Merry Christmas Everyone!

Daisy in Chains by Sharon J. Bolton

Daisy in Chains by Sharon J. Bolton a suspenseful mindbend of a thriller that reminds all readers and die hard fans why Bolton is a master of this genre.

“…Dear Miss Rose,

I am not a killer.
I know the lawyer in you will be saying: evidence, give me evidence. And believe me, I can, lots of it. But for now, I make one simple appeal to the seeker of truth that I know you to be. I am an innocent man. Please help me.

Sincerely yours,
Hamish Wolfe…”

Hamish Wolfe is a successful, intelligent and handsome young doctor. He is also a convicted serial killer. He has a type. Young, overweight women who are easily dazzled by Wolfe’s looks and attention.

But he has always maintained his innocence, despite the conviction and despite the evidence against him. Wolfe has even gotten a fan club going. A group that believes in his innocence led by his mother. They call themselves the wolfpack and they know that only one person can help prove Hamish’s innocence and get him out of prison.

Maggie Rose is a notorious and reclusive defense attorney and mystery writer who specializes in overturning convictions for murderers. At first Maggie is reluctant to take on Hamish Wolfe’s cause but as she looks deeper and deeper into the case, she begins to see possibilities. But Wolfe has a past that may prejudice the case against him even more.

“…And Daisy in Chains was one of the videos?’
‘By all accounts. One of the dodgier ones.’
‘How so?’
‘It starred Hamish and a young student called Daisy, who apparently had very ample charms.’
‘And chains?’
‘Yeah, they figured too. Allegedly. Some people claimed it was heavy-duty S & M stuff, that Daisy got hurt. One guy even went further and speculated it was an actual snuff movie; that Daisy ended up dead…”

Maggie has to decipher between the truth and the lies because time is running out for Hamish and yet, the biggest mystery may be Maggie herself. Why does she want to help Hamish and what is her motivation to setting killers free. Does she believe in their innocence or is it just about the power she has to set them free?

Sharon Bolton writes intense and thought provoking thrillers that twist and turn defy all sense of reality. If you think you know the story and what is unfolding, you are wrong. Bolton does that rare thing in today’s glut of female lead mysteries, she surprises the reader. There is always something that will unfold, a turn that you didn’t expect and a twist that will change the story in its entirety. She is that good.

Daisy in Chains is a stand alone novel, and within it you will find unforgettable characters and mind bending plots upon plots upon plots.

A great author telling a really great story! Loves it!

The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin

 

The Third Victim by Phillip Margolin is book one in the Robin Lockwood series and Robin Lockwood is a female lead character to be followed and treasured. Margolin is absolutely one of the best around today in creating crime pulp novels and The Third Victim is starts off with a bang!

On a dark road in rural Oregon a woman staggers out of woods, she has been beaten and tortured, kept captive in a secluded cabin. But she is one of the lucky ones. Two other women, similarly tortured and raped, have been found dead. She is the third victim of a serial killer and she got free. She is in shock and terrified but she leads the police back to the abandoned cabin and there is enough evidence to convince them it was indeed the scene of the crimes.

The cabin belongs to an affluent and prominent attorney, Alex Mason, and the police quickly arrest him. Mason insists he is innocent but soon, tales of sexual sadism and Mason’s dominant personality come to light and it doesn’t take the police and prosecutor to paint the picture of a man who likes to dominate and hurt women for his own sexual pleasure. A good deal of the evidence and testimony coming from Mason’s own wife.

Alex Mason knows his situation is looking grim and he needs the best representation so he hires Regina Barrister, known as “The Sorceress” for her courtroom dominance. Regina knows the evidence is damning against Mason and with his own wife willing to testify against him, it doesn’t look good at all, but Regina has worked harder cases in the past. But this time, there is something that Regina is not telling anyone. Something that may effect the trial and send Mason to prison for life.

Robin Lockwood, known during her MMA days as Rockin’ Robin, is a young lawyer who finished her clerking at the Oregon Supreme Court to take a position working for Regina Barrister. It is the opportunity any young lawyer would kill for. She is going to learn from the very best and she is taking the second seat behind Regina on the Mason case. It doesn’t take long for Robin to realize that something is not adding up in the testimony of the third victim and the case itself. But even more so, something is not right with Regina Barrister and her handling of the defense. But how can she say anything, who would listen to her? Robin knows she needs to do something before Alex Mason is sent to prison for a crime he may not have committed.

