Category: Move Books

Those Empty Eyes – Discovering Hidden Gems: Like Charlie Donlea!

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Those Empty Eyes — Charlie Donlea

Avid readers all have those must-read authors—the ones you grab the day a new book drops. For me: James Lee Burke, C. J. Box, and Karin Slaughter. (I keep a longer list here: Long-Time Favorite Series Still Going Strong.)

Then there’s a second circle of authors I really like—but I sometimes miss release day and circle back months later. Charlie Donlea is squarely in that group.

That happened with his 2023 novel Those Empty Eyes. I didn’t read it until November—and it’s another terrific, twisty ride.

About Those Empty Eyes

Those Empty Eyes belong to Alexandra Quinlan, nicknamed for the look in her eyes the night her family was slaughtered—and she became the prime suspect. The charges are dropped and she wins a massive settlement for the botched investigation, but her life is wrecked. With no killer identified, plenty of people still think she got away with murder.

Years later, Alexandra keeps an evidence board of everything she’s uncovered. Can it finally point to the killer? And will her work as an investigator for the law firm that won her case help her finish the search?

Why it worked for me: propulsive pacing, a smart investigator protagonist, and that obsessive evidence-board thread that pays off.

If Those Empty Eyes isn’t your thing, browse Charlie Donlea’s Goodreads page for his other standalones—he likes fresh setups, and you’ll likely find a premise that clicks.

Question for you: which authors do you always find late—then kick yourself for waiting?

Author Charlie Donlea

Links

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About Charlie Donlea

Charlie Donlea is a USA Today bestselling author often praised as “a bold new writer…on his way to becoming a major figure in the world of suspense.” He was born and raised in the Chicago area. (Bio note via Google Books.)

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The Wife Stalker – Liv Constantine

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 Ok so I guess it’s time to put to rest the idea that abbook like The Wife Stalker is not the type of book I typically read. I guess it’s more appropriate to say it’s one of the various types of books I read. In fact I’ve read more of these types of books than science fiction so far the year.

The Wife Stalker is a fine Psychological Thriller. There are no serial killers lurking in its pages just two women fighting over one family. One a young woman Piper Reynard  has experienced tragedies in her life. And she is trying to create a new life with a husband who comes with two children. The other Joanna is trying to save her marriage and protect her husband and those same two children.

The Wife Stalker is composed of alternating chapters written from the point of view both Piper and Joanna. Throughout the book Piper struggles trying to get her new step-children  to accept her. While Joanna tries to dig into Piper‘s past to prove she is not who she says she is and is actually a threat to the children.

Throughout  the book I found myself rooting for both women. I felt sorry for Piper as she struggle with her new stepchildren. While her actions left me wondering if she was a threat to them. And what Joana was discovering lex. To to wonder if Piper really wasn’t who she said she was.

The results of  both Joanna‘s search and Piper‘s actions led me to believe the book was not going to end  well for anyone. Boy was I wrong. Wait for it! You won’t  be disappointed.

The Bottom Line 

The bottom line is The Wife Stalker is a very good psychological thriller. I am starting to learn there is a difference between action thrillers, which I am a big fan of, and psychological thrillers, a genre of which  I am learning to become a fan.

The Wife Stalker a 2020 release is the third book by Liv Constantine. Liv Constantine, I learned from reading the cover of this book, is the pen name sisters Lynne and Valerie Constantine. Anyway I will be checking out their other two books The Last Mrs. Parrish and The Last Time I Saw You.

Book 41 of 2021

Links for the Further Exploration of the Novels of Liv Constantine

Author‘s Website
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Romeo’s Way (Mike Romeo #2) – James Scott Bell

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Romeo’s Way -James Scott Bell
Book 22 – Romeo’s Way (Mike Romeo #2) – James Scott Bell

Through the years I have had many of my favorite mystery and thriller characters whom I liked because of their wise-cracking and  often times self-deprecating nature. Mike Romeo has joined that group. In fact, he may be the current leader of the group! And with his espousing of philosophical quotes, he may be in a group all by himself. For me he may be the most interesting character in the mystery genre.

