Edge of Honor by Brad Thor

 

#24 in the Scot Harvath saga. This one picks up where Shadow of Doubt left off . . . with he and his Norwegian spy girlfriend Solvi Kolsted, heading off to exchange wedding vows. Harvath is not one to do anything subtle and plans a honeymoon to beat all honeymoons - a 6-month around the world excursion. How do all these super spys managed to stas  millions in hidden accounts around the world? 

When the get back to his home on the Potomac that has Mount Vernon as a neighbor, he needs to start the process of fully retiring from The Carlton Group, purveyors of protection to the most well heeled of the world. It's late late June and Harvath wants Solvi to see the US wish itself another July 4th birthday. 

One of the swanky parties he's invited to is at the US Naval Observatory, where the Vice-President resides. Upon arrival, they witness a large crowd of protesters. What does he care? He's retired and has put politics in his rear view mirror. But being retired doesn't mean he's turned off his spidey-sense. He and Solvi notice 2 guys in all black each carrying large backpacks that get tossed. They both duck just before the packs explode sending shrapnel into the crowd. Then others in black jump out of cars and start spraying the protesters. Both jump from their vehicle, grabbing firearms that are always packed in the Suburban, take out a few bad guys and head for the nearby Norwegian Embassy just ahead of more well armed and trained adversaries.

Once inside, their first thought is to protect the ambassador, and that they do, but not before a few embassy workers are mowed down. By this time, every law enforcement officer and those from the various government agencies descend on the area. What was the goal of the shooters? Was this a 1-off occurrence? 

This all occurs in the months after the US has elected an America-First president who flung around a ton of pre-election rhetoric to amp up the party base. A big goal was to get the US out of NATO (sound familiar?). As summer approaches, President Mitchell has called a summit of NATO members to DC to discuss this massive rearrangement of the NATO alliance. The summit is scheduled for the weeks following July 4th. And this attack occurs right about the time most European leaders were preparing for departure to DC. One of the leaders, the Prime Minister of Norway (not known for being a devoted fan of Solvi's politics) has surprisingly requested her to be posted to her security detail. 

One the PM lands and Solvi contained tightly within a protective bubble, Harvarth is now off to find out who or what was behind the attack (and that one was just the first of more to come). You know Harvath: once a problem solver, always a problem solver. His search for those behind the scenes makes up the bulk of the book. And true to form, Thor takes us on a wild and supersonic-paced dash through all levels of democracy, influencers,  lobbyists, patriots (real and wannabe) to put down what appears to be an inevitable rebellion and make sure our democratic republic remains. 

I've read all 23 prior Thor/Harvath books and, if I'm honest, I wasn't all that excited about jumping back in again. I mean, how many different ways can Thor dream up to test Harvath? I'd actually considered passing on this episode. That would've been a mistake. Thor is clever and creative in what he layers on Harvath and ingenious in how Harvath manages to crawl his way through bad guys who think they know better. Dont' know how Thor does it, but it seems like each book tops his previous outing. 

I know what your thinking. Just know that the President's nature and description bare little similarity to anyone you might be thinking of. 

And to make things worse, Thor already teased out the title of his 2026 thriller, Cold Zero. Pretty sure I won't be as hesitant as I was a few weeks ago.

East Coast Don  

Behave, The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

 Behave, The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst by Robert. M. Sapolsky is the most impressive nonfiction book that I’ve read this year. It was published in 2017. Sapolsky is a Stanford professor who refers to himself as a primatologist and neuroscientist. He has spent his life studying and living with primates, and he is well educated in the neurosciences. I sometimes read the book, but I listened to most of it since he is a most entertaining speaker. Despite what would seem to be a deeply serious subject, he writes with great humor. The author’s intent was for this to be a book of interest to non-scientists. However, the language about neuroanatomy does get complex. It would be helpful to have some prior knowledge about neuroanatomy although he does patiently educate people who are coming to such topics for the first time. 

Minus the pages for acknowledgments, appendices, glossary and the index, the book is about a 700-page tome, so be prepared to take that on. However, the content is rich and exciting. Sapolsky discusses the complexity of reaching an understanding of our human behavior. The subject matter is far too complex for me to summarize it in a meaningful way. My advice would be to read his short epilogue to help you make a decision about reading this masterful work. After admitting the complexity of the topic he undertook, I loved his closing comment, “Finally, you don’t have to choose between being scientific and being compassionate.” I thoroughly enjoyed this work and it was certainly worth the nearly 27 hours required to listen to the audiobook.

Mythos

 Stephen Fry is a British actor, director, broadcaster, comedian, and writer. Given that he narrated his book, Mythos, the term narrator should be added to that list. On some book jackets, there is a subtitle, The Greek Myths Retold. Many years ago when I got my bachelor’s degree (to my children, those were ancient times), I found myself entranced by ancient Greek literature, and I took enough classes to get a minor in that topic. While I had some familiarity with the myths, those courses were mostly about reading the Greek Playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Of course, we read Homer, Plato and Aristotle, and some other authors I no longer remember. In this book, Fry uses his writer’s license to retell some of the stories in his own spin. But, I did not find anything problematic about his version of the stories. His book is also a good place to learn about the stories of Narcissus, Prometheus, and more.

 

I loved this epic work, especially the organization of the book. He covered all the Olympian gods and so much more. He began with Kronus and the Titans. He then told of the creation of Zeus and the other 12 main Olympic gods, from Hera, Athena, Apollo all the way to Hermes. He clarified the stories by mentioning those characters in Roman mythology. If you have any inkling of wanting to read about these ancient myths, I can’t think of a better place to start. Given that Fry is an actor, director, writer, and narrator, listening to his self-narrations was quite wonderful.

 

I looked at some of the criticisms of Fry’s writing which seem to come primarily from academics who found fault in some of his stories for accuracy. Perhaps as once having been a student of ancient times, I should be offended by the moments when he strayed from a rigorous path. But, I’m not in the least bit critical. This book was nothing short of fun. In one review on Reddit, a critic wrote that Fry was not a Hellenist, rather a “humanist atheist.” (There are several possible definitions Of Hellenist, but it mostly refers to a student or scholar who studies the Greek language, literature, history, or culture. I take it that a human atheist means a human who does not believe in the existence of God or gods.) I don’t find those words as cause for criticism of the book. Fry notes that he does not try to interpret the myths, but rather just tell the stories, and he does beautifully. Since this is actually a four-book series, next up for me will be Heroes.

