More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Missing Pieces – Suspense and Family Drama – Heather Gudenkauf

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Suspense and mystery novels aren’t my favorites but every once in a while one catches my eye. Recently NetGalley offered Missing Pieces, a “chilling page-turner” from Heather Gudenkauf.  Well!  That sounded too good to pass up.

The book seemed reasonably decent, but I couldn’t get into it, just lost interest.  I gave it up after about 25% and flipped to the back to find my theory as to the villain was completely wrong.

I think if you enjoy suspense and family mysteries you would like this.  The writing was good and the setting, a small town in Iowa with family secrets, was intriguing.  Perhaps had I stuck with it I may have enjoyed following the lead character, Sarah Quinlan, as she delves deeper into her husband’s past and family secrets.  But maybe not.

I’m going to give this 3 stars on NetGalley because it would be a good read for those who enjoy the suspense / mystery genre.

Review: Let It Burn, by Steve Hamilton, An Alex McKnight Novel

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Steve Hamilton created a special character with Alex McKnight, and it is the character’s interaction with his friends and antagonists that make the series so special.  The other point that makes Hamilton’s books special is the setting in a remote part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Synopsis

With Let It Burn: An Alex McKnight Novel we have Alex but it is set in Detroit instead of Paradise, Michigan.  The book flips between Alex’s last big case the year his life changed and today as Alex learns that the man he helped get convicted of murder, Daryl King, is getting released from prison.  That gets Alex thinking and he mentally goes back to the few points on the case that didn’t strike him as quite right.

Alex drives to Detroit to have a drink with his old sergeant and see his would-be girlfriend, and on the way stops in Houghton Lake to see the detective he worked with on the murder case.  He ends up driving around the area in Detroit where they hunted and found the young Daryl and Alex even stops to meet Daryl’s mom.  Something about her conviction that Daryl could not have killed anyone brings all Alex’s reservations to the fore and he continues to dig into the case.

Then he finds his former detective co-worker murdered and the work shifts to be a hunt for Daryl Young.  Alex still is not convinced Daryl killed the woman years before and even less convinced he killed the detective, but Daryl is the obvious suspect.

Time Flashes

At this point Let It Burn starts flipping between 30 years ago and today as Alex first learns that there are other unsolved murders with the same MO as the first lady.  The comparisons between Detroit 30 years ago and today are sad but fascinating (and I think a little outdated given some of the improvements in the last year) and we go along with Alex as he retraces his thinking and the past case.

The Ending

The very first time the eventual killer was introduced in the story he struck me as the killer, although with no real reason.  Alex eventually stumbles around, as he usually does, and resolves the whodunit and nearly ends up dead himself.  I had mixed feelings about the ending.  It was good suspense, very much in character, fit all the other books.  However, there was no earthly reason for the real murderer to attack Alex.  He could have gotten away with it.

Then the after action seemed a bit misty.  Alex was concussed and the way he narrated the action fit the concussion.

Characters

As usual Alex made the book.  Leon, his erstwhile PI partner, and Jackie, his host at the Glasgow Inn, made small cameo appearances.  Vinnie did not show up at all.  I missed the usual cast.  Daryl’s mother and the detective and Alex’s former partner were good but not as quirky or as interesting as the usual Yooper group.

Overall Let It Burn: An Alex McKnight Novel was very good, certainly better than many suspense/mystery novels.  It wasn’t quite as compelling a read as Hamilton’s other Alex McKnight books but still excellent.  The time flashes were very well done and the shift in mood from pensive to active were spot on.  It also was a little less dark than some of Hamilton’s other books.  I just missed the usual quirky characters and the Upper Peninsula setting.

Irene Hannon – Guardians of Justice Series, Fatal Judgment, Deadly Pursuit, Lethal Legacy

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I’m not sure how we never encountered Irene Hannon before, but after reading her novel Deceived (Private Justice, Volume 3), Dave and I got more of her books from the library.  This review covers the three books in her Guardians of Justice series, Fatal Judgment, Deadly Pursuit and Lethal Legacy.

This series covers two brothers and their sister, all involved in justice-related fields, and their close encounters with vicious or deranged nut cakes.  The books re-use the characters, with each sibling taking the spotlight in one book each.

