The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith

Title: The Inquisitor
Author: Mark Allen Smith
ISBN: 9780805094268
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, 2012
Hardcover, 336 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: A+
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: The client sat in an eight-foot-square room staring at a large one-way mirror that offered a view into flat, smooth darkness.

I can see many readers learning that this book is about a professional torturer and immediately deciding not to read The Inquisitor. They just might be making a big mistake because Geiger-- the main character in this excellent debut novel-- is one of the best characters I've come across in a long time.

Geiger is the best in the field of "information retrieval" (torture). What makes him the best is the fact that, while his competitors rely on physical pain to get the answers they're being paid to obtain, Geiger doesn't. He knows that the worst kind of pain is that of the mind. He also knows a lie the instant he hears it.  Add to that three facts: he has a strong moral code, a past that he doesn't remember, and one rule that he will not break: he will not work with children.

When a client insists on a rush job and Geiger learns that the subject sitting in the torture chamber is a young boy, he reacts quickly. He rescues the boy, hides him from his captors, and promises to protect the boy from harm. But in order to keep his promise, Geiger and his partner, former journalist Harry Boddicker,  have to find out why the client is so desperate to learn the boy's secret-- or Geiger, Harry and the boy will all face the very real possibility of death.

If you don't find the character of Geiger intriguing, you're probably not going to like this book. Fortunately I read every page of The Inquisitor and wanted more. Just enough of Geiger's childhood is revealed to help the reader understand why the character is the way he is-- and just what he might be willing to do to accomplish his goals.

Rescuing the boy is a trigger for his subconscious to begin revealing things that happened in his past, and while Geiger has all this to contend with, he's also got three killers doing everything in their power to find him, his partner, and the boy. It's all pretty serious stuff, but what takes this book above the usual thriller (besides a thinking adrenaline junkie's dream of a plot and a wonderful main character) are two of Smith's secondary characters.

Mr. Memz, Geiger's next-door neighbor, isn't your typical Vietnam vet. Memz gives us another opinion on the strange character called Geiger, and he certainly knows how to put his own stamp on the action.

In many ways, another secondary character, Harry Boddicker, is my favorite in the entire book, no matter how fascinating Geiger is. Yes, Harry has to check out Geiger's clients and keep the business running smoothly, but for most of the book's action, he's got his fragile, schizophrenic sister in tow. Harry's got to save himself, his sister, his boss, and a young boy-- and he attempts it all with class and with humor. If not for Harry's flip sense of humor in the face of disaster, The Inquisitor might have become too grim to bear.

With Harry's help, Geiger turns this book into something special; something I feel would transfer onto the big screen very well. And first-time novelist Mark Allen Smith does all this without writing a book that reads like a tarted-up screenplay. Bravo, Mr. Smith! Might we be seeing more of Geiger?

The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen

Title: The Professionals
Author: Owen Laukkanen
ISBN: 9780399157899
Publisher:G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2012
Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: C+
Source: the publisher

First Line: Martin Warner checked his watch as the train slowed for Highland Park.

Recent University of Washington graduates Arthur Pender, Marie McAllister, Matt Sawyer, and Ben Stirzaker had no luck finding jobs after graduation in the lousy economy, so they decided to start their own business. Traveling back and forth across the country, they carefully target rich men, kidnap them, hold them for a relatively low ransom, get their money, and give the hostage back to his family. They estimate that in two more years, they'll have enough money stashed away to retire in the Maldives. 

But these best laid plans will go the way of all the rest. The four kidnap the wrong person, and they find themselves fighting for their lives-- caught between mobsters that will stop at nothing to kill them, and two law enforcement agents who will stop at nothing to put them behind bars. As the four fight to survive, they learn whom the true professionals really are.

This debut novel reads like a house afire. Laukkanen's sense of action and pacing are first rate, and his story follows close behind (although it has a bug or two).

The premise is intriguing, but not entirely believable. For example, two of the kidnappers obtained degrees in English literature and History-- and they expected to find jobs in a horrible economy? The character with a degree in Computer Sciences could easily have found a job, but is a more passive type who's willing to let someone else call the shots. Let's face it: these four are merely using the economy as an excuse; they all wanted to get rich fast so they wouldn't have to work.

