Merciless-Lori Armstrong

Merciless


Lori Armstrong

Touchstone, Jan 8 2013, $15.00

ISBN 9781451625363



Former Army sniper Mercy Gunderson recently became an FBI special agent. Mercy struggles to adjust to the boring training in Rapid City for new law enforcement officials and as a civilian with her love-in ranch boyfriend Eagle River County Sheriff Mason Dawson and being legally recognized as a Minneconjou Sioux tribesman due to her one-fourth blood but not accepted as a member. Adding to her chaos is his tweener son Lex who was exiled to live with them.



Mercy and her partner Shay Turnbull investigate the murder of teenage Arlette Shooting Star, the Eagle River Reservation tribal president’s niece. She was found naked with a staked protruding in her heart. When she challenges tribal leaders and FBI superior officers, Mercy is exiled to researching tribal archives; where she finds cold case evidence of a probable serial killer. Unbeknownst to her, this psychopath targets Mercy as the next vicimt.



The third Mercy Gunderson investigative thriller is a strong entry as the protagonist, used to making her own rules on a case (see Mercy Kill and No Mercy), finds she is hampered by bureaucratic officialdom. The storyline is fast-paced and filled with action as the audience anticipates a showdown between a predatory maniac and a diligent law enforcement operative.



Harriet Klausner

Vampire Defense-James D. Bell

Vampire Defense


James D. Bell

Sartoris Literary Group, Nov 9 2012, $14.95

www.sartorisliterary.com

ISBN: 9780985885212



In Jackson, Mississippi lawyer John Brooks works ethically and diligently providing the best legal advice to his clients. The court administrator appoints Brooks with his first media-frenzy case; defending Hal “the Butcher of Belhaven” Boyd who is charged with arson and four counts of murder. Boyd tells Brooks his reason for living ended when he killed the creature who destroyed his fiancé; and now he just wants to die.



As the international press comes to Mississippi for the Boyd trial, Brooks files a guilty by reason of insanity plea; as his client claims he killed a vampire. The media and the legal world have a field day ridiculing the “Vampire Defense”while heaping scorn on the dedicated attorney and his staff. Soon threats to drop the case arrive followed by assaults, arson and abductions.



The Vampire Defense is a terrific over the top of Woodall Mountain “paranormal” legal thriller that enthralls the audience with wondering whether the undead live. Fast-paced, fans will widen their definition of good and evil with obsessed individuals willing to do anything to further their agenda. With a double helix climax, fans who appreciate something different will want to read the legal defense of an avenging vampire slayer and cultists seeking their brand of revenge; caught in the crosshairs is Brooks and his team.



Harriet Klausner

The Start of Everything-Emily Winslow

The Start of Everything


Emily Winslow

Delacorte, Jan 8 2013, $26.00

ISBN: 9780385342902



Just outside Cambridge, the decomposed corpse of a female teen comes ashore in the marshes. Recently promoted Police DI Chloe Frohmann and her just off medical leave partner DCI Morris Keene investigate the case. Chloe feels added pressure from other cops for failing to provide back-up to Morris when he was injured during an interview and her superior wants her to report whether Keene is ready for active duty.



At the same time as the two cops struggle to learn who their victim is, the daughter of Cambridge University Mathematics Professor Tobias Oliver, Mathilde, has made it her mission to locate campus people whose mail is undeliverable. She currently searches for a student Katja; unaware of the mess she steps into. Soon all converge on Deeping House.



Emily Winslow’s second Cambridge University police procedural (see The Whole World) is an exciting thriller that rotates perspective between the key players in the past and present. That methodology enhances the reader’s insight into the motives of the cast but also leaves the storyline somewhat disjointed. Still this is a suspenseful tale as the audience will want to know what transpired at Deeping House over the holidays.



Harriet Klausner

Grain of Truth-Zygmunt Miloszewski

Grain of Truth


Zygmunt Miloszewski

Bitter Lemon, Jan 8 2013, $14.99

ISBN: 9781908524027



In 2009 former Warsaw Prosecutor Teodor Szacki knows his unfulfilling affair with reporter Monica Grzelka destroyed his marriage, and left him alone without family in exile in Sandomierz, a provincial city that shuts down at 6 PM. However, he became a local celebrity when he solved the case of a murdered Ukrainian prostitute that led to him breaking up a human-trafficking ring.



