Come and Find Me: A Novel of Suspense Review

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Come and Find Me: A Novel of Suspense ReviewMany of my geeky friends imagine that they only like science fiction and fantasy; they are disinterested in mystery or suspense novels because, they think, it's all too predictable. I think I'm going to wallop them over the head with Hallie Ephron's Come and Find Me.
I don't blame my friends for feeling this way. Some "suspense" novels are too easy to solve, and even when they try to be up-to-date the technology is a gratuitous mention. I've encountered far too many books in which the author tried to make the story "current" by painting a layer of technology over an otherwise ordinary tale. Ephron avoids the trap. The technology isn't a background issue; it's an integral part of the story. While this book isn't really like Vernor Vinge's True Names, I was reminded of it several times over.
The basic premise: Diana is a white-hat hacker and computer security expert who has become a recluse after the death of her husband. She hasn't left her house in Boston in over a year, and does all her business using an avatar in a virtual reality world (Second Life by another name). When Diana's sister goes missing, however, Diana has to use all her hacker savvy to find out what happened, and she has to battle her own demons -- one of which is stepping outside the front door.
Ephron does a superlative job of explaining what it is like to live online, from creating friends in cyberspace to understanding a system well enough to investigate it. I should know: I have met few of my clients or colleagues in person. I have plenty of True Friends whose names I know only from an IRC nickname. (I do wonder about my NON-techie friends, though. Would they get lost when Diana does a DNS search and uses Telnet to query a server?) And I can go a week without leaving the house, but that's more because I'm comfortable here (as long as I have coffee, chocolate, and a cat to pet) than any fear of the outside world.
Mostly, however, this is a really good suspense story. It didn't matter that I figured out the puzzle before Diana did; I think the author expects that (whereupon I kept wanting to shout at the character, "Turn around! Look! Can't you see--?"). This is geek summer reading at its finest, and I most heartily recommend it. In fact, I can't wait to do so.Come and Find Me: A Novel of Suspense Overview

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The Devil She Knows: A Novel Review

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The Devil She Knows: A Novel ReviewPhysically, 29 year-old Maureen Coughlin is a wisp of a woman, 5' 4" tall and 100 pounds. Emotionally, she's a powerhouse, a person with acumen, tenacity, and a wild streak just this side of the Serengeti. She works as a waitress, the same job for the last 10 years and she's just sick of it. It's a nowhere job and she's going nowhere. She lives and works on Staten Island in a faux chic bar with the emphasis on `faux'. She's started college and dropped out more than once but she knows that waitressing is not where she wants to find herself down the pike. She lives alone and has no one special in her life except her mother who gives her more trouble than solace.
She's not averse to starting her shifts with a drink and a bit of cocaine to get her going. For a while she had a pretty bad cocaine problem but she's kicked that. Now, her use is just recreational. Her alcohol consumption, however, is pretty heavy. As The Devil She Knows: A Novel opens, Maureen is just coming off her shift. It's near morning and she's strung out and in a black-out, not even realizing where she is. She finds herself in Dennis's, her boss's, office. As she leaves the office she sees Dennis and Sebastian in a compromised position. She pretends she's seen nothing and leaves hoping that will be the end of it. Maureen is discreet and knows when to keep a secret. However, the next morning Dennis is found dead, ostensibly a suicide on the railroad tracks. Maureen believes it's not a suicide because just before she was leaving the bar, Dennis told her he wanted to talk to her. Also, she knows Dennis is not the type to take his life. Now she's in a real quandary.
She approaches John, her ex-boss at the bar she used to work at. He encourages her to call the cops and gives her the name of one that he trusts as honest and good. It just so happens though that Waters, the cop, has a history with Sebastian. They used to work together in Brooklyn. Something happened that caused Sebastian to retire as a hero and Waters to be transferred to Staten Island. Waters is old and tired. Maureen thinks of him as a lumbering great bear. Maureen confides in him and tells him what happened between Dennis and Sebastian. Waters promises to work on it. He takes her allegations and suspicions very seriously.
What Maureen hadn't anticipated, however, is just how bad a guy Sebastian is. He is really bad, no shades of gray here. He is running for State Senate and has a lot of power. He has killed before and he has killed many people. Maureen finds her apartment broken into, her television smashed, and warning cards laid carefully under her mattress. Sebastian is not a light-weight and Maureen knows she's in deep trouble. Waters advises her to lay low and stay at her mother's house. Maureen doesn't like taking advice or orders. She likes to take things into her own hands and her brain is telling her to find Sebastian and face off.
The book's plot is pretty basic in its David and Goliath theme - little woman against big and powerful man. However, it's well-written, has great quips and kept up my interest throughout. Maureen is a wonderful character. The reader feels like they really know her, along with the others who surround her. The author, Bill Loehfelm, is great with building a character from scratch. We get a real sense of everyone in the book and the characters are all there for a purpose - no loose ends and no rabbit trails.
When the confrontation comes, and we know it will come, we're all rooting for Maureen. Bill Loefelm started his career as the first Amazon Breakthrough writer, winning their award for his novel Fresh Kills. It appears that The Devil She Knows: A Novel is the first in a series starring Maureen. I look forward to the subsequent books.The Devil She Knows: A Novel Overview

