Category: Branches Books

Breaking Point – C.J. Box – Joe Pickett # 13

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Breaking Point- C.J. Box

Book 25 for the year is Breaking Point, the 13 the in C.J.Box’s great series and it’s another good one. I had checked the book out a couple of weeks ago, but I got immersed in two other books and it sat on the shelf. Finally, a few nights ago I picked it up and I don’t think I set it down until I was done! Box can really tell a story with believable characters and suspense that doesn’t let up!

The Story

This story revolves around Butch and Pam Roberson, whose daughter Hannah is best friends with Joe’s daughter Lucy. Butch and Pam set out to build their dream house only to be sited by the EPA for illegally filling wetands, after a year-long battle and skyrocketing fines, two EPA agents set out from the Denver office to deliver a compliance letter to the Robersons, only to end up dead on the Robeson’s property and Butch is the only suspect!! Soon there is a manhunt of epic proportions for Butch who has taken flight to the rugged woods and mountains that surround his home. Joe’s official job is to lead the group chasing Butch, but Joe’s real job to save Butch’s life so he can find out the true story about what happened!!

My Thoughts

While the action and suspense was non-stop and I devoured the book super quickly, I did think that the portrayal of the EPA both from a compliance standpoint and the manhunt was a little over the top. As a wetlands delineator and having dealt with NJDEP for the last 25 years, I thought the whole EPA issue could have been handled quickly. But then again considering the other case The Sacketts cited in the book and the premise of this book is taken from a true story maybe not!! Either way the book is a fantastic read, so check it out!

Comparing Joe Picket to Cork O’Connor

Joe Pickett is one of my favorite characters. He reminds me a lot of Cork O’Connor in William Kent Krueger’s books. Both have been in law enforcement Joe is a Game Warden and Cork an ex-sheriff. Both are good honest men with families. Joe has a wife Marybeth, two natural daughters and one foster daughter. While Cork has two daughters and a son. Both have trusted friends that help them.  Joe’s friend Nate (who makes a small appearance in this book) /Romanowski is just a tad (said with heavy sarcasm) more violent than Cork’s spiritual guide Henry Meloux! Throughout both series the well-developed characters have evolved, the children have grown up,  the families have dealt with typical family problems, and both men have dealt with the gray areas involved in their pursuit of justice!

While I don’t think that you necessarily need to read the earlier books to enjoy this one, I think that once you read it you’ll want to find out more about Joe and his friends, particularly Nate,  Joe’s mother-in-law Missy and Joe’s problems with his vehicles!!! Enjoy!!

Trust Your Eyes – Linwood Barclay

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Trust Your Eyes - Linwood Barclay

Ok so I’ve written before that I loved Linwood Barclay‘s Zack Walker books and wished that he kept writing them. When I questioned him about that he said that while the books received critical acclaim  they just didn’t sell well., Then he started writing standalone thrillers and his career took off!

While after finishing his latest book Trust Your Eyes, I will never again question his decision and I will eagerly awaiting his next standalone!!  For me Trust Your Eyes is the best book he has written yet and I am not alone in the opinion:

“Dazzling. Barclay brings a classic Hitchcock premise into the twenty-first century, with the power of an artist at the top of his game…. This book deserves to catapult him to the top of every bestseller list” Joseph Finder

“The best Barclay so far, a tale Hitchcock would have loved…riveting, frequently scary, occasionally funny, and surprisingly, wonderfully tender… great entertainment from a suspense master” Stephen King

The Story – Trust Your Eyes

The plot revolves around two brothers, Thomas and Ray Kilbride. Thomas is a map-obsessed schizophrenic, who lives at home with his father and his maps.

Through the website Whirl360.com Thomas travels the world not only studying maps, but also the buildings and shops, kinda like Google Earth street view.

Thomas thinks he’s studying maps to save the world when all the paper maps are gone and a catastrophe hits on-line and all the maps of the world are gone!

When Adam Kilbride their farmer dies in a freak accident, Ray an illustrator, who lives in Burlington, Vt comes home to Prinse Falls, NY to settle the estate and see to the future care of Thomas.

One night, Thomas calls Ray into his room. He shows him what appears to be a murder on Orchard Avenue in New York City.

While not totally clear it seems to be a woman with a plastic bag over her head being suffocated. Soon Ray, to placate Thomas, is off to NYC to see what may have happened. While his half-hearted investigation didn’t really shed much light on what happened, it did put them in the center of a deadly conspiracy, that threatens their very survival!

