Reminder...

These are all my opinions.  Free and unsponsored.  I doubt others see the world quite as I do.

He's back!

Who is He?  John le Carre.  And he is back with a new tale of suspense and intrigue.OUR KIND OF TRAITOR  (978-0-670-02224-3) is le Carre's debut with a new publisher, Viking.  The tale?   A young British couple  decide to have a very special vacation in the Caribbean.  And then, Perry plans to change is life and do something different.  Little does he now.  Perry was a tutor of literature at an Oxford college and a ranked amateur tennis player.  Gail is rising star as a barrister and the long time girl friend of Perry.  They are looking forard to this dream vacation that may well be the beginning of a nightmare.This is to be a tennis vacation of a life time.  But not in the way they plan.  While at the resort they meet a Russian family  who have many secrets and seems to be deliberately seeking them out.  And not just for tennis.  Le Carre has not had his flair for clever plots diminish over time.  It appears that the Russian  is one Mr. Dima and he and his family are more than they seem.  Dima is a member of a Russian criminal brotherhood and he wants to rat out his fellow cohorts  He also wants to tell how even international financial business is influenced by this criminal brotherhood.  Gail and Perry are sucked into a plot of fear, defection, danger, and actual spying.  They become foils for British intelligence as well a target for both sides.  After reading the  adventure titles mentioned in the previous post, I was delighted to go back to a book by a master.  The plot featured ordinary people who became involved in extraordinary things.  It was timely is its coverage of the Russian and eastern Europe crime lords in many countries.  The characters are well developed with a back story to make them believable. I was fascinated by the extended Russian family and would have loved to have learned more.  The children hold many of the keys and the secrets.  The reader really care about what will happen to the future of Gail and Perry after they have been used and spit out by the government.  The book tackles the morality of getting involved in situations such as this as well as how much pressure can be used by government sources to gain what they want.   And does the end justify the means?  The ending of this book is fascinating and may pose a question instead of an answer.  This is  well worth reading.

Wrapping up the adventure title...

Where have I been?  The weather took me outside.  Fall is so beautiful with all the colors on the trees.  And the garden is giving up the last of its treasures.  So writing took a back seat to observation. But back to the last three books I mentioned for adventure.  I left them for last for a reason.  They were  interesting,  but not all that great.  THE MULLAH'S STORM is timely and uses the Afghan conflict as a back drop and has a fast moving and gritty plot involving a transport plane that is shot  down in a remote area of Afghanistan during a blizzard.  Three people begin a battle of survival against the enemy as well as the enemy.  These people are the plane's navigator, a woman army interpreter and the prisoner - a high ranking Taliban detainee.   The action is bloody and the people are rather stereotypical. It has its moments.  The author Thomas Young should know of what he writes as he served in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Air National Guard.  THE HOLY THIEF is OK, but I have read better.  It is set in Russia during the early Stalin era and paranoia is rampant.  Religion and politics are in conflict as are political parties vying for supremacy.  Purges are beginning and people are dying all over.  The book portrays a lot of the people as alcoholics as well, so some characters seem stock portrayals.The portrayal of the scene in Moscow in this era is good.  The people I have met many times by other names in other books.  I think the author has promise, but this story  leaves me a bit disappointed.  Lots of blood and gore.Churches are the scene of murders, as well as a lot of other places.  Really a large cast to keep up with.  Actually. some of them I would like to have known better.  For people who like to read about Russia. And for WARLORD?   Not exactly my cup of tea.  A British counterspy ( who makes Bond look like a piker) is called back to stop a killer from assassinating the royal family of Britain.  Fortunately the agent is a personal friend of the Prince, so he has easy access to the family.  From there on it is a lot of one dimensional people with lots of macho derring do.  Reads like a co0mputer game plays.  Fast, furious, bloody and with a high body count.  Enjoy.

I'm back!!

As promised,  I'm back.  The book JUDGMENT AND WRATH reminded me of the Mack Bolan series.    Violence is extremely graphic.  And there is a lot of gratuitous collateral damage.  But it doe not seem to slow people down too much.  This story has a good plot even so. Joe Hunter is a kind of "have gun, will travel"  sort of guy.  He basically is out to right wrongs and his current home is in Florida where it seems there are a lot of wrongs to right.  Of course, his methods are a bit extreme.  He is hired by a seemingly unhappy father who claims his daughter is being abused by her lover she lives with. And father wants Joe to bring her back. Of course, if something happens to the lover Bradley Jorgenson along the way, that would be great.  Being somewhat of a sucker for a damsel in distress and seeing a photo of a bruised Mari he agrees.  He walks into a real mess. Father is not the only one who wants to get rid of Bradley.  A professional hit man is also involved.  Well, from here on out the action is fast, furious, and deadly.  It seems that Jorgenson's money comes from some chemicals that also are of great interest to the government and there is an ongoing family argument as to how they should be used.  The bodies stack up.  Loyalties are divided.  And of course, there is the obligatory run in with the federal agents.  We discover with Joe that Father has not told all of the story and his interest in getting Mari back is not what it seems.     The action is non stop.  Computer gaming comes to mind.  The plot is plausible and timely with its tie in it the Iraqi war. The characters are pretty much cutouts, but you know what?  It still held my attention.

