Missing You by Harlan Coben

Kat Donovan is a seasoned NYPD detective whose life lacks closure on two fronts.  Eighteen years ago her father, also a NY policeman, was murdered.  A mob hit man confessed to the murder but Kat has never believed the confession was valid.  She thinks the hit man was instructed to take the fall.  At about the same time as her father’s murder, Kat’s boyfriend and love of her life, Jeff says goodbye and disappears.  Both these events have left Kat wondering for nearly half her life, what really happened.

Kat’s best friend, Stacy encourages Kat to move on by signing her up for an online dating service.  Searching for Mr. Right, Kat finds a picture of her ex-boyfriend Jeff with a different name.  She tries to connect with him but gets rejected… again.  Meanwhile back at the precinct, Brandon, a college student from Connecticut contacts her about his missing mother.  Coincidently, the mother had signed up to the same online dating service as Kat and has disappeared and transferred a large sum of money to a numbered account in a Swiss Bank.  The son approaches Kat because the local Connecticut cops could not prove criminal activity and therefore dismiss the kid.  Brandon reveals that he hacked into the dating service’s website and found Kat’s name, profile and occupation.  He also found conversations among other clients suggesting foul play.  Kat reluctantly follows the illegally attained clues but is intrigued as each clue seems to lead toward conquering the demons in her own life.

I thought this was one of Coben’s better novels… I’ve read several.  He is gifted at building the suspense, inserting many twists and turns, and tying it all together in the end.  However, I most always find his plot a little too contrived… the events too coincidental.  Missing You is no different.  Finding an ex-boyfriend on an online dating service after 18 years under a different name? …hum.  The feeling of, ‘Really? How can that happen?’ just ruins the experience for me.  I become focused on the bizarre coincidence or seemingly manufactured event and that destroys the effect of what is otherwise good writing.  I hate it when that happens.  Airplane book-yes, power rotation-no.

Running Stupid by Morris Fenris

I think most would consider Matthew Jester to be very lucky. He started off in a crumby family, was homeless as a teenager, then hit it big when he won a UK lottery.

 

Lucky.

Then he won again.  And again. Now he shares a £9 million home with England’s version of Beyonce. Like I said . . . Lucky.

A middle east-based bank has tarnished his sensibilities so Matthew sues. And he wins the largest civil suit against a bank ever recorded. Lucky.

He returns home from the verdict to find his lover slaughtered in their bathroom. His luck has run out. In his flight from the police he has to evade a bizarre set of farm-types, hired killers, a suspect driver, an ambush in a hunter’s cabin. Everywhere he turns, someone is trying to kill him, probably for the megamillion pound reward for his capture.

Not so fast. Every attempt on his life was orchestrated by the bank owner for the entertainment of an international club of billionaires.

About that time I started to lose interest . . . too contrived even by my low standards. But once he arrives at a London hotel, the story picks up with the hunter-prey version of a lab rat lost in a deadly maze.

This was a freebie found on BookBub.com. And for this venture into free reading, I’d call it ‘you get what you pay for.’ 75% of the book was entirely forced. Found myself just scanning page after page to keep me somewhat interested. The last 25% was OK and certainly unexpected. If you were between books and looking for something to kill some time, this would be reasonable. But I wouldn’t put it on a list as a must read.

ECD

Stone Cold by C.J. Box

Stone Cold by C.J. Box is his 14th Joe Pickett novel. Pickett is a Wyoming game warden with a code all his own and a reputation for finding trouble. Wyoming’s governor has taken a liking to Joe and named him his special ‘range rider’. For a measly bump in pay from his already meager salary, Joe is to continue as game warden in Saddlestring but must be available for the governor’s special projects.

The governor calls Joe when the wealthy owner of a massive ranch in Wyoming’s Black Hills comes under suspicion by the FBI. Wolfgang Templeton is suspected of running a murder for hire operation… the targets all wealthy elites. Joe is summoned to remote and desolate Medicine Wheel to inconspicuously gather information and report back to the FBI but NOT to engage the perpetrators only report back. Yea right, that sounds like Joe. Joe is given a plausible wildlife project as cover and off he goes. Within 48 hours of arriving in the Black Hills he has plenty to report. Templeton has become a philanthropist for the poor citizens of Medicine Wheel and they all protect him… including the sheriff, judge and local game warden. Several bad boy locals are employed to work on Templeton’s ranch and other businesses and to provide private security. They are all exempt from the law… including hunting and fishing laws. Of course Joe can’t tolerate that so he manages to provoke most of Templeton’s staff. Ironically Joe’s tactics are the perfect means to gather information for his mission. He quickly identifies Templeton’s gang and even finds his ‘lost’ buddy Nate Romanowski in the mix. Before Joe can call in the FBI, Templeton sends his thugs after Joe. This time Joe has found more trouble than he can handle alone.

