Category: Branches Books

Book 19 of 2012 – C.J Box – Force of Nature

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Nate Romanowski  is the kinda person I would probably not like I real life, but in the world of Joe Pickett, I do! Both are characters in C.J. Box‘s Joe Pickett series and Book  No 19 of 2012 is Force of Nature the 13th book in that series! Nate Romanowski is falconer and an ex-member of the special forces now wanted by the FBI. He lives in the hills near Saddlestring, Wyoming and he has saved Game Warden Joe Pickett’s butt more than once and several incidences has done Joe’s dirty work. After Nate survives an attack on his life by locals and hears from a dying team member that “they’ve deployed”, he meets with Joe.  He says knows who is after him his ex-commander and falconry mentor John Namecek and he’s leaving the area to find out what’s happening  moreover Nate doesn’t expect to win the battle! Now Joe has never known why Nate had to move and live off the grid and Nate can’t tell him now because it will put Joe’s life in even more danger!

So the rest of the book is Nate’s attempt to survive the attack from John Namecek  as his friends and former comrades are being eliminated one by one and even Joe’s family are threatened along the way the terrible secret that Nate has been carrying around is revealed and it all revolves around falcons and the force of nature!!

As I said previously, this is the 13th book in the series and I’ve read all except No 12 Cold Wind. I love all the characters obviously Joe and Nate and then there’s Joe’s family Joe’s wife MaryBeth, her mother Missy, who was the focus of the ast book and Joe’s children daughter’s Sheriden and Lucy and adopted daughter Alice. The kids have always been an important part of the series Sheridan, now a student at the University of Wyoming, has in the past learned falconry from Nate. April’s relationship to the family has evolved over many books! This book can be read and enjoyed without reading any of the other books, but after reading it you probably will want to go back and catch-up with Joe’s adventures!

Box has written several stand alone novels the latest being  Back of Beyond, which was very good! Box has won several awards including:  the Edgar, Anthony. Macavity,Gumshoe and Barry, as well as, the French Prix Calibre .38 and a French Elle magazine literary award.  So check him out!

When I was looking for some pictures today of Saddestring I came across this article Running in the Bighorns perfect. (Note to Edward start running again!)

The Shadow Patrol – Alex Berenson

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So throughout June I’ve been reading three books, The Last Great Senate by Ira Shapiro, Even Steven by John Gilstrap,  The Shadow Patrol by Alex Berenson. I finally finished Book 16 for the year and it was ta-da The Shadow Patrolby Alex Berenson. The Shadow Patrol is the sixth book in the John Wells series. Now I usually zip right through Berenson’s books, but this one, not so much. Before I wrote this review, I went to Goodreads.com thinking that I’d be reading some not so complimentary reviews. However, when I got there I found out that most people loved the book! Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly said about The Shadow Patrol:

 It’s this riveting duel between good and evil that will keep readers blazing through the pages, while several other more mundane plot lines get lost in the background. More

What do I know! As I read the book, I really kept waiting for the hook to catch me and reel me in. Sadly,  for me it never came. To me the book seemed like a thriller without the thrill! It just seemed that a lot of the book was focused on setting up the story and not on real action.

The story is set in Afghanistan and Wells returns to the place where it all started for him. He is called out of retirement to help find a mole in the CIA  bureau. The bureau is still reeling from a double agent returning from a meeting with al Queda who turns suicide bomber and decimated the bureau. Meanwhile, a major drug trafficking operation is being run in the northern provinces with members of the military dealing with the Talibs. So John steps into this mess and with the help of his boss Ellis Shafer has to unravel the threads that hold the operation together and ultimately leads back to the mole!

Bottom Line

Now with all that said, I did find the book overall a good read. I just thought it was not up to what I’ve come to expect from Berenson.  I still like the character of John Wells and will read more of the books! Now, if you never read a book in the series, maybe you’d be like the folks at Goodreads.com and love the book. But I recommend that you start out with one of Berenson’s earlier books.

Now it’s back to the other reads for the month. Oh wait, I have the new James Rollins novel Blood Line sitting here. Sorry Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Gilstrap. I think I’ll start Mr. Rollins’ book now!!

