I reviewed the following five titles in the Sunday Star Times yesterday, in case you missed them they are here for your interest.
PROTECT & DEFEND Vince O’Sullivan Atria Books $35
Vince Flynn is rated a heavyweight in the political thriller arena and in his latest, featuring the fearless and PC unencumbered Mitch Rapp, America’s top counter terrorism operative, he provides another fast-moving contemporary, almost believable story.
Iran has spent billions of dollars developing its nuclear weapon program when Israel launches an innovative and daring attack leaving the program in tatters and the countryside around it an environmental disaster.
The Iranian government and its unstable President demand severe retribution against both Israel & the US.
Enter Mitch Rapp, recruited by CIA director Irene Kennedy, who convinces the US president to sign off on a risky operation that he reckons will see the overthrow of the hostile Iranian government. Rapp and Kennedy head for Iran. But the other side also has plans and Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar is recruited with the resulting collision course likely to engulf the entire Middle East in war. Rapp is given 24 hours, no questions asked, to avert the catastrophe.
Great escapism, I read it in two long sittings.
BOOK OF THE DEAD Patricia Cornwell Little Brown $39
This is Cornwell’s 15th Kay Scarpetta story, a series that started way back with in 1990 with Postmortem. Cornwell who worked for a number of years in the 1980’s in the office of the Chief Medical Officer for Virginia was one of the first writers to use her own experience in the forensics area to write crime fiction. That field is now quite heavily populated by writers including a number of forensic scientists and doctors.
The story opens in Rome where Scarpetta, and longtime colleague and friend , now fiancée, Benton Wesley, is assisting the arrogant and sexist Italian police in investigating the especially ghastly murder of 16 year old Drew Martin, a rising American tennis star.
Back in the US Scarpetta has a change of pace and location by opening a private pathology practice in the city of Charleston, South Carolina where there is hostility from the locals and other murders that may be connected to the killing in Rome.
The book is peopled by the usual characters, Scarpetta’s brilliant but often somewhat confused, lesbian niece Lucy Farinelli, boorish ex-cop, longtime friend and investigator Pete Marino, and of course her loyal secretary Ruth who has always followed whenever Scarpetta has moved.
The title of the book is taken from the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand, many being added as the story progresses.
This is approaching vintage Cornwell, and she does still have a large following in New Zealand, but one does wonder how much longer it will be before Scarpetta is allowed to retire to her much-loved garden to enjoy her recently renewed happiness with Benton.
Iran has spent billions of dollars developing its nuclear weapon program when Israel launches an innovative and daring attack leaving the program in tatters and the countryside around it an environmental disaster.
The Iranian government and its unstable President demand severe retribution against both Israel & the US.
Enter Mitch Rapp, recruited by CIA director Irene Kennedy, who convinces the US president to sign off on a risky operation that he reckons will see the overthrow of the hostile Iranian government. Rapp and Kennedy head for Iran. But the other side also has plans and Hezbollah master terrorist Imad Mukhtar is recruited with the resulting collision course likely to engulf the entire Middle East in war. Rapp is given 24 hours, no questions asked, to avert the catastrophe.
Great escapism, I read it in two long sittings.
BOOK OF THE DEAD Patricia Cornwell Little Brown $39This is Cornwell’s 15th Kay Scarpetta story, a series that started way back with in 1990 with Postmortem. Cornwell who worked for a number of years in the 1980’s in the office of the Chief Medical Officer for Virginia was one of the first writers to use her own experience in the forensics area to write crime fiction. That field is now quite heavily populated by writers including a number of forensic scientists and doctors.
The story opens in Rome where Scarpetta, and longtime colleague and friend , now fiancée, Benton Wesley, is assisting the arrogant and sexist Italian police in investigating the especially ghastly murder of 16 year old Drew Martin, a rising American tennis star.
Back in the US Scarpetta has a change of pace and location by opening a private pathology practice in the city of Charleston, South Carolina where there is hostility from the locals and other murders that may be connected to the killing in Rome.
The book is peopled by the usual characters, Scarpetta’s brilliant but often somewhat confused, lesbian niece Lucy Farinelli, boorish ex-cop, longtime friend and investigator Pete Marino, and of course her loyal secretary Ruth who has always followed whenever Scarpetta has moved.
The title of the book is taken from the morgue log, the ledger in which all cases are entered by hand, many being added as the story progresses.
This is approaching vintage Cornwell, and she does still have a large following in New Zealand, but one does wonder how much longer it will be before Scarpetta is allowed to retire to her much-loved garden to enjoy her recently renewed happiness with Benton.
