While if this point it's practically impossible for Nora Roberts to write a bad Eve Dallas novel, FORGOTTEN IN DEATH is a biNot Top-Flight Eve Dallas
While if this point it's practically impossible for Nora Roberts to write a bad Eve Dallas novel, FORGOTTEN IN DEATH is a bit disjointed, and the interlocking series of investigations feel clumsy rather than like the compelling puzzle NR can write when she's firing on all cylinders. Maybe that peculiar sense of nothing happening which so many of us experienced during COVID lockdown got into her story, same as it seemed to get into just about everything...?
Oh, Eve Dallas's "Magic Coat" (well, "topper" since this book's set in the Spring)? Stops bullets same as it does stunners, knives, and blasters! Once Roarke figures out how to reduce a jetpack's size so she can slip it on like a knapsack, Eve will be ready to be a superhero.......more
::5 stars for the novella - the book, she drags in spots, but the story's still there::
Self-proclaimed "Last Hell's Angel" Hell Tanner agrees, in exch::5 stars for the novella - the book, she drags in spots, but the story's still there::
Self-proclaimed "Last Hell's Angel" Hell Tanner agrees, in exchange for a full pardon for carjacking, gang rape and murder to drive a supply of Plague antiserum across the radiation-ravaged United States from the Los Angeles, Capital of the Nation of California to Boston, MA in armed and armored, radiation-shielded "cars". Two other cars also carry the antiserum and are driven by soldiers under orders to shoot Tanner if he deviates in any way from the mission, including his co-pilot. Unsurprisingly, only Tanner has what it takes to accomplish the mission, which he continues on with even after the other two cars are destroyed and his co-pilot attempts to turn the vehicle around because he's panicking about dying in the wasteland like the others....
SF reviewers and fans were a bit sniffy about the story, and I will grant you that the novella's better — but without the novel, the story would've likely not been read by George MillerJim Steinman many people who went on to use it as a template for Mad MaxBAT OUT OF HELL post-apocalyptic SF movies and music about morally-compromised loner heroes.
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"The sirens are screamin' and the fires are howlin'/Way down in the valley tonight..."
Avoid, at all costs, the 1977 film adaptation, which completely rewrites the story and, despite a hefty $17M budget, is a farrago of lame characterization, by-the-numbers direction and laughably cheap special effects. ...more
Review to come - let's just say I really liked this add-on to The Black Brothers Trilogy, even though they and their subbes/spouses are merely bookendReview to come - let's just say I really liked this add-on to The Black Brothers Trilogy, even though they and their subbes/spouses are merely bookends....more
It's the tenth (and now, sadly, final) book in W.E.B. Griffin's THE CORPS series about Marines and how they ended up working with first the OSS and laIt's the tenth (and now, sadly, final) book in W.E.B. Griffin's THE CORPS series about Marines and how they ended up working with first the OSS and later CIA. It stops with Ken "Killer" McCoy being injured badly enough that his mentor, Gen. Flem Pickering, worries about him (which gets McCoy out of an butt-chewing for going back behind North Korean lines again!), hauling a load of Chinese officers he found in North Korea to prove to Gen. Douglas MacArthur once and for all that his Intelligence Chief, Gen. Willoughby, is dead wrong about the Communist Chinese not stepping in if they feel MacArthur is threatening China's border. (MacArthur in the series claims to have no interest in invading China, just wanting to "scare" them enough that they stay out of his determination to reunite Korea — and Willoughby is, like a good courtier, finding intelligence to back "El Supremo"'s assessment.)
It's the usual gang from THE CORPS series, so I won't be running them down again - but this time it's all against the personal backdrop of "Pick" Pickering having vanished behind enemy lines when his plane was shot down in an attempt to become the first "Railroad Ace" by destroying five trains(!). None of this is authorized, and in fact his immediate superior (and friend) William Dunn orders him to stop
[image] ...which Works About as Well as Telling Your Cat to Stop Clawing Your Office Chair.