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Book 15 of 2012 – The Paris Vendetta – Steve Berry

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So this evening was spent in Paris, as I raced to the conclusion of Book 15 for 2012 The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry. The Paris Vendetta released in 2009  is the 5th book in Berry’s Cotton Malone series and once again follows Berry’s successful formula of mixing historic fact with Berry fiction. In this installment the historic facts include Rommel’s Gold, Napoleon’s lost treasure and his exile at Ebla and St. Helena.

At the end of The Charlemange Pursuit , Malone, having just returned from Antarctica, is awaken by the sound of someone ascending the stairs of his apartment. The intruder is a young Secret Service Agent Sam Collins, who is being followed by two assassins. Collins is bringing a request for help from Malone’s friend Henrik Thorvaldsen. Soon Malone is pulled into Thorvalsen’s “vendetta” against Lord Graham Ashby, a wealthy Brit who was partially responsible for the murder of Henrik’s son. Ashby is a treasure hunter and is on the trail of both Rommel’s gold and Napoleon’s treasure. Ashby is also on the Justice Deartment’s radar because of his involvement with The Paris Club a cabal of billionaires who are set on manipulating the global economy.  As Thorvaldsen pursues his revenge against Ashby, and Stephenne Nelle (Cotton’s old boss) is using Ashby and his pursuit of Napolean’s treasure to get to a terrorist in the employee of Ashby, Malone is caught playing both sides against the middle!!  The book is fast paced like all the others and the characters are all great. I thought this book moved and “hung together” better than the others. Here’s what James Rollins said about the book:

So I picked up his latest book, The Paris Vendetta, and eyed it again with a bit of jaded skepticism. Surely he must have run out of steam. Who could keep producing masterworks of such precise plotting, complicated characters, and heart-pounding adventure year after year? So I settled into my favorite chair and turned the first page of The Paris Vendetta. Within a matter of paragraphs, I was riding with Napoleon through the scorching Egyptian desert, climbing the Great Pyramid for a midnight rendezvous, and discovering something earth-shattering was afoot. But what was it? A few pages later, his main character, the resourceful Cotton Malone, struggles to survive a firefight in his bookstore in Copenhagen. I found myself holding my breath, wincing as the suspense grew as taut as an assassin’s garrote, and quickly became embroiled in a conspiracy that trailed back centuries.

As I read that book, the hours vanished. Pages continued to fly by. And once again I was hooked. No, more than hooked… I was lost. In the end, that is the true magic and mastery of this man’s writing, the true reason he has become the king of intrigue. You don’t just read a Steve Berry novel. You live it. –James Rollins Read the full review here

Yeah, that was what I said only he said it JUST a little bit better, but then again he is a great author in his own right!! Anyway the poin is the book is very good and  I’m looking forward to reading another Malone adventure but first it’s back to the world of John Wells in Alex Berenson’s latest The Shadow Patrol!

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Book 14 of 2012 – Steve Berry – The Charlemange Pursuit

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So I picked up three Steve Berry books a couple of weeks ago at the library’a used book sale one of them,  The Charlemange Pursuit is Book 14 for 2012. The novel is the 4th in Berry’s Cotton Malone series. So far this is only my second Malone book the other being the current book (7) in the series The Jefferson Key.  I have read one other Berry book The Amber Room, which is not a Cotton Malone book, which is probably why I don’t remember him in that book, ya’ think!  Anyway I do really like Berry’s novels and the mixture of historical fact with some Berry fiction mixed in. The Charlemange Pursuit includes some historical information about the Carolingian period of European history, secret US submarines and a highly advanced civilization that may predate any civilization that we know! Oh and the search by the Nazi’s for their Aryan forefathers.

The story starts when Cotton Malone is given papers that prove that his father a naval officer died not in an accident in the North Atlantic but rather on a secret submarine on mission to Antarctica !  To discover how and why his father died Cotton must solve the Charlemange Pursuit based on information provided by the daughters and wife of a German  businessman Dietz Oberhauser, who was also on the submarine. Malone’s mission is made more difficult by the actions of the Director of Naval Intelligence Admiral Ramsey Langford, who is out to stop any discovery of what happened  on that mission! So while Malone is in Europe figuring out the Pursuit, Malone’s former boss Stephanie Nelle is in the US battling Ramsey whose bent on eliminating everyone associated with the mission!!  So there’s lots of action and twists and turns as Cotton deals with the twin daughters and wife of Oberhauser and Stephanie Langford’s hired assassin!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book maybe even more than The Jefferson Key and will certainly expect to spend more time discovering the world with Cotton Malone. I have books 3 The Venetian Betrayal and 5 The Paris Vendetta and the question is  do I read them or go back and start at the begining. Since both of the books I’ve read stand pretty well on their own, I think I’ll go with the ones I have, and then I  will fill in with the others later!! But now I think it’s time for a Janet Evanovich book Smokin’ Seventeen!