Love the Stranger

 

 Love the Stranger (A Queens Mystery) by Michael Sears is a murder mystery that takes place in Queens, NY. Although it’s his first book reviewed in this blog, it is the second novel in the Queens Mystery series and at least his ninth crime novel. It was published in 2024. Sears described Queens as being a community that was far more than just a melting pot of people from all corners of the world who were just trying to eke out a living. Sears wrote that Queens was a “kaleidoscope of colors, classes, and ethnicities.” The book includes a great cast of characters including Kenzie Zielinski, a woman who worked as a community organizer. Currently she had taken on a wealthy and well-placed man in Queens who wanted to build a skyscraper which she thought would destroy the quality of the neighborhood. She lived with her boyfriend Ted Molloy, a lawyer with a most colorful past, and his law partner, Lester Young McKinley. They all shared and office and sometimes employed Mohammed, a Yemini immigrant to be their driver. Hanging over all the immigrants was the presence of ICE.

 

In addition to her work to defeat the building of the skyscraper, Kenzie was pulled into a murder mystery when it was obvious that the lawyer that Mohammed’s lawyer who was supposed to be helping with his immigration status was just cheating him out of fees, and claimed that Mohammed still owed him an impossible debt of $1,000. When Kenzie went to the law office of Howard Spitzer, she found Spitzer on the floor having been shot. Although she called the cops, since she was thought to be the last one who had seen Spitzer alive, she became a prime suspect in this matter. Ted and Lester were managing the lawsuit that Kenzie had filed against the landowner Ron Reisner, and their efforts were complicated when it was discovered a mole had been working in their office, and she was leaking their plans to Reisner’s people.

 

Sears introduced more characters on both sides of this matter, so there were additional subplots, all of which he brought to a satisfying end. I haven’t even gotten to Lester’s decision to loan money to a mobster. This book was hard to put down, so I had a couple late nights as I was caught up in the plot and characters. That’s enough information to help you know why I’m now a fan of Michael Sears. I’m not sure which of his earlier book I’ll grab next, but I plan to read more of his work.

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell

 I’ve reviewed six of Dugoni’s novels, all of which were in the thriller/murder mystery genre. Six books means that I like his writing. This story was referred to me by my daughter who is the communications director of a substantial nonprofit called Orbis. Orbis is known as the flying eye hospital which provides ophthalmologic care to people in economically poor countries around the world. In the course of the story, Sam went to work for Orbis as a means of escaping the traumas he had experienced at home.

Sam Hell, actually Sam Hill, had been born with a genetic flaw that led to his diagnosis of ocular albinism. He had no pigment in his irises which made his eyes look red. His condition was rare and he seemed to be immediately rejected by the medical community as well as the people at his Catholic church where his mother had been a devout and dedicated woman. When he got to school age, Sam found that the parochial school’s head mistress, Sister Beatrice, wanted to ban him from her school. Sam’s mother won the battle with Sister Beatrice, and despite his admission to the school, she continued to try to set him up for failure. His peers at school immediately rejected Sam who they dubbed as “the devil boy,” therefore “Sam Hell.” It was a nickname that stuck with Sam the rest of his life.

 

It was a school bully, David Bateman, who began to repeatedly abuse him, and it was only after the intensity of the abuse was discovered that Bateman was expelled. However, Bateman was to come back into the picture when these two antagonists were adult men. Through elementary and middle school Sam protected himself from further rejection by being a loner. It was not until the beginning of high school that he struck up good friendships with other students who were also being ostracized, Ernie, the only black in the school, and Mickie, a young woman from a highly dysfunctional and poor family. The three of them stuck together in what was a lifelong friendship.

 

Sam was academically successful as an ophthalmologist, but he had always been hindered in his ability to find other good relationships. It was his work as an ophthalmologist that led to his next encounter with Bateman when his wife brought their six-year-old daughter to his  office due to her visual problems. Sam quickly realized that her visual probems were due to repeated head trauma that had no doubt been caused by her father’s beatings. Bateman’s wife was so terrified of her husband, it took her a while to admit the abuse. Bateman worked as a cop and had developed into a full-blown psychopath.

 

I’ve revealed the main plot lines and I refuse to be a spoiler by revealing too much. Dugoni has provided fascinating characters who felt quite real. I learned to love Sam, his parents, Ernie, and Mickie. I also learned to hate Sister Beatrice and Bateman. It takes a great author to evoke such intense feelings in me.

 

My only problem with the story came at the end. As Dugoni nicely resolved the various plots and subplots, as Sam’s parents aged and got quite ill, he reexamined his lifelong atheism  which he had achieved largely by rebelling against his mother’s devotion to the church. He could not tolerate her repeated comments about all things being due to “God’s Will.” However, as he continued to encounter his own parents’ growing frailties, he began to reexamine his own beliefs. As he mourned the loss of his mother, he found himself praying and using his mother’s rosary. Perhaps most other readers won’t have as strong a negative reaction to Dugoni’s descriptions in this regard, but I also found that it did not negatively impact my feelings about his entire book. This is a story that’s worth reading, all the way to the end. It gets my strongest, 5/5 recommendation.

Leverage by Amran Gowani

 Full Disclosure: I know next to nothing about the world of high finance. What they do. How they do it. What's legal or illegal or what's a bit of both. It's all a mystery to me. 

The setting is Prism, a high flying west coast-based hedge fund (see full disclosure. A 'hedge fund' boggles my pea brain). Within  Prism are a number of themed funds (like real estate, IT, etc.) one of which is run by an up and coming star Ali Jafar ('Al' or any number of identity politic nicknames). The boss is Paul Kingsley, a financial genius, master manipulator, and a world class bully. His #2 is his son Brad who is also a bully with an ultimate goal of overthrowing dear old dad and take Prism for himself. 

