Past Tense

In this 23rd novel of Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" series, Reacher has just begun his corner-to-corner travels across the United States (Maine to San Diego) when his ride gets an emergency phone call and has to turn around, leaving Reacher on a small highway in the woods of Maine. When he sees a small sign for the town of Laconia, NH, ostensibly his father's birthplace. He decides to stop over and see if he can find out more about his father's past. "Not far from Reacher, Canadian travelers Shorty and Patty pull into a remote motel, their car on its last legs. They're the only guests and the proprietors seem a little odd. Of course things get worse for them and for Reacher, who pummels a local, well-connected bully when he's not poring over census records and playing matchmaker for two government workers" (Library Journal). Publishers Weekly continues, "Reacher uncovers few traces of his father's existence, other than a 75-year-old assault case in which Stan Reacher is named. ...While Reacher is dealing with a revenge posse, the Canadian couple discover just how strange their motel is. Child neatly interweaves multiple narratives, ratchets up the suspense (the reveal of the motel plot is delicious), and delivers a powerful, satisfying denouement." Booklist praises "As always, the prose is lean and efficient, the action scenes are well designed, and Reacher is as formidable an opponent as one could imagine..."

Atomic Love

This romantic thriller is set in 1950's Chicago, during the height of the McCarthy era and Cold War. Protagonist Rosalind worked on the Manhattan project but was summarily dismissed due to a report about her emotional instability, written, she is sure, by a colleague and lover who dumped her. According to author Jennie Fields, there was, in fact, a young woman physicist on the Manhattan project --the youngest member of the team--who designed the boron trifluoride counter that gauged the first man-made nuclear reaction. Additional inspiration for characters came from another physicist on the team, Theodore Hall, who, like Weaver in the book, shared "crucial atomic secrets with the Russians while at Los Alamos, and continued to so postwar..." (Author's Note). A final inspiration from her own life was grandfather Dr. Joseph Spring, the Coroner Physician for Cook County during the Al Capone era. He was also well-known for significant contributions to the development of forensic science. He is seen in Rosalind's father, Dr. Joe.   

Rosalind was devastated by the simultaneous loss of her lover and her career. Moreover, she experienced a sense of horror that the work she had been doing was used to kill so many people after promises were made to the team that the bomb wouldn't be used but simply threatened. Her older sister looked after her until she eventually went back to work, behind the jewelry sales counter at a department store. She greatly misses being a scientist, but is fearful of pursuing meaningful work-- too ashamed by the circumstances of her dismissal, and also afraid the negative report will follow her into the job search. When her former lover, Weaver, gets back in touch after years of silence, she finds, to her chagrin, that she still has feelings for him. She is conflicted when she is contacted by the FBI, asking her to renew the relationship and spy on Weaver to find out if he is planning on passing information about the hydrogen bomb to the Russians. To complicate matters further, Rosalind begins to find herself attracted to her FBI handler, a former prisoner of war. 

The book is well written, and although the plot line is somewhat predictable, it is still worth a read. Rosalind is a woman scientist at a time when there were few opportunities for them and you get a good picture of the uphill battle women faced to be taken seriously in the world of work. Other characters are also well developed and the author's obvious love for the city of Chicago shines through her descriptions of settings. 

Kirkus lauds the book as "Atmospheric, historically interesting escapism." Publishers Weekly offers a slightly more mixed review, applauding the discussion of women's social constraints but finding the espionage plot line less compelling. 

