Marlys Purdy is a crazy woman who has endured the political system long enough. She blames the political system for the loss of the farm she had with her dead husband and the continued financial system that perpetuates the same cycle.
She is ready to take action and stop Michaela Bowden, a potential Democratic presidential candidate from going any further in the campaign in Iowa.
Marlys has a plan. Together with her derange son who has had some military service in Iraq, they put their plan into action. …
Detective Lindsay Boxer‘s daughter is age-4. That’s how I keep track of these newer books. 😀
Fictional California has enacted a NEW lawrestricting the most dangerous firearms. Needless to say, some of the Gundamentalists are revolting.
There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.
Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:
He’s an insane pathologist drug addict who studies the moment of death of his victims. He removes their eyes so they can’t look at him from the afterlife.
… police reach out for the man who knew Bekker best, but when Lucas arrives, he finds unexpected danger as well.
For Lily Rothenburg, the policewoman whose intense affair with Lucas has never completely faded, is there too. Now, consumed with her own investigation of a group of rogue killers within the police department, she draws Lucas into her orbit again, until their hunts merge, their twin obsessions driving them ever closer to the edge . . . and then over.
For me, this book was not focused enough on one plot line.
AND it’s incomprehensible authorities couldn’t catch him sooner.
Davenport tries to solve the murder(s) before a Senate election night.
Time is short.
He knows the killer(s). But can’t prove it.
Silken Prey is a novel about political corruption.
… In this novel, we meet one of the most narcissistic of the bunch, democratic candidate for the Senate Taryn Grant, a wealthy, gorgeous, sexy, and driven woman who will do whatever is necessary to achieve her goal to fill the Senate seat for the State of Minnesota -even if that involves murder. …
A man named Tubbs disappears and is feared dead. He is suspected of having planted child pornography on the republican candidate’s computer, resulting in a highly-publicized scandal that threatens to ensure Taryn Grant the senate seat. ..
Number 27 in the entertaining Lucas Davenport series.
I wouldn’t call this one of the best — but I still enjoyed it.
Thanks to some very influential people whose lives he saved (including the President), Lucas is no longer working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but for the U.S. Marshals Service, and with unusual scope.
He gets to pick his own cases, whatever they are, wherever they lead him.
… A Biloxi, Mississippi, drug-cartel counting house gets robbed, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl.
Davenport takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins, including a torturer known as the “Queen of home-improvement tools” compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house.
Things get ugly real fast, and neither the cartel killers nor the holdup men give a damn about whose lives Davenport might have saved; to them, he’s just another large target.
Over past months, the author I’m reading most is John Sandford.
Saturn Run (2015) is a big departure from his usual murder mysteries.
It’s Science fiction, co-written by photography expert Ctein.
The year is 2066. …
The USA and China send spaceships to investigate what appears to be some kind of object near Saturn.
The race is on.
… an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond.
The alien technology revealed is fascinating.
And the plot — I found — quite original.
Certainly there was too much scientific mumble-jumble for this reader.
And the pacing was too slow for me. I wish the book had been shorter.
But it’s worth reading. Especially for fans of Science Fiction.
I enjoyed the last few paragraphs. Sandy had been arrested and sentenced to five years in prison — but …
Spy thriller. Set after the murdering dictator-for-life invaded Ukraine.
A very good book. This is the kind of writer that other authors admire.
It is a little … long.
Published January 28, 2025.
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move.
Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several US intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government. …
Much of his childhood was spent living around the world, including time in Afghanistan and the Philippines.
Capable of speaking multiple languages, Finder began learning Farsi as a child navigating the streets of Kabul.
From an early age, Finder was placed in extremely stressful environments with many unfamiliar faces surrounding him.
Eventually, Finder’s family settled permanently just outside of New York.
Finder was born into the Cold War era of detente and mutually assured destruction with Russia.
Consequently, it is no surprise that someone as cultured and well-travelered as Finder became interested in the Soviet Union, the KGB, and Russian history. From high school to college at Yale, Finder devoted his studies to anything and everything Russian From history to politics to the government, Finder became an expert on Russian affairs.
It’s mockery of the cozy mystery genre. Makes fun of the authors.
And we readers don’t come off too well, either. 😀
All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series—is that too much to ask?
Clearly it is, because when an attempt is made to kill the real Connor—the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can’t get out of her life—Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.
Contending with literary competitors, rabid fans, a stalker—and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly—theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who’s really trying to get away with murder?
Catherine Mack is the pseudonym for thriller writer Catherine McKenzie. Her other books include Have You Seen Her, Hidden, Smoke andThe Good Liar. She is currently based in Montreal.
Twisted Prey (2018) is #28 in the Lucas Davenport series.
They are all good — but, for me, this one had too little action.
Lucas Davenport had crossed paths with her before.
A rich psychopath, Taryn Grant had run successfully for the U.S. Senate, where Lucas had predicted she’d fit right in. He was also convinced that she’d been responsible for three murders, though he’d never been able to prove it.
Once a psychopath had gotten that kind of rush, though, he or she often needed another fix, so he figured he might be seeing her again.
He was right. A federal marshal now, with a very wide scope of investigation, he’s heard rumors that Grant has found her seat on the Senate intelligence committee, and the contacts she’s made from it, to be very…useful.
John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. He is the author of twenty-eight Prey novels; four Kidd novels; ten Virgil Flowers novels; three YA novels co-authored with his wife, Michele Cook; and three other books.
Rick McCharles 