McCoy keeps venturing into North Korea to try and find Pick along with gathering more intel on Chinese involvement in North Korea, to Gen. Pickering's increasing frustration. As Pickering Sr. reminds him more than once, he's no longer a Junior Marine doing Temporary Duty in Intelligence, he's Pickering's unofficial head of Operations in Korea - and he's the husband of pregnant Ernestine Sage (a close family friend), as well. With Dunn and Pick's "fiancée" (they're engaged to be engaged), CHICAGO TRIBUNE War Correspondent Jeanette Priestly, both searching for Pick as well, there are more than enough people to be caught or killed behind enemy lines already....
The final book in this series to date (and now that William E. Butterworth III who originally wrote under the "Griffin" name had died, most likely the last as his son seems less than eager to continue the series), things sort-of wrap up (view spoiler)[with Pick finally found alive, Jeanette missing & presumed dead after the transport plane she caught a ride on was shot down by the enemy, and "Ernie" Sage finally successfully delivering a child (hide spoiler)]. As is often the case, there are a lot of characters who you'd like to see more of who just fade away in Griffin's books because they're not a part of the main narrative, which is one of his more frustrating tendencies.
As I've said elsewhere, if you like W.E.B. Griffin you'll like this book - if not, then it's not going to change your mind any....more
When I first found out the premise of the book, I had a horrible feeling it was going to be one of those QAnon "PizzaBetter than I thought it would be
When I first found out the premise of the book, I had a horrible feeling it was going to be one of those QAnon "Pizzagate" conspiracies — you know, the ones where every high-ranking Democrat is part of a pedophile ring running out of a Georgetown pizza parlor? Though there were whiffs of that here and there, the book mainly is a suspense thriller, not a polemic, about Modern Mercenaries "Contractors" like Blackwater, corrupt Presidential candidates and legislators, and a group of people so incredibly badass you really don't want to ever go up against them!
I had not known that the author,
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Barry Eisler, had already written series featuring most of the heroes as main or major supporting characters characters; half-Japanese assassin John Rain, Thai Seattle PD Sex Crimes Detective (and sometimes Rapist-Killer) Livia Lone, ex-Special Forces soldiers (and enemies) Ben Treven and Daniel Larison, ex-Marine Sniper (and Livia's on-again, off-again lover) "Dox", former Mossad Agent (and Rain's estranged lover) Delilah, and Col. Scott "Hort" Horton who used to command Treven and Larison. To say this group has its...frictions would be to put it mildly - and yet, when confronted with a "hurtcore" group of powerful pedophiles who's already blown up an airplane and nearly killed four of the group just to tie up some lose ends, they manage to put their differences aside long enough to work together tracking down who's responsible. None of the group, not even Det. Lone, hesitates at Doing Unto Those Who Would Do Unto Them - only more and harder.
The book blurbs claim Eisler's writing
"combines the insouciance of Ian Fleming, the realistic detail of Tom Clancy, the ennui of Graham Greene, and the prose power of John le Carré.” - News-Press
It's good, but it's not that good.
The violence is strong but not gratuitous, the sex non-explicit, the language as harsh as you'd expect from a number of elite soldier/spy/police types, and the characters are smarter and more thoughtful than your usual men's adventure "Military Meatheads". The story's told from multiple PoVs, which I suspect lines up with the characters in their own books - except for John Rain who's in First Person, the other characters' chapters are Third-Person...which may be a bit jarring, but I was able to roll with it easily enough.
I'm debating whether to go back and re-read the earlier books - but I'm sure I'll read this book's follow-up coming out September 21, 2011,
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The Chaos Kind....more
JANUARY 25, 2021: Just entered a giveaway for this book, because -- new Eve Dallas book? I am so there!
[image] Eve Dallas Approves
REVIEW: ::4-1/2 StJANUARY 25, 2021: Just entered a giveaway for this book, because -- new Eve Dallas book? I am so there!
