Accused

Another (12th I think) in the series about the all-woman law firm of Rosato and Associates by Lisa Scottoline. Mary DiNunzio has just been made a partner in the firm, although it still doesn't feel real. In the midst of celebrations, a 13-year-old girl walks into the office asking to interview Mary and Judy to see if she wants to hire them. She has just come into money from a trust and can now use the money to find out who really killed her older sister, Fiona, six years ago. Allegra Gardner is genius level IQ which means she is a bit of a social outcast--she loves beekeeping, not the most usual or social of hobbies. Her parents, especially her father, are dead set against re-opening the investigation since a man was already convicted and sent to prison. Allegra claims he was falsely imprisoned, that in fact her sister was secretly dating Lonnie, the convicted man. Things spiral out of control when the parents stonewall Mary and Judy and put Allegra in a psychiatric facility. Mary is determined to continue, but Judy backs off, so Mary is left to her own devices to figure out who really murdered Fiona. She is convinced it is the ex-boyfriend but finds out differently when the killer comes after her. There is the usual cast of supporting characters--Mary's family and the Tony's, as well as her live-in boyfriend who has just proposed--all colorfully depicted with their south Philly quirks. Nothing terribly compelling here, but a satisfying read and a good book if one likes strong, imperfect, and engaging women characters.

Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Retribution

This book by Eric Lustbader will get only a passing mention for a couple of reasons. First is that this book seems to have taken a sensationalistic side road from the way Ludlum's books were written, bringing in lots of truly gratuitous sexual action/description. Secondly, it is just badly written: inconsistent and contradictory plotting, the most godawful metaphors I have ever encoutered, clunky and jarring. If this book is any indication of the general tone and quality of Lustbader's continuation of the series--and there are a lot--then the trustees of the Ludlum estate should be ashamed for giving this series into Lustbader's hands. They must care only about the money. Bah!

The Lincoln Lawyer

For those of you who, like me, saw the movie first and read the Lincoln Lawyer series books by Michael Connelly afterwards, it is hard to picture criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller as anyone other than Matthew McConaughey. But that's OK with me :-) I just read the 6th book in this series, The Gods of Guilt, and it made me want to go back and read the whole series, which I am doing in order.  Mickey's "office" is a Lincoln Town Car, which allows him to be available to his clients at the widely dispersed prisons and court houses in the LosAngeles area. Mickey's father was a famous attorney, and although he died when Mickey was young, he left a powerful impression and an admonition that the most dangerous client was an innocent person. Mickey does not usually deal in these abstract concepts of innocence and guilt, focusing rather on manipulating the "system" to the benefit of his clients, and occasionally justice is served. But now he is confronted with a truly evil person, a manipulator as skilled as Mickey, and who will stop at nothing to stay free, including threatening Mickey's daughter. At first this rich young man looked like a golden ticket--a full-paying client--and Mickey is thrilled, if somewhat puzzled about being asked to take the case to defend him against a charge of attempted homicide. In the course of things, Mickey finds that this client may also have committed a brutal murder several years ago, a murder for which an earlier client of Mickey's was sent to jail for life.

The Quest

I have read a few other books by Nelson DeMille including Charm School, Gold Coast, Lion's Game, General's Daughter, and Night Fall, but I found this book much less satisfying. Two journalists and a photographer are in the middle of the bloody revolution Ethiopia underwent in the mid-70's. They encounter a dying priest who was held prisoner for 40 years because, he says, he saw the real Grail and and was healed by it in the Black Monastery. The three are captured and only the whim of a psychopathic Marxist general decides whether they live or die a slow and painful death. Unbelievably, after they are let go, they decide to return in search of the Grail. Two of them, the older veteran war journalist Frank Mercado, and the young female photographer Vivian Smith, his on-again-off-again lover, are true believers. Frank Purcell, the younger journalist, is skeptical, but decides to go along and help them. They are aided in eventually finding the Black Monastery by Colonel Gann, an English military adviser to the now former ruling family of Ethiopia descended from Haile Selassie. This was a rewrite of an earlier book by DeMille, and it lacks the narrative pull of later books, IMO.  However, it was, for me, an eye-opening look at the beginnings of the Civil War in Ethiopia, and also of its historical significance as a possible home of both the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail.  This was all new information for me and so satisfying on that level.

