Monthly Archives: July 2018

character, head, mystery, reviews, setting, thriller

Christopher Reich — The Take

A group of thieves stops a Saudi prince’s entourage on a back street in Paris and takes the car carrying the prince’s considerable amount of cash. The CIA agent who revealed the Saudi’s route to the airport to the thieves only asked for a briefcase the prince was carrying.

Simon Riske accepts the task of finding Tino Caluzzi, the man who planned the heist but didn’t turn over the briefcase. He knows Caluzzi from a previous life when they worked together as thieves in Marseilles.

It was difficult to decide who were the good guys and the bad guys. All the characters were some of each—Riske, Caluzzi, CIA agent, Russian oligarch, Russian assassin, Paris policewoman, and others. Reich gives depth to his entertaining cast of characters. Everyone was chasing everyone while trying to lay hands on a letter hidden in the briefcase.

The twists and turns of this international thriller kept me reading into the night.

character, head, heart, horror, mystery, POV, reviews, thriller

Bryan Reardon — The Real Michael Swann

Michael Swann is in Penn Station when a bomb goes off. His wife Julia believes he’s alive and is obsessed with finding him.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The plot was good and characters were interesting. I read some reviews and some readers were surprised at the twist at the end. But I had it figured out early, maybe by the middle of the book.

The point of view switched back and forth between Julia and an unknown man with no memory who escaped the bombing. Scenes with Julia trying to find Michael with no idea of where she was going or how to find him alternated with her memories—good and bad—of their marriage. Sometimes this was easy to follow and sometimes  disjointed. I became irritated with Julia’s wild search as the story progressed. There was no logic to what she was doing; she acted in panic mode throughout the book.

Overall this was a good read. What would you do if a member of your family was caught in a terror attack, and you didn’t know if he or she was alive or dead? What would you do if the police and media started accusing that family member of being connected to the attack?

1st novel, character, head, heart, horror, mystery, reviews, setting, thriller

C.J. Tudor — The Chalk Man

This thriller/murder mystery jumps between 2016 and 1986. In 2016, Ed Adams is a small town school teacher haunted by events from 30 years past. In 1986, Eddie and his group of 12-year-old friends’ lives were interrupted by a terrible accident at the fair, two unsolved murders, a suicide, and a beating that left a man in an almost vegetative state.

Eddie’s father always told him “Never assume, Eddie. Question everything. Always look beyond the obvious.” But the whole town has made assumptions about what happened in 1986. When bad things start happening again in 2016, people once more make assumptions.

The Chalk Man, Tudor’s first novel, has an intriguing plot, great characters (young, middle-aged, and old), a setting that makes you feel you are there, and twists and turns that keep you hooked.

Excellent writing!

1st novel, character, head, reviews, thriller

Catherine Steadman — Something in the Water

This is a different book, but I like different. It starts at the end with protagonist Erin digging a grave to bury her husband. Then the story goes back to tell us how she got there. But the ending isn’t quite what it seems in that first chapter.

I enjoyed the progression of the events in Erin’s mind in this psychological thriller. She is a bright young upper middle class women getting married to the man she loves, creating a documentary, living what seems to be the almost perfect life. But she is also self-centered, naïve, greedy, and blind to the flaws of people she likes or loves. Although she worries too much at times and plans her steps to accomplish her goal, she doesn’t always look at the possibilities of what might happen as she proceeds.

To me the premise of this book is: “What would you do if you found an illegal treasure that appears to be untraceable?”

Erin irritated me at times, but I found her story intriguing. A good read, good first novel.