Fort Knox

Mom and I recently came back from a trip to Fort Knox. Aka: The lobal library book sale. We brought home a boatload of titles on everything from high altitude climbing and historical fiction to action/adventure, whodunits and murder mysteries. Thirty-two titles for under ten buckaroos.

Oh yeah.

On that last book category. We nabbed some authors we’ve never heard of. And one we offered a second chance. Cuz we’re all nice and gracious-y. Sometimes. (Tip: The last James Patterson book we read was coma-inducing. Just sayin’.)

Anywho. The thriller thingies we’re gonna look at today are Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn. Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman. 21st Birthday by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro. Unfinished Business by J.A. Jance. And The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Which are worth reading? I’ll let Mom tell ya more:

Ever heard of Vince Flynn? New author to us.

Protect and Defend is a little Tom Clancy (back when Tom was worth reading. Think 80s/90s).  A little Ethan Hunt/Mission Impossible. A bit 007/Ian Fleming.

The story

When Iranians kidnap the CIS Director and sink their own ships in the Strait of Hormuz and blame the U.S. for the latter, things get pretty dicey pretty fast. Add to that a daring and ingenious attack on an Iranian nuke facility by Israel and everything goes sideways at warp speed.

Enter counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp. You soooo want to mess with this guy. That Ethan Hunt/007/Mike Banning thing.

What follows is a high stakes game of cat and mouse in this white-knuckler. Tip #2 (throwin’ this in for free): Take some deep breaths before diving in. You’re gonna need ’em.

Lightning-fast, Protect and Defend steams down the track like a runaway freight train. The writing is crisp and sharp. Almost to the point of bombastic. Dialogue is believable. Characters are credible and well-rounded. It’s a barn burner. It also skates too close to R-rated for our taste (too much violence). So demerits there. But pretty well-written if you don’t mind having to wash your eyes and ears out with soap every few pages or so.

Our Rating: 3.5

Does a humungous jewel heist from the 1930s have anything to do with the suspicious death of a 99 y.o. woman living in an eclectic, eccentric hotel in Los Angeles?

That’s one of a zillion questions nagging police consultant/psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware in this intriguing combo of history and mystery. Like, why did Thalia Mars nee Thelma Meyer call Delaware the day before she died? How did Thelma Meyer stash away million$ on a salary from a county accounting job?

Three weeks shy of her 100-year-old birthday, Thalia Mars winds up dead in the Aventura Hotel. And not from natural causes. Was she really a sweet old lady, or a gun moll with a mobster boyfriend who pulled off a big jewelry heist some 70 years back? Who’d want to kill her? And why? Why are the feds nosing around the Aventura Hotel after seven decades? Delaware teams up with Police detective Milo Sturgis, LAPD Homicide, and starts looking for answers.

Heartbreak Hotel offers a fascinating look into the L.A. crime scene of the 1920s combined with a modern-day murder mystery. Movie-wise, we’re seeing Bogie as Dr. Delaware. And Jeanette MacDonald as Thelma (the older-than-dirt-crowd will get that. Hi, Mom.)

Well-written with staccato-sharp dialogue, Heartbreak Hotel has its moments. The thread between the major mobster George Hoke – Thelma’s main squeeze from the 20s – and modern-day crime isn’t one of them. It’s gets wafer-thin at times. And opaque. Think pea-soup fog. And a little sloshy. This book is also too close to an R rating for our taste. So demerits there.

Our Rating: 2.0

A gas explosion. A decimated bio lab. Tampering at a water treatment plant. Coincidence or part of a coordinated cyber-attack designed to bring the United States of America to its knees?

After a crippling cyber-attack by a Middle East terrorist group, it’s all hands on down in this heart-pounding adrenaline rush.

And oh yeah. President Duncan is being treated for a serious blood disease. And may black out any minute. Will he be on his game when America needs swift, decisive action from the Oval Office?

There’s also a word. A secret code word related to the imminent threat and impending national disaster of epic proportions. President Duncan’s trying to stave it off. (The disaster. Not the word.) It’s a super-duper secret code word. (We know what it is. But we aren’t going to tell you. So there! Ha!)