An unknown psychopath viciously slashes numerous times the throat of Elzbieta Budnik before dumping her nude body for all passersby to see in a ravine below the city’s medieval walls. Szacki leads the homicide investigation in which the exorbitant number of cuts and draining of the blood imply a crime of ritual passion. Szacki learns a knife used by Jewish butchers is the murder weapon, which has the prosecutor wondering if a religious sacrifice occurred. Additional similar murders occur including Budnik’s spouse and Szacki feels pressure to end the serial ritual killings.



The second Polish State Prosecutor Szacki case (see Entanglement) is a great murder mystery that hooks the audience from start to finish as the whodunit takes center stage but cleverly enhanced by a close look at Szacko’s middle age despair. The terrific storyline contains ties to anti-Semitism dating back to WWII, but leaves the reader pondering until the super climax whether it is a Jew enacting vengeance or a non-Jew using a convenient scapegoat.



Harriet Klausner

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors: Ann Rule's Crime Files Volume 16

Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors: Ann Rule's Crime Files Volume 16


Ann Rule

Pocket, Nov 27 2012, $7.99

ISBN: 9781451648287



In 2009 a blizzard hammers West Valley, City, Utah. During the storm, Susan Powell vanished. Her husband Josh said he assumed she ran off with another man leaving him with their two pre-school sons. Susan’s parents and three sisters insisted this was out of character for her as she always wanted a family. In 2011, a second tragedy strikes the Powell family.



In 2011 at the Spreckels Mansion in Coronado, California, billionaire owner Jonah Shacknai’s son Maxfield falls from a balcony; he is placed in a medical induced coma. Jonah’s girlfriend Rebecca is found hung to death.



These two taut novella-length true crime entries and the seven other shorts affirm that the author still rules the genre. The sixteenth Crime Files lives up to its title of beware of “Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors.”



Harriet Klausner

The Cezanne Chase-Thomas Swan

The Cezanne Chase


Thomas Swan

Morrow, Nov 27 2012, $14.99

ISBN: 9781557049674



In St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, someone mutilates Paul Cezanne’s Self-Portrait in a Beret. In London’s National Gallery, someone tosses acid on Paul Cezanne’s Self-Portrait without a Beret. Scotland Yard's Art and Antiques Detective Chief Inspector Jack Oxby investigates the destruction of the Cezanne in the National Gallery only to learn that another work by the great artist owned by private collector Alan Pinkster was destroyed by acid too. This time the director of the Pinkster Gallery in Surry Clarence Boggs died from the toxin used to destroy the third Cezanne.



Shocked like everyone in the art world except perhaps one nefarious patron by the international destruction of the Cezanne masterpieces, affluent New Yorker Edwin Llewellyn worries about the safety of the Cezanne self-portrait he owns. Astrid Haraldsen introduces herself to Llewellyn as the opening gambit for her and her associate Peder Aukrust to destroy Llewellyn’s Cezanne as the original 26 known self-portraits methodically are being destroyed.



This reprint of the first Oxby art mystery is an action-packed globetrotting thriller that will keep readers enthralled from start to finish even as the engaging storyline becomes obvious. Filled with suspense, Thomas Swan paints an intriguing mystery inside of the capitalist world of art.



Harriet Klausner

The Blood Gospel-James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell

The Blood Gospel


James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell

Morrow, Jan 8 2013, $27.99

ISBN: 9780061991042



In Caesarea, archaeologist Dr. Erin Granger and her team find evidence of a tomb containing hundreds of dead babies buried two millennia ago. She thinks they may have found King Herod’s “Massacre of the Innocents.” In Masada, an earthquake kills hundreds including the parents of Tommy, a child taking chemo due to melanoma; he survives and miraculously his cancer is cured.



Erin, U.S. Army Sergeant Jordan Stone and Father Ruhn Korza explore a tomb concealed for centuries until the earthquake. They find the crucified body of a child who died just over a decade ago. While still inside the tomb, the trio fights for their lives when inhuman beings attack them. Father Ruhn believes the answers can be found in the mystical missing tome allegedly scribed by Christ in his blood. The threesome begins a trek to obtain this holiest of holy books by Christ in order to bring divine sanctification to a secret Vatican order the Sanguines exposed by Rembrandt but ignored by all until now.



The first exciting Order Sanguines Christian horror thriller grips the audience from the moment the tomb in Mount Masada is discovered and keeps that hold until the final sacrament occurs. Readers will enjoy traveling to Germany, Russia and ultimately the Vatican with the protagonists as our guides through a Church with a history of good and bad. Although the storyline is straightforward, The Blood Gospel is a super ride.



Harriet Klausner