Thursday, August 1, 2013

THE BIG THRILL:

THE BIG THRILL:

A review of THE DEVIL LAUGHED on the thriller readers webzine.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

THE LAST TEMPTATION - a Review



The Last Temptation
Gerrie Ferris Finger
Five Star, August 2012.
978-1-4328-2589-8
Hardcover

Moriah Dru, the heroine of the second book of a series featuring
Moriah and Atlanta Police Detective Richard Lake, has her own P.I.
agency and often works for the court. Her specialty is finding people,
especially missing children. In this instance, that of a nasty
divorce/child custody case, a woman and her teenage daughter go
missing in Palm Springs, California. Dru is sent to find them and to
bring young Linley Whitney home to her custodial father.

It isn’t long before Dru discovers this is not a routine case. Is
Linley’s mother, Eileen, alive or dead? If she’s dead, did Bradley
Whitney have his wife killed? Why? And then, more importantly, just
who is Bradley?

When Eileen’s blood is discovered at her present husband’s house, Dru
has almost too many suspects to chose from. Cross-dressers, perverts
of all sorts, an Indian princess, a fake Frenchman, a policeman named
Dartagnan.

The book is full of action and suspense; the mystery will keep you
guessing. The settings are good, the characters better. I’ll be
reading more by Gerrie Ferris Finger.

Reviewed by Carol Crigger, April 2013.
Author of Three Seconds to Thunder.
Reprinted from Buried Under Books.


Regards,
Lelia

Lelia Taylor
Creatures 'n Crooks / Buried Under Books
http://cncbooksblog.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

BLOOD, ASH & BONE - a Carl Brookins Review

Blood, Ash & Bone
by Tina Whittle
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0093-9
A 2013 HC release
from Poisoned Pen Press.
285 pages

 

Tai Randolph is an unusual character. She’s a southern gun-shop owner with her own set of tattoos and a questionable background. She also sports intimate contacts in her past with some seriously evil people, people like KKK members, like gun and booze runners. She’s also one of the go-to merchandisers of authentic costuming and equipment for Civil War re-enactors. This novel is Randolph’s third adventure.

There are big re-enactment doings coming up and Randolph has to pack up merchandise to set up at the Southeast Civil War Expo in Savannah. The first problem is her history. Savannah is her home town, seat of her family and scene of some of Tai’s most notorious escapades.

Complications arise almost immediately when her ex-lover a scallywag biker-cum-independent entrepreneur enlists her aid in retrieving a long-sought Bible, once thought to have been in the possession of both President Lincoln and General Sherman. Is it real or just a Maguffin? If it’s real, it’s worth a ton of money. According to John, Tai’s ex-boyfriend, the bible has been purloined by Tai’s ex-roommate, Hope. Hope and John were a heavy item some time ago but that relationship seems to have cooled.

Enter Tai’s current main squeeze, a seriously hot but damaged ex-cop, now a security expert for an upscale security firm in Atlanta. He obviously is highly suspicious of anything Tai’s ex boyfriend touches, especially Tai. Now add some layers of interesting active honest and criminally inclined citizens, some with too much money at hand and you have as rich a gumbo as any reader could ask for.

The story is fast-paced, clean and highly evocative of the place. Whether you’ve been to Savannah or not readers will revel in the city scenes and waterfront activity. Whittle knows her characters, her setting and how to tell a fine story. This one is an excellent novel.

A copy of the novel was supplied free of charge by the publisher.
 
 

Carl Brookins www.carlbrookins.com  http://agora2.blogspot.com,
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

ORDINARY GRACE - a Carl Brookins Review

Ordinary Grace
By William Kent Krueger
ISBN: 1-978-4516-4582-8
A March 2013 Atria release in
HC and as an e-book.

To maintain complete transparency, Mr. Krueger and I are long-time friends, we frequently travel together as the Minnesota Crime Wave, and I received a pre-release copy of this book at no cost to me.
 
 

“Ordinary Grace” is a standalone novel, a project the author has long desired to write. The book is considerably different from his multiple-award-winning Cork O’Connor series. It benefits from everything the author has learned over the years writing that series. It is directly and powerfully written, wasting no words, yet always moving the characters and the story ahead at appropriate pace, depending on the actions of the characters and the plot.

Set in a small community in southern Minnesota in 1961, this is how the story begins: “All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota.” The narrator is an adult white male, son of the Methodist minister in town. Frank is recalling the momentous events of that bygone summer when he was but thirteen years old, a teen-ager on the cusp of young maturity. The death of that child sets in motion events and revelations of suppressed attitudes that alter the lives and futures of many people in the town. Some of the people affected are important and wealthy, others, as plain and ordinary as one could imagine. Yet everyone in the novel is required to come to terms to greater or lesser degree, with who they are and how they must relate to family, friends, members of their faith, and how they function in the wider yet limited community. What Frank learns that summer, and equally importantly, how he sees and interprets the evil and the grace of that time, will affect him for his entire life. It’s an important lesson.

Krueger’s writing, as always, is smooth and strong and the logic of the plot is easy to follow. While the story has many layers, there are no convoluted or tricky passages readers will have to struggle to interpret. That’s part of the book’s charm and its strength.

The novel explores faith, mysticism, and rationality in thoughtful, even-handed and open ways that lend itself to recollection and continuing reflection, regardless of readers’ experiences in those areas of life. The characters, and there are many, are carefully and consistently well-drawn. This is a novel of discovery and exploration, for the author and for readers. Well done.
 