Only a handful of people in the entire U.S. government know the code word. One is President John Duncan. The other is a Ukrainian kid who’s one of the best cyber hackers in the world. He’s also newly estranged from a Middle Eastern terrorist group. That leaves six members of the president’s inner circle who may or may not be responsible for the “ticking time bomb.” One is a traitor. But who? And oh yeah. Duncan can’t tell anyone about his secret phone call with Suliman Cindoruk. And because he can’t tell anyone, he’s being threatened with committee hearings and impeachment by the opposition.

Meanwhile, there’s a Benedict Arnold in the White House. And the clock is ticking…

Some loose ends are left dangling. Ditto some plot holes. But this briskly paced novel offers readers a behind the scenes glimpse into the inner workings of the White House, politics, and internecine political bickering that you don’t often see. On the downside, readers are stuck in a room with a bunch of computer nerds trying to crack the code for like, half a year. And Duncan’s windy sermonizing at the end? Gag. Me. With. Catnip. Totally unnecessary and anti-climactic.

There’s also “Bach.” A world-class sniper for hire who never misses. This character’s back story is skillfully interwoven into the plot, starting in war-torn Sarajevo. One other thing: God bless the Marines.

There’s action a-plenty in this high-octane nail-biter. It’s a heavy lift at 513 pages. But we polished it off in one day. It’s that quick!

Our Rating: 3.5

Yowza! Dee-dowza!

Kimber: There Mom goes again. Spouting off stuff that doesn’t make sense. Unlike words that do make sense: T-bone steak. Rib eye. Filet mignon. Hamburger special.

Wait. Where was I?

Oh yeah. Mom and her weird words. She’s spouting major weirdness over this James Patterson murder mystery/thriller thingy, 21^st Birthday. It left one of us speechless. (That hardly ever happens, Buttercup. So you may want to listen up. I’ll let Mom fill you in.)

The 4-1-1

Detective Lindsay Boxer vows to protect a young woman from a serial killer long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.

When young wife and mother Tara Burke goes missing with her baby girl, all eyes are on her husband, Lucas. He paints her not as a missing person but a wayward wife—until a gruesome piece of evidence turns the investigation criminal.

While Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas pursues the story and M.E. Claire Washburn harbors theories that run counter to the SFPD’s, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender . . . who suddenly puts forward an unexpected suspect. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn’t a woman in the state of California who’s safe.

21st Birthday is quite a barn-burner. The writing is taut and tense, thundering through one chapter after another until it reaches a crashing crescendo. It’s a certifiable page turner. It does come with a language alert. But the lingo is not pervasive or gratuitous. So we’re willing to let it slide. This time. Incidentally, we thought the title was kinda lame. Once we got past that, it grabbed us in the Prologue and didn’t let go until the final page. Or another hamburger special.

Our Rating: 4.0

 Ali Reynolds’s personal life is thrown into turmoil just as two men show up on the scene—a former employee of her husband’s who has just been released from prison and a serial killer who sets his sights a little too close to home.

Mateo Vega, a one-time employee of Ali Reynold’s husband, B. Simpson, has spent the last sixteen years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit – the result of a plea bargain. After being granted parole, a wary Mateo approaches Stu Ramey of High Noon Enterprises for a reference letter for a job application. To Vega’s surprise, Stu gives him one better: He asks him to come on board and work for B. once again. Just as Mateo starts his new job, though, chaos breaks out at High Noon—a deadbeat tenant who is in arrears has just fled, and tech expert Cami Lee has gone missing.

Enter Harvey “Broomy” McCluskey. Ex-military police. Sometime home inspector. Full-time deadbeat and serial murder. Harvey makes a bad case of the flu look good. Will the “trophies” Harvey wears on a gold chain beneath his shirt lead authorities to a string of homicides?

As Ali races to both find a connection between the two disappearances and help Mateo clear his name, tragedy strikes in her family. With lives hanging in the balance, she must thread the needle between good and evil before it’s too late.

Meanwhile, Vega knows he didn’t kill his girlfriend. But if Vega didn’t kill Emily Tarrant, then who did?

The skill with which the author develops characters – Harvey the Scumbag, Cami Lee the High Noon techie, Ali Reynolds and Mateo Vega, et.al., is the work of a master storyteller. Even “Frigg” the AI research assistant has personality. That’s all we’re gonna say about that. And duct tape. They’re all tried together in a credible, hair-raising story like gift wrap.

It’s a white-knuckler, for sure. We couldn’t put it down!

Our Rating: 4.0