I've finished two books since my update on Sunday and made some good progress on the others. I'll update those and the books I've started since and also continue with my look at the Mystery genre, American cop series.
Just Finished
"The Red Dahlia is the 2nd book in the DI Anna Travis mystery series by Lynda La Plante. La Plante is also known for her Prime Suspect series and also various screen plays.
This story is about a serial killer who is following the Black Dahlia murder crimes that took place in the US many years previously. The murder investigation team is called to investigate a horrendous murder, where the body of a woman is discovered, having been terribly abused and cut in half. (Yes, quite disgusting). When the leader of the team collapses, Anna Travis's old boss, DCI Langton is called in to take over. Of course, naturally, tension is ever-present between the two, due to their previous relationship in the first book.
As the murder team conducts its investigation, they slowly are made aware of the similarities to the Black Dahlia case. The physical crime, the contact between the murderer and the press and also the police all follow the same pattern. They investigate the case trying to follow clues from the previous crime.
The killer is basically a ghost and there are not many clues. But slowly evidence is gathered and the team makes steady progress. A profiler is brought in from the US and this adds to the tension between Travis and Langton as Travis thinks the two are having a relationship. Anna, as well, develops a relationship with a reporter who is getting correspondence from the killer.
So that is the basic gist. It's an interesting case with many twists and turns. While the story does show that the police aren't perfect, at times they do such stupid things and as well there are the ongoing relationship problems which I find irritating in this story (sometimes anyway).
All in all, it's an engrossing, well-written story. The murders are disgusting and the reactions of the police are appropriate. I do like the team aspect of the murder investigation. There are many unlikable characters but there are reasons for it. The ending was ultimately reasonably satisfying. Not my favorite mystery series but still entertaining so far. I have another book in the series so will continue to explore it (3.5 stars)"
"I read The Dark Crusader by Alistair MacLean when I was in high school, many, many years ago when I was on a MacLean reading jag. I loved his adventure / spy thrillers. They were full of action and had lots of twists and turns. (NB - be aware that this book was also published under the title The Black Shrike. I learned this the hard way when I bought both versions)
The Dark Crusader is neither MacLean's best book (I rank HMS Ulysses amongst his best) nor his worst (I think his later books belong in that category). It's just a tense, exciting story with lots of twists and turns. Barry Bentall, an English secret agent, returning from a mission is sent on another immediately by his boss, described as a dusty man in a small dusty office. Along for the ride is another agent, Marie Hopeman, who is to be his wife for the mission.
English scientists and their wives have been disappearing. They seem to have been responding to an advertisement placed in various papers for jobs in the 'scientific' field. Since Bentall worked with the last scientist to go missing he is chosen to try as his replacement. Things happen at a rapid pace. Bentall and Marie are kidnapped while flying to Australia, taken from their hotel and put on a tramp steamer. They escape from the boat into the Pacific in the midst of a storm and manage to land on a coral island. They are rescued there by an old archaeologist but there is more to it than it seems. This is Alistair MacLean after all.
The action continues as Bentall continues to investigate and discover an evil plot on the island. He manages to survive dog attacks, attacks by Chinese killers, etc. It's all lots of fun and games with Bentall spending considerable time criticizing his own ineptitude and lack of smarts but still manages to fight through these threats.
It's an entertaining book with a somewhat unsatisfying ending but for that it's worth trying as it's an easy, quick moving thriller. Nice to have tried again. (3 stars)"
Currently Reading
"A retired police inspector delves into the past. His painstaking enquiries involve the frightened reactions of six old comrades who are shot to hell. Hitler broke their backbone once and for all."
" After the war and newly knighted, Hannay is living peacefully in the Cotswolds with his wife Mary and son Peter John. Unfortunately, a day arrives when three separate visitors tell him of three children being held hostage by a secret kidnapper. All three seem to lead back to a man named Dominick Medina, a popular Member of Parliament. Hannay uncovers a dastardly plot involving hypnotism and the black arts, as well as the more earthly crimes of blackmail and profiteering."
My Ongoing Look at the Mystery Genre - American Cops Part 4
1. C.J. Box - Joe Pickett. CJ Box was born in Casper, Wyoming in 1958 and is the author of over 20 novels and short story collections. Of particular note is his Joe Pickett mystery series. Pickett is game warden in Wyoming. There are currently 19 books in this series. I've read one so far and enjoyed and have 3 others on my book shelves. Pickett is somewhat like Sheriff Longmire, with the stories having a bit of a wild west feel to them.
