Loves Music, Loves to Dance

Loves Music, Loves to Dance by Mary Higgins Clark    336 pages

Just another reason not to go out with every one you meet online.   YIKES!!!    As a favor to her friend,Darcy, who works for a tv talk show, Erin agrees to go on a bunch of blind dates with guys met online and what a mixed bag she gets.   Not to mention one fellow she met in person.   You won't know till the end which one is the murderer.   Is it the freaky guy with a sister fetish?  Is it the angry guy you just know deep down hates women and wants them to pay for something he is still carrying around.    There are sooooo many choices, it could be any one of them or could it possibly be someone random?   Then there is the dancing shoe clue.    Ladies be careful what you wish for a sensitive guy who loves to dance may be better left alone!      A good dose of creepiness and a lesson in being vigilent before putting yourself out there.   I would recommend this one to middle-schoolers on up.   Learn the lesson early, ladies!

 - Shirley J.

The Wicked Girls

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood   378 pages

One fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11-year-old girls meet for the first time and by the end of the day, they are charged with murder.

Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of attacks on young female tourists in a seaside town when her investigation leads her to interview funfair cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day when they were just children. But with new lives - and families - to protect, will they really be able to keep their secret hidden?

The Wicked Girls has a twisting plot and a range of secondary characters, each bringing up other issues that add to the depth of the story, from Amber's emotionally manipulative boyfriend to Kirsty's struggles to support their family with her husband "excessed" out of a job in his mid-40s, from the minimum wage workers at the amusement park to the media, which just like twenty-five years ago, seizes on lurid details and interviews with unreliable people to construct a narrative that will sell papers and generate moral outrage, whether or not it actually bears any resemblance to the truth.

Watching two women whose lives were destroyed as children try to reconstruct an existence under the constant fear of discovery, even by their own families, and then see it all come unraveled once again, makes this book both a suspenseful psychological thriller and a tragedy even before the climax. This book is for people drawn to crime thrillers - real and fiction, but also for students of human psychology because the content should make you question preconceived notions of guilt and innocence, of rehabilitation and retribution.

Posted By:   Regina C.  

American Psycho

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, 399 pages

Patrick Bateman is certainly a wealthy Wall Street executive.  He is probably an undiagnosed schizophrenic.  He may be a serial killer.

Reading American Psycho is an unpleasant experience.  Of course, there are the detailed descriptions of grisly, sadistic violence, much of it of a sexual nature, but equally dreadful are the extensive descriptions, at some point during each of Bateman's encounters, of the designer fashions everyone is wearing, often accompanied by similarly elaborate descriptions of brand name electronics and popular music.  American Psycho is often described as a satire on the '80s, or Wall Street, or both, but is not nearly so narrow.  Bateman and his circle could be displaced with only minor adaptations to contemporary LA or DC - indeed, the presence of Donald Trump as Bateman's idol offers a tempting invitation to any exceptionally dull filmmakers with access to the movie rights.  It is even easy to imagine a alternate version of the novel following a Dennis Rader-like figure living quietly in the suburbs.  Bateman's curse is not wealth or Reaganism, but boredom.  He attempts to escape from his superficial world through increasingly frenzied acts of transgression, but they only compound his problem.

Unfortunately. the same superficiality characterizes the novel itself.  It is based around a gimmick - vapid investment banker is a crazed killer, only he's so boring that no one notices - and although Ellis pushes it as far as he can, it only goes so far.

Twisted

Twistedby Hannah Jayne, 313 pages

“Guilty until proven innocent... Bex has always been her daddy's little girl. After her mother left, it was just the two of them. Sure he spoiled her with clothes and jewelry, but what father doesn't dote on his daughter? Except Bex's dad is alleged to be a notorious serial killer. Dubbed "The Wife Collector" by the press, her father disappeared before he could stand trial. And Bex was left to deal withthe taunts and rumors. Foster care is her one chance at starting over, starting fresh. But Bex's old life isn't ready to let her go. When bodies start turning up in her new hometown, the police want to use her as bait to bring her father in for questioning. Is Bex trapping a serial killer or endangering an innocent man?” This was creepy and satisfying.  There was enough doubt about everything that I wasn’t sure until the reveal at the end who was guilty and who was innocent.  This has been one of Jayne’s best books, in my opinion.  Teens who like thrillers will read this

Child of God

Child of God by Cormac McCarthy, 197 pages

Lester Ballard: orphan, bully, vagrant, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Lester Ballard: troglodyte, serial killer, necrophile, "a child of God much like yourself perhaps."