A WELCOME GRAVE Michael Koryta Arena $35
Koryta is something of a phenomenon in writing circles having his first novel Tonight I Said Goodbye published when he was just 20 years of age, and it went on to win the Best First PI Novel Award that year. His second novel, Sorrow’s Anthem also received excellent reviews and now along comes the third novel featuring PI Lincoln Perry and lo and behold last month it was nominated for the 2007 Quill Award for a mystery/suspense novel. Pretty impressive, and the author is still only 24 years of age!
Lincoln Perry was once a rising star in the Cleveland police force but his career came to a screeching halt when he decked prominent lawyer, Alex Jefferson, in a car park and now he is a private investigator and gym owner.
When Jefferson is brutally murdered his widow, Perry’s former fiancée, calls on Perry to track down Jefferson’s long-estranged son, a partial beneficiary of the dead man’s considerable fortune. Against his better judgment he accepts the job which he sees as a simple search and locate. But before long the son too is dead and Perry finds himself the prime suspect in both deaths.
Koryta has an addictively readable style, this new novel is his best yet and that is high praise indeed. Great characterization, strong, fast moving plot and wonderfully drawn settings.
THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Orion $39
I have never really understood how two people can work together to write a novel but this is number twelve on which Preston & Child have collaborated so they obviously have the formula worked out. In this latest effort Special Agent Pendergast has taken his ward Constance Greene on a whirlwind grand tour and as the story opens they arrive at the remote Tibetan monastery where he had once studied meditation. While there it is discovered that an ancient and revered artifact, the Agozyen, has been stolen and the monks enlist the two American visitors to help them retrieve it. While looking for the relic, and they are not really sure what it is they are searching for, they uncover a grisly murder and as a result find themselves embarking on the maiden voyage of the world’s latest and largest and most luxurious ocean liner, Britannia, and it is here on the Atlantic crossing with a serial killer on board that much of the story takes place. Quite compelling and I found the references to Eastern philosophy and mysticism added to the story.
Koryta is something of a phenomenon in writing circles having his first novel Tonight I Said Goodbye published when he was just 20 years of age, and it went on to win the Best First PI Novel Award that year. His second novel, Sorrow’s Anthem also received excellent reviews and now along comes the third novel featuring PI Lincoln Perry and lo and behold last month it was nominated for the 2007 Quill Award for a mystery/suspense novel. Pretty impressive, and the author is still only 24 years of age!
Lincoln Perry was once a rising star in the Cleveland police force but his career came to a screeching halt when he decked prominent lawyer, Alex Jefferson, in a car park and now he is a private investigator and gym owner.
When Jefferson is brutally murdered his widow, Perry’s former fiancée, calls on Perry to track down Jefferson’s long-estranged son, a partial beneficiary of the dead man’s considerable fortune. Against his better judgment he accepts the job which he sees as a simple search and locate. But before long the son too is dead and Perry finds himself the prime suspect in both deaths.
Koryta has an addictively readable style, this new novel is his best yet and that is high praise indeed. Great characterization, strong, fast moving plot and wonderfully drawn settings.
THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Orion $39
I have never really understood how two people can work together to write a novel but this is number twelve on which Preston & Child have collaborated so they obviously have the formula worked out. In this latest effort Special Agent Pendergast has taken his ward Constance Greene on a whirlwind grand tour and as the story opens they arrive at the remote Tibetan monastery where he had once studied meditation. While there it is discovered that an ancient and revered artifact, the Agozyen, has been stolen and the monks enlist the two American visitors to help them retrieve it. While looking for the relic, and they are not really sure what it is they are searching for, they uncover a grisly murder and as a result find themselves embarking on the maiden voyage of the world’s latest and largest and most luxurious ocean liner, Britannia, and it is here on the Atlantic crossing with a serial killer on board that much of the story takes place. Quite compelling and I found the references to Eastern philosophy and mysticism added to the story.
DEXTER IN THE DARK Jeff Lindsay Orion $39
This is number three in the Dexter series but it is the first for me. Recently made into a popular television series in the US it will be interesting to see if the tv programme makes its way to our shores. Dexter Morgan is a Miami specialist crime scene investigator with a major difference. He specialises as a blood spatter analyst but he is in fact a serial killer himself. He has a simple rule however, he only kills really bad people and of course he remains undetected because he works within the police force and leads an outwardly normal life with his fiancée and her two children. When two students are found burnt, molested and headless, seemingly sacrificed in a religious ceremony, Dexter lands the job as the forensic analyst on the case. Quickly he realizes that he is looking for someone a lot more sinister than he is. Quirky, macabre, captivating and more than slightly chilling, Lindsay writes in an engaging and entertaining style and I can see it being great television.
Footnote:
I have just been informed that DEXTER is playing on PRIME TV at 9.30pm Tuesdays in NZ.
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