[image] Eve Dallas Approves
REVIEW: ::4-1/2 Stars::
I've hovered between 3 Stars and 5 Stars for this book because a lot of it feels thrown-together, but the ultimate story itself is so compelling it carries you forward through its weaker elements (like the initial prime suspect sort of disappears about a fourth of the way through the book and never comes back as a character, although her behavior propels the story forward).
You've read the setup by now — Socialite Gwen Huffman calls in a 9-1-1 on the body of Greenwich Village sculptor Ariel Byrd...from her Upper East Side luxury apartment building, where she's got her lawyer fiancé waiting for the cops to drop by. One reason for Gwen's guilty behavior becomes clear once Eve & Peabody discover their victim's an out lesbian, as is Officer Shelby (remember her from Festive in Death?) —who had been Gwen's lover one summer when they were teenagers.
Normally this is no big deal in the IN DEATH universe where same-sex marriage is legal, except that Gwen's family belong to Natural Order, a sort of cross between Scientology, Quiverfull, and Those Seditious Whackos who comprise the recently-departed and unlamented former President Donald Trump's base.
[image] Remember Him...?
Obviously a group like this is homophobic as all get-out, as well as believers that a woman's only domain is Kirke, Küche, Kinder ("Church, Cooking, Children"). That's Gwen's mother is a prominent OB/GYN who only had two children (her and an estranged brother, who's a friend of Shelby's brother) doesn't...entirely fit, but it's inconsistent in the way that cults like these are. There's also a trust fund involved that Gwen only gets once she's married and has a kid as a carrot, as well as a big stick in the former of "Realignment", aka "Conversion Therapy" for gays....
[image] Eve Dallas Does NOT Approve....
This is not really a Whodunit — it's more Eve Dallas taking down the kind of Right Wing institution that left her a sexually-abused eight-year old who killed her rapist father in self-defense. My partner grumpily called her "Jack Ryan with a Badge" when I told her about it, which I don't think really fits, although it's true enough that corrupt institutions tends to unravel pretty quickly once Eve and Roarke start looking into them.
You could take that as
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Nora Roberts increasingly giving her series hero Type 5 Plot Armor — or you could look at it as a hopeful thematic element in her IN DEATH universe: Institutional corruption rests on such a rickety foundation that it can be undone by a courageous and determined enough person (with the right resources) being willing to yank on that thread and pull it all the way out....
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One of the "thrown-together" parts I mentioned earlier is Agent Teasdale, who seems to have transferred from Homeland Security to the FBI between books (although apparently she's also credited as FBI in Connections in Death as well?). I find that surprising as she gave a pretty strong explanation as to why she'd work for an outfit she knew had a long history of bureaucratic corruption, and try to reform it from within — her just...switching agencies like that feels a bit "eh" to me.
Overall, I really liked this book, though it took a while to get started, and I was really afraid we'd end up spending most of our time with Gwen Huffman, who is...not a nice person even if she isn't ultimately the killer....more
Very quickly? Suarez always has really great near-future premises, and he's never less than readable. This is further into the future than he's gone iVery quickly? Suarez always has really great near-future premises, and he's never less than readable. This is further into the future than he's gone in any of his books I've read, so it's straight-up Hard SF rather than near-future SF-like thriller. I remember liking it, but only vaguely remembering the characters....
This is about a cybercop who gets "Poisoned" with a drug that should change his DNA into that of the crimelord he's hunting then kill him from the shock, but he survives looking like his enemy and tries desperately not only to keep from being arrested or killed, but losing who he really is. ...more
Given how well
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Nora Roberts' done with the last ten ...IN DEATH books, this is a small step backwards. There's really no mystery -- as theGiven how well
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Nora Roberts' done with the last ten ...IN DEATH books, this is a small step backwards. There's really no mystery -- as they know Lorcan Cobbe, a former Enforcer for Roarke's father turned Hit Man who hates Roarke's guts, is their killer pretty much right off, most of the book involves finding him before he has a chance to take a run at either Roarke, Eve, Peabody, Nadine, the Miras, or Roarke's family back in Ireland. Moreover, Cobbe has a reputation for not being careless -- but since it's Roarke, who Cobbe thinks "usurped" his right to be Patrick Roarke's true son(!), Cobbe's screws up pretty much by the numbers trying to get at him and his.