My Thoughts

The book like all of Barclay’s books, is a well written page turner, with lots of twists and turns. It really is a book that’s hard to put down. All of the characters are well drawn and you really feel for them and need to know what happened not only to the woman in the window but their Dad!

iWebsite
Orion Books
Amazon
Wikipdianks

Linwood Barclay

About Linwood Barclay

Linwood Barclay continues to be a prolific author, releasing new, critically acclaimed thrillers annually. Known for his high-octane plots and relatable characters, his recent work has solidified his status as a master of contemporary suspense.

Update: There is now a sequel to this book – Linwood Barclay’s No Safe House – new problems for Terry and Cynthia Archer when their daughter becomes involved in a possible murder.Check out my review here

Visit the Linwood Barclay Page

If you like standalone Mystery/Thrillers…….

Here are three Authors whose books might enjoy:

Charlie Donlea
Charlie Donlea
Michael Koryta/Scott Carson
Riley Sager
Riley Sager
  • Charlie Donlea — tightly plotted thrillers often built around cold cases, missing persons, and strong female leads, with twists that keep coming
  • Michael Koryta / Scott Carson — blends crime, suspense, and sometimes the supernatural, with a darker tone and strong atmosphere
  • Riley Sager — modern psychological thrillers with big twists, often centered on isolated settings and unreliable pasts

Say You’re Sorry by Michael Robotham – Buckle Up!

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The first Michael Robotham book I read was Suspect. I was introduced to one of the best characters in the mystery-thriller genre Joe O’Loughlin, who not only battles wits against the bad guys but also battles Parkinson’s disease. Since that first books I’ve followed all of Joe’s adventures and Book 37 of 2012 Say You’re Sorry  is the fifth book in the series that just keeps getting better.

Recently Michael was named as one of the Top 100 most Influential People in Sydney. and Michael wrote, “I’ve been named among the 100 most influential people in Sydney. I’m not even the most influential person in my house. My daughters think it’s hilarious.”

The Story

n this installment while in Oxford to give a conference speech, Joe is enlisted by the police to aid in a double murder a man and woman have been brutally murdered in their farm-house. Soon the body of a missing girl Tash McBain is found frozen in a lake not far from the farmhouse. Tash is one of two missing teenagers known as The Bingham Girls. Tash and Piper Hadley went missing three years earlier. The farmhouse where the murders occurred was her former home!! Soon joe and his friend former police detective Victor Ruiz join the hunt for Piper before it’s too late!!

Along the way the story of their disappearance is told through Joe’s investigation and the writing of Piper.

Final Thoughts

Once again Robotham’s characters are great. Joe moves through the story battling his personal problems and his family problems which includes a separation from his wife, that was the result of a former casThe book is a fast paced fun book to read, I enjoy Robotham’s writing as much as any of the authors that I read!

Stephen King included Say You’re Sorry among his :2012 Best Books of the Year: Stephen King Lists His Favorite Reads of 2012

So check out his work, you won’t be sorry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Fire – Nelson DeMille Book 31 0f 2012

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 Wild Fire – Nelson DeMille (John Corey #4)

 

So it’s been 22 years since I read my first and only Nelson DeMille book The Charm School, and in the intervening years DeMille introduced the main character in Book 31 of 2012 John Corey. Book 31 is Nelson DeMille’s 2006 release Wildfire. To be precise, John Corey was first introduced in DeMille’s 1997 novel Plum Island. Wildfire is Book 4 in the series. Corey is an ex-NYC Homicide Detective working as a special contract agent for the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, under the supervision of his wife FBI Agent Kate Mayfield.

In this installment, John and Kate are sent to the Adirondacks to investigate the disappearance of their colleague and friend Harry Muller. Harry was sent to perform survellience on the Custer Hill Club an exclusive hunting lodge whose members include some of America’s most powerful business, military and government leaders.  Prior to his disappearance, Harry is captured and forced to sit through an emergency meeting of the Custer Hill Club’s executive board as they make plans to active a US government retaliation plan known only as Wild Fire! Wild Fire involves nukes and ELF waves and John and Kate have to figure out the plan to be launched by the Club’s leader Bain Maddox before the it’s implemented, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance!

Again, this is my first meeting with John Corey, whose antics leave both his wife and his supervisor at their wit’s end. I really enjoyed his character and look forward to going back to Book 1 in the series Plum Island and catching up on Corey’s other adventures! Overall the book had a lot more humor than I thought it would have and just the right amount technology and policy injected into the story to teach me something and to scare me! Here’s what DeMille says about the book:

“This work of fiction is based on a rumor, repeated on the Internet about a government plan very much like the one I call Wild Fire. Hopefully, the story I am about to tell will play out only in these pages….”

