Good Books » Mystery Thriller

L. Ron Hubbard Pulp Fiction Stories Now Bringing Adventure to Life in Fastest Growing Publishing Segment

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:33:00 +0000

As more and more readers are finding their way to eBooks, the release of Apple’s new iPad and iBookstore mark a new high point for the fastest growing book publishing segment. The Association of American Publishers just announced that while overall book sales in 2009 fell 1.8%, the eBook category rose an amazing 176.6% to $313.2 million.

“We are very happy at Galaxy Press to have had our Stories from the Golden Age books available on the new iBookstore the very first day the iPad was released,” stated John Goodwin, President Galaxy Press. “We’re very pleased with iPad as it really emulates the look and feel of reading a printed book, which sets it apart from all other eReaders on the market.”

Stories from the Golden Age (http://www.goldenagestories.com/) is a line of 80 books and multi-cast, unabridged audio books, featuring 153 stories written by L. Ron Hubbard in the 1930s and 1940s in any of the several popular genres of the day — mystery, thriller, adventure, science fiction, fantasy and western — with tales appropriate for all ages from middle school and up. The covers for the complete available library are displayed in iBookstore and purchasing is a breeze on the new iPad.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

L. Ron Hubbard Pulp Fiction Stories Now Bringing Adventure to Life in Fastest Growing Publishing Segment

Review of THE 24TH LETTER by Tom Lowe

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:53:00 +0000

The 24^th Letter by Tom Lowe

Publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 978-0-312-37918-6

Published: March 16, 2010

Tom Lowe’s second novel, The 24^th Letter, is so good that it ought to be included as “required reading” on every adrenalin-addicted, mystery-thriller reader’s “must read” list.

When the episodic, pedal-to-the-metal action begins, (now pardon the reviewer’s cliché) time is running out for Charlie Williams as he sits on death row in a Florida prison. Having been arrested eleven years ago by Miami homicide cop Sean O’Brien, and then having been convicted of raping and murdering a young woman, Williams now has only 84 hours until he will be executed.

Then some important things suddenly happen: an unsavory ex-con is fatally shot outside a courthouse, but he makes a death-bed statement to a priest, and someone other than Williams is identified in that statement as the rapist and murderer. Then, even though the aforementioned homicide cop is no longer on the job, when he hears about the ex-con’s statement, O’Brien is eager to stop Williams’ execution, to win his release from prison, and to find the real criminal.

There are, however, several huge problems: The ex-con’s death-bed statement has been committed to writing (and that is now missing), the priest (for some obvious reasons which cannot be mentioned here because of the reviewer’s discretion) can say nothing about what was contained in the now missing and hidden statement; someone (or perhaps it is more than just one person) is hell-bent upon making sure the hapless Williams dies in prison; and—as noted above—(again pardon the reviewer’s cliché) time is running out for the wrongly convicted Williams.

O’Brien, a complicated man with plenty of hard-earned experience, learns that “timing is almost everything in life . . . and death,” and now—(forgive another reviewer’s cliché) racing against the clock—O’Brien will also learn that almost everything in life (and death) also is complicated by mistakes, second chances, betrayals, and–most significantly–revelations.

Filled with lots of excitement, danger, and death, The 24^th Letter is a first-rate thriller executed by a writer who definitely knows how to craft a superbly plotted adventure dominated by fascinating characters and provocative themes.

Review (Reprint) – The Black Sun

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:59:00 +0000

The Black Sun

By James Twining

HarperCollins

$24.95

ISBN 0-06-076214-4

Hardcover

Mystery Thriller

In London, a survivor of the Holocaust is murdered in his hospital room, and the murderers have amputated and stolen one of his arms. In Prague, an ordinary painting of apparently modest commercial value is stolen from a synagogue. In Fort Meade, Maryland, a relic of the Second World War’s espionage efforts—an Enigma Machine—is stolen from a museum’s cryptology exhibit.

