In the next century, people have colonized the moon. The city of Artemis was built by the Kenyan
space agency and runs through international cooperation from most of the major economies in the world. Pretty much everyone in Artemis is an immigrant from somewhere else because apparently, it is not healthy for babies or mothers to be pregnant on the moon (who knew?).

Jasmine Bashara, aka Jazz, has lived on the moon for as much as her life as it's possible to. She and her father moved to the moon when Jazz was six years old. Mr. Bashara is a welder, and a devout Muslim, and tried to make Jazz into both. Let's just say he did not succeed. She is now a smuggler, working as a porter so she can meet shipments as they arrive at port, giving her access to contraband smuggled up from Earth. When one of her richest clients asks her to help him sabotage the oxygen-making operation of a company he is hoping to buy, Jazz can't resist the prospect of quick money. But her get-rich-quick scheme quickly falls apart when she discovers that the company she's been tasked with putting out of business is owned by organized crime. She finds herself on the run, trying to figure out a way to stay alive and on the moon.

For all of the science in Weir's novel, this is essentially a good, old-fashioned thriller. And there is a LOT of science. I learned more about how things work (or don't) in the lunar environment than I even knew there was to learn. The tension was only increased by the fact that Artemis is basically inescapable. You can't just run off to some non-extraditing country to avoid capture, nor can you lay low in a place where almost everyone knows you. There are long scientific explanations of engineering, welding, and the imagined tech that allows people to go outside of Artemis without dying. Weir definitely knows his stuff-or at least, I assume he does, because I couldn't tell you if any of the science was real or not. But if not, he's pretty convincing. Given how meticulously The Martian was researched, I'd have to say he's probably not bluffing.

The main character is just that; a character. Jazz is brash, sarcastic, overconfident, incredibly smart, and pretty good at self-sabotage. Because the novel is told from her first-person perspective, you get a lot of information about her inner life, and that definitely makes her more endearing as a character, even when you think she's being reckless or just plain stupid. My one criticism is that Weir writes her as though she is a man who just happens to be female. I don't mean in the trans* way; I mean her attitude, way of speaking, reactions to events, etc...just felt stereotypically masculine to me. I'm certainly not one to believe biology is destiny, and I applaud anyone, male or female, who can break the bonds of expected gender roles. But I spent most of the book thinking that Weir decided to write a female character without actually figuring out how that would change the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the said character. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed following Jazz on her (mis)adventures, and if you are a fan of science fiction that is heavy on the science, this book is for you.

I listened to the audiobook for this one, because I read that Rosario Dawson was the narrator, and she did an admirable job. I'd give her an eight out of ten for her performance, so audiobook-lovers, check it out!

Help for the Haunted, John Searles

I love spooky stories.  Some of my very favorite authors write the best ones (I'm looking at you, King and Gaiman).  I am also a skeptic.  I read supposedly "real" accounts of ghosts and spirits and the like and I am completely unmoved.  But a fictional ghost story gets me every time.

I also love mysteries, so I was pretty excited when my mother recommended Help for the Haunted by John Searle.  A murder mystery of sorts, with all of the supernatural, paranormal creepiness I could want.  The narrator of the story, Sylvie, is the daughter of a pair of "spirit hunters".  They make their living giving talks at paranormal conventions, and helping people with hauntings.  After getting a strange phone call one snowy night, Sylvie and her parents leave the warmth of home for a cold dark of an empty church at midnight.  Before the night is over, both of her parents are dead, and Sylvie and her sister are left orphaned.

One year later, Sylvie is trying to deal with her grief over her parents' deaths, and to process her feelings about her own role in the events of that winter's evening.  She feels as though there is something important she is not remembering about what happened in that church, and she desperately wants to remember before the man accused of killing her mother and father go on trial.  Her sister, who is now her guardian, is no help, all anger and indifference and sarcasm.  And, the spooky events that used to plague her family during her parents' work have started happening again-dolls that appear where they shouldn't, lights that appear to turn on and off by themselves.  It's all too much, and Sylvie feels as though she will go crazy if she can't discover the truth.

I really enjoyed the mood of the whole book, up until the very end.  There is just enough creepy goodness to make you a little uncomfortable (in a good way, if you like that sort of thing) while you are reading (probably with the lights on).  But this is also a story about mothers and daughters, about faith vs. skepticism, and about trying to do right by people, even when you're not sure what "right" is. That said, I was disappointed in the ending.  Without giving anything away, I can confidently say that most readers of this book will be completely blindsided by the answer to the riddle of what happened that night in the church, not because Searle expertly crafts such a tight narrative that the clues are only obvious in hindsight, but because the clues are not really there to begin with.  While this isn't technically the right term for what I mean, the resolution to the story had a deus ex machina kind of feeling.  Something comes right out of left field that no one could have seen coming, which annoyed me on a certain level because it made the end feel disjointed, like the ending to another story. Or maybe I was just not paying enough attention (but I don't think so).  At any rate, I'd still recommend this book to anyone who likes a good scary story, or a good family story, or a good mystery story. It's a (mostly) satisfying read.

Uncle Stevie Learns a New Trick

There are few writers as prolific as Stephen King.  While is is primarily known as a writer of horror stories,

he has also written science fiction (Under the Dome), a series of books with women's themes (Rose Madder), realistic fiction (Misery), and magical realism (The Green Mile).  And, of course, his epic fantasy series The Dark Tower.  Readers of this blog know that he is one of my very favorite authors.  I think that he is sometimes overlooked by critics of "serious" literature, because of his reputation as a horror writer, but as far as I'm concerned The Stand is one of the best novels of the 20th century.

