Tag: Thrillers

Home – Harlan Coben – (Myron Bolitar # 11)

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Home is book 11 in the Myron Bolitar series from Harlan Coben. Once again Harlan both fictionally and writingwise brings it Home!

The Story

Home revolves around the ten year-old kidnapping of two boys Patrick and Rhys. The boys were captured, while they were playing at Patrick’s home. The kidnappers demanded ransom but nothing more was heard  about the boys.

Until Rhys’ mother Brooke receives an anonymous tip that Patrick was spotted in London. Quickly, she calls her brother Win Lockwood to check it out. Win tracks down Patrick in London. He kills three men hassling Patrick, but Patrick flees the site. So Win calls his best friend Myron Bolitar for help!! They find Patrick and bring him Home but questions remain unanswered….

Where has Patrick been for ten years? What does he remember about the day of the kidnapping? And most importantly, where is Rhys, Win’s Nephew?

Soon Win and Myron are on a quest to discover the answers to these questions. Along the way, Myron’s former partner Esperanza Spaulding and receptionist Bi Cyndi help Myron and Win discover the truth!

Thoughts about Home and the books of Harlan Coben

It’s been five years and five standalone thrillers between Myron Bolitar books and it;s great to have Myron and the gang back!

I love Harlan’s stand-alone books, but I always enjoy the Bolitar books a little more. I think it’s simply the character development over the course of a series. In a stand alone book, the reader just gets to know the characters and the book is over!

As is usually the case with Harlan Coben’s novels there is always a psychological message and in this book the message deals with friendship, family, and the meaning of home.

Here’s what some others have to say about Home

“Edgar-winner Coben’s action-packed 11th thriller featuring sports agent Myron Bolitar (after 2011’s Live Wire) blends family drama with a twisty plot… This page-turner is sure to please Coben’s many fans.” —Publishers Weekly on Home

“Series fans will be happy to see Myron, Win, Esperanza, and other recurring characters… given the size of Coben’s audience, this one is sure to be popular. With five years since the last Bolitar novel, expect holds.” —Booklist on Home

Bottom Line

Home is another winner from Harlan Coben. And I still love Myron as much as the standalones!

Rating:

thumbs-up-2-3
thumbs-up-2-3
thumbs-up-2-3
thumbs-up-2-3

 

Author’s Website
Wikipedia
Goodreads
Amazon

Harlan Coben

About Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben (born 1962) is a renowned #1 New York Times bestselling American author known for fast-paced thrillers and mysteries characterized by multiple twists, domestic secrets, and long-buried past events resurfacing

The World of a CIA Analyst Comes Alive in Mark Hanshaw’s Red Cell

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Red Cell – Mark Henshaw – Krya Stryker and Jonathan Burke Book 1

Mark Henshaw author of Red CellA week or so ago my wife and I completed watching the first five seasons of Homeland.So when I saw Mark Henshaw’s  The Fall of Moscow Station among the new releases at my library I was intrigued. Looking at the book, I saw that it was the third book in Mark’s series that features CIA agents Kyra Stryker and Jonathan Burke. So rather than start with the third book in the series, I found and checked out Red Cell  the first book in the series. Yesterday, Red Cell became the 32 book I have read in 2016. And now that I know Kyra and Jonathan I’m ready for their next assignment which is chronicled in Cold Shot.

About Red Cell

In addition to being the first book in the Stryker – Burke series Red Cell is also Mark Henshaw’s debut novel. And while Henshaw may be new to the world of books, he is not new to the world of the CIA. Henshaw was a CIA analyst for eleven years. He was a decorated analyst. His awards included the Director of National Intelligence Galileo Award for innovation in intelligence analysis, which he won in 2007. What does this mean for the reader, well, he knows what he is writing about!!

Here’s what some people in the know have written about Red Cell.….

“Red Cell is as smart as it is exciting, a thriller that makes you think from the edge of your seat. Mark Henshaw’s unique perspective from the inside makes it all feel terrifyingly real.”

– Howard Gordon, Co-Creator of Homeland and Author of Hard Target.