[image] Behaving More Like Juggernaut Than Invisible Woman or Kitty Pryde
Eve and Roarke are able to use his carelessness to their advantage -- along with Cop Central Homicide (who make it clear here, if it wasn't before, that they consider Roake one of theirs), McNab and Feeney, and even Commander Whitney. (Turns out that both Feeney and Whitney worked one of Cobbe's hits two decades earlier, and they both want a piece of him.)
One of the good things about this entry is it finally makes it clear that those in the NYPSD who know Roarke are aware of the rumors of his past -- and don't care. One of the not-so-good things is the climax where All of Team Dallas except for Nadine, Summerset, Reo and Galahad
[image] Summerset COULDN'T Leave - I Needs Feedings!
pile in one of Roarke's private planes (view spoiler)[to Ireland to pursue Cobbe, who they figure out has decided to go after Roarke's family! (hide spoiler)] Straining credulity even further is when (view spoiler)[Roarke's family refuses to leave their farms, so all Team Dallas has to blend in...to Irish (hide spoiler)] Farm Country! [image] Commander Whitney - Completely Convincing as a Farmer!
This isn't the first time an ...IN DEATH book's climax has read like an Eighties Action Movie, but it's one of the less satisfying ones.
[image] Yes, Dallas - Seriously
I enjoyed the book while I read it, but next to
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Golden in Death,
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Echoes in Death, or
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Brotherhood in Death, it's not as good as it could be....more
The interesting thing about
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Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled detective stories is how much they actually take from the traditional genius "GrThe interesting thing about
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Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled detective stories is how much they actually take from the traditional genius "Great Detective" fiction they were written in rebuttal to. At one point, hard boiled PI Philip Marlowe uses a very Sherlock Holmes bit of deduction to tell one character how he's aware that person's one of the real killers. But in the end, he's still the "Shop-Soiled Galahad" (as Dr. Moss, who Marlowe knows and trusts, calls him) who won't take advantage of a woman even if she thinks she's a killer.
[image]The High Window is about a "Brasher Dubloon" (the name of the movie adaptation, starring George Montgomery as Marlowe and Conrad Janis -- yep, Mindy's Dad from MORK & MINDY!), a rare and very valuable gold coin allegedly stolen from the private collection of Mrs. Elizabeth Bright Murdock's late husband. Mrs. Murdock is a real piece of work -- a nasty, tight-fisted hypochondriac who constantly drinks port for her "asthma". Claiming the coin was stolen by Linda Conquest, her lounge singer daughter-in-law, she hires Marlowe to get it back.
Suspecting there's more to the story than meets the eye, Marlowe speaks with Merle Davis, Mrs. Murdock's assistant -- a jumpy, neurotic woman who's terrified of men touching her...but who has Mrs. Murdock's son Leslie's handkerchief and seems hopelessly in love with him. Young Leslie is the kind of overbred handsome-but-weak young man who tries to tough-guy Marlowe, but gets it turned around on him in record time. There's also another Private Detective on the case, a young former deputy named George Anson Phillips, who remembers Marlowe and thinks highly of him.
