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Alice Campbell and her husband Todd have moved to the well to do section of north Palm Beach county in Florida.  Todd is an architect and has found  a position in the area.  Alice was a professor of logic at the university level forced to give up her job in the move to Florida.

Unable to connect to another teaching job, Alice spends time going around the area to various functions trying to develop a social life.  She meets Katherine (Kat) Grant, and the two women quickly form a strong friendship meeting for lunches and get-togethers. Kat is the daughter of a very wealthy family and every bit the socialite with Alice a woman involved with her husband in the suburban routine of trying to make ends meet.  Kat is quick to invite Alice to lunches and even short getaways indicating that she is doing this because she enjoys the rapport she has with her and has enough money to do so.

Kat confides to Alice that her marriage to Howard, a financier, is a horror. Howard is a drunk, a bully,  a philanderer and proves himself a wife beater. Than while Kat is away on a trip to England, Howard falls to his death from the second floor of their mansion.  Looks like a freak accident, but the police,  out of the blue, arrest Alice on a murder charge. Was the fall a murder? Wouldn’t Kat be a more logical suspect if it were?  The relationship between Alice and Kat becomes distant with doubts about what is going on.

Hunt expertly takes the story to an ending that is logical but not readily foreseen, and gives us a novel that is mesmerizing as well as skillfully keeping the reader guessing and glued to the book.

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Set sometime in the  future, T.S. Nichols’ novel imagines an fascinating development in the lives of mankind. It is the scientific transfer of memories from one person to another. Based on this achievement the book touches upon two recipients of memories. One is by police detective Cole who has been able to get memories from murdered individuals and with this as an aid catch the killer. He is the Memory Detective of the novel’s title.

The other is someone with the money that can afford to receive memories of say, great athletes, those individuals that have traveled and seen the world, and others whose backgrounds would interest him to get their memories.

The persona of Detective Cole is a well thought out study of a person who has literally been murdered many times with all the trauma that would be part of those crimes.  His skill has cost him dearly since he mixes memories with people he loves and finds that they cannot tolerate a relationship with him.  This certainly is the case with his girlfriend of several years who finds that there is no closeness due to memories of others intruding on their relationship.

The one murder that is paramount in this novel is one suffered by a young girl from Kansas that has been thrown out of her home by her father and  migrates to New York the locale of the book. Cole sees her coming to the city, her hopes, her dreams and her meeting a person that she falls in love with.  He also sees the killing which was the battering to death by the murderer with a hammer.  Based on the memories that are present allow the police to interview several suspects in working the case.

The description of the second individual includes memories from a  surfer who has enjoyed the sport at most of the world’s great surfing sites.  The person now wants to buy other memories in order to enhance his experiences.  Is there a connection between the millionaire enjoying great adventure vicariously and the case of murder being investigated by Cole?  In addition to memory transfer  being a concept well described T.S. Nichols has the definite ability to present a very tightly woven tale.  The ending is logical and stems from what we learn about the individuals described.  A very well done novel and of course, one that will keep the reader up all night thinking about the fascinating theme and the drama that stems from it.

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NOTE: Movie tie-in edition comes out in March 2018. as does the film. Used copies of previous editions are available.

A short novel created to be a tie-in to a movie starring Joaquin  Phoenix and certainly one that will shout out – See This Film!!! Joe is a former Marine and also previously an FBI agent. A very abusive childhood has left him mentally damaged beyond any real chance of repair. He lives with his grandmother in the borough of Queens, New York city and is as much a loner as any human can be. He earns a livelihood through the act of rescuing young girls from kidnapping and being forced into prostitution.

The novel opens as he successfully completes one assignment and receives another job rescuing the daughter of a New York State senator. The senator himself talks to him and advises that the girl is being held in a brothel in Manhattan by the mob. The assignment leads Joe into a situation that involves criminal mobs, and high level conspiracy.

Ames successfully paints a picture of a world very different than the one most of us inhabit. It is brutal, unforgiving and violent to a degree unknown to the average person. The novel in addition to being a tie-in to the film is definitely one that is leading to another book continuing Joe’s activities in this violent underground world.  A very well done lead in to further novels by Jonathan Ames and certainly one that will promote the movie.

1/18 Paul Lane

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE by Jonathan Ames. Vintage (March 20, 2018).  ISBN 978-0525562894. 112p.

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The novel starts out like a good old fashioned Gothic story featuring one of the “Black” paintings by Goya. I’m not sure what a “black” painting is but the one referenced in this book has disappeared and is also  cursed bringing madness or death to the owner. The subject of the painting is Goya himself: a self portrait.  The ownership was held by the Morse family until it disappeared several years ago with no one knowing who took it.

There are four cousins in the Morse family who are not very close. They are summoned by their grandfather to his mansion and the expectation is that he wants to somehow reunite the family and  make amends for years of being apart.

All attend and suspect that the mystery of the missing Goya will be solved. They meet at the mansion and find that their grandfather has suddenly passed away. After this segment all pretenses of a good Gothic story disappear and it becomes a murder mystery. Attempts to find the missing Goya which may be worth millions cause both private detectives and lawyers to be hired by the four cousins. One neat little love affair starts during the search.

