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

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  The comparisons between Detroit 30 years ago and today are sad but fascinating (and I think a little outdated given some of the improvements in the last year) and we go along with Alex as he retraces his thinking and the past case.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.

Excellent! Faith, Love, Sacrifice With A Football Background – A Life Intercepted

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The blurb on A Life Intercepted: A Novel caught my eye, “Matthew “The Rocket” Rising had it all.  Falsely accused of a heinous crime with irrefutable evidence…all was lost.”  Matthew Rising won the Heisman trophy for best college football player twice, led his team to the national championship three times and was the number 1 draft pick in the NFL.  In Matthew’s mind all these were nothing compared to his marriage to Audrey.

Matthew was convicted of sexual assault and deviant sex with a minor based on a video of sex acts that did not show his face plus testimony of the three women who woke up with him in their bed.  He never made it to training camp, never made any money, and worst, his wife disappeared.

Paroled after 12 years he is forbidden to approach a minor, to work or live within half a mile of a daycare or school, completely broke, homeless and with no job prospects.  Matthew went back to his hometown to find his wife.  His oldest friend lets him stay in his cabin, which is just far enough from the Catholic convent and high school.   He has no intention to violate his parole, just to find Audrey and peace.

 

Matthew finds Audrey is living at the convent, where she planted a flower garden that memorializes Matthew’s final play in his last college football game.   Dee Dalton, 17 years old and a wanna be football quarterback, approaches Matthew to ask for his help.  Dee had been a fine young player but his throwing mechanics are messed up and he needs to learn from someone besides his high school coach.   Matthew initially says no, since that would violate his parole and land him back in prison, this time for life.

 

Audrey comes to Matthew and tells him that he owes it to her to coach Dee, that he cheated her of a family and a life and further that no one would ever know.  Matthew knows that it is all too likely that his nemesis, the person who framed him for the sexual assault, will in fact be watching him, looking for evidence he broke parole.  Nonetheless Matthew agrees to coach Dee as a sacrifice to show Audrey what she means to him.

 

Of course his nemesis videotapes the coaching sessions.  Each individual parole violation means 10 years in prison and Matthew and Dee meet over 70 times.  Matthew is arrested but only after demonstrating to the football loving world that both he and Dee are ready to play, Matthew at the NFL and Dee at high school, then college.

Tight Plot with a Unique Setting

We know all through the book that Matthew is innocent although we don’t know the details nor how – or whether – he will somehow win through.  Author Charles Martin keeps us in suspense until near the end.  He unfolds the plot through Matthew’s memories offset with the events as they occur.  We see Matthew willingly sacrifice his life to help Dee, initially for Audrey’s sake then for Dee’s, and through the memories of Matthew’s life with Audrey.

The novel is set behind the scenes of football, not the games themselves but the practices and the events after the games.  You do not have to understand or like football to enjoy the book because the game is the setting, not the purpose.

There were a few weak points, mostly in the trial that found Matthew guilty.  I thought of a couple points his lawyer could have made, such as whether the DNA evidence against Matthew included semen, whether his fingerprints were on the video camera, the fact it was dark, all of which could have cast some doubt in the jurors’ minds.  But the story is not about the trial.

Charles Martin’s  purpose isn’t to debate the merits of the case, but to show that it happened, that the evidence was overwhelming, that even Matthew’s lawyer and his wife believed him guilty.  This is the set up for the real meat of the novel, how Martin deals with gross injustice.

The resolution with Ginger, Matthew’s supposed victim was wonderful, but it required the woman to completely forego everything she had for something she had never wanted.  It was great to read but a bit far fetched.  Let’s hope that people are like that.

Characters

Matthew and Dee are well done.  Matthew remains loving and determined.  He knows exactly the value of the worldly success and the happy marriage he thought he had, and he has a fine perspective on which matters.

Wood and Ray, Matthew’s two friends, steal the show.  They are courageous, caring, willing to help Matthew, willing to more-or-less believe him.  The character I found the weakest was Audrey.  I understand she was incredibly hurt, wounded to near death by her husband’s betrayal, but it was incredible to me that she insisted he coach Dee even knowing it meant life imprisonment if caught.  She clearly did not expect the vindictive Ginger to spy on Matthew and videotape his movements, and why should she.  She believed Matthew guilty.

A Life Intercepted is a coming of age novel that brings four characters to adulthood, Matthew and Dee of course, and Audrey and Ginger too.  Matthew’s coming of age isn’t when he’s in his teens or college, but as he works with Dee and earlier, in some of his prison memories where he loses the hate and grows his way to redemption.

Thoughts on Redemption

A Life Intercepted: A Novel is one of the finest books I’ve read in a long time.  I read this concurrently with Memory by Lois Bujold, which gave a unique flavor to the experience. Both novels are about redemption and both have exotic settings, football with A Life Intercepted and the planet Barrayar in Memory.

The primary difference is in the nature of redemption.  Memory is all about Miles’ self-redemption after an act he did commit.  A Life Intercepted is about the redemption Matthew offers to his wife, his supposed victim, his fans, the young Mac for acts they committed, not what he had done.  Reading the two books together helped me see the difference and realized that A Life Intercepted first shows Matthew accepting the injustice, coming to peace internally, then offering that peace to the others who judged and rejected him.  It is a Christ-like redemption, not a private personal redemption.

The underlying themes of love, faith, redemption and sacrifice are timeless.  Combine those with excellent characters you care about, intense plot and good writing and you have a real winner.  Five stars.

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.

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