But as far as I know, King has never written a traditional thriller-until now.  Mr. Mercedes, his latest book, is your basic serial killer story.  Bill Hodges, a retired detective in a Midwestern city, is haunted (though not literally, this time) by his last unsolved case.  Someone drove a Mercedes sedan into a crowd of people lined up to apply for a job in the early morning hours, including a mother and her infant.  Bored, overweight, and lacking purpose, he considers suicide.  Until he gets a message from the Mercedes killer, suggesting that he should eat his own gun.  The killer may have hoped to push Hodges over the edge, but the message the message does the opposite, creating purpose in an otherwise meaningless life.  Bill investigates the case with the help if his teenage neighbor, and a mentally ill woman who is tangentially connected to the case. A more unlikely team doesn't come along much in detective novels, but these three are mighty when chance throws them together.

Regardless of the genre, King's books have extremely well-written characters.  Even the supernatural villains are believable, which I imagine is what makes his scary books so terrifying.  King uses his books to explore the human psyche, the things that people are willing to do, or to sacrifice, for love, power, or greed. And his plots are always well constructed and well-paced.  He's written books that would work as well doorstops, but despite their length they never feel too long.  Mr. Mercedes is no exception.  As I was reading, I was thinking why it took so long for King to write a thriller.  Everything about it suits his strengths so well. Intricate plot, "real" characters, and the darker side of humanity.  If this were any other author, I might say this is the first in a new detective series.  The characters are certainly series-worthy.  But with Uncle Stevie, one never knows. This could be the first in a series, or it could be a one-off detective story from an author who's tried just about everything else.  Maybe there is a little bit of Hodges in King himself.  Maybe trying out a new genre is akin to the message from a serial killer that gives his life purpose.  Whatever the reasoning, and whatever the future of Bill Hodges and the other characters from Mr. Mercedes may be, fans of Stephen King and hard-boiled detective stories alike will enjoy Mr. Mercedes.

The Hangman's Daughter

A witch trial, torture, murdered children, the devil, and buried treasure...doesn't exactly sound like a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, does it?  But when these elements come together in Oliver Potzch's novel The
Hangman's Daughter, that's exactly what you get.  The main character is Jakob Kuisl, the executioner for a small town in Germany in the 1600s.  As executioner, it is also his job to torture suspects to gain confessions that could be used by the powers that be to justify the executions they ordered.  In this story, the accused is a midwife who is charged with witchcraft.  A young boy has been murdered, and he appears to have a symbol of witchcraft tattooed on his shoulder.  The woman is captured by a mob, and taken to the hangman to be questioned.  He does not believe in her guilt, however, and does whatever he can to put off the torture and eventual burning at the stake that inevitably follows such an accusation.  He works with the son of the town doctor, Simon, and grudgingly with his oldest daughter, Magdalena, to find the real killer and save the woman from a gruesome fate.

The main character's profession is only one thing that makes this book different from other historical mysteries I've read.  It is set in Germany during the middle ages, and there is sufficient detail about the daily life of the average person of that time that I can only assume the context is well-researched.  It highlights much of the backward thinking of the day, from the existence of witchcraft itself, to the severe class distinctions, to the political structure of small towns of the era, to the completely unscientific practice of "medicine" during that period in history.  This in itself makes for interesting reading.

But there is more than just a well-researched setting.  The mystery itself is sufficiently developed that I was kept guessing until pretty much the end of the story.  Potzch finds a good balance between exposition and action, and while the description of the torture inflicted on this poor woman is detailed enough to make you squirm, it is not gratuitous, and definitely does not glamorize it at all.  In fact, one of the things that I loved about the character of Jakob Kuisl is how conflicted he is about his profession.  It was never something he wanted to do, but the rigidly enforced class structure meant that he had very few options-his father and his father's father were executioners, therefore he must be as well.  But being a principled man, he wants to ensure that his torture does not lead to the death of anyone who is not well and truly guilty.  He is also in intellectual, which is what draws the physician's son, Simon, into his orbit.  It is socially unacceptable to be friends with the hangman, but Jakob has books that a scholar like Simon can only dream of, and together their combination of intellect and experience make them a very effective, if very unorthodox,  detective team.  This book is the first in a series, and I look forward to spending more time in 17th century Germany uncovering the truth about murder and mayhem.

Horns, Joe Hill

I was excited to find a copy of Horns at my local Big Lots (a store that sells odd lots and overstock from other stores).  I read Hill's fist novel, Heart Shaped Box, and thought it was a pretty good effort for a first novel.  I will admit to being predisposed to like it-Joe Hill is the pseudonym used by one of the sons of my favorite horror writer Stephen King, after all.  But still, I thought it showed promise.

Horns, while far from being perfect, definitely shows Hill's development as a writer.  The novel tells the story of Ig Perrish, a young man who had everything going for him, until the night that his girlfriend Merrin, the only woman he's ever loved, is brutally murdered.  Suspicion immediately falls on him, but with no evidence he is eventually released.  But in his small town, everyone assumes he did it, and his life becomes an endless series of accusatory glances and awkward interactions.  One night, around the anniversary of Merrin's death, he got raging drunk and blacked out.  When he awoke, he had more than just the worst hangover of his life-he had grown a pair of horns.  People suddenly start confessing their deepest, darkest desires to him, and he discovers that he can nudge people into acting on those desires in a way they would never have dreamed.  One of those people is his brother, Terry, who confesses something that starts a chain reaction of revenge that almost destroys Ig and everyone he cares about.

