Twice - A review

In her third outing Lydia Strong, private investigator, reveals a centuries old family curse as the husbands of famous artist Julian Ross family are all shown to have been murdered, including both of Ross’ husbands and her father too. Ross is under suspicion in the death of her husbands even though she had been exonerated in the first murder, ten years previously. Strong’s own mother was a victim of a serial killer, Jed McIntyre, who has recently been released and is stalking her as well. Lisa Unger—under the pen-name Miscione—sends us forward as she has us chasing two heavy plot-filled stories in her latest offering, “Twice.”

The dark story line is darkened even more as Strong’s partner/boyfriend, Jeffrey Mark, and her Australian minder, Dax Chicago, are led through the tunnels under New York City by the homeless who reside there as they recognize the danger of having McIntyre hide within their midst. Not only is he a threat to their own peace of mind, but they don’t need New York’s finest, led by Detective Ford McKirdy, searching below the surface. McKirdy, lead investigator in the Ross murders is the tool that Unger uses to bring the two storylines together as the Ross family have requested Strong also investigate the family murders.

Strong investigates these family stories as she struggles with finding out that she is pregnant and about to start her own family. The implausible storylines she finds herself involved in perhaps seem exaggerated by her extra-hormonal thought processes as she realizes that Mark is overbearing and extra-protective while seeing her as handicapped to be pursuing fleeing felons while in a family-way.

Unger writes in a heavy-handed way with great detail, though at times product names are a little distracting from the plot: pink glossy lipstick would be enough. This is a shame, as the story is fine, full of twists and turns, small-town clichés and evil relatives. Highly entertaining gritty writing.

The Azalea Assault - A review

‘Everything’s coming up roses’ for the Roanoke Garden Society. America’s premier magazine for gardening enthusiasts Garden Delights will be featuring them in an eight-page spread in June and award-winning photographer Jean-Jacques Georges will be scheduling a shoot in local historically registered gardens at La Fontaine.
Cam -short for Camellia - Harris is arranging the event, from coordinating the photographer and magazine staff to ensuring her sister Petunia, and boyfriend Rob, cater the event. RGS founder and owner of La Fontaine, Neil Patrick is opening his home for the event and the whole of Roanoke’s society will be on hand for the grand opening day. Just when nothing can go wrong Georges’ body is found stabbed to death with pruning shears before the shoot even starts. Cam, scrambling to save the day, brings in her best-friend and flat-mate, Annie, to take over the shoot but when the second body is found and Rob and Annie are both in jail, suspected of murder, it is up to Cam to save her friends and find the real killer before the RGS wilts.
Hart Johnson, writing under the pen-name Alyse Carlson, has taken on a project of massive proportions. Following in the steps of Sue Grafton and her alphabet series Carlson appears to be ready to cozy up to the letters in the first of what she describes as ‘a garden society mystery’. I hope that there are 26 plants to see the series out, in order that we can continue to enjoy this masterful series. We can look forward to more of Virginia as we learn the ins and outs of Roanoke, ‘America’s Most Livable City’ and entwine our lives with those of Cam and her loveable bunch of friends and family.
In her debut cozy Carlson treats us to a sexy little thriller that gives us a new written aroma, and opens desire for future fragrant floral novels as we eagerly await the next in the series, The Begonia Bribe.

The Conviction, by Robert Dugoni - a review

Troubled teen Jake has had a couple of brushes with the law since witnessing his mother’s brutal murder and ends up living with his step-father, attorney David Sloane, who is a high-profile lawyer branded as ‘the one who never loses.’ In an attempt to help the boy stay out of trouble they go camping, and are joined at the last moment by an old friend, detective Tom Molia, and his younger teen son TJ.

The boys bunk together the first night in a motel in the little town that will act as the spring-board for their wilderness adventure. Jake robs a local convenience store after-hours and unwittingly drags young TJ into his misadventure. By the time the two fathers awaken the next morning their boys have been arrested, arraigned and sentenced by a backwoods judge with a quick sense for judgment. Think Dan Ackroyd in the ’91 flick Nothing But Trouble but remove any sense of humor. Both teens are sentenced to a locally run boot-camp style detention center, Fresh Start.

When Sloane is unable to get an appeal or a new trial the two fathers make plans to find a way to get their boys released, no matter what it takes. When they start investigating the judge, Earl Boykin, and his ties to the community a path of deceit and greed opens to them unexpectedly. The boys meantime find themselves being used as forced slave-labor for the warden and being abused by a couple of long-term psycho inmates that the guards let handle their dirty work. It becomes clear that there is a force working with them, behind the scenes, and so the plan to rescue the boys is hatched, however neither tandem is fully prepared for the scenarios they find themselves in as the book rushes to a close.

Dugoni will have you on the edge of your seat in an unstoppable force of energy that makes sure you can’t put the book down once you start.