If you want to start at Book 1 and you have a Kindle, the Kindle version of Plum Island   is only 99 cents!!

 

-Stay Close – Harlan Coben

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Ray Levine an ex-photojournalist, who has now fallen so far that he is taking pictures as a fake paparazzi. Ray visits the same abandoned iron mill in the New Jersey Pines every year on February 18th. On that date, seventeen years earlier his life came crashing down, when his girlfriend found an abusive customer, Stewart Green, who she knew from the strip club  where she worked, lying in a pool of blood along the path that Ray was now walking. She ran to protect herself – to protect Ray.

 

Megan Pierce was that girlfriend,back then she was “Cassie”, now she is a mother two living the suburban life, with a loving husband and two children, with a wanderlust for the “old life”. When the old bartender at the club appears and tells her she may have seen the old customer alive, and another man goes missing on the same day as Stewart Green, Megan is drawn back to Atlantic City to try to help the police solve the case. The detective on the case is Broome, he has been haunted by the case since it happened, wanting to help the widow Green find closure. All three are drawn into the story woven from the mind of Harlan Coben in his latest novel Stay Close , book number 26 for 2012! Like most of Coben’s books this one is a page turner, the characters are well drawn and are three people living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even the closest to them would never suspect.

Coben writes with wit and irony, and his flair for exposing the frail balance point between order and chaos in our lives has never been stronger than in this suspenseful outing.- Publishers Weekly

Here is an interview from the Today Show with Al Roker and Harlan discussing Stay Close. The best news from this clip is that Harlan is working on adaptations of  both Tell No One and Stay Close. I can’t wait. If you’ve never read Harlan Coben, this is a good one to start with, actually, any of his books are great reads!!

 

 

Book 22 of 2012 – The Last Kind Words – Tom Piccirilli

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Book 22 0f 2012 is by Tom Piccirilli and it’s the first book I’ve read by this author and I can tell you it will not be the last!  The Last Kind Words   is a terrific book! But don’t just take my word for it here’s what some others think about the book:

“Mystic River set the bar for classic literary mystery, and The Last Kind Words is a novel on the same superb playing field. Compassionate, fascinating, and with an adrenaline narrative that is as gripping as it is moving, this book is pure alchemy.” —KEN BRUEN

 “The Last Kind Words is a story born of the dark legacies of family violence and loss. With vivid prose and palpable urgency, it succeeds utterly as a crime tale. At the same time, it reminds us that crimes can emanate from both the darkest and lightest of places, and renders the heart of a damaged family with clear-eyed yet fervent beauty.” —MEGAN ABBOTT

The narrator of the book is one Terrier Rand, member of a family small-time thieves and grifters living on Long Island. We meet Terry five years after two tragedies changed his life forever, the first was the miscarriage of his child by the love of his life Kimmy, and the second a senseless killing spree by his brother that left eight  dead, including a child and elderly woman. Terry couldn’t handle either tragedy so he ran away, from the woman he loved in her time of need, and a brother he now hated more than ever! But days before his brother’s execution, Terry receives a call that both his brother, Collie and his family need him. The call pulls him back into the life and troubles he left. Collie asks Terry to help him. He had admitted to all but one of the murders, the one he says he didn’t commit was the murder of a pretty young brunette, Rebecca Clarke. Collie is convinced that the true murderer of Rebecca is still at large and will kill again! So Terry sets out to discover the truth and what he finds may just destroy his family!

In the Rand family, Piccirilli has created a unique family, that’s criminal through and through, but they know their niche and stay in it. The whole family has their own set of problems from Terry’s father Pinsch, who has to deal with his father Shep’s Alzheimer’s, Uncles Grey and Mal, who are in trouble with mobster’s just a little heavier than the Rands, and little sister Dale who at fifteen is dating a 20 something wanna’ be mobster! So while the story is about finding the murderer of Rebecca for Collie it’s also the tale of a family that you care about Lisa Unger says:

 “You don’t choose your family. And the Rand clan, a family of thieves, is bad to the bone. But it’s a testimony to Tom Piccirilli’s stellar writing that you still care about each and every one of them. The Last Kind Words is at once a dark and brooding page-turner and a heartfelt tale about the ties that bind.”

Tom Piccirilli has won two International Thriller Writers Awards and four Bram Stoker Awards, as well as having been nominated for the Edgar, the World Fantasy Award, the Macavity, and Le Grand Prix de L’Imaginaire. so check him out, as for me I have a lot of  Piccirilli’s award-winning writing to catch up on!

