke, the Christmas season is all about the “family you make”. Or in their case, watching the families that each of them has made continue to blend together into a single, slightly crazy, whole.

Their crazy-in-a-good-way but slightly dysfunctional family is contrasted directly with the family of two of the suspects in this episode’s murder-of-the-week.

At first, Eve isn’t sure that they ARE suspects. What is certain is that they were victims of the recently deceased scumbag, and that the way that he victimized them gives them and their families strong motives for murdering him.

This case was a bit different in that no one is mourning the dead jerk. Even Dallas is slightly conflicted; she’s not sorry he’s dead, at least partially because it robs her of the opportunity to lock him up for a couple of decades.

Trey Ziegler was a personal trainer who did not stick to his day job. He also fucked his clients for money and favors, which makes him a prostitute. In Eve’s version of the future, Licensed Companion is a profession, and yes, notice the licensed. Unlicensed selling of sex for money is still illegal. But Ziegler went two better (or worse). He used date-rape drugs to remove his clients’ inhibitions, and then he blackmailed them for having seemingly given in.

As I said, dead scumbag leaving plenty of victims with motives behind him.

Two of the many women he screwed over were sisters, which creeps both of them out. But even more scummy, he was also blackmailing one sister’s jerkwad husband over keeping a mistress using his rich wife’s money.

The problem that Eve has to solve is not who had motive and opportunity, or even who benefits (dead blackmailer lets lots of people off the hook), but whose applecart did the guy most threaten to upset?

In the middle of dealing with, and sometimes running away from, the biggest Christmas party that Eve and Roarke have ever hosted, Eve worries away at solving the crime. The person she wants to be the murderer is scummy, but may not quite be scummy enough.

It’s only when the killer claims a second victim that Eve finally puts it all together.

Escape Rating B+: I pored through this one until late in the night. It was just plain fun to read, and there were lots of laugh out loud moments.

But what I enjoyed was watching Eve and Roarke’s family celebrate the holidays. Eve is starting to see this very mixed gang of cops and corporate types as their family, and it’s a revelation for her. Also, as unsocialized as she sometimes is, seeing her see and feel that there are some things you just suck up because, well, family was a lot of growth that happens without going back to the angst-factory.

Eve’s intense dislike of parties, socializing and being the center of attention does not count as angst. It usually counts as funny.

obsession in death by jd robbI love these people, not just Eve and Roarke but the entire gang. I can’t wait to find out how they’re doing after Christmas in Obsession in Death.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Otherwise Engaged by Amanda Quick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
otherwise engaged by amanda quickFormat read: hardcover borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook
Genre: Historical romance
Length: 345 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: April 22, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Miss Amity Doncaster, world traveler, is accustomed to adventure and risk. Benedict Stanbridge, a man of science and a spy for the Crown, has faced danger in the darker corners of foreign lands.

But they are about to face a threat that is shockingly close to home …

One does not expect to be kidnapped on a London street in broad daylight. But Amity Doncaster barely escapes with her life after she is trapped in a carriage with a blade-wielding man in a black silk mask who whispers the most vile taunts and threats into her ear. Her quick thinking, and her secret weapon, save her … for now.

But the monster known in the press as the Bridegroom, who has left a trail of female victims in his wake, has survived the wounds she inflicts and will soon be on his feet again. He is unwholesomely obsessed by her scandalous connection to Benedict Stanbridge—gossip about their hours alone in a ship’s stateroom seems to have crossed the Atlantic faster than any sailing vessel could. Benedict refuses to let this resourceful, daring woman suffer for her romantic link to him—as tenuous as it may be.

For a man and woman so skilled at disappearing, so at home in the exotic reaches of the globe, escape is always an option. But each intends to end the Bridegroom’s reign of terror in London, and will join forces to do so. And as they prepare to confront an unbalanced criminal in the heart of the city they love, they must also face feelings that neither of them can run away from…

My Review:

I was vaguely disappointed that Otherwise Engaged is not part of The Ladies of Lantern Street series. I kept expecting the Arcane Society to make an appearance, but alas, it was not to be.

The lack of a supernatural element does not mean that Otherwise Engaged is lacking in suspense! We have a serial killer, an extensive cover up, madness the like of Sweeney Todd or Jack the Ripper, and a fake engagement between an intrepid globetrotter and a rookie spy.

What more could a reader ask for?

