Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman

Heartbreak Hotel is #32 in Jonathan Kellerman’s long list of mysteries featuring Dr. Alex Delaware and Lt. Milo Sturgis, the eccentric duo of crime solvers in LA.  Child psychologist, Dr. Delaware is summoned by 99 year old, Thalia Mars to her long term home in the aging but once luxurious Aventura Hotel.  Alex finds Thalia witty and charming and is intrigued to learn she is a major donor to Western Pediatric Medical Center where he interned years earlier.  But Dr. Delaware observes that Thalia’s interest in psychology is more than philanthropic and agrees to a second session the following day.   When he shows up for the appointment, paramedics are on the scene.  Thalia has expired in her bed overnight presumably of natural causes but Alex’s gut tells him to investigate.  He impulsively calls his best friend Milo and expresses his suspicion of murder.  The physical evidence supports Alex’s suspicion so he and Milo begin to interview Thalia’s known acquaintances.  The trail reveals that Thalia was a retired accountant for the county whose financial status far exceeded her visible means of support.  Further research uncovers a former romance between Thalia and a gangster from the Bugsy Siegel era.  But with no living relatives and an estate willed to Western Pediatric Medical Center, who could possibly benefit from Thalia’s death?  Only Dr. Delaware’s professional intuition and tenacity can lead them to the killer.

This isn’t a particularly momentous work for Kellerman.  No character development at all for the regulars but after thirty two books, none needed.  As with all Kellerman books, the thrill is in the journey.  Slowly peeling back the skin of the onion to discover the heart wasn’t as interesting as the consequences of removing each piece of skin.  Another good read from one of my top ten authors.

Bum Luck by Paul Levine

#12 in the continuing misadventures of former Miami Dolphins suicide squad hitter, aka 'wrong way Lassiter', now a solo (mostly) lawyer in Dade County. Remember the old joke, "what do you call the person who graduated last in med school? Doctor." Jake is sort of the lawyer version. "What do you call the person who finally passed the bar on the 4th try? Counselor."

Jake may talk a big game about justice, but when the gavel strikes, he is all about winning. And he just won. Got Marcus "Thunder" Thurston acquitted of murdering his wife. Thunder is a Florida native, Florida State All-American running back and now with the Dolphins. Rich beyond words. Endorsements out the wazoo. Penthouse apartment, a posse, and half naked bimbos playing beach volleyball in his penthouse. Said this 220 pound package of muscle feared for his life when his wife came at him with a pocketknife. So he 'stood his ground' and his wife is shot five times. Florida's 'stand your ground' law was the meat of Jake's defense of Thunder Thurston. Beat the State's homicide trial attorney Suzie (or was it Sallie?) Strychnine who needed a win to help propel her run for the State's top attorney office.

And right after the verdict was announced, Jake decided that Thunder Thurston has to die.

Early middle age Jake is mellowing a bit. Winning is giving way to 'truth, justice, and redemption.' And no better way to slide into this next stage of his life than to kill his most recent and famous client.

Being solo means the money cycles in like a sine wave. And now he's a bit low on funds. A firm he got fired from about 10yr ago calls and offers his job back along with a cushy assignment to get a summary judgment against an insurance company tossed.  Seems this insurance company was balking at paying out after the death of a client. The policy has a clause that a suicide within 12 months of activating the policy leads to no payout. The MMA mom of two kids took a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol at around 9-10pm on the 364th day of the policy and died early the next morning. Pretty clear cut. The 2 kids are S.O.L. Should be an easy win for Jake.

As Jake is reading over the timeline of the client's last year, he starts to see a pattern of behavior that suggests she was acting more erratically with each month. During the discovery process, Jake lets it slip that this MMA brawler was exhibiting all the classic signs of post-concussion syndrome and was probably unable to make the conscious decision to take her own life; her life was slipping away while the tau protein starts to assemble in her brain leading to CTE. With the help of a head injury expert witness, a new strategy forms.

Truth, justice. redemption.

And there is some truth, justice and redemption coming Thunder Thurston's way courtesy of Jake Lassiter.

While there are 12 Jake Lassiter books, this is the 2nd in the Lassiter, Solomon and Lord saga (and 4 Solomon and Lord books). They play the straight man (Solomon)/woman (Lord) to Jake's ever-present sarcasm. As Jake reminds them, he's only there to be close to Lord,but in reality, the three of them are very close and always watching each other's six even when they are facing off against each other in court.