Fatal Judgment

Jake Taylor is a US Marshal charged with protecting a US federal judge, Liz, the widow of Jake’s college best friend.  Jake has bad feelings for Liz based on her husband’s comments before he died that blamed her for being a workaholic and cold, unloving.  Liz needs security while the FBI and marshals investigate the murder of her sister which occurred at Liz’s home.  Although everyone assumes that her sister’s estranged husband did the murder, they take no chances.

The book has two plot lines, one a straightforward suspense story about finding who was trying to kill Liz and why, and the second is the more interesting, the romance between Jake and Liz.  Overall both are well done, although the suspense part was a bit implausible.

Hannon develops strong and likable characters.  She puts a face on the villain and we see him as a person, not just a foil for Jake and Liz.  I was a bit incredulous that the St. Louis police could drop everything and chase after one person like that, and I wondered what would have happened had the Liz not had the good fortune to have Jake involved.  Jake’s brother Cole is a detective on the St. Louis force and I was struck several times at how they were able to call upon the resources of that police force even when uncertain that a crime was in the works.

Deadly Pursuit

Allison, sister to Jake and Cole, is a case worker at the Children’s Family Services.  Like Liz, Allison gains the fatal attention of a disgruntled man, angry because his ex-girlfriend won’t take him back after he gets out of prison, and blames Allison for the girl friend’s stance.

Allison meets Cole’s friend, Mitch.  We have the same combination of a suspense story and romance.  This novel has the same strengths – excellent character and good story telling – as Fatal Judgment, and the same weaknesses.  I thought it a bit over the top that someone would decide to kill a social worker to pay her back for the girl friend’s rejection.  Even with the villain being a meth addict, this seemed a bit extreme and once again Mitch and Jake were able to call upon the resources of the police department in the nick of time.

Hannon makes her characters so believable that we can go along and ignore the weaknesses in the plot.  I thought this villain was particularly well done, especially the parts where he realizes that he is walking a precipice.

Lethal Legacy

Younger brother Cole, police detective, is asked to look at a case that the prior detective, Alan, already closed as a suicide.  The suicide’s daughter Kelly does not believe her father killed himself and pushed to get the case re-opened.  Cole is attracted to her immediately and agrees to look further despite being skeptical that they will find anything to show murder.

Lethal Legacy had a few interesting twists and I enjoyed it as well.  There were two villains, the murderer and the man who hired him, and neither was sympathetic.  Had the murderer not tried to eliminate Kelly’s questions by killing her, he would have gotten away with it.  There was not much evidence to overturn the suicide determination.

Maybe it was because this was the third in the series and I read all three within a few days, but I didn’t care for Lethal Legacy as much.  The romance seemed a bit more contrived and the villains more hurriedly sketched than the others.

Overall

All three novels shared similar strengths and weaknesses.  The would-be victim in all three was female (and it would be interesting to see Hannon turn it around and have the girl save the guy sometime) and all were in the right place and time to attract a man who was looking for the next step in life, ready to find a wife, come back to church, start a family.

The romance was well done, understated and not at all steamy, and we could see the characters falling in love as if it was inevitable.   The suspense part was also done well, assuming we bought into the basic premise.

I am glad I picked the first book, Deceived, up off the end cap at the library!

Suspense and Romance, Deceived by Irene Hannon

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Deceived is the first novel I’ve read by Irene Hannon but it won’t be the last.  The library had Deceived on an end cap where it caught my eye.  I almost didn’t read it because the blurb sounded melodramatic.

Synopsis

Kate Marshall lost her husband and 4 year old son in a boating accident three years ago.  Police on the scene found her husband’s body floating without a life jacket but never found the small boy’s body.  Kate was especially distraught because she asked her husband to always use the life jackets.

Three years later Kate is going down the escalator in the mall when she sees a 7 year old blond boy going up.  Despite believing her son is dead, Kate feels certain the boy could be her son, Kevin, because she hears him ask for a poppeysicle, the same thing her Kevin used to say.

Kate enlists a private detective who finds the boy with his supposed adoptive father.  One thing leads to another and we finally have a happy ending.

Suspenseful

Hannon could have taken this story several different directions and we aren’t quite sure whether Kate is on the right track until about halfway through.   She lets the suspense build gradually.  Will the boy be Kate’s missing son?  Is Kate dreaming or going insane?  Will the supposed dad bolt?  Or kill his almost-girlfriend?