What do these evidently unrelated and seemingly bizarre crimes have in common? That is the challenge that is about to be presented to Tom Kirk. As a former CIA agent—and also a former art thief—Kirk knows his way around the disparate and shadowy worlds of stolen art objects and espionage. With his former fence and criminal cohort, Archie Connolly, as his associate in his new and ostensibly legitimate enterprise—Kirk Duval Fine Art and Antiques—Kirk is recruited by London’s MI6. The British spy agency turns to Kirk because it needs his special abilities in its attempts to track down and neutralize the key players in Kristall Blade, an extremist neo-Nazi group believed to be responsible for the series of three bizarre crimes.

In a whirlwind adventure that takes readers to a bewildering array of international settings—London, America, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, and Austria—The Black Sun follows Kirk as he pursues the elusive Kristall Blade. However, along the way, Kirk will be challenged by his encounters with several of Kristall Blade’s most blood-thirsty leaders, an internationally respected Nazi expert, and Kirk’s old nemesis Harry Renwick.

As Kirk accumulates and puts together the different pieces of the Kristall Blade puzzle, he finds himself looking at something quite different from what he had expected: Each of the three crimes is connected to an incident that occurred during the closing moments of the Second World War—the mysterious disappearance of the infamous Hungarian Gold Train and its priceless cargo of gold, jewels, paintings, and artifacts.

However, the notorious train may now be the key to another, more urgently important secret, one more dangerous than Kirk and anyone in MI6 could have possibly imagined. Now Kirk will have to act quickly and decisively to prevent the sinister resumption of unspeakable horrors from the past.

The Black Sun is a novel overflowing with history—actual people, places, and artifacts—and author James Twining has energized his fictional rendering of history’s intrusion upon the present with a gripping narrative and compelling characters. Certainly the story has a dark edge to it; power-hungry, hate-filled ideologues from the past are intent upon unleashing unspeakable horrors on the world, and only Kirk’s over-the-top heroic determination and resilience can avert the disaster. The Black Sun, for all of its spy-versus-spy flamboyance and fantastic excesses, is nevertheless dominated by a nightmarish plausibility that will thrill and frighten readers.

Review – Death and Judgment

admin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 07:39:00 +0000

Death and Judgment

By Donna Leon

Penguin / Grove Press

$7.99

ISBN 0-14-303582-7

Paperback

Mystery Thriller

You never know who you can believe. That is the lesson Commissario Guido Brunetti has learned repeatedly during his long career with the police in Venice, Italy. Now—when Carlo Trevisan, a prominent attorney, is murdered on a train traveling from Padua to Venice—Brunetti is ordered by his superiors to solve the case quickly and discretely, and Brunetti will once again confront the problem: who can you believe?

First, he must interview the murdered man’s grieving widow, Franca Trevisan, a woman whose social status and powerful friends immediately combine to make Brunetti’s task problematic. Next, Brunetti must talk with Ubaldo Lotto, the widow’s brother and a prominent figure in Trevisan’s legal practice.

Neither the victim’s widow nor the brother-in-law is believable or forthright. Each seems to know more, and each seems to be keeping a secret, but Brunetti is a patient and methodical investigator. He knows that he will—as always—eventually discover the truth and expose whatever secrets the widow and brother-in-law are so intent upon keeping.

Then—in an apparently unrelated incident, within a week of the Trevisan murder—an accountant is killed in nearby Padua. Investigators, however, soon discover Trevisan’s phone number—and many other puzzling phone numbers—among the accountant’s records. No one seems to understand the connection between Trevisan and the accountant, but—in a fortuitous discovery that brings the case uncomfortably close to Brunetti himself—the Venetian detective begins to put together the puzzling coincidences and clues:

First, Trevisan’s teenage daughter had said something earlier—to someone in whom Brunetti has a special, protective interest—about someone having tried to kidnap her. Was it merely the irresponsible tale-telling nonsense of a troubled adolescent? Or is there, in fact, a connection to her father’s murder?

Second, what of Ubaldo Lotto’s stubborn reluctance to give Brunetti a list of Trevisan’s clients? And why is Lotto blocking Brunetti’s attempts to access the murdered lawyer’s phone records? Is Lotto trying to hide something or protect someone?

