Another interesting and entertaining novels by one of my favourite new-to-me authors.
Google AI overview:
The Player (2014) by Brad Parks is a thrilling mystery novel, the fifth in his Carter Ross series, featuring investigative reporter Carter Ross delving into a deadly disease in Newark, uncovering dangerous mob ties to a construction project, and dealing with personal chaos, including an unexpected pregnancy by his former girlfriend, all while navigating a toxic newsroom.
It’s known for its gripping plot, realistic look at journalism, and a compelling mix of crime and personal drama.
But her 2024 V.I. Warshawskinovel has some structure. More than usual, in any case.
V.I. finally gets paid serious money for her time and continuous physical punishment.
Still dealing with the trauma of a previous case and the strain on her personal relationships, V.I. Warshawski travels to Lawrence, Kansas, to attend a college basketball game involving a friend’s daughter.
Trouble soon finds her when one of the young athletes, Sabrina, disappears. V.I. agrees to stay behind and investigate, but quickly finds herself out of her element in a town where she has no established contacts and faces hostility from local law enforcement and powerful figures.
Her search for Sabrina uncovers a local opioid distribution ring and a complex land-use battle with historical roots going back to the 1860s.
When V.I. finds Sabrina close to death in a drug house, and later a dead body in the same location, she becomes a prime suspect, landing in the FBI’s crosshairs.
By day, it sells auto parts to vehicles trundling through town. By night, it sells some of the best damn Pakistani-style BBQ chicken parts I’ve tasted anywhere …
Despite its proximity to the equator, Arusha’s elevation of 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) on the southern slopes of Mount Meru keeps temperatures relatively low and alleviates humidity.
Harry S. Chou, on the Large Print Reviews website, which reviews large-print editions of books, likes the whole Clifton Chronicle series, saying, “I think that The Clifton Chronicles series by is unique among long running fiction series, because it is only getting better with each new volume!”
I’d agree.
The last 2 books in the series are at least as compelling as any of the rest.
Cometh the Hour is the sixth novel in Jeffrey Archer‘s Clifton Chronicles. This series follows the events of the fictitious Clifton and Barrington families, starting in the 1920s.
Cometh the Hour opens with the reading of the suicide note of Alex Fisher, MP. This note has potentially devastating consequences for Harry and Emma Clifton, Sir Giles Barrington and Lady Virginia Fenwick.
Sir Giles must decide whether to divulge the contents of the note to the press. If he does so it could ruin his political career. He also is considering to end this career to try to rescue a lady he met and loves (Karin) who is in East Germany and barred by that government from emigrating to England. He also must consider whether Karin loves him or whether she is a spy for the Russians.
Lady Virginia, the ex-wife of Sir Giles, is facing bankruptcy because she does not know how to wisely manage her money. She seems certain to lose about everything until she is introduced to a wealthy, but gullible, man from Louisiana, Cyrus T. Grant III. Lady Virginia cooks up a scheme to force Grant to pay her a generous monthly sum for years to come.
Sebastian Clifton is now the Chief Executive of Farthings Bank and because he lost his fiancée years before is now a workaholic.
He falls for Priya, a beautiful Indian girl. But her parents have already chosen her future husband and she has no say in the matter. Sebastian also makes contact with his fiancé and their daughter to see whether the old relationship can be patched up.
Sebastian’s ruthless enemies Adrian Sloane and Desmond Mellor are still plotting to take over Farthings and will stop at nothing, legal or otherwise, to achieve their goal.
Harry Clifton, now in his mid-50s, has been working to get Anatoly Babakov, who wrote an unauthorized account of Joseph Stalin, released from a gulag in Siberia and allowed to travel to New York, where his wife had lived for many years following his imprisonment.
Former army intelligence officer Michael Kohler, … has been in hiding for most of his adult life after absconding with $20 million during a mission in Libya.
The novel follows a team of four women who are sent out into a government-managed, uninhabited location called Area X to study and survey the land and ecosystem. They are the twelfth expedition, with previous expeditions having fallen apart due to disappearances, suicides, aggressive cancers, and mental trauma. …
… the biologist discovers copious bloodstains and a large hidden pile of hundreds of past expeditions’ journals, some detailing battles against a monstrous presence …
It won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel — but I can’t really recommend it. I won’t go on to the sequels.
It tells the story of a young girl, Charlie McGee, with the ability of pyrokinesis, whose destructive force a ruthless government agency tries to harness for their own purposes.
… forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation with deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence. …
The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and when Tempe delves into the property’s history, she becomes suspicious about the ownership.
The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle.
Soon the duo learns that back in the 1930s and ’40s the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang.
While interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attack? …
Rick McCharles 