Seems like each investment Al makes turns to gold and that means more money for Prism and for Kingsley. That's his history. Crack researcher and adept of finding opportunities others have missed. Until one of his investments tanks resulting in a $300 million loss for Prism. Called on the carpet by Kingsley, Al is given an ultimatum. Get back to doing what he does best and earn back the lost $300M . . . within 3 months or Paul will let it leak to regulators that some of Prisms shady dealings can be traced directly back to Al. Apparently the crimes would be sufficient to put Al away for decades. Think Bernie Madoff level of treachery. 

So now Al has to call in a few chips, accept aid from unknown sources, keep his ear to the ground, digdigdig, get into bed with other ne'er to wells in an attempt to score returns sufficient enough to satisfy Paul, keep his own hair, not attract the attention of federal regulators or get himself killed in the process. All within 3 months. 

Guessing this book would be liked by fans of Succession (of which I may be one of the few). And the give and take of money and the various forms of graft are above my head. Way above my head. So while the story is fast-paced, contains a bunch of "Karen" and "Todd" characters, (and that Al has a bit of a self-gratification habit), readers like me who just don't 'get' finance at this level, are probably not the target audience. On one level, the story was downright Shakespearean with the envious son trying to overthrow the tyrant father by using various underlings to achieve his goals. 

I do appreciate Atria books for the advance copy. I got this copy in early/mid summer and just now getting around to reading it so I hope the grammatical slips common to content development get corrected in the commercial version that is set for publication 19 AUG 2025. 

 

East Coast Don 

Disappearance of a Scribe

I was looking for fiction or nonfiction stories that took place in Egypt, in anticipation of a trip there, and I ran across this book by Dana Stabenow entitled Disappearance of a Scribe. The story takes place in 47 BCE, the time of Cleopatra and is centered in Alexandria. Caesar had returned to Rome after a war, and Cleopatra was left to lead the recovery of her kingdom. When a body was discovered in the Nile after someone had put a man with his feet in cement and then drowned. A second body was similarly found. Cleopatra turned to another woman who she trusted, Tetisheri, to investigate and solve the mystery of the deaths.

 

Tetisheri was new to her role as the Eye of Isis, who only reported to Cleopatra and she was mostly disregarded by her colleagues on the police force. Corruption was everywhere. Tetisheri was actually a wonderful character who was determined not to let the inherent misogyny of the times thwart her efforts. The author led the reader through a picture of what life must has been like in those times, from lowly slaves to the palace elite. Scribes were very important to the society since most of the population was illiterate, and it was necessary to keep good records, especially if you were a builder on behalf of the queen. I enjoyed the story and felt it was worth my time to read it.

This is actually the second Stabenow book reviewed in tis blog. 16 years ago, ECD reviewed A Grave Denied in favorable terms. She is a prolific author of 45-50 novels, who is most famous for the 23 novels in her Kate Shugak series. Ms. Stabenow’s novels are certainly worth revisiting.

King of Ashes by SA Cosby

Who wouldn't want to live the life of Roman Carruthers?  Living large in Atlanta. Financial whiz. Knows his way around investments. Makes his clients a bundle. And a bit of a hedonist, but we can't all be perfect. Regardless, life is good for Roman . . . 

Until his sister Naveah calls from his home in Jefferson Run, VA - a bit down the road from Richmond - telling him that their father was in a hit-and-run accident, is in a coma at the nearby hospital and that their younger brother Dante is worthless when it comes to helping out. Roman bolts for VA to help the family he left behind, and to make sure the family business,  a successful crematorium now completely run by Naveah, continues. 

When Roman finally gets Dante somewhat sober, he learns that Dante and a bud did a couple really dumb things. First, they got into bed with the local gang (BBB; Black Baron Boys) to front them some drugs to sell. If that wasn't dump enough, they thought it'd be fun to sample a little of their wares. BBB wouldn't miss a little product, right? Well, they more than sampled. Probably were halfway through their stash by the time they realized they'd really screwed up and the BBB wants their money . . . now. 

Roman tries to talk with the brothers at the top of the gang. They go by Tranquil and Torrent. A couple of skilled 'businessmen' not known to suffer fools for even a nanosecond. They'll snuff out anyone who's wronged them. When Roman's financial bullshit fails to sway the tide, the brothers beat the teeth our of Roman and cut off one of Dante's fingers for wasting their time. Roman works out a deal to repay the BBB for their lost income and get Dante out from their terror, he thinks. One of of the promises he makes is to use the family business to help BBB clean up the debris inherent to their business.

And that's just the beginning. The BBB boys round up Dante's partner and girlfriend, deliver them to Roman so that Roman can do what the family business does best. One of the BBB soldiers leaves (can't watch what's going to happen). That's about when Dante uses a tire iron on the other soldier. Roman now has to add that guy to the ovens. The BBB is expecting guy and girlfriend to be dust, but instead, the girl is spared and told in no uncertain terms to get far away from Jefferson Run or others, like all the Carruthers, will die a horribly gruesome death. 

Roman knows he is in over his head, but has a plan, with the help of an Atlanta friend Khalil, a former Army Ranger who is extremely capable. Think of his as Roman's Joe Pike. Capable. Very Capable.

Between Roman's conniving and Khalil's skills, Roman works his way into the BBB's good graces by laundering their drug profits into stinking wealth beyond their dreams while Khalil keeps the BBB looking over both shoulders for what they figure is a rival gang trying to take over the territory. What Roman really wants is to make Tranquil and Torrence suffer. Seriously suffer. Destroy the BBB and kill anyone who gets in the way.

Southern, gothic, country noir at its finest. Roman is successful with an undercurrent of treachery that slowly boils until an explosive conclusion. Dante is just a kid party boy who is constantly stoned, high, drunk, and screwing around with little thought to consequences. Naveah is the family's rock trying to hold it all together while Roman tries to keep her above the fray. In some ways, she is the heroine whose quiet strength is needed by both brothers. This isn't a tale of drugs and greed.  No, that's too eash. This is a story about the extremes one will go to protect family . . . with a little help from Khalil. 

