Dark of the Moon by John Sandford

Bluestem, MN. This small prairie town hard on the SW Minnesota border, has been the site of 3 grizzly deaths. Dr. Russell Gleason and his wife were found murdered in their home. She was shot in the chest as she sat on her davenport and the retired physician was found propped up by sticks on this front lawn with a .357 through each eye. A few weeks later, Bill Judd, Sr. was presumed dead when his house burned to the ground. Mr. Judd had been quite ill in his old age. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating.

Virgil Flowers is the BCA investigator assigned to the case, working with Sheriff Jim Stryker and his deputies. Over the course of the investigation, about 4 or 5 more people get murdered . . . all of them quite old. The question is what is the common thread connecting the victims who were all long time residents of Bluestem. Even though this is a small town, connecting the dots isn't as easy as it should be.

Is the connection something current or something in the past? As the town isn't all that large, Virgil about has to interview just about everyone. One big connection is Judd's past as the brains behind a failed venture for local farmers in some form of artichoke. At the time, it looked like nearly every farmer lost money, but not Judd. Had someone been carrying a grudge for decades and finally snapped? What about the nut outside of town hell bent to create his own version of Jonestown on a nearby farm? How is Judd, Jr. connected? He's damn near broke. And didn't Judd father a child with a prostitute up in the Twin Cities? Not to mention the DEA is looking into probably the largest meth lab between Chicago and Denver. And don't you know even Stryker and a couple of his deputies just might have reason to have Judd or a couple of the other victims in the crosshairs.

And let's not forget Sheriff Stryker's divorced sister Joan who Virgil says has the 3rd best ass in all of Minnesota, out there, alone, on the prairie, running the family farm. Virgil sees this as his duty as a protector of the citizens down here amongst all the crime.

The clues are less like the spokes of a bike and more like a spider web with connections on multiple levels, but one thing puzzles Virgil. There is this old woman in a nearby nursing home who has been spooked by the man in the moon. If he can just figure out what that means, Virgil just might unravel this mess. But count on Virgil, our thrice divorced, ponytailed ex-MP who sports rock 'n' roll t-shirts and cowboy boots to assemble the puzzle . . . and get very, very close to the 3rd finest ass in all of Minnesota.

Sandford is a very prolific author. His largest set of titles is the Prey series, now at 20 books and counting. He also has the Kidd series about a computer hacker. I read those 4 books a while back and enjoyed each, but resisted getting started on the Prey series as there are so many choices. This is the first of 3 current Virgil Flowers books and I will probably try to find the others. I won't put these in WC Don's class of airport books. What I've read from Sandford is far better than that. But I'm not ready to put him into my power rotation. But will be looking for the other 2 Flowers books, that I can guarantee.

East Coast Don

Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter

As East Coast Don mentioned in his review of Hunter’s latest, “I, Sniper,” this is the first in a series of six books about Bob Lee Swagger, sniper extraordinaire. “Point of Impact” which was written in 1992, is also the basis for the 2007 movie Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. For the movie, although many changes were made from Hunter’s original story, both the book and the movie were worthwhile – great shoot-em-ups and great mysteries. I won’t detail the story other than to say Hunter knows what he is doing. Obviously, the character development in the book is so much better. ECD is right that Wahlberg is too young, at least for the story that Hunter wrote, but the changes in the screenplay adapt that very nicely. Rather than focus on Vietnam Era stuff, as occurs in the book which allows for 20 years of development before the action of this book begins, the movie starts from a more recent point. With Wahlberg being younger, that allows his love interest to be young, hot, lovely – a substitute that I found to be entirely acceptable. Having seen the movie will not ruin this book for you, although some of the final scenes do get extrapolated directly from the book. I welcome Hunter to our power rotation in the genre.