The two law enforcement characters, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Kirk Stevens and FBI agent Carla Windermere, are interesting, and I wanted to know more about them. Having two separate groups of characters on which to focus attention was undoubtedly meant to create tension and to make readers aware of the fact that the people on both sides are deserving of sympathy, but it didn't work in this instance. Many thrillers focus on the story and the action. Characters come further down the list of priorities; however, Laukkanen places equal importance on them, so the characterization has to work. Splitting focus between two sympathetic groups meant that none of the characters were as finely drawn as they could have been and my loyalty was with none of them.

With that said, Owen Laukkanen is a writer to watch. He's got a knack for action, pacing, story, and characters. Once he brings them all into finer focus, he'll have it made.

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Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström

Title: Three Seconds
Authors: Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström
Translator: Kari Dickson
ISBN: 9781402785924
Publisher: Silveroak, 2011
Hardcover, 489 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: A
Source: Publicist

First Line: An hour to midnight.

Thus begins another edge-of-your-seat wild ride through Stockholm with the Swedish writing duo of Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström. It is a ride in which timing and preparation are everything to Piet Hoffman, an ex-con who's deep undercover for the Swedish police in order to sabotage the Polish Mafia's attempt to control drug distribution in Swedish prisons.

When Hoffman is witness to a drug deal that leads to murder, Inspector Ewert Grens, a relentless bull dog of a homicide detective, threatens to ruin the entire mission. Hoffman is sent to a maximum-security prison as the final segment of his assignment, but his handlers are afraid that he will tell of the government's illegal involvement in his task. As a result, they blow his cover while he's trapped in prison. With seemingly everyone wanting him dead, the odds against Hoffman's survival are overwhelming.

Having previously read and enjoyed Box 21 by the same authors, I had great expectations for this novel, and although the first third of the book was marred by a very slow pace while all the elements were put in place, I was not disappointed.

What I liked most about Three Seconds was the way in which Hoffman had to anticipate each and every single event that might happen once he is in prison and things are out of his control. The intricate plot with its layer upon layer of detail reminded me of similar elements I enjoyed in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

If you've read Stieg Larrson and are wondering what's next, sample Roslund and Hellström's award-winning books. Just fasten your seat belt first-- once these two put the pedal to the metal, there's no letting up.

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Ghost Country by Patrick Lee

Title: Ghost Country
Author: Patrick Lee
ISBN: 9780061584442
Publisher: Harper, 2010
Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages
Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller, #2 Travis Chase
Rating: B-
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: Fifty seconds before the first shots hit the motorcade, Paige Campbell was thinking about the fall of Rome.

A top secret anomaly has been passing strange and indecipherable technology to our world for decades. The latest device it's shared can let a person look into the future.

What Paige Campbell saw when she looked seventy years into the future scared the hell out of her. When she and her colleagues take their discovery to the President, they are attacked after leaving the meeting. Travis Chase must rescue Paige because Paige knows that in four short months the world will be a ghost country scattered with the bones of billions. They must do everything in their power to prevent this-- even if it means being lost on the wrong side of the future.

From the opening attack on the motorcade to the last page, Ghost Country is a fast-paced rollercoaster ride that doesn't let you go. Even though there were times that I felt out of synch with the relationship between the two main characters (not having read the first book in the series), the action more than made up for it.

I'll definitely be looking for more of Travis Chase's adventures.

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Heartland by David Wiltse

Title: Heartland
Author: David Wiltse
ISBN: 9780312982874
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2002
Mass Market Paperback, 336 pages
Genre: Thriller, #1 Billy Tree series
Rating: C+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "Some people trail squalor behind them," Walter Matuzak was saying, eyeing the building with disgust.

A botched Secret Service operation has left Billy Tree severely wounded and traumatized and his partner dead. The best thing for him to do is to go back home to small town Falls City, Nebraska to stay with his sister and recuperate.

He's not back home very long before he finds out that interesting things have been happening to his family, friends and former school mates, and when a shooting at the local high school leaves people dead and plenty of unanswered questions, Billy finds himself helping out the local sheriff in an attempt to find the killer.

Unfortunately this book seems to be a good idea with mediocre execution. Billy's overwhelming self-pity wears thin quickly, and his habit of using a phony Irish brogue during times of stress just seems silly after several other characters tell him it's a stupid affectation.

The rest of the characters are straight out of central casting, and although the action sequences make excellent use of the Nebraska landscape, the pacing seems off. In many ways the best part of the book was the ending, which takes place in a grain silo. Having grown up in central Illinois, my friends and I were told many times, "Stay out of the grain silo!" We didn't-- and one time we almost came to grief ourselves.