Stone Cold is another winner in C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series. I was fortune to see Mr. Box on his book promotion tour in St Louis this past week. Clearly he has a fan base that adores him. The 200 plus crowd was three fourths male and nearly all baby boomers… lots of gray beards, orthopedic shoes, and bellies over the belt. Several praised him for creating the clean cut image that is Joe Pickett. Here are a few tidbits the author shared. 1) Box lives on twenty acres near Cheyenne, Wyoming and actually wears a cowboy hat. 2) His given name is Charles James Box and as a young journalist went by the name Chuck. One day someone complimented him on his clever pseudonym for writing… such a western flare. He learned a 'chuck box' is actually a box on a chuck wagon for carrying tools. He thought it sounded ridiculous like his name was Wagon Wheel or something so he started writing as C.J. Box the next day. 3) In his previous book, The Highway, a dark story of a predatory trucker, Box spawned the idea for the plot when his 20 year old daughter continually drove her car with the check engine light on. 4) Box has learned to include Nate Romanowski in small doses because his bigger-than-life personality would over power Joe. 5) Box is currently under negotiation to make his Joe Pickett character into a TV series. Wonder who will play Joe. His fans all want to know.

The Spike by Matthew Iden

The Spike by Matthew Iden is his fourth in a series featuring Marty Singer, retired DC homicide detective and cancer survivor.  Ironically, while Marty is struggling with post-cancer depression caused by the partial removal of his colon, he is thrust into the bowels of corruption in Washington, DC’s urban renewal process.

Marty is waiting for a ride at an underground DC Metro station when a woman is pushed in front of the arriving train… killing her instantly.  Marty catches a glimpse of the perpetrator and pursues him on foot.  The suspect disappears into the crowd but Marty reports all he has witnessed to the MPDC.  The victim, Wendy Gerson is from a wealthy family and after the MPDC exhausts all leads, Wendy’s brother, Paul hires Singer to investigate.  Turns out Ms. Gerson was a lawyer with a high powered DC law firm specializing in DC real estate and urban renewal.  Singer starts by interviewing Wendy’s former boss, Alex Montero.  He appears nervous and is evasive and after Singer’s visit, warns all employees not to discuss Ms. Gerson with anyone.  Montero is found murdered the next morning.  Marty finds Ms. Gerson’s former assistant, the scared but outraged Caitlin, and coaxes her to reveal Gerson’s most recent appointments.  Singer is quickly submerged into DC urban renewal.  Developers, brokers, lawyers, city councilmen, residents, property owners and anti-urban renewal activists all have skin in this high stakes game… much of it quasi-legal and politically charged. (The Spike is that last property owner to sell in a development project- the holdout for the highest dollar.) Faced with too many suspects and too little information, Singer can only provoke each of the players until the thugs show up to make him stop… then figure out who sent the thugs… a dangerous game.

The Spike is an excellent installment to Matthew Iden’s repertoire.  I continue to be impressed with this author.  I love his descriptive but efficient writing style.  His plots are intriguing and the setting in the coarse underbelly of our nation’s capital is captivating.  He entertains and educates while keeping you riveted to the page.  His protagonist, Marty Singer has his unique code of honor that makes him courageous and vulnerable simultaneously.  You applaud the character’s tactics, become concerned for his welfare and anxiously await the outcome.  Iden has proven himself a gifted story teller with a winning formula.

Redeployment by Phil Klay

The veteran says, "You weren't there. You'll never know." The civilian says, "I can't even imagine what you went through." And thus is the universal divide between those who served and those who didn't. Not just Iraq. Any war.

Phil Klay has made an honest and valiant effort in Redeployment with 12 short stories of the Iraq war. These are not told in some attempt to justify or condemn the morality of the war. As Tim O'Brien said in "How to Tell a True War Story," if a war story seems moral, don't believe it. 

