New Books
"Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghost buster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle--but there's a risk: Sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London--just to pay the bills, you understand. But what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize. That's OK: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It's the living who piss him off..."
Just Finished
"I've had a couple of Matthew Pearl's historical mysteries on my book shelf for awhile now. I'm glad that I finally dusted off The Dante Club and read it. In some ways it reminded me of Caleb Carr's The Alienist.
The book is set in the mid 1800's. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and a select group of friends, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russel Lowell and J.T. Fields get together once a week to translate Dante's Inferno into English. This is not popular with the corporation that runs Harvard University led by Victor Manning, who feels it a heretical activity, and he is trying to do everything in his power to ruin their reputations and to stop their activity. Into this mix is a horrendous murder. The four gradually realize that the murder is related to their translations; the type of murder similar to the tortures suffered in the various levels of Hell by those people.
They begin an investigation into the murder (soon to become a series of murders) and are assisted by a black police officer, the first in Boston, Nicholas Rey. Each murder is related to a different level of Hell.
The concept is very interesting and the characters are as well. I also liked the setting, 1960's Boston, after the Civil War. You have a city peopled with veterans of the Civil War, many suffering from PTSD, a strong criminal element (even among the police force) and the winter climate. It was such a neat concept. The story did wander at times but that didn't really matter. The crimes are a bit gruesome but they aren't belabored.
I enjoyed the story and look forward to trying another of Pearl's books. If you'd like a different mystery, give it a try. (3.5 stars)"
"The Crypt Thief is the second Hugo Marston book by Mark Pryor and my first attempt at one of his books. Marston is the Head of Security at the American embassy in Paris and obviously gets involved in situations that happen to American citizens.
In this story, an American man and an Egyptian lady are murdered in Pere Lachaise cemetery at night as the go to see the tomb of rock singer Jim Morrison. Marston, along with French police officer, Serge Garcia, investigate the murder. A ex-CIA agent and Hugo's friend, Tom Green, is also brought in at the request of the boy's father, an American senator. For various reasons, they think the two were murdered by an Arab terrorist in the country. We meet the murderer, nicknamed the Scarab, at the very beginning.
Hugo and Tom work at times at cross purposes, Tom searching for Al Zakiri, and Hugo looking at other options. These investigations result in lots of action. The Scarab does not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way as he searches through certain crypts. You'll find out why when you read the story.
It's not a perfect story by any means but it's nicely paced, lots of action, interesting characters and a slightly weird criminal. There were things that irritated med, especially the somewhat cavalier manner in which one of the suspects is retired, without any real thought about it. But other than that I did enjoy the story. It didn't require lots of thought on my part. It as just a nice enjoyable story. (3.5 stars)"
Currently Reading
I've started the following books.
"Gunmen are terrorizing young women in the Cathedral town of Lafferton.
What — if anything — links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with a rifle the same person as the killer with a handgun?
Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler falls back on well-tried police methods such as questioning neighbors and house-to-house searches. He tries to stay on step ahead of the killer to prevent each new outrage. And he tries to think himself into the gunman’s head.
Meanwhile, his sister, Cat, has returned with her family from Australia, and Simon is once again sucked into family life at her welcoming farmhouse. But tragedy strikes, and the warmth and security of home are cruelly tested..."
"In this thrilling new novel from the author of Industrial Magic, a pregnant werewolf may have unwittingly unleashed Jack the Ripper on the twenty-first century — and become his next target…
Ever since she discovered she’s pregnant, Elena Michaels has been on edge. After all, she’s never heard of another living female werewolf, let alone one who’s given birth. But thankfully, her expertise is needed to retrieve a stolen letter allegedly written by Jack the Ripper. As a distraction, the job seems simple enough — only the letter contains a portal to Victorian London’s underworld, which Elena inadvertently triggers — unleashing a vicious killer and a pair of zombie thugs.
Now Elena must find a way to seal the portal before the unwelcome visitors get what they’re looking for — which, for some unknown reason, is Elena…"
My Ongoing Look at the Mystery Genre - American Cops Part 8
In my last entry, I looked at Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme mystery series. In today's entry, I look at another Deaver series.
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| Jeffery Deaver |
"This is the 7th book in the Lincoln Rhymes/ Amelia Sachs series. It's long, with a convoluted story with many twists and turns and surprises, but it's so very enjoyable. Suspend disbelief and just enjoy. This story also brings in Kathryn Dance a kinesic specialist, one who specialize in gathering information from interviewing suspects and witnesses. Kathryn is in New York for a police conference (she works for the California Bureau of Investigation) and is invited by Rhymes' police link, Lon Selitto, to assist in the case of trying to find the Clockmaker and to ascertain what he is actually trying to do. Sachs also finds herself involved in a separate police investigation that might involve crooked cops and information she gathers during this investigation leads her to question whether she wants to continue as a police officer. Add to the mix new crime scene officer, Pulaski and you've got an action - filled, excellent story. Are Rhymes and Sachs too good to be true? Who cares. It's all good stuff. (4 stars)"
"I've read many Jeffery thrillers and have for the most part enjoyed them very much. This is the first in the Kathryn Dance series. Dance works for the California Bureau of Investigation, a specialist in kinesics, ability to read people basically. She is called in to interrogate a serial killer who has been recalled from his prison cell, to answer to new murder charges. Pell, the criminal, escapes from his cell and this leads to a manhunt, with Dance, her partner and an FBI agent, Winston Kellogg, leading the chase. They bring in 3 women who were part of Pell's family to help them in their search for Pell, a cunning, dangerous opponent. The CBI team always seem to be 5 paces behind Pell and the bodies mount up. There are all sorts of twists and turns and surprises. It's not my favourite Deaver book, but it was still an entertaining story and a bit of a thrill ride. Worth checking out. (3.5 stars)"
"Roadside crosses are appearing along the highways of the Monterey Peninsula, not as memorials to past accidents but as markers for fatalities yet to come...and someone, armed with information gleaned from careless and all-too-personal blog postings, intends to carry out those killings. Kathryn Dance and her C.B.I. team know when the attacks will take place, but who will be the victims? Her body language expertise leads her to a recent fatal car crash, and to the driver, Travis Brigham, a gaming-obsessed teen who's become the target of vicious cyberbullies. And when Travis disappears, Kathryn must lead a furious manhunt in the elusive world of bloggers and social networking, where nothing is as it seems..."
"Country-pop ingénue Kayleigh Towne's career is just reaching new heights with her huge hit single "Your Shadow"- but fame is also bringing unwanted attention. An innocent exchange with a fan leads Kayleigh into the dangerous and terrifying realm of obsession, and when California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance intervenes on the singer's behalf, she draws the admirer's ominous attention to herself. Then a member of Kayleigh's road crew is murdered in an eerie echo of her chart-topping song. As Kathryn Dance races to stop the stalker with her considerable skills of investigation and body-language analysis, she soon discovers that Kayleigh has more than one frightening fan with a mission..."
Solitude Creek is the 4th book in the series and was published in 2015.
I hope your week has gone well. The weekend is soon upon us. Enjoy!
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