Book Review - Code of Silence by Sally Wright

It's always a pleasure to share a review from Carl Brookins. Not only does he write some good reviews, he also writes some top-notch mysteries.

Code of Silence
Sally Wright
ASIN: B007G0IQ1MA
Kindle e-book
February, 2012

 I found this prequel to the Ben Reese series to be an odd book for the genre in a couple of ways. First, the author’s style. It’s pretty far from being similar to Agatha Christie. I like the style. It grew on me. What’s more, it changed in subtle ways from beginning to the end. At first, the rhythms are abrupt, blunt-edged. There are few compound sentences and any number of sentence fragments. Second, while the author is celebrated as a top mystery author, and has several fine mysteries to her credit, this novel has little mystery, being more of a taut suspense-laden thriller. The tension rises and becomes more intense as the novel progresses until we arrive at an excruciating and satisfying climax.

 This is the 6th Ben Reese mystery, and is set in a time frame before the others in the series. It is a historical novel with roots in the relationships between the US and European nations, principally the Soviet Union during and after WWII. The novel begins with a murder that occurs in 1947 in Washington, D.C. As an aside, it feels a bit odd to this reviewer to refer to a book as historical that deals with an important part of this reviewer’s life.

 A decade later a second murder occurs near a small university town in Ohio. Several troubling events with no initial connection to the murder have happened to an Alderson University academic. Ben Reese, who trained as an Army Ranger and then served in WWII as a scout behind enemy lines in Europe has joined the staff of the university. He served with various units, including Canadian soldiers at the invasion of Fortress Europe. Now, this talented archivist and ex-military scout, Ben Reese, steps out of the shadows of his wartime career to locate and stop a man who seeks to eliminate all evidence of his previous espionage against the United States by murdering those who know the truth.

 The novel is distinguished by the author’s meticulous and extensive research which buttresses the authenticity of conversations between various characters. As always one of the hallmarks of Wright’s writing is her development and presentation of the contextual basis for the actions that take place in her novels. If this novel is flawed it may be, for some readers, the sometimes rambling if thoughtful dissertations on the ever-shifting geo-political realities and the secrecy that surrounded events and decisions that were made at the highest levels of governments.

 The novel bears the stamp of a careful writer who doesn’t shy away from descriptions of more brutal aspects of war and their aftermath. For fans of Ben Reese this novel reveals much about the experiences that shaped the character’s attitudes. And, as with other novels in the series, readers will be left with deep appreciation for marvelous character descriptions as well.

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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com  BLOG:  http://agora2.blogspot.com  -BOOKS:  Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Book Review - A Fair to Die For by Radine Tress Nehring

Thanks to Carl Brookins for sharing another review. Makes my Sunday blogs so much easier.

A Fair To Die For                    
Radine Trees Nehring
ISBN: 9781610091220
2012 release from Oak Tree Press
238 pages (without recipes)

 In spite of continual bumps in their road of life, Carrie McCrite and her second husband, Henry, forge onward. They both have healthy, positive attitudes. That’s mildly surprising for Henry. He’s retired from a career as a cop in Kansas City. They expected to live a quiet, typical retiree life in the Ozarks. Fate intervenes, in the form of a long-forgotten  cousin named Edith Embler. Edith blows into town looking for family history and bringing behind her a variety of really bad dudes who seem to hang around craft fairs with evil intent.

 The story rests in a really clever idea, and the author handles the plot necessities carefully and responsibly. Her skill as a writer puts this novel very much in a positive cozy sort of grouping. Like a lot of traditional American mysteries, this story has a harder edge than is typically found in the classical, traditional, stories from the UK.

 Carrie’s experience and generosity of spirit in wanting to help Edith in every possible way play out nicely against her husband’s more suspicious and cautious nature. The novel is interestingly peopled with several unusual characters who add to the richness of the scene. I’ve been reading this author over a number of years and am pleased to recommend this novel. It is in the end a satisfying mystery involving nice people who are truly competent. In the end, one might view with a certain hesitation, if not suspicion, the abrupt arrival of long-lost relatives.
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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com  BLOG:  http://agora2.blogspot.com  -BOOKS:  Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Book Review - Skin by Patricia Rosemoor

Again, two blogs in one day. And here I thought I'd have trouble doing one a day for the A to Z blog Challenge. Long before I decided to join in the Challenge, I invited author, Pat Rosemoor, to be my Wednesday Guest this week. I also told her I would post a review of her book the previous Sunday, which I obviously did not do, so I thought I would make that up to her today.