City dwellers beware: there are lots of scary things out in the country. As Billy Tree found out in Heartland, there are more things than grain silos to make your heart beat faster.

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Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo

Title: Red April
Author: Santiago Roncagliolo
Translator: Edith Grossman
ISBN: 9780375425448
Publisher: Pantheon, 2009
Paperback, 288 pages
Genre: Political Thriller
Rating: DNF
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: On Wednesday, the eighth day of March, 2000, as he passed through the area surrounding his domicile in the locality of Quinna, Justino Mayta Carazo (31) discovered a body.

Felix Chacaltana Saldivar is an unambitious prosecutor living in Lima, Peru. Haunted by his mother, abandoned by his wife, Felix loves literature and devotes an entire room of his house (and a good percentage of his waking thoughts) to the spirit of his dead mother. For some reason known only to the gods he has been put in charge of a strange murder investigation, which twists and turns to its surprising conclusion.

Well... I'm going to assume it's a surprising conclusion because I just could not finish this book. One part of my brain loved the look into the politics and country of Peru and didn't want to stop reading. The other part of my brain was so disappointed by the main character and the writing style that I did stop.

I'll talk about the writing style first. I should know better than to get a book which contains the following words in its description: "stunning", "self-assured", "clarity of style", "complexity", "riveting", "profound", and "deft artistry".  99% of the time when I read the book, I'm simply stunned and let it go at that. There was a sly, arch tone to the writing that I found alternately confusing and annoying.

If I wanted to be blunt, I'd say that Felix Chacaltana Saldivar was too dumb to live. Evidently he's spent way too much time in that room talking to his dead mother. The room and the talking to the dead may be a cultural tradition, but he carried it to excess.

I reached the point of no return when Felix went to a village to investigate. He had an idea going in that the area was very unstable politically. When he got there, he was told that it, indeed, was a very dangerous place to be. So what does he proceed to do? He takes the moral high ground when questioning people, and he won't stop questioning why laws are not being enforced. Yes, I do have morals, and yes, I do believe in law enforcement-- but not when you're putting people's lives in danger. Felix, having the luck of the naive and stupid, can leave that village and return home. The villagers he questions must remain there and hope they live to see the sun rise in the morning.

Enough of my complaints. I've seen by several other reviews that other people have read and enjoyed Red April. Unless you're the type of reader who is annoyed by many of the same things I outlined above, you may well be one of them. I sincerely hope that you are.

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The Mercy Seat by Martyn Waites

Title: The Mercy Seat
Author: Martyn Waites
ISBN: 9781933648002
Publisher: Pegasus Books, 2006
Hardcover, 421 pages
Genre: Thriller, #1 Joe Donovan series
Rating: B-
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: Tosher opened his eyes.

Two years ago, Joe Donovan was a respected investigative journalist in Newcastle and destined for great things. Now he's on the fast track to total obscurity, completely demoralized by the still-unsolved kidnapping of his young son. The case of a missing research scientist has people tracking Donovan down in his remote Northumberland lair, promising him access to any and all information in his son's case if he'll focus his talents on finding the scientist. Donovan takes the bait, little knowing that he'll soon meet a young rent boy who stole the wrong disc player, a couple of private investigators trying to keep their business afloat, a loathsome pedophile, and a vicious psychopath known as Hammer.

Waites has a talent for characterization, but nothing really started clicking for me until I'd read three-quarters of the book. The weight of the plot and sub-plots almost sank the ship.

Newcastle tends to get short shrift in crime fiction, so I did appreciate the book being set in that northern city. Violence, torture, pedophilia all play a part in the action, but none are so graphic that they tripped my gruesome meter. After reading The Mercy Seat, I would have to say that I'd like to see if the next book in the series streamlined the plot in order for those very interesting characters to be able to strut their stuff.

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On a personal note, I realized something about myself while reading this book. I've reached a stage in my life where I simply cannot stomach characters who derive great pleasure from torturing others. (The character of Hammer led me to this revelation.) The torture doesn't make me squeamish; it makes me furious. As I was trying to give voice to this opinion of mine, the first thing that popped into my head was, "If I could, I'd wish all these characters into the cornfield!"

I then wondered where that bit about the cornfield came from. After a little digging, I found that it's from an episode of the classic television series, The Twilight Zone, called "It's a Good Life." Perhaps you'll remember it, too.

Don't worry. I won't be wishing any of you into the cornfield. Just characters like Hammer!

13½ by Nevada Barr

Title: 13½
Author: Nevada Barr
ISBN: 9781593155537
Publisher: Vanguard Press, 2009
Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Thriller
Rating: B
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "By the Month or by the Night" read the sign over the entrance to the trailer park.

In a radical departure from her Anna Pigeon mystery series, Nevada Barr gives us a psychological thriller that begins in the 1970s in a trailer park in Mississippi. It then moves to Minnesota with the murder spree of a child dubbed "Butcher Boy." Finally in post-Katrina New Orleans, the adults from both these broken childhoods collide.

Polly escaped from her abusive "trailer trash" childhood at the age of fifteen, running away to New Orleans. Now she's a respected college professor with good friends, her own home, and two small children she adores.

"Butcher Boy" was released on his seventeenth birthday. His surviving brother has vowed to take care of him, and they both head south to that Mecca for runaways: New Orleans.

When Polly meets and falls in love with Marshall Marchand, a restoration architect who's helping to rebuild the city, their pasts are set on a collision course.

I love Barr's books, and although this book is very good, it didn't quite meet my expectations. It has everything to do with the characters. Perhaps it's because my mind is too devious, but there were few surprises with the Marchand brothers. I knew how that part of the plot was going to work itself out. That was a bit disappointing, but the character of Polly did much in making up for the deficiencies of the Marchands.

Even after the train wreck of her childhood, Polly was such a strong, centered, caring person that I wish the book could have focused even more on her. I wanted more Polly. Perhaps you'll understand after reading these two quotes:

Two girls-- children in Polly's eyes but of the age she'd been the first time she'd come to Jackson Square-- rose from a table tucked between the benches opposite the cathedral doors. They were tricked out in the unfortunate fashion that decreed female children dress as prostitutes in a world full of predators.

The dog, his head as high as his mistress's shoulder, walked beside her. The child's face was open and trusting. The dog's was not, and Polly was relieved. Children needed bodyguards.

On the face of it, Polly's just another mother who worries too much and reads too much into innocent scenes. But she's not. She's lived in a world of predators and survived. She knows exactly what's out there that she needs to be prepared for. Her children will not have to face what she did, that is, if Polly has the least say about it.

If you haven't read too many books about the twisted minds of killers (like I have), 13½ should make you jump at each creak of a floorboard or pop of an attic beam. And Polly is one character who should not be missed.

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Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari

Title: Taroko Gorge
Author: Jacob Ritari
ISBN: 9781936071654
Publisher: Unbridled Books, 2010
Trade Paperback, 256 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Rating: B
Source: Won in Glue contest.

First Line: I was fourteen when I stopped believing in God.

This debut novel written by a 22-year-old author shows great promise. The book is set in a national park in Taiwan where two American journalists between assignments and a group of Japanese teenagers on a school trip become trapped when three of the students go missing and a cyclone shuts the park down.

The narrow gorge and the storm give the book a claustrophobic feel. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, and it doesn't take long for the reader to wonder which of the narrators are reliable. Between doubting the characters' reliability and feeling closed in by the towering walls of the gorge and the curtains of rain, it's almost like being in the midst of a country house mystery.

The setting is well done and the varying points of view interesting-- those of the students so good that I can see this book also appealing to a younger audience. The one character I felt was under-utilized was the old Taiwanese homicide detective, Chao. I think Chao would make an interesting main character for a mystery series.

Although I did enjoy the characters and the setting, I felt that the book was a bit uneven. Everything at the beginning ratcheted up the suspense as to what happened to the three girls and which character was responsible. However, the cyclone then appeared and shut down both the park and the suspense. When all was said and done, the big reveal at the end was disappointing.

However... Jacob Ritari shows a boatload of potential, and I can't wait to read his second book!

[If you're as interested in setting as I am, I posted a short video about Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. Feel free to take a look!]

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Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Title: Blacklands
Author: Belinda Bauer
ISBN: 9781439149447, Simon & Schuster, 2010
Genre: Thriller
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: Exmoor dripped with dirty bracken, rough, colorless grass, prickly gorse, and last year's heather, so black it looked as if wet fire had swept across the landscape, taking the trees with it and leaving the moor cold and exposed to face the winter unprotected.

Twenty years ago, Stephen Lamb's Uncle Billy disappeared, never to return. Since Uncle Billy was eleven and serial killer/ pedophile Arnold Avery was trolling the moors at the time, it was assumed that Billy fell prey to Avery.

