Cross Down: An Alex Cross and John Sampson Thriller (2023) was appealing in that — for the first time — John Sampson is the lead character. Alex Cross shot and hospitalized early in the book.

Unfortunately, the plot is even more absurd than usual. I was tempted to quit.

As the book opens, President Lucas Kent is meeting with General Wayne Grissom, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the White House. …

Violent attacks have been peppering the nation, and Kent and Grissom don’t know if foreign or domestic terrorists are to blame — or a combination of both. Their fear is that there will be bigger and deadlier ones, culminating in an unprecedented attack on the nation’s capital. …

Sampson goes on a clandestine mission in which no cavalry will be called upon to bail him out should it all go sideways. …

BookReporter Review

Perhaps something was lost in translation — but I really couldn’t get in to this variation on the Agatha Christie plot.

I only made it about half way through the book.

The Decagon House Murders (十角館の殺人, Jukkakukan no Satsujin) is a 1987 Japanese mystery novel, the debut work of author Yukito Ayatsuji.

Borrowing its basic plot structure from Agatha Christie‘s And Then There Were None (Christie’s book is directly referenced by some of the characters at several points), it tells the story of a group of seven university students who travel to a deserted island that was the scene of a grisly mass murder six months earlier, where events soon turn ominous. 

This is considered one of the best of the Prey series. Number twenty-five.

Gathering Prey (2015) is a crime novel written by Pulitzer Prize winning writer John Sandford. …

Letty Davenport a young college girl receives a call from Skye a traveler she met briefly in San Francisco.

Remembering that Letty’s adoptive father is a detective she requests help in finding her companion Henry, who has just gone missing.

Soon Skye is missing as well and Detective Lucas Davenport decides to investigate further. He soon finds himself pursuing a drug dealer named Pilate in a chance that crosses state lines and exposes him to variety of sub cultures and their gatherings.

Though I couldn’t get into this author’s Nick Heller series, I’ve been reading some of his stand alone books.

The Fixer is another with an interesting plot.

It evolves out of corruption during Boston’s  Big Dig — the most expensive highway project in the United States, plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, accusations of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal charges and arrests.

When former investigative reporter Rick Hoffman loses his job, fiancée, and apartment, his only option is to move back into–and renovate–the home of his miserable youth, now empty and in decay since the stroke that put his father in a nursing home.

As Rick starts to pull apart the old house, he makes an electrifying discovery—millions of dollars hidden in the walls.

It’s enough money to completely transform Rick’s life—and everything he thought he knew about his father.

Yet the more of his father’s hidden past that Rick brings to light, the more dangerous his present becomes. Soon, he finds himself on the run from deadly enemies desperate to keep the past buried, and only solving the mystery of his father—a man who has been unable to communicate, comprehend, or care for himself for almost 20 years—will save Rick…if he can survive long enough to do it.

This book is too long. Too slow. And nobody would make the obvious mistakes Rick Hoffman does … BUT I still recommend it.

You end up cheering for the poor guy. 😀