I thought that Horns felt more mature than Heart Shaped Box.  There was no real explanation of where the horns came from, but like his father he wrote a story that hooked me enough that I didn't really care.  I thought that sometimes he was a little too on-the-nose in his devil references...Ig's name being so close to the word for a church community, the blue skirt he ends up in later in the book (Devil in a Blue Dress)...I felt like these little flourishes weren't really necessary.  But Ig himself is pretty well written, and Hill did a good job making you feel what he was feeling when all of these things started happening to him.  And the premise itself is interesting.  What would it be like to hear everyone's most base desires, or to touch them and see all of the bad things they've ever done?  Frankly, if that's the Devil's job description, he really is living in Hell.

The Session, by Judith Kellman

Meh.

OK, I guess that's not really a review, though that is pretty much how I felt after finishing this mystery/thriller. The premise sounded promising.  P.J is a psychologist at Rikers Island women's prison.  During a "wedding" that she approved between two inmates, one of the "brides" was killed.  P.J. is blamed, and fired as a result.

She thinks that her biggest problem is making her rent, until she gets a call from one of her former patients at the prison, who is sure that she saw the victim's husband, a known batterer and sociopath, at the prison the day of the murder.  When P.J. can't get the police to act on the word of a schizophrenic inmate, she decides to investigate on her own.  Chaos ensues...blah blah blah.

Here's the deal.  P.J. as the narrator is self-deprecating and funny-or at least, Kellman tries really really hard to make her that way.  Too hard, in fact.  The one-liners and sarcastic rejoinders (both internal and between characters) felt forced to me.  And I didn't really buy the story.  As an Alex Delaware fan from way back, I'm willing to go with the "mental health professional turned investigator", but in this case I couldn't really figure out P.J.'s motivation for getting involved, nor did I really believe the path her investigation took.

There were some things that worked in this book's favor.  P.J.'s relationship with her extremely successful deaf sister was interesting, as was her complicated relationship with her ex-husband, who just happened to be (you've probably guessed already) a district attorney.  And there was a sub-plot involving P.J. and her brother Jack that was sort of interesting on its own...at least, it was until it became completely predictable.  But Kellman did a decent job of doling out information in such a way that I kept reading until the (unsatisfying) end.  So, in the final analysis-not awful, not great.

Meh.

I Hunt Killers, A Not So YA Young Adult Thriller

As a long time reader of mysteries and thrillers, it can be hard for new authors to hook me.  There are so many series that I love, from Jonathan Kellerman and his wife Faye, to Sue Grafton, Harlan Coben, and Dana Stabenow.  I've read various iterations of the female private eye, the mystery-solving psychiatrist, or the gruff police detective, and it is rare that an author brings anything truly new to the table.  So imagine my surprise when I discovered a something novel and, frankly, really fascinating in a young adult thriller.

I Hunt Killers is the first novel by Barry Lyga, and I discovered it while attending a reading conference with my best friend.  As good as the workshop sessions are, the best part of the conference for me is the exhibit hall.  It is full of books and people (mostly teachers) who love books, milling around, flipping through pages, sometimes getting so engrossed that you realize you've already missed that session you were planning to go to.  I discovered this title at a booth for a small, local bookseller that deals primarily with schools.  It was hard to miss...the cover art if pretty striking and frankly I was a little surprised to find it with the other young adult books.  But after reading the blurb my friend and I both decided that we had to have it.  The premise that Lyga puts out is pretty simple, but ripe with possibilities.  The main characters, Jazz, is the son of a notorious serial killer.  Raised in the "family business", Jazz is now 17.  His father has been in prison for four years, and on top of the normal travails of adolescence, Jazz is trying to figure out whether he has become the things his father always wanted him to be-a sociopath.  When murders start happening in his hometown, murders that are eerily similar to his father's, he gets drawn into the investigation, and realizes that his horrific upbringing makes him uniquely qualified to help the police.  Jazz doesn't need some fancy profiling course from Quanitco-he finds he can think like a serial killer.  While this is a pretty great skill for solving the murders, it raises a whole host of questions for Jazz about his own identity, and his own capacity for violence.

I find this whole idea of the child of a serial killer becoming a hunter of serial killers fascinating.  I think that one of the reasons I read books about fictional serial killers, or watch documentaries about real-life ones, is because I want to figure out what it is that creates these human monsters.  As a person who believes people are inherently good, I want to know what went wrong along the way that created personalities with no remorse, empathy, or basic human emotion.  Brain research is coming up with clues as to what makes a person become this very specific kind of killer, but so far there is nothing definitive.  At the very root of Jazz's story is the while nature/nurture debate.  How much of what we become is a result of our genetic make-up, and how much is the environment we grow-up in?  And what about free will?  Increasingly, the answer is that what makes us who we are is neither one nor the other, but both/and.  Our genetic make-up may predispose us towards a certain path, but the interaction between that and our environment is too complex and sophisticated to tease out easily.  Reading the book, I got the strong sense that Jazz is a moral person, but when he questions himself, as a reader I found myself doing the same thing.

