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Category: Books

Book 8 – Red Sky at Night

While this book is my first read of a book by James W. Hall it is the sixth book in the eleven book series featuring Hall’s  iconoclast beach bum fisherman Thorn. (Anyone know his full name?). The book centers around the senseless slaughter of eleven dolphins at a Key West park that Thorn and his current girlfriend Monica had visited a few days previous. The slaughter is tied to the experiments in pain alleviation being performed on wounded veterans by an old boyfriend of Thorn’s Bean Wilson Jr. Wilson is also being investigated by the DEA for illegal actions and they have placed an undercover agent Greta Masterson in Wilson’s clinic. As Thorn starts to investigate he becomes a target and the rest of the story revolves around solving the mystery of the slaughter of the dolphins and rescuing Greta! read more

Dark Tiger – William G Tapply (Stoney Calhoun #3) Book 7 of 2010gxz o

Dark Tiger Book 7 of 2010 – Dark Tiger is most likely the last Stoney Calhoun novel by William G. Tapply. Tapply passed away in July of 2009 after a battle with leukemia.  Tapply is best known for his Brady Coyne series which spanned twenty-six years and twenty-five books. Dark Tiger is the third book in the Stoney Calhoun series. Stonewall Jackson Calhoun is currently afishing  guide in Maine and runs a bait shop with his lover Kate Balaban.

Stoney has a past that he doesn’t quite remember, a result of being struck by lightening years ago. Through glimpses of muscle memory and other memory flashes Stoney knows he was a trained agent of some sort.  Now though he runs his bait shop and  occasionally serves as a deputy sheriff when the need arises. Keeping an eye on Stoney is “The Man in the Suit” who knows about Stoney’s past but he’s not telling and every so often pops into Stoney’s life  checking on Stoney’s memory. read more

Favorite Series – Kenzie & Gennaro

In honor of the opening of Shutter Island (which from the trailers looks great) today based on the book by Dennis Lehane. I thought I’d write something about his series featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Before he turned to stand-alones after the success of Mystic River, Dennis Lehane wrote five novels featuring Kenzie and Gennaro, starting with  A Drink Before the War, which won a Shamus award and ending with Prayers for Rain , including Gone, Baby Gone turned into the movie starring Casey Afleck. The books are gritty and deal with the underbelly of Dorchester a suburb if Boston, but the writing is terrific and the story lines are fast paced. I think I read these books about as fast as any I’ve read. They are  the kind you just can’t put down and when you do you can’t wait until you can pick them up again! Lehane said he wasn’t going to write anymore of these books but from what I understand his next book will be a Kenzie and Gennaro, can’t wait! So if you’ve never read them and enjoy gritty novels pick them up you won’t be disappointed! read more

A Whisper to the Living (Porfiry Rostnikov #16) – Stuart Kaminsky (Book 6 – 2010)

I wrote two weeks ago about the loss of William G. Tapply and Stuart Kaminsky, two of my favorite authors. Well, a few days after I writing that post, I checked Stuart Kaminsky’s latest an maybe last novel in the  Porfiry Rostnikov out of the library and returned to Moscow. It was good to be among old friends, Porfiry, his wife Sara, son Iosef and his fiancé  Elena Timofeyeva, and Porfiry’s other team members Emil Karpo, Sasha Tkach, and Arkady Zelach.

As usual the story lines were all interesting. While Porfiry was on the trail of the Bitsevsky Park Maniac, a serial killer who was trying to set the record for the most murders by a Moscow serial killer, Sasha and Elena were  protecting a British journalist Iris Templeton, who was researching  a Moscow prostitution ring.  Arkady and Iosef  had their hands full hunting down Ivan “The Giant” Medivkin, a heavyweight contender, wanted for the murder of his wife and sparring partner, who were found dead in a Moscow Hotel. In the background of all these events swirl the undercurrents of Russian political intrigue , and family life, as Iosef and Elena are set to marry, and Sasha, while sleeping with the women he is protecting still pines for his wife and children, who are in Kiev (having left him for his infidelities). read more

Parnell Hall – Woodstock Generation

Parnell Hall writes one of my favorite all-time series starring “Stanley Hastings, the world’s most reluctant private eye, is a failed actor/writer, who chases ambulances for a negligence lawyer in between gigs, which is most of the time” – (from ParnelHall.com). the books are just downright fun reads and a new one is due in July titled Caper! He also writes the Puzzle Lady series featuring Cora Felton also a good time. He obviously also can write music and sing as shown in the following video! I think I have the majority of those LP’s he’s looking at! read more

Abandoned – Cody McFadyen

Abandoned (A Thriller) Abandoned  is the fourth book in the Smokey Barrett series by Cody McFadyen and in my opinion it may be his best! Smokey is an FBI agent and leader of the LA branch of the  National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC). They hunt down the worst men and women who murder men, women and children and serial rapists too.  Smokey is also a survivor.  She lives with the scars on her face, left after a killer broke into her house and killed her husband Matt and daughter Alexa.  The previous books, Shadow Man, The Face of Death, and The Dark Side have all been outstanding. I thoroughly enjoy McFadyen’s writing and the characters that live in these books. These characters include  members of Smoky’s team,  Callie Thorne, Alan Washington, James Giron, and Leo Carnes, who plays a big role in this book.  Smokey’s adopted daughter Bonnie, who is also a survivor, having been tied to her dead mother for three days, and Tommy,  Smoky’s new husband, all combine to make the novels  extend far beyond the chase of a killer. MaFadyen’s first book, Shadow Man was a particular favorite and one of the best debut novels I have ever read. read more

James Lee Burke

In 1987, after having only one book published in fifteen years, James Lee Burke, at the suggestion of a friend, turned to James Lee Burjewriting crime fiction. In The Neon Rain, Burke introduced the world to a Cajun recovering alcoholic police detective named Dave Robicheaux and launched his career as a bestselling author. The first Robicheaux novel I read was the 1989 Edgar Award winning novel Black Cherry Blues. From that novel:

“. . . I had found the edge. The place where you unstrap all your fastenings to the earth, to what you are what you have been, where you flame out on the edge of the spheres, and the sun and moon become eclipsed and the world below is as dead and remote and without interest as if it were glazed with ice. ”
— James Lee Burke (Black Cherry Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Nove read more

Cork O’Connor – William Kent Krueger

Cork O’Connor

William Kent Krueger is the author of  nine books featuring ex-Sheriff, Private Investigator, husband, and father Cork O’ Connor of Tamarack County, Minnesota. The first book that I read in this series was Purgatory Ridge. I thought it was one of the best books I ever read and quickly went back and read the first two Iron Lake and Boundary Waters. Since then I have religiously kept up with this series and I think it keeps getting better and better with Heaven’s Keep the latest release as maybe the best! The characters in these books from Cork, to wife Jo, Cork’s kids and Henry Meloux, my favorite characters, are believable and the writing is wonderful. The books, to me, always work on several levels as they explore relationships sometimes personal between Cork and Jo or cultural between Cork’s job and his Ojibwe heritage as well as the crimes that ofttimes form the core of the novels. Two of my favorites are Mercy Falls and Copper River where the storyline continues through both novels. To me Krueger is an 11 on as scale of 1 to 10! In praise of Red Knife…. read more