Klay lays bare some truths behind this war that we civilians will never get from movies like the 2013 Lone Survivor. Through unconnected stories, he tells us about the how the war affects those who were going, were there, those who (attempt to) return home, and some civilians. 

If you aren't grabbed by the first sentence ("We shot dogs.") and paragraph, you might as well put it down. Don't kid yourself, you won't be interested. This isn't a pro-war or anti-war book. Klay attempts to pull back the curtain on consequences any normal civilian either wouldn't care about or couldn't be bothered with. 

The dog lover. The PRP unit (personnel retrieval & processing. DoD-speak for the mortuary). The Chaplain. The guy taking the 'blame' for killing a kid so the real shooter can try to wash away his guilt. IED survivors. The foreign service officer in reconstruction whose efforts are stonewalled until he can teach Iraqis baseball, the returnee attending a snooty New England liberal arts college, a soldier's first kill.

Klay explores each in a compact (290 pages) no-nonsense way, making no attempt to validate  or damn any actions or outcomes. He delivers fictionalized reports on what the war did and does to those who served.

No, we never will know. But we certainly should make an attempt. I think, in the end, we will wonder why every returnee doesn't have some level of PTSD.

ECD

Once A Spy by Keith Thomsom

Word has it that the life expectancy of the British 00-agent wasn't all that long. So any secrets they had stored up in their head would be carried to the grave. But what if a covert, deep cover agent survives to retirement? He'd still have all that critical information banging around in this head. What would 'the company' do? To make matters worse, what if that agent had developed Alzheimer's Disease? You'd be worried he might just blurt out all sorts of stuff to anybody and have no clue about who or what he had revealed. Now, what should the company do in the interest of national security and for the greater good?

Charlie Clark is a bit of a loser. Accepted to Brown only to drop out because he studied the Racing Form more than his books. He's gotten himself in deep with some Russian loan shark who is getting impatient with Charlie's slow repayment schedule. 

Charlie's mom died when he was young. His mostly-absent father, Drummond, was more consumed with his job as assistant regional sales manager for a 3rd rate Argentinian-based appliance company. Lots of sales meetings and lots of trips. But he's retired and his faculties are fading. Charlie has to find a nursing facility and they are making the rounds in the greater NYC area. 

On one visit, someone takes a couple shots at them. Charlie figures the Russian is trying to send a message. They take off. Drummond is running through a parking lot looking into cars. "C'mon, Dad." Drummond finds what he's looking for, opens the door, tears open the shaft under the steering wheel, hot wires the car, and they tear off with more of a Dad retired NASCAR driver then an appliance salesman. "Dad?" Later on, Drummond fires up a helicopter for a skin of their teeth escape. "Dad???"

A chase, some accidents, some stealth, and Charlie and Dad are now armed . . .and Drummond is one crack shot. "Dad?" Putting Charlie in danger seems to bring Drummond's brain back to his former self. Turns out being an appliance salesman was a clever ruse and he actually ran a highly secretive and important operation code named "Placebo'. If the details of that information get 'out there', the ramifications could be devastating for more than just the US.

So how do you like your heroes? Alpha-male-kill-at-a-glance (Mitch Rapp, Kirk McGarvey, John Wells)? Everyman-caught-in-a-mess (star of every Charlie Stella book)? Retired-but-still-deadly (Bob Lee Swagger)? Maybe all three are presented by Thomson in the 2010 copyright. Charlie is the everyman and Drummond is the former alpha male who is still dangerous in retirement, when his Alzheimer's loosens its grip.

This is a very clever twist on the spy thriller genre that is presented in a very entertaining manner. One reviewer said it was Carl Hiaasen taking on John LeCarre. And that may not be a bad description. It's part comedy, part tragic drama, part adrenaline-fueled thriller. While I knew this going in, the story is obviously part 1. The next in the series is Twice A Spy, so you can be dang sure I'll be getting into that in a big way real soon.

