Frost Line, by Linda Howard

This could have been a pretty good book. Sadly, note my use of the modal verb indicating possibility but not reality.

The concept is cool enough: the figures of Tarot cards inhabit some plane of existence, along with Hunters who freely traverse these planes. The card Strength is accidentally summoned by a child in need who has accidentally come across a special Tarot set. She shows up and seeks to help the child.

A Hunter, Caine, is sent to help Strength make her way back, and other Hunters are dispatched by a more troublesome figure to capture the deck and perhaps do away with Strength.

Okay, once we're past that setup, things get interesting. Strength and Caine team up to help the child and fight their enemies. This would have been an enjoyable story line.

But no. The authors at this point decided to minimize plot development in favor a placing their book in a romance genre as well. Yada yada yada.

Not worth reading, but it might be a good stepping off point for a talented suspense writer to take the possibilities further.

Gone Bad, by JB Turner

You'll love this novel if you prefer cardboard cutout characters in trite situations and both heroes and villains doing silly and/or improbable things.

The hero is Joe, a former special forces operator who is recruited to contract to the US government to capture bad guy Hunter who just escaped from Leavenworth.

If you find yourself with an injury and must rest on a sofa either medicated or drinking heavily or both, and you can find this book for free on Kindle, and you don't have the energy to find any other book to read, then it is okay.

3 Lies, by Helen Hanson

The plot was inventive and interesting, but the execution was poor.

Our hero is Clint. His girl friend goes missing before a scheduled dialysis treatment, and he tries to find her. Her family is not cooperative, and files a restraining order against him.

Meanwhile, CIA agent Doug finds shady goings on at work and investigates.

Spoiler ahead: don't read further if you plan to waste your time on this novel on your own time.

The idea was to kidnap a relative of each Supreme Court Justice to blackmail them to vote in a particular way on an upcoming case. See how interesting this plot might have been? And yet, I do not recommend Ms. Hanson's book.

Pirates of the Outrigger Rift, by Gary Jonas

Think of this as a prose version of an old-fashioned comic book. (By which I mean, not a modern graphic novel, rather the shallow, action heavy, somewhat humorous comics of old. Maybe like a low budget TV cartoon.)

It is in the sci-fi genre. Sai is a courier who is also a telepath (the kind that connects to the web). She encounters trouble, pilot Hank, investigator Mike, and a ruthless but fortunately incompetent pirates.

The Black Widow, by Daniel Silva

I was pretty negative the last book of Mr. Silva's that I read, complaining that the lead character, Israeli spy Gabriel Allon, was too long in the tooth and that the writing had gone downhill. With this novel, all is forgiven. Allon is back, age appropriate, in an interesting story that reflects today's headlines.

The plot considers the impact of western, recently converted Muslims who join forces with ISIS. And the terrorist attacks that these folks can facilitate. Not to mention taking a few dings at the US President's use of the phase "jay vee team" to describe ISIS; clearly Israelis and some of their neighbors would not take comfort in that dismissive description.

All in all a great book. To continue the series, I suspect that Allon will become less of the main character: he'll move into a more supervisory position, and Mr. Silva will need to choose a new spy to become the lead story. I look forward to his next novel to see how he does move forward.

Foreign Agent, by Brad Thor

This is the best of Mr. Thor's books that I've read in a long while. It features recurring hero Scot Harvath, as the ex Seal special operative who is encouraged to disregard the law in pursuit of the nation's enemies.

In this novel, Harvath is uncharacteristically nuanced in his thinking about what to do about his girl friend who is relocating to Boston. Should they break up? What is the future of his career as an operative?

Less nuanced is Harvath's activities in his day job of creating mayhem. The plot mapped well to current events. ISIS does much harm, although the twist here is that they are being manipulated by the Russian Federation as a means to encourage the US to get more serious about fighting ISIS.

Overall this book has the right mix of believability, action, character development, and plot. Sure, there are lots of magical moments that allow the good guys to prevail, but that's normative in the genre.

This is a current best seller, for good reason.

Hostage Taker, by Stefanie Pintoff

Ms. Pintoff's writing style randomly intersperses different characters perspectives and experiences in alternating chapters. I found that a bit off-putting, but got used to it quickly enough. More importantly, I frequently felt as though this was a sequel to a prior book and it would have made so many things clear if only I'd read it.