Twenty years later, Stephen Lamb's grandmother is still waiting at the window for her son to return. Twelve-year-old Stephen is sick to death of having to deal with the nasty tempers of his grandmother and mother; he's tired of being followed around by his five-year-old brother; he doesn't want to smell like mildew anymore; and if the school bullies left him alone, he would think he'd won the biggest lottery ever.

In his mind, everything went to pot when Uncle Billy disappeared. If he could only find Billy, his grandmother would stop waiting for his return, and maybe-- just maybe-- life might become more livable. With that in mind, Stephen takes a shovel out to the moor and digs hole after hole after hole. Uncle Billy has to be there somewhere. He finally comes to the conclusion that he needs help in finding Uncle Billy's remains, and who is the only person qualified to help? That's right: Arnold Avery. So begins a correspondence that's enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

This book does not read like a first novel. Bauer does an excellent job of portraying how tragedy has affected this family and to what lengths young Stephen will go to have even the slightest bit of normality in his life. Three quarters of the book is very quiet and very very powerful; however, the ending is a bit far-fetched and dilutes that intensity.

Regardless of the ending, I am still very impressed by this story. Young Stephen Lamb remains crystal clear in my mind, and I will keep an eye out for more books by Belinda Bauer. She has quite a talent.

[Note: Although the book does deal with pedophilia and the murder of children, these themes are handled in a straightforward, non-graphic manner-- which can be even more chilling because your mind is free to add all the details.]

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Translated from the Swedish: Reg Keeland
ISBN: 9780307269997, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010
Genre: Thriller, #3 in the Millennium trilogy
Rating: A
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: An estimated 600 women served during the American Civil War.

To those of you who aren't up to speed with Larsson's trilogy, I am going to try my best to avoid giving things away, but it's not going to be easy.

In the last book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Lisbeth Salander-- portrayed as being worse than the Devil himself by media and police-- confronted her very real, very human, demons. In this book, she realizes that confronting them is not enough. She is going to have to destroy them. What goes against her grain is that she is forced to trust journalist Mikael Blomkvist, even to the point of letting him run large sections of the show.

This book even more than the previous two relies on intricate plotting and the pieces fitting together exactly. This book, more than the other two, showed unevenness and sections that needed a much sterner hand at editing. Because the plot was intricate, Larsson spent pages explaining various government agencies, how they were set up, the people they reported to, and so on. These were the sections of the book that made my eyes glaze over.

Another subplot involving Erika Berger, the former editor of Millennium magazine, although illustrating what many women have to deal with in male-dominated sections of the workforce, was really unnecessary and moved the focus away from the most fascinating characters: Salander and Blomkvist. Even Salander's trip to Gibraltar could have been shortened.

Any time the action moved away from that two-character focus, the book began to drag, which is why I feel that it would have benefited from stricter pruning. But was I greatly disappointed in the book? No. I had to see the outcome of Lisbeth Salander's story. Was she going to succeed? How was she going to succeed?

Larsson has given me a wonderful offbeat Dulcinea and her Don Quixote. I may always wonder what the books would have become if Larsson had been allowed to work on them himself, but the characters will always remain: a young woman who refused to accept that everyone else was more important than she, and the man who believed her.

Miles to Go by Amy Dawson Robertson

Title: Miles to Go, A Rennie Vogel Intrigue
Author: Amy Dawson Robertson
ISBN: 9781594931741, Bella Books, 2010
Genre: Thriller, Lesbian Fiction
Rating: B-
Source: the author

First Line: John MacPherson pushed through the doors of the Academy fitness center and drew the crisp morning air deeply into his lungs.

In order to get funding for an international counterterrorism tactical team, it is ruled that women have to be allowed to train for it and to become members. Rennie Vogel wins her spot fair and square, but when a mission in Iran goes horribly wrong, Rennie must find the strength to battle her way out alone.

When the author contacted me about this book, I came very close to saying no. I tend to avoid books that involve spies, terrorism and the like. To each his own, eh? The reason I agreed to read this book is because of the main character. Rennie sounded like such a strong, interesting woman that I felt compelled to say yes. I'm glad I did.

Rennie Vogel is just the sort of female character I like. She has to earn everything she gets; nothing is handed to her; and she can think on her feet. When the team lands in Iran, everything goes wrong. Rennie finds herself faced with the decision of trying to complete the mission and making it to the rendezvous, or forgetting the mission and just trying to save her own skin. The decisions she makes, the reasons behind them, and the ensuing action are, by far, the strongest part of the book. Robertson had my complete attention.

