Tag Archives: mystery

Book Review of Flash Bang, by Kellen Burden

Leave a reply

Flash BangOver a year ago, I downloaded Kellen Burden‘s Flash Bang from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
Sebastian Parks is drowning in a flood of his own creation. Dishonorably discharged from the Army, he’s wracked with night terrors and an anger that he can’t abate. Unemployable and uninterested in anything resembling a normal job, Parks makes his living in fugitive apprehension, finding wanted felons on Facebook and thumping them into custody with his ex-military buddies John Harkin and Eric “Etch” Echevarria. When the body of a teenage Muslim boy is found in front of a downtown Denver nightclub Parks, Harkin and Etch are called on to do what they do best: Find bad men and make them pay.

Review:
Wow, color me impressed! I went into this book with very few expectations, but I sure didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. Parks is such an incredibly compelling character. He’s funny in a sarcastic, ironic, somewhat desperately sad sort of way. You really feel him and hope ’till the end for his better tomorrow. The book is told from his first person point of view and the narrative is definitely indicative of his mental headspace. Here is an example (pulled pretty much at random):

When we’re done eating, she sighs, a very satisfied, pleasant sound. I don’t remember the last time I sighed because I was content, and there’s something about the way she does it that makes me hope for myself.
Says: “Okay. So, to business.”
And I nod, say: “I really appreciate you doing this for me.”
Says: “Tarik’s geography teacher didn’t have a lot to say about him.

Notice the use of Say (him)and Says (the other person in a conversation). This is how a lot of the book is written and it takes a little while to get used to. It’s not technically proper and it’s undeniably clipped, but stylistically, for a strong, damaged, silent-type, ex-CID soldier character it works perfectly.

And the man is damaged. He’s a bit of an anti-hero. Though not named, he’s obviously suffering some PTSD issues and struggling with guilt and feeeeeelllings. His two partners are fairing better, but they are all pretty much propping each-other up to one extent or another. (And I do love finding this in a book.)

There are a couple running…not gags, so much, but funnies that pop up more than once. My favorite being the “He said ‘Oh’…not like…but like someone asked who stared in Die Hard and you said Bruce Willis.” It’s dryly funny in context, believe me. I think I highlighted about half the book just because I found so many of the passages memorable for one reason or another—humor or poignancy or just blatant, unexpected honesty.

This book was a surprise hit for me. It’s gritty, and violent, and darkly noir-like. I found myself telling my husband about it in the exact same manner our seven-year-old reports the grand adventured of Phineas and Ferb at the dinner table. Though it’s only Jan. 4, I wouldn’t be surprised to find I finish the year with this still in my top 5 reads of 2015.

murder takes patience

Book Review of Murder Takes Patience: A Frankie Donovan Mystery (Friendship & Honor #3), by Giacomo Giammatteo

Leave a reply

Murder Takes PatienceI bought a copy of Murder Takes Patience, by Giacomo Giammatteo. It’s book III of the Friendship & Honor series. I previously reviewed books I & II, Murder Takes Time and Murder Has Consequences.

Description from Goodreads:
Even good people are haunted by nightmares. Some are kept awake by things they did in the past: Lies they told, people they cheated, laws they broke. 

The ones who lived the worst lives are haunted by more than lies or broken laws. Their sleep is stolen by the people they killed. 

Nicky Fusco isn’t like any of them. He’s not bothered by lies, or broken laws. Not even by the people he’s killed. 

Nicky is kept awake by the people he hasn’t killed yet.

A Pre-Read Note:
I just finished a book I didn’t enjoy. I disliked it so much, in fact, that I didn’t even bother with a blog post about it. But I don’t want to end 2014 on such a sour note. So here at the final hour, I’m pulling out a standby author, one I can count on to write a book that will leave me sated and happy. Giacomo Giammatteo has become one of my favorite authors and is probably in my top five favorite Indie authors (if you separate Indie and traditionals, which I do simply because I’ve had a lifetime to discover traditional ones and only about 2.5 to discover great Indies). G.G. don’t let me down now.

A Post-Read Review:
*Sigh* Yes, I’m a happy reader. Really I could stop right there. I read this book. I’m happy as a result. Something about Giammatteo’s writing always clicks with me and I long ago fell in love with Nicky Fusco and Frankie Donovan.