Bottom line? Another in an unbroken line of winners from Sean (SA) Cosby. Run out and get this one, boys and girls. No joke. Get it. 

 

East Coast Don

 

PS. Cosby can really put words together that makes his prose an entertaining read. To wit:

'Dante was as high as the price of gas.'

'Her dress clung to her like an insecure lover.'

'I used to be afraid the universe was evil. Now I almost wish it was. Because evil can be bargained with, evil has a purpose, no matter how horrible it may be. But what I've come to realize is the universe is indifferent, and that is so much more terrifying.' 

'At night it was as dark as a politician's soul.' 

'Sometimes the man wearing the crown ain't the man that's supposed to be king.'

'Roman had lost a lot in life, but he knew one thing. He'd never been defeated.' 

The Blockchain Syndicate

 

The Blockchain Syndicate by Robbie Bach is his second novel and the first reviewed in this blog. It’s a contemporary thriller, and make no mistake, it is a thriller that grabbed me at page one. This novel is based on the notion that with little organization and small funding, on January 6^th 2021, an unruly and disorganized mob stormed the U.S. Capital building and temporarily interfered with the peaceful transition of power from Trump to Biden. Bach wrote of very wealthy men who opined that it was improper government regulations that kept them having even more influence and more wealth. Therefore, they thought it was only proper that the government be overturned. The book was about those well-funded and well-organized efforts to defeat America’s democratic government.

 

Bach created great characters, both good guys and bad ones. The protagonist was Tamika Smith, the daughter of an army man, General Smith, so she was really an army brat, having grown up on military bases around the world. After tours of military duty in which she was heroic, she successfully ran for the Senate in the State of Washington. She was a formidable woman who found herself as being critical in stopping the equally powerful bad guys. She had fallen in love with a divorced man, Johnny Humboldt, who had two children, and it was especially his teenage daughter, Phoenix Humboldt who had taken to Tamika, much to her mother’s dismay. Thinking about Tamika, what would you do if someone wanted to stop you from your democracy-saving plans, who went so far as to wound Phoenix in a school shooting, and who kidnapped the man you loved in an attempt to shut her up? Tamika's enemy was a female assassin, an other solid member of Bach's cast.

 

Bach’s plot was well designed, and the story was filled with believable people. After getting hook on the first page, I just kept reading until I finished the story. This novel gets my highest recommendation, and it’s now obvious to me that I need to go back and read his first novel, The Wilkes Insurrection.

The Strange Case of Jane O.

 The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker is a novel that was published in early 2025. It was recommended by a dear friend who said it was one of the more fascinating novels that he had recently read. It’s the story of a curiously emotionally disturbed woman and her treatment by a psychiatrist, Dr. Bird. Given my history of having worked as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for the last 50 years (recently retired), my friend wanted me to read this and then have a discussion about it. That discussion is soon to occur.

 

Jane O. has an eidetic memory which appears to allow her to recall in great detail essentially every day that she has lived detail since she was a young girl. As the story began, she recently had a baby boy via sperm donation. She was living with her son in New York City where she was mostly estranged from her parents in California, and she worked as a librarian for the city. It was apparently her first dissociative episode that led her to reluctantly seek psychiatric care in New York. She may have been suffering from a dissociative disorder which is sometimes referred to as a fugue episode. According to the DSM5, the book that defines all recognized psychiatric disorders, “Dissociative disorders are characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotional, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.” Jane claimed to have seen Dr. Bird for one occasion about 20 years earlier although her need for psychiatric attention at that time was never explained. It was Dr. Bird who she sought for help once again.

 

Dr. Bird was a troubled man himself. Not long after the birth of their baby daughter, his wife died in a pedestrian accident when she walked in front of a vehicle and was immediately killed. He also had been fired from the institution where he worked. He was particularly interested in studying patients who reported premonitions, a topic that would not have been easily recognized as worthy of research by the psychiatric community. When he tried to keep his interest secret and then lied about doing that work, he was terminated. He struggled to get on his professional feet once again, and he opened his outpatient private practice. It was then that Jane O appeared in his life.

 

The story is about the relationship the two of them had as Dr. Bird worked to understand what was happening with his patient. He clearly found something appealing about Jane and she put her faith in him for a cure. She then had recurrent dissociative episodes which sometimes lasted for hours, but eventually lasted for weeks. He finally came to the understanding that he was overly involved with Jane although they were not reported to have had a sexual encounter with one another. He was constantly thinking about her and looking forward to his sessions with her more than his other patients. As the book came to an end, Dr. Bird announced that he would have to terminate his treatment efforts with Jane and refer her to a psychiatrist who treat her more dispassionately.

 

It was the very end of the book that requires mentioning. While Dr. Bird had planned to end this relationship, and while he planned to do so after saying goodbye to her, he found himself unable to do so. Rather, as Jane narrated this part of the story, she described that they met and sat on a park bench together for a long period of time without speaking to one another and while holding hands. Finally when Dr. Bird stood up, instead of parting, they walked off hand-in-hand.

 

The book brings up the importance and sometimes difficulty of maintaining strict boundaries with patients, which the mythical Dr. Bird failed to do. It seems to me that stories about psychiatric and psychoanalytic treatment tend to be only interesting to most readers when there have been boundary violations. Try to think of any story of such treatment in which boundary violations was not a significant theme. Any well-trained therapist should know this and observe the clinical importance of doing so. While it’s true that such mistakes do occur in treatment, I won’t take the time to explain the damaging effect that this causes to patients regarding their own emotional growth, which is the goal of treatment. I’ve been involved as an expert in a couple medical legal cases in which such boundaries were violated which rightfully led the loss of the doctor’s license to practice medicine.

 

What was the reader supposed to understand about the ending, perhaps that like a shining knight in white armor rescued the damsel in distress and rode off into the sunset to live happily ever after? In reality, that’s not how this works. Rather, it is my thought that these two troubled people were doomed to have a failed and unworkable relationship. With this warning regarding what was clearly a treatment failure, you could read this story and sadly watch how this doctor-patient relationship quickly grew into a dysfunctional one.

