“Have You Seen Me?” is the latest mystery by Kate White, who is also the author of the Bailey Weggins mysteries, including “Such a Perfect Wife” and “Even if It Kills Her.” This new novel is a stand alone novel, and White generously provides us with many, many choices when we try to figure out who the bad guy (or bad guys or gals) might be.
There are a few authors who write wonderful mysteries with something that makes them extra-fun to read — that extra-something is dogs. There is the “Chet and Bernie” series by Spencer Quinn and David Rosenfelt’s wonderful “Andy Carpenter” mysteries. Now we can add Jeffrey B. Burton’s new series, the Mace Reid K-9 Mysteries, that begins with “The Finders.”
“Don’t Turn Around” by Jessica Barry is this author’s second novel under this pseudonym. Her first, “Freefall” was a huge success (film rights were sold), and this novel has just as much action and intrigue. At first blush, it wouldn’t seem to be a thriller. After all, the plot centers around two women taking a car ride from Lubbock, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“The Wife Stalker” by Liv Constantine is a suitable second book for the authors who created the thrilling “The Last Mrs. Parrish.” Like the first book by the two sisters who write together under the name Liv Constantine, this one features alternating narratives and stories that appear to lead in one direction only to completely turn us around when we realize that things — mostly — are not as they seemed.
“Alex Rider: Nightshade” is the very lucky thirteenth entry in Anthony Horowitz’ extraordinarily popular Alex Rider series. Here again, the young hero is up to his neck in absurdly dangerous situations — which Horowitz makes entirely believable — fantastic though they are. Continue reading
“City Spies” by James Ponti is an action story that kids (and adults) will love. A group of underdog kids as young as twelve live in an old manor home in Scotland and work with a British spy nicknamed “Mother” as a team foiling international villains.
First we meet Sara, from whose perspective the story is mostly told. She is in custody after hacking into the New York City computers to expose her cheating, horrible foster parents. But when a debonair man offers to represent her, she quickly chooses him as her lawyer rather than the public defender who was going to agree to her serving time in a juvenile detention home. After she quickly hacks into the State of New York court computers to substitute in the new lawyer, the change of attorneys looks legitimate . By that evening, she’s on a plane to Scotland and a new life. Continue reading
“Alone in the Wild” by Kelley Armstrong, like all the novels in this series, begins with a bang; it involves an infant and a corpse. Casey and Eric, Rockton’s sheriff and detective, a couple who are getting away for a one-night vacation camping in the wild, find a dead woman with a live infant hidden in her clothing. That sets off the mystery of whom the infant belongs to and why the baby was left with a woman who clearly wasn’t the child’s mother.
Both “Jane Doe” and the sequel, “Problem Child,” by Victoria Helen Stone are chilling novels. Chilling but also thrilling and — ironically — touching. Because while the main character Jane admits she’s a sociopath and doesn’t have the emotions and feelings that “normal” people have, in both books she’s out there doing good things and righting wrongs.
Don’t get me wrong. She’s also having a great time screwing over the associate lawyer she works with and having lots of sex and eating scrumptious food, but the associate lawyer deserves everything he gets. She also gets the benefit of kinky sex with her boyfriend Luke.
“The Hand on the Wall” is the last book in the trilogy of “Truly Devious” novels by Maureen Johnson. Once begun, this series of mysteries is addictive. The setting, a prep school in the mountains of Vermont, is perfect for a murder mystery, and in this brilliant trilogy, there are multiple murders taking place over almost a century.
With “The Athena Protocol,” author Shamim Sarif creates a female version of James Bond, except that instead of working for British Intelligence, Jessie Archer works for a non-govermental, private, female group bent on saving women and children around the world who are in need of help, but whom the governments of the world are ignoring. At the start of the book, we watch this elite team in action while they save a group of 50 girls kidnapped by a terrorist militia and held in servitude. While they wait for night to fall, they are forced to watch what the young men and boys do to their female prisoners while they pass the time. The leader has two hostages, and when he shoots one of them in cold blood, Jessie loses control. Before they leave with the prisoners, Ahmed, the evil leader, is dead. Jessie is kicked out of Athena.
Charles Coule’s brilliant second novel, “Anyone,” presents us with a wonderful and terrible proposition: how would you like to be able to enter someone’s — anyone else’s — body? That proposition, that profound question, is the crux of the issues created by Soule and the crux of the problems experienced by his protagonist, Gabrielle White.
Fans of the “Andy Carpenter” series are going to be thrilled. New readers will be charmed. With “Dachshund Through the Snow,” author David Rosenfelt has added a new canine to the regulars. There’s Tara, namesake of the late real Tara much beloved by Rosenfelt and his wife, for whom they began to rescue many, many senior dogs. Then there’s the basset hound Sebastian, whose gait is tortoise-slow. Now there’s Simon, retired (thanks to Andy Carpenter’s brilliance and his handler’s love) K9. He and his handler, Corey Douglas, will be making return appearances. Continue reading
