The Gods of Guilt

This is the 6th entry in Michael Connelly's series featuring attorney, Mickey Haller--aka "The Lincoln Lawyer," which became a movie starring Matthew McConaughey. Mickey is still doing business out of his Lincoln Towncar, and being driven around by Earl as an exchange for some legal work Mickey did to help him out. In this story, Mickey is currently estranged from his ex-wife and 16-year old daughter. His daughter holds Mickey responsible for the death of a woman and daughter killed by a drunken driver. Mickey previously got the drunken driver off on a technicality. The widely publicized case also lost Mickey the race for the DA's position. Here, Mickey is contacted by a digital pimp--a man who publishes the web sites for prostitutes and takes a cut of their earnings. He has been charged with murdering one of his clients. The victim, it turns out, was a woman Mickey had been close to; in fact, he thought he had helped her escape "the life" seven years earlier. Still, Mickey thinks this particular client is actually innocent and has been set up by an unscrupulous and ruthless DEA agent. The dead prostitute had helped the DEA agent convict a drug dealer by planting a gun under the mattress before the dealer was busted. The gun allowed the feds to put the dealer in jail for life instead of just a few months or years. The fact that the case is being re-opened means that several people might have had a motive to kill "Glory Days."
This is really well written as are all the Michael Connelly books that I have ever read, and I am actually now interested in going back to read earlier installments in this particular series, as most of what I have read are the Harry Bosch novels. There are a couple of videos about this book on Connelly's web site.

The Chase

This is a series by Janet Evanovich working with Lee Goldberg. Kate O'Hare is an FBI agent who has an obsession with master thief Nicolas Fox.  Apparently she finally caught him and he is now working with the FBI to catch bad guys. So imagine Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality meets Neal Caffrey in White Collar and you have the characters pretty close to the ones in this book. As in her Stephanie Plum books, you need to throw in unconventional relatives--in this case it's Jake, Kate's father, who was a special ops guy back in the day, and who now provides support for those operations requiring a little more force than finesse.  The initial play is to retrieve a valuable Chinese artifact that has been stolen from the Smithsonian before the Smithsonian is supposed to return it to the Chinese. This involves not just stealing it from the current illegitimate owner, Carter Grove, who happens to be a former White House Chief of Staff and now runs a hugely successful security (i.e., mercenaries) firm, but also a mid-air switch so the Chinese do not discover the original theft. All this goes according to plan, with a few hurdles successfully overcome. When Grove comes after Kate's extended family, however, the goal switches to taking him down, which can only be done only by luring him into making another stolen art purchase. As with other of Evanovich's books, things blow up, there is unconsummated sexual tension between protagonists, and the good guys and gals prevail. These are light reads that are always entertaining and well written with interesting, if somewhat improbable, characters.

The Wheel of Darkness

This series, featuring FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast, and his ward, Constance Greene, are somewhat different from the usual procedurals or thrillers in that Pendergast, and now Constance, are studying Buddhism. They have come to a remote Tibetan monastery to seek respite from the world and to study. So remote is the monastery, in fact, that the Chinese do not even know of its existence. While there, an impossible theft takes place. An ancient artifact that has the power to cleanse the earth of humanity has been stolen from the most secret and well-guarded part of the monastery. Pendergast and Constance are tasked with its return. They are hot on the trail of the thief, only to find him brutally murdered. They determine that the murderer must be one of the passengers scheduled on the inaugural sailing of the largest British ocean liner, the Brittainia. Disappearances and murders begin to accumulate on the voyage to New York city, but the captain of the ship refuses to turn back or alter course. When the officers declare him unfit for command and take over the ship, matters seem to be improving. But  the world is quickly turned upside down as the new commander sets the ship on a suicidal collision course for dangerous rocks off the coast of Canada. Anti-terrorism measures mean that once she has locked herself in the bridge, no one can gain access or change course. To top it off, Pendergast has changed personality and now plans to abandon ship rather than trying to save the ship and passengers. Can Constance bring Pendergast back to himself in time, and what is the strange force that has infected the minds of the commander and Pendergast? Those are the questions that will drive you along to the end. I would not turn down reading another book by this duo, but I also would not go out of my way to find more.