This book was classified as young adult by the booksellers, and I have found it on young adult reading lists since.  The main characters is a teenager, which is often a pretty good indicator that the book was written for that age group.  But the book is pretty gory.  Violent acts are described in some detail, and there is a sinister air about the while story.  While it was an easy read, I was completely drawn into the story, and I didn't feel any of the disconnect that I sometimes feel when I read young adult books.  When an adult reads books meant for a younger audience, sometimes the connection that we feel with the story or the characters is more of a remembered connection than an authentically current one, if that makes sense.  Reading a book about first loves brings back my own, but I don't have the same emotional response to it I would have had 25 years ago.  But with this book I was completely engaged the whole time, not just in the plot, which is in the end is fairly formulaic (it is essentially a procedural, after all)., but with Jazz as a character and the emotional roller-coaster he is on.  Perhaps what makes this story universal is that the journey of self-discovery and the creation of identity doesn't end in adolescence, and I suspect (and hope) that it continues as long as we live.  We might not be wrestling with whether or not we are a sociopath, but I think that each of us wrestles daily with being the best person we can be, which created a connection between Jazz and myself as the reader.

This is the first book in a series, which I could tell would be the case about half-way through the book.  I've already bought the second, Game, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Jazz's journey takes him-and the reader-next.

Subterranean, James Rollins

While is enjoy great literature, I am not averse to a romping action story.  And when I listen to audiobooks, which I only do when I drive or exercise, I need something that will keep me from being bored without taking attention away from what I am doing-especially when operating a 2000 pound piece of machinery at high speeds.  It is in this spirit that I downloaded my first James Rollins novel a couple of years ago.  Rollins is best known for his Sigma Force novels, where the dashing Commander Gray Pierce and his crack team of geniuses with black belts race around the globe averting catastrophes and solving historical mysteries.  They are basically The Da Vinci Code on steroids.  I've listened to a couple, and while I can't exactly speak to the accuracy of Rollins' historical or scientific research, the stories are plausible enough not to trigger my "yeah, right" meter.

I decided for my latest audiobook to download one of Rollins' stand-alone novels, called Subterranean.  The plot is like a mash-up of Jurrasic Park and Journey to the Center of the Earth, in that it had both human arrogance and greed,  and big, scary monsters from the past.  A team is sent below the surface of Antarctica to explore the remains of what appears to be a human settlement in caverns that have been recently discovered.  Also discovered-a solid diamond statue that has aroused the interest of scholars and businessmen alike.  The team includes an anthropologist, a geologist, an expert caver, a biologist, and a few Marines along for security.  What the team doesn't know is that the previous team that had been sent in to explore the series of tunnels and caverns had disappeared without a trace.  As they delve more deeply into the earth under the "uninhabited" continent, they discover fierce marsupial predators, unknown species of sharks, predatory snails as big as a basketball, a luminescent fungus that emits a powerful knock-out drug, and a tribe of intelligent marsupial "people" living in a village and growing a wheat-like plant...

Which is exactly where he lost me.  For about half the book, the plot, while incredible, did at least seem to have some basis in solid science...the semi-reptilian, marsupial predators did tweak my suspension of disbelief, but I went with it because humans running away from something trying to eat them is basically the basis of every monster-movie, ever.  But an entire race of beings, not human, developing human qualities and human-like behaviors and societal structures, despite having no contact with humans-sorry, nope, not gonna happen.  Had this novel been billed as fantasy, or had the setting been another planet, I could have gone there.  But not in a supposedly scientific thriller.  I did what I almost never do-I abandoned the story, choosing instead the download Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, which at least has the decency to call itself a fantasy novel.

So, if you're not bothered by scientific inconsistency and completely implausible storylines, then give this book a try.  But for myself, I'll stick with Rollins' historical mysteries, which for all I know may only sound well-researched, but which allow me to listen without rolling my eyes.

Dead Wrong,by J.A. Jance, AKA Desert Popcorn

Imagine you are the sheriff of a large county in southern Arizona that is routinely understaffed and over-extended.  Now imagine that you are also almost nine months pregnant.  That is exactly Joanna Brady's life at he beginning of Dead Wrong.  When she and her team of detectives gets a call to a murder scene in the desert, she is surprised to find a man brutally beaten to death, missing is fingers.  The victim is an ex-con, who was paroled recently after serving over 20 years for allegedly killing his wife in a drunken black-out. Convicted, despite the fact that her body was never found.  In addition, one of her animal control officers is beaten and left for dead while investigating a couple of local thugs for running a dog fighting ring.  With her manpower shortage, Joanna has no choice but to keep working-but this turns out to be a relief, when her overbearing mother-in-law shows up unexpectedly to wait out the birth of her grandchild.  Joanna and her deputies will soon be facing the consequences of a decades old secret, one that puts Joanna and her unborn son at risk.  But being a sheriff is part of her now, and finding a way to balance her career and her family is a challenge.

It took me a little while to get into this book, but once I did it was hard to put it down.  The Joanna Brady series is one I have dipped in and out of over the years.  I haven't read all of them, but when I do pick one up I am never disappointed with the story.  Her character combines the traits of all great female crime fighters-inner strength plus common sense plus compassion and a deep sense of justice.  Not to mention she's kind of bad-ass when it comes to taking down the bad guys.  The plot is fairly intricate but pretty believable  which enough wiggle room in how it could play out to keep a person guessing until the end.  I figured out the broad strokes of the secret fairly early, but I still wasn't sure about the details prior to the big reveal.  As popcorn books go, I'd say Jance's books are pretty much a safe bet.

