The first book in this trilogy was excellent ➙ Even.

Though still entertained by David Trevellyan, something of a British naval intelligence officer James Bond, I found the plot of this one much less skilled.

Die Twice (2010) is 2nd in the David Trevellyan trilogy.

He’s one of the best undercover agents in the world. A seasoned operative for British intelligence.

But when he finds a body in the streets of New York, David Trevellyan is a prime suspect.

Arrested by the NYPD, interrogated by the FBI, Trevellyan swears he had nothing to do with it. But no one believes him―especially when the victim turns out to be a federal agent.

Now his country won’t help him. His contacts can’t save him. But that won’t stop a man like Trevellyan. Whoever set him up is going down.

Even if it kills him…

Excellent

Andrew Grant is the brother of bestselling thriller writer Lee Child. When he writes Reacher, his pseudonym is Andrew Child.

Even (2009) was his 1st published novel. And it’s great. Much different than Lee Child.

Our hero is David Trevellyan, something of a British naval intelligence officer James Bond.

He’s one of the best undercover agents in the world.

A seasoned operative for British intelligence.

But when he finds a body in the streets of New York, David Trevellyan is a prime suspect.

Arrested by the NYPD, interrogated by the FBI, Trevellyan swears he had nothing to do with it. But no one believes him―especially when the victim turns out to be a federal agent.

Now his country won’t help him. His contacts can’t save him. But that won’t stop a man like Trevellyan. Whoever set him up is going down. Even if it kills him…

Amazon

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Quite good.

An easy read. But with some entertaining twists.

House on Fire (2020) is 4th in the series.

Nick Heller, private spy, exposes secrets that powerful people would rather keep hidden.

At the funeral of his good friend Sean, an army buddy who once saved Nick’s life and had struggled with opioid addiction since returning wounded from war, a stranger approaches Nick with a job.

The woman is a member of the Kimball family, whose immense fortune was built on opiates. Now she wants to become a whistleblower, exposing evidence that Kimball Pharmaceutical knew its biggest money-maker drug, Oxydone, was dangerously addictive and led directly to the overdoses and deaths of people like Sean.

Nick agrees instantly, eager to avenge Sean’s death, but he quickly finds himself entangled in the complicated family dynamics of the Kimball dynasty. …

JosephFinder.com

Dance for the Dead (1996) is the 2nd book in the Jane Whitefield series.

Jane Whitefield is a Native American who has made a career out of helping people disappear.

Perry weaves Native American history, stories, theology, and cultural practices into each novel.

This book is intense.

To protect a young boy in Dance for the Dead, Jane has to hunt down the person responsible for killing multiple people.

Another client that Jane reluctantly accepts had stolen millions of dollars through fraud, but the client’s expertise helps Jane identify the killer.

From the Publisher

One of the reasons that I love Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitfield books is that they are filled with so much arcane information about the darker side of life.

Perry fills you in on how to fabricate a life, steal a car, or set up a bank account using someone else’s Social Security Number.

The 14th book in the Lucas Davenport series is a GOOD one.

12-year-old muskrat trapper Letty West is a wonderful character. The plot is intriguing and entertaining: a stolen car ring, an ex-nun who smuggles cancer drugs over the Canadian border, and the usual internecine wrangling between the FBI, the local cops, and Davenp

… in Naked Prey (2003), he puts Lucas Davenport through some changes.

His old boss, Rose Marie Roux, has moved up to the state level and taken Lucas with her, creating a special troubleshooter job for him for the cases that are too complicated or politically touchy for others to handle.

In addition, Lucas is married now, and a new father, all of which is fine with him: he doesn’t mind being a family man. But he is a little worried. For every bit of peace you get, you have to pay — and he’s waiting for the bill.

It comes in the form of two people found hanging from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota.

What makes the situation particularly sensitive is that the bodies are of a black man and a white woman, and they’re naked.

“Lynching” is the word that everybody’s trying not to say — but, as Lucas begins to discover, in fact the murders are nothing like what they appear to be, and they are not the end of it. …

JohnSandford.org

Hot Mahogany (2008) is an unusual book in the Stone Barrington series.

One night at Elaine’s, Stone Barrington – back in Manhattan after chasing down the bad guys in the Caribbean – meets Barton Cabot, older brother of his sometime ally, CIA boss Lance Cabot.

Barton’s career in army intelligence is even more top secret than his brother’s, but he’s suffering from amnesia following a random act of violence.

Amnesia is a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chockfull of state secrets, so Lance hires Stone to watch Barton’s back.

As Stone discovers, Barton is a spy with a rather unusual hobby: building and restoring antique furniture.

The genteel world of antiques and coin dealers at first seems a far cry from Stone’s usual underworld of mobsters, murderers, and spies. But Barton also is a man with a past, and one event in particular – in the jungles of Vietnam more than thirty years earlier – is coming back to haunt his present in ways he’d never expected.

Stone soon finds out that Barton, and some shady characters of his acquaintance, may be hiding a lot more than just a few forged antiques.

I’m certain author Stuart Woods had great fun writing these formulaic, entertaining, trashy novels. Especially the James-Bond-like sex scenes.

This is the first book I’ve read by Thomas Perry. I will be downloading more.

His prose is lean, clean and typically understated.

Eddie’s Boy (2020) is one of the Butcher’s Boy series.

… the third sequel to “The Butcher’s Boy,” after “Sleeping Dogs” and “The Informant,” and everything that happens in this book proceeds directly from the events of that first novel.

The title character is a man who calls himself Michael Schaeffer.

Orphaned in adolescence, he was raised by Eddie Mastrewski, a Pittsburgh butcher who was also an accomplished — and much sought after — hit man.

Trained from an early age in both professions, “Michael” became a perfect — and perfectly remorseless — killing machine, lending his peculiar talents to anyone willing to pay. …

The opening sentence of “Eddie’s Boy” sets the stage for what will follow: “Michael Schaeffer had not killed anyone in years, and he was enraged at the fact that he’d had to do it again tonight.” …

Washington Post review

The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel (2024) is 6th in the Renée Ballard series of books.

I’d say Harry Bosch has passed the torch.

Any author of a police procedural who reads this book knows they are looking upon the master. Nobody does it better than Michael Connelly.

In cold cases, it’s not the hope that kills you. It’s the waiting.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago.

The arrested man is only twenty-four, so the genetic link must be familial: His father was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen—a theft she can’t report without giving her enemies in the department ammunition to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her mission draws her into unexpected danger.

With no choice but to go outside the department for help, she knocks on the door of Harry Bosch.

At the same time, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit: Bosch’s daughter Maddie, now a patrol officer. But Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls—a case that may be the most iconic in the city’s history.

The Waiting

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Shoot Him If He Runs (2008) is … a guilty pleasure. 😀

Junk food reading.

And it’s not nearly the best of the Stone Barrington series.

Stone Barrington and Holly Barker pursue a master spy and murderer in a tropical paradise …

Rogue agent Teddy Fay has been considered dead for some time now. But President Will Lee thinks Teddy may still be alive. In a top-secret Oval Office meeting, Stone Barrington learns that he and his cohorts, Holly Barker and Dino Bacchetti, are being sent to the beautiful Caribbean island of St. Marks, courtesy of the CIA, to track down Teddy once and for all.

St. Marks is a vacationers’ paradise, but its luxurious beach clubs and secluded mountain villas are home to corrupt local politicians and more than a few American expats with murky personal histories. Stone and Holly soon discover that in St. Marks, everyone is hiding something—and that Teddy Fay may just be hiding in plain sight.