“Mark Henshaw clearly knows the terrain, from the geopolitical to the tradecraft in the shadows. I’ surprised this made it past the CIA censors. A rock-solid thriller as plausible as tomorrow’s headlines.”

-Brad Taylor author of One Rough Man and All Necessary Force

After Kyra Stryker’s  first assignment in Venezuela goes bad she is assigned to the Red Cell where she will work with the brilliant but somewhat eccentric analyst Jonathan Burke. Soon Kyra and Jonathan are smack in the middle of an international firestorm.

The firestorm is centered off the coast of China and includes a potential invasion of Taiwan by Communist China, a top CIA asset who has been discovered by the China’s MSS and a potential Chinese weapon the Assassin’s Mace that may tip power toward China. And it’s Kyra and Jonathan’s job to figure it all out and make sure everything turns out ok!!

Bottom-Line

: Red Cell is a 3.5 star book for me. The technical details concerning the operation of the CIA are certainly five-star. But for me Henshaw the first part of the book dragged and i didn’t get to really know Kyra and Jonathan until the second half of the book.

There were also a couple of things that bothered me in the second half of the book. Things happened during Kyra’s assignment in Beijing that bordered on unbelievable.

Overall though I enjoyed the book and look forward to Stryker and Burke’s next assignment. I’m sure that as Henshaw improves as a writer the books in turn will improve. I also think that as the characters are more fully fleshed out I will enjoy the books more!  Does anyone have any comments on  Red Cell or Henshaw’s books in general?

 

 

The Silent Hour – Michael Koryta

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The Silent Hour – Michael Koryta – Lincoln Perry #4

My first introduction to the books of Michael Koryta was via his Lincoln Perry detective series.I read books two and three in the series.Why I never read book one, I don’t know. Most recently I’ve read a couple of his stand-alone thrillers (A couple of the others are on my “to be read” shelves).

Frankly, I haven’t thought about Lincoln Perry for several years. That was until I spotted The Silent Hour book four in the series at my library a few weeks ago.When I saw it, I remembered how much I liked the books. I was not thrilled when he ended the series. Anyway, I checked it out and now it’s book 31 for 2016.

The Plot…..

The Silent Hour could be subtitled “the case Lincoln Perry didn’t want.” That’s because from the moment ex-con and self-confessed  Parker Harrison asks Lincoln to find the missing Alexandra Cantrell, Lincoln is not thrilled. Alexandra and her husband Joshua had provided a semi halfway house for ex-cons called Whisper Ridge. Alexandra and Joshua gave the ex-cons employment around their majestic  home and a chance to get back their dreams. Parker had been one of those ex-cons the Cantrells helped.

Then the Cantrells suddenly disappeared abandoning the multi-million dollar mountainside home. Two aspects of the case made it less than attractive for Lincoln. First the Cantrells had been missing for twelve years and secondly Alexandra was the daughter of a mob boss! Ex-cons and  mob bosses – what could go wrong?

Lincoln was ready to walk away from the case when he discovered that the bones of Joshua Cantrell were found in Pennsylvania. They had been found at about the time Lincoln was first contacted by Parker. Why hadn’t Parker mentioned the bones being found?  Hmm, the case was getting more and more intriguing.When a PI shows up from Pa. asking Lincoln’s help in finding out what happened to Joshua. Lincoln is sucked into the mystery! But will the case be the last case for Lincoln?

Bottom-line

The Silent Hour is certainly a four-star book for me. The plot twists and turns and just when you think you’ve figured it out- you haven’t! I have enjoyed the interplay between all of the main characters in the series, Lincoln and his girlfriend Amy Ambrose and his partner Joe Pritchard. This book is no exception, even though Joe is in Florida miles from Cleveland. From The St. Petersberg Times….

The inventive plot of The Silent Hour surprises right up to the end, and in Perry, Koryta has created a classic tough detective—a man with enough dark passages in his own past to recognize them in others, a bulldog who just can’t let go until the ending of the story is told, no matter how close to hell it takes him.”