The suspense is mild in some ways.  We don’t have a mad killer or terrorist plot, just a man desperate to have a son back, a mother grieving and hoping, a growing love affair.  Once we see that Kate is not nuts and her son could be alive, the questions then become how and why.  And for investigator Conner Sullivan, how to prove enough plausibility that he can get DNA testing.

Characters

Deceived is not a coming of age story or a deep character study.  The three main characters, Kate, Conner and supposed dad Greg Sanders are convincing three dimensional people.  Kate and Greg were the most fleshed out.  The other characters are believable and done well enough to be more than backdrops.

Summary

Another point is the book has minimal violence or gore and no sex scenes.  I found both refreshing.

The full title of this novel is Deceived: A Novel (Private Justice) (Volume 3), telling me there are more books by Irene Hannon to seek out.   Our library has several, next on my list to check out.

Wild Horses – Dick Francis – Movie Making, Racing and Danger!

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If you like Dick Francis you’ll love his Wild Horses, a novel featuring film director Thomas Lyon who is making a movie loosely based on a true life unsolved hanging death that scandalized the English racing world 25 years before. If you haven’t found Dick Francis then this is a great introduction to his novels.

All of Francis’s novels are linked somehow to the English horse racing world, whether the main character is a jockey or trainer, or a chef with a fine restaurant in the racing countryside or a financier who backed the syndication of a prime stallion for stud. Wild Horses is one of two where the characters are making a movie.  (The other is Smokescreen set in South Africa.)

Synopsis

The novel starts with Thomas Lyon visiting an old family friend, Valentine, who is nearly dead of cancer.  Delirious with pain, Valentine mistakes Thomas for a priest and confesses to killing “the Cornish boy”.  Valentine is rambling and Thomas has no idea what he is talking about.  Thomas befriends Valentine’s widowed sister, Dorothea, and helps her with her overbearing and pompous son, Paul.  He also inherits all of Valentine’s books and papers.

Thomas’s movie, Unstable Times, is made from a successful novel that is rather dreamy and amorphous.  Thomas forces the stuck up author to revise the story to make it more intense, adds in steamy scenes and paints Cibber as the villain who killed the girl and is trying his best to frame the husband for murder. Thomas’s movie is completely untrue to the novel or the historical situation.  The author has a fit and so does the family of the real-life “Cibber”.

Thomas nearly loses his job as director, which would have finished his career, but by using the smarts that all of Francis’s heroes share, manages to keep his job.   Someone attacks Dorothea and nearly knifes her, attacks the star of the movie, and finally attacks Thomas himself.  Thomas figures out that the real life hanging so long ago and the fact he inherited the papers somehow are behind all the attacks.

Characters

Francis always does a great job with the primary male characters in his novels.  They are smart, resourceful, not too constrained by rules, and driven to succeed.  Our hero here, Thomas Lyon, fits the mold.  He is climbing the Hollywood ladder with Unstable Times, and is working with a top sletar, top cinematographer, producer and several excellent supporting people.  He brings his own vision of the story and adds elements that raise it from Hollywood schlock to a memorable film.  For example, he wants the woman who ends up hung to have a dream sequence with wild horses on the beach.  He manages to import horses from Norway and films a spectacular sequence with the stunt man standing on the wild horses as they stream out of the sunrise.

The side characters are also excellent, especially leading male actor Nash Rourke and doctor Robbie Gill.  Dorothea Pannier also is well drawn.  Even minor characters feel real.

Setting

Dick Francis always did thorough research and created realistic settings and back stories.  No doubt he talked to several real life directors and producers to get the movie backdrop just right. It’s one of the traits that make his books so memorable.  All his characters are a bit alike but we can separate them by the deep background and easily match each to the right book.

Writing

Overall Francis’s style is easy to follow, crisp with strong dialogue.  What always impresses me from a technical perspective is how he slides in the back story / setting and does it so well that you end up feeling like an expert on the subject without ever being lectured.

I wish science fiction and fantasy authors would develop back story /setting skills like Dick Francis.  (Don’t you get tired of all the techno mumble jumble about hyper this and gravity that?  I do and it’s also a glaring weakness in almost all the books with a military setting.)

I’m a big Dick Francis fan and can only praise Wild Horses. Read it. It’s good.