When You See Me

I have not previously read anything by author Lisa Gardner, but this book was one that grabbed me so I read into the wee hours of the night. She has written several stand-along psychological thrillers and series; this is the newest featuring Boston PD detective D.D. Warren, but it actually involves protagonists from several other series. I didn't feel that I missed anything by not having read previous books. This story is told from several people's perspectives, but Gardner makes it clear at the beginning of each chapter who is speaking and it offers the reader the opportunity to understand each character better as well as seeing different aspects of and perspectives on the proceedings.
When some hikers stumble over a partially exposed skeleton in the norther hills of Georgia near the Appalachian Trail, the remains are quickly connected to a young woman missing for several years, and thought to fit the victim profile of a now deceased serial killer, Jacob Ness. The only woman to have escaped Ness is Flora Dane, who, along with a handsome and nerdy true crime tech wizard, is brought into the case by Warren. The FBI's coordinator, Kimberly Quincy, brings a small team to Georgia and then quickly discovers there are more bodies buried in the area. The big question is, are these all victims of Ness or is something else going on in the non-descript tourist town of Niche. When more bodies start falling among the town's population, it becomes clear that someone, who is very much alive, is warning people not to cooperate with the investigation or they will face the consequences. The final voice in the story is the young invisible victim of an earlier crime that killed her mother and stole her voice. Will she be able to get Warren or Flora or Quincy to see her before the monster comes?
Smart, well-researched, and great plotting! Review from Publishers Weekly here, plus The Daily Herald (Chicago) and The Columbus Dispatch.

The Bad Daughter

This is the book chosen for my mystery book group's next read. I have not previously read anything by Joy Fielding but she is a prolific author, having written over 2 dozen suspense novels. The author says in her website bio that she focuses on character, even though thrillers are more typically plot driven.
In this book, two estranged sisters, Robin and Melanie Davis, are forced into a reunion when their father and his new family are shot in what appears to be a home invasion. Their father, Greg, was a highly successful developer and a serial philanderer;  his new wife, Tara, is Robin's former best friend and her brother's former fiancée. Tara's daughter from an earlier, abusive marriage was living with them in an ostentatious new house in the small town of Red Bluff, California. Melanie always tormented Robin, their mom's stated favorite child, and has a teenage son who is autistic; she has never left Red Bluff due to lack of education and the burden of caring for her son. Robin herself left home as soon as she could, got a college degree, became a therapist in Los Angeles, and is now engaged to a successful attorney, Blake, who is--she initially thinks--having an affair with his legal assistant. Robin has suffered from debilitating anxiety attacks in the past, which re-emerge when she gets the call from Melanie about the shooting. When Robin comes back to Red Bluff, she is confronted with all her old feelings of insecurity, guilt and anger. She still feels betrayed by Tara for dumping her brother, Alec, and marrying their father. Her perpetually angry sister still never misses an opportunity to criticize Robin's behavior and life choices. 
Robin is surprised to find that the sheriff is treating this as something other than a home invasion. Greg Davis had no end of enemies due to his extra-marital activities, and Tara may have had some deadly secrets as well. When both Melanie's 18-year-old autistic son, Landon, and the sisters' brother, Alec, become "persons of interest" in the sheriff's investigation, Robin feels she has to find the real killers or risk losing her brother. So just who is the bad daughter? Is it Robin, who left even though their mother was dying of cancer, or Melanie, who has the world's biggest chip on her shoulder and pisses off everyone she meets? The ending surprised me. 
I would describe the writing as very competent and the characters as well developed. The plot line dragged a bit in places but was sufficiently engaging to make me want to find out what really happened. That being said, I would not seek out her other books, nor would I turn one down if it came my way. Favorable review from Kirkus, and a more lukewarm review by Publishers Weekly.

Six Years

I have certainly read other books by Harlan Coben with great enjoyment (e.g. Fool Me Once, Missing You,  Long Lost & The Woods) and this one did not disappoint. He is a prolific author of twisty thrillers, several of which have been made into films or TV series. When Professor Jake Fisher sees an obituary on the Lanford College alumni page, he is plunged into a world of well-kept secrets, which, if revealed, have deadly consequences. Six years ago, the one true love of his life, Natalie, suddenly dropped him, married a supposed former boyfriend and made Jake promise never to intrude in their lives. He made a promise. But now that man, Todd Sanderson, is apparently dead and Jake cannot help going to the funeral to at least get a glimpse of Natalie. But the widow is not Natalie and so Jake begins searching for her where they met, a small town in Vermont near an artists' retreat. But his questioning of the locals elicits a cloud of lies and ignites an attempt on his life by very scary people. When he learns that Todd was tortured and murdered by the same people who kidnapped and attempted to kill him, he knows he is on the right track--but it's one that could lead to his death or the deaths of those he most cares about.
Reviews from The Washington Post, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.