The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel - a review

There’s no going back. Once high school is over, just like Bruce Springsteen says, there’s nothing but ‘glory days,’ rehashing what might have been. The Lola Quartet gave their last performance of the year from the back of the truck and that too was when Gavin last saw his wannabe-girlfriend, Anna, as she stood in the outskirts of the woods. He looked for her but she was just gone. Rumors that she was pregnant where supposedly authenticated when his band mate and best friend Daniel disappeared about the same time.

They all moved on but Gavin more than the others. He got the college degree that sent him to New York to work as a high-powered journalist. Addicted to the infamy, he started glamorizing his stories with quotes that he thought his boring subjects could have said ignoring their real world answers, until the inevitable happened and he had to leave, head hung low.

The shame took him home to swampy steamy Florida from where he escaped to avoid the omnipresent heat. His sister found him work with her firm, flipping homes going into foreclosure, and also showed him a photograph she took of a ten-year-old girl, the spitting image of Gavin; no mistaking the Japanese ancestry. Daniel is now a small town cop, Anna’s sister Sasha works nights in the town diner, and the last member of the band, Jack is living a drug-addled life in a tent in a friend’s back yard. Gavin uses the skills he learned as a top-notch reporter to put together the big picture and track down what appears to be the daughter he never knew about.

The lives the four led since high school took them down paths no one could have imagined, and what Gavin learns shocks and scares him to the core. Be prepared to be surprised.

Triple Crossing by Sebastian Rotella - a review

As a journalist, Rotella tells it the way it is, straight talk, all facts about life south of the border. A Pulitzer finalist, he found many stories he could never fully substantiate, tales all fascinating but unprintable for a newspaper. Taking all these fables, gossip, innuendo, and rumors, he works them into a border story the likes of which you have never read and treats us to his debut novel.

Valentine Pescatore, a wannabe street punk from Chicago is given one last chance to straighten up his life and with the help of an uncle, has found his way to the Border Patrol. In his personal life he is a loose cannon; his supervisor’s a dirty cop and life is an alcohol-fueled thrill-a-minute. He receives a warning after he is suspected of chasing a cholo into Mexico, but finds himself given a reprieve if he rats out his supervisor.

Pescatore finds himself in a gunfight and ends up driving his wounded supervisor to the underworld bosses in Mexico, but once there can’t leave. He goes undercover, joining in the illegal activities and reaching out to agents in the US—when able—to let them know he is alive and working from deep inside the organization.

As the story progresses, we are introduced to the triple border, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, the heart of all smuggling, where Arabs and Chinese mix into the flow and money of illegal activities as they move up through Central America hitting the border we are all more familiar with.

With his life in jeopardy, Pescatore does his best to keep the blurry lines between right and wrong straight as he works to keep his cover. Suspecting he is playing the double-agent game, his superiors make arrangements to setup the gangsters; everyone comes in guns blazing. The final scenes will drop your jaw in amazement.

Rotella treats us to a wild ride into unfamiliar territory with the ferocity that the cartels hand out on the streets of Mexico; brutal, punishing, and final.

Into The Beautiful North by Luis Urrea - a review

When the small village of Tres Camarones in southern Mexico is threatened by drug dealers a group of teenagers volunteer to head north to America and bring home able-bodied men to protect the village. Inspired by watching the film 'The Magnificent Seven' they intend to smuggle back into Mexico men who might help in their protection.
Most of the men, including protagonist Nayeli's father, left for a better life intending to send money home at some time but as it appears just abandoned their families leaving women, children and a gay teenage boy to manage the town.
Nayeli is on a "mission from God" - also inspired by the showing of 'The Blues Brothers' at the local cinema - and intended  to seek out her father, and is under instruction from her aunt Irma, now the town's Mayor,  to contact her old flame from years past and help recapture his heart too.
This fable is at once funny and powerful - the only surprise is that it took me longer than I anticipated to get through it, the images evoked were so powerful and enticing that I had to slow down to enjoy every drop and morsel presented.

Staccato by Deborah J. Ledford - a review

When two young pianists live under the same roof, are carefully groomed for stardom by their ‘uncle’ and share a hard competitive edge jealousy is bound to rear its ugly head. When the more accomplished of the two, Nicholas, appears to have the winning hand then the other, Timothy, takes every pleasure in bring him down a notch.

When this comeuppance involves the death of Nicolas’ lover and his own near murder he has to fake memory loss to get enough time to gather the information he needs to get even with his rival. With the discovery of his father’s secret diary he is able to put together the missing pieces he needs to bring the whole ‘family’ to their knees. With the help of a new found love he forges a bond to get back to a real life again.

If I had not read Ledford’s second novel, Snare, out of sequence and known that the protagonist was to be detective Steven Hawk I would have thought that Nicholas was the hero of the novel and Hawk takes too long of a time before making his appearance in Staccato. Both books can be read as stand-alone novels and the second is much more satisfactory than the first showing the growth that this writer has made in her style between books. I know there is a third in the series due out and I am chomping at the bit to read it too.

Staccato is a fine novel, a thriller that is poignant, suspenseful and written to a broken beat that sets the stage for each successive story line to advance with allegro.