One of McCarthy's earliest novels, Child of God is a powerful tale told in what would soon become his trademark style - simple, brutal, and direct.

Tenderness

Tenderness by Robert Cormier, 229 pages

“A psychological thriller told from the points of view of a teenage serial killer and the runaway girl who falls in love with him.”  This book was even creepier than I expected.  I would absolutely give this to teens who like horror.

There’s Someone Inside Your House

There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins, 287 pages

Makani has a terrible secret.  It’s the reason she moved from Hawaii and came to stay with her grandmother in Nebraska.  She even changed her name to make it harder for people to track her down.  Now, her classmates are being murdered, in their own homes and even in school.  Makani is afraid she could be a target if the killer has figured out her secret.  The police have almost no leads and everyone at school only has rumors and speculation.  Everyone in town is terrified and Makani and her friends are also determined to figure out who the killer is.  This was a terrifying and, in some ways, awful, story.  It was definitely realistic, but there’s a feeling of hopelessness that permeates the book.  Luckily, there is some redemption at the end.  This is not Perkins’s typical fare, but this is great for teens who like scary stories.

The Beginning

The Beginning by Catherine Coulter 534 pages

This book contains Book 1 (The Cove) and Book 2 (The Maze) of Coulter's FBI thriller series.

The Cove

Sally St. John is in a crisis, everyone is looking for her and she doesn't have any answers to give them. Her father has been murdered and everyone thinks either she did it or her mother did it and Sally is covering up for her. The most dedicated to finding her is Special Agent James Quinlan, who won't stop until he has the truth from the terrified and yet surprisingly strong Sally. Oh yes and there's a small town that is so picture perfect it's practically unbelievable just like its inhabitants.

There is action and romance in this story. I myself don't understand why there has to be romance in these stories, but a man meets a woman and despite the crazy circumstances they find affection for each other and so on and so forth. I enjoyed this story. There was enough action that the (in my opinion) unnecessary romance didn't take away from the story. I guess I'm picky when it comes to dialogue, the way this writer writes people talking almost sounds wooden like it did on the Dragnet TV and radio show. Nevertheless, it kept me turning pages and wondering who did what. It wasn't entirely unpredictable, I could easily tell when someone was going to sneak up on Sally, but it wasn't the bad kind of predictable. I did like the ending of the story and how things were wrapped up, I'm pretty sure I laughed at the antics.

The Maze

Lacey Sherlock is a new agent with the FBI and she has joined for a specific reason. She wants to take down the man who killed her sister seven years ago. However, even though she helped the FBI catch him, there are lingering doubts that she and her boss (and of course lover) Dillon Savich have to iron out. Lacey's family is the epitome of dysfunctional. She finds out that her sister wasn't all she thought she was and that her killer is a lot more tenacious than she gave him credit for.

I liked this story as well. It was almost an identical twin of the story before it, but that wasn't a bad thing. Both have women in crazy circumstances who get helped by handsome FBI agents and they get together in the end. What I didn't like about this book was how scared Lacey was ALL the time. I get it, there's mean people who want to hurt you, but did it have to mentioned so often that she was scared? It just made her seem wimpy, but she wasn't a wimp, she did what needed to be done. There was more fear than steely resolve and that bugged me. One other thing that bothered me was both Quinlan and Savich got gut feelings at interesting times, they only seemed to get them to suit the plot and at other times it was non-existant, for me it took away the authenticity although I understand why the author did it. Other than that I enjoyed it. The dialogue was still wooden and some of the writing was stilted in places, but as far as plot goes it was good.