However, a few things didn't gel well for me. At the beginning of the book, the reader is told multiple times that the mission is being sabotaged in order to prove that women are not worthy of being members in elite operative groups. By book's end, little to nothing is said about this. I don't need every loose end tied off by the last page of a book, and I certainly don't need happy endings, but this one thread bothered me. I wonder how it would have worked to have the primary person who wanted the mission to fail snarl and think to himself, "She won't make it the next time!"

Another thing that didn't work for me was the addition of a love interest for Rennie when she's trying to complete a dangerous mission and make it back home alive. (I would have preferred more story about the woman back in the U.S.) This probably says a lot more about me than it does the book. I don't care much for fictional romance to begin with, and in the case of Miles to Go, I had myself deep in enemy territory trying to make my way out alive. If any sort of romance had reared its head at that point, I would have slapped it clean off. But that's me.

One last thing that I felt needed improvement was the length of the book. It needed to be longer. I hope you were sitting down when you read that. Normally if I make any sort of comment about a book's length, it's to complain about it being too long. In the case of Miles to Go, I think there needed to be a few chapters showing Rennie working with the newly chosen team and the actual day-to-day problems she had to face. Being told about them just wasn't enough. Rennie as a character and the book as a whole would be much stronger for it.

Would I read another book about Rennie Vogel? Yes, I would. She's a fascinating character!

The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver

Title: The Sleeping Doll
Author: Jeffery Deaver
ISBN: 9780743260947, Simon & Schuster, 2007
Genre: Thriller, #1 Kathryn Dance
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: The interrogation began like any other.

Special Agent Kathryn Dance, interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation, is given the opportunity to interrogate convicted killer Daniel "Son of Manson" Pell. Pell has become the prime suspect in a newly unearthed crime, and the Bureau needs all the information he can give them. All hell breaks loose at the prison where the interrogation is taking place, and Pell manages to escape. It's up to Dance to put all the clues together before the body count begins to rise.

Although this is a plot-driven thriller, there was enough information about Dance's character to keep me interested. She's a widow, has two children, and quite the routine to keep herself grounded and her family running smoothly.

The information Deaver gives about kinesics (body language) is very interesting and easy to apply to real life, although sometimes too much of the detail was repeated. It was fascinating to follow along with Dance and her rather unorthodox line of thinking ("A to B to X") to see if I could figure out Pell's next moves before he actually made them. I also appreciated the fact that the author didn't fall prey to a line of jeopardy that it would have been all too easy to insert into the plot.

As a thriller, this is definitely a cut above, and I have the next Kathryn Dance book, Roadside Crosses on my bookshelves.

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott

Title: Bury Me Deep
Author: Megan Abbott
ISBN: 9781416599098, Simon & Schuster, 2009
Genre: Historical Thriller
Rating: A

First Line: Thrill parties every night over on Hussel Street.

It's 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona. Young wife, Marion Seeley, has been left in town while her doctor husband travels to work in Mexico. She has a job as a clerk in a clinic, and she soon falls under the spell of a nurse who also works there. Louise and her roommate Ginny love to party, and slowly but surely they seduce Marion from her strict upbringing and from the promises she made to her husband. It's been months since Marion has heard from her spouse, and handsome Joe Lanigan is right there smiling at her every night when she attends her friends' parties.

Marion's life is about to change forever.

Abbott loosely based her novel on the case of Winnie Ruth Judd, with which I'm familiar. I was surprised by how quickly I left my prior knowledge behind and how totally caught up I became by this story. The author did an excellent job of making me feel as though I were in Depression-era Phoenix without overdoing on either the details or the slang. Normally if I'm aware of the inspiration for a book, that story will stick in my mind and influence my thinking. Not so with Bury Me Deep. This is Abbott's own tale, and my thoughts of Judd went right out the window. I'm definitely looking forward to reading Abbott's other books.

[Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.]

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Title: Sharp Objects
Author: Gillian Flynn
ISBN: 9780307341556, Three Rivers Press, 2006
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Rating: B+

First Line: My sweater was new, stinging red and ugly.

Not all that long ago Camille Preaker was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. Now she's a reporter for a second-rate Chicago newspaper. Her first assignment? To go back home to Wind Gap, Missouri, to cover the murders of two young girls.

