The Sandman

The Sandman  by Lars Kepler   443 pages

Late one night, outside Stockholm, Mikael Kohler-Frost is found wandering. Thirteen years earlier, he and his younger sister were reported missing, thought to have been victims of Sweden's most notorious serial killer, Jurek Walter, now serving a life sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Mikael insists that his sister is still alive and being held by the Sandman. Detective Inspector Joona Linna, the officer responsible for Jurek's capture years earlier, knows that any chance of rescuing Mikael's sister depends on getting Jurek to talk, and recommends Inspector Saga Bauer, a young prodigy wrestling her own demons. She will have to go under deep cover in the psychiatric ward where Jurek is imprisoned, and she will have to find a way to get to the psychopath before it's too late - and before he gets inside her head.

At first I thought this was going to be a Clarice Starling / Hannibal Lecter type of confrontation, relationship, and ensuing plot; although equally unnerving, the stories and protagonists do differ. The denouement feels chaotic and illogical, and it is only after the action ceases that the reader is privy to the knowledge the characters were acting upon; the final chapters felt so rushed and convoluted that I felt had to go back and re-read several pages to fully understand the who-what-where-why-when.   

Posted By:   Regina C.   (submitted to Jen 5/21/18)

There's Someone Inside Your House

There's Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins     289 pages

Makani Young thought she'd left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind.

Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series f gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets.

This book was interesting - it had fun parts, it had gory parts, it had typical teen drama. It was exactly what you'd expect for a YA slasher novel. There were violent murders - done by a serial killer and there was a budding teen romance. It was a fun, quick read and sure, highly predictable, but still enjoyable. I'd say the teens were pretty realistic - a bit stupid, a bit fool-hardy/I can protect my friends from a serial-killer, let's go get him ourselves, but most teens can be somewhat stupid about the world or believe they're invincible enough that they won't die.

I liked the effort to include diversity, though it was a bit questionable in some ways. But nevertheless, I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time, and I did really enjoy parts of this interesting story. Would I read it again? Probably not, but I would probably recommend it to others I thought might enjoy it.

Killer Pursuit

Killer Pursuit by Jeff Gunhus   350 pages

I discovered author Jeff Gunhus’ work in 2015 when I read his Night Chill and The Torment of Rachel Adams. Night Chill scared me so bad that I didn’t sleep for three days and still haven’t worked up the courage to read its sequel, Night Terror.

But now he’s turned to a new genre, the political thriller. In Killer Pursuit, the second in the Allison McNeil series, Gunhus takes on serial killers, FBI agents, and prostitutes in Washington, D.C.

High society call-girl, Catherine Fews, is brutally murdered in her Georgetown home. While Catherine is being dismembered, Allison is about to gun down another bad guy.

The D.C. detectives who are investigating Catherine’s death find not one, but two, cameras hidden in her bedroom walls. One is a traditional, security-like camera that has had its memory erased. The other is a highly sophisticated device that “is connected to the Internet through an encrypted connection…and no one knows who’s on the other end.” Hence the FBI’s involvement.

As the news of Catherine’s death travels through the city, many high profile politicians start to sweat, especially the man most likely to be the next President of the United States.

Because of the nature of the crime, the FBI Director asks Allison to run an off-the-record investigation. Seems this case is similar to the one in the first book, Killer Within, which justifies Allison’s probe. I haven’t read the first book. When Gunhus refers to that case, he does an excellent job in supplying the details the reader needs.

Killer Pursuit is a good read, not a great read, which is why I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It had a strong plot (the killer was a surprise). The writing was good, the pacing was excellent. The dialogue was natural and flowed well, and the characters were well-developed. However, there just wasn’t’ anything to set the novel apart from the hundreds that are already out there. 

One to Go

 

One to Go by Mike Pace  365 pages

Tom Booker is in a hurry to pick up his daughter from her mother’s. Not only has he promised to take her to the Air and Space Museum, but if he doesn’t show up reasonably soon, he will catch seven kinds of grief from his ex-wife.

As he is crossing Memorial Bridge, he is texting his ex-wife. His car drifts into on-coming traffic and as it crashes into a mini-van, he realizes that his daughter, three of her friends, and his ex-sister-in-law are the van’s occupants.  When he awakens, the crash site has frozen in time. A young, yuppie couple approach Tom to make a deal. They will rewind time and let his daughter live, but he must agree to provide five souls, one every two weeks, in exchange for the van’s occupants to live. 

Tom quickly agrees, not fully understanding what he has committed to do. When he awakes again, he feels what happened was a hallucination. Only when his ex-sister-in-law is brutally murdered does he realize what he has done. He isn’t a killer and doesn’t even know how to go about planning a murder, much less four more.

Tom’s moral quagmire is at the heart of this fast-paced, absorbing novel. I was on the edge of my seat from the opening scene to the last page. Author Pace could have gotten away with having only four occupants in the as by the time the fourth soul was delivered to Satan’s representatives, Tom’s quandaries were starting to get a bit predictable. Some nice twists at the end involving a priest made for a satisfying ending.

I do have two things to criticize. First is the cover. The dust jacket gives the appearance that the book is to a legal thriller, but that’s far from the case. If I had seen the book in a bookstore, I probably would have passed. Yeah, I judge a book by its cover. Second is the genre. The dust jacket is lists the genre as thriller but it’s more paranormal suspense or supernatural than thriller.

Still, One to Go was a heart-stopping read, that I would give six out of five star, if I could. Highly recommend it. 

Black-Eyed Susans

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin
354 Pages

"As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving "Black-Eyed Susan," the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa's testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row. Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans--a summertime bloom--just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications--that she sent the wrong man to prison and the real killer remains at large--Tessa turns to the lawyers working to exonerate the man awaiting execution. But the flowers alone are not proof enough, and the forensic investigation of the still-unidentified bones is progressing too slowly. An innocent life hangs in the balance. The legal team appeals to Tessa to undergo hypnosis to retrieve lost memories--and to share the drawings she produced as part of an experimental therapy shortly after her rescue. What they don't know is that Tessa and the scared, fragile girl she was have built a fortress of secrets. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. Is a serial killer still roaming free, taunting Tessa with a trail of clues? She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night. "

I enjoyed reading this book but didn't find it as thrilling, breath-taking etc. etc as the critics try to lead you to believe it is.  It was basically an acceptable mystery.

The Big Bamboo

The Big Bamboo by Tim Dorsey, 322 pages

Serge has decided it is time to resurrect his obsession with movies especially those featuring his home state. Mostly though he just wants to know why more films aren't shot there and why "Florida" scenes are filmed in California? When his grandfather leaves him a cryptic message that he needs to go to L.A. to uncover a family secret, Serge views it as fate and him and his companion fly across the country to straighten things out once and for all. Of course Serge's mission is hopelessly sidetracked with detours and other intrigue such as the kidnapping of the female lead of what is becoming the most expensive and behind schedule flop in Hollywood history, celebrity murder investigations, and the Japanese and Alabama mafias.

This eight Serge Storms novel easily continues Dorsey's over the top series with plenty of interesting characters and a plot that will leave the reader guessing until the very end.

Irene

Irene by Pierre Lemaitre
452 Pages

"Camille Verhoeven, whose diminutive stature belies his fierce intensity, has reached an unusually content (for him) place in life. he is respected by his colleagues and he and his lovely wife, Irene, are expecting their first child. But when a new murder case hits his desk--a double torture-homicide that's so extreme that even the most seasoned officers are horrified-Verhoeven is overcome with a sense of foreboding. As links emerge between the bloody set-piece and at least one past unsolved murder, it becomes clear that a calculating serial killer is at work. The press has a field day, taking particular pleasure in putting Verhoeven under the media spotlight (and revealing uncomfortable details of his personal life). Then Verhoeven makes a breakthrough discovery: the murders are modeled after the exploits of serial killers from classic works of crime fiction. The double murder was an exquisitely detailed replication of a scene from Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, and one of the linked cold cases was a faithful homage to James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. The media circus reaches a fever pitch when the modus operandi of the killer, dubbed "The Novelist," is revealed. Worse, the Novelist has taken to writing taunting letters to the police, emphasizing that he will stop leaving any clues behind unless Verhoeven remains on the case. For reasons known only to the killer, the case has become personal. With more literature--inspired murders surfacing, Verhoeven enlists the help of an eccentric bookseller and a professor specializing in crime fiction to try to anticipate his adversary's next move. "


A well written and interesting mystery novel with a few plot twists.