In the course of the investigation, Philip Marlowe starts finding dead bodies, and the police in the form of Lt. Jesse Breeze, and his partner Spangler, start leaning on him to cough up what he knows. Marlowe tells them about a case he worked where an alleged Murder/Suicide was blamed on a Wealthy Young Man's secretary even though it was obvious the Wealthy Young Man had done the killing -- but since he had had money and connections, it wasn't his memory that got sullied! He ends the story with
“Until you guys own your own souls you don’t own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have a right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I’m sure you won’t do him more harm than you’ll do the truth good. Or until I’m hauled before somebody that can make me talk.” - Chandler, Raymond. The High Window: A Novel (Philip Marlowe series Book 3) (pp. 96-97). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In the end, the only person who gets arrested is (view spoiler)[a drunken ex-bartender named Hench (hide spoiler)] who cops to one of the killings -- not because he's guilty of that (he wasn't), but because he (view spoiler)[was guilty of a number of armed robberies and the death of a liquor store clerk that happened during one of them (hide spoiler)]. All Marlowe can do at the end of the case is rescue the neurotic Miss Davis, and bring her home to her family....
A strong mystery/thriller with a satisfyingly unsatisfying conclusion, and thanks to its film adaptation being a competent but forgotten B-Movie, one of Chandler's less well known works....more
5 STAR HANGOUT STORY, 3.75 STAR MYSTERY -- CALL IT 4.5 STAR BOOK
Preface: This isn't a review as my Kindle edition of the book just downloaded to my ph5 STAR HANGOUT STORY, 3.75 STAR MYSTERY -- CALL IT 4.5 STAR BOOK
Preface: This isn't a review as my Kindle edition of the book just downloaded to my phone and tablet. I may not be around much for the next couple days, gang -- Eve Dallas is back, and I've got her!
[image] That's Funny...!
Review: When the Pediatrician Husband of a Private School Headmaster is killed by a quick-acting, quick-dissipating poison gas delivered in a package by messenger, Lt. Eve Dallas & her partner Det. Delia Peabody have to initially consider terrorism as a motive. The beloved older doctor doesn't seem like the right target for a regular killer, especially one as elaborate and sadistic (the gas also kills very painfully, burning out your throat & lungs with a caustic agent as it kills).
Once they've ruled out terrorism as the attack was too clearly target-specific (Commander Whitney called it an "assassination", putting words to where Dallas's mind was), she and Peabody look into who hates the late Doctor enough to kill him in a manner as elaborate as it is cruel. A few initially likely suspects -- an ER Doctor with the bedside manner of a Tasmanian Devil, [image]
his ER Nurse wife who'd written an award-winning paper on poisons, and an abusive father the Doctor had called the authorities on -- don't pan out for reasons ranging from their killer having far more control than either the ER Doc or the abusive fathers, and far more ability and resources to concoct a poison gas that deadly. [image]
The wife, in addition to having a pretty ironclad alibi, also has an air of resigned exasperation regarding her husband's personality, enough to convince Eve this woman wouldn't bother poisoning anybody he picks fights with.
One of the many things I love about this book is we get to see a loving, functional same-sex marriage -- it's just a pity one of men in that relationship is the first victim. Another is watching Peabody grow as a detective, become more of an equal partner to Eve rather than just learning from her
[image] Hey!
Of course, Eve is still really uncomfortable about how rich she now is now that she's married to one of the Wealthiest People On or Off Planet, which provides a cute runner throughout the book. Yes, she enjoys the perqs of real coffee, good food, her own home gym, and really good bribes to kick the head of the Crime Lab, Dr. Richard "Dickhead" Berinski, into gear -- but, the really superior (and expensive!) coffee aside, she would have probably would have been happier if Roarke were a teacher or an attorney...or ideally, another cop.
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When a second body, that of a housewife and part-time clerk in her family's bookstore in her mid-Forties, is killed in the same manner, Peabody discovers(view spoiler)[ that the husband of the second victim used to teach at the same Private School the husband of the pediatrician is Headmaster of, she and Eve put the connection together that these killings stem from the time the former Headmistress was asked to resign and replaced (hide spoiler)]. After verifying with the spouses of the victims and Dr. Mira, Eve and Peabody start to zero in on their killer....