West Coast Don

Ice Run: An Alex McKnight Novel by Steve Hamilton

This is my third Hamilton novel and my second in the Alex McKnight series. It is a follow-up to the last McKnight, Blood Is the Sky. It has the same characters: McKnight, damaged hero, former Detroit cop, and former PI who’s in mid existential crisis and trying to figure out what to do with his life; Jackie, the owner of the local pub; Vinnie LeBlanc, an Ojibwa Indian who has moved off the reservation; and Leon Prudell, McKnight’s former PI partner. All alone in the woods of Michigan’s UP (as in Upper Peninsula), McKnight decides to learn more about Natalie Reynaud, the detective that he encountered in Canada during the last novel. She is in her own life crisis (too young to be mid-life) with regard to the events from Blood in the Sky as well as her own very dysfunctional family of origin. She managed to keep her rage about having been sexually abused by playing high school and college hockey, usually against the boys, and the sex scenes in this book sometimes sound like a vigorous rugby scrum. She has relationship problems, so the match with McKnight is explosive. The story develops from McKnight’s and Reynaud’s decision to have a tryst in Sault Ste. Marie which leads to their chance encounter with a man, Simon Grant, who knew one of their families and who leaves a mysterious clue about that before he dies in a deep winter snow and then has his body cut in two by a snow plow. Nice picture, eh?! The story takes us back to the murder of a Reynaud's father during the Prohibition Era when there was a lot of organized crime action smuggling booze across the Canadian border. Hamilton does a good job with the narrative and character development. It is a good plot with good twists that I did not always see coming. This was not a great book, but I’ll continue to read Hamilton. At minimum, this is a good “airplane book,” and when Hamilton is at his best, like with Lock Artist, he’s very entertaining.

West Coast Don

Requiem For An Assassin by Barry Eisler

I will be the first to admit that an opinion on one book may be tainted by the book previously read. And up front I will also say that right now, Roger Smith is a hard act follow. But pages 32-33 in chapter 3 were the final straw that made me put this title from the B/N bargain bin down.

A former sniper and contract killer named John Rain (the title character in 4 prior books, so the character has legs with an audience) is being sought by a bunch of mercs who kidnap Rain's best friend (living in Bali...figures as much) as a means of getting to him. Rain is now living in Paris (naturally) with his stunningly beautiful Mossad girlfriend (from previous books I've read, beauty must be a Mossad job requirement). Rain is trying to get her out of the Mossad, to wit:

"As my relationship with Delilah deepened, and as I gradually easy myself away from the mindset you need to survive in the life, it was as though the part of myself that was so adept in dangerous environments, the part that had kept me alive in the jungle of Vietnam and then in countless urban jungles afterward, didn't like what was going on. That killer inside me, that iceman who could always do what needed to be done, felt he was being marginalized, disenfranchised. But what could I do? I didn't know how to propitiate him, or even if I could."

Is that the best use of 'propitiate'? I had to look it up: " to gain or regain the favor or goodwill of ".

I'm not impressed. Give me a break . . . or rather a new story.

East Coast Don

Mixed Blood by Roger Smith

I was so taken with Wake up Dead that I got his first novel, Mixed Blood, from the library right away.

Hard to tell just where Benny Mongrel came from. He was a child of the flats, the worst slum near Cape Town. Orphaned at 10, murderer shortly thereafter, burned alive and tortured as a teenager, two time resident of the worst prison in South Africa and determined never to go back, despite his high ranking inside. Once released, he takes a security job as a night guard over a house under construction. The company gives him a broken down guard dog that Benny becomes emotionally attached to.

The house is next door to house rented by Jack Burns, his pregnant wife, and son Matt. Jack is a Gulf War vet who opened a security business in SoCal. He has a rep as being lucky in all things, including gambling. But when that luck runs out, he is pressured into joining a small crew to rob a Milwaukee bank, a job that goes horribly wrong, so Jack and his family runs to Cape Town.

Two gang bangers, high on tic, pick a house at random to rob . . . the house of Jack Burns. Bad decision. Jack disarms and shoots one and slits the throat of the other just as his wife starts contractions. Now he has to dispose of the bodies. Benny sees what's happened.

