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Isabel Leon is beautiful triathlete who lands the dream job – star of a reality series called Wild Woman. She’s survived the Brazilian Amazon jungle, the shark-infested waters of Australia and the Saharan desert, only to face the biggest crisis of her life – her mom’s quickly advancing cancer.

There is an experimental drug available that could pretty much cure her, but the price is high, more than a quarter of a million dollars. So Isabel does the unthinkable and makes a deal with the devil, and as usually happens with such deals, it backfires on her and she is murdered. Except a small group called The Network has hold of her body, and they have the drugs to bring her back to life.

Big pharma and the life insurance industry take it on the chin in this twisty thriller that bounces all over the place, sometimes making it hard to keep track of who is who and what is happening. But the story and the characters are so well drawn it doesn’t matter, and the pages fly by.

Readers who like strong female protagonists like the Caitlin Strong books by Jon Land or the Rizzoli & Iles books by Tess Gerritsen should be happy to meet Isabel.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

10/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

DIE AGAIN TOMORROW by Kira Peikoff. Pinnacle (September 29, 2015).  ISBN 978-0786034918. 320p.

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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.

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Eve Rossi is an FBI hostage negotiator with a troubled past. Her last negotiation didn’t end well and then her stepfather, a retired CIA operative, passed away. She is on leave when she received orders to return to work; someone has taken several people hostage at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, a New York City landmark.

The hostage taker has wired explosives to his hostages and to every known entry of the building. The Church is panicking about losing even a pane of stained glass, but Eve is worried about the hostages, especially as they start to die.

She calls in her old team, Vidocq, a group of career criminals with unique skills. Each member of the team is introduced through FBI reports interspersed throughout the novel. News updates also break up the chapters and the tension as the story propels forward. The chief suspect is a cop on suspension, Eve establishes contact with him but his demands are puzzling – all he wants is for the FBI to round up five specific people to bear witness.

Eve’s team is working against a tight timetable to try and find these people and to determine what, if anything, they have in common with the hostage taker. Pintoff skillfully ratchets up the tension and throws more than one curveball into this twisty, exciting read.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

8/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

HOSTAGE TAKER by Stefanie Pintoff.  Bantam (August 18, 2015).  ISBN 978-0345531407. 432p.

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Roger Maguire is mentally challenged, probably somewhere on the Autism spectrum, and as an adult, his childhood obsession with an ant farm grows into a full-blown insect farm housed in buckets, crates and aquariums filling the backyard garden shed. His younger brother Jonathan also has an obsession, his girlfriend Harriet, a musician.

Jonathan knows he will eventually have to take care of Roger, but when his parents die in a house fire, that responsibility comes much sooner than expected. Jonathan and Harriet marry quickly but she remains at college, and they maintain a difficult, long distance relationship, which grows more complicated when Jonathan realizes that another musician is after his wife.

Things come to a head with Harriet, who ends up dead with Jonathan covered in her blood. He has no memory of the murder, but goes into panic mode, hiding the body and plotting ways to throw blame elsewhere. Roger remains in his own world, and Jonathan continues to care for him as events unfurl around them.

This book starts out super creepy, but quickly morphs into an extremely compelling story about brothers. A compelling read.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

8/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE INSECT FARM by Stuart Prebble.  Mulholland Books (July 7, 2015).  ISBN 978-0316337366. 320p.

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Paula Maguire is a forensic psychologist working with the Missing Persons Response Unit in Ballyterrin, a small town in Northern Ireland’s border country. She usually investigates old cases, but when a newborn baby goes missing from a hospital, Paula is assigned the case.

To complicate things further, she is pregnant and not sure who the father is. Then a woman is ritualistically, brutally murdered, and the pressure becomes intense. Someone in this tight-knit community is taking very young babies and even cutting them, unborn, from their mothers.

Paula follows this bloody trail with little to go on, while she is agonizing over a deeply personal decision. The history and culture of Northern Ireland are explored, along with themes of religion and fanaticism, but at its soul, this is a tale of motherhood and loss. All of the victims are children and pregnant women, which makes for very dark reading.

This is the second book of the series (after The Lost,) and probably should be read in order. While not for the faint of heart, this compulsively readable thriller should appeal to Meg Gardiner or Val McDermid fans.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

8/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE DEAD GROUND by Claire McGowan.  Headline Book Publishing; First Edition edition (April 1, 2014).  ISBN 978-1472218568. 400p.