An easy read, the length of which will distract you during a coast-coast flight. A lot of fun. As one reviewer said, 'a cross between Moonlighting and Night Court.' And that's an apt description. Can't imagine anyone looking for a fun escape would be disappointed. Having read a couple Lassiter books, I think I want to track down the first Lassiter book, To Speak for The Dead.

ECD

available March 28, 2017

Vicious Circle

Vicious Circle is CJ Box’s 24^th novel and the 17th book in the saga of Joe Pickett, a Wyoming Game Warden. While this is a novel that could be read without having read the prior Pickett novels, I think the best enjoyment comes from having gone through the character development of Joe, his family, and the bad guys as written in the prior books. In this one, Box furthers the story of the hostility and violence between Joe and the sociopath Dallas Cates and Dallas’ crazy mother. Dallas has been released from prison for his prior crimes and aims for his revenge at Joe and his family. Box brings back the unparalleled outdoorsman Nate Romanowski and Joe’s mother-in-law and ultimate gold digger Missy, the latter who is now married to Marcus Hand, Box’s version of the famous Wyoming lawyer, Gerry Spence, who gets Dallas out of jail another time. Vicious Circle has another great plot!

If you are a fan of crime novels, read CJ Box. He is one of the 10 guys in my power rotation of authors, and he has kept this series thriving with another A+ thriller. Thanks to NetGalley for this prepublication read. The book is due out in 10 days, on 3/21/17.

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Evelyn (Evie) Carney had just told her just-back-from-deployment husband that she was leaving him.  In tears, she leaves the Georgetown restaurant to walk down M Street. Sunday night so not many people out to notice her.  She was supposed to call on her lover, a big time prosecutor in line to be the US Attorney for Washington, DC, but didn't. He got worried and called the DC Metro cops.

Evie Carney is missing.

Evie Carney. Bottom on the rung associate hired as a favor by a Paige Linden, partner at Simmons, McFadden & Ryan. One of those fancy, megabuck firms that lunch with sitting Senators, cocktails with members of the SCOTUS, managers of campaign donations that buy influence from judges and congressmen/women said funds help get elected.

Poor Evie? Hey, she managed to use an Ivy law degree to get in on the bottom floor of big-time business of law in the shadows of the most powerful city on earth. I guess it was those long deployments her husband had to do that left Evie maybe a bit lonely. Paige thought Evie and Ian might hit it off and introduced them.

The morning editorial briefing at a TV news station in DC includes a note about a young female attorney is missing and little else. Virginia Knightly produces the dinner and 11p news shows. She and her anchor, Ben Pearce, have worked together for some time and are a good team. For reasons even she can't verbalize, Virginia begins to take Evie's disappearance and run with it despite what her station manager says.

Virginia doggedly backtracks Evie's last couple hours prior to that fateful dinner. Finding little, she starts digging into Evie's history in DC, which hadn't been all that long. Virginia's video team uncover archived footage from the previous summer where Evie is seen in the background. Fundraisers, cocktail hours, courthouse steps, Evie pops up near someone with great power. Running in some fancy circles for the most junior of associates at SM&R.

Virginia interviews and re-interviews tangential players in this drama, sometimes making a note that takes her all directions of the DC compass. From her how newsroom to the DC Metro detectives (one of whom is an old flame), the DC attorney's office, other TV stations then it's on to friends, neighbors, co-workers a bit down the DC food chain. Evie's gotten herself mixed up in something far more dangerous that cheating on her husband.

I remember thinking while reading this, "is this was TV news producers do for a living?'' Sure, Virginia had a history as a field reporter and journalist so digging is in her DNA. If this is what producers do, I need to give them some serious props.

This is Christina Kovac's first novel after nearly 20 years work in the journalistic trenches in the DC area and the book sure does offer a reality that only one in the biz would know. The detail of the investigative news process, station politics, legal finagling and relationships is impressive indeed. For me, this book tics a lot of items on my list: DC based-check, murder mystery-check, bulldog investigative journalist-check, legal thriller-check.

Lot to like about this. Sure do hope Kovac isn't a one & done.

Available March 21, 2017

ECD

Untitled by Jeff Garvin

I just finished a draft of Jeff Garvin’s second novel. The book is for young adults and is still untitled. I’m not authorized to say much except that I’m excited about this one. Jeff’s first book was a best seller in the young adult genre. Sorry, but you’ll just have to wait – I’m not sure when this is due for publication. I can tell you that chapter one is spellbinding. I was immediately hooked and had to find out what happened to Jeff’s protagonist and the associated characters.

Thread of Hope

Jeff Shelby is another one of those prolific best-selling authors who has never been reviewed in this blog. He has written multiple series of crime/mystery novels. I stumbled into this very good book while I was on a trip in Southern Baja and found myself reading about my hometown area in and around San Diego.