Okay, to the story. Our hero is FBI agent and hostage negotiator Eve Rossi. We find her on an extended personal leave where she's been traveling to places frequented by her deceased step-father and former CIA agent. A hostage situation at New York City's Saint Patrick's Cathedral brings her back to work.

It turns out that Rossi's gig is a secret unit wherein she uses a team of ex-cons and other non- law enforcement personnel to do background work and such. So she brings her old team back together to help her solve the current problem.

There was a nice twist at the end, although it could have used a few more pages of exposition.

Overall not unpleasant although often confusing. Would make for a fun television series.

His Father's Eyes, by David Coe

This book started off so slowly that it was only my lazy reluctance to pick another choice off my shelf that kept me going. Fortunately, the story got a bit better. It is a para-normal kind of book, which is to say, the hero, Justis, is a weremyste. What's that? It is quite unclear to me. I can't help but think that had the author written this as a suspense story feature real (i.e., not weremyste) characters, it would have been just as good. Perhaps better.

It seems there was a prior book featuring our hero, but I didn't feel as though that was the cause of my occasional confusion. Justis is a private detective, former police officer, in Phoenix. He comes from a family of weremystes, and the key information to impart about this characteristic is that it inevitably leads to early onset dementia. Justis' dad, who plays a role in the story, suffers from this.

So there are bad guys who are good, bad guys who are bad, helpful cops, and confused cops. I can't really explain the plot line.

If you're into this genre you might enjoy Mr. Coe's book.

The Survivor, by Vince Flynn

It seems that Mr. Flynn is deceased, and Kyle Mills has taken over the late Mr. Flynn's "Mitch Rapp, superhero spy" franchise.  In this episode, the 12th in the series, our hero is arrogant, behaves quite unlawfully, and is of course effective at saving the world from evil. No need to describe the plot, one either likes this kind of stuff or doesn't. I'm not enamored of it.

The Temporary Agent, by Daniel Judson

Our hero is Tom, a former Navy Seabee who apparently has a special forces operator level of fighting skill. He was severely injured in Afghanistan and owes his life to a Marine, Cahill. Tom works at a job for which he's overqualified at a low wage, in some sort of fugue. He's dating a very smart capable lady who is also underemployed, a waitress at a diner.

Out of the blue, Tom is contacted by his former CO and asked to find Cahill.

All sorts of plot confusion and mayhem result.

The plot is very interesting. The writing is okay but sometimes awkward; since Mr. Judson is an award winning novelist and this isn't his first try, I assume it is a deliberate device.

I'd read another of Mr. Judson's books, but I'm not rushing to browse Amazon to find one.

Private Paris, by James Patterson

I saw this at my local public library and recalled that I didn't mind reading another of Mr. Patterson's series recently. Hit with an overabundance of rainy days, I figured it would be good to pick up more light reading.

This turned out to be a good decision. This series has more action and less romance than the NYPD Red books I'd just read. I'd describe Mr. Patterson's books as interesting enough to be a TV show and about that deep; this is meant as a positive. It also turns out that I'm late to the party: Paris is number 10 in this run.

The concept of the "Private" titles is that there is a worldwide private investigation and security firm called Private and run by hero Jack Morgan. In this episode, Morgan's visiting his Paris office where he and local office chief Louis Langlois get caught up in two mysteries. One is a case of apparent Muslim based anti-France terrorism and the other a missing persons job.

If this rain keeps up, I'll read more in this series.

The Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala, by Jon Baird

I really wanted to enjoy reading this book. I like the concept: an old-fashioned adventure novel. I like that the book intersperses panels of graphic novel into the text. I like that it feels written a hundred years ago and yet current.  I like the writing style with its rich and textured tone.

I'm not crazy about it being set in the late 1910's. But I do like the concept of searching for the mysterious city Shambhala.

You know at this point that there's a "but" coming your way. Here it is: but I just couldn't read this book. I made it to page 363 out of 763, not even half-way through. And I realized that I just do not care about what happens next.

I wasn't even curious enough to skip to the back pages to see what happened at the end.

For the right reader, this might be a fabulous story. Alas, not for me.