Whisper To Me

Whisper To Me by Nick Lake, 535 pages

Cass has started hearing voices.  Well, one voice.  The voice says terrible things to her, telling her to do things to hurt herself, threatening to hurt people that she loves, and generally telling her what an awful person she is.  Cass doesn’t have a lot of friends, but this has put a strain on her already rocky relationship with her dad.  When Cass meets a boy that she likes, she doesn’t want to tell him about the voice and, luckily, the voice is quiet when she’s with him.  However, this book is written as a letter to him because something has happened over the summer to break them up and Cass tells us the whole story as she explains to him everything that he didn’t know, including information about her past.  This was an excellent story.  While it is a romance, the romance is secondary to the story of Cass’s voice and the trauma in her life.  This is an excellent book for teens who like realistic fiction that may have a little bit of thriller aspect to it.

The Bronx Is Burning

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City by Jonathan Mahler, 339 pages

In 1975, New York City, in many ways the capital of the modern world, teetered on the brink of collapse.  The bankrupt city government was refused a federal government bailout, sanitation workers held a ten day strike during which garbage piled up on the sidewalks, and laid off policemen rioted, shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge during rush hour.  The city bounced back in '76, serving as the focal point for the nation's bicentennial celebrations, hosting a successful Democratic National Convention, and cheering the Yankees into the World Series.  The subsequent sweep of the Yankees by the unstoppable Big Red Machine might have served as an omen for '77.  

As author Mahler chronicles, the momentous events of 1977 represented the convergence of a series of trends.  Rupert Murdoch's New York Post continued to change New York's media landscape.  Disco broke big, while punk grew in the East Village and hip hop conquered the Bronx.  Pudgy postman David Berkowitz terrorized the city as the ".44 Caliber Killer" and then as the "Son of Sam", killing 6 and wounding 7 in a series of random shootings that lasted twelve months.  A cascading series of failures in the city's power grid led to a blackout in mid-July that plunged the entire city into darkness, triggering widespread looting and arson.  Most obviously, the future of the city was weighed in the Democratic primary for mayor, which pitted incumbent technocrat Abe Beame against irrepressible radical Bella Abzug, opinionated loudmouth Ed Koch, and political Hamlet Mario Cuomo.  Yet for Mahler, the great story of '77 is the Yankees' championship season, throughout which manager Billy Martin fought his own personal demons as well as team owner George Steinbrenner and brash slugger Reggie Jackson. 

Mahler's account is written in a readable, straightforward documentary style, but the material is loaded with a symbolic importance far greater than the bare facts.  It is to the author's credit that he does not force interpretations onto these facts.  The Martin-Jackson feud can be seen as representative of an insecure, unhinged white establishment trying desperately to deny the legitimate achievements of rising blacks, or as locally-rooted working class ballplayers being eclipsed by mercenary free agent superstars, or neither, or both.  The Son of Sam murders certainly evoked the horror of urban anonymity (even as the discotheques promised the pleasures of that same anonymity), but also involved the hype of sensationalistic journalism.  The result is genuinely poetic, both a revelatory history and a love song to the city and its legendarily outsized personalities.

Devil in the White City

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson, 390 pages

The Columbian Exposition of 1893 - the Chicago World's Fair - was a historical landmark, defining a nation and an era in the same manner as the 1851 London Great Exhibition and 1889 Paris Exposition Universalle.  Timed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World, the Fair looked towards the future as much as the past, its monumental neo-classical buildings painted stark white and illuminated at night by tens of thousands of electric lights, forming an ideal "White City", an attainable future of unimpeded progress.  As Erik Larson relates, however, the real contemporary city formed a contrasting "Black City" of stockyards, smokestacks, and slaughterhouses, shady figures and dark streets which swallowed people whole.  In the midst of this Chicago squatted the misshapen "castle" of Herman Mudgett, also known as HH Holmes or a galaxy of other aliases, a conman and serial murderer.

Larson divides his narrative largely between Holmes and Daniel Burnham, the architect who, more than anyone else, shaped the Fair.  Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed the landscaping, George Washington Ferris, who designed the famous Wheel, and Sol Bloom, who managed the Midway, all receive due attention as well, and Larson interweaves their threads skillfully to complement Burnham's story and fill in the broader tapestry of the Fair.  Less interesting are the chapters dedicated to Patrick Pendergast, a disappointed, delusional office seeker and assassin, who is either too prominent or not prominent enough, distracting from other narratives without yielding any real insight.  

The greatest difficulty Larson faces is Holmes.  An inveterate liar, conman, polygamist, and sociopath, much of Holmes' life remains mysterious, with even known facts colored by rumor and supposition.  A writer must be careful in separating reality from fantasy.  Disappointingly, Larson does not engender confidence in this regard, even reimagining a scene from Holmes' childhood to equip him with a Lecter-grade cold, intimidating stare.  Further undermining the reader's trust are some bald errors - Mary Kelly, last of the canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, was not pregnant at the time of her murder.  Thankfully, Larson regains some measure of skepticism before the end of the book, lest Holmes appear to be the only predator in 1893 Chicago.

There may be better books about the Columbian Exposition - Harold Schechter's Depraved is certainly a better book about Holmes.  What The Devil in the White City does so well is telling the stories in parallel, allowing similarities to emerge without ostentatiously drawing attention to them.  Burnham and Holmes were men of their time, like many others drawn to Chicago as a city on the move, where a man could be whoever he wanted to be.  Each struggled and strived to live that dream or nightmare.

Legion

Legion by William Peter Blatty, 269 pages

Legion is Blatty's sequel to his best-known work, The Exorcist (Legion was eventually adapted into The Exorcist III, which Blatty directed himself, although the studio insisted on adding elements to justify the Exorcist title).  Detective Kinderman returns, investigating a series of murders that seem to be the work of a serial killer known to have been killed decades ago.  Father Dyer, Father Damien's best friend and fellow Jesuit, also returns, having forged a bond with the surly detective in the years since Damien's death.

Where The Exorcist held out the hope that the existence of supernatural evil implies the existence of supernatural good, Legion asks why natural evil seems to pervade the human world and whether there is any hope against it.

Unfortunately, the novel's problems run deep.  Kinderman, while initially charming in his endless, garrulous, rambling monologues, eventually becomes tiresome.  The Gemini killer is a silly Hollywood caricature of a serial killer.  The ending is absurdly anti-climactic, although it is thematically appropriate.  This is one of those instances where, against stereotypes, the movie is better than the book.

Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words by Katie Alender, 312 pages

I loved this book.  It actually scared me.  I’m not sure why, exactly, because it’s not like it was so relatable to my life and I didn’t think it was that much better written than a lot of other books I’ve read but it had something going for it that really made it speak to  me.  Willa’s mom has just remarried an up-and-coming Hollywood producer, a couple of years after Willa’s dad’s death.  Willa is pretty much ok with this, except that she misses her dad, feels responsible for his death, and has been trying to contact his ghost to get his forgiveness.  Unfortunately it seems she may have contacted another spirit that is in her new house, and for some reason this spirit seems to want to communicate something to her about a rash of serial murders that have been happening in Hollywood.  I would definitely give this to teens who like suspense, thrillers, and horror.

Hurricane Punch

Hurricane Punch by Tim Dorsey, 368 pages

A conga line of hurricanes bearing down on the Florida peninsula, an Serge goal is ride each of them that rolls across the Sunshine State. Meanwhile a brutal serial killer is leaving victims at a disturbing rate, even for Florida, and has begun a stalking a sensitive crime journalist. Serge takes offense at this new serial killer and makes plans to stop him, while not out chasing hurricanes or collecting cool souvenirs and gadgets that is. Complicating matters is criminal profiler Agent Mahoney, who has just been released from a mental hospital after getting to deep into Serge's head. He believes that there is no second killer and Serge has snapped and is committing these murders without even knowing it.
This book will leave readers guessing as they try to figure out how seemingly unconnected plots will come together, and who is murdering who. Plus an old character resurfaces to add even more fun to an already fun packed book in this fun filled series

