Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

Click to purchase

It starts with a middle of the night call to Virgil Flowers from his friend and fishing buddy Johnson Johnson. Johnson’s father liked outboard motors so he named his kids Johnson, Mercury and Evinrude. Johnson’s calling about someone stealing dogs.

Virgil agrees to come take a look and soon finds himself involved in a murder, a major meth lab operation and a school board gone rogue stealing millions of taxpayer dollars. Soon the murder count has doubled, the meth lab has been shut down, some of the dogs have been rescued and Virgil is zeroing in on the school board.

As usual, a great outing from John Sandford.

11/14 Jack Quick

DEADLINE by John Sandford. Putnam Adult; First Edition first Printing edition (October 7, 2014). ISBN 978-0399162374. 400p.

Click to purchase

Books are often described by zealous reviewers as absorbing, fascinating, captivating and other adjectives indicating that it cannot be put down once the reader gets into it. The Carnage Account fills that bill 110%. Once you start to read it it is almost impossible to put down.

Lieberman utilizes three main characters to tell the story. The first is a multi billionaire; Rory Cage, a man that has everything but wants more. He finds a new niche in selling “death bonds” which allow investors to purchase insurance policies from the living at a discount and than collect the full value when they die. Rory decides to accelerate the collection on some high value policies by the simple expedient of murdering the person named on the document.

The second person is a lady named Dawn Knight who is doing public relations for Rory’s various companies which include an NBA basketball team and a huge highly successful Hedge Fund. Rory falls in love with Dawn and imagines her as the capstone to his possessions, sharing his kingdom with him.

Problem for Rory is that Dawn is still in love with Clay Harbor, the man she wanted to marry years ago, but was stopped by the displeasure of her father at the union. Clay, the third person, left town, became a Navy Seal, and then a doctor. He returned to town due to circumstances incurred during a battle in Afghanistan in which his specialized unit had to defend a poppy field. His rescue of a comrade trapped by enemy fire and wounded in the poppy field against orders gets Clay sent back to the states to care for the man.

In high gear Lieberman carries us through attempts by Rory to get rid of Clay in order to marry Dawn. Events putting Dawn and Clay in danger are described in fascinating detail and the finale of the book brings a very logical ending which hints, merely hints at a sequel. Very well done and certainly underscoring Ben Lieberman’s talent and creating interest in reading other novels by him.

11/14 Paul Lane

THE CARNAGE ACCOUNT by Ben Lieberman. Thomas & Mercer (October 28, 2014). ISBN: 978-1477825877. 336p.

Click to purchase

If you’re a tenant at 23 Beulah Grove it’s likely because you’ve got no other choice. The landlord is unreliable at best and downright criminal at worst, but he’ll take cash and you’re likely to get a room without references. Is it worth it, though?

Collette has been on the run for months and has just returned to England to be close to her dying mother. Beulah Grove is nearby and has an opening thanks to the recent disappearance of a tenant everyone suspects dodged out on the rent. Collette isn’t interested in making friends, she’s not planning to be at Beulah Grove long enough, but even she can’t ignore the things going on in the house. When one roommate is attacked and another becomes entangled in a dangerous deception that could affect them all, Collette can’t help but get involved.

But that’s not the worst of it. The missing tenant at Beulah Grove isn’t missing at all and if Collette isn’t careful, she may be the one to disappear next.

The book begins at the end with just enough information to tease the reader and set them on edge. Marwood then takes the story back to Collette’s beginning to show exactly how she ended up at Beulah Grove in the first place. As the characters are introduced, the killer’s identity is kept pretty brilliantly under wraps even as his twisted methods are revealed.

Six tenants in a rent house with a sleazy landlord would be bad enough. Break-ins, hidden cameras, and a serial killer masquerading as your average, everyday neighbor are about the worst scenarios ever. The Killer Next Door is a renter’s worst nightmare and Marwood’s characters are doomed from the get go! It feels almost wrong to say that I enjoyed reading this one – but only almost.

11/14 Becky LeJeune

THE KILLER NEXT DOOR by Alex Marwood. Penguin Books; Reprint edition (October 28, 2014). ISBN: 978-0143126690. 400p.

Click to purchase

This book is set in Atlanta in 1974. I lived in Atlanta 1964-1968, and as much as I love the city I think Karin Slaughter has fairly accurately portrayed the city as it was at this time.

It was no longer “permissible” to hate Negros , so gays became the new hate target. Changes in the power structure were cataclysmic as black voters gained the majority after the exodus of many whites from the inner city, and so were the reactions of the remaining not less-powerful forces, like the Atlanta Police Department.

Primarily a story of two families – the Lawson’s with three family members on the force, and widow Kate Murphy, whose Jewish heritage is masked by the Irish last name of her late husband.

The story: As a brutal murder and a furious manhunt rock the city’s police department, Kate Murphy wonders if her first day on the job will also be her last. She’s determined to defy her privileged background by making her own way—wearing a badge and carrying a gun. But for a beautiful young woman, life will be anything but easy in the macho world of the Atlanta PD, where even the female cops have little mercy for rookies. It’s also the worst day possible to start given that a beloved cop has been gunned down, his brothers in blue are out for blood, and the city is on the edge of war.

11/14 Jack Quick

COP TOWN by Karin Slaughter. Delacorte Press; First edition, signed by author. edition (June 24, 2014). ISBN 978-0345547491. 416p.