I read The Perfect Alibi by Phillip Margolin, the second book in the Robin Lockwood series, first and absolutely loved it and the character of Robin Lockwood. I can’t help but see Rhonda Rousey in my mind had she decided to become a lawyer/detective after her MMA career instead of a fake WWE wrestler. The Perfect Alibi is a great book and the reason I reached back and picked up The Third Victim and Margolin does not disappoint.

The Third Victim is a gritty, noire mystery novel of betrayal and murder and sadism, that might have Chandler or Spillane as the author but is the kind that Margolin does so well. Pick up the stand alone tale, Woman with a Gun, for a prime example of Margolin’s story telling ability. The Third Victim is another that does not dissapoint.

As much as the main character Robin Lockwood is a treat in this book, Margolin has also brought in one of the wonders of crime novels that in all this female leads and revenge on men stories that flood the bookshelves today, the deadly and beautiful Femme Fatale and the Third Victim has a great one.

Read it and enjoy it and you will want to pick up book two as soon as the last page is turned in this one!

The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey

 

The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey is one of those novels that start off very slowly and takes the time to build the world in which its characters live before it really delves into the story itself. It is also a smartly written tale that mirrors our own world of inequality, the treatment of our veterans, drug use and the terrifying advances of technology that seem to go unabated.

The Great War is over and the city of Lower Proszawa moves forward with an attitude of indifference and decadence that is mirrored in the entertainment it sees. Plays of violence and sex and drugs, beautifully told within the theater known as the Grand Dark. But the hedonism celebrated onstage is only a diversion from the world outside in the city of Lower Proszawa itself.

Veterans of the war, referred to as Dandys walk the streets covered in masks so no one has to look upon their disfigurements. The Bollocks, policemen, are giving free reign to beat and arrest anyone they please without due process. AI are taking over jobs, leaving the poor without the ability to feed themselves or their families and other creatures, Chimeras, are genetically altered to live as pets and oddities for the rich. In the Grand Dark gruesome murders are re-enacted twice daily for entertainment. In this world, a plague is beginning to form.

Largo is a bike messenger in Lower Proszawa, a young addict, who goes through his daily life wanting nothing more than drink and sex and more of the drug that he lies to himself that he can do without. He knows Lower Proszawa intimately and thinks he even knows its people as well. But Largo is about to stumble upon a hidden world in the city that he never knew existed, but once the veil is lifted, Largo knows it was all in plain sight. It all begins with a promotion.

There is alot going on with this book. Kadrey touches upon so many subjects and so many different views that on can only wonder if The Grand Dark might have been better suited as a trilogy where the world of Lower Proszawa could be better explored. For readers of the Sandman Slim series that Kadrey is known for, this will be a major change. There are no demons and devils or supernatural entities of any kind. Even the spiritualism that Largo’s friends talk about is more and more a sense of drug addled haze. And there is the issue with this story. So much of it is spent through the misted and drug stupor of Largo that it is hard to understand what is real and what is part of his drug induced state.

Largo is the epitome of a young man with ambition but no drive to get it. He has a beautiful girlfriend who is constantly horny and with no real reason to be by his side except for sex and drugs. He sort of stumbles upon his promotion and can’t quite work out how he got it. Neither do most of his co-workers who instantly want to beat him up for his good fortune.  When he begins to understand that the city is not what it seems to be and there is a revolution underfoot, he wants no part of it. He just wants to take his drugs, screw his girl, drink whiskey and ride his bike. It takes the loss of his girlfriend for Largo to be motivated to actually move into action. Even then, he seems to be without direction. It is Largo as a character that makes The Grand Dark, at times, a difficult read. I found this really surprising considering how much the character of Sandman Slim in what drives those books and make the series so much fun. Largo has none of that.

The Grand Dark is a science fiction fantasy book that is written along the lines of the sci-fi books of days past. It is, at its base, a critique on the society we live in. Only it uses this fantasy world of Lower Proszawa to show it to us. The treatment of our veterans. The escape into drink and drugs and really bad entertainment to hide from the reality of the world around us. The heavy handed police and the gap between the rich and the poor. All this and more make of the story of the Grand Dark. It is work the read and effort to finish the book, if only it had a better character to keep it interesting.