Joe Tyler is the protagonist in this five-novel series, the first being Thread of Hope. This book opens as Joe is returning to his home for the first time in seven years. He grew up and went to high school in Coronado, an idyllic island community near downtown San Diego which is dominated by a military base. It used to be that mostly military families lived there, but it has evolved into a community of the very wealthy and it is a highly desirable place to live.

Joe is coming back because his best lifetime friend is in trouble. He has been accused of beating and raping an 18-year-old high school girl, Meredith Jordan, and then he was attacked and beaten by unknown assailants. Chuck Winslow lies in a hospital bed, unconscious, and it is not clear that he will survive this assault. Although Joe has been out of contact for eight years, he is very sure Chuck could not have done the things of which he is accused. As the story progresses we learn that Joe has fled the island in pursuit of his own daughter, Elizabeth, who had been kidnapped at the age of eight, right out of his front yard when he had taken his eyes off her for only a couple minutes. She disappeared without a trace. Joe had been working as a cop in Coronado, his dream job. He had been happy in his marriage and in love with his circumstances, and then his life was torn apart.

Over the course of the book, the reader learns that Joe left his job and spent a couple years doing nothing but searching for his daughter, but those years of grief were also spent in substance abuse. That was when his marriage came undone. As he emerged from his fearful depression and hopelessness, he realized that even if he had not been able to find Elizabeth, he had learned a lot about how to find people. He specialized in tracking down teenagers who disappeared from home, and he was damn good at it, having helped numerous families to reunite. It was only Chuck that could have pulled Joe back to Coronado where his painful memories were most vivid. With his police contacts in San Diego and with his own detective skills, he launched into figuring out what happened to Chuck.

At the outset of this book, I was not convinced it would be a good read. At first, it seemed a bit formulaic – just another crime story. But, it turns out that Shelby has written a story about a very compelling character in Joe Tyler. Joe’s struggle with his own losses was not melodramatic – it felt quite real. Shelby introduced a surrounding cast of characters that beautifully supported his story, and I knew I was hooked when I immediately downloaded the second book in this series, Thread of Suspicion. As suggested by the title of this first Joe Tyler book, there is some hope that Elizabeth might be alive, and as the first book ends, Joe gets a new clue that he has to follow. We at menreadingbooks.com have another excellent author with a large body of work to enjoy and write about.

Dead Lions

Dickie Bow had been out the spy game for a long time, but he wanted back in. He had never been an important spy, never one trusted with an important task, but he was a lifelong “street walker,” someone who knew how to tale someone without being seen, someone who could blend into the background without raising suspicion. And, he was the one guy who had actually seen a legendary spy, Alexander Popov. But was Popov even real? But Dickie didn’t always stay hidden, and that’s why his body was found on a bus. His cell phone had an unsent one-work text, “cicadas.” That was enough to interest some people at MI5, and some of the tasks that needed to be done to investigate what Dickie was after were assigned to the Slow Horses.

Dead Lions is the second book in a 5 book series, Slough House. All of the characters in the Slough House are spies who screwed up, who blew an assignment. Because it is not so easy to fire a spy, MI5 chose to give them the most boring of assignments as a way of inducing a voluntary retirement. None of the slow horses had ever gotten to return to Regent’s Park where the real MI5 brain trust worked, and like Dickie, they all wanted back in the game they had trained for.

Cicadas, insects that stay buried for 17 years before emerging to activity, was a clue that somewhere in England lived a Russian sleeper cell which was being activated 21 years after the Berlin Wall came down.

The cast of characters that author Mick Herron introduced in the first book, Slow Horses, are as intesting as the characters of Louise Penny or even Daniel Silva – and that is remarkably high praise. The primary protagonist is Jackson Lamb, who unlike penny’s Armand Gamache or Silva’s Gabriel Allon, is not refined or likeable. Really, he is a most disgusting creature with vile and extreme habits. But is at the top of the Slough House for a reason, and he knew Dickie Bow from their days together in Berlin during the height of the Cold War. Along with Lamb are the slow horses about whom we learned more, River Cartright, Roderick Ho, Min Marper, Louisa Guy, Catherine Standish. Herron introduces a couple new ones, Marcus Longridge and Shirley Dander, which allows him to kill off one of the others. 

The character development, main plot, and subplots all are fantastic. Herron has written 11 novels, and I’ve now reviewed two of them. I’ve already downloaded the third and fourth books of the Slough House series. We at MRB have a new author to get excited about. These books get my very strong recommendation.