In Romeo’s Way, Mike is hired by a political candidate, who is being accused by his opponent, of having an affair. Mike is tasked with going undercover and joining the opposition’s campaign team to discover what’s happening. And the path leading to the final solution is a wild twisting one!

Romeo’s Way was a quick read. It was a well interesting throughout the book so the pages just flew by.

When I went to store the book on my Goodreads shelf I saw that Romeo’s Way was the winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for beat e-book original. In my opinion it is a well-deserved award.

Additionally, while I have several books on my “to be read” library shelf, I wouldn’t be surprised if I snuck Romeo’s Hammer  book #3 in the series into the mix!! So Check it out!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Writing of James Scott Bell

Author’s Website
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Amazon
Goodreads

A former trial lawyer associated with one of L.A.’s top law firms and later working out of an independent office, JAMES SCOTT BELL is now a full-time, award-winning suspense writer. He lives and writes in Los Angeles. You can visit his website at www.jamessottbell.com.

Ragnar Jonasson -The Darkness -Hidden Iceland #1 Starts a Thrilling Series!

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The Darkness - Ragnar Jonasson

My first introduction to the works of Ragnar Jonasson was Nightblind. I read Nightblind in 2018 and while i was reading book 2 in the series, the series was already up to book #5. Additionally, Ragnar started a second series in 2018 the Hidden Island series. That series was up to book #3 in 2021 when I read The Darkness.. Anyway, as I discovered the books I got really confused about what book number I read in what series! Here is book ! in the Hidden Iceland Series The Darkness

The Darkness

The Darkness features Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police. A 64 year-old widow she is waiting out her time until she can retire at 65. However, her employers have other ideas and soon Hulda is forced into an early retirement. She is given two weeks to go home and wait until her official retirement begins.

Rather than being allowed to  continue to work  on her caseload, she is told she can work on a cold case of her choice.

Hulda chooses the case of a young Russian woman whose body had washed up on an Icelandic shore a year earlier. A cursory investigation was completed. The death was declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.

As Hulda starts to dig into the case, she quickly realizes it may not have been a suicide but rather a murder.

As the novel progresses the reader is provided two parallel story lines told in flashbacks

One story line involves a mother who had to place her illegitimate baby daughter in a care facility because she couldn’t afford to take care of her. And their struggles throughout the child’s life.

The other story is about a young women who is taken on a trip to an isolated and dangerous valley in the Icelandic mountains.

All three converge to provide a very dramatic ending to The Darkness.

Gregg Hurwitz’s writes on the cover of The Darkness ..” I dare you not to be shocked” and I do too !!

Final Thoughts 

The bottom line – I really liked the book. I thought Hulda’s character the was both interesting and well developed. Additionally, I also know that I had some of the same feelings as I approached and moved into retirement. Now, I can’t wait to move onto The Island and The Mist


Author’s Website
Goodreads
Amazon

About Ragnar Jonasson

Ragnar Jonasson is author of the award winning and international bestselling Dark Iceland series.

His debut Snowblind, first in the Dark Iceland series, went to number one in the Amazon Kindle charts shortly after publication. The book was also a no. 1 Amazon Kindle bestseller in Australia. Snowblind has been a paperback bestseller in France.

Nightblind won the Dead Good Reader Award 2016 for Most Captivating Crime in Translation.

Snowblind was called a “classically crafted whodunit” by THE NEW YORK TIMES, and it was selected by The Independent as one of the best crime novels of 2015 in the UK.

 

 

The Boy from the Woods -Harlan Coben delivers again!

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The Boy from the Woods - Harlan Coben

I have been reading, all be it at a slower pace than typical during the winter months. So far, I have finished three books. I finished The Boy From the Woods by Harlan Coben yesterday afternoon. It’s book number 3 for 2021.