I'd Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippman

One of my favorite popcorn authors is Laura Lippman.  Her thrillers are smart and action-packed and always have an interesting psychological component.  But I'd Know You Anywhere falls short of the emotional impact that I have grown to expect from her books.

Eliza Bennet is a happily married mother of two.  After living in London for about a decade, her family has moved back to the US, to a quiet suburb of Baltimore.  But her idyllic family life in the present has a horrific past at its core.  Twenty years ago, when she was only 15 and called herself Elizabeth, Eliza was kidnapped and held for six weeks by a serial killer named Walter Bowman.  Known by some as the "one who survived", and by others as a possible accomplice to Bowman's killing spree, Eliza has worked hard to put her past behind her, changing her name, moving away from her family, and keeping herself out of the public eye.  Only her parents, sister, and husband know her story.  At least until Bowman, on death row and scheduled for execution in a few short weeks, reaches out to her, asking for contact.  Eliza, seeing a chance to get him to confess to the other murders he committed and give some families long-awaited comfort and justice, agrees to talk with him.  What she doesn't know is that he plans to try and use her to get his sentence commuted.

The story is told in chapters that alternate between the past and present, with certain sections of the book being told from the point of view of Walter Bowman.  The chapters that detail Eliza's imprisonment were surprisingly non-threatening.  Bowman made her travel with him, and even kidnapped another girl while she was with him, but I never got that feeling in my gut that I get when I read a really good thriller.  The chapters that detail the present day are even less emotionally satisfying.  I understood her feelings of guilt, and how she could question her own perceptions of something that happened to her when she was young and traumatized, but at times it felt like so much navel-gazing.  And the ending was way anti-climactic.  Let's just say that all the angst boils down to a rear-view mirror.  There was no real sense of menace, and given that one of the most violent character is locked up on death row for the entire novel, there is no real action either.  I'll not give up on Lippman, but this was not her best.

Whispers of the Dead, In Which David Hunt Can't Catch a Break

Simon Beckett is one of the better mystery/thriller writer's I've discovered in a while.  His main character, David Hunt, is a forensic anthropologist from the UK, complete with tragic past and an obsessive nature focused on finding justice for the dead.  Beckett's books are formulaic thrillers on the surface, but with a sense of malevolence and creepiness that does not always come across in other works in this genre.

Whispers of the Dead finds David taking a sabbatical from his work in the UK.  He is studying in the US, at a body farm in Tennessee just known as "the facility".  There, bodies are exposed to the elements in various ways so that pathologists and forensic anthropologists can study the effects of varying environments in the decomposition process.  And that is not even the grossest thing in this book!  David is mostly recovered physically from being attacked by a serial killer, but the fact that she escaped and is possibly hunting him down to finish the job makes it harder to heal emotionally.  He is hoping that getting away from England and his failed relationship with his girlfriend will give him some perspective, and help him figure out how to move forward.  He has barely arrived when he is drawn into a series of bizarre murders at the request of his old friend and mentor.  There is a killer at work in the Smoky Mountains, leaving bodies or parts of bodies in elaborate tableaux designed to draw the forensic people deeper and deeper into his crimes.  Soon David and his friend become targets themselves.  Can this really be happening to him AGAIN? (that would be the "David Hunt can't catch a break" part)

Despite the fact that it seems completely unlikely in real life that the same forensic anthropologist could be targeted by not one but two serial killers in succession, the fact is that the story is so good that I didn't even care that it wasn't that feasible.  The story is mostly told in the first-person from David's point of view, but at the end of each chapter is a vignette written in a slightly awkward second-person that reveals the mind of the killer.  There are plenty of hints dropped along the way, but even so I was still surprised by the twist at the end.  And Beckett is not afraid to kill off important major or minor characters, which adds a sense of unpredictability to the whole things that is refreshing in a formula genre book.  Whispers of the Dead is an excellent popcorn book-as long as you aren't too squeamish when you eat...er...read!

A Wicked Snow

America is fairly obsessed with the serial killer, both in the true crime sense and the fictional sense.  There are many infamous killers out there who have captured our imagination, but they are mostly men.  Female serial killers are a rare breed.  Of the ten most prolific female serial killers, only three were active in the 20th century.  Compare that to just the number of male serial killers that you can probably name off the top of your head and you can understand why female serial killers get the kind of attention they do.

Even though the group is small, Gregg Olsen knows a lot about them.  The best selling author of non-fiction books on female killers turned his attention to creating a fictional one in his first novel, A Wicked Snow.   Hannah Griffin-wife, mother, and CSI- has spent most of her life trying to forget her past, and the terrible night when it was discovered that her mother killed at least 17 men and buried them on her Christmas tree farm.  After that night, Claire Logan became synonymous with evil and greed and filicide (killing one's own children-you're welcome!).  Her mother disappeared that night, and many people believed she was dead.  But Hannah felt sure that her mother was alive, and when a package turns up at her office containing evidence from her mother's case, she begins a search that leads her to some surprising discoveries.

This is a masterful thriller.  Olsen does a really good job pacing the novel so that you are totally drawn into the mystery without being frustrated by the things you still don't know.  Hannah herself is a character that is easy to relate to, as are the other major characters.  Her motives and actions seem perfectly reasonable given the circumstances, and there is an emotional impact from the fact that she was directly related to the events behind the current story.  As popcorn books go, this one is very satisfying!