Book 13 of 2012 – Break No Bones – Kathy Reichs

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So last night was a horrible sports night for Philadelphia as the Flyers Stanley Cup quest ended in flames, the Sixers lost ugly in Chicago, 26 points in the first HALF! and the Phillies continue their plunge to the bottom. But the good thing was that I could pay more attention to the book that I was reading than the games! As a result, I finished Book 13 for 2012 Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs. Reichs character forensic anthropoligist Temperance Brennan is the basis for the lead character in the TV series “Bones”. Break No Bones is the 9th book in the series, but is the first one I have read.  I was expecting the character of Temperance to be similar to the character in the series, but really the only similiarity is her occupation, oh and her budding relationship with the detective she works with. Now with that said I did enjoy the book! The story began with” Tempe” teaching a field class on Dewees Island near Charleston, South Carolina. The class was conducting a cultural resource survey to determine if an old Native American burial site was significant enough to stop a proposed development on the island. In a shallow grave a fresh skeleton is discovered. Soon Tempe is asked to assist with the investigation by the local coroner and old friend Emma Rousseau. Soon bodies are piling up, Tempe’s former husband arrives investigating the disappearance of a local young woman and her connection to a local clinic. When Tempe’s current beau Ryan arrives Tempe’s love life gets complicated. The book is fast paced and has some good forensic moments and I enjoyed the characters. I wouldn’t put Reichs writing up there with other writers like James Lee Burke or Dennis Lehane, but I will read more of her books!

Iron House – John Hart – Is It Nearly a Perfect Novel?

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From the first John Hart book I read Down River I was a fan and so are lots of others.  Hart is the only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels. (Down River and The Last Child) He has also won the Barry Award and England’s Steel Dagger Award for best thriller of the year. So I was excited when I found his new book Iron House in the library last week and Book 34 for 2011 Iron House did not disappoint!

Here’s a quote from Bill Ott’s Booklist Review:

It isn’t as if Hart’s career needed jump-starting. His first three stand-alone thrillers have been greeted by an ever-growing crescendo of praise, including two Edgar Awards. Definitely not the kind of writer who needs a breakthrough book. And, yet, Iron House lifts Hart to an altogether new level of excellence

Thre Story

Julian and Michael are brothers growing up in an orphanage Iron House. Michael is the strong one, Julian the weak. Julian is constantly abused by a gang of thugs. When Julian strikes back Michael comes to his rescue and then runs from the orphanage on the night a rich woman Abigail Vane comes to adopt them. Michael’s run takes him to the streets of New York where he becomes a fixer for a mob boss and Julian becomes a successful children’s author living with his adopted parents Senator Randall Vane and wife Abigail. When Michael wants to leave “the life” to start a new life with his love Elena, problems arise and soon Michael is on a run for his life. A run that leads him back to his brother and Iron House. Soon Michael is embroiled in another mystery at the Vane Mansion where bodies of the gang of thugs are being found! The answer to all his questions that will save his and Julian’s lives lies you guessed it at Iron House!

Final Thoughts

The writing is impeccable, the characters are all flawed and well drawn. From Michael, Julian, Abigail and her bodyguard Jessup and the Senator. Even the secondary characters are fantastic from the mobsters to the residents of the North Carolina hills. The pages fly by and the tension builds until the last pages and all you can say is Wow!  If it’s not my favorite of the year it’s damn close

So in the words of Patricia Cornwell:

If you crave thrillers that are vividly beautiful, graphic and will make you bleed, try John Hart.