Although the police think that the killer is a transient, Camille believes a local is responsible. As she interviews old acquaintances and newcomers, she begins reliving her childhood and uncovering long-buried secrets in her family.

This was a very uncomfortable book for me to read. Although I try my best not to give away plot points, this book has been out for about four years, and what I'm about to say is nothing that can't be found in any review at Amazon. The razor blade on the cover of Sharp Objects isn't there merely for decoration. The reason why Camille was in a psychiatric hospital is because she's a cutter. Reading about Camille's preference for self-harm not only gave me the creeps, it strongly reminded me of my own battles with severe depression. (In my own case, I was in so much mental pain that picturing chopping off my hand with a meat cleaver was seductive, and I actually believed that it would feel good.) Although I'm well past that, the memories are very easily brought to the surface.

As I met the members of Camille's family, I wanted to drag her out of that house and never let her return. Mental illness had made that place a dead zone, my skin was itching fiercely, and I found the pages more and more difficult to turn.

My strong reactions may give you the impression that the book is poorly written. It is not. On the contrary-- to produce such strong emotions in me, I would say that it's very well written. The only real weakness I found in Sharp Objects was the fact that Flynn's attempts at misdirection did not work with me. Early on I'd homed in on the murderer like a guided missile, and Flynn could not shake me.

After turning the last page, I felt as though I needed a stiff drink or a strong tranquilizer. I haven't felt that way in a very long time. If Flynn's second novel, Dark Places, is anything like her first, I'm not at all sure that I'll read it. I think my grandfather would call that a back-handed compliment!

The Death Chamber by Sarah Rayne

Title: The Death Chamber
Author: Sarah Rayne
ISBN: 0743285840/ Simon & Schuster, 2008
Genre: Thriller
Rating: D

First Line: Georgina read the letter a second time--and then a third-- because it was so extraordinary there was a strong possibility she had misunderstood it.

Georgina Grey's lover and partner is gone, leaving both her and their design firm severely in need of funds. When Georgina receives a letter informing her that she may inherit a bit of money from the Caradoc Society, she leaves at once for Cumbria. What she doesn't realize is that she will be learning a great deal about her family, for her great-grandfather had been a doctor at nearby Calvary Gaol in the late 1930s. As Georgina is settling in to straighten out the details of her bequest, Chad Ingram and his team are finalizing their own plans to document the strange and possibly supernatural goings on at the prison. Just how dangerous is Calvary Gaol?

The Death Chamber is chockful of possibilities that just don't pan out. There are too many characters in too many decades, and it rapidly becomes difficult to keep them all straight. There are too many competing plot threads: Georgina and her bequest, Ingram and his television program, one of the wardens during the World War I era steps in with his agenda, a few of the condemned prisoners have their own plot threads, as do a couple of the gaolers. There's another warden, another prison doctor, a blind journalist who's supposed to be helping Ingram, and a strange little man in charge of the soon-to-be-defunct Caradoc Society who reminds me more than a bit of Norman Bates. Are you confused yet? By the time I got to the end of this 500+ page epic, I almost didn't care about who had done what to whom or about anyone's true identity.

For this book to succeed with me, Rayne would have had to change guns and ammunition. Instead of a shotgun loaded with buckshot, she would have needed to switch to a rifle and one bullet. What am I talking about? Focus on one character, and have most of the action revolve around that one person. With characters, action and decades pruned back, Rayne's skill at the "creep factor" would be shown to much greater advantage. More than once, her scenes of Calvary Gaol gave me the first pricklings of goosebumps:

As the hours went by Walter could no longer tell which were the furtive conversations of the warders and which was the sighing of the wind. The impression that something invisible and implacable was stirring in Calvary's bones grew on him. Something creeps into the place, the prisoner had said in the infirmary. Something creeps in...

With a reduced cast and better targeted action, The Death Chamber would have held my interest from first page to last. As it is, it was a bit of a muddle that I only finished hoping that my confusion would lift. It didn't.

Review-- Tsunami

Title: Tsunami
Author: Gordon Gumpertz
ISBN: 9781930754805/ Durban House Press, 2008
Genre: Thriller
Rating: C

First Line: The container ship Moro Prince, bound from Manila to Los Angeles, had enjoyed three days of smooth sailing.

Add to my penchant for post-apocalyptic fiction a love of books about killer natural phenomena: tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes. I'm not quite sure why I enjoy them so much, unless it's the simple urge to see humans triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds. I found the premise of Tsunami fascinating: a huge underwater volcano out in the middle of the Pacific is ready to blow, and if the worst case scenario comes true, a 200-foot tidal wave will hit Southern California. Millions of people could die.