The Collectors

The Collectors by Richard A. Danzig is the third book in the third book in the Chance Cormac legal thriller series. However, it’s the first Danzig book to be reviewed in this blog. This is a good crime novel with one exception, but it’s a story that’s worth filling your entertainment time. There are a three main story lines with some excellent subplots.

 

Chance, an attorney whose practice is in Brooklyn, is hired to investigate whether a multimillion dollar painting that was purchased through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, could be a forgery. The Met is the largest museum in the U.S., which is located in Central Park, and it’s security systems are clearly state of the art, and no such theft had ever occurred in the long history of this museum. But quickly, it becomes apparent that Chance’s new client is not fully cooperating with the investigation for reasons that are not clear. At the same time the reader is learning about Chance and this new case, we learn that the man who had been working for him as an investigator, Damian, had given up such work to move to a new life in Costa Rica where he eventually teamed up with two old buddies, all former Navy SEALS. It was Troy who owned the surf shop, where he employed JR and Damian. They were all burned out on the high stress of their former jobs and were just looking to have a good life in paradise without much more to worry about than the size of the waves each morning.

 

It was during his morning run on the beach that Damian found a body of a man who had obviously been shot and killed. He called JR to help him deal with the matter and they promptly called the local policeman to report it. However, it turned out that Sergeant Rios was corrupt, and he decided to frame Damian and JR for the murder. Rather than take them to the local jail, he sent them to a remote prison that was only for convicted felons. It was a prison that was actually run by a corrupt warden and was controlled by dangerous gangs. Despite their training and SEALS, Damian and JR were helpless to deal with the gangs. Damian was beaten within an inch of his life and JR was beaten to death. Of course, Chance was contacted to help rescue Damian.

 

Danzig introduced a third story line of a man who had grown up in Costa Rican poverty. His parents owned and lived in a bodega in San Jose. They were honest and hardworking people and their son, Alejandro Renata was devoted to them. He was also a gifted student who won scholarships to college in San Jose, and then a scholarship to Johns Hopkins for medical school. Renata excelled at his efforts and quickly made his way into the world of organ transplants. His successes and research brought him tremendous wealth. He worked hard and loved his life, but he also fiercely protected his own territory of transplant research, much as his father had protected his bodega in San Jose. When his aging father needed a heart transplant, Renata used his worldwide influence to find a suitable heart from a donor in Argentina. However, the plan fell through and led to his father’s death. Renata was enraged and rather than continue in his lucrative work in London, he moved to Costa Rica where he built his own elite hospital that specialized in treating elite and wealthy people who needed transplants. As a result, he became more wealthy than ever.

 

It was Danzig’s pulling the seemingly diverse stories together that was the plot of this book. It was entertaining, and I very much liked his development of the characters. Chance’s personal life was compelling, and his hiring of a new investigator, Wendell Holmes brought a new fascinating man to the drama. I thought the only weak part of the story was the transition of Dr. Renata from being a internationally renowned surgeon into a sociopath who was engaged in black market dealings to get the organs he need his super rich patients. I think this book falls into my class of airplane novels, something that would successfully distract me while taking a cross-country air flight. I can see picking up one of his earlier novels for just such a trip.

An Inside Job

 

 

An Inside Job by Daniel Silva is the 25^th book in  his series about Gabriel Allon. I’ve read them all and most of them at least twice, so you know I’m a fan. While I thought a couple of his recent novels were somewhat weaker than usual, this one was certainly not. He has set a high standard for  his work. Although when I consider which one of his books that I’ve liked the best, I can’t make a choice. An Inside Job just may be his best, although I’ve  written that before.

 

Five years retired from the clandestine Israeli force that he worked for, Gabriel Allon now works for his wife’s art restoration firm, and Allon is thought to be among the finest art restorers in the world, especially of the old masters. Allon now lives in Venice with his family, a wife and twins, a boy and girl. Although no longer a spy, he is a consultant with various police departments about various serious crimes. In this case, he learns a particularly valuable piece of art has been stolen out of the highly secure vaults in the Vatican. Prior books about Allon have established his long and deep friendship with the current Pope, so it is not surprised that Allon is consulted in this case. The matter gets much more complex as a young apprentice restorer has been found murdered, and the work she has done was on an undiscovered portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting had long been buried beneath a painting by a lesser known artist. Beyond the importance of such a discovery by Leonardo was its current value, probably of half a billion dollars. Not only does the Vatican expect to recover the painting, the Pope needed to understand how such a theft could have occurred.

 

Who could afford to buy such an expensive painting? The pursuit of the painting involved multiple bidders and other interested parties including a Russian oligarch, the Camorra which was the most violent part of the Mafia, the financial dealings of the Papacy itself, and two financiers who worked to launder money for the Camorra. The Carabinieri, the Italian police were deeply involved in solving the case. Meanwhile, the Pope was trying to reform the church and root out the massive corruption that he knew existed. There were substantial forces against him who wanted the various corrupt schemes to continue, and the Pope’s life was in danger, along with the life of his buddy, Gabriel Allon. It was during his time as a young priest that the current pope had a torrid love affair, and since his appointment as the new pope, his former paramour reemerged.

 

That’s enough information. It remains my opinion that in this particular genre, that I’ve never encountered an author who writes with more skill than Silva. His character development and plot creation are superior. He produces his new books once a year, so I eagerly await the next one, then read it in a day or two, and then have to wait a whole year for another. An Inside Job was a book that was worth the wait.

Murder at the Orpheus Theatre

 Murder at the Orpheus Theatre by Irina Shapiro, although just published in February 2025, is truly written as an old-time mystery which takes place in London in 1859. It begins with the intriguing idea that the co-stars of the production of Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy by Shakespeare in which both title characters die at the end of the play, are actually murdered on stage in front of their audience. The actors were able to finish their roles and their deaths were only discovered at the first curtain call when did not come to the stage to bow to the audience and receive their applause. Their bodies showed now signs of trauma, so they had not been shot or bludgeoned. Who could have pulled off such a double homicide? Why were these two well-known actors a target of murder? 

