Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

Robin Jessop, a shop owner, has come across a possible clue to finding the lost treasure of the ancient order of Knights Templar. The Templars had been wiped out in a purge by another sect of the church centuries ago but probably hid away the amazing amount of wealth they had accumulated during their existence. Robin and her boyfriend David Mallory set out to find the treasure pursued by a sector of the church that wants the wealth for their order.

Robin and David find clues to where the treasure is located and move across Europe in search of it, pursued relentlessly by the sect that also wants it. The circumstances described in the book should really lead to continuous action but the main part of the novel is tedious solving of one clue after another. This causes the novel to be slowed down and forces the reader to become bogged down in detail after detail while sluggishly moving forward.

I found the ending to be just an apparent means of quickly terminating the novel with little or no satisfaction in following the book. I trust that this novel is not indicative of future books by this author who has taken a great idea and done little with it.

10/17 Paul Lane

THE TEMPLAR BROTHERHOOD by James Becker. Berkley (October 3, 2017).  ISBN 978-0451473974. 464p.

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This latest novel features Major Brook Grant and her fiancée, the full blooded Indian “Walks Many Miles,” both of whom met while serving in the armed forces. The book opens at the pair’s wedding in Washington D.C. with a list of high level guests including the president of the United States in attendance. Suddenly there is a terrific explosion set by a terrorist with a truck bomb.

Brook escapes the carnage by a fluke along with her adopted daughter Jennifer. To state that she wants revenge is an understatement and she is helped with her quest by the incoming president forming a secret squad loosely tied to the CIA whose mission is to find and kill terrorists. No trial, no rights, no imprisonment, but as quickly as possible death by any means at hand.

The authors tie in other active agents selected by the president along with Brook. These include two others at the outset. One is a member of a Saudi Arabian secret group dedicated to the same ends and the other a female member of the Mossad. The three live up to their established creed of find the terrorists forget about trials and leave the bodies where they lay. In the midst of all the action in both the U.S. and overseas, this new group go on the attack, finding out which group planned the bombing and why, and who is allied with them and what are the future plans of these terrorists.

The authors obviously plan more novels with the group as the center. They have apparently changed the thrust of their books from descriptions of military operations to one of behind the scenes doing away with terrorist groups by fair means or foul. As in the previous novels, writing is fast, action swift, and a feeling of just desserts to terrorists definitely carried out.

10/17 Paul Lane

VENGEANCE by Newt Gingrich & Pete Earley. Center Street (October 10, 2017).  ISBN 978-1478923046. 432p.

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This is a story told via a series of surrealistic scenes. A man named Carlos disappears while eating dinner with a large group in a South American locale. He is not missed until an inspector begins to look for him over a period of time in a variety of locations.

Unfortunately, there are enough places and scenarios within surrealistic contexts to keep the reader thoroughly confused as to what is going on and what is the objective of the book. I noticed the plethora of positive comments and finished the book because I had started it and didn’t believe I would be unable to get the point of the exercise. I didn’t.

From the publisher:

On a sweltering summer night at a restaurant in an unnamed Latin American city, a man at a family dinner gets up from the table to go to the restroom . . . and never comes back. He was acting normal, say family members. None of the waiters or other customers saw him leave.

A semi-retired detective takes the case, but what should be a routine investigation becomes something strange, intangible, even sinister. The corporation for which the missing man worked seems to be a front for something else; the staff describes their colleague as having suffered alarming, shifting physical symptoms; a forensic scientist examining his office uncovers evidence of curious microorganisms.

As the detective relives and retraces the man’s footsteps, the trail leads him away from the city sprawl and deep into the country’s rainforest interior . . . where, amidst the overwhelming horrors and wonders of the natural world, a chilling police procedural explodes into a dislocating investigation into the nature of reality.

10/17 Paul Lane

IINFINITE GROUND by Martin Macinnes. Melville House (October 17, 2017).  ISBN 978-1612196855. 272p.

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The versatile Nelson DeMille presents us with the next book coming from his fertile imagination. We have a new main character, an action-filled plot and the usual amount of tongue-in-cheek humor interspersed with that action.

Daniel Graham MacCormick, or as his friends call him Mac, is a U.S. Army veteran that served five years as an infantry officer in Afghanistan. He has the medals to show that he served with distinction while stationed there. We meet him living in Key West Florida, owning a 42-foot charter boat along with the bank as the principal owner and looking at a future he’s not too happy with.

Mac is waiting at the Green Parrot Bar; a Key West landmark, for Carlos a lawyer from Miami whose forte is representing anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire him for a 10-day cruise to Cuba, paying the standard rate.

Mac quickly turns it down but jumps when Carlos presents him with a new plan to go after a hidden fortune and a chance to make 2 million dollars for the same trip. Obviously, the new plan is fraught with danger in order to enable MacCormick to earn that kind of money. But – money talks – quite loudly as a matter of fact. And it doesn’t hurt when the very beautiful Sara Ortega is presented as the person that will accompany Mac on the trip. It will be her job to handle the details involved going after the hidden fortune. Sara is an American citizen of Cuban background and has already taken a trip to the island one year ago.