 

 

 

Book 20 of 2012 – Die a Stranger – Steve Hamiton

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In 2004 I read my first Steve Hamilton Alex McKnight novel, Winter Of The Wolf Moon, the second book in the series. The only reason that I read that novel first was that the award winning Cold Day in Paradise was checked out of the library! But after finishing Book 2,  Book 1 followed closely, and I’ve been a fan of the series ever since! Yesterday the 9th  book in the series Die A Stanger became book 20  of 2012! Alex McKnight is an ex-Detroit cop who, with a bullet lodged near his heart, rents cabins in Paradise, a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  This installment of the series focuses on Alex’s best friend, Vinnie LeBlanc. It started as a bad week for Vinnie, his mother the respected leader of the Bay Mills Reservation had died. On her death bed, she mistakes Vinnie for his father, who had long ago  abandoned Vinnie and his siblings. Later that night Vinnie a teetotaler because of this father, meets Alex at their favorite inn, The Glasgow and orders a drink, resulting in the first night he ever got drunk! But that same night, after parting ways with Alex….(from Hamilton’s website)

 A plane lands on a deserted Upper Peninsula airstrip, late at night. Five dead bodies are found the next morning.

And now Vinnie LeBlanc is missing.

Vinnie is an Ojibwa tribal member, a blackjack dealer at the Bay Mills Casino, and he just might be Alex’s best friend. He’s come through for Alex more than once in the past, and he never ever misses a day of work. So Alex can’t help but be worried…..

The next morning Alex finds a stranger in Vinnie’s cabin, it turns out to be Vinnie long lost father Lou, returned to find and help his son! Together Alex and Lou set out on a race against time to find and save Vinnie.

The book is written in Hamilton’s quick no nonsense style, full of wit and humor with plenty of twists and turns.  McKnight is the narrator and he knows his limits like in this passage:

N0, stay positive, I thought. You’re gonna find a way out of this. Even if you have to do something stupid, all by yourself. You’r certainly good at being stupid. 

I certainly think that you can read this book without reading the others, but I am sure that once you do you’ll find yourself wanting more of the series! Here’s a sample of Hamilton’s writing from the start of Chapter Two………

 

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Book 19 of 2012 – C.J Box – Force of Nature

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Nate Romanowski  is the kinda person I would probably not like I real life, but in the world of Joe Pickett, I do! Both are characters in C.J. Box‘s Joe Pickett series and Book  No 19 of 2012 is Force of Nature the 13th book in that series! Nate Romanowski is falconer and an ex-member of the special forces now wanted by the FBI. He lives in the hills near Saddlestring, Wyoming and he has saved Game Warden Joe Pickett’s butt more than once and several incidences has done Joe’s dirty work. After Nate survives an attack on his life by locals and hears from a dying team member that “they’ve deployed”, he meets with Joe.  He says knows who is after him his ex-commander and falconry mentor John Namecek and he’s leaving the area to find out what’s happening  moreover Nate doesn’t expect to win the battle! Now Joe has never known why Nate had to move and live off the grid and Nate can’t tell him now because it will put Joe’s life in even more danger!

So the rest of the book is Nate’s attempt to survive the attack from John Namecek  as his friends and former comrades are being eliminated one by one and even Joe’s family are threatened along the way the terrible secret that Nate has been carrying around is revealed and it all revolves around falcons and the force of nature!!

As I said previously, this is the 13th book in the series and I’ve read all except No 12 Cold Wind. I love all the characters obviously Joe and Nate and then there’s Joe’s family Joe’s wife MaryBeth, her mother Missy, who was the focus of the ast book and Joe’s children daughter’s Sheriden and Lucy and adopted daughter Alice. The kids have always been an important part of the series Sheridan, now a student at the University of Wyoming, has in the past learned falconry from Nate. April’s relationship to the family has evolved over many books! This book can be read and enjoyed without reading any of the other books, but after reading it you probably will want to go back and catch-up with Joe’s adventures!

Box has written several stand alone novels the latest being  Back of Beyond, which was very good! Box has won several awards including:  the Edgar, Anthony. Macavity,Gumshoe and Barry, as well as, the French Prix Calibre .38 and a French Elle magazine literary award.  So check him out!

When I was looking for some pictures today of Saddestring I came across this article Running in the Bighorns perfect. (Note to Edward start running again!)