The audiobook was performed by Imogen Church, and she brought out the old-time quality to the story. I assume actors of the day delivered their lines in overly dramatic, emotive and flowery fashion, which in today’s world seems too exaggerated and unbelievable. This style of reading certainly added to the enjoyment of listening. It felt like I was listening to vintage radio shows. So, it was fun although not something that I want to encounter on a regular basis.

 

Meanwhile, there was a most interesting cast of characters, most of whom had secrets and possible interest in murdering the young actors. Inspector Sebastian Bell and Gemma Tate were the main players. Bell had to deal with a troublesome boss while trying to solve the case, and Tate was an unusual woman for her time. She was bright and educated as a nurse. Rather than seeking life as a housewife and mother in a world in which women had almost no rights of independence from a husband, Gemma volunteered to go to Crimea for the Crimean War which lasted from 1853 to 1856. In Crimea, her services were highly regarded and she learned more about the world than she could have by staying at home in London. Upon her return to London, she immediately ran into struggles with a male dominated society that did not give credit to a woman’s opinions or ideas. She happened to be at the theater on the night of the murder.

 

The author explored the lives of the many people and patrons of the theater and really took the reader on a delightful tour of what life was like from people who occupied vastly different roles in the society of the time. The book provided both good character development and a well-designed plot. I had come across this book when I was searching for a new audiobook to listen to during my early morning dog walks, and I was duly entertained.

Bodily Harm

Thanks to my son-in-law, Mateo, I’ve discovered the work of Robert Dugoni, and Bodily Harm is the sixth book I’ve read by Dugoni. Once again, the protagonist is David Sloane, the third book of the series. Sloane has a most interesting start in life as a charismatic child preacher in Mexico, but he escaped the slaughter by the cartel attack on his village and secreted to the U.S. Unfortunately, he ended up in the U.S. foster system and saw early life from a cascade of different and dysfunctional foster homes. Somehow, he was able to extract himself from those traumas and to educate himself right through law school. He became one persuasive and successful lawyer, but his life was bereft of companionship and love. Sloane managed his early adult years by paying attention to how he should act to get ahead, not how he really felt. 

Given his brilliance and attractive appearance, he finally started a relationship with Tina and she proved to be a critically important person for him. She taught him how to love. Tina had a son by a prior marriage which she had left because it was simply emotionally dead and flat. But, she produced a wonderful son, but life with her husband was troubled by his substance abuse. With Tina and Jake, David had a family and life was good. But Sloane got involved in a case that involved the world of toys. There was big money involved in the development and marketing of a new toy created by an independent toy maker, Kyle Horgan. Kendall Toys bought the toy from Horgan who then returned to his life of isolation. Kendall’s main competitor was Galaxy Toys and those two were out to control the production of this new miracle toy and for the survival of their own companies. Early marketing results suggested that it was bound to be the next hot item – the toy was a sort of super transformer which was made of plastic but contained a number of small but very powerful magnets. However, there was a design in its production. If the magnets were not contained in a high but expensive plastic, then those magnets could be fatal to youngsters who swallowed them.

 

When the prototypes were made with a cheaper grade of plastic, a couple kids did died.

But their cause of death was not understood to be due to the magnets. A wonderful doctor was successfully sued by Sloan, and he won a huge judgement against Dr. Douvalidis. When Sloan learned Douvalidis had done nothing wrong, it was too late because the doctor had committed suicide. It was then that Sloan turned his attention to Kendall, the toy’s manufacturer. This was literally a dirty business and an attempt was made on Sloan’s life, only to have his wife get caught in the middle of a gun fight that left her dead.

 

I won’t reveal any more of this excellent plot. Not only is the plot bold, interesting, and believable, the characters themselves are very well developed. This book deserves a 5-star rating. You won’t be disappointed.

The New Couple in 5B

On the basis of experiences that can’t be understood otherwise, I do believe in paranormal phenomena. Given the typical fiction thrillers that are read and then reviewed in this blog, it’s clear that the reader must have some talent for setting aside reality testing, at least to some degree in order to enjoy the books we write about with such gusto. To make a book interesting and believable, there’s a line the author must ride between uncommon experiences of the characters and the unreality which would make a story preposterous. The authors that we review over and over again are the ones who understanding that distinction. 

The New Couple in 5B is the third book I’ve read and reviewed by Lisa Unger, and I’ve provided favorable reviews for Under My Skin and Confessions on the 7:45. There were certainly strong hints early in the book that the occult would be a part of this story, but I did not fully realize the extent that the occult was really the centerpiece for the author’s plot. It’s my opinion that Ms. Unger has crossed the line between reality and the preposterous. I found myself getting eager just to finish the book and not so excited about what the author would do with her characters.

 

If you’re more attracted to the occult content of his book than I am or if you have more of an ability to set aside all reasonable reality testing than I do, then I could recommend the story to you. However, I’m disappointed that I took the time to read it to the end.

Nightshade

 

Michael Connelly has written about 40 novels and Nightshade is unrelated to the Bosch series of 24 books and the Lincoln Lawyer series of 7 books, etc. Men Reading Books has reviewed nearly all of Connelly’s work. None of the usual characters were mentioned in this story. A new protagonist has been introduced, Detective Stillwell who has been assigned to Catalina Island for the last year. Catalina is 22 miles offshore from Los Angeles. He had been sent to Catalina as punishment for his behavior in a murder investigation in Long Beach when he knew a compatriot Detective Ahern (fondly referred to by his associates as A-Hole) had cut corners on a case and wrongfully got an old buddy freed of charges. Stillwell (who A-Hold referred to as Stillborn) was enraged, but he made a mistake in the way he addressed the problem and his contentions about A-Hole were not supported. So, he found himself out of the limelight and in a position on Catalina that typically was not a place where one could ever get promoted. He was ordered to keep his investigation and any police activities confined to the island and to do no such detective work on the main land.

 

Connelly presented Catalina as the quiet and beautiful idyllic place that it is. Rather than hating this assignment, Stillwell found himself to be quite happy with the style of life there. Little happened during the weekdays, and the island tended to fill up with tourists for the weekend when drunks was the most interesting work for  the police. It was also a haven for the wealthy who built weekend palatial homes there. The wealthy arrived in their yachts and often belonged to the exclusive Black Marlin Club.