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Physical Education (Murder 101 Mysteries) Review

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Physical Education (Murder 101 Mysteries) ReviewPhysical Education is the sixth in the series of detective-comedy-mystery-romances stories revolving around university prof Alison Bergeron. The series is authored by Maggie Barbieri.
And the first book I've read on my new Kindle Fire reader/tablet (Had the KF for a week and I love it).
I've read and reviewed all of Maggie's books in this series and they're lots of fun. This latest installment has a throwback to the first book: a dead body appears in the trunk of Alison's car.
And then it's off to the races with the usual twists and turns. The big twist in this one is how Alison is called upon to temporarily coach the ladies basketball team at the College (St. Thomas, on the scenic Hudson River - eerily similar to the author's alma mater, St. Vincent's in the Bronx).
The standard cast of characters, along with some new ones, and plenty of sub-plots. And of course Professor Bergeron is now married to Detective "Hot Pants" Crawford.
Alison is loaded with one-liners ("one day you're a basketball coach and the next you're selling candy") as she stumbles through to the satisfying conclusion.
All great fun!Physical Education (Murder 101 Mysteries) Overview

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Misterioso: A Crime Novel Review

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Misterioso: A Crime Novel ReviewThe first couple of pages of this book had me wondering what I had gotten into. It just seemed a bit jerky and clunky. Luckily, I persevered with the book and somewhere around page 40ish the book became difficult to put down.
While the story is similar to countless other serial killer novels it is the writing that makes this book rise above the rest. Unlike so many detective novels dealing with serial killers, this book doesn't focus on endless, gruesome details of torture and gore. The killer's exploits aren't recounted in nauseating and tedious detail. The author instead focuses on character development and describing the background that shaped the world-view of the serial killer.
The story takes place in 1990s Sweden in an atmosphere of racial tension and national self-loathing over the greedy banking fiasco of the 1980s (a period of self-introspection our own nation seems to have skipped) Dahl's protagonist, Paul Hjelm, is simultaneously undergoing his own period of self-introspection as career and family issues collide to make him question himself-- to make him look into himself and confront "the abyss."
I won't bother to describe the entire story in this review, what I would like to say is that Dahl's Hjelm is a lot of fun to read. He reminds me a bit of Martin Cruz-Smith's Arkady Renko, but without that character's martyr complex and self-destructive streak. Hjelm is human without being boring and cool without being a cartoon character.
I think the best part of this book is the complex view it gave me of Sweden, a country I know practically nothing about. Until reading this book I only though of blond, beautiful, happy Swedes, helping each other and being good citizens (okay, a I knew about a bit of angst a la Bergman, of course).
I whole-heartedly recommend this book to readers who eschew the Patricia Cornwall and James Patterson formulas and enjoy something edgier, along the lines of Ken Bruen, Peter Hoeg, and Cruz-Smith.Misterioso: A Crime Novel Overview

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The Boy in the Suitcase Review

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The Boy in the Suitcase ReviewNina Borg is a Red Cross nurse with a strong drive to save the world. She's done volunteer nursing in global hotspots. Even now in Copenhagen she belongs to a secret network that gives medical care to illegal refugees.
One day as a favor for a friend she collects a suitcase from a locker - and finds a little boy inside, naked and unconscious. She doesn't dare involve the police, for reasons you'll discover when you read the book. She doesn't dare take the boy home, because they're being hunted. And she can't find out where he came from, because, when he wakes, he speaks a language she can't identify. How will Nina handle this insane situation? Read on...
The creepiest thing about the story is that we wonder, not how the boy came to be in the suitcase, but why. What awful fate was in store for him?
The cast of characters includes rich and poor, thugs and do-gooders, nosy neighbors and frightened kids caught in adult dramas. It took me a while to figure out who was who. The plot skips around between countries and characters. But I finally got my bearings and enjoyed the ride. The interesting personality of Nina the nurse is slow to emerge, but I liked her when I got to know her.
Certainly Nina is a handy person to have around when fists fly and guns go off. She can staunch the flow of blood and dress the wounds. I look forward to seeing her talents at work in the next book in the series!
Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis are a new team in the thriller genre and starting out strong. They tell a gripping and original story.The Boy in the Suitcase Overview

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