more catch up

These novels could all be classifed as action, adventure, suspense and intrigue.  They could also be catagorized as the good, the bad, and the ugly.  THE RULE OF NINE by Steve Martini, (Morrow,978-0-06-193021-80, THE HOLY THIEF by William Ryan, (Minataur, 978-0-312-38645-40), JUDGEMENT AND WRATH by Matt Hilton,(Morrow,978-0-06-171813-7), THE MULLAH'S STORM by Thomas W. Young,(Putnam,978-0-399-15692-2), WARLORD by Ted Bell, (Morrow, 978-0-06-202059-80.) are included. 
I always enjoy Steve Martini's books that feature Paul Madriani as an attorney who is his own man and marches to his own drum.  This time the case involves a young man who inadvertently helps in an attack on our government 's Supreme Court.  The attack is carried out by an Old Weatherman who wants to destroy what he sees as a right wing conspiracy.  And that is not the only conspiracy available.  And of course no one is as he pretends to be and most lives would best be left uninvestigated. In chasing down this suspect, Madriana also has to deal with a killer from his last case who is involved in this one and deal with a few personal demons.  Suspenseful and has enough feel of the current times to make one say what if to some of the characters.  This is the good of the lead in. 
I'llbe back... talking about another book that, although really violent, has its moments.,

Nobody's perfect...

The bonus book preview on the earlier post, THE JANUS STONE, was authored by Elly Griffiths and will be published by Houghton Miflin Harcourt (ISBN 978-0-547-23744-2) in January 2011.   Bit of a teaser for you.  I think you will enjoy the characters, the history and the  interpersonal relationships.

And for the record,,,,and you will see this statement in many different forms throughout my posts....No one pays me to give- or not to give- my opinions about what I read.  Just so you know. 
I think the next few book looks you will see will be some adventure and suspense and what can loosely be referred to as men's fiction.  Remember the old Mark Bolan series?  Well, some remind me of that.  Talk with you later.

And more...

VERMILLION DRIFT is a look at a timely problem.  Storage of atomic waste.  This time when the government wants to store waste in the mine in Minnesota.  Because of the ensuing demonstration, the mine owners call in Cork O'Connor as a security consultant.  Unfortunately on his first day at the mind he discovers several bodies in an abandoned tunnel.  Five of the bodies aer about fifty years old and one is new.  And they have all been murdered.  This causes O'Connor to look in to the history of the town, when his father was sheriff and when "The Vanishings" occurred.  Oddly enough the same gun was used on the latest victim that was used for a murder earlier.  The investigation opens up old wounds, old secrets, and  makes O'Connor rethink his own past.  Kreuger is a star at creating a sense of place in his books. 
Jance has several series going for her.  QUEEN OF THE NIGHT  takes its name from the plant, the night blooming cereus.  The book brings back the Walker family and focuses on a mu8rder in the desert that is witnessed by a young child.  The folklore of the Tohono Nation is juxtaposed with a few ghosts as well as the customs of the Native Americans.  Dr. Lani Walker, herself Native American, and adopted by the Walkers is central to this story as is the Iraqi war veteran Dan Pardee.  This is another powerful story with a haunting sense of place.
THE JANUS STONE is another in the series featuring the forensic archaeologist,Ruth Galloway.  She is called in to investigate when a headless skeleton of a child is found on the site of an old mansion that was once an orphanage.  The odd think is that some one is trying very hard to frighten her away.  There is also the added fillip of having Galloway having some very personal problems to face. A dark story.

As I was saying...

Until I catch up with all the books I have read this summer, I will continue to batch the books by subject. with fairly short comments.  So many books, so many thoughts to sort through.  So here goes.  It is back to the mysteries again.  This time by well now authors.  We have QUEEN OF THE NIGHT BY J.A.Jance ( Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-123924-3); VERMILLION DRIFT by William Kent Kreuger (Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1-4391-5384-0);  HANGMAN  by Faye Kellerman (Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-1702586-3) and PORTOBELLO by Ruth Rendell , (Scribner, ISBN 978-1-4391-4851-8).
Each time I read a Rendell book I am fascinated by her characters.  This time is no exception.  Eccentricity is the norm here and the characters are as varied as the wares that are available on Portobello Road.  Eugene Wren is the eccentric and neurotic owner of an art gallery.   He discovers an envelop containing quite a sum of money and decides to find the owner himself rather than going though the police.  And this allows us to meet an assortment of characters and their friend.s  There is a reformed crook who is a minister of sorts and his slightly off center young relative, Lance. There are also a few low life bullies to add to the mayhem.  Eugene has a love life to sort out as well as the money to place and a strange addiction to a specific candy to contain..  Lance also has his lady love problems.  All in all  it is a clever and complex study of human behavior with a bit of mystery tossed in.
The Kellerman story is another Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus mystery.  It involves a professional killer, his misguided wife, and a previous death, as well as their seemingly abandoned son as well as another investigation involving a murdered nurse  and some strange goings on with her boy friend and the hospital where they work.  And to add to Decker's problems, he is turning sixty. Lots of suspense as well as some good human interest.