 

This was a story of the huge gap between the lifestyle of the very rich and that of people who had a more typical income. There were also people with little income who simply came to the remote areas of the island to avoid other people for one reason or another. There was a cast of people who either lived there or arrived on weekends to service the wealthy ones.

 

There were three crimes that occurred that resulted in Stillwell having to once again associate with A-Hole and the other officers who saw Stillwell as an outsider. The first crime was the murder of a Buffalo which roam about the mostly deserted island. The second had to do with the seemingly unprovoked assault of one of Stillwell’s deputies when a bar patron hit the unsuspecting deputy over the head with a wine bottle. The third crime had to do with the murder of a waitress from the Black Marlin Club who had been on gold digging activities with the male members. Her body was found wrapped around an anchor on the floor of the Avalon Harbor. Meanwhile, Stillwell began a romance with a native of the island, Tash (short for Natasha), and we learned about the other typical social activities that went on for the locals.

 

I thought this was an engaging novel. As Bosch essentially aged out as being a great protagonist, we now have a new honest and determined detective who is unwilling to let crimes go unsolved and criminals go unpunished. Connelly has done it again and I hope to read more of Detective Stillwell.

Confessions on the 7:45

 Confessions on the 7:45 is the second novel by Lisa Unger that I’ve read and reviewed in this blog. She’s been a remarkably prolific author whose work I only became aware of recently.  This is a story of painful and failing marriages and vulnerable people who end up entrapped by sociopaths who prey on such defenseless people. The novel is complicated by family and genetic entanglements that are only known by the sociopaths who are playing a long game against their victims. Also, the story covers some of the long-term complications of the victims who learn to identify with their captors. This is a most interesting and captivating novel in which Unger displays her grasp of the psychological thriller.

When Canaries Die

When Canaries Die is the third book in a three-book series in which the protagonist is a hotshot Harvard attorney Pierce Evangelista. This book is also the first, but not the last, review of a novel in this blog by Luis Figueredo. After finishing this book and before writing the review, I immediately downloaded the first book in the series, Dime. 

The story is a gruesome one about the next deadly virus that attacked the world. It originated with the Kayapo Indians in Brazil and it was quickly realized as having a fatality rate as bad as Ebola (93%) and was at least as contagious as Covid-19. As the disease rapidly spread throughout the world, there was no vaccine available and no other treatments were known. Initially, it was thought that blood transfusions would help delay the disease, and as a result, the world’s supply of blood was quickly exhausted. People were desperate to find a new source of blood, and it was then that Mexican cartels discovered it was more profitable to sell blood that it was to sell drugs. They began murdering people who were migrating through Mexico to get to the U.S. Meanwhile, the current American administration had put in place even more severe standards for letting anyone into the country as one means of containing the virus. Those people who were trapped on the Mexican side of the border became the cartels’ targets, and thousands were killed. The cartels were able to sell all the blood they could produce to one unscrupulous company, Lighthouse. The masterminds of Lighthouse managed to get the American administration to pass a law that would protect the company from any criminal liability.

 

It was an elegant argument before a federal judge when Evangelista explained the connection of the title of the book to the current horror, likening the use of canaries in coal mines as a safety measure to detect toxic gases, a technique that always killed the canaries. He said, “Today, the pandemic has made poor people targets as a resource for blood so others stricken by the virus can receive treatment. The migrants camped on our border desperately seeking asylum are human canaries.”

 

The first half of the book was about the spread of the disease and the worldwide panic that the disease cause, and the second half was about the legal battle between Evangelista and Lighthouse. This was one great legal drama. I’m ready for more from Luis Figueredo.

The Good Lord Bird

 

 

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride, the author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store which I recently reviewed, is a historical fiction novel about the life of John Brown. As an undergraduate American History major, I was well aware of John Brown’s raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia which occurred in late 1859. I knew that this event was an important precursor to the Civil War. The greatest fear in the South was of a slave rebellion. John Brown hoped that the raid he engineered would lead to the capture of federal weapons, and as a result, would stimulate a slave rebellion. However, the raid was a miserable failure in which many of Brown’s small army were killed including a couple of his sons. Brown was shot and badly injured although he survived until his trial. He was captured, found guilty of fomenting an insurrection, and subsequently hung for treason. But that was really the extent of my knowledge of John Brown and the failed raid. Even when I did an online search for information about John Brown, I got only a little more details about his earlier years.

 

McBride has filled in a lot more information. The narrator of the story was actually a slave boy, about 12 years old in 1956 when he managed to join up with Brown because it was obvious Brown was fond of him and would provide him with food and shelter. Brown had been married twice and fathered a total of 22 children, some of whom died as infants or children. His first wife died and his second wife out lived him. Despite fathering so many children, Brown was often on the road, first as a preacher of apparent biblical material that he often made up. Because literacy was not common, there were few people who could challenge him about his knowledge of the Bible. When he became an obsessed abolitionist, he traveled with a small army to Kansas where he participated in the “bleeding Kansas” when the slavery issue in Kansas was to be determined by a vote of those living in Kansas. It was a most violent time, and Brown came to the attention of federal soldiers after he killed a couple local people there.

 

Meanwhile, the narrator was initially thought by Brown to be a girl who he affectionately called “Onion.” Onion chose to maintain his false identity as a young girl because he was afraid to challenge Brown who was a severe task master, and Onion perceived it was just safer to be a girl in the face of the violence happening around him. McBride mostly concentrated the story in the years in Kansas in 1956 until John Brown’s raid in October 1959, and his hanging two months later. The hanging was was only three months before the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President. It was only about 5 weeks after Lincoln’s inauguration that the Civil War began with the firing on Fort Sumter.