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The Judd Ryder Books

After a time away from writing for personal reasons Gayle Lynds returns with an intricate story about six assassins seeking a prize worth many millions of dollars. The six found a common ground when they did a job for Saddam Hussein and were not paid half of the agreed upon fee due to his death. They settled upon stealing an ancient tablet with cuneiform symbols upon it valued at millions of dollars that is being exhibited at a museum in Baghdad. The theft was successful but the tablet accidentally dropped and broken into pieces while the six flee the scene.

Years later when Judd Ryder, formerly a spy for the U.S. is walking home from work he spots a man that looks exactly like him coming from Judd’s house. As Ryder approaches him the man is killed by a hit and run accident.

Investigating the incident Judd learns that the key to his doubles killing and to the events surrounding the theft of the tablet from the Baghdad museum lies with an assassin active during the cold war known as the Carnivore. He was one of the six killers that stole the tablet, and the other five are seeking him in order to finally put the pieces together and possibly sell it for the money Saddam owed them. Judd and a CIA trainee, Eva Blake were known to have seen the Carnivore a short while ago and are sought in order to get the information needed to catch him.

The chase pitting the assassins against each other and seeking Judd and Eva is played out on an international stage going from Washington D.C., Marrakech and Baghdad and is explosive in the speed of the action. The many details are held together neatly by Gayle and make for a very welcome return to the literary world for her.

7/14 Paul Lane

THE ASSASSINS by Gayle Lynds. St. Martin’s Press (June 30, 2015). ISBN: 978-0312380908. 416p.

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A Pike Logan Thriller (Book 8)

This is the eighth entry in the Pike Logan action series by Brad Taylor, whose real life activities included years of experience with covert operations. Pike is the leader of a group of undercover soldiers, part of a secret US government sanctioned organization known only as the Task Force, devoted to taking down America’s enemies wherever they may be. His cover is a business he has in partnership with his girlfriend, lover and member of his elite team – Jennifer Cahill. Jennifer has a degree in Archaeological studies, and the business is to seek artifacts of scientific and historical value.

The Insider Threat is Col. Taylor’s first novel concerning the horrific threat of Isis and its complete disregard for any feelings of humanity towards the people it conquers. Rumors of an attack in Europe bring Pike and his group to Italy to seek out the Isis group the “Lost Boys,” and prevent them from carrying out their assignment. Coincidentally, they again meet characters from a previous novel who had been working for the Mossad; Shosanha and her partner Aaron Bergman. The two had left the Mossad and were handling independent contracts for other Israeli interests, and were tasked with killing one of the Isis members. The two join with the Task force group agreeing to cooperate as necessary to accomplish both missions.

The book, as all other Pike Logan novels, is filled with action, military strategy and an attention to logical plot and follow through. Shosanha and Aaron fit in with the Task Force operation and surely will take part in further actions. An emphasis is placed on Jennifer’s growth in knowledge of what the group does and her contribution with ideas and methods towards the ultimate success of the mission at hand. Although she indicates at the end of the book that she is tired of the killing and fighting involved with the group’s missions it is very likely that she will continue to work with Pike in future adventures.

A novel moving with lightning speed and action guaranteed to maintain the reader’s attention and set the pace for the next Pike Logan adventure.

7/14 Paul Lane

THE INSIDER THREAT by Brad Taylor. Dutton (June 30, 2015). ISBN: 978-0525954903. 432p.

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Levine writes two popular legal series, the Jake Lassiter series and the Solomon and Lord series, and has cleverly brought all three of his heroes together in his latest outing.

Steve Solomon was in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to help Nadia, a Russian “B girl,” get her passport and back wages from Gorev. When Nadia pulls a Glock out of her purse, Gorev ends up dead, Nadia disappears with her passport and a mysterious bag she lifted from Gorev’s safe, and Steve is left literally holding the gun inside a locked room.

His law partner and significant other, Victoria Lord, hires Jake Lassiter to defend her man and the fun begins. Turns out Gorev was working for Benny the Jeweler, a nice old gent who also happens to be a major diamond smuggler.

The Russians and the FBI are after Nadia, but if Lassiter is able to track her down, will she corroborate Steve’s story that she shot Gorev, using Florida’s infamous “stand your ground” defense? All they know for sure is that Nadia was working as an informant and the Feds don’t want their investigation compromised.

Solomon’s usual roguish charm is subdued while he sweats it out in jail, Lord is scared but willing to trust Lassiter, and Lassiter is not at all sure he will be able to get his client off. The pages fly by and the laughs keep coming in this irresistible south Florida romp, a delicious mix of thriller and comic crime thriller.

Copyright ©2015 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

7/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

BUM RAP by Paul Levine.  Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2015).  ISBN 978-1477829868. 352p.