Seismologist Leilani Sanches has been watching this volcano, and she believes that the worst case scenario will indeed come to pass. The trouble is, when she tries to alert people, no one really wants to listen...especially real estate developers and other scuzzy capitalists.

Some plot threads in the novel work better than others. Gumpertz' strength does not lie in characterization. I found most of the people to be rather two-dimensional, and the author never made me really care what happened to any of them. The Good Guys were too good (and lucky); the Bad Guys were too bad (and unlucky). Where Gumpertz' strength does lie is in the plot threads surrounding the volcano, the resultant waves of tsunamis, and their effect on the Southern California coastline. When he wrote about these events, I was glued to the page. When the tsunamis did hit California, the author started bringing in more characters, showing us what happened to them. This would have been a powerful addition to the book if these characters had shown up earlier so the reader could get to know and care about them. Their brief appearances occurring when they did were poignant but weren't the knock-out punch they could've been.

All in all, I'm glad I read the book because it did contain a lot of information about sciences that fascinate me. For a character-driven reader like myself, Tsunami was a bit of a letdown, but I will be on the lookout for other books by this author.

What about you? I've mentioned my preferences for books about killer natural phenomena like hurricanes and volcanoes. Do any of you like books that are quite a change from your more "normal" reading?

REVIEW: The Charlemagne Pursuit

Title: The Charlemagne Pursuit
Author: Steve Berry
ISBN: 9780345485793/Ballantine Books
Protagonist: Cotton Malone, bookseller and former US government operative
Setting: present-day, Germany and Antarctica
Series: #4
Rating: B

First Line: The alarm sounded and Forrest Malone came alert.

Cotton Malone's father was a submariner in the US Navy. When Cotton was ten, Forrest Malone went on patrol and never came back. Cotton always wanted to know what happened, but told the mission was classified, he let it go--until his own son began asking questions about his grandfather. Since he's a former operative for the US government, he knows people in the right places, and he's owed favors. He asks to see the file on his father's last mission...and people start dying. While Cotton finds himself in Germany, dodging bullets and thrown in amongst the very strange Oberhauser family, his former boss finds herself searching for clues and following the trail of an assassin in the eastern US. It all ties in with something called the Charlemagne Pursuit, ancient knowledge known to Charlemagne, with connections to Nazi Germany all the way to the present day.

I don't read many thrillers, but Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series is an exception. I like Berry's characterization of Cotton and his former boss, Stephanie. The author also seems to have a knack of choosing historical bits and puzzles that fascinate me like the Amber Room, the Romanovs, and the Knights Templar. Although the Charlemagne Pursuit is much more a puzzle of the author's own devising, I found it fascinating as well. The pages turned quickly in this book. The only thing in it that I didn't particularly care for was the entire Oberhauser clan. I think that, as I get older, my tolerance for twisted families becomes less and less.

[This is a review of an advanced reading copy.]

REVIEW: Napoleon's Pyramids

Title: Napoleon's Pyramids
Author: William Dietrich
ISBN: 9780060848330
Protagonist: Ethan Gage
Setting: Paris, France and Egypt in 1798
Series: #1
Rating: D

First Line: It was luck at cards that started the trouble, and enlistment in mad invasion that seemed the way out of it.

Once apprenticed to Benjamin Franklin, American Ethan Gage finds himself at loose ends in Paris, occasionally paying his rent from his winnings at cards. It's a card game that's his undoing. Winning an old, curious-looking Egyptian medallion in a game, Gage suddenly finds himself hip-deep in trouble. The police think he's the likely suspect in a murder, and Gage manages to escape their clutches by joining Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Is Gage going to be able to live long enough to find out what the medallion means?

I like Egyptology, I like games of chance, I like puzzles, and I like reading about Nelson blowing the French out of the water in the Battle of the Nile. Although all these things are in Napoleon's Pyramids, I didn't like the book. It took me forever to read the thing. For a thriller, I found it very cumbersome and slow going. Even though an editor's heavy hand with a red pencil would have tightened things up and made it move faster, I still would have had problems with it. Lots of historical detail with twentieth-century dialogue. Repetitive sentence structure. A romantic angle that just didn't work. The entire book felt like it wanted to be a screenplay for a film that's a cross between Indiana Jones, The Mummy and National Treasure.

I think I would've preferred watching the movies.