 

The dialogue in The Good Lord Bird was incredible, spoken like the language of the time. In the drama of the story, I sometimes felt that Onion was like the ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith who almost constantly yells at his listeners. But the language itself was rich as it seemed to accurately portray the generally uneducated people about whom McBride mostly wrote. Whether it was true or not, McBride wrote of Brown’s friendship with Frederick Douglas and his encounters with Harriet Tubman. There’s no doubt that he was one of the most famous men in the United States at that time. From Kansas to Virginia, John Brown was often operating on bad information, and time-after-time, he had lucky encounters in which he avoided injury or death. He always claimed that the almighty would protect him. He charged on with his goal of abolition, despite the loss of one son along the way before his arrival at Harper’s Ferry, and the loss of two more sons during the raid. He was constantly trying to build up his army only to constantly see his troops take their leave of him. He was continuously and comically preaching his version of biblical words and stories as support for his intent to free the slaves.

 

I found this story to be captivating and I recommend it highly.

 

 

Under My Skin

 

It has happened to me again. Although we’ve now reviewed 1,779 books, mostly mysteries and thrillers, thanks to an old friend (yes, that means we’re old and have known each other at least 50 years), I’ve learned about Lisa Unger. She writes in our genre and has written about 30 novels – what a substantial body of work not to have been discovered by Men Reading Books before now. I listened to Under My Skin, which was written in 2018, in audiobook format via the library app Libby.

 

The protagonist, Poppy, had her very ideal life disrupted when her husband Jack was murdered while running in the park in the early morning hours. Although they often ran together, they had just had a big disagreement and Poppy was still angry and chose not to join him that morning. She was then haunted by the notion that he might not have been shot if she had been along. The crime had gone unsolved for a year during which she had a complete emotional breakdown, was hospitalized, and was treated with significant doses of tranquilizing medication. Poppy and Jack had been working together in a business that Jack had dreamed up and she was willing to join him. They both had been free-lance photographers and had very interesting lives traveling the world in pursuit of their art. Their business was one of representing other photographers, and that meant staying at home in New York City to manage the careers of lots of other artists. It was a loss to give up doing art themselves, but the business was very successful and provided them with a rich lifestyle. After her partial recovery from her grief, which was sometimes literally psychotic, Poppy became determined to keep the business going. Fortunately, she had a staff that loved her and Jack and who were eager to work for Poppy despite her continuing symptoms of severe depression.

 

Poppy continued to have desperate moments, nightmares, flashbacks, some trouble distinguishing her fantasies from reality. It was true was that someone was following her. As her recovery continued, she wondered if her nightmares were also real memories. As a physician who practiced psychiatry for 50 years and who treated many patients who had been through severe physical and emotional traumas, I can attest that Ms. Unger wrote a very realistic portrait of people who have suffered such traumas.

 

The author provided interesting twists in the plot and I did not see the end coming until I got there. This novel gets my very strong recommendation. I’ve already chosen my next Unger novel.

 

Vicious Circle

 Vicious Circle by Wilbur Smith is the second of a three-book series regarding his protagonist, Hector Cross. Recently, I favorably reviewed the first book, Those in Peril. We quickly learn in this second book that not only has his step-daughter Cayla been murdered by the evil forces with which Hector had contended in the first book, but also Cayla’s mother, his wife, Hazel Bannock was murdered. Hazel is quite the remarkable woman in all regards. We learn much more about the death of her husband, oil baron Henry Bannock from whom she inherited billions and his significant net worth. The story dives deeply in the Bannock family history to help understand the horrible tragedies to which Hector was subjected. Importantly, more details about Henry’s death are revealed.

 

The plot is just as intense and fast paced as the first book. However, I must say that this is probably the darkest story that I’ve ever read with regard to human cruelty, torture, perversion, sexual trauma and hate. So, be forewarned about that if you choose to pick up this book. I need not write more except that I probably will eventually get to reading the third book in this series, entitled Predator. However, I need a break from the depravity before I get to that.

Shadows of Iran: Forged in Conflict: From Iranian Rebel to American Soldier

Shadows of Iran: Forged in Conflict: From Iranian Rebel to American Soldier is the debut novel by Nick Berg, a story that is partially autobiographical, but is noted to be historical fiction. In the book, the protagonist was Ricardo Rosen. The story began when his American father and Iranian wife were living in Detroit and it was there that Ricardo was born. He was a U.S. citizen. When his father suddenly disappeared and left Ricardo with his mother, life changed dramatically for them. When his mother spent all the money she had on unsuccessfully trying to locate her husband, she felt she had no choice but to return to Iran. However, because it was socially shameful for a woman in the 1970s to have a child and not be married, she chose to get remarried to a man who was abusive to her and her son.

 

When Khomeini helped lead a revolution against the Shah in 1979, life for Ricardo and his mother once again changed dramatically. Although he hid his anti-Khomeini attitude for his own safety and that of his mother and younger sister, life was most difficult. Even though he was a student with a legitimate deferment, He eventually was conscripted into the Irani infantry where he took advantage of his military training and experience. By being in the military he had a regular diet, something he could not count on otherwise. After he got out of the military, he joined the resistance to Khomeini and the Republican Guard. Ricardo actually became famous under the nom de guerre of the Shadow Rider of Tehran. He sabotaged many things during which he kept his name secret while he plagued local law enforcement by his actions.

 

The story takes him back to the U.S. and eventually to the U.S. military. Throughout his activities, he was secretly monitored by his father who was working for one of the three-letter agencies. There were many years of his father, David, watching over and controlling the dangerous assignments Ricardo received as he progressed up the chain from infantryman, to sniper, to Ranger, and finally to various black operations. He was frequently put in very dangerous and life-threatening situations, and it was only because of his great talent and demeanor that he survived. The author also wove his love life into the story, some of which were challenged by his dedication to his service duties. There were troubles in is marriage, and he constantly worried about the welfare of his daughter.

 

This period of time in history was one of high tension between the US. and Iran. The author described not only the dangers that Ricardo was having, but he also gave a clear portrait of what life was like for civilians in Iran. I found the civilian and military experiences experienced by Ricardo to be totally authentic. There were some plots that were not finished, such as his secret but highly influential father, and what was happening to his daughter under the tutelage of his troubled and alcoholic mother. Mr. Berg has set up a sequel to this story and I’m eager to see what happens to these characters.

 

I rate this book highly and it gets my very strong recommendation.