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Lumen Fowler led a fairly normal life as a child. At least that’s what she’d like everyone to believe now that she’s an adult. Now that she’s left that tiny town she grew up in, and the name she was born with, behind.

Her mother died early on, leaving Lumen and her father alone together. Theirs was a loving relationship until the winter of Lumen’s fifteenth year when she went breach. All of the teens in Lumen’s town did it – breached that is – usually around the time they hit puberty. Lumen’s dad did it, but her mom was different and Lumen always thought she would be as well. Now, as an adult looking back on that time of her life, Lumen still feels like part of her will be forever different from everyone around her. Like she’ll never be able to truly escape the past she’s tried so hard to outgrow.

Gaylord, who also writes as Arden Bell, delivers a bizarre and eerie tale in When We Were Animals. The story explores the various hormonal confusions of puberty – with an extra animalistic twist – and the messy emotions of teenage life, as well as the lingering questions of identity and fitting in that follow undoubtedly everyone into adulthood.

There are a lot of questions that are never answered in the book, the most maddening being the reason behind the town’s teens going breach in the first place. Lumen and her journey/experiences are the focus of the tale but even she spends a good amount of the story trying to discover the truth behind the trend.

Unresolved issues aside, Gaylord’s latest is an engaging, almost hypnotic, read and one that will appeal to fans of fiction that’s goes a bit beyond the boundaries of easily categorized genre fiction.

6/15 Becky LeJeune

WHEN WE WERE ANIMALS by Joshua Gaylord.  Mulholland Books (April 21, 2015).  ISBN 978-0316297936.  336p.

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Matt Coyle introduced Rick Cahill in a previous book (the Anthony Award-winning Yesterday’s Echo.) Rick was a police detective when he was hit with the double whammy of the murder of his wife, and the accusation of his own guilt and arrest for the crime. He was released without explanation but due to the adverse publicity surrounding the murder and the suspicion of his guilt had to leave the area and relocate to another city.

Night Tremors takes up Rick’s life two years later at which time he is working for a firm of private detectives and devoting his time to providing proof of infidelity about a wife or husband for the other partner in a marriage. He is good at locating the evidence, but it is not the police work that he loved prior to the stain of suspicion in his wife’s murder that prevents returning to that career.

He is approached by an old nemesis of his to look into the case of an individual currently in prison for murder, to help exonerate that man for the crime. Rick jumps at the chance to do some real police work and takes a vacation from the firm he is working for in order to handle the investigation.

His inquiries take him from the wealthy enclaves of La Jolla to the dangerous areas of San Diego. He draws the ire of the police chief who tried to put him away for the murder of his wife, endangers his job, and causes a biker gang to try and stop him from investigating the murder committed by the imprisoned man.

The reader is pulled along by a writing style that is fast and crisp throughout the actual investigation. A logical, but not telegraphed ending, is the reward for enjoying the book and does set up additional novels about Rick Cahill. Very well done and and a novel that will keep the reader glued to the pages.

6/14 Paul Lane

NIGHT TREMORS by Matt Coyle. Oceanview Publishing (June 2, 2015). ISBN: 978-1608091492. 330p.

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This is the third novel in the action series Sniper Elite featuring Gil Shannon, a Seal Team sniper. In the same vein as the first two books military action and plenty of it are the order of the day. Gil is sent to kill a Russian military sniper known as the Wolf who has spread havoc all across Europe and in the course of events has turned Chechen terrorist. The mission appears to be right on until Gil realizes that he has been exposed by someone high up in the U.S. government.

In order to even the odds now stacked against him he teams up with a deadly Russian special operative. When Gil and his team discover that the Wolf is just the tip of the iceberg and what he is up against is a full blown plot to destroy the U.S. economy and upend the stability of the Western World he must go full against the plotters as well as continuing to track down the Wolf.

Gil takes on hosts of enemy soldiers in his way, and in Herculean fashion destroys them one after the other. While exciting and filled with details of military weapons and one too many actions the number of encounters with armed and deadly troops stretches the imagination more than a little. The idea is to enjoy the book with the expectation of reading about the exploits of a super hero and his overcoming all obstacles thrown in his path; one after the other with no letup.

The book is pure entertainment and must be read as one would to enjoy the exploits of larger than life superheroes that bear little resemblance to us mortals. Doing it this way makes the read very enjoyable and becomes entertainment without having to decipher any devious plots.

5/15 Paul Lane

THE SNIPER AND THE WOLF by Scott McEwen & Thomas Koloniar . Touchstone (May 12, 2015). ISBN: 978-1476787268. 400p.

Michael Palmer was an MD and the author of books of fiction both on medically related themes as well as other novels. He passed away suddenly in 2013 leaving a void in the literary world that will be difficult to fill. He did, as many authors do, have ideas as outlines of books in the planning stage. His son, Daniel Palmer, who is not an MD but has a background in the high tech area, has written successful novels involved with domestic suspense. Daniel has taken background and outline from an idea being developed by his father and completed a novel based on a conspiracy in the medical field.

