I'm doing something different for this review. I'm going to say you need to read PINES, the first book in a trilogy by Blake Crouch, also a forthcoming TV series on FOX this Spring. I think it definitely should be read BEFORE the series is on TV. I've read all three books, and while all are great, I think PINES is best. I'm not going to tell you ... Read More
I've been remiss in posting a review for a while, so I thought I'd recognize an author I met through networking, Rick DeStefanis, and his novel THE GOMORRAH PRINCIPLE. Rick is a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper and sniper who assisted with training of Vietnamese personnel. His novel was a Readers' Favorite Silver Medal Winner in the military thrille... Read More
I've never been to Thailand, hadn't read any novels about Thailand, and I don't remember ever having a Thai beer. So when a friend suggested I read COCKROACHES, by Norwegian crime fiction writer Jo Nesbo, I took the bait. The novel features the alcoholic Norwegian police detective Harry Hole as he's dispatched to Thailand. Hole is to assist in the i... Read More
WHITE FIRE, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, brings back eccentric FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast with his protégé, John Jay Criminal Justice student, Corrie Swanson. Corrie heads out to Roaring Fork, Colorado - a fictitious town of the Roaring Fork Valley on Colorado's Western slope - to research her thesis involving eleven miners kil... Read More
In the first scene of MISSING YOU, by Harlan Coben, NYPD officer Kat Donovan is hanging at her favorite pub, O'Malley's, surrounded by a "douchebaggery" of patrons when her hottie friend, Stacy, gives her terrifying news: she just signed Kat up on an internet dating site. That move sets off a chain of events that...well, let's just say that lurking ... Read More
The third installment of this thriller series features Domino Taylor, an ex-Marine keeping a watchful eye over the widowed Amy Lambert and her two children, who have been subjected to an extended nightmare in two previous books. Psychopath Monica Kemp and her disturbed teenage recruit, Kelly Blaine, use a hostage to lure Taylor into a trap located d... Read More
Pyramid Lake has a plot setup that's fairly simple. We meet the main character, Trevor Lennox, an ego-maniacal DARPA scientist working at the high-security Pyramid Lake complex who drops more F-bombs than a B-2 Spirit. We learn that his current project is a talking supercomputer that can read facial microexpressions. But then the murder and gore sta... Read More
If the NSA has you worried enough about your phone and computer web cam, then THREAT VECTOR by Tom Clancy / Mark Greany will make you realize that maybe you should be more concerned with our giant trading partner to the east. This novel has China not only acting out on a host of territorial ambitions with military moves in the South China Sea, but a... Read More
I made my way back to properly pair DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King, the (decades) long-awaited sequel to THE SHINING. The storyline was good, the writing great as always. Danny Torrance is back as an adult, teaming up with the young girl Abra who also has the ability to "shine" but her power is much greater than Danny's. We learn that the more "shine"... Read More
I'm almost caught up for 2014, which brings me to PHOENIX ISLAND. Set in a tropical environment off the coast of Mexico, the PHOENIX ISLAND experience will make you plenty thirsty. If it isn’t one hazard after another killing off the finest juvenile delinquents America has to offer, it’s the sadistic cadre constantly turning up the heat. You nee... Read More