The story is interesting enough to warrant reading , but I found it was a bit over wordy and does cause the reader to  reach points that lose him or her. I did want to find out what happened to the Goya portrait and who did what to whom and I finished it.

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The prize in the title of this novel is one of the top awards in the world.  The Nobel prize to be exact.  It represents not only the monetary reward involved, but is one that  brings world wide renown for the recipient.   It is no wonder that it is a prize sought after by the people possibly  in line for it with every means possible. Cooper’s book features one attempt to win the prize and all that it means with a titanic discovery in the medical field.

Pam Weller is a research associate at a large private laboratory who has been working at finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.  Logically following protocol she leads the group she is working with into discovering a substance that arrests Alzheimer’s and actually reverses it in early stage cases. Decidedly Nobel Prize area and which will allow Pam to get tenure and promotion at her work as well as notice for those in her group.

Eric Prescott is head of his own lab and has been working on achieving success against Alzheimer’s with the idea of the Nobel prize and the world wide fame that goes with it.  He hears that Pam is getting ready to publish positive results on her findings and arranges a meeting with one of Pam’s assistants.  The results of that meeting are the meat and bones of the book.  How far will Prescott go in order to ascertain the Nobel prize for himself?  The answer makes for an interesting, riveting read and an introduction to the competitive world of medical science.  Very well done.

1/18 Paul Lane

THE PRIZE by Geoffrey M. Cooper. BookBaby (January 15, 2018).  ISBN 978-1543912173. 240p.

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Simon Riske, the principal character in Christopher Reich’s latest novel, has had a checkered past, to say the least. This includes imprisonment and the spending of months in solitary confinement as punishment for refusing to divulge information sought by the police.

Out of prison, he currently owns a garage in London, specializing in expensive limited edition cars. He does have another occupation which involves acting as a freelance industrial spy. He is hired to perform small scale jobs for banks, insurance companies and the British Secret Service.

The action starts when he is hired by the CIA to look into the matter of a lot of money and a confidential letter stolen by an old acquaintance of Riske’s: one Tino Colluzzi . Colluzzi stole a huge amount of cash from a Saudi Arabian prince and with it a letter hidden in a suitcase that is supposed to have the power to upset the balance of power in the western world.

Riske accepts the job to look into the matter of the theft of money and the letter when he learns that Colluzzi was the thief. Tino was once Riske’s friend and ally until Simon took the full rap for a crime both committed with Colluzzi getting away without any punishment.

Simon’s first stop is going to France, the scene of the crime, where he is matched up against his will with a female French police officer, Nicolette Perez, who has been assigned against her will to work with Simon and keep him on the straight and narrow. Nicolette is a tough, no holds barred police officer whose only interest seems to be in doing her job as best as she can. She also happens to be a pretty girl and it is no surprise that sparks fly between the two in the course of their joint investigation in spite of initial antagonism.

Another member of the cast involved is a Russian female assassin who is assigned to kill Riske at all costs and goes about trying to complete this assignment with a great deal of skill and dedication. The novel uses all these factors in a fascinating story of spy versus spy. What is in the letter that seemingly has the power to upset the balance of western power? Is the cash recovered? An all nighter it certainly is and does leave the reader with the definite feeling that this is the first of several novels featuring Riske.  Look forward to that.

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A Pike Logan Thriller 

Former Delta Force Officer Brad Taylor returns with another novel involving Pike Logan, Pike’s wife Jennifer Cahill and the rest of the mission impossible group known as the Taskforce. Col. Taylor’s formula for success is quite simple. Pike and company are tasked with completing a job assigned to them by their controllers; a top secret group at the apex of the U.S. government which includes the president. Their task is always to work outside of the United States per their charter (as it happens not always per Pike.)

This time the job is a simple one merely to determine whether or not a merchant in the Israeli Diamond Exchange is involved in a scheme that could potentially embarrass the state of Israel. As we know from being drawn into Col. Taylor’s novels centering on the Taskforce nothing is ever simple and the plots always delineate Pike’s ability to think and act outside of the box.  An American arms dealer may or may not be attempting to sell components of nuclear weapons to the highest bidder which is up to Pike and Company to determine.

At the same time characters from a previous Taskforce novel appear and alter the Taskforce’s  mission to include aiding them. These are former mosad members Shoshana and Aaron now husband and wife and working as independent contractors. Aaron gets himself captured by the people he is tracking for his current assignment and Shosana goes after him to get him away from their enemies. She is by nature a killing machine with I’d hate to have her coming after me personality. The Israelis are drawn into Pike’s assignment due to the probability of their goals overlapping. And, guess what they overlap.

As in all the Pike Logan books action is mercurial and combat situations described by a long time veteran of such actions vivid. Scenes shift from Israel to south Africa. A planned coup in a small African nation becomes a real factor in the plot and the place of the Taskforce of importance to the group fitting in neatly to the story.

Action, action and more action is the keynote to the plot and will be in future novels featuring Pike and Company.  The stories are always interesting, even though similiar, and do draw in a faithful following.

1/18 Paul Lane

OPERATOR DOWN by Brad Taylor. Dutton (January 9, 2018).  ISBN 978-1101984819. 464p.