Disappearance Creek by R. J. Luce - a review

Crashed airplanes, missing wolf packs, hidden mines and unauthorized cabins out in the Wyoming wilderness outside of Jackson Hole are all parts of the mystery that wildlife biologists Whip Sawtell and his ex-girlfriend, Cat Bonner, have to solve before someone takes them out, permanently.

Their must be a rat in the local sheriff's department as the mysterious assassin always seems to be one step ahead of them, but Luce manages to weave enough red-herrings and cold trails until the last few pages to keep the momentum alive, and to save the identity of the bad guys until the last moment.

Not since Indiana Jones has a non-law enforcement agent gone himself into a situation where he has to battle his way out of a bad situation and Whip seems prepared to give as much as he takes.

The Final Silence by Stuart Neville - a review

Although he had been estranged from his sister, Ida, for twenty-odd years Raymond’s passing was to have a profound effect on her family. His niece, Rea, it was decided would be given the house, her first. Rea’s father, up–and-coming local politician, Graham Carlisle, sorted out all the legal bindings and the Belfast home would be his daughters. They cleaned out the meager furnishings of Raymond’s lonely living space except foe the back bedroom at the top of the stairs. It was locked separately and they could not find the key.

Rea took a crowbar to the door and forced it open. There was just a chair behind an old desk. The desk contained a single book, an old scrap book full of memento; photographs, hair clippings and finger nails along with a detailed written report of each murder. With her father’s job on the line the police could not be called in so Rea turned to a former beau, a recently suspended police inspector, Jack Lennon, He would know what to do.

Someone else is interested in the book, specially one of the photographs that shows the deceased and a group of men, including Carlisle in politically compromising positions with one of the groups outlawed since the Troubles ended, so when Rea ends up with her head bashed in, Lennon has to assist in the official investigation headed up by a female investigator Serena Flanagan, who has a reputation for not pandering to the type of foolishness that gets policemen suspended.

In this barn-burner of a page turner – I read it non-stop for eight hours – it is easy to get swept up into the short, terse dialogue and the plot that thickens like Irish porridge. I’m hooked on Lennon now.