"Joe Pickett is the new game warden in Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, a town where nearly everyone hunts and the game warden--especially one like Joe who won't take bribes or look the other way--is far from popular. When he finds a local hunting outfitter dead, splayed out on the woodpile behind his state-owned home, he takes it personally. There had to be a reason that the outfitter, with whom he's had run-ins before, chose his backyard, his woodpile to die in. Even after the "outfitter murders," as they have been dubbed by the local press after the discovery of the two more bodies, are solved, Joe continues to investigate, uneasy with the easy explanation offered by the local police.As Joe digs deeper into the murders, he soon discovers that the outfitter brought more than death to his backdoor: he brought Joe an endangered species, thought to be extinct, which is now living in his woodpile. But if word of the existence of this endangered species gets out, it will destroy any chance of InterWest, a multi-national natural gas company, building an oil pipeline that would bring the company billions of dollars across Wyoming, through the mountains and forests of Twelve Sleep. The closer Joe comes to the truth behind the outfitter murders, the endangered species and InterWest, the closer he comes to losing everything he holds dear."
"Savage Run by C.J. Box is the 2nd book in the Joe Pickett and my first exposure to Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. I have to say I enjoyed very much, action, intrigue and a neat character, maybe a cross between Park Ranger Anna Pigeon and Sheriff Longmire... or maybe not.
I imagine I should have read the first book in the series first but it didn't seem to be all that critical as I was introduced nicely to both Joe and his family, Marybeth and their three daughters. This story starts with what seems to be an implausible bang, an environmental radical and his wife blown up when a cow explodes in front of them. But ultimately this won't seem so implausible and everything will make sense.
A mysterious person(s) has hired a pair of killers to get rid of a select group of environmentalists, with Stewie Woods the first. The main leader of the pair is an implacable killer, the other has doubts. Joe is involved only peripherally at first, assisting the local sheriff in investigating the explosion. The sheriff takes over and Joe is more involved trying to prove a local landowner, a nasty individual if I've ever seen one, killed an elk out of season, just for the head and antlers, and leaving the meat to rot.. This landowner is powerful and seems to have many connections.
The story moves between the killers as they take after the names on their list and Joe and Marybeth. It turns out that Marybeth knew Stewie from her past and she seems to be getting phone calls from someone pretending to be Stewie.
So there you have the gist of this entertaining story. Joe and the killers are drawn inexorably together as we near the climax and exciting finish. I guess it's a simple story in its own right but it was fun to read and to get to know Joe and his family somewhat. I will continue with the series. (4 stars)"
"It's an hour away from darkness with a bitter winter storm raging when Joe Pickett finds himself deep in the forest edging Battle Mountain, shotgun in his left hand, his truck's steering wheel handcuffed to his right-and Lamar Gardiner's arrow-riddled corpse splayed against the tree in front of him.
Lamar's murder and the sudden onslaught of the snowstorm warns: Get off the mountain. But Joe knows this episode is far from over. Somewhere in the dense timber, a killer draws back his bowstring-with Joe as his prey.
Joe's pursuit of the killer through the rugged mountains that surround the snow-packed town of Saddlestring takes a horrifying turn when his beloved foster daughter is kidnapped. Now it's personal-and Joe will stop at nothing to get her back"
"Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, and now he has even more—Joe’s eighteen-year-old daughter, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: She has been found in a ditch along the highway—alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma. Cates denies having anything to do with it, but Joe knows in his gut who’s responsible. What he doesn’t know is the kind of danger he’s about to encounter. Cates is bad enough, but Cates’s family is like none Joe has ever met."
The remaining books in the series are -
- Trophy Hunt (2004)
- Out of Range (2005)
- In Plain Sight (2006)
- Free Fire (2007)
- Blood Trail (2008)
- Below Zero (2009)
- Nowhere to Run (2010)
- Cold Wind (2011)
- Force of Nature (2012)
- Breaking Point (2013)
- Stone Cold (2014)
- Off the Grid (2016)
- Vicious Circle (2017)
- The Disappeared (2018)
- Wolf Pack (2019)
So there you go, folks. The weekend is almost here. Find a good book and weather permitting, sit out on your deck and relax. Enjoy!
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