Good News, Criminals are Not Fun Guys – The Fifth Man

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On the good side, The Fifth Man by James Lapore did not try to glamorize or whitewash criminals. The main characters are the leader of a crime family and his son, with other side characters like the Russians, Chechen spies, Greeks, American friends and family. None of them comes across as anyone you would want to spend time with or trust for a moment to do anything that does not benefit their long term goals.

On the bad side, it was not clear what those long term goals were for any of the characters. We get a hint that Chris Massi, the family leader, had government connections and backing, and his side kick Max Green could connect with unnamed intelligence sources. Chris’ children, Matt and Tess, were both smart and physically appealing, highly educated, aware but not involved in their father’s “business”.

The Fifth Man is short enough that I read it in an evening. That was a good thing.

Matt and Chris were aware that murder is wrong, aware that they were making pivotal choices, but that was it. There was no ambivalence about immorality, no care for their souls nor the harm they did to themselves and others.

I thought several times about putting it down since the characters were so unappealing, but I was curious exactly who was doing what and why. Unfortunately we don’t learn the real motivations or even the full plot(s). Some characters ended up dead whom I thought were helpers and the back story didn’t make a ton of sense.

Supposedly Chris saw the face of a Russian intelligence leader, the Wolf, and thus the Wolf wanted him dead. OK, that’s clear. Bu the convoluted plot and set up didn’t match that simple goal. The Wolf wanted Chris dead and apparently all his works and family with him.

The ending sums up the overall flavor of the book: People died and no one gained.

Three Not to Finish – Two Mysteries One Fantasy

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Normally I give a novel at least a few pages before deciding it’s not for me. Two of these I read about half but the other fell off my lap after about 20 pages. All three of these books had great reviews on Amazon and Barnes and Noble but they just did not work for me.

Pies and Prejudice (A Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery) felt like a rerun. Heroine Ella Mae runs from her cheating husband back home to a small Georgia town and starts a pie shoppe. Of course her arch enemy from kindergarten on through high school shows up, her former crush shows up and she is suspected in a murder. With me so far?

Ella Mae makes pies to fit her mood and the person and bakes a bit of enchantment into each one. It’s a little like Garden Spells but without the charming eccentric characters and real-feeling fantasy element.

Despite Pies and Prejudice having 4 1/3 stars on Amazon I simply could not finish. Characters, setting, plot, dialogue were flat, uninteresting.

I got further with Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia), over half way through. I was not particularly enjoying the story but it wasn’t so bad that it made me get up off the couch to read something else. At least not until my tea mug ran out and I needed a refill!

Mark of the Mage (The Scribes of Medeisia) isn’t a bad book, it just didn’t have enough oomph to keep me reading. This one also has 5 stars on Amazon so my blah feeling might have been me not the novel.

The second murder mystery, Leave No Stone Unturned (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 1), was the best of the lot, good enough that I could have finished had there not been something else to read. The story is a cute combination of suspense and romance, with late 40s widowed Lexie Starr concerned about her daughter’s new husband, Clay. Lexie doesn’t like the guy but is determined to put a happy face until she stumbles across a newspaper article that he is the prime suspect in his first wife’s murder. Lexie’s daughter doesn’t even know Clay had been married before.

Lexie makes up a story for her daughter about meeting up with a jeweler she met online and takes off for Schenectady to research the murder. This is where Leave No Stone Unturned lost me. Lexie tells the police detective she’s writing a novel about the case and that she could help. Really. No police detective who ever saw a single episode of Murder She Wrote or any of its imitators is going to be too excited about that and a clever woman like Lexie could surely come up with a better reason to talk to him.

The romance is sweet without being maudlin and is the best part of the story. It just was’t good enough to keep me reading the rest. Leave No Stone Unturned has 4 1/3 stars on Amazon too, so once again my opinion is the minority. I’d give it 3 stars.

Have You Ever Read a Book Where You Didn’t Like ANY of the Characters?

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Normally I have to like at least one character or else the book ends up in the did-not-finish pile. Somehow I got interested enough to actually finish Bear is Broken (Leo Maxwell Mystery) despite the fact every single character was an immoral sleaze.

The scary thing is the (Leo Maxwell Mystery) part of the title. Does this mean we get more books starring this clueless, inept, morally bereft lawyer wannabe? Can you tell I was not impressed with character Leo? Let’s see. He falls for a girl whom he thinks might have shot his brother, or who might be shielding her brother. He drinks and drives while drunk, smokes dope, stumbles around looking for clues, and lusts after his brother’s ex-wife. Definitely not someone you want to spend time with.

