Not nearly one of the best Lucas Davenport mysteries.

It had potential ➙ a multiple personality villain. But I’d agree with this review:

Clunky and Unrealistic

A widow comes home to her large house in a wealthy, exclusive suburb to find blood on the walls, no body — and her college-age daughter missing. She’s always known that her daughter ran with a bad bunch. What did she call them — Goths? Freaks is more like it, running around with all that makeup and black clothing, listening to that awful music, so attracted to death. …

But the police can’t find the girl, alive or dead, and the widow truly panics. There’s someone she knows, a surgeon named Weather Davenport, whose husband is a big deal with the police, and she implores Weather to get her husband directly involved.

Lucas gets in only reluctantly — but then when a second Goth is slashed to death in Minneapolis, he starts working it hard. The clues don’t seem to add up, though. And then there’s the young Goth who keeps appearing and disappearing: Who is she? Where does she come from and, more important, where does she vanish to? …

JohnSandford.org

Like nearly everyone, I was charmed by “Molly Maid” in the 1st book of this series — The Maid (2022).

She’s literally the best maid in the world. 😀

Somewhere on the autism spectrum. 

The Maid’s Secret (2025) is excellent, as well.

Molly has been promoted to Head Maid and Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel.

She’s in love and looking forward to getting married.

But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle.

On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone’s surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure.

Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.

The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. …

NitaProse.com

Patrick Lee came to prominence with his first novel, The Breach (2009).

I don’t like thrillers and can’t recommend this one, though it is popular.

Actually, the premise and start of the book are excellent. Ambitious and inventive.

If you like Michael Crichton, you’ll probably like this book. And the 2 sequels.

Thirty years ago, in a facility buried beneath a vast Wyoming emptiness, an experiment gone awry accidentally opened a door.

It is the world’s best-kept secret—and its most terrifying.

Trying to regain his life in the Alaskan wilds, ex-con/ex-cop Travis Chase stumbles upon an impossible scene: a crashed 747 passenger jet filled with the murdered dead, including the wife of the President of the United States. Though a nightmare of monumental proportions, it pales before the terror to come, as Chase is dragged into a battle for the future that revolves around an amazing artifact.

Once the characters left Alaska, I started to lose interest. The twists and turns didn’t do anything for me.

Jeffery Deaver is probably my favourite author, overall.

South Of Nowhere (2025) is 5th in the Colter Shaw series.

BUT … this book is not nearly one of my favourites. I found it too slow.

BUT I quite appreciate the mantras that run through Colter’s head, which he picked up from his survivalist father.

In the TV adaptation — Tracker — Justin Hartley plays Colter Shaw. A good pick.

When a levee collapses in Hinowah, a small town in Northern California, Colter Shaw is brought on by his sister, Dorion, a disaster response specialist, to help locate a family swept away by the raging water, with mere hours to survive.

But after a surprise attack along the river obstructs Colter’s urgent search, the siblings are forced to consider a new reality: Is the levee at risk of failing from natural causes, or is someone sabotaging it? Colter and Dorion must race against a ticking clock to uncover the truth and save the citizens before the village washes out completely, destroying everything and everyone in its path.

NOT recommended.

I’ve read all the Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny.

But I’ve been disappointed with most — and even more disappointed with The Grey Wolf (2024), 19th in the series.

Best are the people of Three Pines — and there is very little of that in this book.

The plot is too complicated and utterly unconvincing. It’s a bad thriller.

Even worse, the clues are nearly non-existent. There’s no way Gamache would have reacted as he did in this one.

Sadly, the next book is likely to be part 2 of this nonsense.

A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading “this might interest you”, a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list―and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization.

Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.

Armand Gamache, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command, and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends.

Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. …

The 11th book in the Lucas Davenport Prey series is quite good.

… the strangulation victim is Alie’e Maison, she of the knife-edge cheekbones and jade-green eyes: as models go, one of the biggest.

… there are a few small complications. Such as the drugs in her body and the evidence that she had recently made love to a woman. Such as the fact that one of Lucas’s own men had been at the party, and is now a suspect. Such as the little surprise they are all about to find when they search the house: a second body, stuffed in a closet, with a deep dent in its skull.

The whole case is going to be like this, Lucas knows — secrets piled upon secrets, the ground shifting constantly under his feet. …

JohnSandford.org

13th book in the series, Fresh Disasters (2007) is entertaining. All of the books with the village idiot, Herbert Fisher, are hilarious.

Stone Barrington has even more problems with women than usual. The excessive sexual content is entirely unnecessary — but I imagine the majority of readers have come to expect it. 😀

A chance encounter with a small-time crook sends Stone Barrington straight into the heart of New York’s mafia underworld …

It started out as just another late night at Elaine’s, but it ended with Stone on the horns of a dilemma. Forced to represent a sleazy but clueless con man, Stone finds that what could have been a throwaway case instead leads right to Carmine Datilla, a powerful mob boss with a notoriously bad temper and long reach.

With the help of his ex-partner, Dino, Stone investigates “Datilla the Hun,” and the rest of the mob family, encountering intrigue and danger at every turn.

Will Stone finally take a stand, or will he end up at the bottom of Sheepshead Bay?

Robert Crais is a terrific detective fiction author. Often listed with Lee Child and Michael Connelly.

Sadly there’s only one of his books available in audio in my 2 libraries. I’ll have to PAY MONEY if I want more.

L.A. Requiem (1999) is 8th in a series of linked novels centering on the private investigator Elvis Cole. …

Elvis Cole is contacted by business partner and friend Joe Pike to accept the request of Frank Garcia, owner of a tortilla company. The old tycoon wants the two to look for his daughter Karen Garcia …

Karen’s body is found by the police on a jogging trail in Lake Hollywood. …

The police are trying to cover facts about this murder. About half way through, Joe is charged with murder of a suspect in the case.

Things look grim for Elvis Cole.

I very much recommend this book.

Dark Harbor (2006) is another fun, quick read.

Stone Barrington hasn’t heard from his cousin, Dick Stone, in years.

Then, an otherwise pleasant meal at Elaine’s is interrupted by the CIA with news of Dick’s death—apparently by his own hand.

It seems that Dick Stone, a quiet family man who doubled as a CIA agent, methodically executed his wife, daughter, and then himself…or did he?

Appointed executor of Dick’s will, Stone must settle the estate and—with the help of his ex-partner Dino and friend Holly Barker—piece together the elusive facts of his cousin’s life and death as a CIA operative.

As usual, womanizing gets Barrington in a lot of trouble.