The period in which the action takes place is recent and coincides with the US entering a period of normalization of relations with Cuba. DeMille traveled to the island to do background research and is very open with his opinions. These are narrated by Mac and Sara and indicate that real normalization and the spread of economic opportunity must wait for the end of the Castro regime. The two landing on Cuba meet with a police state and complete control of the population by a dictatorial government in order to maintain the dictatorship that has existed for many years.

Mac and Sara go through the ordeal of going after the hidden fortune and not surprisingly find real love together. There should be further novels involving the two but their opening adventure in Cuba is a fascinating tour of a dictatorship existing 90 miles off the coast of Key West, Florida. It sets a blistering pace and makes reading future novels with them mandatory.

9/17 Paul Lane

THE CUBAN AFFAIR by Nelson DeMille. Simon & Schuster (September 19, 2017).  ISBN 978-1501101724. 448p.

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Harlan Coben has written more than 20 successful novels since he burst upon the literary scene several years ago. His books have consistently been at the top of the best seller lists and Don’t Let Go certainly looks like a continuation of his previous successes.

Napoleon (Nap) Dumas is a detective with a suburban New Jersey Police department and is considered one of the best and brightest by his peers. But he has not been the same since his senior year in high school when his twin brother and his brother’s girlfriend were killed when run over by a train.  His love Maura broke up with him at the same time and disappeared from the town he was living in. Nap has been looking for answers about his brother’s death and Maura’s disappearance for the fifteen years since these events occurred.

Suddenly, apparently out of the blue, the investigation of an automobile in which a murder occurred turn up with Maura’s fingerprints in several places. This opens up Nap’s investigation  about the horrific events of his high school days: the deaths of his brother and brother’s girlfriend and the unexplained disappearance of Maura.

Coben creates a finely constructed novel involving the situation in which events of the past arise influencing a crisis for people that were involved in the doings of yesteryear. He moves us from the investigation of the murder into a possible US government cover up of CIA activities during and after the time of Nap’s high school days. The thoughts and emotions of several people are described quite well as the story moves forward in answering the questions posed. The solution is not broadcast in the novel and when presented might be considered more than a little pat, but the arrival and the action is certainly good Harlan Coben fare.

If Nap will figure in future novels is certainly within the realm of possibility, but as a stand alone Don’t Let Go is a well done, carefully crafted book and guaranteed to be the cause of the reader’s staying up late to finish it.

9/17 Paul Lane

DON’T LET GO by Harlan Coben. Dutton (September 26, 2017).  ISBN 978-0525955115. 368p.

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Any course or instruction on how to write successfully will indicate that the author should write about what he knows and/or has experienced. Mishka Ben David certainly does just that. His background includes 12 years in the Mossad (the Israeli Secret Service organization.) Ben David rose to the level of a high ranking officer during his time with the group.

Mickey Simhoni, an Israeli citizen, had served in the army and after discharge took a vacation which included a stop in Japan. He met Niki, a beautiful Japanese Canadian girl then working in Tokyo and had a short but torrid romance with her. Before anything could happen Mickey leaves for Tel Aviv to take up his normal life. There he falls in love with a girl only to see her killed in a suicide bombing. Faced with this horrific loss he becomes very open to an invitation to join the Mossad.

The training and guiding of an agent described in the novel is obviously the way it is due to Mishka Ben David’s experience with the group. Mickey is also sent on increasingly complex missions until the point where quite by accident he meets up with Niki for the second time. The romance is rekindled with Niki becoming a part of Mickey’s Mossad team in order to be with him again. Mickey faces the challenges of his job with the problem of what is more important to him; his love or succeeding as a Mossad agent with the necessity of possibly taking lives to complete an assignment.

The dark world of international espionage becomes alive for the reader with the horrible necessities of Mickey’s job becoming reality for him and for those reading the book. It is very well done and concentrating on the action described does take the reader into a world very far from the one most of us live in. Certainly, other similar novels will appeal to the reader that enjoyed this book.

9/17 Paul Lane

FINAL STOP, ALGIERS by Mishka Ben David. Peter Halban Publishers (January 26, 2017).  ISBN 978-1905559848. 429p.

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I haven’t found a thriller this dark and funny in a long time. Hanson is a TV writer who has developed many books into TV series, most notably “Bones,” based on the Kathy Reichs books. His skills with pacing are evident here as this is a real page turner.

Michael Skellig owns Oasis Limo, and he is the driver. A decorated veteran, he has hired extremely damaged vets and an illegal alien, an Afghani translator, to work for him. I haven’t seen characters this damaged in a very long time, but this is no pity party. Instead, it is a lightning fast, clever thriller interspersed with black humor that helps lighten the darkness.

Skellig is hired to drive Bismark Avilla, a skateboarding, rapping God in L.A. Skellig happens to hear voices, ghosts of the people he has killed and while waiting outside a club for Avilla, he hears a voice warning him of impending danger. He races through the club and foils a murder attempt on Avilla’s life that gets one of his bodyguards killed, and Skellig is injured.