Final Thought

I  wrote earlier that I have enjoyed this series and was sad to see it end. however having checked back in with the books of Michael Koryta I discovered that he has a new PI series featuring. Mark Novak book one Last Words  was released in  August of 2015 and book two Rise of the Dark will be released on August 16th of this year. I just went to Amazon and bought the Kindle Edition for $2.99  Check that out here. I look forward to checking them out! Once again though, those two standalones are waiting to be read! Too many books too little time!

Orphan X – Gregg Hurwitz – Book 9 of 2016

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Gregg Hurwitz – New Evan Smoak series is off to a great start with Orphan X ****

Gregg Hurwitz is one of those authors whose books I read sporadically and when I  do read one of his books, after I finish it I usually say “Can You Tell me Edward, why you don’t read every Hurwitz book when it comes out?? To which I answer simply no – which is better than omitting I am a fool!! So when I recently saw that Hurwitz had started a new series and the first book Orphan X would be released soon, I knew I’d be a fool again not to read it!! Having just finished it the other day – I can say I am thankful I am not an old fool and bring on book 2 of the Evan Smoak series!!

In Evan Smoak Gregg Hurwitz has created a fantastic new character Evan is a…..

…. man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X……

But after many assassinations and other operations Evan broke with the program and went off the radar, when he was asked to kill another Orphan, Evan became that Nowhere Man helping those who can’t help themselves. In Orphan X, soon after saving a young girl and her sister  from an evil cop Evan attempts to  help another woman Katrin, who has a mob hit team out to eliminate her. Evan soon discovers that he, and not Katrin is the hit team’s target. He is now faced with the task of beating a hit team composed of operatives who are as good as he is!!

From then on the action is fast and furious and the pages flew by. Here’s what author Tess Gerritsen writes about the book……

“Orphan X is the most gripping, high-octane thriller I’ve read in a long, long time. Hang onto your seat because Gregg Hurwitz will take you on a dizzying ride you’ll not soon forget

The first book that I read by Gregg Hurwitz was The Kill Clause, which featured  U.S. Marshals Service operative Tim Rackley. That series was composed of four books of which I read the first two. I told you I sporadically read Hurwitz books. Actually, the third book in that series Troubleshooter has been on my TBR shelves forever!! The point is that these books were great and I was disappointed when the series ended even though I hadn’t  read all the books. It also may be a reason that I didn’t read any of Hurwitz’s stand alone books until 2007! Foolish me!

 Bottom line: I will not miss the next installment of the Evan Smoak series and you shouldn’t either! In addition, I promise to read more of Gregg Hurwitz’s stand alone novels, and maybe even go back and read those last two Tim Rackley novels and you should join me!!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Novels of Gregg Hurwitz

Author’s Website
Author’s Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

In this short video Gregg Hurwitz talks about writing Orphan X

The Death Relic – Chris Kuzneski

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The Death Relic by Chris Kuzneski helps me pleasantly procrastinate! 

So yesterday morning I was all set to write a nice post about how it was the first day that I had done my Kundalini, Weights and Band morning exercise routine in about a month. I was going to writing about how I made it through the routine with a minimal amount of coughing and even was able to end with a nice 15 minute meditation. Then I’d write how I was able to make a nice strawberry, blueberry, banana smoothie and sit down and read with no grandchildren to babysit! The reading part was what did me in The Death Relic  by Chris Kuzneski took over and wouldn’t let me breakaway. Even though the pages were flying by time was still marching on, and I was not writing!! I finished just before lunch and I still hadn’t written anything….I’d done some laundry and the dishes, but no writing!! Then it was afternoon and I rationalized that I shouldn’t really write about the morning now! Before I knew it, it was four o’clock and time to go pickup up Oliver at the sitters and take him to his mommy, who works in Cherry Hill.  Bottom line was that I had successfully put off writing all day and I continued to procrastinate all night until it was time to turn in. So while I am not going to write any more about the exercising or meditation from yesterday morning, I will tell you a little about The Death Relic.

The Death Relic (Book 8 of 2016) ****

The Death Relic is book seven in the Jonathan Payne and David Jones series from Chris Kuzneski and it’s a good one! Well all three of the ones that I’ve read so far a have been excellent!! I love the way that Kuzneski always blends history into his novels. In this adventure the reader learns a little about the Spanish conquistadors and the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. and is treated to a modern-day mystery!