The Old Broads Network

A couple of weeks ago  took part in the blog tour for the AudioGo audiobook for Karin Slaughter's new novel, Criminal.  At the time of the tour, I was only about a third of the way through the book, and loving it. Now that I am finished, I can honestly say that Slaughter has done something that is well-nigh impossible.  She took a formula serial-killer thriller and turned it into an emotionally powerful, incredibly moving story.

Criminal is the latest installment in the Will Trent series.  I've enjoyed all of Slaughter's recurring characters, but Will is my favorite.  He is an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, but with a past that was more likely to produce a criminal than a cop.  Will grew up in a children's home-too old and awkward for anyone to want to adopt him, he was eventually kicked out of care at 18, with nothing but his brains and the clothes on his back.  But through hard work and a few lucky breaks, Will overcame his background and his learning disabilities to graduate from college and join the GBI.

In Criminal, Will and his partner Faith are investigating the murder of a university student.  Her case sets off some kind of alarm bells for his boss, Amanda Wagner.  Thirty years previous, she and Faith's mother Evelyn caught and sent to jail a man with the same M.O.  The story jumps back and forth from present day to 1975, and as the story plays out we see that there is more at stake than just the lives of the kidnapped women.

Sounds like your basic serial killer novel.  But this is a serial killer novel with heart, based entirely on the flashback story of Amanda Wagner and Evelyn Mitchell, and how they are connected to Will Trent.   The flashbacks don't just explain Will's past, but the early days of women in the Atlanta PD, and specifically the case that bonded Amanda and Evelyn and the rest of their old broads.  It made me love and respect the elder females so much more, and the image of all of these women spending their careers looking out for the baby they saved actually made me a little teary.  This story is so much more than just another crime procedural.  If you haven't been following the story, go back to the beginning of the Will Trent series and catch up.  It will be totally worth your time!

Black Out, by Lisa Unger

As I slowly make my way through my collection of un-read thrillers, I've read quite a few books about women being victimized by men.  In fact, I've started to think that I should write a series of books about females victimizing men just to balance the cosmic scales.  Usually, the victims in these books (if they survive) find a way to take back some power from their attackers, which I suppose should be some comfort to the female reader.  But the main character in Lisa Unger's Black Out does a little bit more than just show some spunk in the face of a horrifying past-or does she?

Black Out is the story of Annie Powers-or Ophelia March-who is manipulated by a serial killer into helping him commit murders (or was she?).  Annie Powers, formerly Ophelia March, lives with her husband Gray and daughter Victory in a safe, gated community in Florida.  She has everything she could want-money, a gorgeous house on the beach, a loving husband, a beautiful daughter.  But she is wracked with anxiety.  She is sure that her ex-boyfriend and sociopath, Marlowe Geary, has returned to snatch her from her new life and draw her back into his evil web.  Except, of course, that her husband killed him five years ago. So why is Annie sure that he is hunting her, trying to lure her back into his evil web?

Black Out is a psychological thriller that grabs you by the imagination and doesn't let you go.  Unger uses Annie herself as the narrator, making it impossible to tell what is real and what is imagined.  The reader is forced to live the confusion, fear, and anger just as Annie feels it, while trying to figure out exactly how to keep herself and her family safe.  It is one of those books that makes you question your own perception of events, and trying to make sense of the events is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle-from two different boxes.  Frankly, even after finishing it I'm still not sure which of the events in the book actually happened and which ones she imagined.  But in the end it didn't really matter.  Unger writes the story of a woman desperately trying to gain power over her own life.  Everyone tries to manipulate Annie, even the people who love her most-maybe especially the people who love her most.    Annie's attempts to take back her life make you root for her, even when you're not sure you like her very much.  And even though there are parts of the plot that are pretty implausible, I was caught up enough in the story of Annie and her past that it worked for me.  Escapism at its best!

A New Monkeewrench Novel! Off The Grid, by P.J. Tracy

I read a lot of mystery/thriller series.  I mean, A LOT!  And over the last couple of years I have had some painful break-ups with some of my favorites.   There are very few things as sad as watching a formerly great character fade into mediocrity.  And I can honestly say that THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!    (See what I did there?)  The new P.J. Tracy book, Off the Grid (coming out August 2nd), is just as full of quirky, loveable characters as the other Monkeewrench books, and the story is just as different and suspenseful.

Off the Grid, the lastest installment in the Monkeewrench series by the mother/daughter writing team known as P.J. Tracy, begins with Grace MacBride sailing in the seas near Key West, spending her days laying in the sun wearing a sundress and sandals.  Anyone who has read any of the other Monkeewrench books knows that this is the most unexpected thing that she could be doing.  After a life of violence and paranoia, Grace has finally allowed herself to relax and feel safe.  But her sense of security is shattered when the violence she fears and expects finds her, even miles at sea.  Someone is trying to kill her friend and emotional savior, John Smith.  A thousand miles away in Minnesota, her former love interest and cop Leo Magozzi and his partner are investigating the deaths of four Somali's with ties to terrorism.  Neither Grace nor Leo know how these two events happening a continent apart will connect them once again.