That is just the beginning of a roller coaster ride of good cops, bad cops, gangs, torture, parrots, skateboarders and more. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough and the laughter outweighed the violence more often than not. If you love the Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay, or are a fan of Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey, take a trip out to California with Hanson. I hope this is the first book of a series but haven’t heard anything further, yet…

9/17 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

THE DRIVER by Hart Hanson. Dutton (August 8, 2017).  ISBN 978-1101986363. 336p.

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An explosive narrative about a long time married couple that experiences a rupture in their marriage lasting 25 years, then the agonizing starts when they finally get together again.

Catherine and Simon have been married for enough time to have three children and one more that didn’t make it past his first few months. They have the appearance of a very happily married couple looking forward to the rest of their lives sharing both good and bad times. Suddenly, out of the blue, Simon disappears with no trace. Searches are launched for him, police bulletins are posted and Catherine is positive that something bad has happened.

Time passes,twenty five years go by, and suddenly out of the blue Simon appears at the door of the house that they had shared and where Catherine still lives. The story of where he has been and why he left is presented in the most brilliant fashion that I have had the pleasure of reading in a long time.

The narrative of the 25 years apart is told in turn by each of them and in a manner that grabs the reader’s interest and keeps it. The manner that each has grown apart from the other is well delineated and assures that the actions and thoughts of the two become clear to the reader. An understanding of how each has acted and what has taken place in their lives is very clear in Marrs’s hands. To complete our understanding of what has motivated the two, the action swings effortlessly back and forth in time at the beginning and then at the twenty five year point.

An extremely well done novel; definitely an all-nighter in every sense of the word.

9/17 Paul Lane

WHEN YOU DISAPPEARED by John Marrs. Thomas & Mercer; Reprint edition (September 7, 2017).  ISBN 978-1611097511. 348p.

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Like your action fast and furious? Like it even more when it is authored by a veteran of action packed combat in real conflict zones. The setting of this novel is in the near future when the African continent has collapsed collectively into a near failed state loosely supervised by the U. N. We meet Slade Crawford, a veteran of nearly 20 years of front line combat, who has been falsely accused of terrorism and is fleeing to Africa to escape his captors. Slade has contracted to lead a group of settlers from the United States looking to make a new life in Africa.

The group lands in Cape Town and begins a journey to the site they intend to settle on which is to the north of South Africa with Slade in military command. The trip is filled with danger and the attacks of a group looking to prevent colonization that has already massacred other colonists looking to settle in Africa. Crawford finds a liking for the goals of the group and also attracts a pretty teenager; a girl half his age that appears to flirt with him. Slade was divorced by his wife and also lost a son just prior to being arrested for terrorism. The double whammy puts him on a path of not caring about anything but the goal of getting his settlers to their destination.

The final section of the novel puts Slade under the orders of the mysterious American Colonel Gary Kraven. The colonel feels free to issue orders to Crawford without telling him what the real situation is that Kraven is following militarily.  Slade ends up going to Nairobi in Kenya under orders from the colonel but also to rescue the pretty teenager that has been following him and was captured by the group involved in preventing African colonization. Slade is now placed in a situation of asking Col. Kraven to help him with the rescue at the price of agreeing to work for him on a full-time basis.

After spending several nights up reading Lt Col(his actual rank) Mangan’s book the reader can take a break and catch their breath while impatiently awaiting the next adventure of Slade Crawford.  A definite keeper and one to follow.

9/17 Paul Lane

INTO A DARK FRONTIER by John Mangan. Oceanview Publishing; Sew edition (September 5, 2017).  ISBN 978-1608092611. 323p.

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A Delta Force Novel, Book 5

This is the latest novel featuring Kolt Rayner and his Delta Force squadron. It features the constant action typical of the series. Kolt is in Greece to aid in defending the American president when the unthinkable happens.  A sniper’s bullet through his left eye kills the Greek Prime Minister. The shot itself serves to identify a foe that Raynor has faced previously. Rasim Miric is the deadly sniper whose trademark is the shot through the eyes of his victim. Miric has a personal grudge against Kolt due to the loss of one of Miric’s eyes in action against him during a previous engagement in Europe.

Raynor is up against the mystery of why Miric did not shoot the American president instead of the Greek Prime Minister. What are Miric’s aims in later traveling to the United States? Why has he singled out Kolt’s squadron for attack when it appears that he is hunting the president? Answers are sought through well-described action by Dalton Fury who served as Delta Force commander at Tora Bora and during the search for Osama Bin Laden.

The information contained in a forward to the book gives us the sad news that Dalton Fury passed away from pancreatic cancer and did not live to see this book published.  Certainly, the literary world has lost a great talent, but Fury’s legacy lives on in his novels as well as his real life deeds.

9/17 Paul Lane

EXECUTE AUTHORITY by Dalton Fury. St. Martin’s Press (September 5, 2017).  ISBN 978-1250120489. 304p.

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