Third, why had Lotto seemed so surprised when Brunetti talked to him about the accountant who had been murdered in Padua? Did Lotto know the accountant? If Lotto was concerned about the two murders within one week, why is he still being so much of an obstructionist in Brunetti’s investigation?

Brunetti—as he digs further into the Trevisan case—is increasingly bothered by the murders of the lawyer and the accountant. Murder, after all, as Brunetti sees it, has always been absolutely savage in the way “it mercilessly cut off possibility and stopped the victim from ever again achieving anything.” Then, when Brunetti thinks he is about the find some answers that might lead to the beginning of a solution, murder once again raises its ugly head in Venice. Key figures in the Trevisan investigation are being mercilessly murdered, and they will quite suddenly never again achieve anything.

Finally, though, Brunetti discovers an enormously important and shocking clue in which people are involved in acts of unspeakable savagery and unforgivable brutality. Now, with the stakes having been suddenly raised to such horrible levels, Brunetti must look beyond Venice and Italy—perhaps even to Eastern Europe and beyond—and he must act quickly to prevent further violence and murder.

In Death and Judgment, author Donna Leon, pulling out all the stops, has combined an engrossing plot, multifaceted characterizations, and intriguing themes in a cinematic narrative that takes readers to one of the world loveliest cities. The canals, neighborhoods, and citizens of Venice, however, within the pages of this entertaining novel are in danger of being tarnished by unspeakable corruption, villainy, and deviance. Fortunately—for Venice’s and readers’ sake—the sophisticated and passionate, shrewd and witty Commissario Guido Brunetti is one of crime fiction’s most interesting and accomplished detectives. So, in the end, we need not worry at all about Venice because all’s well that ends well, and—because of Brunetti—all in Death and Judgment ends very well indeed.

NEW REVIEW – Trial by Fire by J. A. Jance

admin — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Trial by Fire by J. A. Jance

Touchstone / Hardcover / $25.99

ISBN 978-1-4165-6380-8

1 December 2009

Ali Reynolds—the amateur sleuth already familiar to fans of author J. A. Jance—returns in Trial by Fire, Jance’s latest top-notch mystery-thriller in the popular series featuring the former television journalist. When the action begins, the sheriff of Yavapai County hires the 47 year old Reynolds as a media relations specialist. Problems—as threatening as a vicious organizational cancer—have disrupted and tarnished the sheriff’s department (e.g., drugs have disappeared from the evidence storage room, and two employees involved a complicated relationship have been implicated), and the sheriff hopes Reynolds can restore the department’s public image.

Financially secure and personally happy back home in Sedona, Arizona, where her parents and her son also live, Reynolds really does not need the complicated job and its many hassles, but she feels a certain responsibility to her hometown community. So, with her eyes wide open (she believes), she is prepared to do battle with forces inside and outside the department. However, even with her considerable experience with problems and crimes in the past, Reynolds runs into more than a few surprises.

Her first challenge is the complex mystery surrounding a suspicious case of arson in which an unidentified woman is horribly injured in a house fire, and all preliminary evidence points to domestic terrorists determined to thwart real estate developments, all in the name of environmental conservation. As an ally in Reynolds’ challenge to identify the burned victim, Sister Anselm—unfairly called the “Angel of Death” by an insensitive journalist—serves as the unidentified woman’s advocate and also becomes Reynolds’ friend. Soon, though, the three women find themselves dangerously targeted by vicious killer(s) apparently determined to finish what the suspicious house fire did not complete.

Trial by Fire, the latest of J. A. Jance’s dozens of novels (including the Joanna Brady mysteries and the J. P. Beaumont mysteries), further solidifies the author’s reputation for offering readers first-rate entertainments. Carefully plotted and populated by superb characterizations, the highly recommended Trial by Fire will not disappoint Jance’s fans.

Dead Cat Bounce by Norman Green

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Dead Cat Bounce
By Norman Green
Harper
$13.95
ISBN 0-06-085169-4
Trade Paperback
Mystery Thriller

Say “Hello” again to the three fellows to whom you were introduced in Norman Green’s first novel, Shooting Dr. Jack: Stoney, Fat Tommy, and Tuco. Even though it wouldn’t surprise you to find these guys feeling quite at home in an episode of The Sopranos, all three are otherwise occupied and up-to-their-necks in adventures and problems in Green’s latest excellent caper, Dead Cat Bounce.