Skin
Patricia Rosemoor
E-book and Paperback
2012 Release

Lilith Mitchell has never forgotten the little sister she left behind when she went to college to escape an abusive step-father and a mother who didn't seem to care. She thought Hannah would be safe. But she wasn't. So Hannah ran away from home to do god-knows-what and Lilith does not want to contemplate.

Now, some years later, Lilith has a good job as a paralegal and has spent countless hours and countless dollars looking for her sister, only to find her dancing at a gentleman's club.

The sister's have an awkward reunion, but before Lilith can begin rebuilding a relationship with Hannah, the young woman is kidnapped by a killer. This is a particularly nasty killer who enjoys torturing women before turning them loose on his hunting preserve to become his next kill.


After Hannah disappears, Lilith decides to take her place as a dancer in the club to try to draw the killer out. Local law enforcement wants her to leave the investigating to them, but she is determined to do whatever it takes to save her sister.

Both women are strong and courageous, and one can't help but root for them when the danger is high. This is a fast-paced book with a lot of plot twists and action.

Patricia is going to be my guest on Wednesday, and will share some of her experience doing research at a gentleman's club. Please do come back and make her feel welcome.

Book Review - Lethal Lineage by Charlotte Hinger

Thanks to Carl Brookins for the introduction to another good mystery. The list of books I want to read just keeps getting longer, and longer, and longer.....

Lethal Lineage

By Charlotte Hinger

ISBN:978-1-59058-837-6

2011 Release from

Poisoned Pen Press

This is an amazing novel. Almost from the first line, one is interested, entertained, and enthralled. Lottie Albright is a first-class protagonist, a bright, wealthy, well-educated woman with a healthy measure of community sense and human empathy. The fact that she’s now living on the isolated windy plains of northwestern Kansas, second wife of a widowed farmer, only enhances her claim on the reader’s attention.

The author writes with such clarity, precision and verve, one is swept into the lives of these people with intimacy, with love, and with a clear eye on the realities of life in this place in the Twenty-first Century. As isolated as they are, and feel themselves to be, the citizens of four sparsely-populated counties will be touched in tender and horrific ways by larger events happening continents away beginning with a confirmation in a new Episcopal congregation meeting in a new church.

The novel’s  sojourn into the world of historical research, especially Albright’s struggle to deal with the surprises of family history projects is a fascinating and relevant subplot. The characters are all well-laid on and consistent in their roles. All in all an outstanding effort.
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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com  BLOG:  http://agora2.blogspot.com  -BOOKS:  Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Book Review - Lost Women of Lost Lake by Ellen Hart

Thank you Carl Brookins for introducing us to another good read.

The Lost Women of Lost Lake
by Ellen Hart
ISBN: 978-0-312-61477-5
2011 hardcover release from
Minotaur Books, 320 pgs.


It is interesting how these things come in multiples. Libby Hellmann recently released a novel with its genesis in the riotous summer and fall of 1968. The Minnesota History Center has just opened an elaborate exhibit focused on 1968, and the History Theater in Saint Paul has mounted an original play, “1968, The year That Rocked The World.” And now here we have a powerful, emotionally intense novel by that excellent Minneapolis writer, Ellen Hart. It is a story of two women who are unable to divorce themselves from that same year, 1968 and the decisions and actions they took then.

The story is another event in the evolving saga of Minneapolis restaurateur, Jane Lawless. This time she and bosom chum Cordelia take what they intend to be a short vacation trip into Minnesota’s benign northern wilderness to the Lawless family lodge on a lake north of the Twin Cities. It’s a common enough activity, and bucolic time on placid water amid peaceful forests is expected to provide calm and rejuvenation. Jane is trying to decide whether she can commit to working with a close friend toward becoming a professional private investigator.

The peaceful appearing forest, like so many lives, conceals dark doings and Jane is drawn into a maelstrom of murder, revenge, drugs and double dealing. The multiple threads of this complex story intersect, divide, and then reweave. At times the action is high with tension, the pace frantic. At other times, the story becomes thoughtful, calm, like the smooth waters of the lake itself, allowing readers moments to reflect, perhaps, on their own lives and paths not taken. The women of lost lake, must, in the end, decide for themselves, and take for themselves the heart-rending consequences of their lives.

