Crime Fiction | Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

CATACOMB by Madeleine Roux

September 24, 2015

Click to purchase

Asylum (Book 3)

Dan, Abby, and Jordan have survived Brookline Asylum and Warden Crawford and his henchmen twice now and are due some downtime. Plus, they’ll all be headed off to college soon – or at least Dan and Jordan will, Abby is still undecided. So when Jordan packs up to move to New Orleans where he’ll be living with his more accepting uncle, the three decide it’s a great opportunity for a road trip. What they don’t know and can’t even begin to suspect, is that they are still yet to be free of the shadow of Brookline Asylum.

This third title in the series finally answers some of the questions Dan and the readers have had about his parentage. And what better place to set that tale than one of the most mysterious cities in the United States?

I loved the fact that the book brought the trio to New Orleans, but I honestly expected something of a different story. We already knew that there was a character in Sanctum connected to Louisiana and that character does ultimately play a hefty role in this third story just not in the way I’d expected (meaning I kind of expected some of the plantation stuff hinted at in Sactum). That aside, it was definitely a welcome return to Dan and his friends.

The story does loosely connect to Brookline Asylum, but is less asylum and experiments and more voodoo and conjuring (appropriate for the setting). And of course we do have more of my favorite aspect of the series – the weird photos to set the tone of the story. While this third installment didn’t take the exact route I thought it would, it was a nice surprise in terms of the change of direction in keeping the series going.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

CATACOMB by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-0062364050. 336p.

Kindle

2 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Horror | Tagged: Magical Realism | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

SANCTUM by Madeleine Roux

September 23, 2015

Click to purchase

Asylum (Book 2)

After surviving the horrors of their summer at New Hampshire College, Dan and his friends are looking forward to a bit of normalcy. But someone has other plans for the trio. Dan agrees to visit their old classmate – the one locked up for killing a fellow student – and is given a message that forces him to return to New Hampshire College. His hope is that he can finally bring the whole nightmare to a close, but when he reveals his plan to Abby and Jordan he finds that they too have received messages.

Now all three have returned, under the guise of a student campus visit, to once again face the horrors of Brookline Asylum.

This follow up to Asylum picks up just a few months after Dan, Abby, and Jordan narrowly escaped the summer college prep program at New Hampshire College. All three have returned home to their own high schools, but Dan has a hard time letting go. Part of this is of course thanks to the revelations about his own shocking connection to Brookline Asylum.

This time around, Dan and his friends are sent on a bizarre scavenger hunt throughout the town of Brookline, all the while trying to evade their student hosts and a weird secret society while Dan also tries to muddle through the meaning of a series of visions he’s been having about Warden Crawford.

As with Asylum Roux again uses creepy and gritty imagery to ratchet up the chill factor of Sanctum. It was great to return to Brookline – a town I’d definitely NEVER want to live in – and get more of the Warden and the asylum’s story, though there were still a few loose ends left by the end. Overall it’s a great mix of horror and suspense, the perfect kind for a one-sitting read on a dark and stormy night.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

SANCTUM by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins; Reprint edition (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-0062221001. 368p.

Kindle

Comments Off on SANCTUM by Madeleine Roux | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Horror | Tagged: Young Adult | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

ASYLUM by Madeleine Roux

September 22, 2015

Click to purchase

Dan Crawford couldn’t be more excited to have been accepted to the New Hampshire College College Prep Program. Not only does this mean his first taste of college and the real world, it means a summer away from his parents. Freedom.

Dan arrives on campus to find that his dorm is actually an old asylum, something that at first intrigues. But that’s before the strange things start to happen. A student is killed and Dan begins having bouts of missing time and that’s only the start. As the tension increases on campus, Dan and his friends explore more of the old Brookline Asylum in an attempt to unravel the mystery. What they find is truly terrifying and could mean certain danger for each and every student in the program.

Using “vintage” images in the style of Ransom Riggs’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Roux builds a chilling and intriguing tale filled with ominous locked rooms, hints of strange experiments and dark insane asylum history, and an uber creepy serial killer who may just have returned from the past to hunt down and murder teens.

In other words, Asylum is super fun.

9/15 Becky LeJeune

ASYLUM by Madeleine Roux. HarperCollins; Reprint edition (August 26, 2014). ISBN 978-0062220974. 336p.

Kindle

2 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction, Horror | Tagged: Young Adult | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

ENTRY ISLAND by Peter May

September 16, 2015

Click to purchase

Peter May gives us a two part fascinating story; one a tale involving murder, the other a love story spanning a hundred years. The two sections are woven together in the most mesmerizing fashion it has been my pleasure to read and enjoy in a long time.

Entry Island is a small piece of land, only 1 1/2 miles long and a 1 ¾ miles wide, situated in a group of small islets along the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Its population is just over 100 people who eke out a living from fishing.

The story begins with the murder of the most affluent man living there. The only suspect is his wife who was interviewed covered in blood and telling a tale of a masked man breaking into their house, attacking her also, but fleeing, leaving her dazed. Sime Mackenzie is a detective attached to the police department in Montreal under whose jurisdiction the murder falls. He is sent along to aid in the investigation as the only true English speaker in the group, which is due to residence in the French speaking Quebec province.