The  book is a stand alone novel and not part of the Myron Bolitar series. However, it does feature criminal lawyer Hester Crimstein, who has made appearances in many Bolitar books

About The Boy from the Woods

In The Boy from the Woods Hester‘s grandson Matthew contacts her and asks her to look into the disappearance of a school mate, Naomi Pine. Naomi is an outcast and a target for relentless bullying.

The search for Naomi brings Hester back to her home and town, where she raised her four boys. The town where her son,  Matthew‘s father lost his life in an auto accident.

To aid in the search,  Hester contacts Wilde, the boy from the woods. Thirty years earlier, Wilde was found in the  woods living as a feral child wirth no memory of his past.  Wilde grew up in a foster home and David became his best friend.

The search for Naomi led Wilde, and Hester to the Maynard family. Their son Crash is a classmate of Naomi and Matthew and a bullier of Naomi’s.

The Maynard family is embroiled in a controversy revolving around tapes that may end the Presidential campaign of a pat reality show host. As the search for Naomi intensifies the two storylines collide and Wilde and Hester need to use all their wiles to figure it all out!!

Final Thoughts

Overall, I didn’t race though most of  The Boy from the Woods like I have in other Harlan Coben books. However, the second half of the book and the conclusion more than made up for any deficiencies of the first half of the book!

Overall , I found Wilde to be an interesting character and certainly would like to see him in more action. It was also interesting to see Hester in her own book with only one reference to Myron!

I did think that aspects of the book are very timely. And considering the similarity to what we saw during the Trump presidency.

Again while I didn’t think it was Coben’s best, it’s still a 4-star book for me. I look forward know to see the Netflix show and see if the characters are anything like I imagined!!

Links for Further Explorations of the Works of Harlan Coben

Author’s Website
Wikipedia
Goodreads
Amazon

 

The EK’s Life Safari’s 2019 Reading Challenge

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The EK’s Life Safari’s 2019 Reading Challenge

So since we are now into month two of 2019, I think it is time to final commit to my 2019 Reading Challenge. I have written earlier that my overall goal is to read 72 books in 2019. That’s seven books over my 2018 Challenge Goal. And  while I thought that goal of 65 books was unreachable I made it.So this ea I thought I’d  added some more!

Though the years I have read mostly mysteries and thrillers. Occasionally I read history and political books. and maybe even a few self-help books. A four years ago when I started creating my Reading Challenges my goal was to expand the genres of the books I read. I created challenges to read more science fiction, more general fiction  as well as a variety of non-fiction books.

Thoughts About Last  Year’s Challenge

Last year I added the challenge of reading more books that line my various bookshelves and are parked on my Kindle. That resulted in me reading books by some of my favorite authors like Bill Pronzini, William G Tapply, and Tony Hillerman.. whose books I haven’t read for years.

Ultimately though last year’s reads were primarily mysteries or thrillers. A total of thirty-eight (38) of the books I read were Mysteries or Thrillers. Of those thirty-eight (38)books , twenty-two (22) were written by mystery authors whose books I currently read. Sixteen (16) books are part of a series I am current on.  Sixteen (16) of the books read were “ new to me” mystery authors.Of those books eight (8) of them are part of a series. Several of those were the first book in a new series!

Within the next few days, I will create a page with  a list of the books I read in 2019.

The 2019 Reading Challenge

Now to construct the 2019 Challenge. Let’s begin b assuming that I probably will read one new book from each of the series mentioned above in 2019. That’s  twenty-four (24) books out of my 72!

That leaves forty-eight (48) books to be divide among the other genres. First, I want to read one science fiction book per month, as well as  one general fiction (no serial killers or plots to blow up the world).

That leaves twenty-four books. I’ll make those nonfiction and divide the nonfiction  books between: history or politics, biographies, science and self-help. Dividing twenty-four by four results six books for each category.

Ok so all of the above sounds pretty good for a start. However, each year I set out to read general literature and/or current fiction and each year I never reach my goal. So this year I’m lowering the goal to 6. And I’ll add the other six book to mystery and thrillers With that change made My 2019 Reading Challenge looks like this…….