The Never Game

I have read several of  Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme thrillers in the past. This is the launch of a new series starring protagonist Colter Shaw, a largely itinerant single man who chases rewards for lost family members. He is not a bounty hunter and not interested in chasing down criminals, just in finding people whose family members want them found. He makes no guarantees about returning them if they don't want to come back. He was raised by two highly educated parents who at some point abandoned their regular lives and chose to live off the grid in California, home schooling Colter, his older brother Russell and younger sister Dorion. They learned survival skills, including, after their father became dangerously paranoid, how to survive their father, Ashton. Russell had already left home but came back to look after his siblings when their mother had to go help a sick sister and was afraid to leave them with their father. Shortly afterward, Ashton was found dead. Colter is an extraordinary tracker, able to follow the tiniest of signs to find his quarry, and yet he has never been able to find his brother since then and fears that Russell had returned and killed Ashton; but new clues have come to light suggesting there was a real danger to Ashton from outside forces. That storyline runs in the background as Colter is pursuing his most recent case, a missing college student in Silicon Valley. Because of her age, the police are not much interested in the father's claim that she would not just run away or disappear.  It takes Colter less than a day to find evidence indicating that the young woman was kidnapped, but the local detective isn't interested in Colter's theory or evidence. So Colter, while trying to sideline an ex-boyfriend who wants to help, goes looking and finds her. She was being held in an empty warehouse and left with 5 objects to help her possible escape before the kidnapper returned to kill her. With the help of an attractive professional gamer, Colter determines that the clues correspond to a popular online game called The Whispering Man. After a second kidnapping that ends in the death of the victim, Colter tries to figure out why someone would use the game to kidnap and harm people. There are a lot of red herrings, but Colter's success in finding the first two victims gains him credibility with a different detective when a 3rd victim is kidnapped. There is a fair amount of time jumping between Colter's early life and the time when Colter got involved in the case and the current situation where he is trying to rescue the 3rd victim, but you'll be able to follow and unable to put this down and you get drawn into the elaborate plot. There's a short review in The Guardian, a rave in Publishers Weekly, and a balanced hearing from Kirkus.

The Last Woman in the Forest

Diane Les Becquets is not an author I am familiar with but is a good writer who weaves a complex tale. The killer is obvious almost from the beginning, but it doesn't diminish the suspense. The protagonist is an unusual one. She's 26-year old Marian Engstrom, whose peripatetic existence as a "conservation gypsy" on one quest after another to save the environment. But when she joins a conservation study in Alberta, and starts working with rescue dogs trained to find scat for various species conservation projects, she feels like she has finally found her true passion, i.e., as a conservation canine handler. Already an avid outdoorswoman, the author did a lot of research with the Center for Consrvation Biology at the University of Washington, the Conservation Canines organization, and with Working Dogs for conservation in Bozeman, Montana. So we learn a lot about scat detection and analysis as a way to survey various species of animals in their wild habitats.
Marian's love for dogs threads through the story as does the recent loss of her lover, Tate Matthias, the man who trained her to be a dog handler. He was fatally mauled by a bear while working on another project to a bear attack. When Tate's sister comes to claim his body and belongings, certain inconsistencies begin to surface, leading Marian  to question her relationship with Tate. Desperate to clear her mind about Tate, she contacts a retired forensic psychologist about a series of murders in the same areas where Tate had worked. As she reconstructs her history with Tate to the psychologist, Nick Shephard, more and more discrepancies in Tate's personal history come to light. He lied to Marian about where he was born, who his parents were, where he went to college, and maybe about where he was at the times when the women were murdered. Marian does not want to believe that she could have been so badly misled. And throughout the story, we get hints that someone is stalking Marian. But Tate is dead, isn't he? The settings and the wildlife are lovingly rendered so this will appeal to those who also love the wilderness, as long as you have a strong stomach for the evil that humans can do to one another.  Reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.