The investigation seems just a formality since the widow was covered in blood, and the masked intruder is seemingly something made up by her. Sime goes to question the widow and is astonished at the fact that he seems to know her from somewhere. This appears an impossibility, until his insomniac nights turn up dreams of a relationship from another time and another place. He places their relationship in Scotland in the past with both having roles to play.

A very important fact in the story is that the widow has never left Entry Island in her life, nor did her mother and grandmother. In spite of the great deal of evidence against her, Sime gets the overwhelming feeling that she is innocent. A mutual attraction develops between them with Sime doing what is his duty as a policeman but working to prove her innocent. Set in a locale that is not part of most of our experience, the novel adapts a somewhat surreal atmosphere which adds to the enjoyment felt by the reader at finding this book and an author such as Peter May.

9/15 Paul Lane

ENTRY ISLAND by Peter May. Quercus (September 15, 2015). ISBN: 978-1623656638. 544p.

Comments Off on ENTRY ISLAND by Peter May | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE ZIG ZAG GIRL by Elly Griffiths

September 15, 2015

Click to purchase

The smell at the Brighton train station led the police to find the head and legs of a woman packed in two cases. Shortly thereafter, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens receives the body’s torso in a package addressed to him, using his recent World War II rank of Captain.

The body reminds Edgar of an old magic trick called the “Zig Zag Girl” perfected by Max Mephisto. The men served together in a special unit called the “Magic Men,” and Mephisto is still performing on the circuit but sees that times are changing.

Stephens gets Mephisto to help him investigate, and the time period is classic mystery era, pre-cell phones, computers or DNA, when murders were solved by face-to-face investigation and brilliant deduction.

Another death attributed to a magic trick amps up the tension, especially as Edgar realizes the Magic Men are being targeted. The setting of the shabby, post-war beach town during the 1950’s adds another layer to the story. This is a clever, original plot and the quirky characters bring it all to life in this well written mystery. Classic mystery fans will find this an enjoyable read.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE ZIG ZAG GIRL by Elly Griffiths. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (September 15, 2015). ISBN 978-0544527942. 336p.

Comments Off on THE ZIG ZAG GIRL by Elly Griffiths | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Mystery | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

MAKE ME by Lee Child

September 8, 2015

Click to purchase

Jack Reacher, Book 20

When I review a new Jack Reacher book, it often feels like I will run out of superlatives or lapse into another review that sounds much like the one before it. But really, it’s not my fault if Child keeps pumping out series books that get better every time – especially considering that he started out with a winner. A lot of series get stale or repetitive but somehow Child manages to not only keep things fresh, but bring fresh perspectives to a character that readers feel they already know so well.

Make Me is a bit darker than the previous books, but that darkness is offset by a romance. Yes, you read that correctly. Now read on.

As is his wont, Reacher is riding the rails, but gets off in a small Oklahoma town called Mother’s Rest because he is simply curious about the name. A woman sees him and scurries over, then realizes he is not the man she is seeking. Tom Cruise aside, his sheer size makes him easily discernible from most mortal men so that also arouses his curiosity.

But his curiosity is not to be slaked. While he asks around town for the meaning of the name, no one will tell him. Mother’s Rest is a tiny town miles from anything but wheat fields, and it just feels wrong to Reacher that no one seems to know.

The woman, Michelle Chang, is a bit more forthcoming. She is a private investigator who can’t find her partner. Reacher decides to help her look, and that leads them both into danger as well as into research into the Deep Web. Their search takes them to Illinois, Arizona and California, and their mutual attraction leads to the usual, only this time, with longer lasting results.

This is a dark and twisty story as only Lee Child can tell it, and I stayed up late into the night to finish it. Another winner from the master.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

MAKE ME by Lee Child. Delacorte Press (September 8, 2015). ISBN 978-0804178778. 416p.

Kindle

Comments Off on MAKE ME by Lee Child | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Thriller | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

ABANDON by Blake Crouch

September 4, 2015

Click to purchase

Blake Crouch is noted for his many suspenseful novels and most recently Wayward Pines, which was made into a successful television series. Abandon is the name of a small midwestern town that saw its entire population suddenly disappear on Christmas day, 1893. No trace was ever found of any of these people and their houses were found with food on the tables, personal belonging in place, no messages left and no answers to what had happened.

A history professor in present times hires two guides and enlists the aid of his estranged journalist daughter to try and find out what did happen to the people of Abandon. They travel to the town and begin attempting to find answers.

Crouch sets up a scenario in which events are described back and forth between 1893 and the present day search. The reader is introduced to the two sets of characters, their motivations and finally what happened by rapidly changing the scene from one group to the other. The differences between the professor and his daughter, Abigail, are part and parcel of the novel with a logical making up between the two as the search goes on.

The book is suspenseful, but not otherworldly as was Wayward Pines. The plot development and the method of using both sets of events, 1893 and the present day, keeps the reader glued to the book and anxiously awaiting the next steps in both periods. Very well done.