ECD

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

A Rule Against Murder is my eighth Louise Penny novel, so you already know that she is firmly in my power rotation of authors. She’s won five Agatha Awards. This woman writes excellent crime novels, so if this is your genre, make sure you’ve read her. These books are all in the Armand Gamache series which takes place in Quebec. Gamache is the Chief Inspector of homicide for the Surete du Quebec. Penny brings in Gamache’s usual crime-solving associates that fans of this series have come to love. This is the first story of the series that I’ve read which takes place mostly outside of Three Pines, an idyllic village just outside of Montreal. More than 100 years ago, the Robber Barons discovered Lac Massawippi, which is just north of the U.S. border, and they built the remote and magnificent Manoir Bellechase as a place of escape, a place to play, and a place to hunt and kill game. With changing times, Manoir Bellechase eventually was abandoned, until it was purchased and restored as an exclusive retreat for those who could afford it.

The Finney family has chosen this retreat to have its annual family reunion, a historically difficult encounter for all as the result of the family’s legendary cruelty to one another. They are a dysfunctional family of the worst order. The father is long since deceased, and while he continues to influence everyone, it is his wife, the matriarch who now holds the real power, including the division of a vast inheritance. The oldest of four kids, Julia, had wisely abandoned the family many years before, but she has decided to return for this year’s event when her own marriage has ended and her ex-husband has gone to prison as a result of a famous financial scandal. This year, the family has decided to erect a statue to the father of the four children, so Julia has come for the unveiling of the statue. It’s Julia who is killed in the most mysterious manner when the huge statue falls on top of her, as if dad killed the daughter who had left the family.

The main plot and subplots are interwoven with skill by Penny. It is her use of the subplots which gives her characters such richness and depth, much more so that what we usually see in his genre. And, the quality of her writing is wonderful. In telling the story of Gamache’s father who was seen by many, including the Finneys as a coward, Penny revealed that while Gamache’s father had been an advocate of keeping Canada out of WWII, when he learned of the horrors in the Nazi concentration camps, he realized his stance on the war was wrong. Penny wrote, “My father got up in synagogues, churches, in public meetings, on the steps of the Assemblee Nationale, and he apologized. He spent years raising money and coordinating efforts to help refugees rebuild their lives. He sponsored a woman he’d met in Bergen-Belsen to come to Canada and live with us. Zora was her name. She became my grandmother, and raised me after my parents died. She taught me that life goes on, and that I had a choice. To lament what I no longer had or be grateful for what remained. I was fortunate to have a role model that I couldn’t squirm my way around. After all, how do you argue with the survivor of a death camp?”

If I’m rating Penny on a 5-star system, she gets all 5.

Trace by Warren Murphy

Devlin Tracy. A vodka-swilling wise ass Vegas resident trying to avoid running into his ex-wife and their shrill kids. He's an freelance insurance investigator with a hot girlfriend/blackjack dealer/part-time hooker. This old guy dies in a NJ hospital shortly after changing his will and turning over his estate to the doctor-owner. The family is seriously p.o'ed.

The insurance company CEO has a lifelong friend in the same hospital and want Trace to look in on him and his wife. Yeah, Trace is a jerk with a quick acerbic tongue, but he gets results and that's why insurance companies hire him. He manages to piss off most every person he meets as he asks questions of.

Like your investigator to be a smart ass jerk?  Elvis Cole does it better. This initial (1984) Devlin Trace book was OK, but I'm not all that sure it was enough to bring me back. Were I not a fan of Robert Crais' Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, this might've been worth pursuing.

ECD

One Right Thing by Matthew Iden

One Right Thing by Matthew Iden is the third in the series featuring Marty Singer, retired DC homicide detective and cancer survivor.  Marty was a good detective but like any over committed homicide cop, there were cases that Marty wishes he could do over… either he didn’t do enough to solve the case or he stood by and watched an innocent man be convicted.  Now with his cancer to remind him of his mortality, these perceived indiscretions haunt him and redemption becomes a priority.

Marty is driving in rural Virginia near Cain’s Crossing when he sees a billboard picturing J.D. Hope with the caption, ‘J.D. Hope was murdered on May 6^th.  Do you know why?’ and a phone number.  Singer had arrested J.D. for murder more than twenty years earlier and testified against him at his trial.  J.D. was found guilty, sentenced to prison and served his time.  During the trial Singer was not 100% convinced that J.D. was guilty but as a detective you follow the evidence.  In this case, Singer later learned that his partner planted the incriminating evidence declaring that J.D. was guilty of something.

