Aaron Elkins is a near-legendary mystery author who seems to be able to create fascinating series characters at will (the Gideon Oliver, Chris Norgren and Lee Ofsted series are all worth checking out). In THE WORST THING, he tries a stand-alone approach featuring security and kidnapping management consultant Bryan Bennett.
Bennett works for a security firm, writing presentations for large-scale companies on how to avoid having their executives kidnapped for ransom. He himself was kidnapped at an early age, and it severely traumatized him. As an adult, he started work as a negotiator in hostage situations and while he had some success, one terrible debacle involved the death of two innocent girls. Now he prefers to stay behind the scenes, do research, write reports, stay out of the limelight.
[click to continue…]
After 15 novels, Lee Child must have felt it was high time he present the origin story of his best-selling series character, Jack Reacher. Oh sure, we caught a glimpse of Reacher’s early career in THE ENEMY, and even Reacher as a boy in Child’s online short story, “Second Son.” But how did the former Army military police officer become a drifter with no baggage we first met in KILLING FLOOR?
The answer is part of what’s in store for us in THE AFFAIR. The year is 1997, and 36-year-old officer Reacher is assigned to the small town of Carter Crossing, Miss. A woman has been found murdered, and evidence points to the nearby Fort Kelham military base.
[click to continue…]
Rome isn’t just a character in the Nic Costa series of novels written by David Hewson; it’s really the main character. And as much as Costa can’t imagine living outside of Rome, I can’t imagine this series being so entertaining and successful if Rome itself weren’t the star.
This series, now in its ninth installment with THE FALLEN ANGEL, would be a perfect companion for your Roman vacation. You could twirl around the ruins, churches and monuments while reading exciting and captivating murder mysteries. Sounds like a plan.
[click to continue…]
I’m not sure why we needed THE COUNTESS by Rebecca Johns. It’s a fictionalized account of one Báthory Erszébet, or Elizabeth Bathory, who came to be known as The Blood Countess, because she was convicted of killing at least 80 servant girls under her care.
Set in early 17th-century Hungary, this is a chilling story of perhaps the most active serial killer we know, and indeed, at least four books have been written in English about her, including Tony Thorne’s COUNTESS DRACULA, to which the author acknowledges her indebtedness.
[click to continue…]
Patrick “Shep” Shepherd is having a bad decade. The former rookie pitcher for the Boston Red Sox turned gung-ho Marine has been deployed to some of the worst spots in the world. He hasn’t seen his wife and daughter in 11 years. His left arm has been blown off below the bicep. And if that weren’t enough, the Black Plague is about to be unleashed on his current home of New York City.
Author Steve Alten is primarily known for his man-vs.-prehistoric-shark series MEG. Now, in the new-to-paperback GRIM REAPER: END OF DAYS, he ventures into a potential end-of-the-world scenario: What if the U.S. government tried to weaponize the bubonic plague, and what if it then fell into the wrong hands? The last time the Black Plague ran rampant back in the 14th century, nearly half the world’s population perished as a result. But what if it were unleashed on a population of 7 billion with access to faster means of travel?
[click to continue…]