The mystery is good but not quite great, while the hangout potential with our fictional family is marvelous, and reminds me why I'm still with this series fifty books later....more
Seventh Richest Man in England/Napoleonic War Veteran/Secret Agent Reed Valentine, Duke of Keswick4.5 STARS -- ENJOYABLE REGENCY-SET ADVENTURE-ROMANCE
Seventh Richest Man in England/Napoleonic War Veteran/Secret Agent Reed Valentine, Duke of Keswick is sent on One Final Mission once back home in England -- find out who might've supplied the poisoned wine given to the exiled Emperor Napoleon, and why. Reed, being told by his superiors that they suspect Gypsies are involved, reluctantly investigates in disguise, and there meets the beautiful half-Gypsy/half-English Orelia, who may be an inept fortuneteller, but is an extreme useful asset in getting the Romany to talk to him. After watching Orelia being abused by her drunken Mother and Stepfather, who want to sell her into marriage to mean-tempered but powerful member of their caravan, Reed offers to buy her for considerably more money...to help him catch the poisoners, of course! Offering to pay her for her help, and putting her up in one of the more distant rooms in his huge estate (scandalizing the servants thereby), the two undergo a series of adventures which demonstrates what an effective, if unconventional, investigating team they both are...as as well falling for each other, hard, in the process.
Among the headaches Reed and Orelia have to deal with is Reed's mother, who keeps throwing "appropriate" women at him in inappropriate ways in the hopes that he'll marry and settle down as His Grace...which Reed is very reluctant to do when the story begins, seriously considering making his deaf brother Noah, who has been handling the estates very well, thank you, in his absence, the heir. Their mother is horrified by that, believing that Noah's infirmity makes him unsuitable for the position -- and even more horrified at Reed's eagerness to go back out in the field and play Spy! She really doesn't like Orelia when she first meets her, either -- which makes the young Gypsy woman leave, only to be coaxed back by Reed to at least finish the case...while he figures out what he's going to do to manage their growing intimacy....
The book feels a bit "modern" for a Regency-set historical, though I can't put my finger on any specific anachronisms. But it really doesn't matter, because the story's a satisfying romance/adventure between two smart, attractive people from completely different worlds falling in love as they save the day -- and in the end, even Mother comes around, more or less.......more
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Nora Roberts must be feeling very gratified. Her IN DEATH novel/noYet another Eve Dallas knockoff
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Nora Roberts must be feeling very gratified. Her IN DEATH novel/novella series, starring hardass woman cop with issues Eve Dallas & her marriage to wealthy & powerful Businessman Roarke, has proven so popular that not only has she written Novel No. 50 in the series, but has inspired at least two novel series that I've read (or tried to, at least!).
This quartet, featuring George Washington Township, NJ Police Detective Claire Goodnight, and her rocky road to marriage with FBI Agent (and former local boy) Wesley O'Connell, all while solving four really brutal murder cases that often put one or both of them in Great Physical Jeopardy. Unlike Eve Dallas (but very like Marie Force's series hero Samantha Holland Cappuano) she's a cop from a family of cops, determined to prove herself, and not be smothered protected by her Older Brother, Captain Liam Goodnight...
[image] Captain SMASH!
I can't say why these stories didn't catch me up, although as Capable Women Cops go, Claire Goodnight seems more like a bratty little sister with Something To Prove than anybody you'd want solving cases. Even Lt. Sam Holland, who all too often takes her life into her hands and refuses Secret Service Protection despite her husband being the Vice President of the United States, feels like a highly capable police detective in the universe of the series -- though she doesn't hold a candle to Lt. Eve Dallas, of course!
[image] Would Somebody Produce This Series Before Stana Katic Ages Out of Eve...?
I can see others like these books a lot more than I did -- maybe taking their advice rather than mine would be a good thing......more
cronies around making life difficult for Samantha "Sam" Holland Cappuano, and there's a huge political scandal brewing with the President (from
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Fatal Threat), and the potential that Sam's Husband, Vice President Nick Cappuano, may have to step into his shoes.
[image] Which Sam and Nick Are SO Looking Forward To...
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