 

Marty calls the number on the billboard and learns from J.D.’s mother and sister that Cain’s Crossing is J.D.’s hometown and he had returned after prison only to be murdered.  J.D.’s kin think local authorities aren’t doing enough to solve the murder so they construct the billboard to solicit help.  Singer grasps at the chance for redemption but is not greeted warmly for his intervention.  The local cops tell him to butt out, the local hooligans attempt to intimidate him, and even J.D.’s mother appears not to trust him.  Marty learns J.D. had lived (and died) in a rundown motel on the edge of town.  Sorting through his personal effects, Marty discovers J.D. had been diagnosed with ALS and was working with the DEA to expose a major methamphetamine ring… searching for his own redemption… looking to do one right thing.  Now Marty has a new mission: find and destroy the drug traffickers, solve J.D’s murder, and vindicate his memory.  But that’s a tall order for a retired cop who is physically weakened by cancer therapy… and has no authority and no backup.

With One Right Thing, Matthew Iden has earned a place in my power rotation.  His writing style is very efficient… descriptions are vivid without being obsessive and plot lines are complex without unnecessary diversions.  His protagonist, Marty Singer is the right mix of machismo, empathy, and vulnerability to make him appealing and very likable.  I can’t wait to see how he’s doing in his next escapade.

Fade Away by Harlan Coben

Both East Coast Don and Midwest Dave have previously reviewed books by Harlan Coben with mixed reviews, some laudatory, some just average, but I thought I’d join the parade and check him out. He’s written at least 25 novels since 1995. Fade Away is a 1996 book and the third in his Myron Bolitar series which now numbers 10 books. Fade Away won both the Edgar and Shamus awards in 1997. Bolitar is an appealing character, a former high school and college basketball star who became a first round draft choice of the Boston Celtics. But, Bolitar suffered a severe knee injury during a pre-season game and never got to play a regular season NBA game. He wasted no time going to Harvard Law School and becoming a successful players’ agent. While his knee had mostly recovered after a couple years of dedicated rehabilitation, his playing was now limited to low-level weekly pickup games, until unexpectedly, the owner of the New Jersey Dragons offered him a contract. The story was that his long-time high school and college basketball foe, Greg Downing, had disappeared. Downing, one of two superstars on the Dragons, had also been a first round pick, but he had gone on to NBA greatness. Bolitar and Downing had more in common, including Downing’s wife, who had been Bolitar’s girlfriend until they broke up shortly before the career-ending injury. The owner of the Dragons thought Bolitar was just the right guy to find Downing, and since some intrigue among the Dragon teammates in Downing’s disappearance was possible, it was thought Bolitar’s best chance to find Downing would to be on the inside, as a player.

The reader gets to work his way through the crime novel which has lots of twists and false leads. There are complimentary subplots and enough sex and violence to satisfy the average fan of crime novels. Also, there are some well-written sections on Bolitar’s thoughts and feelings about the game, from his thoughts about what might have been to the nature of the characters who were playing. Overall, I’d rate this book as a classic airplane book – one that would entertain you on a cross country flight, but not one that would interfere with a nap or break your heart if you left it unfinished on the plane. It’s a B to B+ read. I’ll probably try another Coben book, but I have a reading queue right now that is fairly long and does not include another one of his. Maybe it’s hit and miss with Coben, which is why I chose one of his award winning books, so I’m disappointed I did not have a more favorable response.

Cyberionage by Michael P. Elias

There is good news and bad news about Cyberionage by Michael P. Elias. The good news is that the plot was mostly good. The bad news, there were large sections of the novel that felt amateurish. Given the title, I expected to read about technical details of cyberspace, and I definitely got that – not that I understood all of it. But, cyberspace geeks are not known for their endearing human qualities, and Elias’ protagonoist, Moti Kidron, was not different than that, so he was a difficult figure to connect to. Emotionally, he was flat. He was impressive intellectually, and his courage was remarkable. Like so many of the heroes that we favorably review, Moti was absolute in his morals and a rebel to his authority figures, and he took remarkable risks to defend his way of thinking. It is Kidron alone who prevents WWIII from breaking out, by infiltrating every important military security system in the world, and ordering the President of the U.S. what to do in the midst of this near nuclear crisis – but was it a believable story? In the end, something was missing, and the author does not get my recommendation.