INVISIBLE PATH - A Carl Brookins Review

Invisible Path
By Marilyn Meredith
ISBN: 978-1-60659-239-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60659-238-0
2010 Release from
Mundania Press. 224 pages


This charming story from a veteran author is the ninth in her series of Tempe Crabtree crime novels. Tempe is a deputy sheriff in the small town of Bear Creek near an Indian reservation in the mountains of central California.

A young man named Daniel Tofoya is sadly murdered and it develops that while he was a talented and often charming athlete, he could be a nasty bully if the mood took him. There are several possible perpetrators, but as often happens, most attention focuses on a stranger who has come to live on the reservation. The story is complicated by the appearance in town of a small separatist movement, stockpiling supplies in anticipation of a coming explosion of what could be racial and class warfare.


All of this gets sorted out by the patient and wise Deputy Crabtree. With help from her long-suffering pastor husband and exuberant son, Tempe is able to avert several disasters and calm some difficult situations.


The novel is in the classic traditional mystery mode with a lot of emphasis on character development and setting. Relations between members of different races and religious beliefs are very well handled with insight and care. This is another enjoyable and satisfying adventure with Deputy Tempe Crabtree.
--


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

WHAT'S YOUR CHARACTER'S CHARACTER?

I'm happy to welcome Mark Terry. Mark is a full-time freelance writer, editor and novelist. He is the author of numerous novels including the bestselling DANCING IN THE DARK, THE FALLEN, THE  DEVIL'S PITCHFORK, THE SERPENT'S KISS and others. He lives in Michigan with his wife, two sons, dog named Frodo, and a bunch of  guitars mostly named after Greek gods: Athena, Poseidon, Ares, and Larry. His favorite guitar's name is Layla. His latest novel to feature Homeland Security troubleshooter Dr. Derek Stillwater, is THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS. When not writing, Mark runs, bikes, lifts weights and teaches Sanchin-Ryu karate, where he is training a Midget Ninja Army with plans for world domination. Of his writing The Lansing State Journal said, "Terry writes like Lee Child on steroids."
 http://www.markterrybooks.com/

By Mark Terry


I’ve been thinking a lot about characters -what makes them memorable, what doesn’t. I honestly don’t have an answer about why one character will stay in your mind and others don’t. I’m also not 100% sure why some readers – often critics – will complain about a lack of character development when readers rave about how much they like the character.

My oldest son, Ian, who is 17, sometimes seems to have a better grip on the theory of characterization, maybe because he’s still taking high school language arts courses. He’ll babble on about an anti-hero and I confess to being someone fuzzy on the definition. So I looked it up. Wikipedia says, “an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis.”

I find that so broad, practically speaking, as to be useless.

For those few of you who watched Stargate Universe (SGU), Dr. Nicholas Rush, played by Robert Carlyle, has been described as an antihero. Which is interesting and sort of helps me understand the concept, but during one of the episodes the military leader of the ship, Colonel Everett Young, kicked the crap out of Rush and stranded him on a planet, presumably to die. As a viewer of the show, I knew he wouldn’t stay down, but I did imagine that if I had been Colonel Young I would have jettisoned Rush out of an airlock or shot him in the head long before Young did. He might have been a genius and the person on board the ship who knew the most about the ship and spoke the language of the Ancients best, but I viewed him as a liability we probably would have muddled along without.

And he was fascinating. Arrogant, brilliant, complicated, rude – a total prick, actually – selfish, self-centered, wandering off on his own agenda, seemingly putting the human beings’ survival onboard the ship completely secondary to his own intellectual interests.

Wandering away from SGU, I think any character we think of as “memorable” probably has to be flawed. Maybe a LOT flawed. In my own thriller series featuring Homeland Security troubleshooter Derek Stillwater, I understand that on the basis of society’s standards, Derek is kind of a menace – a little bit of a vigilante, he doesn’t follow the chain of command, he often breaks the law to accomplish his ends… hell, in The Devil’s Pitchfork he tortured a woman to death (accidentally) to get information he needed. That’s not heroic or noble behavior, and prior to writing that scene I had a huge argument with myself. And my conclusion was that in that situation that’s what Derek would do. Not happily, but extremely reluctantly, with terrible consequences (that come back to haunt him in subsequent books).