2019  Reading Challenge
 Mystery and Thrillers 30
 Science Fiction  12
 General Fiction   6
 Nonfiction
     History/Political  6
      Biographies  6
      Science  6
      Self-Help        6___
Total Books to be Read 72
Maybe Some Mini-Challenges to Change Things Up??

Sometimes in a reading challenge you do things like read a book with blue on the cover. Or read a book whose author’s name starts with A. Maybe what I’ll do mini-challenges some months concerning the six books I will be reading. Maybe, but probably not. Anyway, there you have it my 2019 Reading Challenge. So wish me luck!

In the next post I’ll write about the books I’ve already read in 2019. So far I’m on track. I’ve read six books! Oh, and we’ll see where they fit among my challenges!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nightblind – Ragnar Jonasson – Dark Island #2 an Outstanding Trip to Iceland

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Originally posted in December 2018 -updated Nov 2025

Nightblind is the second book in Ragnar Jonnasson’s Dark Iceland series. It is the first book by Jonasson that I have read. Since the I have read 4 out of the 6 books in the series. It seems that I am constantly re

Siglufjörður - the setting - Nightblind- Ragnar Jonasson

The Story

Siglufjörður is an isolated village only accessible via a small mountain tunnel. The small close-knit town is one where no one locks their doors. In Nightblind their world is rocked when a policeman is killed at a quiet house with a disturbing past.

The murdered officer was Ari Thór’s partner. Thor would have been on-duty the night of the murder but he had called out sick. Thor and the town’s former police chief are tasked with the job of unraveling the mystery. It’s complex mystery involving the compromised new mayor. Along the way the reader is also given glimpses of a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik where a patient writes about his confinement and the reason for it!

My Thoughts

All in all, it was a good visit. I enjoyed both the plot and the characters. Nightblind is the second book in Jonasson’s  Dark Iceland series.and you can bet I’ll be visiting Iceland again. First, to find out what happened prior to Nightblind in Snowblind and then after in Blackout! I can’t wait.

Ragnar Jonasson – “IS THIS THE BEST CRIME WRITER IN THE WORLD TODAY?” (THE TIMES) // “NEXT-GEN NORDIC STAR” (LA TIMES)

After visiting Ragnar’s website I discovered the following

Nightblind has won the 2016 Mörda Award – Dead Good Reader Award for Most Captivating Crime in Translation. Nightblind, translated by Quentin Bates and published by Orenda Books, is is the second book in the Dark Iceland series to be published in the UK.

Author’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon

About Ragnar Jonasson

Jonasson is author of the award winning and international bestselling Dark Iceland series.

His debut Snowblind, first in the Dark Iceland series, went to number one in the Amazon Kindle charts shortly after publication. The book was also a no. 1 Amazon Kindle bestseller in Australia. Snowblind has been a paperback bestseller in France.

Nightblind won the Dead Good Reader Award 2016 for Most Captivating Crime in Translation.

Snowblind was called a “classically crafted whodunit” by THE NEW YORK TIMES, and it was selected by The Independent as one of the best crime novels of 2015 in the UK.

Rights to the Dark Iceland series have been sold to UK, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, Poland, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Morocco,”’

Goodreads

 

  • The Mörda Award was a specific category within the Dead Good Reader Awards, celebrating the best in translated crime fiction. The Dead Good Reader Awards were annual, public-voted prizes for crime and thriller novels, presented during the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, UK. 
  • Purpose: To recognize and celebrate a captivating crime novel that has been translated into English.
  • Winner example: In 2016, the Mörda Award for Captivating Crime in Translation was won by Ragnar Jonasson’s Nightblind,

The Sinister Pig – Tony Hillerman -Visiting an Old Favorite

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The Sinister Pig -Tony Hillerman

The Sinister Pig – Tony Hillerman

I’ve read almost all of the books in Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee – Joe Leaphorn series. But the last one I picked up before this was way back in 2000, when I read Hunting Badger (Book #14)!