First of all, there is Stoney, and—putting it mildly—he is having problems. After years of over-indulgence in substances that are not so good for his health and are even more devastating to his family life, this tough guy from New Jersey who has had a long record of questionable affiliations with all sorts of wise guys is now several months into his recovery program. His A.A. sponsor Benny encourages him simply to go to meetings, work the program, and take one day at a time. But for someone like Stoney, that’s not so easy. He and his wife are split up (and she is not in a mood for forgiveness or reconciliation), he sees his daughter and son only rarely, and he is not sure how long he can stay sober. Getting drunk is beginning to seem like a very good idea.

When his seventeen-year-old daughter Marisa travels from her home in Jersey to see Stoney at his borrowed apartment in lower Manhattan, Stoney quickly finds out that there are big problems at home, and he needs to do something fast, especially as it relates to a certain Charles David Prior of Alpine, New Jersey, a man who seems to be getting a little too close to Stoney’s family. So, in an effort to check out and thwart the wealthy but enigmatic Prior, Stoney enlists the services of a couple of private investigators (one of whom disappears from the job after being frightened off rather quickly by a murder, and another who is brutally, forcibly, and permanently removed from the job when too much is discovered). As a backup to his P.I. strategy, Stoney wisely calls upon Fat Tommy Roselli (a.k.a., Tommy Bagadonuts) and a young fellow known simply as Tuco.

Fat Tommy is a remarkable man who loves, “in no particular order, young women, [ . . . ] fine food, fat women, [ . . . ] good wine, middle-aged women, expensive cars, the company of competent men, [and] women with gray hair who still know how to take care of themselves.” Loyal, stubborn, and well-connected, Fat Tommy is in a very good position to help Stoney; moreover, Fat Tommy can call upon further specialized assistance from lots of friends, including the restlessly romantic and remarkably intuitive Tuco, a nineteen-year-old fellow from Brooklyn Heights who has unlimited potential in the extra-legal world dominated by thieves, liars, and con-artists.

Together, Stoney, Fat Tommy, and Tuco begin working on the Charles David Prior problem but they soon make some startling discoveries. All is not as it seems back home across the Hudson in New Jersey. Marisa hasn’t exactly been very honest with Stoney, Prior is more dangerous than anyone could have at first imagined, and an alarming accumulation of seedy characters and brutal crimes means that Stoney and his friends need to move quickly because everything—absolutely everything that is important to Stoney—is now at stake. So, using an elaborate operation (one that would have impressed the gang in The Sting), Stoney and his cronies—with the help of few well-chosen accomplices—target the egocentric and dangerous Prior. But the already considerable dangers escalate into even more harrowing circumstances, and soon everything is on the verge of spinning wildly and murderously out of control.

Well, that’s enough of the plot preview. Let me wrap this up by saying that Norman Green’s Dead Cat Bounce is one of the very best crime-caper, mystery novels of the past several years. Quite simply, Green’s novel is a topnotch, fast-paced, and compelling story of greed, murder, revenge—and forgiveness. Stoney, Fat Tommy, and Tuco are wonderfully engaging characters who deserve an encore, so let us hope that we’ll see more of these guys from this skillful author who claims to be at home in New Jersey, now working hard on his next novel.

Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn by Marshall Brown

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:45:00 +0000

Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn
By Marshall Brown
Thomas Dunne / St. Martin’s Minotaur

$23.95
ISBN 0-312-31158-3

Hardcover
Thriller

Detective Hideo Aoki, a twenty year veteran of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, suddenly has problems. After eighteen months of work on a covert investigation into ex-governor Yukio Tamaki’s involvement in corruption and other crimes, Aoki is abruptly removed from the case. Aoki’s supervisor, Police Superintendent Watanabe, without explanation, reassigns Aoki to other, insignificant cases.

