Late afternoon, Virginia, and a woman is on the run. Her husband, a former U.S. Senator named Lincoln Bowe, has been missing for days. Kidnapped? Murdered? She doesn’t know, but she thinks she knows who’s involved, and why. And that she may be next.
Hours later, a phone rings in the pocket of Jacob Winter. An Army Intelligence veteran, Winter specializes in what he thinks of as forensic bureaucracy. Congress, the Pentagon, the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security — when something goes wrong, Winter kicks over rocks until he finds out what really happened. The White House is his main client, and the chief of staff is on the phone now.
If Bowe isn’t located soon, he is told, all hell will break loose.
It works because the cast and dialogue is so quirky.
I laughed out loud at every episode.
In a high-tech future, a rogue security robot secretly gains free will; to stay hidden, it reluctantly joins a new mission protecting scientists on a dangerous planet even though it just wants to binge soap operas.
The 1st is far from a brilliant murder mystery. There’s no way I could have guessed the killer from the clues.
BUT I was charmed by Lana Lee, our investigator.
It’s a short, easy read. A cozy mystery. Almost Young Adult.
The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal break-up and a dramatic workplace walk-out, she figures that helping wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together. Even if that means having to put up with her mother, who is dead-set on finding her a husband.
Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead―after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee.
But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy?
Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy―to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for take-out―it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order. . . before her own number is up.
The book ends with Lana heading off on a date. There’s hope for her.
At Elaine’s, his favorite New York City restaurant, Barrington meets Carrie Cox, an aspiring actress and singer intent on landing a big Broadway musical part. In the meantime, she works as a lipstick model for an advertising agency.
Meanwhile, Barrington is hired to investigate artist Derek Sharpe and convince him to stay away from Hildy, a rich girl who’s soon to come into trust fund big money .
Rafe Khatchadorian has never been cool. But all that changes when he becomes the guitarist in an awesome rock band and wrangles a part-time job at Hills Village’s trendiest new coffee shop slash yoga studio. No more being at the bottom of the middle school food chain—Rafe is finally going to be popular!
He just has two teeny problems: the awesome rock band is led by none other than the school bully. And the band actually isn’t awesome—they absolutely stink, and Rafe has to whip them into shape for the Best Band Competition.
With Rafe’s newfound coolness on the line, will he find a way to hit the stage in style or is he doomed to dorkdom forever?
The CBS made for TV movie looks entertaining, as well. 😀
The 6th book in the Jane Whitefield series — Runner (2009) — is good, but the weakest of the collection, so far.
For more than a decade, Jane pursued her unusual profession: “I’m a guide . . . I show people how to go from places where somebody is trying to kill them to other places where nobody is.”
Then she promised her husband she would never work again, and settled in to live a happy, quiet life as Jane McKinnon, the wife of a surgeon in Amherst, New York.
But when a bomb goes off in the middle of a hospital fundraiser, Jane finds herself face to face with the cause of the explosion: a young pregnant girl who has been tracked across the country by a team of hired hunters.
That night, regardless of what she wants or the vow she’s made to her husband, Jane must come back to transform one more victim into a runner.
Smolder — Stone Barrington Novel #65 — is first in the long series written completely by Brett Battles.
The original Barrington author, Stuart Woods, died in 2022 at age-84. Battles has taken over.
I’m impressed at how similar this book is to the Stuart Woods style. I really couldn’t tell the difference. Battles reread the entire series in order to stay consistent.
An entertaining plot.
I was interested to see that Battles had self-published most of his own novels. This one is published by Putnam’s.
Stuart Woods had been working on a new novel in his popular series of books about cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington when he died. Would Battles be willing to come on and write the rest of the book?
… I said, ‘Well, yes, please, I would love to do that,’” says Battles, who immediately got to work on what would be published as 2023’s “Near Miss.” …
Finally enjoying some downtime in Santa Fe, Stone Barrington agrees to attend an art exhibit with a dear friend. There, he encounters an intriguing woman who is on the trail of a ring of art thieves. Always one to please, Stone offers his help.
From Santa Fe to Los Angeles, it quickly becomes clear that her investigation has links to Stone—particularly to rare Matilda Stone art, his mother’s paintings. And when old grudges come to light, Stone is forced to reckon with a familiar enemy.
Rick McCharles 