That sort of thing’s a balancing act for the writer. And my way of dealing with Derek’s flaws is not to think of them as flaws or even character traits. I just figure out what Derek stands for, what it is his goals and reason for being is, and then put him in situations that test those goals. The character’s there, now let’s see how he reacts.

Put it another way, borrowing from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, Captain Jack Sparrow, rather tired of Will Turner’s complaints and criticisms, puts him out on the yardarm (I guess, maybe it’s the boom) and says, “The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t.”

And as the writer of your flawed character – perhaps very, very flawed character – you need to decide what you can or cannot accept.


Thoughts?

Cheers,
Mark

DEVIL'S PLAYTHING - a Carl Brookins Review

Devil’s PlaythingBy Matt Richtel
ISBN: 978-1-59058-887-1
Released, 2011, 324 pgs,
Hard Cover.

This is a novel born of the twenty-first century. It is technology-rich,
abrupt, punchy, and filled with first-person pithy observations. It has a
modern complicated plot and some dark conspiracies worthy of flat-worlders
and those who still appear to believe the landings on the moon were merely
another government scam.

Blogger Nat Idle is drifting through life as a medical reporter and
occasionally paying attention to his rapidly aging grandmother, the only
member of his family in close proximity.  When he and Grandma Lane are on a
casual outing in a San Francisco park, a mysterious stranger, apparently
driving a Prius, shoots at him, or her, or them. How could this gentle,
rapidly aging woman, with no apparent enemies attract an assassin?  Not
possible so it must be Nat who was the target.  After all, he was engaged in
a controversy with some San Francisco cops about Porta Potty corruption.

The novel uses a criminal conspiracy of immense possibilities and
proportions to raise questions about the rising dependence on technology to
replace our individual memories, and to sermonize about American society’s
eagerness to shuttle its older generations into places where they can die
out of sight and mostly out of mind.  Those shortcomings aside, the novel
develops and carries along an inventive idea that is highly fraught with
tension and believability.

Carl Brookinshttp://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Sky
more at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!

WHERE DANGER HIDES - a Carl Brookins Review

Where Danger Hides
By Terry Odell
ISBN 978-1-43282-512-6
Five Star Mystery from Gale
May, 2011

The novel is a suspenseful thriller with a healthy dose of romance.  Or
maybe it’s a romantic thriller with a good deal of suspense that keeps this
moving at a sometimes alarming pace.  “Where Danger Hides” is both, and it’s
also a fantasy in particular in the way and the speed with which the two
principal characters are drawn together.

Miri Chambers is the caretaker and overseerer of a San Francisco shelter
primarily for abused women.  Galoway House also manages to shelter and care
for a number of children and men, as well. There’s a lot more to Miri
Chambers. She is adept at disguise, light-fingered and as prickly as one can
get. Two wrong words and she is liable to go off like a rocket. That
propensity for shoot-from-the-hip judgments and attitude may also be the
reason for her nearly unbelieveable hormonal response to the hunk she meets
on a clandestine foray into the home office of a wealthy art patron.

Her reaction to “just” Dalton isn’t much different from his.  He works for a
private security firm that has a large well-funded and mostly covert group
of operatives working well outside the usual legal limits. Dalton, one of
Blackthorn’s elite black ops operatives has an appreciated eye for female
anatomy, wherever he finds it, including hiding under the desk of the
aforementioned wealthy San Francisco Art patron.

Dalton and Miri Chambers are all fire and sparks and hot sex throughout this
rollicking novel.  The author has created a pair of characters who could
each carry the novel solo, but when you pair them, look out.

The action carries Dalton and Chambers from posh and elegant settings to
gritty exceedingly dangerous operations.  Readers are not likely to predict
each succeeding move.  One is required to suspend disbelief and recognize
from the outset that explicit play, both sexual andfirearms, is integral to
the story.  Nevertheless, the plot is carefully and fully laid out, the
dialogue is mostly logical and the tension carries well through the entire
book. Gritty, tender, frustrating by turns I did feel that there were times
when both characters exhibited too obtuse attitudes and were slower on the
uptake than they should have been, given their life experiences.

Nevertheless, this is a fun read that makes several important points along
the way.

Carl Brookins
http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Sky
more at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!