Amity Doncaster is the woman I think we’d all like to have been in the late 1800s. She is an absolutely fearless world traveler, visiting exotic places all over the globe as a completely independent woman. She supports herself by writing travel articles for the London newspapers, and the public breathlessly awaits her next adventure.

Then she meets Benedict Stanbridge in the Caribbean. She’s taking in the sights of a small island town during a cruise, and he’s bleeding to death in an alley. Not the most salubrious meeting in romantic history.

She rescues him. Not just by helping him get on board ship, but by doctoring his wounds and nursing him back to health. She saves his life. In return, there’s one kiss and his immediate transit to California as soon as they dock in New York.

She never expects to see him again, although she has hopes. Neither of which stand her in good stead when she returns to London and rumors start circulating that all the time she spent in his cabin was more intimate and less innocent than it truly was.

Those rumors make her the quarry of a serial killer who targets women in society circles who have supposedly given up their virtue. He may be mad as a hatter, but it is unfortunately an organized madness. The Bridegroom killer nearly makes Amity his next victim, but she outsmarts him with a concealed blade.

And into the midst of the ensuing drama and scandal, Benedict Stanbridge rushes back into Amity’s life. While his initial desire is to begin where they left off in New York, he believes that he needs to rescue her from the possibility of another attack. She won’t sit idly by while he does all the work; but she will let him assist in her investigation.

To divert the scandal, they agree to a fake engagement, but one that they both secretly hope will become real. It takes Benedict quite a lot of convincing, and several near-death experiences, to convince Amity that it is her that he really wants, for love and not just to protect her.

Escape Rating B+: The fake engagement trope, when it works, is one of my favorites. Two people who are supposed to be in love discover that they actually are. As a concept, the fake engagement works better in historicals than contemporaries, because it feels like there are more logical reasons to fake an engagement. The threat of scandal just isn’t what it used to be.

Amity and Benedict are terrific as the couple who can’t believe that anyone would love them. Amity is practical, sensible and off-the shelf. She’s also been the victim of a scandal, having once had a fiancee who was only interested in using her, then left her at the altar, starting her on her globetrotting adventures. She ran away from the scandal by seeing the world. She also believes herself to be terribly plain, and Benedict much too handsome for her own good.

Benedict is an engineer. He’s sure he’s much too boring for an adventurous woman like Amity. He also suffered from a broken engagement, with a woman who was only interested in him for his money and family connections, but found the man himself terribly boring. (She was a very stupid woman).

Forcing them together for the sake of investigating the Bridegroom Killer makes them get past the superficialities, and also binds them together through the shared experience of danger. Amity finds Benedict anything but boring–he’s a brilliant engineer and an amateur spy!

They need each other for balance, and they fall in love with the real person they are able to trust to guard their back, because they spend their fake engagement under threat from all sides. Falling in love is inevitable, but they are each the last person to see it.

The combination of the hunt for the serial killer with the search for the foreign agent involved in industrial espionage kept the suspense and danger ratcheted up for the entire story. Otherwise Engaged is breathtakingly fun!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Collector by Nora Roberts

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
collector by nora robertsFormat read: hardcover borrowed from the library
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genre: romantic suspense
Length: 496 pages
Publisher: Putnam
Date Released: April 15, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

When professional house-sitter Lila Emerson witnesses a murder/suicide from her current apartment-sitting job, life as she knows it takes a dramatic turn. Suddenly, the woman with no permanent ties finds herself almost wishing for one. . . .
Artist Ashton Archer knows his brother isn’t capable of violence—against himself or others. He recruits Lila, the only eyewitness, to help him uncover what happened. Ash longs to paint her as intensely as he hungers to touch her. But their investigation draws them into a rarified circle where priceless antiques are bought, sold, gambled away, and stolen, where what you possess is who you are, and where what you desire becomes a deadly obsession. . . .

My Review:

I picked this up over the weekend instead of any of the fifteen other things I should have been reading because, well, Nora Roberts writing romantic suspense again. When she’s good, she’s very, very good. And The Collector was definitely one of the good ones!

There are shades of the movie Rear Window in the suspense part of this story, as professional house-sitter Lila Emerson witnesses a murder by people watching from the patio of her current gig. She sees someone shove a woman out of the window of a highrise to her splattered death on the pavement below. She’s on the phone with 911 as she watches the argument across the way escalate from abuse to death.

That should be the end of Lila’s involvement, all most of us would do is give our statements to the police and go on about our lives. Not that it wouldn’t affect us, but that we wouldn’t become more and more enmeshed in the investigation and the lives of the people affected by that one plummeting fall.

