Book Review - Snakehead by Peter May

Thanks to Carl Brookins for another terrific review....

Snakehead
by Peter May
Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 312 pages,
ISBN: 9781590586068

This is the ourth in the author's China Thriller series to be published by this press. Make no mistake this is one scary and thrilling book. So thrilling, in fact I had the sense toward the end of being carried just a bit over the top. The novel brings back two of May's most endearing characters, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, American, and Beijing detective, Li Yan. But they are no longer in China. Campbell is now the county medical examiner based in Houston, Texas, and Li Yang is learning about and dealing with America's multiple and complex law enforcement agencies as a member of the Chinese Embassy staff in Washington, D.C.

Until a major tragedy brings them together, Campbell is not even aware that they are again in the same country although still thousands of miles physically and culturally apart. The tragedy that brings these two together are the deaths of scores of illegal Chinese immigrants being smuggled to the United State via the same pipeline and organization which smuggles drugs from South America to the U.S. In this incident, the dead are found in a refrigerated truck abandoned in Texas. Those deaths appear to be accidental until it is discovered the bodies have all been injected with a dangerous virus that has no known antidote.

Now the race is on to determine what the virus is, who is behind the multi-million dollar smuggling operation, the Snakehead of the title, and Li Yan and Margaret must try to set aside their own emotional difficulties in order to help literally, save the nation from a devastating plague.

The pace is fast, the writing always to the point, the characters are genuine in their language and their emotions, and most worrisome of all, the science is real. This is a novel with the potential to scare the pants off you.  It's timely, international in scope, a whirlwind of a thriller.

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Carl Brookins - www.carlbrookins.com www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island, Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

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NOTE: My publisher for Play it Again, Sam, Uncial Press,  is celebrating its fifth year in operation, and it all ends tomorrow. To join in the fun with a scavenger hunt and have a chance at winning a KOBO reader, visit the website.

Another contest is being held by Books We Love Publishing. Enter between now and December to win a Kindle. 

Book Review: The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger by Alec Wilkinson

 Thanks to Carl Brookins for offering this review. This is a bit of a serendipitous occurrence considering just last night I revisited my love of the music of this era by performing some old Peter, Paul, and Mary songs at a Cabaret show, with two of my talented kids. I remember well the days of hootenannies, Seeger, Biaz, Dylan et al. What a fun time that was. And it was fun to go back in time last night, except most folks had never heard "Stewball."
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The Protest Singer: Pete Seeger
By Alec Wilkinson
Pub by Vintage Books, 2010,
ISBN: 978-0-307-39098-1
Trade Paper, 152 pages, including
credits, acknowledgments and testimony.

The mystery is that Pete Seeger survives and endures.  In his lifetime which spans much of the turmoil of the Twentieth Century, he has been beset by some of the most vicious and evil forces we have experienced in this country and in the world.  Yet, here he is, still pluckin’ and singin’ and taking on injustice and good causes, like cleaning up the Hudson River.

I suppose I’m biased.  I grew up in a time when folk singing in America was in the ascendancy and I have a lot of old records and memories of these folks, including Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, several others. I once had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Seeger through the good offices of my friend, another fine folk singer, Gene Bluestein.  So it was great to read about all those folks, many of whom it’s easy to think of as friends, whether personal or only through their music, through the sensibilities of Seeger and Wilkinson.

It is wonderful, although disturbing, to read this elegantly written, honest look at a man, his friends and companions, his family, his trials and his triumphs; a man who sang his way into the hearts and memories of a lot of people.  Seeger’s influence, not just in the music world; after all, the Weavers recording of  “Goodnight Irene” in 1950 sold over a million copies.

This slender book, written in the kind of engaging style that is somehow the essence of Seeger’s approach to a principled life, is a moving tribute to him and to everything that’s right in these United States.  Readers may disagree with his points of view, but you cannot disagree with the way Mr. Seeger fashioned his protest.  Wilkinson has set down, in a most engaging manner, for readers everywhere, the values and the reality of a true American.
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Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords

Book Review - The Fourth Sacrifice by Peter May

Thanks to Carl Brookins for sharing his review with us...

The Fourth Sacrifice by Peter May
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 405 pages,
ISBN: 0312364644
Review by Carl Brookins

Scotsman Peter May is a fine writer and a good journalist. He has experience, a good memory and he knows how to do research. For several months he was afforded unprecedented access to Chinese law enforcement behind the curtains. His books ring with authenticity. Sometimes all this expertise and research gets in the way of a really good story. If readers are fascinated by Chinese history the excavation of the terracotta warriors at X'ian, the capital of the Middle Kingdom, and interested in the rise and fall of the Red Guards during the cultural revolution, here's a novel that opens wide a window on those parts of Chinese history.  For the rest of us, there's a little too much detail.

While the mystery is carefully rooted in those subjects, the principal plot concerns the main characters in May's first novel in this series. American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell is a smart, irascible expert, widely recognized in her field. After a disastrous affair with a Bejing detective who had abruptly disappeared from her life, Margaret is determined to return to the U.S. although she has little to look forward to. Then an American citizen of Chinese descent who worked at the American Embassy in Bejing is murdered-decapitated. It is intriguing to the authorities because this killing is similar to three other recent deaths of native Chinese.

Higher authority assigns top detective Li Yan, Margaret's former lover, to the case. Then the Embassy insists that Margaret be present at the autopsy of the dead American. Once again Margaret and Le Yan are forced together in a conflicted and tempestuous joint effort to find a killer or killers.

The author's high level skills in characterization and his excellent descriptions of exotic and unusual locations are on display. The novel is replete with insider looks at legal procedures and locations most will never experience. The novel is a wonderful excursion into police procedures and the passions of two individuals from very different cultures who find themselves almost inextricably linked.  An excellent novel.

Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!