The Sinister Pig (Book #16) has been sitting on my shelves unread for at least five years. One of my 2018 reading challenges was to read 25 books from my TBR shelves—especially books from series I haven’t visited in years—so choosing The Sinister Pig was a no-brainer.

In The Sinister Pig, former Navajo Tribal Police officer Bernadette Manuelito has left the Navajo Police and joined the Border Patrol. Jim Chee misses his former subordinate, but he’s busy investigating a nameless corpse found at the edge of the Jicarilla Apache natural gas field. His frustration grows when the FBI swoops in and takes control of the case.

Meanwhile, Bernie follows a suspicious trailer onto the Tuttle property, where mysterious construction is underway. She may have just made dangerous enemies—and uncovered a link between both cases involving an old abandoned pipeline. That’s the theory retired police legend Joe Leaphorn proposes.

Jim and Bernie each face big challenges: Jim is determined to prove a murder where the FBI claims there’s only a hunting accident, while Bernie is unknowingly up against the ruthless and greedy Rawley Windsor. Can Jim solve the case and save Bernie, or will help have to come from somewhere else? And will Jim and Bernie admit they miss each other and want to be together?

Bottom Line

While The Sinister Pig was an okay read, it didn’t feel like the Tony Hillerman I remember. One of the things I always enjoyed about his novels was how Navajo culture was woven into the story, and how Jim Chee struggled to balance his heritage with modern life. That element was largely missing here, making the book feel more like a standard crime novel rather than a special glimpse into a different culture.

That said, I’ve already downloaded The Wailing Wind (Book #15) from my library. I want to find out what happened to drive Jim and Bernie apart—and I’m hoping it will feel more like the Hillerman I remember.

EKK Rating: 3.0  |  Goodreads Rating: 3.85

Post Update: According to both my memory and my Goodreads shelves, I haven’t read The Wailing Wind yet. The good news is I picked up a free copy—so maybe this time I’ll actually read it. And if the plot of The Sinister Pig sounds familiar, it’s because elements of it were used in Season Three of Dark Winds!

John Verdon -Shut Your Eyes Tight – (Dave Gurney #2)

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Shut Your Eyes Tight - John Verdon

Shut Your Eyes Tight – John Verdon

Originally posted on March 14, 2012. Updated October 2025 with new links, images, and notes.

So yesterday I did it. I reached what I thought was an unreachable goal. When I finished Shut Your Eyes Tight by John Verdon, I reached my goal of reading 60 books in 2017!

Shut Your Eyes Tight by John Verdon is the second book in his Dave Guerney series. The main character in the book, Dave  Guerney, is a retired New York City homicide detective. He is a gifted detective and is the most decorated detective in NYPD history.

 An intriguing Case Comes to Dave

Fellow NYPD detective Jack Hardwick brings the case that forms the plot for Shut Your Eyes Tight  to Dave. The case is four months old case and involves the beheading of a bride on her wedding day. Jack brings Dave the case because he thinks the police are moving in the wrong direction. And he believes the Dave the Super Detective can use his skills to solve the case.

Initially, the case seems  to be a pretty open and shut. The new bride, of a noted psychologist, was the victim.   While the killer appears to be a Mexican who came to work for the psychologist as a gardener and rose to the position of assistant to said psychologist. The Mexican was the last person to see the bride alive and he has now vanished!

But after for months the police are no closer to finding the killer, than the day of the murder. Hardwock believes there is much more to the case than  do the two officers who are heading the investigation. He brought the case to Guerney for that reason . He believes that the great detective Guerney can solve the mystery.

Dave thinks the case is intriguing. His wife Madeleine sees it as a diruption of their new idyllic life.  Despite Madeleine‘s objections, Dave decides to help the victim’s mother and investigate for two weeks. Then report what he found to the mother and the police.

