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Camaro Espinoza is a charter boat captain living a quiet life, taking south Florida tourists out deep-sea fishing. Parker Story is an ex-con who is trying to do the right thing but just keeps getting kicked to the curb, so he acquiesces when his old prison cellmate offers him the job of chartering a boat.

Story asks Camaro to smuggle a political dissident out of Cuba and offers her a large sum for her services, but it is not the money she’s interested in, it’s Parker Story. He desperately needs her help with this job, as well as making her promise to get his young daughter to his brother in Texas should anything go wrong. Camaro was a combat medic and still has those skills, which stand her in good stead as nothing goes as planned with the Cuban passenger.

This is a fast moving story with lots of action, some interesting twists and the deadliest female protagonist since Jon Land’s Caitlin Strong and Steig Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

12/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

NIGHT CHARTER by Sam Hawken. Mulholland Books (December 8, 2015).  ISBN 978-0316299213. 336p.

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Ethan Holt overcomes an abusive childhood – or perhaps because of it – becomes an Olympic gold medalist in the Decathlon and the press nicknames him Hercules. Many years later he is teaching at his college alma mater and struggling to raise his teenage daughter Skip alone after his wife dies in a car wreck.

Then Skip is kidnapped and Holt’s life careens out of control, especially as the kidnapper has proffered a rhyming list of challenges to be completed in order to get Skip back. Eventually Holt realizes that he is being tested through the Twelve Labors of Hercules and the kidnapper knows way too much about him, his family and his childhood.

The detective assigned the case is biased by her own personal history, but that is a definite advantage here. Eventually the FBI gets involved but it is up to Holt to complete the challenges and win his daughter back.

There are the usual kidnapping tropes in play and no real surprises here until the very end but the story pulls the reader in nonetheless. Should appeal to readers who enjoy Harlan Coben or Linwood Barclay type suburban thrillers.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

12/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

DIG TWO GRAVES by Kim Powers. Tyrus Books (December 4, 2015).  ISBN 978-1440591921. 304p.

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The norm for a couple when having a baby is for one to be working, and if financially possible, the other to take some time off to get the child off to a healthy start. All well and good unless you have the type of occupation that the “Silver Bear” AKA Columbus and his partner Risina have. Both were introduced in previous books by Derek Haas. They are a contract killer and his “fence,” who is the planner and guide in the assassinations.

An interesting new assignment arrives for the duo.  They are to kill someone named Castillo, who is strangely another assassin currently on the rise in the field. Castillo is aware of them and is as qualified as Columbus and looks forward to taking him out, reducing the competition. He is also aware that Columbus has a partner and a baby to take care of.  And the part that is of most interest is that Castillo has studied the methods of his rival and models himself after him.

Columbus’ orders are clear, i.e., kill Castillo and in an extremely choreographed battle of wits goes after him.  The book is short, but manages to keep the reader glued as one move results in a counter move throughout the descriptions. The ending is not telegraphed by any means and leaves a cliffhanger that just must be resolved in a later novel.

11/15 Paul Lane

A DIFFERENT LIE by Derek Haas. Pegasus (November 16, 2015).  ISBN 978-1605988993. 272p.

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On various occasions newspaper articles, TV spots and other public forums announce that countries are working on magnetic weapons of war. This would be a method of destroying the manufacturing and distribution of any and all electric power. There would be no deaths directly attributable to the loss of power, although many would be caused by the consequences of said loss. Buildings and other installations would remain standing, and the population of the area receiving the attack would survive in the main to become subservient to the attacker.

Powerless is a well thought out novel describing the aftermath of a total loss of electrical power in the entire world due to explosions on our sun and energy generated by those sunspots. The book focuses on the United States and several groups of people and how they are affected by  the catastrophe.

While Luke Marshall, an army veteran, is singled out for closer examination, other people are introduced and followed as their lives are affected by the loss of electricity. Cars stall, water is not pumped into homes, phones including cellular are rendered useless, planes fall out of the sky and nuclear plants begin inevitable meltdown. Luke Marshall undertakes a journey to pick up and bring his family home.

Lawlessness reigns, it is everyone for himself, and it’s survival of the strongest and those that have access to weapons to utilize for both protection and to use as strong arm tactics. The President of the United States attempts to restore some sort of order but finds that the loss of electricity subjects him, as well as all others, an inability to function normally. In an interesting aside, the destruction of an enemy of the country is a rewarding prospective.

The main thrust of the book is the description of destruction and devastation, but the ending is a logical method of restoring the material aspects of the civilization we now enjoy. An excellent and thought provoking exploration of what could happen if we have our civilization taken away by an outside force.

11/15 Paul Lane

POWERLESS by Tim Washburn. Pinnacle (October 27, 2015). ISBN: 978-0786036530. 464p.

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