Links

Author’s Website:
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Goodreads: John Hart
Goodreads: Redemption Road
Amazon

About John Hart

John Hart is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, THE KING OF LIES, DOWN RIVER, THE LAST CHILD, IRON HOUSE, REDEMPTION ROAD, and THE HUSH. The only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels, John has also won the Barry Award, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, the Southern Book Prize and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His novels have been translated into thirty languages and can be found in over seventy countries. A former defense attorney and stockbroker, John lives on a farm in Virginia, where he writes full-time. Visit Author Website

Lassiter – Paul Levine

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By Paul Levine

So a couple of years ago after reading Paul Levine‘s book Illegal I sent him a message on Facebook and told him that I liked the book but sill missed Jake Lassiter! He emailed me back and told me that his next book was going to be a Lassiter novel. Well, that book, appropriately named Lassiter is Book 33 for 2011.Jake Lassiter is a “low-rent”  Miami attorney, whose clients are usually not from the upper echelon of the Miami social scene. Lassiter also previously played for the Miami Dolphins and was featured in a series of seven books that started with To Speak for the Dead in 1990 and ended with Flesh & Bones in 1997. I’ve read six out of the seven – Number 1 is the only one I haven’t read. And now thanks to reissusing of the books as e-books  for the Kindle, that can be read for only $2.99!

But now back to the current book Lassiter. For his return Levine has crafted a story that starts in Lassiter’s past, from his website:

Eighteen years ago, Jake Lassiter crossed paths with a teenage runaway who disappeared into South Florida’s sex trade. Now he retraces her steps and runs head-on into a conspiracy of Miami’s rich and powerful who would do anything to keep the past as dark as night and silent as the grave. It’s a tale of redemption and revenge for the troubled Jake.

After a fourteen year lay-off Lassiter has lost none of his snap. Booklist one described him this way

 “Lassiter is smart, tough, funny, and very human. He’s coming on fast as one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction.”

I have enjoyed all the Lassiter books that I’ve read. The characters are always well drawn and the stories always entertaining. In between the Lassiter books Levine has written several standalone books along with another series (almost as good and in some ways better than Lassiter) featuring two other attorneys Steve Soloman and Victoria Lord. There are four  books in that series and like I said they’re all highly entertaining! So check out any of Levine’s books sit back and enjoy the ride!

Now I was all set with my next book. I went to the library the other night to pick up a book for my wife and came back with two books. The new John Hart book Iron House and  Collusion the followup book to Stuart Neville’s fine debut novel The Ghosts of Belfast. I figured I’d start with the Hart book and then the Neville novel. So what happens tonight, I get an email that the new Alex Kava Maggie O’Dell novel Hotwire is now available for digital download to my Kindle!! So I guess I”ll check that one out too, start both books and see which one I like the most and finish that one first! Hum, too many books, too little time!!

 

Book 30 – Northwest Angle – William Kent Krueger

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So you know I love books that take mw to places I’ll never see or teach me things I didn’t know and Book 30 of 2011 Northwest Angle is one of them. Author William Kent Krueger set this book the 11th in the Cork O’Connor series in the area of Minnesota known as the Northwest Angle. This pennisula juts into the Lake of the Woods and is the farthest point north in the lower 48 states. You can not reach this piece of the United States by land without going through Canada! It can of course be reach by air or water, and by by water is how the O’Connor clan got there. As the novel begins Cork O’Connor has brought his family together daughters Jenny and Anne and son Stephen and his sister-in-law Rose and husband Mal to the Lake of the Woods on a houseboat for a restful family vacation. On the day Jenny’s boyfriend Aaron is set to arrive, Cork takes Jenny on a side trip to an island he once visited with his spiritual guide Henry Meloux. The island has pictographs of Ojibwe children on the cliffs of the island. But soon the day turns tragic as an unexpexted “Derecho” hits the area. A derecho is another thing that I didn’t know about. It is a powerful storm a bowed line of thunderstorms with wind speeds of a hurricane and causes massive destruction. A derecho hit the Northwest Angle area in July of 1999 you can read about it here. Soon Cork and Jenny are seperated and Jenny lands on an island and finds shelter after the storm she finds a cabin that has been mostly destroyed by the storm a young mother lies dead in the cabin a search of the cabin reveals

diapers and formula all neatly arranged and soon Jenny finds a baby. Soon someone else comes looking for the baby and Jenny must flee the area of the cabin.  But where is her father and are Rose, Mal and her sister and brother safe and who is the man returning to the cabin? Is he the killer or someone who has been helping the dead mother? All these questions and many others are answered as the story unravels.