The Book of Life

This conclusion to Deborah Harkness' "All Souls Trilogy" is totally satisfying, although the complex cast of characters and plot machinations did make me want to go back and re-read the first two books, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night. Now fully empowered, witch and weaver Diana Bishop and her vampire scientist husband, Matthew Clairmont, are back in the present and seeking to dodge the wrath of the Covenant for having married across species and, worse yet, conceiving twins. Vampires are not supposed to be able to conceive and Matthew's "son," Benjamin, crazy with the Blood Rage that Matthew keeps under tight control, is determined to find out why this has happened. He has been capturing, impregnating, and torturing witches in his single-minded quest, and Diana is next on his list. Add to that, the scion of the Clairmont clan, Baldwin, seems determined to put a stop to his "sire's" acknowledgement of Diana as a Clairmont. Facing opposition and outright danger on multiple fronts, Diana and Matthew head back to America, where an unlikely alliance with Diana's geneticist colleague may provide the answers they are so desperately seeking regarding the genetic inheritance of witches, vampires and daemons. Diana continues to seek the missing pages of The Book of Life, racing against those who would use it for ill, and when she finally finds it, the outcome is totally unexpected. If you love the paranormal, a bit of science, a great mystery, and historical fiction, this is the series for you.

Missing You

I have read and enjoyed several of Harlan Coben's books, including some of his Myron Bolitar series. The protagonist of this book is Kat Donovan, a NYPD detective who has lived a solitary life ever since her dad was murdered and her fiancé at the time subsequently left her--nearly 20 years ago. Best friend Stacy takes matters into her own hands and puts Kat's profile on a singles dating web site. Kat is stunned to find a picture of her former fiancé, Jeff, on the website, indicating that he is widowed with one child. When she tries to contact him, sharing the video to a song that was uniquely theirs, he seems strangely unaware of its significance, and cuts off their contact, saying he needs to move on. In the meantime, Kat is contacted by a young man who says his mother is missing after having gone off for special vacation with a man she met on line--the same man Kat saw as her former fiancé--only using a different name. The young man, Brandon, is a computer programmer and hacked the website to track down Kat and ask for her help in finding his mother. What reveals is, of course, an elaborate plot to lure unsuspecting and financially well-off singles into a trap where they are held prisoner in underground boxes and psychologically, or sometimes physically, coerced into turning over all their financial information to their captors. Kat is thrown into a race to find the perpetrators before Brandon's mother joins the pile of corpses at a remote Pennsylvania farm. In the process, she finds Jeff, who has indeed changed his name, and learns why he really left after her father's death.  A fairly surprising twist in that part of the plot.

Inferno

Good action packed book by Dan Brown that involves many of his trademark elements of art history, religious iconography, and following the clues to find the danger. Continues with the protagonist Robert Langdon of DaVinci Code fame. Langdon wakes up, apparently having brought himself to the emergency room of a hospital after being grazed by a bullet aimed at his head. While he is still trying to figure out why he is in Florence, Italy, a woman with a gun shoots his doctor, and the English speaking doctor who was assisting helps Langdon to escape. They embark on a day-long chase through the galleries and parks of Florence seeking to find out why Langdon is here, and why he is carrying a small projector in a secret pocket of his coat, which shows an altered version of a painting showing Dante's levels of Hell. In fact, the entire plot revolves around Dante's Inferno, and of course Langdon is in a uniquely qualified position to interpret the clues. A brilliant geneticist, who recently killed himself in a dramatic jump from a high tower in Florence, has created some kind of biological pathogen set to be released on the morrow. Langdon and his "doctor" companion, Sienna, are trying to find the weapon before it releases the pathogen, which they believe may be a version of the Black Death. The geneticist is a disciple of the "Malthusian equation" which shows that humans will populate the world to the point of species extermination within just a few years, and that a drastic solution is required to stop that from happening. A provocative idea and a fast-paced read with lots of wonderful details about Italian art and architecture thrown in.