The action starts when Maria Pelati an Italian archaeologist whose specialty is early Christianity is offer a job with a famous archaeologist who has made a recent find in Mexico. Soon after meeting her new employer Terence Hamilton he is kidnapped from the hotel where Maria is staying. When Maria returns to her room see finds that it has been vandalized and her passport has been stolen. Frightened and alone she turns to old friends Payne and Jones for help. Jonathan and David are soon on their way to rescue the fair Maria and if things go well maybe David can rekindle his hot romance with Maria!! But soon the question becomes who kidnapped Terrence and why?  Searching the back of Terrence’s car they find, various Mayan artifacts and a crate full of weapons, including AK-47s! Stuck between them is an envelope with a diary telling of the destruction of the Mayan’s world by  the Spanish!! But the question is how does it all tie together??

Bottom line: The Death Relic is a strong four-star book for me. I love the characters of Jonathan Payne and David Jones but of which are vividly drawn. Maria Pelati is a character who Payne and Jones have met before in the book The Sign of the Cross (Book #2 of the series) and many loose ends tied up from that book are wrapped up in The Death Relic. You don’t really need to read The Sign of the Cross to enjoy The Death Relic. I had read  the book, but it has been so many years since I had read it that I only have vague memories of the book, but Kuzneski does a good job of filling the reader in on what happened. Anyway, the book and the series comes highly recommended so – check it out!! As for me I have not yet read The Plantation book one in the series so yesterday I bought the e-book at Amazon for $4.99 – how could I pass it up!!

Author Lisa Gardner pretty much sums up the way I feel about Chris Kuzneski’s books….

“Chris Kuzneski has mastered the art of the quest novel, bringing to life lost treasures, exotic locales,and fresh conspiracies”

 

Signal – Patrick Lee’s Latest!

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Patrick Lee Author of Signal

Signal – Patrick Lee (Sam Dryden # 2) ****

Patrick Lee has a penchant for writing thrillers with a bit of science fiction weaved into the storyline. His last two books Runner and  his current release Signal, both feature Sam Dryden and ex-special forces operative battling forces against advanced technologies. My first encounters with the works of Patrick Lee was the Travis Chase trilogy which included The Breach, Ghost Country and Deep Sky. In that series The Breach sends artifacts and people back and forth through a time portal. In Signal, Dryden confronts a machine that receives signals from the future!

It’s been two years, Sam Dryden has been quietly getting his life back together, after his adventure that was described in the book Runner. He is quietly working on houses and flipping them, when he gets a call from an old friend. He needs to meet her in the Mojave Desert as quickly as possible. When he meets his former friend Claire Dunham, he is taken to a trailer in the desert where a child molester is holding four young girls captive. One captive has just called 911 and the molester has caught her. He is ready to set his trailer on fire when Dryden rushes in and kills the molester. How did Claire know to be there just in the nick of time She had heard about it from a machine in her possession that receives news report from the future!! In the future report the girls had died and the molester escaped!! Now the girls had been saved by these two unknown heroes!! FBI agent Marnie Calvert wants to know who these folks are, she discovers Sam’s identity tracks him. Soon all three are being chased by a third party, who wants this technology all to themselves, so much so that they have wiped out Claire’s place of work. Claire through her boss has the only working copy of the machine which her company created  The machine has now fallen into Sam’s hands. Can Sam, Claire and Marnie stop their enemies from eliminating them and Claire’s machine? Even more importantly can Sam stop the enemy from gaining sole control of the machine to use as they please!!!!

All of Patrick Lee’s books are filled with lots of action, as the highly skilled Sam Dryden, or Travis Chase, fight their battles. Most of the time they need to use both their physical and mental  skills. Here’s what some folks say about Patrick Lee’s Runner.