 

The Shallows by Matt Goldman

The Shallows by Matt Goldman is book three in the Nils Shapiro and I have been a big fan of this new series. This one drifts in the political arena and may be uncomfortable for some readers but I think Goldman has navigated those waters very well with his characters.

“…I am nice. But I’m a private detective, not your lawyer. If I were your lawyer I would have told you the police will look hard at you and not to lie about anything because you’ve left a trail whether you realize it or not. Lawyers give good advice like that, so if you have one, you may want to give him or her a call. You know, after you settle down and aren’t crying so hard about your dead husband…”

Nils Shapiro is finally in demand. Everyone wants to hire him, only he isn’t sure if he wants the job. A prominent lawyer is found dead, tied to his dock as his wife, who seems to not be grieving very much sits inside their home. The there is the law firm he works for, they want Nils to investigate the murder as well. There is also the police department, short staffed who want Nils to work as a consultant and then there is the Congressional candidate who wants to hire Nils to make sure that the murder cannot hurt her campaign.

The landscape changes as the lawyer’s offices are blown up and two more people are found dead. Now the murder of one lawyer is being linked to terrorism and to a possible cover-up. Nils knows that he has a limited amount of time to tie all the loose ends back together, add to it is his own personal life which is about to go through major changes.

Nils also knows that his own political views are shadowing his perception of the case and he may have to re-evaluate the situation in its entirety. To view this correctly, he needs to see people as individuals and not as conservatives or liberals. To solve this case he needs to be objective and he needs to do it fast, because the body count is beginning to rise.

I will admit, as a reader, I have become tired of authors using novels as a way of promoting their own political views and bashing others in a very black and white fashion. To the detriment of their characters and their stories. I can go on twitter and read your ranting and raving about Trump or Pelosi for free. Why would I pay good money and buy a book just to have to endure more?

But Goldman touches on this subject and instead of writing a polarizing story, he attempts to show the humanity that exists beneath the politics of our time. He does it in a manner that builds and is central to his mystery and is not a lecture on the evils of any one set of political views. In short, he has written another good story of murder and greed and the temperature of our times.

A really good read.

The Birthday Girl by Melissa de la Cruz

The Birthday Girl by Melissa de la Cruz is a novel of secrets and regrets and lies. It is also the tale of the face we put on to show the world and the one that looks back at us in the mirror.

“…The text came with a photo-taken twenty-four years ago. Sweet Sixteen, sigh. Could it really have been twenty-four years ago that she had been that young girl in that picture?
There she was, in all her glory. Her hair all over her face, her smile, wary instead of megawatt, her clothes, cheap and ill-fitting.
Another text: See you tonight.
A promise or a threat? Was she feeling butterflies or tasting bile? She looked at him in the photo, standing next to her, so handsome and so young.
It was her fortieth birthday. All the important people in her life would be there. Including him…”

Ellie de Florent-Stinson is celebrating her fortieth birthday in her home in Palm Springs and has invited all her friends. Even some who aren’t her friends but Ellie knows that it is about appearances and one upping the others in her multi-millionaire club of associates. Everyone who knows Ellie thinks she has it all. A beautiful home, a handsome husband and a family that is one the rise. Ellie is also a well known fashion designer who is about to sign on with a very lucrative deal.

But what no one knows is that Ellie’s life is a facade. Her husband has been out of work for some time and her business is on the brink of bankruptcy, her kids, well one is about to be expelled. But even more than this is the past Ellie has tried to bury for so long. A past of poverty and pain and of a secret she has tried for so long to keep buried. All of this is coming to a head on her fortieth birthday.

****SPOILERS AHEAD*****

Okay, the issues with this book are in the telling. There are twists and turns that normally would make it a good tale. But overall the pacing is such that honestly, even the characters involved seem like they are bored.

Example: you admit to killing your father to your husband and his reaction is pretty much, oh, okay, do we have any more hummus? This is a nice party.

Okay maybe I am exaggerating some there but the book moves along at a pace that it literally feels like the characters are phoning it in. The main character is flipping out and the rest of the characters are so wooden they could be props.

There are some pretty awesome twists and turns but no one reacts and the reader pretty much follows along as in, oh really so that is your first husband that no one knows about and you went from trailer park trash to millionaire fashion designer, hmmm, okay I guess we can buy that.

No actually we can’t.

This one is a pass for me, just doesn’t grab me and the main character is too full of herself and dislikable.