Lila can’t seem to resist involvement. Everywhere and with everything, but only to a limited extent. She lives her life out of two suitcases, constantly moving from house-sitting to apartment-sitting, always traveling and never putting down roots. But she’s a professional at getting people to open up and tell her their life stories.

While that is partly the fodder for her successful writing career, it is also her way of blending in to her environment. As a military brat, she was always packing up, moving on, and trying to make a place for herself in a new home. Now she does it by choice.

Ashton Archer is involved because he feels has no choice. His brother Oliver was on the other side of that window where Lila witnessed the murder, and Oliver is also dead. At first, the police tried to write the combined deaths off as murder-suicide, but the forensic evidence ruled that possibility out fairly quickly. Which means that both his brother and his girlfriend were murdered by a third party.

Ashton, used to cleaning up his brother’s messes and taking care of entire extremely extended family, steps in to try to find justice in his brother’s case. Or failing that, vengeance. Ashton’s road to answers leads through Lila.

Unfortunately for them both, someone else’s road to riches leads through the same case. for those people, Lila and Ashton are messy loose ends that need to be tied up. Permanently.

Escape Rating A-: This combination of suspense, romance and treasure hunting turned into a story that I couldn’t break away from. There were multiple storylines packed into this one case, and every single one revolved around a fascinating and/or very likeable character.

Lila and Ashton start out as slightly wary allies. He needs to investigate his brother’s murder. She can’t let the mystery go. But as they join forces to solve the crime, they become intimately involved with each other, in spite of Lila’s deep inner need to control her own life, and Ashton’s inability to stop controlling the lives of the people he cares for. Even as they fall for each other, the peace between them is often uneasy. It takes a long but realistic amount of time for them to work toward compromise in their personal relationship.

125px-PeterthegreateggThe suspense part of the story combined present-day art theft with a marvelous history lesson into the creation and collection of the famous Fabergé Eggs commissioned by the Russian Tsars.

Everything that has happened has been about one of the lost Fabergé Eggs, The Cherub with Chariot (and it really is lost) and one man’s obsession with possessing it. Oliver found it and tried to double-cross someone who was much too big for him, and the result has left a number of bodies in the wake. A collector who wants it not only bad enough to kill for it, but who keeps an assassin on his payroll just to clear up his loose ends.

The assassin is every bit as important (and interesting) a character as the hero and heroine. She lives to kill, and to collect prizes from her victims, and she’s targeting Lila and Ash because they keep showing her up.

The story is the dance between Lila, Ashton and the assassin Jai, and it’s a perfectly performed Russian troika, right up until the end.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Concealed in Death by J D Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
concealed in death by jd robbFormat read: ebook borrowed from the Library
Formats available: Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, ebook
Genre: mystery, romantic suspense, futuristic
Series: In Death #38
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Putnam
Date Released: February 18, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

In a decrepit, long-empty New York building, Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband begins the demolition process by swinging a sledgehammer into a wall. When the dust clears, there are two skeletons wrapped in plastic behind it. He summons his wife immediately—and by the time she’s done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved.

The place once housed a makeshift shelter for troubled teenagers, back in the mid-2040s, and Eve tracks down the people who ran it. Between their recollections and the work of the force’s new forensic anthropologist, Eve begins to put names and faces to the remains. They are all young girls. A tattooed tough girl who dealt in illegal drugs. The runaway daughter of a pair of well-to-do doctors. They all had their stories. And they all lost their chance for a better life.

Then Eve discovers a connection between the victims and someone she knows. And she grows even more determined to reveal the secrets of the place that was called The Sanctuary—and the evil concealed in one human heart.

My Review:

Thankless in Death by J.D. RobbConcealed in Death was way more enjoyable than Thankless in Death. It was great to see the story from Eve and Roarke’s point of view, and NOT spend time in the mind of a scumbag killer. This one was old-school police procedural, and it was good to see the series back to its usual form.

This is almost a cold case story. The crime occurred 15 years in the past, and it has been hidden for all that time. But when Roarke breaks a wall and discovers the first (and second) of 12 wrapped bodies, the action is off to the races.

A big part of this case is the identification of the bodies–after 15 years in an abandoned building, all that’s left is the bones. Which means that Eve needs a forensic anthropologist to ID them for her. The new addition to the team, Dr. Garnet DeWinter, is accustomed to being the alpha female of her own team. Even though Garnet gets along well with Morris, she and Eve jostle against each other through the whole case. It’s fun to see Eve run up against another woman who will not subordinate herself to anyone but she can’t treat as an enemy.

One of the best parts of the story is that we learn more about Mavis; where she came from, what she was involved with before she and Eve became friends. There is a reason why Mavis and Eve bonded in spite of not just being opposites, but originally being on opposite sides of the law., and we get to see what makes them best friends, despite being so very different.

The cop shop parts of the story were often laugh out loud funny, as was Eve’s never-ending battle of wits with Summerset. I’m particularly fond of Galahad the cat, that big lazy moocher is just my kind of feline.

The case was interesting in that there wasn’t a true resolution. Even though the team did figure out who done it and why it was done, there wasn’t the kind of satisfactory punishment that readers, and Eve herself, want. It’s totally appropriate for this particular case, but it left me hungering for a nice, juicy trial, or a high-speed chase scene.

Escape Rating B+: There’s an aspect of Bones meets Dallas, but it was a great way of introducing a new character to the team. (Also DeWinter is way more socially ept than Temperance Brennan)

It was also good not to have either Eve or Roarke dealing with an overwhelming amount of angst; although the case does have resonance for both of them, it doesn’t send everyone into nightmares and depression. It was great to have a case be mostly just a case, and not a trip to the angst-factory.

Among the usual crew, this story focused on Mavis, and had some absolutely marvelous moments with Denis and Charlotte Mira.

I read this series for mind-candy, and to catch up with the gang. This story was just about a one-sitting read, and that was great!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: River Road by Jayne Ann Krentz

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
river road by Jayne ann krentzFormat read: print ARC provided by the publisher
Formats available: Hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Romantic suspense
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam
Date Released: January 7, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

It’s been thirteen years since Lucy Sheridan was in Summer River. The last time she visited her aunt Sara there, as a teenager, she’d been sent home suddenly after being dragged out of a wild party—by the guy she had a crush on, just to make it more embarrassing. Obviously Mason Fletcher—only a few years older but somehow a lot more of a grown-up—was the overprotective type who thought he had to come to her rescue.

Now, returning after her aunt’s fatal car accident, Lucy is learning there was more to the story than she realized at the time. Mason had saved her from a very nasty crime that night—and soon afterward, Tristan, the cold-blooded rich kid who’d targeted her, disappeared mysteriously, his body never found.

A lot has changed in thirteen years. Lucy now works for a private investigation firm as a forensic genealogist, while Mason has quit the police force to run a successful security firm with his brother—though he still knows his way around a wrench when he fills in at his uncle’s local hardware store. Even Summer River has changed, from a sleepy farm town into a trendy upscale spot in California’s wine country. But Mason is still a protector at heart, a serious (and seriously attractive) man. And when he and Lucy make a shocking discovery inside Sara’s house, and some of Tristan’s old friends start acting suspicious, Mason’s quietly fierce instincts kick into gear. He saved Lucy once, and he’ll save her again. But this time, she insists on playing a role in her own rescue . . .

My Review:

I enjoyed reading River Road so much that it was surprisingly difficult to crystallize my thoughts into a review!

One utterly marvelous thing is that this is a stand-alone story, and sometimes those feel rare. As well as this one weaves past and present, it is complete within the very tight confines of itself; we have the beginning, middle and end wrapped up. No cliffhanger, no next book, no loose ends.

And this was definitely one of those “I couldn’t put it down” sort of suspense stories. Every element in both the past and the present mattered, and both the revelations about the past and the attacks in the present kept on coming. The suspense drove the story to the point where I couldn’t turn pages fast enough.

But there’s still a love story that takes its time to develop in the present. One of the things that makes that love story “sing” is that it is also a second chance at love story. In the case of the past influencing the present, in the “way back”, he was her first crush, but as adults, that three-year age gap is immaterial.

There are two stories in River Road. One is about the past haunting the present. Thirteen years ago Lucy Sheridan’s Aunt Sara murdered Tristan Brinker and bricked his body up inside her fireplace. After Sara’s death, Lucy and Mason Fletcher re-open Sara’s terrible “do-it-yourself” job on that fireplace and discover Tristan’s body; along with evidence indicating that the young man was the “Scorecard Rapist” who police had been unable to capture thirteen years ago.

On the long ago night that opens the story, when Mason Fletcher rescues Lucy from one of Tristan’s famous beach parties at Summer River, Lucy had been Tristan’s next intended victim. Instead, Mason gets Lucy out of the party, Sara gets Lucy out of town, and Sara puts Tristan out of everyone’s misery.

Thirteen years later, Sara and her domestic partner Mary are killed in a car accident on a lonely road, and after the body is discovered in the fireplace, Lucy suddenly isn’t so certain that the “accident” was accidental; especially after an arsonist dies while setting her aunt’s house ablaze and she discovers that she has inherited either money or trouble as the result of not Sara’s, but Mary’s shares in a local investment firm.

And it all relates to the people who were the other victims of Tristan Brinker and that long-ago summer.

Escape Rating A+: I could not put this down, to the point that I was carrying the book around with me so I could get in a few more pages…just a few more paragraphs…

River Road is an absolutely terrific romantic suspense story, with a definite emphasis on the suspense. Krentz did a marvelous job of continually interweaving the past with the present, all the while making the old case both relevant to the present investigation but not taking the reader’s focus on the present-day skullduggery. Of which there was plenty.

The suspense plot was edge-of-the seat tense in this story. Every puzzle piece fit neatly into the ones we had already seen, and yet, I still didn’t know whodunnit until the very end. I had some ideas that some people didn’t exactly have clean hands, but not who the real evildoers were.

And there is one stand up and cheer moment as the story concludes, you’ll be surprised about that, too.

But there’s also a slowly developing love story between Lucy and Mason, and it’s just right. In the prologue, he’s an adult, just barely, and she isn’t quite yet. He’s protective and too much for her, and she knows it. As adults, they are equal. He’s still overprotective, but she doesn’t let him be. They need something from each other. And they need to solve the mystery, because they were both part of what happened in the past, and they are both targets in the present. But their caution makes the romance burn slow and hot.

Excellently well done all the way around. If you enjoy romantic suspense, you’ll love River Road.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Thankless in Death by J D Robb

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Thankless in Death by J.D. RobbFormat read:  print book borrowed from the library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, large print paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Romantic suspense
Series: In Death, #37
Length: 417 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: September 17, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Lieutenant Eve Dallas has plenty to be grateful for this season. Hosting Roarke’s big Irish family for the holiday may be challenging, but it’s a joyful improvement on her own dark childhood.

Other couples aren’t as lucky as Eve and Roarke. The Reinholds, for example, are lying in their home stabbed and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Those who knew them are stunned—and heartbroken by the evidence that they were murdered by their own son. Twenty-six-year-old Jerry hadn’t made a great impression on the bosses who fired him or the girlfriend who dumped him—but they didn’t think he was capable of this.

Turns out Jerry is not only capable of brutality but taking a liking to it. With the money he’s stolen from his parents and a long list of grievances, he intends to finally make his mark on the world. Eve and her team already know the who, how, and why of this murder. What they need to pinpoint is where Jerry’s going to strike next.

My Review:

There are aspects of Thankless in Death that are, well, thankless, in spite of an absolutely awesome scene where both Eve and, surprisingly Roarke get thanked for their service to the NYPSD.

Unlike many of the entries in this series, this isn’t a whodunnit. It’s not even a “whydunnit”. This one is simply a “when in the deity’s name are they going to finally catch the bastard doing it?” The only suspense involved the length of time the sadistic killer could continue to get lucky and evade capture.

I said lucky and I meant it. This moron wasn’t planning all that much, and he wasn’t bothering to cover up his crimes. He simply caught a lot of lucky breaks, until one of his victims effectively planted a logic bomb in the fake identity he forced her to create for him at knifepoint.

There’s no mystery in this mystery. And we spend more time inside the head of a psychotic serial killer than is comfortable. He isn’t even all that bright, so his world view manages to be both blood soaked and boring at the same time.

This one is a crime about how bad things happen to good people.

The family side of this story doesn’t reveal a lot that’s new, although it is pleasant to have Roarke’s Irish family come to America for Thanksgiving. Roarke playing soccer with his cousins is priceless.

But the best part of this particular outing with Dallas & Co. isn’t either the case or the romance (not that Eve and Roarke aren’t still amazing) but something else altogether.

naked in death by J.D. RobbAll the way back in the beginning, from the very first story in Naked in Death, one of the themes was that originally all Eve Dallas ever wanted was to be “a good cop”. Her job was her life, and it was all she had. Roarke gave her a life outside her job, and made her better at it. Ironically in a way, because he started out as a street-thief, and only stopped the last of his illegal enterprises in order to be with her.

In this most recent story, the NYPSD decides to finally set aside the internal politicking that has kept the powers-that-be from completely acknowledging their contributions. In a very public ceremony. Eve is awarded the Medal of Honor, and Roarke the highest civilian honor, the Civilian Medal of Merit. I choked up when I read the scene, and I did re-reading it just now. It was as if friends were being awarded something, because after all the books and all the years, it feels as if they are.

And that’s why I keep reading.

Escape Rating B-: Definitely far from the best in the series. The experiment of having the reader know much more about the case than the detectives was interesting, but I hope it isn’t repeated, particularly since the scumbags that Dallas generally chases do not have the kind of minds that I want to wallow in for more than a nanosecond.

This particular scumbag wasn’t even intelligent or interesting. Just very scummy.

The cop shop scenes had some good chemistry. I always enjoy seeing Dallas and Feeney work together, and their father/daughter moments had extra poignancy in this one.

All of Eve’s angst and acceptance about receiving the Medal of Honor and the accolades that went with it were far and away the best part of the story. She didn’t want the award or the ceremony that went with it. It wasn’t until the event was taking place that she finally accepted that the award didn’t just have meaning for her, but that it had significance for every victim she had ever stood for–and not just their families, but her own. Not just the family that both she and Roarke had finally discovered were theirs by right, but also the one that they had created through friendship and love.

If only the rest of the book had been close to the emotional resonance of that Medal of Honor ceremony. If only.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Mystery Woman by Amanda Quick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
The Mystery Woman by Amanda QuickFormat read: hardcover borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: paranormal romance, historical romance
Series: Ladies of Lantern Street, #2
Length: 385 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: April 23, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Under the plain gray skirts of Miss Beatrice Lockwood’s gown, a pistol waits at the ready. For Beatrice is a paid companion on a secret mission—and with a secret past—and she must be prepared to fight for her life at any moment.

Yet she is thrown oddly off guard by the fierce-looking man who joins her in foiling a crime outside a fancy ball—and then disappears into the shadows, leaving only his card. His name is Joshua Gage, and he claims to know Beatrice’s employers. Beyond that, he is an enigma with a hypnotically calm voice and an ebony-and-steel cane…

Joshua, who carries out clandestine investigations for the Crown, is equally intrigued. He has a personal interest in Miss Lockwood, a suspected thief and murderer, not to mention a fraudster who claims to have psychical powers. The quest to discover her whereabouts has pulled him away from his mournful impulses to hurl himself into the sea—and engaged his curiosity about the real Beatrice Lockwood, whose spirit, he suspects, is not as delicate as her face and figure.

He does know one thing, though: This flame-haired beauty was present the night Roland Fleming died at the Academy of the Occult. Guilty or not, she is his guide to a trail of blood and blackmail, mesmerism and madness—a path that will lead both of them into the clutches of a killer who calls himself the Bone Man…

My Review:

There was both a mystery woman and a mystery man in this second installment of Amanda Quick’s Ladies of Lantern Street trilogy. I wouldn’t mind a bit if the owners of the Flint & Marsh Agency on Lantern Street found a few more operatives and kept this series going!

Beatrice Lockwood is very much the mystery woman. She starts out as Miranda the Clairvoyant of Dr. Fleming’s Academy of the Occult and ends by attempting to raise the dead. Needless to say, there is a LOT of story in the middle!

And even though Beatrice believes in the paranormal, and definitely has talent, she knows perfectly well that raising the dead is beyond anyone’s ability. But the madman pursuing her is convinced otherwise, and doesn’t care how many other corpses he has to make in order to reach her.

Yes, he’s a bit illogical about it. After all, he’s insane.

Meanwhile, Beatrice is in a bind. The madman is after her for her power. Joshua Gage is after her for much more mundane reasons. He starts out convinced that she’s blackmailing his sister over secrets she learned while posing as Miranda the Clairvoyant.

First, Bea is no blackmailer. Second, she learned no secrets. Third, Joshua has been misled into this case for all the wrong reasons. But someone made a mistake. Because Joshua realizes that while Bea may not be the blackmailer, she is the center of the case, and that they are stronger if they join forces.

Even though Joshua emphatically does not believe in the paranormal, their forces are very considerable. Especially once they realize that the most important thing they have discovered in this case is their need for each other.

But can they discover who is behind the madness before it is too late?

Crystal Garden by Amanda QuickEscape Rating B+: The Mystery Woman was even better than Crystal Gardens (reviewed here). It didn’t have the weight of needing to explain the set up of the story, and the plot was stronger. There were more twists and turns to the mystery. It was much eerier and more diabolical.