“An amazing, high-speed, high-octane novel that moves faster than most people read. There has to be a better word than “thriller” to describe Runner. How about thillingest” – Nelson DeMille

“Pure adrenaline rush!” Finally an action packed novel brimming with complete characters as well as genuine heart. Not to be missed!” – Lisa Gardner

Bottom Line – The above quotes can be used for either Runner or Signal. The story moves at a pace that is well non-stop and it has enough twists and turns to keep the pages turning! And the machine itself – is it possible?? Could we receive radio signals through neutrinos from the future? Cue the Twilight Zone music!! Who knows? Anyway, it’s just a flat-out good story so check it out!! Oh and while you’re at it check out the Travis Chase series, too!!!  Book 46 (on a goal of 51) of 2015

Links for the Further Exploration of Patrick Lee

Website
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Goodreads

The Matarese Countdown – Robert Ludlum

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The Matarese Countdown a Return to the Works of Robert Ludlum

 

Robert Ludlum - author of The Matarese CountdownI finished The Matarese Countdown (Book Number 37 for 2015) yesterday and it was another good read from one of the masters of the thriller genre Robert Ludlum. The book was one of the last books written by Ludlum, before his death in 2001. Through the 1990s my reading changed from reading political thrillers to mostly mystery series, but  during the 1980s Robert Ludlum’s novels were mainstays of my reading. They were always were thrilling reads, as typically, either one person or a small group of people was out to save the world. They were action packed with very well drawn plots and characters. Ludlum’s descriptive writing style really made it feel like you were part of the action, Ludlum wrote over 27 thrillers. The number of copies of his books in print is estimated between 290 million and 500 million. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries

After Ludlum’s death, several novels or novels based on his outlines were released. They were penned by authors like Eric Van Lustbader  who continued the tales of Jason Bourne and Gayle Lynds, Patrick Larkin and Kyle Mills who created a series called Covert-One based on the ideas of Robert Ludlum.

The following from Wikipedia is a description of the writings of Robert Ludlum…

Ludlum’s novels typically feature one heroic man, or a small group of crusading individuals, in a struggle against powerful adversaries whose intentions and motivations are evil and who are capable of using political and economic mechanisms in frightening ways. The world in his writings is one where global corporations, shadowy military forces and government organizations all conspire to preserve (if it is good) or undermine (if it is evil) the status quo.

Ludlum’s novels were often inspired by conspiracy theories, both historical and contemporary. He wrote that The Matarese Circle was inspired by rumors about the Trilateral Commission, and it was published only a few years after the commission was founded. His depictionsThe Matarese Countdown of terrorism in books such as The Holcroft Covenant and The Matarese Circle reflected the theory that terrorists, rather than being merely isolated bands of ideologically motivated extremists, are actually pawns of governments or private organizations who are using them to facilitate the establishment of authoritarian rule. Read More

The Matarese Countdown was published in 1997 eighteen years after the 1979 release of The Matarese Circle. I read The Matarese Circle sometime in the early 1980s before I started keeping a log of my reads, so it’s probably been a good thirty years since I read the book. But not remembering all of the details of the prior book, did not hamper my enjoyment of  The Matarese Countdown, The plot of The Matarese Countdown revolves around the re-establishment of The Matarese, a shadowy organization that is between on destroying the world’s economy to obtain global domination! One of the heroes of the book is Brandon Schofield, who along with his wife Antonia are called out of retirement to battle the Matarese. Scofield thought that he had destroyed The Matarese twenty years prior only to find that they are back stronger than ever! So Scofield aka Beowolf Agate teams with CIA case officer Cameron Pryce and Army Intelligence Officer Leslie Montrose in a race to destroy The Matarese before the Countdown reaches zero and the world economy crashes!!

I will say that it took me a while to finish this book. I started it several months ago and set it aside to finish several other books. I picked it up again earlier this week and yesterday I didn’t, or rather couldn’t, put it down until it was finished!! So check it out!! Obviously, since I didn’t remember much about The Matarese Circle, one book can be enjoyed without reading the other!!

Hum, let’s see there are other Ludlum books on my TBR shelves The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Janson Directive and I need to read some more from my shelves to meet my TBR Pile Challenge! Could another Ludlum be in my future?

 

The Stranger- Harlan Coben Thrills Us Again!!