A corrupt detective, as fat as Jabba the Hut, starts to follow hunches and clues that finally leads him to that the guy in the rental who is wanted in the multimillion dollar robbery in Milwaukee. Gatsby, the cop, is also being investigated by Disaster Zondi, a federal investigator who has Gatsby in his crosshairs, but is a few steps behind the fat man. Gatsby figures that night watchman in the house next door to Burns must know something and when he confronts Benny, the dog attacks only to be shot. Benny is crushed and vows to kill this pig who killed his dog. But, Gatsby sees the millions that Burns must have, kidnaps Burns' son and sets in motion multiple murders, tortures, maiming, and torching as Burns, now partnered with Benny, and Zondi close in on Gatsby.

Like Wake up Dead, this story begins with a rash action. In this case, Jack's military training takes over and he handily defeats a couple drugged out punks. The problem is that his son is scarred by the attack. The story basically takes place over the following week. Jack's wife wants out to take her children back to the States. Benny goes from what seem like a passive soul in the lowest of the low jobs whose reckless violent past returns when the only important thing in his life is taken from him in an instant. Nothing will stand in his way to get back at Gatsby who is carving out his own path of blood and charred bodies trying to get out one step ahead of Zondi.

While the story is told with the Burns family as the focus, I actually found Benny to be the more interesting character. As the story unfolds, Benny is always there, watching from the sidelines and when he is called into the game, an entirely different character emerges. Gatsby is a pig of the first order who deserves his fate and Zondi is a relentless investigator who starts off after Gatsby, but ends up looking into Burns and his family.

As I said for Wake up Dead, the books of Smith are relentlessly violent with people meeting their mother in all kinds of disgusting mayhem. The stages for the final confrontation are set halfway through the book and Smith skillfully keeps you glued to the page as things are played out. If blood and maiming is not your cup of tea, don't pick this up. But for lovers of violent, no-holds-barred crime fiction, Smith is hard to beat.

East Coast Don

Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett

This book was set in the dust-bowl era, and it had to do with a brutal serial killer who is being tracked by the survivors of various families that he decimated. Mr. Shivers is the name given to him by those that seek vengeance in the form of his death, but he is a worthy foe, a man of legend. He is also called the scarred-face man and the grey man. I read about 80 pages and already found it to be redundant, just more tracking by a progressively bigger group, more atrocities created by the bad guy, and more near misses. The depiction of the hobo lifestyle and the difficulties of trying to stay alive in that time were the best part of the book. Being bored with the plot, I then jumped to the last 25-pages to get the ending, which unfortunately was entirely predictable. The character development was pedestrian and the narrative and dialogue were not too exciting either. I got this from an Amazon list and then went back to look at the Amazon ratings which gave it 3.5/5. Some of the reviewers thought it was awesome and worth 5/5. I disagree and would align it with the reviewers that gave it a 2/5. This was the author's first novel. You can do a pass on this novel.

West Coast Don

The Poet: A Novel by Michael Connelly

This is an early Connelly, written in 1996, and it is a terrific story about twin brothers, but mostly about Jack McAvoy, the writer for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. His brother, Sean, was a detective in Denver who met with an untimely end, and Jack decides to pursue the investigation, a decision that does not make happy the local cops or the FBI. The cops and feds don’t trust reporters, who after all, want a story that might not be flattering to the cops. It looked like Sean committed suicide, a slam dunk case for the cops, but Jack could not accept that his brother would ever do that. Jack works his way through various law enforcement people, family members, and another reporter as the truly sick serial murderer continues his actions, focusing on the molest and murder of little boys and then the murder of the detectives who work on the boys’ murder cases. All of the detectives appeared to have killed themselves, and Jack shows they did not. The title comes from the suicide notes, all of which include a clause from poems by Edgar Alan Poe. Connelly develops some great personalities in the FBI, notably the boss, Robert Backus and the beautiful but dangerous agent, Rachel Walling. This book had a couple great twists at the end that I did not see coming. Connelly remains in my power rotation.