 
Carl Brookins Reunion, Red Sky, Case of the Great Train Robbery www.carlbrookins.com carlbrookins@comcast.net
 

Sunday, April 21, 2013

E. T. Phone Istanbul

Here is the second in the oddball museums from around the world. From the Associated Press and Rense.com. Also an announcement about the United States Area 51 in Roswell, N.M..

THE INTERNATIONAL UFO MUSEUM

Istanbul, Turkey
  

Located in the historical city of Istanbul, the International UFO Museum displays artifacts suggesting extraterrestrial life. Founded by Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center, the museum offers bits of UFO history, such as a display about the 1947 Roswell, N.M., incident, a worldwide sighting map, soldier and pilot reports, animations of archaeological ruins and statues. This museum is the perfect go-to for those suspecting life beyond our atmosphere.
 
MUSEUM AND EXHIBITION SECTION
 
In this section, hundreds of UFO incidents and a wide range of information about the UFO's and E.T's are exhibited in separate divisions, by means of photographs, pictures, illustrations and written documents-texts both in Turkish and English. These include:
 
The UFO Chronicle of the world and worldwide sighting map, information and animations on the archaeological ruins and traces and epigraphs/inscriptions/ tablets, ancient cultures and their connections to E.T's, Crop Circles, Area 51 and other secret bases, Abductions, Animal Mutulations, top secret official documents, NASA cover-ups, MARS, research and analysis reports of important institutions and universities, types of aliens and UFO's, Roswell, Aztec,Varginha ..etc incidents, national and international newspaper-magazine articles and periodical archieves, worldwide UFO reports and related issues.....etc.
 
Moreover, there are six separate divisions in the Museum, in which various UFO incidents are represented by models and statues and explained both in Turkish and in English. These representations include:
 
* The models of archaelogical ruins / traces / marks which reveal the UFO phenomenon
* Representation of Roswell incident by models, replicas and statues.
* Representation of autopsy done on Roswell aliens
* Representation of an experiment done by aliens on an abductee
* Statues of various types of Aliens, based on the information of observation reports
* Models of various types of UFOs based on the information of observation reports.
 
 
LIBRARY
 
People willing to get information and do research about UFOs, Extraterrestrial Life and the Universe, have the opportunity to benefit from our library, in which there are over 1,000 books and magazines, both in English and Turkish. Reading tables are also available.
 
 
VIDEO-VCD-DVD VIEWING ROOM AND MEETING ROOM
 
Visitors have the opportunity to watch various related documentaries and films both in English and Turkish ...
 
Moreover, there will be periodical conferences and seminars about UFO's and related issues, given by our national and international guest speakers..
 
 
ALSO, WE ARE ASKING YOUR KIND SUPPORT!
 
Our International UFO Museum is seeking evidence, literature, proof of alien visitations of Earth, photos, videos, DVD's, books, texts, any kind of related materials that are written, audio and visual formats for our permanent public exhibits..
 
So, we kindly ask your cooperation and support and are expecting to receive your donations to this highly important International Project. If you have anything related to UFOs, ETs, Area 51, Abductions, Crop Circles, Animal Mutulations,....etc and wish to donate them, please send them to our address below.. Any contributions of information or research materials and artifacts that can be made available to our Museum are greatly appreciated by all especially the public we serve.
 
People who are going to make donations will be honoured by an "Appreciation Certificate" and their names will be announced on the "Appreciation Board " in the entrance of the Museum.
 
Through this important Project ,which will be the first of its kind in Eastern- Europe, Balkans and Midle-East, the UFO & E.T phenomenon will become widely known by not only the Turkish citizens and the citizens of this broad region, as well as by millions of people coming to Istanbul from all over the world.
 
By taking your stance as a citizen of this Planet and by standing together, the whole Truth will be known!
 
 
 
 
Meanwhile in the United States the famous Roswell site will be unveiled, according to The Smithsonian-affiliated National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas. It will be the first-ever Area 51 exhibit, and it will be loaded with UFO and possible extraterrestrial-related items.
 
 
 

 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

A Museum that Sucks

Mustard? Cockroaches? Lunchboxes? German sausages? These aren't your typical museums. And yet these wacky attractions not only capture the imagination but make for a very unique day out. ABC News has compiled a list of the top 18 that are worth a visit.
First in the list:

The Vacuum Museum

Nottinghamshire, England 

This former coal mining town will no longer be known for its dust and grime. Britain's first vacuum museum has opened in Nottinghamshire and is cleaning the air for visitors. James Brown, vacuum enthusiast and curator of the museum, owns 130 vacuums and has 65 of those on display. His collection covers the span of domestic cleaning favorites such as Hoovers, Electroluxes, Kirbys and Dysons. Situated inside Mr. Vacuum Cleaner, Brown's sales and repair shop, the museum is free of charge and shows the historical timeline of pre-war domestic hygiene to modern-day cleaning.
Nottinghamshire is the birthplace of David Herbert Lawrence. Wonder what he would have to say about a museum founded -- as claimed by Mister Brown -- on Britain's failure to acknowledge that the vacuum cleaner promoted hygiene.
Better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions. - D. H. Lawrence
or
I like to write when I feel spiteful.. It is like having a good sneeze. - D. H. Lawrence.
Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION
THE DEVIL LAUGHED - August 2013