Dave Finds Out the Case IS like an Onion

When Jack Hartwicks brings  the  case to Dave, he says the case was like an onion. The removal of each layer reveals something new. And that’s just what Dave’s investigating reveals.

As Dave investigates his discoveries  turn the simple slam dunk case into the search for a serial killer! The question then becomes can he ever get to the center of the onion,  before he or his wife are the necat victims!

Bottom Line

I am now a fan of Dave Gurney the character and John Versin the writer. I look forward to moving onto book # 3 Let the Devil Sleep.  In fact I just checked the e-book editon out of my library! 

Anyway I enjoy the characters that Verson has created,  both Dave and Madeleine and the surrounding cast. I also enjoy the plots that Verdon has created.  The storyline in Shut Your Eyes Tight was like an onion and each new discovery gave the case a new look until the final pages!

Goodreads Rating. 3.97  My Rating 4.0. So Check it Out

Update Note : Since this post was written in 2012 John Verson has written six more Dave Gurney books. I have read one of them book 1 # 3 Let the Devil Sleep . I think it’s time to pickup this series again! Book #4 Peter Pan Must Die is in my Kindle Library!

Links

Author’s Website
Goodreads
Amazon

John Verdon

John P. Verdon is an American novelist. In 2010, Crown/Random House published his first mystery thriller, Think of a Number, the debut novel in the Dave Gurney detective series. Wikipedia

Born: 1942 (age 83 years), The Bronx, New York, NY

Education: Fordham University, Regis High School

The Girl Who Was Taken : Another Winner from Charlie Donlea

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The Girl Who Was Taken – Charlie Donlea

The Girl who was Taken - Charlie Donlea

The Girl Who Was Taken is second book written by Charlie Donlea I read his debut novel Summit Lake last year and thought it was a great read. I think that this book is even better. So I can’t wait for book his next book!

 The Story

In The Girl Who Was Taken, two girls are taken. After two weeks one girl escapes Magen McDonald. She becomes a celebrity while the second girl Nicole Cutty is forgotten.

That is until the body of a jumper turns up on the autopsy table of her Nicole’s sister Livia. Her autopsy reveals that the young man did not commit suicide but was murdered. In addition, Livia discovers that the young man was Nicole’s boyfriend during the summer she when she was taken.

Soon Livia sets out to discover what happened on the night Nicole was taken, on the night that Livia did not answer Nicole’s frantic call.

The tale of Nicole’ taking and Livia’s hunt are told side by side through the book. Nicole’s story is told in short flashback passages and while Livia’s in present time.

The third story that weaves its way through the book is Megan’s story. Though she has become a celebrity through a book that she wrote about her miraculous escape, she has never forgotten about Nicole. Throughout the book Megan tries to discover more and more about her taking. She is particularly interested where she was kept. Why? Because it wasn’t the bunker that she escaped from!

Bottom Line

The Girl Who Was Taken is a four and half star book for me. Maybe even a five-star book!

The story line was great. It had several twists and turns. Then, when it all came together in the final pages I couldn’t believe what I was reading!! The characters were all believable especially Livia Cutty and well Nicole, too. I really don’t think that we have heard the end of their story! As  I said in the beginning of this post I can;’ wait for Charlie’s next book.

The Girl Who Was Taken and Books Have to Call You Back!

Charlie wrote on his website that when he started out to write his books he knew that they face a lot of competition from other mediums, i.e TV, the Internet and movies. So he thought about what made him put down the remote or the mouse and pick up a book instead. He concluded that “the book has to call him back” So he has issued a challenge……..

So try them. Pick up one of my books and get into the story. Then, put it down and get on with your life. If the characters or the setting or the mystery calls you back to it, then turn off the television for a night, stow the tablet at bedtime, and read a good book. And if you’re able to figure out the twist in Summit Lake or The Girl Who Was Taken, let me know by dropping me a line. I’d love to hear from you.

Yes, both of his books did call me back! And know I didn’t figure out the twists in either of the books. How about you???? Believe me it’s worth trying!

Author’s Website
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