Then, when news of the police department’s secret investigation of the prominent politician inexplicably shows up in the news media, Aoki is summarily suspended from duties. To make matters worse, Aoki finds himself under police surveillance and feels like he is some sort of common criminal. He has—as he sees it—“lost face.” And when a series of personal problems and disastrous incidents profoundly affect his family, Aoki is very much on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It is at this point that Aoki is sent by Superintendent Watanabe to the remote Kamakura Inn at Hokkaido, ostensibly for a period of rest and rehabilitation. But Aoki soon discovers that the Kamakura Inn may have been the scene of an unsolved criminal case involving a woman who mysteriously disappeared without a trace seven years earlier. Aoki’s curiosity is whetted, and gradually—as he discretely investigates and learns more about the several guests and the staff of the inn—Aoki finds himself enmeshed in a very dangerous web of secrets, passions, and murder. And, most incredibly, Aoki soon realizes that everyone at Kamakura Inn might actually be involved, in one way or another, with many of the other problems that Aoki thought he had left behind in Tokyo.

Marshall Brown’s Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn is a thoroughly effective variation on the classic mystery thriller in which all the suspects (and the sleuth) are locked away at a remote location, and during which the sleuth races against time to unmask the guilty party before more mayhem befalls everyone. Filled with intriguing details, plenty of action, crisp prose, taut plotting, fascinating settings, and sharp characterizations, Brown’s novel is an absolute knock-out. Don’t miss it!

Revisited Book Review Friday – Long in the Tooth

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:43:00 +0000

Long in the Tooth
By David Turrill
Toby Press

$24.95
ISBN 1-59264-166-0

Hardcover
Mystery Thriller

Tinker Balune, the narrator of David Turrill’s remarkable novel, has recently arrived at his family’s lakeside cabin in northern Michigan. Known by everyone as Tin, this grieving widower has turned his back on his career as a high school literature teacher and on his life in Grand Rapids. Now he finds himself barely treading water in a rising sea of Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, and suicidal apathy. The thirty-year-old Tin had once been a man who had been passionate about and confident in the life-affirming spirit of English Romanticism—especially as Tin found such spirit ironically in Shelley and Keats—but now he cynically sees that “the world is a wicked place” in which there can be no pleasure.

Admittedly, Tin has reasons for his bitterness and misery. His mother had died in a car accident, his wife had been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat—apparently by his own brother, Satchel, who has been “on the run” ever since the murder—and his father had committed suicide in the wake of Satchel’s disappearance and the family’s disgrace. So, haunted by these family ghosts, Tin has come to otherwise tranquil and restorative Loon Lake (forty miles from Traverse City) where he will finally make a decision as to whether or not his own life is worth living.

When everything seems like it is finally coming to an end for Tin, his lakeside neighbor and longtime friend of Tin’s parents, Hiram Sweeney, tries to buoy Tin’s spirits by keeping him busily interested in fishing. More significantly, though, another Sweeney shows up at Loon Lake—Hiram’s eighteen-year-old daughter Moira—and she also, through her brash exuberance, tenacious charm, and seductive beauty might have a real chance to draw the whiskey-soaked Tin out of his desperate unhappiness.

Then, however, everything suddenly changes. The good-natured Hiram has been kidnapped. But someone has left a cryptic note in Hiram’s cabin, so Moira—with Tin willing to help her—tries to find and rescue her father before something more horrible happens to him. Complicated clues in the note take the resourceful pair to Chicago. Tin and Moira seem to be getting closer to finding Hiram—and as Tin gets closer to Moira, he begins to find reasons to live again—but surprises and dangers are about to make life wretchedly difficult and confusing for everyone. Restless ghosts from the past reappear, dark secrets are exposed, and murderous passions threaten all hopes for the future.

The highly recommended Long in the Tooth, as it spirals upward through its shocking crescendo of corruption and malice, becomes a startling tale of revelation and terror. Borrowing his dramatic themes from ancient Greek and Elizabethan tragedians—dramatic worlds in which excessive pride and irrational passions destroy families—the author David Turrill has given 21st century readers a powerful, classical revenge tragedy filled with plenty of excitement and action. Mystery lovers will savor the many twists and turns along the way in Long in the Tooth, and all readers will find themselves deeply affected by Tinker Balune’s journey, Moira Sweeney’s compassion, and the Balune family’s harrowing ordeals.

