The Killing Hour by Paul Cleave - a review

It just wasn’t Charlie Felman’s day. Waking from a dream, in cold sweats surrounded by ghosts, he is relieved to know the worst is over until he discovers a large bump on his forehead and blood all over his clothes; blood that does not belong to him.

Seemingly on the run from Cyrus, a man who authorities are unable to locate any record of, Charlie has a dickens of a job convincing the police, and his ex-wife Jo, that he is not losing his marbles and that the bodies that keep showing up in his wake are Cyrus’ victims not his.

Forcibly kidnapping Jo, and stuffing her in the trunk of the car probably is not the easiest way to show his innocence however it is the only way he knows to keep her safe.

Inspector Landry has nothing to lose. His body racked with cancer, he only has a short time left on this earth. He doesn’t believe Charlie’s innocence and drags him into the woods meaning to take care of him vigilante-style. Not until Cyrus shows up, also trying to dispatch Charlie, does Landry realize the error he made and the focus switches to helping each other escape from the claws of the madmen in order that Christchurch’s latest serial killer can be bought to justice.

This is a recent US release of Cleave’s first novel and although it does not involve his trusty and true detective Theo Tate it does involve the Christchurch police force and so again Cleave has managed to link together his collection of works into a malleable group of thrill-a-minute novels that are not to be missed.

The Assassins Club by Dixon Rice - a review

Tyler Goode was just bartending, minding his own business in the flatlands of Montana. He served beer, broke up the occasional brawl, and attended classes at the local community college. He was ruggedly handsome and popular with the local ladies, so when he was attacked after hours by a brute of a man who Tyler had thrown out of the bar the night before, Tyler was ill-prepared for what came next.

Acting in self-defense and in a fight for his life, Tyler got in a lucky blow. With the man lying dead at his feet, Tyler realized that it actually felt great to have ridden the earth of this scourge of wickedness and was surprised at the good feelings this adrenaline rush provided.

Reading in the news about several criminal types who for one reason or another have gotten away with their crimes, Tyler decides to help them see the light and regenerate the rush he gets from killing. The police become aware of these vigilante-style killings and Tyler is always one step ahead of them until one fateful night when they come knocking at his door; however, when they tell him they know he’s doing it, but have no proof and want in on the action, the assassins club is born.

Rice, simultaneously, has a secondary story woven into the plot and it becomes apparent that eventually the two will become at cross purposes with each other. A ‘Jesus–pretender’ has gathered a crowd of followers and is literally dragging a cross across country, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind him, Manson-style. Just what his link is to his final destination, and to Tyler, is the mystery to be solved.

Rice has a written a cleverly compelling story that pulls the reader in knowing that final encounter will lead to the ultimate clash of good v. evil.

 

The Never List by Koethi Zan - a review

As young girls, from middle school to the preliminary years in college, Sarah and Jennifer were inseparable. Afraid of everything from earthquakes to rapists, they made up a series of rules. They called it the Never List. Until they unfortunately violated a basic rule, “never get in a car with strangers,” their lives were pretty straightforward.

When they realized that something about the cab ride was out of the ordinary, it was too late. For the next three years they, and two other girls, where imprisoned in the basement of a house, brutally tortured, raped, beaten, and starved. The opening lines of this novel sound chillingly real: “There were four of us down there… and then, very suddenly and without warning, there were three.”

With the three girls released and their captor, a former college professor, sitting in a jail cell, their lives could go on, but for Sarah it could never end there. Jennifer’s body was never found and she can’t move on until she brings closure to her situation. With the reluctant help from the other two girls that survived with her, they build a trail, going back into the past to move into the future. Their journey becomes a cross-country chase involving religious cults and BDSM dungeons, all leading back provokingly to her past jailer, a man who is about to be set free on probation unless the secret location of the missing body can be unraveled.

As witnesses step forward, you wonder how the police could have missed these clues in their original investigation. The three girls once again find themselves trapped in their original torture chamber and all the pieces fall into place, leaving the reader twisting in the wind as the startling ending jumps out from the darkest place with a loud BOO!

A fast-paced, don’t-dare-put-the-book-down read that will leave you cringing as your darkest fears emerge from the shadows as Zhan takes you to the places you never wanted to go.

The Dark Before Dawn by Laurie Stevens - a review

“The Dark Before Dawn” by Laurie Stevens

Gabriel McRay is a good cop, but when you have anger issues sometimes that is not enough to keep you on the job. After several incidents had been made public in the local newspaper, McRay had to seek the assistance of a psychologist and even then his superiors where ready to suspend him, until the serial killer they were tracking suddenly linked the reasons for the murders to an alleged past history between McRay and himself.