A Wrinkle in Time

Can you imagine me, voracious reader since I was 6 years old, never having read this book? And a librarian as one of my careers, to boot! For shame. But retirement is an opportunity to right the wrongs and gaping holes of my childhood, so at the suggestion of my sister-in-law, I read this Newbery-winning classic by Madeleine L'Engle. This re-issue, published in 2007 (originally published in 1962) has a lovely introduction, "An Appreciation," by Anna Quindlen that says in part, " On its surface this is a book about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet. But it is really about a more primal battle all human beings face, to respect, defend, and love themselves" (p. 4). Since I have also been reading Florida Scott-Maxwell's book, The Measure of My Days, which  talks quite a lot about the tremendous effort required to be true to ourselves, this really smacked me in the face. Wow, this is a lot to pack into a book for youngsters! But L'Engle did not underestimate her young readers in any way--neither in what they must experience growing up, nor in their ability to think seriously about the related issues.  Meg Murry learns that what sets her apart from her fellow students, and even to some extent her own siblings, can be her strengths, even if the world at large does not necessarily endorse being different. In the battle for the mind and heart of her younger brother, Meg finds that her love and loyalty can beat back the darkest evil.  Definitely worth a read or a re-read. And since this was the first of the "Time Quintet" there is more to come when you're done.

Sepulchre

I know I read an earlier work by Kate Mosse, Labyrinth, some time ago but I don't seem to have posted a review. There is also a sequel in this "Languedoc Trilogy," Citadel, which I have not yet read. If you like the supernatural, this will certainly appeal as it has elements of Tarot card reading, evil spirits, and languishing ghosts. The time frame moves back and forth between the autumns of  1891 and 2007. Each heroine, Leonie in 1891 and Meredith in 2007, start out in Paris and end up in Rennes-les-Bains, or more specifically, Domain de la Cade, in the mountainous region bordering the Pyrenees. Leonie's story focuses on the vendetta of an evil man, Constant, growing ever more diabolical as he is consumed by syphilis. He feels jilted by Isolde, who is Leonie's widowed aunt-by-marriage to her mother's older half-brother. Leonie's brother, Anatole, has rescued Isolde from the disastrous affair with Constant, only to be hounded by him and slandered through a rumor campaign in the Paris press. Finally, Anatole and Isolde--who have become lovers--concoct a plan to fake her death and funeral, but Constant eventually sees through the ruse and takes up the pursuit once again, eventually resulting in both their deaths. Leonie has her revenge on Constant in the end, summoning dangerous spirits to kill him.
Present tense, Meredith is writing a biography of Debussy and also looking for the ancestors of her mother. Meredith was adopted by an aunt because her mother was mentally unbalanced and eventually took her own life. She has only a photograph of a young solder, taken--she thinks--in southern France, and a piece of music titled "Sepulchre" as legacies from her mother. She starts in Paris and then heads to Rennes-les-Bains, ostensibly to look for archival traces of Debussy's wife, Lily, but also because she believes she will find her own family's history there. The Domaine de la Cade has been turned into a high end hotel and Meredith finds more evidence of her ties to the ancestral owners.
If I have done the complex plot a disservice, I apologize. There is rich description and decent character development. I was actually a bit put off by the supernatural elements, which is not usually true for me. I love historical mysteries generally, but found myself a bit impatient with this one. I also just don't like books--or real life for that matter--where it appears that one really bad person can wreak so much havoc and get away with it. Constant essentially destroys the Vernier family, although Anatole and Isolde's son does survive and turns out to be Meredith's ancestor. Constant murders Leonie and Anatole's mother, drives Isolde slowly insane, and spreads rumors about evil spirits being housed at Domaine de la Cade, causing a mob to burn the place down. Yes the devil gets him in the end, but there is just too much death and destruction before that happens--for my taste.  For a more informed review, here is one from The Guardian.