The Shadow Patrol – Alex Berenson

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So throughout June I’ve been reading three books, The Last Great Senate by Ira Shapiro, Even Steven by John Gilstrap,  The Shadow Patrol by Alex Berenson. I finally finished Book 16 for the year and it was ta-da The Shadow Patrolby Alex Berenson. The Shadow Patrol is the sixth book in the John Wells series. Now I usually zip right through Berenson’s books, but this one, not so much. Before I wrote this review, I went to Goodreads.com thinking that I’d be reading some not so complimentary reviews. However, when I got there I found out that most people loved the book! Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly said about The Shadow Patrol:

 It’s this riveting duel between good and evil that will keep readers blazing through the pages, while several other more mundane plot lines get lost in the background. More

What do I know! As I read the book, I really kept waiting for the hook to catch me and reel me in. Sadly,  for me it never came. To me the book seemed like a thriller without the thrill! It just seemed that a lot of the book was focused on setting up the story and not on real action.

The story is set in Afghanistan and Wells returns to the place where it all started for him. He is called out of retirement to help find a mole in the CIA  bureau. The bureau is still reeling from a double agent returning from a meeting with al Queda who turns suicide bomber and decimated the bureau. Meanwhile, a major drug trafficking operation is being run in the northern provinces with members of the military dealing with the Talibs. So John steps into this mess and with the help of his boss Ellis Shafer has to unravel the threads that hold the operation together and ultimately leads back to the mole!

Bottom Line

Now with all that said, I did find the book overall a good read. I just thought it was not up to what I’ve come to expect from Berenson.  I still like the character of John Wells and will read more of the books! Now, if you never read a book in the series, maybe you’d be like the folks at Goodreads.com and love the book. But I recommend that you start out with one of Berenson’s earlier books.

Now it’s back to the other reads for the month. Oh wait, I have the new James Rollins novel Blood Line sitting here. Sorry Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Gilstrap. I think I’ll start Mr. Rollins’ book now!!

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Book 15 of 2012 – The Paris Vendetta – Steve Berry

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So this evening was spent in Paris, as I raced to the conclusion of Book 15 for 2012 The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry. The Paris Vendetta released in 2009  is the 5th book in Berry’s Cotton Malone series and once again follows Berry’s successful formula of mixing historic fact with Berry fiction. In this installment the historic facts include Rommel’s Gold, Napoleon’s lost treasure and his exile at Ebla and St. Helena.

At the end of The Charlemange Pursuit , Malone, having just returned from Antarctica, is awaken by the sound of someone ascending the stairs of his apartment. The intruder is a young Secret Service Agent Sam Collins, who is being followed by two assassins. Collins is bringing a request for help from Malone’s friend Henrik Thorvaldsen. Soon Malone is pulled into Thorvalsen’s “vendetta” against Lord Graham Ashby, a wealthy Brit who was partially responsible for the murder of Henrik’s son. Ashby is a treasure hunter and is on the trail of both Rommel’s gold and Napoleon’s treasure. Ashby is also on the Justice Deartment’s radar because of his involvement with The Paris Club a cabal of billionaires who are set on manipulating the global economy.  As Thorvaldsen pursues his revenge against Ashby, and Stephenne Nelle (Cotton’s old boss) is using Ashby and his pursuit of Napolean’s treasure to get to a terrorist in the employee of Ashby, Malone is caught playing both sides against the middle!!  The book is fast paced like all the others and the characters are all great. I thought this book moved and “hung together” better than the others. Here’s what James Rollins said about the book:

So I picked up his latest book, The Paris Vendetta, and eyed it again with a bit of jaded skepticism. Surely he must have run out of steam. Who could keep producing masterworks of such precise plotting, complicated characters, and heart-pounding adventure year after year? So I settled into my favorite chair and turned the first page of The Paris Vendetta. Within a matter of paragraphs, I was riding with Napoleon through the scorching Egyptian desert, climbing the Great Pyramid for a midnight rendezvous, and discovering something earth-shattering was afoot. But what was it? A few pages later, his main character, the resourceful Cotton Malone, struggles to survive a firefight in his bookstore in Copenhagen. I found myself holding my breath, wincing as the suspense grew as taut as an assassin’s garrote, and quickly became embroiled in a conspiracy that trailed back centuries.

As I read that book, the hours vanished. Pages continued to fly by. And once again I was hooked. No, more than hooked… I was lost. In the end, that is the true magic and mastery of this man’s writing, the true reason he has become the king of intrigue. You don’t just read a Steve Berry novel. You live it. –James Rollins Read the full review here

Yeah, that was what I said only he said it JUST a little bit better, but then again he is a great author in his own right!! Anyway the poin is the book is very good and  I’m looking forward to reading another Malone adventure but first it’s back to the world of John Wells in Alex Berenson’s latest The Shadow Patrol!

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