Forgotten Book Friday – RENDEZVOUS AT KAMAKURA INN

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn
By Marshall Brown
Thomas Dunne / St. Martin’s Minotaur
$23.95
ISBN 0-312-31158-3
Hardcover

Detective Hideo Aoki, a twenty year veteran of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, suddenly has problems. After eighteen months of work on a covert investigation into ex-governor Yukio Tamaki’s involvement in corruption and other crimes, Aoki is abruptly removed from the case. Aoki’s supervisor, Police Superintendent Watanabe, without explanation, reassigns Aoki to other, insignificant cases.

Then, when news of the police department’s secret investigation of the prominent politician inexplicably shows up in the news media, Aoki is summarily suspended from duties. To make matters worse, Aoki finds himself under police surveillance and feels like he is some sort of common criminal. He has—as he sees it—“lost face.” And when a series of personal problems and disastrous incidents profoundly affect his family, Aoki is very much on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It is at this point that Aoki is sent by Superintendent Watanabe to the remote Kamakura Inn at Hokkaido, ostensibly for a period of rest and rehabilitation. But Aoki soon discovers that the Kamakura Inn may have been the scene of an unsolved criminal case involving a woman who mysteriously disappeared without a trace seven years earlier. Aoki’s curiosity is whetted, and gradually—as he discretely investigates and learns more about the several guests and the staff of the inn—Aoki finds himself enmeshed in a very dangerous web of secrets, passions, and murder. And, most incredibly, Aoki soon realizes that everyone at Kamakura Inn might actually be involved, in one way or another, with many of the other problems that Aoki thought he had left behind in Tokyo.

Marshall Brown’s Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn is a thoroughly effective variation on the classic “locked-room” mystery thriller. Filled with intriguing details, plenty of action, crisp prose, taut plotting, fascinating settings, and sharp characterizations, Brown’s novel is an absolute knock-out.

Reaction to Pynchon’s New Novel – INHERENT VICE

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:56:00 +0000

This is what I said last week about Thomas Pynchon’s new book:

Well, readers, Thomas Pynchon–one of the singular writers who has already been enshrined in America’s post-post-modern canon–has a new book arriving in bookstores on Tuesday, August 4, 2009, and–if all goes well–I plan on posting a review of the book–Inherent Vice–on this blog in the next week or so.

Here is a bit of a preview that I can offer based upon my quick “speed read” of my review copy: This is a different kind of Pynchon–the book is smaller than most of his works in that you cannot use this one as a doorstop, and it seems to be a departure in genre since we seem to have a “suspense/mystery thriller” of the American 60s on our hands–but fear not Pynchon fans because this one seems in many ways to be typical Pynchon-fare with plenty of fun and surprises.

But, enough with the preview already! Now I am going to begin a more thorough and careful reading of Inherent Vice.

Here is my reaction now that I have read it:

Obviously, my initial impressions were flawed and off-the-mark. With respect to the time I spent reading INHERENT VICE, I’m sorry that I wasted my time. With respect to the literary merits of INHERENT VICE, the novel goes beyond being a disappointment. It is a sloppy homage to the P.I. genre that rambles aimlessly, tastelessly, and cynically without a sustained, purposeful narrative. Yes, some people will argue that I have missed the point because Pynchon does in his other novels, in fact, ramble on in apparently incoherent narratives, but he does so for a purpose (or so goes the argument). In the case of INHERENT VICE, however, the purpose is conspicuously absent. Perhaps I’m wrong here, though I do not think so, but it might be time for Mr. Pynchon to retire from writing if INHERENT VICE is representative of what he might write in the future.

POSTSCRIPT: Plenty of reviewers and critics out there are bending over backwards to praise Pynchon’s latest and throw themselves at the feet of the master. In my view, however, they are engaged in worshipful duplicity in that they are unwilling to point out that the emperor now has no clothes.