So why did I even finish it? Good question. In a way it was well written. Dialogue was good, characters were consistent (repugnant but consistently repugnant), setting well drawn.  On his Amazon page author Lachlan Smith, who is also a lawyer, says the realistic part of his book is “the drama of idealism colliding with the moral ambiguity of criminal law”.  Maybe that’s why the book is compelling.  The characters are nasty but we can also see hints there is far more going on than sex, booze, murder and drugs.  Those are just the setting and the real story is the way Leo must come to grips with the fact he is now an adult – always hard – and that there is no pure black and pure white in his chosen profession.

On the other hand the plot was overly complex with at least three murder cases all circling around each other and with clueless Leo in the middle. I never learned what the title meant nor do we have any idea how the characters will play out their next acts, other than they will be miserable. And so will I be if I spend any more time thinking about this sad novel. Well done as it is, I shan’t be looking for more about Leo.

Good Story, Lots of Suspense, Bit of a Fizzle at the End Images of Betrayal Claire Collins

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One way I like to find new authors and books I might not otherwise read is to get free Nook books and then check out the “people also bought” selections for the ones I like.  It works most of the time.  In fact the biggest problem is the sheer number of free Nook books available!  When I shop via my Nook and search by price, the second sort criteria is title and there are so many that I’ve never gotten past the free books with titles starting with “A”.

I don’t remember how I found Images Of Betrayal by Claire Collins (which is not free) and I wasn’t sure what I was getting. The blurb says “He possesses the remarkable ability to take photographs of events that have not yet happened.” Will this be fantasy? Science fiction? Suspense? Or? The Amazon blurb hints it’s not a fantasy about a guy who really can photograph the future: “Walker-her apparent savior, David-her new admirer”. Kinda gives it away a bit; it’s Photoshop, not a time machine.

Plot and Characters

Tysan is 17 years old and the left behind kid from her parents’ divorce.  Her mom got custody of the four younger kids and her Dad got her.  Unfortunately Dad forgot about earning a  living, paying bills and has neither interest nor intention to take care of Tysan.  In fact Dad left and left Tysan behind.  She dropped out of school to wait tables to pay the bills and working the day shift at a steakhouse she can barely make enough to stay alive.

Enter Walker, a guy in his 20s, who chats up Tysan at the restaurant and shows her some photos he took of her that show people she knows, situations she has been in, and photos he claims are of the future.  The future is horrifying, showing Tysan horribly burnt.  Walker asks Tysan to come to his home the day that the fire is supposed to occur.  Indeed, the restaurant explodes, a couple people are killed, Tysan’s friend Sheila is hurt.  She leaves Walker’s home and goes back to her own apartment terrified, shaken and now jobless.

Sheila is kind and generous and knows well that Tysan is barely able to keep her apartment.  Sh asks Tysan to come stay with her family for a while, at least until she finds another job.  Tysan and Sheila’s popular, 18 year old son David soon are on the edge of an affair.  That’s as much as I can say without spoiling the book for you.

The characters are moderately well done.  Tysan’s conversation is authentic and her relationship with her sister feels real.  Her parents are monumentally selfish, but believable too.  Sheila, Mike and David are a little less believable and Walker is only sketched in.

The Good Parts

Tysan was so convinced by Walker that we readers are almost convinced too, at least enough to get into the story and go along with it. Images Of Betrayal is fast moving, with enough suspense and creepiness to engage.

The Bad Parts

What parent in their right mind would think it was a good idea to let their teenaged son and their almost foster daughter play house in the basement?  I know lots of kids indulge in sex and lots of people don’t see anything wrong with it, but any parent who thinks it’s a great idea and encourages their kids has rocks in their heads.  Kids, especially naive vulnerable 17 year old girls who have been abandoned by their families, do not have great judgement and if you add sex to already heightened emotions, plus the hormonal stew pot, you are setting that girl up for misery.  How many teens stay happily in love with the same person from age 17 forever?  And how hard would it be for that girl to break up if she should decide to do so?

Yet this is what Sheila and Mike do at the end when they offer Tysan a home and offer to fix up the basement for her and David to share as their own home.  This is the romantic equivalent of buying the booze for your kids to have a big drinking party.

4 Stars except for the ending