Eggsceptional EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS - Happy Easter

EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS
Berkley, 2010
352 pages



If you like light reading, and who wouldn't at Easter time, give Julie Hyzy's award-winning culinary series a hop and skip through the pages as she prepares for the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.


Make no mistake this is cozy writing at its best with a series that began with State of the Onion (Anthony award winner).



In Eggsecutive Orders, a White House dinner guest has died. Was he poisoned? Suspicions point to Executive Chef Olivia Paras, the first female White House Chef, and her staff. Even her Secret Service lover, Tom, is no help because he's been told to keep her out of the kitchen, away from the first family's food. She must clear her name to keep her job and boyfriend, to say nothing of staying out of jail, or worse.
This wonderful souffle is funny and mysterious at the same time.

From Booklist
The ever-burgeoning culinary mystery subgenre has a new chef-sleuth. In her second adventure (following State of the Onion, 2008), Olivia Paras, the first female White House Chef, just wants to focus on her job: cooking for the president’s family, preparing state banquets, and getting ready for the annual Easter egg roll. However, when one of the guests at a state dinner dies, everything changes: Olivia and her staff are banned from the kitchens. Her boyfriend, Tom MacKenzie, part of the Secret Service’s presidential detail, has been assigned to keep Olivia from meddling in the investigation. Her mother and grandmother are about to arrive for their first visit to Washington, D.C., and tensions are rising among Olivia’s staff and guest chefs. Hyzy does a great job of keeping us interested in all of these problems, and the back-stage look at the White House proves fascinating. Recipes are included for Eggcellent Eggs. --Judy Coon



Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION out 2012
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SEANCE - a Carl Brookins Review

How to Survive A Killer Séance

By Penny Warner

Mass Market release in 2011

Obsidian, 290 pages.

ISBN:978-0-451-23279-3

Party planner Presley Parker is back. In another delightfully cozy murder mystery, she’s got herself enmeshed with some high-roller, high energy, digital silicon-valley types who are nothing if not focused. The problem is they seem to have left everything resembling human values back at the starting gate. Compassion? Nowhere to be found. Fidelity? It is to laugh.

The women are sexy and high energy, the guys are bright and energetic, if often ill-tempered, and poor Presley is caught between some over-stressed corporate types, her own urges and career needs, and her flakey mother. It’s easy to see where Penny gets some of her idiosyncrasies.

A wide range of characters? You bet. Unusual ideas and offbeat characters? Absolutely. This author fully understands what her readers are looking for and in spite of having already produced a huge number of enjoyable books, she continues to plumb her creative muse to write stories that satisfy a certain risibility and belief in the quirkiness of human nature.

A fast read, well-plotted, with a setting to die for, and characters that are distinct. This is yet another of Penny Warner’s diverting, novels. Here there is no gloom or doom, just a murder or two in dark rooms, secret passageways, unreal emanations and a fast romp to a perfectly designed conclusion.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Skymore at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!

TOMB WITH A VIEW - a Carl Brookins Review

Tomb With A View

By Casey Daniels

ISBN: 97804252355152010

Mass market release

Berkley Prime Crime

Pair one of our less interesting presidents, James A. Garfield, with a cute slender, sexually aware private detective, cum medium, and what do you get? You get this delightful cozy mystery, one of several in Casey Daniel’s series of Pepper Martin adventures.

But be warned. If you don’t like a bad pun or two, several tongue-in-cheek jokes and a huge riff on one of the presidents of these United States, this delightful novel isn’t your cup of tea.

On the other hand, if your humor runs to the mildly risqué, you don’t mind a self-aware sexy cemetery tour guide(!) who happens to be reluctantly channeling the dead President, and you enjoy fast-paced well-conceived criminally artful plots, this latest adventure of Pepper Martin is definitely a winner.

Around every prominent figure in history there swirls scandal and scandal attracts the greedy. If this author is to be believed, an incredibly audacious land swap plan was under way when anarchist Charles Guiteau fired the bullet that cut short what might have been a sterling presidential career.

That’s all in the past. What’s here and now, is a well-managed funny, and twisty story peopled with interesting characters, not the least of whom is one well-named, Pepper Martin.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/

www.agora2.blogspot.com

Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Skymore at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!