Dr. Carrie Bryant, a young neurosurgeon, is a highly regarded doctor in residence at White Memorial hospital. Due to scheduling difficulties, she is given a chance to do her first unsupervised brain surgery. She performs the difficult procedure but unforeseen complications arise. While exhausted, Carrie has to rush back to her patient and makes a tragic mistake resulting in permanent brain damage.

During the inquest, Carrie feels impelled to resign her position at White Memorial. She moves back into her parents’ house in order to get herself together to continue with her medical career. Her brother Adam, a returning veteran suffering from PTSD after being in combat, also lives there and his condition leads Carrie into exploring another, different job.

When Carrie learns about a new technique involving Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) being tested as a treatment for the emotional and memory trauma occurring in PTSD by the VA, she decides to enter that program as a surgeon and as a way back into medicine. Her first operation is successful, but amazingly the patient mysteriously vanishes. Almost immediately after her second operation, also successful, has the same result – the patient vanishes.

David Hoffman, an investigative reporter with a local newspaper, is writing a story about the incidence of PTSD in returning veterans and in his work has interviewed Carrie. She feels free to ask him to start investigating the disappearances, which he does. The investigation uncovers a conspiracy going to the very top of the Veterans Administration and exposes both Carrie and David to great danger.

Daniel Palmer incorporates his father’s notes and explanations into the novel making it both a fascinating medical plot as well as an adventure into a major conspiracy. Very readable with explanations about PTSD and its effects on many combat veterans with a need to develop new procedures to help them return to civilian life.

5/15 Paul Lane

TRAUMA by Michael Palmer & Daniel Palmer. Simon & Schuster (May 19, 2015). ISBN: 978-1476764856. 320p.

Dr. Jeremy Logan specializing in investigations of strange and inexplicable happenings and having the title of the Enigmalogist makes a second appearance in a novel by Lincoln Child. Dr. Logan is called upon by the management of a large “Think Tank” named Lux and located in Newport, Rhode Island, to look at a very strange occurrence. One of the more eminent doctors working for Lux suddenly began behaving erratically attacking a colleague and then killing himself in a very shocking manner.

In the course of his investigation Dr. Logan discovers a hidden and actually lost room untouched for decades hidden in a wing of the institution which is not widely used. The room is filled with strange equipment that points to a top secret project known as Project S. What Project S was and if it led to the strange actions and subsequent suicide of the doctor forms the gist of the novel. What the project was and what it involved leads Dr Logan into the path of an unforeseen and unexpected danger.

The concept and the happenings are well conceived. A flaw encountered but not greatly detracting from an engrossing read are the lengths of descriptions used in the course of the writing. Child’s aim in these lengthy discourses must surely have been to set the scene in both the seashore of Newport Rhode Island and the size and age of the Think Tanks physical plant.

5/15 Paul Lane

THE FORGOTTEN ROOM by Lincoln Child. Doubleday (May 12, 2015). ISBN: 978-0385531405. 304p.

Jack the Ripper, the very name brings an image of the most horrific serial killer that ever existed. Jack not only murdered but dissected his victims. He killed 5 prostitutes in the Whitechapel section of London in the year 1888 and then disappeared from view. Never caught, his crimes terrorized London and took a place in history from that year to today. Conjecture about who, or what he (or possibly she) is still rampant even now.

Stephen Hunter has written many successful novels involving guns and snipers. His knowledge of ballistics is encyclopedic. The present novel deviates from guns to the knife used by the Ripper and shows the same research that his other books embody. His descriptions of London of 1888, and the territory inhabited by Jack bring up a picture of another time and place. The misery of the poor living in the Whitechapel section is captured and made into the background of the action for the reader.

The book provides the facts, the conditions and the horror of the murders. Hunter names the women killed and provides as much as possible about them at this point in time. His descriptions of each murder are lurid, probably taken from actual newspaper accounts. The narrative uses a young Irish Journalist who follows the Ripper’s path in order to make a name for himself. He brings out facts that lead to a possible solution to who the murderer is and with literary license provides an ending to Jack’s career.

Hunter uses supposed diaries written by the journalist, and Jack himself to tell the story. He notes suspicions of the era  bringing up theories prevalent and popular during the period of the Ripper’s career.  There are tie-ins with the methods used by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes to solve cases via astute observation and logic, as well as reference to the novel “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw.

The descriptions of the murders will be upsetting but are key to postulating the Ripper’s possible motivation in carrying out the crimes. Another fascinating book by Stephen Hunter.

5/15 Paul Lane

I, Ripper by Stephen Hunter. Simon & Schuster (May 19, 2015). ISBN: 978-1476764856. 320p.