Joshua’s story had a lot of depth. He underwent much more of a transformation. He starts the story having been in kind of retreat after a case went badly. This turns out to be the real heart of the story in The Mystery Woman. Joshua was an espionage agent for the government, and his mentor’s daughter as well as a fellow agent died on his last case. Joshua blames himself. He also injured his leg and uses a cane as a result.

Of course, it’s not that simple. The complications are what we learn in the story.
The Egyptology trappings are fascinating. There really was an Egyptology craze in England in the 19th century, so this part really works well!

That Bea not only has a paranormal talent but believes in the paranormal, where Josh has a talent but refuses to believe in anything remotely psychic provides for endless but entertaining banter. He represents the skeptic’s point of view marvelously.

But they not only fall in love, they accept each other. Which helps Josh to accept himself as he is now; injuries, scars and all. They each let go of their past identities so they can build a future together.

Bea does not raise the dead. But she and Josh do rise from the ashes of the past.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Stoker’s Manuscript by Royce Prouty

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Stoker's Manuscript by Royce ProutyFormat read: print book borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook
Genre: Horror
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Date Released: June 13, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

When rare-manuscript expert Joseph Barkeley is hired to authenticate and purchase the original draft and notes for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, little does he know that the reclusive buyer is a member of the oldest family in Transylvania.

After delivering the manuscript to the legendary Bran Castle in Romania, Barkeley—a Romanian orphan himself—realizes to his horror that he’s become a prisoner to the son of Vlad Dracul. To earn his freedom, Barkeley must decipher cryptic messages hidden in the text of the original Dracula that reveal the burial sites of certain Dracul family members. Barkeley’s only hope is to ensure that he does not exhaust his usefulness to his captor until he’s able to escape. Soon he discovers secrets about his own lineage that suggest his selection for the task was more than coincidence. In this knowledge may lie Barkeley’s salvation—or his doom. For now he must choose between a coward’s flight and a mortal conflict against an ancient foe.

Building on actual international events surrounding the publication of Bram Stoker’s original novel, Royce Prouty has written a spellbinding debut novel that ranges from 1890s Chicago, London, and Transylvania to the perilous present.

My Review:

This is eerie. It has that tingle of chill up your spine subtle horror, combined with a search for identity and a bit of a scavenger hunt. Very cryptic and cool.

Then there’s the mix of contemporary horror thrown in; 21st century Romania still bears very real scars from the regime of the tyrant Nicolae Ceauşescu.

The story of Stoker’s Manuscript borrows its fascination from our endless enthrallment to Bram Stoker’s original story; but the question raised by this novel is whether that story was Stoker’s original story? What if, instead of merely borrowing from obscure folk legends, Stoker actually had a source with first-hand knowledge of real vampires?

Which begs the question that has led to so much horror and paranormal fiction, what if there really are vampires?

Joseph Barkeley is hired not just to authenticate Stoker’s original manuscript and notes from the Rosenbach Museum, but to also purchase them (if authentic) for a mysterious (and, of course wealthy) personage in Romania.

Joseph finds the commission too good to refuse, although he knows that he should. It will require him to return to Romania, the country of his birth. The country where his father murdered his mother and committed suicide. There is a mystery in their deaths, and in the equally mysterious rescue of himself and his brother from an orphanage.

He hopes for answers to his questions.

Instead, he finds an even greater mystery. His friends and his brother warn him away, saying that the truth is too dangerous to be revealed.

Dracula by Bram StokerWe know, of course we do. Stoker’s manuscript for Dracula uncovers a secret. There really are vampires. The questions that Joseph needs to ask are about the history of that manuscript. Why do the vampires want it now? What secret does it hold?

Can Joseph save anything from this debacle? Can he unravel the puzzle before it is too late?

Escape Rating B: There are puzzles within puzzles within puzzles. At the very beginning of the story, Joseph lives such an isolated life that it took me a few pages to realize that the start of the story was contemporary. The writing has a historical feel to it, a bit as if one is reading the original story.

Because of Joseph’s initial isolation, he’s a difficult person to get to know; he doesn’t even let himself inside his own head. He is dispassionate, but fascinated with solving problems. Over the course of the story, he lets more people get closer to him, but this is not a relationship story. It’s a scavenger hunt.

The analogy works on multiple levels, as the vampires are scavengers of another kind. They are not romanticized in any way. They are amoral bloodsucking villains with no redeeming characteristics, and neither were they in Stoker’s original tale.

One of the ways this story draws the reader in is that it is built on the historic possibilities. Stoker’s actual manuscript is in the Rosenbach Museum. It was lost and discovered recently. Fabricating a horror novel around the creation of a horror novel this way is particularly chilling.

The Historian by Elizabeth KostovaThe way this story takes the original Dracula book, mixes in Romanian history and creates a new horror legend made me think of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian. Similar elements going in different chilling directions, that suck you right in…to the story.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Yard by Alex Grecian

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
The Yard by Alex GrecianFormat read: paperback ARC picked up at conference
Formats available: ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: Historical mystery
Series: The Murder Squad, #1
Length: 432 pages
Publisher: Putnam
Date Released: May 29, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

1889, LONDON.

JACK THE RIPPER’S REIGN OF TERROR IN FINALLY OVER, BUT A NEW ONE IS JUST BEGINNING.

Victorian London—a violent cesspool of squalid depravity. Only twelve detectives—The Murder Squad—are expected to solve the thousands of crimes committed here each month. Formed after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure in capturing Jack the Ripper, the Murder Squad suffers the brunt of public contempt. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own…

A Scotland Yard Inspector has been found stuffed in a black steamer trunk at Euston Square Station, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. When Walter Day, the squad’s new hire, is assigned to the case, he finds a strange ally in Dr. Bernard Kingsley, the Yard’s first forensic pathologist. Their grim conclusion: this was not just a random, bizarre murder but in all probability, the first of twelve. Because the squad itself it being targeted and the devious killer shows no signs of stopping before completing his grim duty. But Inspector Day has one more surprise, something even more shocking than the crimes: the killer’s motive.

My Review

Jack the Ripper changed the world. He wasn’t the first serial killer, but he was the first one to create the kind of worldwide media frenzy that we are only too familiar with today.

The Ripper created the type of spectacle that the media loves, in an era when the newspapers (think of that, newspapers) were only just discovering the power of the press to sensationalize.

When Jack wasn’t caught, that frenzy turned on the Metropolitan Police. The late 1880s were the very dawn of forensics and investigative techniques. No one was prepared to profile a serial killer. But the press howled for a scapegoat, and the public lost confidence in the police.

Ripper Street DVD(If you’ve ever watched the TV series Ripper Street, this is the same time period. Not only does it give you a terrific picture of the setting for The Yard, but Ripper Street is just plain awesome. Dark, but awesome.)

The story of The Yard is a murder investigation. After the Ripper killings, this Scotland Yard created not merely what 21st century police would call a Homicide Division, but a Major Case Squad within that division. In other words, a “Murder Squad”.

Their first serious case is the murder of one of their own: a Detective Inspector is found stuffed into a steamer trunk in Euston Station, with his eyes and mouth sewn shut. It is going to be Detective Inspector Walter Day’s first major case since he was promoted to Inspector and moved to London from Devon.

No one is sure he is up to the job, including himself. Because the killer is after him. At least, one of them is.

Escape Rating A: The Yard is an amazingly well put together story. It’s a historic mystery, and it’s a police procedural at a time when that police procedure was being invented. Forensics compared to what we know now were pretty minimal. Reading the story of this “Murder Squad” being created as it solves its first cases is awesome.

As a police procedural, this is a “cop shop” book. Grecian brings the work of the police to life. Even though this is a different era from our own, they still feel like police. A lot of the grunt work is the same, even when technology is non-existent.

The characters were people that you wanted to follow. In this story, those are mainly the men, because women weren’t police in the 19th century, but the glimpses of their backstories have depth. One of the fascinating characters is the pathologist, Dr. Kingley, who seems to be running the entire forensic pathology department as a one-man-band on his own time and his own dime (or shilling).

But the two members of the Murder Squad itself are the people whose eyes we see through. Walter Day, who is new to London and isn’t sure if he should be there, and Constable Hammersmith, who got himself out of the coal mines and was made to be a copper.

Not only are the characters incredibly well-drawn, but the research into the period is meticulous. Grecian has brought the gaslight era back to life in The Yard.

The Black Country by Alex GrecianRight now, I’m trying to figure out why I let the ARC of The Yard sit around since last June. It was on my 2012 most anticipated list, but when I got it I didn’t get around to reading it until now. I’d be kicking myself harder but Murder Squad #2, The Black Country, just came out this month. I can jump right in!

If this sounds like your cup of tea, or if you’re interested in an alternative investigation of the Ripper case itself, try Lyndsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.