The Explorers Guild

Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo

You'll want to read this book.

You'll want to read it because all your friends will have read it at some point, and because it will become a movie, and everyone will talk about it.

But mostly, you'll want to read it because it is just quite good.

But my label says, "fiction / suspense / fantasy." What's up with this fantasy thing?  What if you're not a "fantasy novel, unicorns and X-men" kind of person? Not to worry. The novel's setting is a different place than ours and also features folks with odd powers. But that's not really the story, or at least not all of it. Mostly it is the setting, and after just a few pages you won't notice that there are oddities here.  The story is about love and honor, revenge and greed, and the complex plot twists that amuse a reader.

It is just super fun; really a wonderful novel.  And great news: there will be a sequel!


Six of Crows

End Game, by John Gilstrap

This is another novel starring Jonathan Graves as a wealthy special forces type, now in private security, focused on helping kidnap victims.  It was good, held my attention, but... was awfully complex in terms of communicating its complicated plot lines effectively.  It isn't his best work. Still, I'll keep reading Mr. Gilstrap's novels.


End Game (A Jonathan Grave Thriller Book 6)

Orphan X, by Gregg Hurwitz

I've been a fan of Lee Childs' "Jack Reacher" character, but after 20 novels, that hero is getting a bit worn out. David Baldacci stepped in to fill the void with his "John Puller" series, and while one could accuse Mr. Baldacci of a blatant rip off of Jack Reacher, his books are pretty good. In "Orphan X," Mr. Hurwitz provides a really interesting character that is far from a clone of Reacher or Puller but fits in the same genre. Our hero, Evan Smoak, similarly helps out people who are in trouble. But he's definitely his own character.

The back story on Smoak is his having been recruited as a child to be trained to become a government assassin. He left that role when his orders began to confound him, and having stashed away plenty of money, is able to make helping others a full time hobby.

The plot was interesting, the character development solid in general and very good in terms of setting up Smoak as a hero one will want to follow through future novels.

Dead Wrong, by Richard Phillips

This is a sequel to Mr. Phillip's enjoyable "Once Dead." In the first book, our hero, Gregory, is an ex-CIA agent who was saved by an alien force that goes on to inhabit his mind. In this one, Jack has to rescue an prisoner in South America and prevent an ancient alien artifact from falling into the wrong hands (which is to say anyone's hands). Meanwhile a bunch of folks want him dead.

This is all good fun and an interesting story.

Dead Wrong (The Rho Agenda Inception)

The Einstein Prophecy, by Robert Masello

Oh my.  Imagine a book set in Princeton NJ in 1944. Imagine Einstein making a critical last minute design fix to Oppenheimer's work on the atom bomb.  Further imagine this having been orchestrated by demons to increase evil in the world.  Now, because what novel would want to avoid implausible sex at first sight love angles, imagine a brilliant and pretty part-Egyptian gal falling for the hero. Did I mention, oh my?

Now imagine that you're going to ignore all historical facts that might otherwise make this work of fiction more believable. Like: carbon dating techniques (not used in 1944) or the sacking of Cairo by Rommel (he didn't get to Cairo). But frankly the ridiculous love affair between the Egyptologist and the hero bothered me more than the demons. And that's saying quite a bit.

This will probably be made into a movie. A bad one.


The Einstein Prophecy

Money Land, by RS Guthrie

I quite enjoyed this modern Western. When cartel -based crime shows up in a small Wyoming town, our hero, Sheriff Pruett handles things in an effectual, pragmatic fashion.  This is stripped down writing and very effective.

Money Land: A Hard Boiled Murder Mystery (A James Pruett Mystery Book 2)

Brain Web, by Douglas Richards

In this thriller, our hero Nick has brain implants that allow him to use the internet from his mind. Oh, he also can read the thoughts of others.  As the author says in his promotional blurb, "Based on actual research on thought-controlled Web surfing..." Okay, if you can get past that, read on.

It actually isn't bad!  The plot is interesting and the writing is good.

BrainWeb

30 Pieces of Silver, by Carolyn McCray

Garbage.  Poorly written, uninteresting plot, nothing at all believable. And the author has the chutzpah to compare her novel with the DaVinci Code.  Oh please.  Just say no.


30 Pieces of Silver