Torpedo Juice

Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey, 322 pages

Serge Storm is back and looking to settle down into married life, he's searching the Florida Keys for Mrs. Right in the only way he knows how with binoculars and his homemade dating kit. He eventually settles down with an unlikely mousy librarian whom he sees as his perfect match. However even marriage doesn't seem to be able to slow Serge down as he handles a cult of devoted followers, ruthless land developers, old friends, and a new serial killer who is leaving a trail of bodies leading up to Florida.
This novel while entertaining wasn't as good as some of Dorsey's previous books in the series. I was disappointed with the way the two plots worked together and it doesn't add up as smoothly as other books. That being said the characters and craziness of the plot was on par with the rest of the series and make it worth reading.  

Broken Monsters

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
442 Pages

The book opens with the discovery of a bizaare crime.  A young boy has been killed and cut in half.  From the waist down he has the body of a fawn.  Dectective Gabriella Versado is the lead investigator of the murder in a story that revolves around the dying city of Detroit.  A wide cast of characters populates the book from T.K. a homeless guy to Jonno, a journalist trying to get ahead with an online blog.

A fairly good procedural interspersed with a fantastical streak that in my opinion takes away from the story.  I understand that the author was trying to show the killer's worldview but when it started affecting others it brought the story down.

Koko

Koko by Peter Straub   576 pages

Peter Straub is considered one of the greatest thriller writers of our time; second only perhaps to the master Stephen King. Yet, somehow I missed never reading anything by Straub. Anchor Books re-released Koko, the first book in the “Blue Rose Trilogy” in 2009.

The Washington Post claimed that the 1988 work was “brilliantly written…an inspired thriller…(Straub’s) finest work.” I was ready, eager, anxious, and waiting when the almost six-hundred-page paperback landed on my doorstep.

I cancelled my evening plans and curled on the couch, ready to be scared out of my wits. The story opens with four Vietnam vets returning to Washington, D.C, for the dedication of Vietnam Memorial. The four hadn’t seen each other since they left the service in 1968. Shadowing the emotional events of the dedication, the men---now a doctor, a lawyer, a blue-collar worker, and a restaurateur---are drawn together with the resurgence of a serial killer.

The killer, Koko, could be either the writer Tim Underhill or M.O. Dengler or a Victor Spitlaney, from their old unit. But the four men are sure they are the only ones left alive. They decide to go back to Singapore and Bangkok, in search of their old Army buddies and to get to the bottom of the new murders, all seemingly unrelated.

That’s a great scenario, but fifteen days later, I’m still reading Koko. The story plodded along in agonizing detail. I read and read and read and read and read until my eyes burned. I wasn’t scared once nor did I find this “masterpiece” a page turner. When I finally did reach the last chapter, I have never been so disappointed in my life. Straub changed narration and basically ended the story with an “what happened? Nothing happened.” I know that is a set up for book two in the trilogy, but I don’t care enough to even bother learning what the other two titles are.

 I give this one out of five stars.

Omens

Omens by Kelley Armstrong 487 Pages


Olivia Taylor-Jones has everything going for her; wealth, fiancee, wealthy fiancee...when the media learns she is really the daughter of two convicted serial killers.  Suddenly she finds that everything she took for granted is gone and she has no idea who she really is.  Like Armstrong's other works, this new series also has a supernatural bent as Olivia finds herself in a small town in Illinois where the unusual is commonplace and a latent talent for reading omens starts to surface. She finds herself researching her parents crimes and working with lawyer Gabriel Walsh to determine who really committed the crimes.

I previously enjoyed Armstrong's Otherworld series until its plot lines got too entangled and the cast of thousands made me stop reading it.  Hopefully this new series will fare better.  It is entertaining fodder and has plenty of room for growth as Armstrong barely scratches the mystery of Cainsville and its inhabitants here.