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The Stranger – Harlan Coben Book 27 of 2015

 

In 2001, Harlan Coben‘s first stand alone thriller Tell No One was released. I read the paperback version in November of 2002, it was terrific and since then I haven’t missed one of his thrillers! There are few authors, who can take an ordinary person, and turn their world upside-down like Harlan Coben. He does just that in his latest thriller The Stranger.

Adam Price is living the American dream in his wife’s hometown of Cedarfield, NJ (While locales in Coben’s books are typically real, Cedarfield is a fictional town!). . He is a successful attorney with a beautiful wife,Corrine a school teacher. They have two great boys, Ryan and Thomas, who both play lacrosse, while mom serves as the treasurer of the local lacrosse organization. But on the night of the draft and the selection of the traveling team, Adam’s life starts to spiral out of control, when a Stranger approaches him and reveals a startling secret. Two years earlier Corrine had faked a pregnancy! The Stranger tells him “You know you didn’t have to stay with her” Adam eventually confronts Corrine who suddenly leaves her husband and kids telling Adam not to search for her, she needs time to sort everything out! Yeah, like that’s going to happen!! Soon Adam is on a quest to find his wife and put the pieces of his shattered life back together again!!

Adam has all sorts of questions to answer. How did the Stranger know about the pregnancy and why did he tell Adam? And why did Corrine fake the pregnancy in the first place?? And most of all where the hell did she go?? Why did she leave  him, but most importantly how could she leave her boys!!

Harlan Coben’s descriptions of life in the burbs, especially how it is among those whose children compete on traveling soccer or lacrosse teams is spot on. And while there is a certain sameness to his books, a fairly simple incident thrust someone into a life changing situation, he still makes each book exciting and interesting, No one twists and turns his way through a book like Harlan Coben and in The Stranger he certainly does that! Here’s what some others have to say about The Stranger.

 ‘With clever use of technology, convincing characters and a strong emotional heart, you’re effortlessly swept along to a tense and dramatic conclusion. Smart stuff from a classy operator.’ — Deirdre O’Brien SUNDAY MIRROR

‘The master of the twisty psychological thriller is back with another awesomely gripping mystery.’ — Boyd Tonkin HEAT

‘The twists come satisfyingly thick and fast as the plots merge before the tangled web of evens unravels into an enjoyable and somewhat surprising conclusion.’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

So check out The Stranger or any other book by Harlan Coben! You won’t be disappointed!!

Links for Further Explorations of the Works of Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben’s Website
Wikipedia:Harlan Coben
Goodreads
Amazon
Review at NJ.com

P.S. I particularly enjoyed the cameo appearance of an unnamed participant in Adam’s basketball game!!

David Morrell: The Brotherhood of the Rose and more

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David Morrell

David Morrell – The Mortalist, Frank Balenger, and   Thomas De Quincey series

So back in the 1980s (Ok think about that Edward the 1980s were 35 years ago! Ouch! When you were 14 in 1965 would you have thought about anything that happened in 1930 as anything but ancient history? Nope!) I read a lot of thrillers from the likes of Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Bill Granger (November Man), Richard Hoyt and others. And right up there with the best of them were books from David Morrell. Morrell’s 1972 debut novel was First Blood was adapted into Sylvester Stallone’s movie Rambo.

My three favorite books from David Morrell were The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fraternity of the Stone and The League of Night and Fog. The sad thing is that aside from the fact that I remember that I really liked the books, I remember little bit about them. I rarely read books a second time but thinking about how much I liked the books starts me thinking may I should read at least The Brotherhood of the Rose again! I do remember that The Brotherhood of the Rose was made into TV a mini-series that I thought starred Richard Chamberlain. In looking it up on IMDb I see that it started Peter Strauss, Robert Mitchum and Connie Sellecca. Richard Chamberlain starred as Jason Bourne in a TV Mini-series based on Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity. I never watched either of the series!

About The Brotherhood of the Rose from Goodreads:

They were orphans, Chris and Saul–raised in a Philadelphia school for boys, bonded by friendship, and devoted to a mysterious man called Eliot. He visited them and brought them candy. He treated them like sons. He trained them to be assassins. Now he is trying desperately to have them killed.