Nicky is something like Leon, from The Professional, in the sense that he is stone cold and somehow soft at the same time. It’s a heady mix. Frankie is the classic good cop who struggles with doing the right thing while honoring his older loyalties at the same time.

But there are so many layers and so much enmeshment between the two men that nothing can ever be straightforward again. Frankie’s ability to remain a clean cop often comes at the expense of Nicky’s willing ness to get his soul dirty. Thus, there is so much guilt and love and sacrifice and giving that goes on between these two men that the reader just melts.

I have to admit that I didn’t think this book was quite as well polished and finished as previous books. I noticed a few editing mishaps and didn’t love thing quite as much as in Murder Takes Time and Murder has Consequences, but this is still ranking in best of 2014 list.

Book Review of Night Watch (Em Ridge, #1), by Linda Hall

Leave a reply

Night WatchAuthor, Linda Hall sent me an e-copy of her novel Night Watch.

Description from Goodreads: 
Desolate Maine shores… Murder… And peace slipping away on the outgoing tide… 

For yacht delivery captain, Em Ridge, having a billionaire’s daughter go overboard on her first captaining job is not a good beginning. The sailboat is new, state of the art, her crew on this trip include two close sailing friends. But an unknown fourth, who can’t even tie a bowline, and the unruly owner’s daughter turn the idyllic trip into an adventure not wanted. 

Two years ago Em buried her husband, her soulmate, her sailing buddy, and with him buried a secret. As hours on the open seas slide by, secrets are resurrected that tie Em’s past to a present, awash with murder and deception. 

Will Em’s career go overboard? Will the investigating detective help her or hurt her? Any why does the best boat delivery captain on the east coast pull at her heart strings? 

The oft foggy coast of Maine holds secrets it does not want to give up, and a lot of bodies can be hidden in The Pine Tree State’s largest city.

Review:  Slightly spoilerish
Honestly, this was almost a five star read for me. The writing is marvellous. The setting is sublime. The character’s love of the ocean is palpable and the mystery, while not hard to figure out, was engaging.

There were only a few things that kept it from being five star worthy for me and most hinge on simplicity, by which I mean simple plot devices. For example, the whole premise of the mystery is that a girl is murdered on a boat, while out to sea. There were only five people on that boat, including the dead girl. Despite this minuscule pool of suspects, Em is never included as one. Instead she’s permitted unprecedented access to case information and even asked to assist the detective. What? Why?

Here’s another one, Em needs information about her husband’s death in order to put things together, then, without being asked or any communication between them a medical examiner decides to start looking at the 18 month old closed case again and sending her information. What? Why would he do that? It’s too simple a solution to a plot necessity.

The big one, though, the one that literally made me set the book aside and play with my social media for an hour, because I didn’t want to have to read any more of it, was Em’s blind spot regarding a certain character’s trustworthiness. She meets up with him for the first time in 10 years, having crewed with him only once before (so they have no relationship, not even a nod as you pass friendship) and because he’s nice to her, she starts having ‘growing feelings’ for him within a day.

But everything about him is suspicious and Em sees that, but she still trusts him in the face of OBVIOUS clues to his ill-intent and tells him everything, even going so far as to pass items to him that people are killing over. And there is no feasible reason she should, none. Nothing in this particular part of the story is believable. Every-time she ran to him and confided everything to him, I asked why and wanted to give up on her. In the end I just had to accept the story needed her to trust him to progress, but that’s not a good enough reason.

There were also a few times things stretched a bit thin. For example, at one point Em finds a clue saying, “The key is somewhere only Em will know.” But when you find out where it is, Em doesn’t know of it and she only learns of it by coincidence. Hmmm

The book also has a cliché, ‘Now that I have you at my mercy, let me tell you everything, answer all your questions and then conveniently botch killing you.’ ending that doesn’t feel all together natural. Plus, she doesn’t so much solve the mystery as stumble into the answer.

Despite these complaints (and some thin characterisation), the book is very good. I enjoyed the fact that Em (with the exception of her interactions with one man) is smart and self-assured. I loved the setting. I liked the non-development of a non-relationship that slipped in at the end, but you can still sense is ‘something.’ They felt very broken but real in the last few pages.

All-in-all, I had a few complaints, but am calling this a general success. I’ll be keeping my eyes on Mrs. Hall’s work for sure.