Thankless in Death

This is one of pseudonymous J.D. Robb's futuristic series featuring police lieutenant Eve Dallas of the New York city police and security department. The year is 2060 and Thanksgiving is bearing down on Even like a freight train as husband Roarke's pack of Irish relatives are soon to descend on their normally quiet home. Add to that, Roarke always invites every stray friend and associate to join them for the meal as well. It's not that Eve has to prepare the meal. Roarke is fabulously wealthy and all that is taken care of, but Eve--never the most socially facile person--will need to be present and pleasant. Her attention is diverted, however, by a double homicide. The evidence is fairly compelling that this ordinary older couple were brutally murdered by their 20-something year old son, but he is proving harder to find than Eve would have expected. And it appears that the murders have unlocked a previously unknown set of skills in this formerly ne'er-do-well malcontent who blames everyone in the world--except for himself--for his failures. He has started on a killing spree of all those he feels have wronged him in the past, and the list is long. It is up to Eve, her erstwhile partner Peabody, Roarke, and the entire NYPSD to find the killer before the body count goes any higher.

Ironhorse

I am always a little leery of new authors being assigned, or choosing, to take on the continuation of a series after the original author has died. Robert Parker has been a long-time favorite of mine and I have read all the books he wrote in the Spenser series and all of his books in the relatively new Cole and Hitch series. Robert Knott has produced this new episode in that latter series and done a reasonably good job of it. Virgil Cole is the personification of laconic communication, although he appears to be a serious reader. Everett Hitch, his partner in law enforcement for over 20 years, is West Point educated and somewhat more fluent. It is one of the quirky and occasionally funny aspects of their relationship that Virgil turns to Everett occasionally for help with finding the right word to express himself.
Virgil and Everett are now U.S. Marshals and are returning from transporting some prisoners to the Mexican authorities. It is just their bad luck, and the passengers good luck, that they are on a train carrying the governor of Texas and his family and business associates and a whole lot of money. It is the target of a well-orchestrated robbery attempt by a large group of robbers, and even murderers. Cole and Hitch manage to kill several of the robbers and temporarily foil the theft of the money but are then out-played when the train cars carrying the governer's two adult daughters is detached from the rest of the train. When they make their way into town, they find that the governor and his wife are unharmed and soon receive a ransom demand. One of the governor's "business associates" is the traitor and he has disappeared. Cole and Hitch offer to deliver the money and try to get the young women back.
This is a fast read with an interesting plot and the characters as presented seem pretty consistent with Parker's original creations. If you have never seen the movie made from the first book in this series, Appaloosa, don't miss it. You will forever after see Ed Harris as Virgil and Vigo Mortenson as Everett

A Delicate Truth

John le Carré is nothing if not the master of unease. His characters are always struggling with action vs. no action, morality vs. complacency--and this tale is no exception. So slow starting that I almost did not continue reading, I was eventually gripped by the struggle of career Foreign Office rising star, Toby Bell. His mentor, Giles Oakley, has nurtured and guided him through various postings and Toby has returned the favor by covering up an indiscretion in Berlin. Toby eventually ends up as the private secretary to a junior Cabinet minister who is so secretive that he stays in his locked office during much of the day, refuses to let Toby see his diary or prepare his briefcase for trips. Toby eventually learns that this ambitious and gullible junior minister is being led by the nose by a private information brokering group, so he secretly records a meeting. He finds out that some operation is being planned and will be carried out, but none of the details. Meanwhile, long-serving diplomatic underling Christopher Probyn is pulled into the plot and told that he will be the minister's eyes and ears on an "extraordinary rendition" of a "high value target." That is, he will observe while a terrorist is kidnapped by a combined force of British soldiers operating off the books--at the minister's request--and some mercenaries organized by the aforementioned information brokers.Three years later, through a chance encounter with one of the British soldiers, Kit, now Sir Christopher Probyn, learns that the whole secret operation was botched. There was no high value target and an innocent woman and her young child were shot to death in the process. The whole thing has been covered up. Kit enlists Toby to help him reveal this misdeed, but the information brokering firm will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep this quiet. How much are Kit and Toby willing to risk to see evil revealed and justice done?

The book was a little hard to follow at times. Places are named, but it is not always clear what the timing is until you read a bit further into a chapter. It feels like Le Carré was being just a bit too clever in this one. As always the characters are complex and convincing and the moral struggle is made altogether believable and makes you question what you would do in these people's shoes. Puts me in mind of the really excellent BBC mini-series recently aired, starring Bill Nighy, about an MI5 analyst risking it all to reveal an unholy alliance between the British prime minister and a private corporation building "black sites" for the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The first was called "Page Eight" and you can find them on Netflix or IMDB.