Like it or not, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is suddenly dependent upon McRay looking into his past to figure out who is the killer. Unfortunately, the past is the last place McRay wants to go and it is only with the help of Dr. Berkowitz that he is able to dredge up recollections and visit the dark places he has blocked since his less than stellar childhood.

The killer is striking fast and furiously using the seven chakras, a bodies energy centers, as the clue to his mindless bloody disfigurements and the disposal of the bodies. Not for the faint of heart, this blood-curdling thriller kept me up at night. With so many potential suspects, including the protagonist himself, we are left grasping at straws to the final pages to discover the final clue that brings it all home for McRay as he is forced to confront the evil done to him as a child in order to discover the true murderer.

Stevens nicely weaves together a troubled mind of the protagonist, the tentative beginnings of a relationship between him and the medical examiner Dr. Ming Li, and the start to a new police procedural series.

Revenge on Route 66 - Kris Neri - a review

Since D.B. Cooper jumped from a plane disappearing with his loot, that scenario has been fodder for many writers' imaginations. Elmore Leonard used the storyline in his televised series Justified. Neri uses the same premise in a startlingly entertaining mystery set in fictional Tecos, New Mexico on a stretch of highway known as Route 66.
Tracy's dad, aging Hollywood hunk, Alec Grainger used to take his daughter on road trips to Tecos when she was little to cover visits he made to a young lady, Lucy, who ran a luncheonette, The Lunch Pail Café. As a girl, Lucy had a collection of these handcrafted lunch pails.
The visits stopped long ago when Lucy ended up in the big-house, accused of shooting her boyfriend. So when Daddy calls and asks her to meet him and his best friend, Philly, a wanna-be-gangster-type from the old days, Tracy and her husband Drew drive from California to New Mexico, only they do it Tracy-style, stopping at every kitschy little piece of Americana along the way, just like in days gone by.
From the Biker Bunny Bin, a storage unit where Grainger had left all of Lucy's famous lunch pails, to the Kontiki Pizza and Chinese Restaurant that only served waffles, Neri takes us on a road trip from hell. When Woody, Lucy's son and Grainger's protégé turns up dead, the family is scrutinized for their possible part in his murder and leaves Tracy on the lam from the FBI. Several mysteries unravel on this journey and all will come to fruition because as Tracy says, "Route 66 is a vortex of coincidence. An amazing number of paths cross here."
Neri maintains an entertaining arc of mystery throughout, providing a litany of characters from the quirky retired city cop masquerading as a western sheriff in a small county to the former beauty queen cum minister's wife who poses for risqué photos when she gets bored. You will be totally amused, delighted, and engrossed with this light-hearted mystery on wheels.

Carved in Darkness by Maegan Beaumont - a review

Having read this on Kindle, I failed to notice the author's name and so my biggest surprise when finishing was to discover the author is female. This bold, eerily gripping novel ramrods itself down your throat 'til you choke. It answers questions for me personally regarding how far you can take your reader when it comes to violence and torture, apparently, pretty far. I was unable at times to take the bloody, sordid depravity of the gruesome torture and had to glance away; however, it kept pulling me back in. Beaumont knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat.
Melissa was kidnapped at fifteen, tortured, and raped repeatedly for 83 days. Her kidnapper dropped her body off at a local church. Fifteen years later, after a miraculous recovery allowed her to restart her life, she emerges under an assumed identity, her twin siblings in tow, totally separated from her past life, other than an occasional communication with her grandmother, until Michael shows up.
Michael's sister endured the same torture and he wants help in bringing the killer to justice. As you might imagine, Sabrina, as she is know known, is not excited by the idea of being bait, but her training as a police officer, and her understanding that it was just not her and Michael's sister, but a girl every year that has been afforded the same fate. Not just that, but he just brutally murdered Grandma too.
When she comes to the realization that she can no longer allow this to continue, she and Michael head home, to that little blink-and-you'll-miss-it town where one of the local yokel good-old-boys has been torturing and killing young girls for over a decade. Will they figure out which of the inhabitants of this small town is the enemy before he takes her again?
Buckle up for the ride of a lifetime, this one is the roughest rollercoaster you ever had to endure.

Snapper by Brian Kimberling - a review

In an amusing novel, loosely based on personal history, Kimberling has given us a highly entertaining look at life in the heartland, rural Indiana.
Taking us in a variety of flash-backs through his relationships with friends in high school, through the early years of college, we find out all about the mysterious Lola, the alligator snapping turtle, from which the title was so aptly pulled, to commiserating with him on his relatives - we all have an uncle or grand-father that tells unbelievable stories - and the job choices we make in life. In this case Nathan, our protagonist, works for the university plotting the movements in birds, all different variety of birds, in various parts of the woods of Southern Indiana.
Told with humor and wit Kimberling injects himself on the unsuspecting public in a similar vein that Bill Bryson did with his Walk In The Woods.
A smartly written debut with lots of expectation for the future.