Grace and her band of super-computing geniuses have been in some sticky situations in the past.  But never before have the stakes been so high.  Each of them is forced to confront something about themselves as they race to uncover a terrorist plot, and that is one of the things that I liked about this Monkeewrench book.  Grace is such a larger than life character that sometimes I feel like the other Monkeewrenchers don't get enough backstory, but that is not the case this time.  Truth be told there is not a ton of exposition in this novel, but the events of the story and the character's reactions to them provide glimpses into the chaotic, painful pasts of the main characters.  Much of the first part of the novel revolves around Magozzi and his partner Gino and their efforts to discover what is happening with the dead Somali's, but I was OK with the focus being off of Grace for a bit.

Other than revisiting these characters, who I love, the story was interesting and different than any thriller plot I've read before.  Sure, I've read stories about terrorism before, but this particular plot had a twist that was new, at least to me.  And the new characters who are introduced, a couple of old Viet Nam vets, are a good addition to the group.  I have no idea if they are going to make an appearance in any other P.J.Tracy books, but I could see them having a place in the off-kilter, gray area, sometimes shady world of Monkeewrench.  Or perhaps their own series.  Either way, I was pleased to meet them.  The book has an emotional punch that made me clench my fists, laugh out loud, and cry openly-quite a feat for a formula thriller.  But just like the cast of characters, the Monkeewrench books are unpredictable enough that you are never sure what you are going to get, other than a really good read.

More Summer Popcorn: The Missing, Chris Mooney

My summer of popcorn books continues with another thriller, The Missing, by Chris Mooney.  The book begins with three friends-Darby, Stacey, and Melanie-high-school age girls, sneaking off into the woods to smoke and drink.  They had barely gotten their party on when they witness what they think is a murder.  They call the police, but when they show up both the man and the body are gone.  Several days later, Darby is at home alone when she hears noises downstairs.  Suddenly, a man with no face is chasing her through her house.  She escapes, but Melanie and Stacey are not so lucky.

Fast forward 15 years, and Darby is now a criminalist in Boston.  A young woman is kidnapped, and Darby is assigned to process the crime scene.  As she and the police investigate, with the help of the same FBI agent who worked Darby's own case, Darby begins to sense that there is some connection between the new case and hers.  But how is that possible, when the perpetrator of her attack was killed by police over a decade before?  As Darby is forced to revisit her own nightmare, she and her team race against time to find the missing girl.


I was completely sucked in by Mooney's writing in this book.  The narrative structure goes back and forth between Darby's perspective and the killer's, a man named Daniel Boyle.  This puts the reader in the position of knowing things that Darby doesn't, leading to more than a few moments when I wished I could somehow communicate with a fictional character and save her some trouble.  Mooney did a pretty good job writing as a psychopath-the chapters from Boyle's perspective were pretty chilling.  I did figure out one major twist, but there was another one that took me completely by surprise.  It would have been more satisfying had the twist actually contributed more to the story, but it didn't take away from it, so at least it was an unoffensive plot point.    All in all a quick, enjoyable read.

24 Hours, Greg Iles-Southern Fried Popcorn

It is probably every parent's worst nightmare, despite the fact that it almost never happens-stranger abduction.  As much as popular media would like us to think that a child is being snatched off the street every few seconds by some slathering monster, the fact is that most child abductions are perpetrated by someone the child knows.  But the same media culture that seems to revel in sensationalizing the tragic stories of abducted children has created within our society a deep-seated fear of the other, the dark stranger, the playground stalker.  It is that fear that is highlighted in Greg Iles 2000 release, 24 Hours.

Will Jennings is a successful doctor, a well-respected anesthesiologist who has been asked to speak at the Mississippi doctor's association convention.  A small plane pilot, Jennings decides to fly down to the conference in his small engine plane.  When  his wife, Karen, arrives home from the airport with their daughter Abby, Joe Hickey is waiting for them.  Joe, his mentally retarded cousin Huey, and his stripper-turned-wife Cheryl have a plan-spirit Abby out of the house, take Karen hostage, and contact Will to set up a ransom exchange.  The plan is supposed to take 24 hours, and if everyone cooperates, Will and Karen will be reunited with Abby once the money is changes hands.  But what Joe Hickey didn't know was that Abby has juvenile diabetes, and needs insulin shots at regular intervals. And what Will and Karen don't know, but soon discover, is that Hickey has a very personal reason for choosing their family for his fifth and final kidnapping plot.

I've been a fan of Iles' work since I read True Evil, so I was happy to pick this one up at the library book sale.  24 Hours is an earlier book, and it is obvious that Iles has become more skilled with his craft since he wrote it in 2000.  It's a little slow getting started, but it eventually picks up and becomes as exciting and action-packed as his other books.  It even has an "Of Mice and Men" vibe going.  The relationship between Joe and Huey reminded me a bit of Lennie and George-if George had been an evil mastermind, that is.  All of the family member's characters are well-developed as well, even five year old Abby.  While the final resolution of the kidnapping is more like a scene from a Bruce Willis action movie than something that could possibly really happen, it definitely kept me riveted until the very last page.  A good summer read for mystery/thriller lovers like me.

Pop Pop Poppity Pop: Eye of the Beholder, by David Ellis

Today's popcorn book entry is another mystery, thriller.  Eye of the Beholder by David Ellis begins with a murder spree, six young women killed by a seemingly deranged man, acting out the lyrics of an anti-woman hard rocker named Tyler Skye.  Here is the Booklist blurb:

Fifteen years ago, prosecutor Paul Riley made his mark by putting away Terry Burgos, who was inspired by song lyrics to kill six young women in the most gruesome of fashions. Now, a new series of killings bears a frightening similarity to the Burgos murders, and as the victim list keeps growing, Riley realizes the killer seems to be sending a personal message to him. In order to solve the new crimes, Riley, realizing that the connection to the Burgos case is very real, must confront his own past and the terrifying possibility that, 15 years ago, he might have made a terrible mistake.