9/15 Paul Lane

ABANDON by Blake Crouch. Thomas & Mercer; Reissue edition (September 1, 2015). ISBN: 978-1503946194. 529p.

Comments Off on ABANDON by Blake Crouch | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction | Tagged: Mystery | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

CHASING JUSTICE by H. Terrell Griffin

September 3, 2015

Click to purchase

Matt Royal is a retired attorney and self proclaimed beach bum, enjoying his comfortable life on Longboat Key off the west coast of Florida, except he comes out of retirement for each book – and this is the ninth – of the series.

This time the police chief’s wife, Abby Lester, is accused of murder. The best way to keep Abby out of jail would be to find the real killer, so Royal hires an investigator to help out. The evidence is shaky at best; a wine glass found bedside with Abbey’s fingerprints on it, and a series of emails, supposedly signed by Abby, sent to the victim, including one on his last day on earth threatening to kill him, except the emails weren’t sent from her computer, and her fingerprints are nowhere else in the apartment.

Royal’s detective girlfriend is working on a different murder case, but you don’t have to be a detective to realize these two murders are related somehow. Royal stumbles through the case, leaping over every hurdle thrown his way until the foregone conclusion. A comfortable, if not exciting read for legal thriller fans.

9/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

CHASING JUSTICE by H. Terrell Griffin. Oceanview Publishing (September 1, 2015). ISBN 978-1608091416. 384p.

Comments Off on CHASING JUSTICE by H. Terrell Griffin | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Florida, Legal | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE UNYIELDING FUTURE by Brian O’Grady

September 2, 2015

Click to purchase

Brian O’Grady brings his readers into a world that introduces the concept of forces that act as Yang and Yin in the course of human events. They can prevent massacres, on the other hand arrange for murders and guide the actions of humans. These are not just abstract entities, but humans, long lived, 2 thousand year old humans that can interact with normal people if they so wish.

O’Grady puts a doctor and his family into the paths of two of these entities when they are part of a major accident and a seemingly old man arrives on the scene. In spite of what appears to be advanced age and consequent weakness this individual saves many lives and appears normal once the deed is accomplished.

The novel is both perplexing and enticing. What is the motivation of these people since there is more than one. Are they truly the Yang and Yin of our world representing opposite reactions to events, or they are part of the same following similar patterns and drives. The answers are not so clear but do cause thinking that might admit that such forces exist and influence events. A compelling read and certainly stimulating a desire to read more of Brian O’Grady’s books.

9/15 Paul Lane

THE UNYIELDING FUTURE by Brian O’Grady. Story Plant, The (September 8, 2015). ISBN: 978-1611882162. 350p.

Comments Off on THE UNYIELDING FUTURE by Brian O’Grady | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction | Tagged: Legal | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

X by Sue Grafton

August 25, 2015

Click to purchase

Hallie Bettancourt’s biological son has just been released from jail. Hallie put the boy up for adoption over two decades back and has since become quite wealthy, so even if her son doesn’t want to meet her, she wants to offer some sort of help. And that’s where Kinsey comes in. Hallie has hired the PI to find out where the parolee lives and provide contact info so Hallie can reach out to him. Nothing could be simpler from Kinsey’s perspective.

But that simple job becomes less so when the feds show up investigating a marked bill that passed through Kinsey’s hands. A bill Hallie paid Kinsey with. Kinsey soon discovers that Hallie Bettancourt doesn’t exist. But why would anyone go to so much trouble to pull one over on Kinsey?

Meanwhile, Pete Wolinsky’s widow has grown concerned over some calls she’s received on Pete’s behalf from the IRS. Since Kinsey was the last one to go through Pete’s files – files Ruthie recently trashed – she’s hoping Kinsey might have come across something that can help. Kinsey never saw any financials but she did hang onto one old Byrd-Shine box that has a few curious items she decides are worth a closer look.

Kinsey is back in this twenty-fourth installment of the series. That’s right. Twenty-four. That means, sadly, that there are just two more to go.

Of all the long-term series that I read, this is by far my favorite. Kinsey – still trapped in the 80s, still enjoying her pb & pickle sandwiches, and still renting Henry’s guest house – is a character you want to be with for a while. And in spite of how it sounds, this isn’t a series that’s stagnant or stiff at all. Kinsey is constantly growing – this far along she’s a bit more cynical and a bit more snarky, which is why she’s so certain that the files she finds are another shady scheme of Pete’s. And while Ruthie is a staunch supporter of her husband, Kinsey really wants to stick to her guns based on what she thought she knew about him.

Henry, Rosie, William, and the regulars are back, but there are a few cameo appearances by past favorites too (Dietz.). But that doesn’t actually mean that you have to have read all of the books in order to be able to get into X. In fact, it could serve as a good starting point if you’ve yet to dive into the series.

8/15 Becky LeJeune

X by Sue Grafton. Marian Wood Books/Putnam (August 25, 2015). ISBN 978-0399163845. 416p.

Kindle

Audiobook

1 Comment | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Paranormal | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi