EVEN GOOD COPS CAN GO BAD... Rookie cop Tommy Boyd learns the hard way that those that wear badges can be as ruthless as those they hunt when he is taken under the wing of Captain Ty Reeves, a self-proclaimed "destroyer among destroyers." A THIN LINE BETWEEN HEROES AND MONSTERS... Ty is eager to teach his new rookie that the rules don't apply to his division; the coveted SIS: Special Investigation Section. The section of the Las Vegas Metro Police with the most arrests, the most convictions, and the most officer involved shootings in the history of the city. A CHOICE IS ALL THAT'S LEFT... Tommy sees that Reeves uses his badge with fearlessness and fury to destroy those he's deemed a threat. SIS is well protected and lucrative for those that play along. For those that don't, they're seen as no better than the criminals they chase. Stuck in the middle between duty and the corruption and violence of SIS, Tommy must choose which side of the line he's on. But if he makes the wrong choice, he may not be around long enough to regret it. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Victor Methos' fiction has appeared in magazines and literary journals across the United States and United Kingdom. He is the author of several bestsellers including THE WHITE ANGEL MURDER, the #1 mystery-thriller in the U.S. and U.K. for over eight weeks. He has been a prosecutor specializing in violent crime and is currently a criminal defense attorney in the United States, where he has defended everyone from murderers and the mafia to the homeless and disabled. His crime fiction is based on cases he has either worked as an attorney, or studied. Views: 27
An audacious thriller from a major new talentLife isn't panning out for Maureen Coughlin. At twenty-nine, the tough-skinned Staten Island native's only excitement comes from . . . well, not much. A fresh pack of American Spirits, maybe, or a discreet dash of coke before work. If something doesn't change soon, she'll end up a "lifer" at the Narrows, the faux-swank bar where she works one long night after another. But just like the island, the Narrows has its seamy side.After work one night, Maureen walks in on a tryst between her co-worker Dennis and Frank Sebastian, a silver-haired politico. When Sebastian demands her silence, Maureen is more than happy to forget what she's seen—until Dennis turns up dead on the train tracks the next morning. The murder sends Maureen careening out of her stultifying routine and into fast-deepening trouble. Soon she's on the run through the seedy underbelly of the borough, desperate to stop Sebastian before Dennis's fate becomes... Views: 27
He's your perfect date. You're his next victim.When the tortured body of a young woman is found in a dumpster, her eyes swollen shut and her clothes soaked with blood, Detective Erika Foster is one of the first at the crime scene. The trouble is, this time, it's not her case. While she fights to secure her place on the investigation team, Erika can't help but get involved and quickly finds a link to the unsolved murder of a woman four months earlier. Dumped in a similar location, both women have identical wounds – a fatal incision to their femoral artery. Stalking his victims online, the killer is preying on young pretty women using a fake identity. How will Erika catch a murderer who doesn't seem to exist? Then another girl is abducted while waiting for a date. Erika and her team must get to her before she becomes another dead victim, and, come face to face with a terrifyingly sadistic individual.Gripping, tense and impossible to put down, Last Breath will have you on... Views: 27
Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison. Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty: Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows… Views: 27
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which read: 'A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6:30 p.m.' Unable to resist the mysterious invitation, a crowd begins to gather at Little Paddocks at the ppointed time when, without warning, the lights go out . . . Views: 27
E-book exclusive extras: Christie biographer Charles Osborne's essay on The Body in the Library; "The Marples": the complete guide to all the cases of crime literature's foremost female detective.The very-respectable Colonel and Mrs Bantry have awakened to discover the body of a young woman in their library. She is wearing evening dress and heavy make-up, which is now smeared across her cold cheeks. But who is she? How did she get there? And what is her connection with another dead girl, whose charred remains are later discovered in an abandoned quarry? The Bantrys turn to Miss Marple to solve the mystery. Views: 27
Tight plotting, Solid Finish Because he’s a damn good writer James Lee Burke knows how to keep a plot going from start to finish with no loose ends or out-of-the-blue surprises that amateurishly attempt to explain and finish off a narrative. He easily weaves several ancillary situations into the story line of The Tin Roof Blowdown. These are of interest on their own, but more importantly they serve to expand and add often curious layers to the main show that centers around the eye of mayhem left behind by a pair of hurricanes. I bring this up since I just finished reading a book by Jeffrey Deaver titled The Cold Moon. The bad guy, a most interesting sociopath called The Watchmaker who is a brilliant killer with machinations of Machiavellian stature, is the author of a poem about a cold moon, so one would suppose that he would figure prominently in the denouement of the novel. He doesn’t. Not at all. He escapes from the cops and vanishes from the book with nearly one-hundred pages left, obviously setting a not-so-subtle stage for a return in another Deaver effort. This strikes me as venal artifice by a writer who certainly has reached a point of financial and critical security where such shenanigans are unnecessary and beneath him. None of this fakery for Burke. From the first book I read by him years ago, The Neon Rain to others that included Black Cherry Blues, The Lost Get-Back Boogie, Jolie Blon’s Bounce, and now this one, Burke has played it straight telling his stories and making sure loose ends are tied up when the last page is read. And like I said he can write. I said he smiled. That’s not quite right. Jude shined the world on and slipped its worst punches and in a fight knew how to swallow his blood and never let people know he was hurt. He had his Jewish mother’s narrow eyes and chestnut hair, and he combed it straight back in a hum, like a character in a 1930s movie. Somehow he reassured others that the earth was a good place, that the day was a fine one, and that good things were about to happen to all of us. Tight, succinct descriptions like the one above or similarly structured vignettes connect and in doing so glide the reader from scene to scene. None of this is as easy as Burke makes it look. That’s called skill. He’s got it in spades. But this is to be expected of a man who’s written more than twenty-five novels, a man who divides his time between seemingly disparate locations – Missoula, Montana and New Iberia, Louisiana. Living in these two places seems to give him an expanded and sympathetic view of the world and those of us who bump and grind our way through it making his characters and their short comings easily assimilated, allowing the reader to experience sympathy and often empathy. The setting of The Tin Roof Blowdown is largely post-apocalypse Louisiana following the devastation wrought by first Hurricane Katrina then Rita. The landscape has been reduced to a naturally nuked wasteland where murder, rape and theft are the order of the day perpetrated by both punks run amok and many cops. Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Detective Dave Robicheaux is deployed to New Orleans, the once grand city now reduced to a feudal state without electrical power, clean water, food or any sense of societal order. Bloated bodies – humans, cats, dogs – float in flooded streets or lie tangled in downed, shattered trees. In this chaos Robicheaux must locate two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who quite possibly is more dangerous than the thugs looting the city and shooting at rescue helicopters overhead. Based on past books, just another day at the office for Robicheaux. Burke’s got so much going on here that it would be easy for him to inadvertently confuse the reader, if not himself, beyond salvation allowing the book to devolve into a miasma of none-related tales – a rag-tag collection of short stories pretending to be a novel. Again his skill and also confidence as a writer never allows this to happen. Not even close. Each section and chapter advances the drama logically and without undo cliff hangings. A good example is when a killer stalking the detective’s daughter is spotted outside a cabin. Out among the willows, I saw the solitary fisherman lean down in his boat and pick up something from the bottom. He knocked his hat off his head to give himself better vision and raised the rifle to his shoulder. I could not make out the features of his face, but the moon had started to rise and I saw the light gleam on his bald head inside the shadows. I was already out the screen door and running down the slope when he let off the first round. So many mystery writers would then wander off for a chapter or several on another tangent leaving a person wondering what’s going on back at the bayou. Not Burke. He again displays his confidence by moving directly forward with the above scene in the next chapter. He knows that each element in his books can stand on its own and doesn’t need the tired device of leaving the reader up in the air for pages on end to maintain interest in the overall narrative arc. And Burke slips in sharp, humorous observations on the human condition throughout the book like this one following an argument between Robicheaux and his wife, a former nun. I just went outside and started the truck, my face hot, my ears ringing with the harshness of our exchange. The yard had fallen into shadow and cicadas were droning in the trees, like a bad headache that won’t go away. Just as I was backing into the street, regretting my words, trying to accept Molly’s anger and hurt feelings, she came out on the gallery and waved good-bye. That’s what happens when you marry nuns. For those who’ve not yet read Burke, The Tin Roof Blowdown is a great place to start. For those who are already fans of his, this mystery is merely one more top-notch effort by a most talented author. Views: 27