As thrillers go this one was pretty good.  it kept me guessing from beginning to end, blending fairly predictable thriller plots (shady father, wild child teenager, wealthy people with dark secrets, schizophrenic serial killers) and  puts them together in ways that make them feel fresh and intriguing.  I must admit to being slightly annoyed with the "innocent man accused of a crime he didn't commit" thing, but it ends up a) not really being that and b) moving the plot along in unexpected ways.  There is a cast of interesting characters, including a troubled police detective (aren't they always?), and Riley's girlfriend, who happened to be the daughter of the governor.  In the end I didn't find the actual solution to the mystery that believable, but by then I didn't really care.  It has been a fun ride, and in the summer that's about all I'm looking for.

Popcorn Alert: Immoral, by Brian Freeman

Ah, summer...that magical time of year when a (not-so-young) woman's fancy turns to MURDER.  Well, at least this not-so-young woman.  Summer is the time when I catch up on all of those popcorn books I've been wanting to read-the ones that don't make me think so much but satisfy my need for pure reading escape.  This time, it was the book Immoral, by Brian Freeman.

At first glance, this book is just another formulaic mystery/thriller.  A young girl goes missing.  A hard-working but seriously flawed detective tries to figure out what happened to her.  John Stride is haunted by the disappearance of another girl the year before-a girl who was never found.  But that girl, Kerry McGrath, was a good girl with no secrets.  The victim of the most recent disappearance, Rachel Deese, was a wild child with a sordid sexual history and a sociopathic personality.  Nevertheless, the media is calling for an arrest, and despite not having a body, they have a perfect suspect in the creepy step-father.  Sounds fairly unoriginal as a plot goes, no?  But when the trial part of the book ended about two-thirds of the way through the book, I realized that in fact, something else entirely was going on.

Freeman does a good job of creating characters, and he draws you into not just the mystery itself but the lives of all of those involved.  I happen to be watching The Killing on Netflix right now, and I see similarities to the way the book and the show are structured.  Immoral is not just the procedural you might expect, but looks closely at how the case, and the missing girl, affect the police investigators, the parents, and the community.  The only thing that gave me a little bit of pause was the fact that Rachel was seen as a sexually precocious teen who may have "asked" for what happened to her.  But I think that Freeman gives enough background about her life and her evolution as a cruel, damaged person to counteract my gut-reaction feminism.  It was believable to me that she could, in fact, have been the instigator of her relationship with her step-father.  And since Freeman takes what you think you know and turns it on it's head in the last third of the book, that particular aspect ended up not being relevant anyway.  Good summer read for the mystery lover!

Popcorn Alert: Have You Been Naughty?

wow...ok, that title makes it sound like I am going to be reviewing that Fifty Shade of Gray that everyone is reading right now...let's rewind, shall we...

My summer vacation just started.  After a year full of students and grading and assessment and assessment and assessment (see a pattern here...) I have several weeks to recharge my batteries and renew my love of popcorn books.  For those of you who have not heard me describe popcorn books before, that's what I call books that are lacking in substance but oddly satisfying-just like popcorn.

My first popcorn read of the summer was Meg Gardiner's The Dirty Secret's Club.  Since mysteries and thriller are my favorite popcorn (consider them the cheddar/caramel mix of popcorn books), I was happy to delve into the world of Jo Beckett, Gardiner's latest character creation.  Jo is a forensic psychiatrist.  In other words, she is called in not to figure out how someone died, but rather why they died.  In cases of equivocal death (in other words, a death with no clear motive), it's her job to investigate the person's life and determine whether the death was an accident, suicide, or murder.

Her first case involved a series of apparent muder/suicides taking place in and around San Francisco.  A high-powered attorney was involved in a high-speed chase with police, ending in her car going over the side of a bridge and into the traffic speeding below.  Jo is called in by the police to determine why a successful woman who seemingly had it all would drive her car over a metaphorical cliff to her death, taking her passenger and three bystanders with her.  Jo soon discovers that the beautiful prosecutor was hiding a secret-in fact, that she belonged to a group of people who all had shameful secrets.  The Dirty Secrets Club arranged dares for people-dangerous acts that would either allow them to assuage their guilt over their secret, or let them feed their egos for the shameful, sometimes criminal things they had done.  Now it appeared that someone was targeting group members, and Jo needed to discover who was behind the murders in order to stop others from being killed.

There are no real surprises in the structure of the novel.  Female investigator plus tragic past plus complicated relationship with unapproachable/inappropriate man pretty much describes the work of many authors in this genre.  But I don't read popcorn books because I want to have to think-I read them for escapist enjoyment.  And this book provided that in spades.  Gardiner did a good job of pacing the action of the story so that I was engaged the whole time, and the characters are likable enough.  The plot description makes it sound like the reader will be dragged into some seedy underworld of sex and violence, but while the members of the Dirty Secret's Club do have terrible secrets in their past, Gardiner doesn't dwell on the specifics enough for you to come away feeling like you need a shower after.  I look forward to more installments in the life of Jo Beckett, with more psychological mysteries to solve.