Spanning the globe and full of heart-stopping action, The Brotherhood of the Rose is an astonishing novel of fierce loyalty and violent betrayal, of murders planned and coolly executed, of revenge bitterly, urgently desired. More

Through the years I’ve read several more books by David Morrell and I enjoyed them all but none have even been as good as the three books from above. That is until 2013’s Murder as a Fine Art set in 1850s London Morrell wrote a terrific book using The Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey and his daughter Emily as the lead characters! Read More Here.  The conclusion of that book left me and many other readers clamoring for more! In March Morrell released The Inspector of the Dead making me and others very happy campers!  In this installment De Quincey and Emily are still in London and end up in the midst of a killing spree targeting the aristocrats of London. Cards left by the murderers reference members of Young England that have attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. Could the queen be the ultimate target?  I just picked up the book on Friday, couldn’t put it down and have already finished it!! The review of the book will be forthcoming. In the meantime here is a list of the other books that I have read from the pen of David Morrell……Check him out!!

David Morrell Books I’ve Read
Title My Rating Average Rating* Original Publication Year Date Read
Inspector of the Dead 4 05/10/15
Murder as a Fine Art 5 3.84 2013 2013/07/23
The Shimmer 4 3.31 2009 2009/08/08
Scavenger 4 3.56 2007 2007/07/01
Creepers 4 3.59 2005 2005/09/01
Assumed Identity 3 3.77 1993 1994/05/12
The Covenant of the Flame 4 3.92 1991 1991/05/18
The Fifth Profession 4 3.94 1969 1990/06/02
The League of Night and Fog 4 4.06 1987 1987/01/01
The Fraternity Of The Stone 4 4.14 1985 1986
The Brotherhood Of The Rose 4 4.13 1983 1985

* Goodreads – rating is out of 5

Sanctus Book 1 of the Sancti Trilogy – Simon Toyne

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SanctusInside the Citadel in the ancient city of Ruin resides a select group of monks charged with protecting the Sacrament, along with thousands of ancient texts discovered over the millennium.  The nature of the Sacrament is known only to a select few of those monks – the Sancti. But when Brother Samuel is initiated into the Sancti, and discovers what the Sacrament is, he decides can not live with that knowledge or continue to belong to the Sancti. He makes a harrowing and torturous climb to the top of the Citadel, where he stands for hours in a pose symbolic of the Tau, the symbol of the Sancti, before plunging to his death. So begins Sanctus, first book of the Ruin trilogy from British author Simon Toyne. The questions left unanswered are: Why did he do it? What did he see that lead him to take his own life?

I picked up Sanctus in Dollar General for $3.00 because it looked like the type of book that I enjoy, one that combines history with action and while the historic aspects of the story are somewhat fictional the action and the characters more than make up for it. The key character in the book is newspaper reporter Liv Adamson, who is the identical twin of Brother Samuel. Actually, they were the first conjoined twins to be different sexes. The story revolves around Liv’s attempt to discover the why of Samuel’s death. Liv hadn’t seen her brother in eight years and assumed was dead!  Of course, the Sancti want no one to know the secret of the Sacrament, and will do anything to stop Liv’s search, while others including members of an ancient rival religious sect of the Sancti want to help!

Sanctus is rather lengthy 578 pages, but the writing is crisp, and the characters and action kept me turning the pages quickly, particularly through the second half of the book, once I knew all the players!

Several of the reviews of Sanctus, I read at Goodreads.com were negative because the readers felt that Toyne did not develop the  city or the people of Ruin realistically enough. The reviewers felt the setting could be any city or police force in the US or the world. Again, I thought the action and characters more than made up for any lack of geographic  “sense of place”. I did feel that the descriptions and feel for the Citadel, the mountain fortress of the Sancti, was well done. I had a feel for the dark library that housed thousands of historic documents and the spectral images of the monks that worked within the library

Bottom Line: I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will  move on quickly to the second book in the trilogy – The Key. I think that if you enjoy the books of Dan Brown and Chris Kuzneski you’ll enjoy Sanctus.

Links

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Book 34 for 2014 – Here’s the Trailer for Sanctus