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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com  BLOG:  http://agora2.blogspot.com  -BOOKS:  Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Book Review - The Eye of The Virgin by Frederick Ramsey

Thanks to Carl Brookins for another review. He does pick some good books to offer for our reading pleasure....

The Eye of the Virgin
By Frederick Ramsey
Pub. Poisoned Pen Press
June, 2010, Hard Cover.
254 pages.
ISBN: 9781590587607

Review by Carl Brookins

Sheriff Ike Schwartz is in it again.  Some odd break-ins have occurred in the area around the town of Picketsville, Virginia.  What were thieves looking for in the studio of an iconographer? Why is an unknown individual discovered dead of gunshot, but in a chair in the Picketsville clinic?  Are these incidents related?  And who is the mysterious woman Abe Schwartz has been squiring about?

Sparkling dialogue and a whee of a climactic scene distinguish this crime novel.  It's the xxx in Ramsey's continuing saga of the home-town adventures of ex-CIA spook Isaack Schwartz.  He's retired from the international scene to become the elected sheriff of the aforesaid Pickettsville, Virginia.  He's bright, sharp, aware of the ways of international espionage so when he sees it, he recognizes it.  As the elected sheriff he has to deal with a loose collection of varied and interesting characters.  Some of them make life quite interesting; the president of the local college, Ruth XXX for instance.  Others, inept contract spooks and burglars, for example, are dangerous.  Schwartz and his deputies manage to keep the peace and solve crimes in interesting if not always legal ways.

They are aided in their tasks, as are readers who find their way to this lovely novel, by carefully thought out if sometimes complicated plots, good pace, and crackling spot-on dialogue. Threaded through the cleverness and the funny bits are thoughtful musings on the state of world affairs today in which enemies become friends and friends enemies.

An excellent enjoyable novel


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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 - 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. 

Thanks to Carl Brookins for an introduction to another good read.

Murder Has No Class
 Rebecca Kent
ISBN:978-0-425-23207-1
Berkley Prime Crime  

Tired of the daily news of the world? Read too many grim thrillers or suspenseful detective stories lately? If you are looking for a change of pace, for an amusing, diverting traditional mystery in the best of the cozy fashion, I give you Rebecca Kent. Author of more than twenty-five novels, this one is set in the Cotswolds of Edwardian England when women sought sufferage and the keepers of tradition sought desperately to rein in rabunctious but upper-class young women.

The novel is set at the Bellhaven Finishing School, run by Headmistress Meredith Llewellyn, with the assistance of a staff of tutors. Llewellyn’s tasks are complicated by her extra-sensibility to the ghost of a hanged man who demands her attention to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, some of the girls and some of the servants are anxious to prove their support for the burgeoning suffragette movement in England.

Ms. Kent has got pretty much everything just right. The characterizations, the tone, the emotional turmoil are all in precise keeping with the time and with the story. The principal characters are classy and distinct and any reader tuned in to the traditional mystery will have a pleasurable experience with this novel.
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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

The Anonymous Client

By JP Hailey (Parnell Hall)

ISBN: 978-1-936441-22-8,

e-book edition released 2011,

232 pages.



This is another fast-paced novel featuring criminal defense attorney, Steve Winslow. The protagonist is clever and so is the novel. It’s also slick, amusing and entertaining. The author has a good sense of his readers and their likely primary interests. He also has a good eye for detail and a finely-honed ability to use words to their maximum effect.

The novel begins and ends with personnel problems in Winslow’s office, a nice counterpoint to the main theme. The problem is a little fillip that adds some rhythm to the book. In the beginning, Winslow’s sole employee, Tracy Garvin, complains of being seriously under-worked.  That’s because her boss has a tendency to not appear in the office for weeks on end, and that’s because Winslow has few clients.

One day, as the novel opens, a letter arrives. It contains ten one thousand dollar bills. Thus is laid the basis for a very entertaining, very complicated murder and blackmail plot. As is the case with other novels in this series, the plot is a morass of mis-direction, tricky timing, private detectives, and a lot of both internal and external speculation and dialogue. The book is rife with minutia, details that enhance and color the reader’s perceptions of what has just happened, what it may mean and where the story is going next.