Like all of William Kent Krueger’s books “the sense of place is great” as are the characters and the book addresses many other issues outside of the murder, including religion and spirituality and the presence of good and evil. I’ve loved each and every one of Krueger’s books, since the first one I read Purgatory Ridge, for just that reason. So give his work a try!

Here’s William Kent Krueger, who can tell you more about the book then I can

Northwest Angle: A Cork O’Connor Thriller Review

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So you know I love books that take mw to places I’ll never see or teach me things I didn’t know and Book 30 of 2011 Northwest Angle is one of them.

Author William Kent Krueger set this book, the 11th in the Cork O’Connor series in the area of Minnesota known as the Northwest Angle. This pennisula juts into the Lake of the Woods and is the farthest point north in the lower 48 states.

You can not reach this piece of the United States by land without going through Canada! It can of course be reach by air or water, and by by water is how the O’Connor clan got there.

As the novel begins Cork O’Connor has brought his family together daughters Jenny and Anne and son Stephen and his sister-in-law Rose and husband Mal to the Lake of the Woods on a houseboat for a restful family vacation. On the day Jenny’s boyfriend Aaron is set to arrive, Cork takes Jenny on a side trip to an island he once visited with his spiritual guide Henry Meloux.

The island has pictographs of Ojibwe children on the cliffs of the island. But soon the day turns tragic as an unexpexted “Derecho” hits the area. A derecho is another thing that I didn’t know about. It is a powerful storm a bowed line of thunderstorms with wind speeds of a hurricane and causes massive destruction. A derecho hit the Northwest Angle area in July of 1999 you can read about it here.

Soon Cork and Jenny are separated and Jenny lands on an island and finds shelter after the storm she finds a cabin that has been mostly destroyed by the storm a young mother lies dead in the cabin a search of the cabin reveals

diapers and formula all neatly arranged and soon Jenny finds a baby. Soon someone else comes looking for the baby and Jenny must flee the area of the cabin.  But where is her father and are Rose, Mal and her sister and brother safe and who is the man returning to the cabin? Is he the killer or someone who has been helping the dead mother? All these questions and many others are answered as the story unravels.

Like all of William Kent Krueger’s books “the sense of place is great” as are the characters and the book addresses many other issues outside of the murder, including religion and spirituality and the presence of good and evil. I’ve loved each and every one of Krueger’s books, since the first one I read Purgatory Ridge, for just that reason. So give his work a try!

Here’s William Kent Krueger, who can tell you more about the book then I can

Book 27 – Arctic Chill – Arnaldur Indridason

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A freezing wind pierced Erlendur’s clothes as he stood by the swings where Elias had died, and his mind roamed over the mountains and moors to another child who had once slipped from his grasp and now followed him through life like a sad shadow 

Book 27 of 2011 is Arctic Chill by Arnaldur  Indriðason and is the 7th book featuring Icelandic detective Erlendur Sveinsson and his colleagues Elínborg and Sigurður Óli. (It’s actually the 5th book in the series that has been translated.) From Wikipedia:

Arnaldur’s books have been published in twenty-six countries and have been translated into Russian, Polish, German, Greek, Danish, Catalan, English, Italian, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Chinese, Croatian, Romanian and French. Arnaldur received the Glass Key award, a literature prize for the best Nordic crime novel, in 2002 and 2003. He won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 2005 for the novel Silence of the Grave.

In this installment Erlender and his collegues are called on an icy January day to a garden where a body has been found: a young, dark-skinned boy Elias is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood.  Elias is a ten year old boy, whose mother a native of Thailand, has married an Icelandic man and moved her family Elias and his older brother Niran to Iceland. As Erlender’s team investigates the brutal murder they uncover the racism faced by immigrants to Iceland like Elias and his family. The story is a good police procedural as Erlender,  Elínborg and Sigurður Óli try to piece together the events that led to the senseless murder. But I love this series, like many others, for the devlopment of the characters. They not only have to deal with work but their personal lives too. As  Elínborg deals with a sick child,  Sigurður Óli deals with the prospect of adopting a child and Erlender deals with the death of his long time mentor, his releationship with his adult children, and the spector of   his brother whose hand Erlender lost on the moors during a freak blizzard so many years ago.

While  I do think that you can pick up any of Arnaldur’s books and enjoy them, I think they are more enjoyable if you start at the beginning! So go find Jar City and get busy you won’t regret it!