Set in New York City, Hall and his protagonist mine the rich variety of setting and character in mostly excellent ways. There is considerably less action in the novel than is often found in crime fiction except for the courtroom scenes which are among the most compelling I have ever read. Dialogue heavy, with sometimes arcane legal maneuvering; these scenes crackle with urgency and tension as we watch the nimble attorney skate along the edge of legal chasms while trying to save his client, sometimes without even knowing who his client is.

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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion  Red Sky

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FTC Disclaimer: Again, I have no idea if Carl Brookins was paid, or blackmailed, or otherwise influenced to write this review. I doubt if he received any monetary benefit at all. He progably had to buy the book, then take time away from his own writing to read it and write this review. So, all things considered, it is possible he went in the hole.  I'm probably the only one who benefited directly as I did not have to write a blog entry today.

Book Review - Invisible Path by Marilyn Meredith

Invisible Path
By Marilyn Meredith
ISBN: 978-1-60659-239-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60659-238-0
2010 Release from
Mundania Press. 224 pages

This charming story from a veteran author is the ninth in her series of Tempe Crabtree crime novels.  Tempe is a deputy sheriff in the small town of Bear Creek near an Indian reservation in the mountains of central California.

A young man named Daniel Tofoya is murdered, and it develops that while he was a talented and often charming athlete, he could be a nasty bully if the mood took him. There are several possible perpetrators, but as often happens, most attention focuses on a stranger who has come to live on the reservation. The story is complicated by the appearance in town of a small separatist movement, stockpiling supplies in anticipation of a coming explosion of what could be racial and class warfare.

All of this gets sorted out by the patient and wise Deputy Crabtree. With help from her long-suffering pastor husband and exuberant son, Tempe is able to avert several disasters and calm some difficult situations.

The novel is in the classic traditional mystery mode with a lot of emphasis on character development and setting.  Relations between members of different races and religious beliefs are very well handled with insight and care. This is another enjoyable and satisfying adventure with Deputy Tempe Crabtree.

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Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com http://agora2.blogspot.com Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion Red Sky

Book Review - The Faltese Malcom by Peter E. Abresch

The Faltese Malcom
Peter Abresch 
Paperback: 350 pages 
Publisher: CreateSpace (October 3, 2009) 
ISBN-10: 144042232X 
ISBN-13: 978-1440422324

First off, I have to apologize to Peter for having his book for so long and just now getting around to reading it for review. To be honest, I think he sent it to me six months ago and probably thought I hated it and that's why I didn't write a review.

On the contrary, I enjoyed the book a lot. I wish the presentation - cover art and  inside layout - were better. The story deserves better. It is a well-written, clever spoof on the noir stories like The Maltese Falcon, and the central character is funny and interesting.

Joshua Punch is an artist who was commissioned to do a mural and never paid. He goes to Washington D.C. to try to collect and is sucked into a mystery of international proportions. He also has this strange tendency to swap places with a PI in San Francisco every time he is bonked on the head. Not only is it disconcerting to travel across the country in literally the blink of an eye, it is doubly disconcerting to wake up in 1927.

Stated as such, the premise sounds a little too wacky to be believable, but it works. You do have to suspend your disbelief. It is fiction, after all, but once you buy your ticket to go along for the ride, it is a fun ride, indeed. Peter captures the feel and the language of the late 20s: "Someone plugged him. One pill, right through the pump."  

There is plenty of danger and intrigue on both ends of this time continuum. In the 20's the PI S. Spaid is on the trail of an artifact that was stolen - another Maltese Falcon, and in present time Josh is entangled in a plot to steal a guided missile. Along the way he is almost blown up, accused of murder, and becomes homeless. Luckily, he has the beautiful and resourceful Karen Sawyer to give him a place to stay and help him get untangled from the dangers. If they tangle up the sheets a little along the way, that is just fine with Josh.

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FTC Disclaimer: Other than having a bit of fun as I read this book, I have not profited in any way. The author sent me a copy, and I didn't even promise him a review. I never promise, just in case I don't care for the book. I would rather not post a review than write one with a lot of negatives. I leave that up to the literary critics. Are there any more of them out there? Just curious.

Thanks to Carl Brookins for sharing another review. 

How to Survive A Killer Séance
By Penny Warner
Mass Market release in 2011
by Obsidian, 290 pages.
ISBN:978-0-451-23279-3

Party planner Presley Parker is back. In another delightfully cozy murder mystery, she’s got herself enmeshed with some high-roller, high energy, digital silicon-valley types who are nothing if not focused. The problem is they seem to have left everything resembling human values back at the starting gate. Compassion? Nowhere to be found. Fidelity? It is to laugh.

The women are sexy and high energy, the guys are bright and energetic, if often ill-tempered, and poor Presley is caught between some over-stressed corporate types, her own urges and career needs, and her flakey mother. It’s easy to see where Penny gets some of her idiosyncrasies.

A wide range of characters? You bet. Unusual ideas and offbeat characters? Absolutely. This author fully understands what her readers are looking for and in spite of having already produced a huge number of enjoyable books, she continues to plumb her creative muse to write stories that satisfy a certain risibility and belief in the quirkiness of human nature.

A fast read, well-plotted, with a setting to die for, and characters that are distinct. This is yet another of Penny Warner’s diverting, novels. Here there is no gloom or doom, just a murder or two in dark rooms, secret passageways, unreal emanations and a fast romp to a perfectly designed conclusion.

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Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Sky
more at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!

Book Review: The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva

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


The Rembrandt Affair
By Daniel Silva
ISBN: 978-0-399-15658-8
Published by Putnam, 2010

Daniel Silva is an experienced best-selling author who deserves his place on the NY Times list.  His latest novel is a fascinating blend of lust, international espionage, art theft and sale, and murder. It is well-written, well-paced and almost insidiously compelling.

It is also long.

Silva has peopled his thriller with a remarkable cast of characters, including a towering Swiss philanthropist, a raffish cast of thieves and murderers who are on the side of the angels, a master logician who is also a stone killer, an art restorer of great skill and several others of questionable yet important morals. Over all hangs the image of one of the greatest of European artists, Dutch painter Rembrandt von Rijin.  He lived and prospered during the golden era of Dutch painting and died in 1669.  His paintings are worth millions.

When a small portrait of a young woman mysteriously appears in the art world, knowing viewers immediately recognize it as the work of the great Dutch Master.  But knowing and proving are quite different things.  In the
art world, provenance is everything.  Where has this painting been for perhaps hundreds of years?

Answering that all-important question brings together a London art dealer and master restorer and art expert, and master spy, Gabriel Allon.  That connection sets off a wild chase though high and low social levels of Britain and Europe in a taut novel fraught with unexpected turns, unusual characters and sometimes off-the-wall events.

It all adds up to a dandy novel that will satisfy the most discriminating thriller readers.

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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 - Big Wheat by Richard A. Thompson

 Thanks to Carl Brookins for sharing another book review with us....


Big Wheat
By Richard A. Thompson
Poisoned Pen Press 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59058-820-8

World War I is done and Charlie Krueger’s older brother is never coming home. Charlie, his sister and their mother must cope with an increasingly abusive drunken father and husband. The summer of 1919 wanes and vast acreages of the Middle West prairies are thick with ripening grain. Up the long reaches from the banks of the Platte and the Missouri come the contract threshing crews and their machines, most followed by raffish bindlestiffs to supplement a farmer’s friends and relatives. The crews are often peopled by men of questionable backgrounds and are occasionally eyed with suspicion by local sheriffs who rarely chase criminals beyond their county boundaries.

When Charlie Krueger has a final confrontation with his father, he leaves behind a sorrowful mother and sister and the local girl he thought he’d love forever. He becomes a bindlestiff, traveling from farm to farm, learning
the threshing business and nurturing his love for machines.

The machines are new, complicated and prone to breakdowns. Charlie hooks up with a marvelously conceived traveling machine repair crew that becomes his new family. But lurking in the background is a killer, a killer who believes Charlie saw his latest brutal deed.  He seeks to find and murder Charlie. Meanwhile, the sheriff of Charlie’s home county has developed leads which point him toward Charlie as a murderer.

This then is the roiling plot which moves the story forward. Carefully constructed and set against the vast reaches of the plains states, the novel evokes a time and place and the attitudes of the people and the land in a
powerful and moving way. Readers will smell the dust, drip sweat and shrivel under the burning sun right along with the threshing crews. They’ll feel a clutch in the night as the sheriff and the murderer draw closer and
they’ll empathize with the casual corruption and the surmounting goodness of the characters the author has created.

A fine, exciting and unusual well-written novel I am pleased to recommend to all readers of crime fiction.

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