Mystery Crime Books

This book is definitely for anyone who's a fan of the original Evil Genius. Interesting plot but the book lacked some of the better twist and turns of the original. The characters also feel a little less convincing / powerful when compared to the original. Not to give anything away but I felt Cadel really got turned into shadow of his old self and have none of the cunnings we saw earlier. (Uh oh, found myself agreeing with English on that front...)

Overall, interesting read. Well worth the time and effort. I am looking forward to the next one.

Cadel Piggott returns in this action-filled sequel to EVIL GENIUS, but he's not the same teen. The Cadel readers knew in the first book loved to create havoc just for the fun of it. However, after his life-threatening experiences at the Axis Institute with his father, Prosper English, he just wants to be a good person --- and even happy. He is helped in this change of conscience by his best friend, the paraplegic math genius, Sonja. In GENIUS SQUAD, other allies help fight Prosper and his evil, but he also finds more layers of enemies and surprises.

Cadel has an earnest social worker named Fiona who tries to protect him in a new foster home. He can go nowhere without police protection, though, as authorities are aware that Prosper once tried to kill him. He is now a key witness to the evils that went on at the Axis Institute and to Prosper's many illegal activities. Prosper is behind bars, though Cadel knows that barrier is nothing to another genius like himself and has seen the lengths to which Prosper will go. But he still feels that he's safe; after all, Prosper did not kill him when he had the chance before.

Prosper is always good at making trouble, and he is now denying that he's Cadel's father. This means that Cadel has no father on record, and with a dead mother, no citizenship in any country. So he cannot leave Australia, though the country will not recognize him. He is not allowed to take classes of any kind and is desperately bored. The foster home is run by well-meaning parents, but they are also the caretakers for a couple of other children, including the bully Mace. While Cadel tries hard to stay on the path of good, Mace pushes his buttons too far, and he develops a strategy to hurt him while still looking innocent. Mace promises revenge.

In the meantime, the very smart and stubborn Detective Saul Greeniaus has been assigned to Cadel's case and stops by frequently to give him updates on Prosper's situation and how it may affect him. When visiting Sonja one day, Cadel is approached by some adults who run the new Clearview House, a cover for Genius Squad, a group of gifted teens who will work to bring down GenonMe, a company linked to the deceased P. Drakkon and his minions, which included Prosper. They offer Sonja and Cadel $50,000 each and a home while they work on the computer hacking and coding with the other teens to find out what happens at GenonMe and who is behind it. The money and offer of living with Sonja are too good to pass up; the cash would buy Sonja good care well into the future. The problem is that they cannot tell Fiona or the detective. So Cadel begins a secret life again, but this time he seems to be working for good.

As the team works to bring down GenonMe, Prosper gets more active, even from prison. Cadel has to stay on his guard and trust his new allies to keep himself and Sonja safe.

GENIUS SQUAD is even more fun than EVIL GENIUS as Cadel Piggott is more likable when he is working for good. His new allies and friends add another layer of good guys to root for as well. The evil of Prosper English knows no bounds, even with the Axis Institute demolished. Without that school, it is harder to identify his helpers, despite clues throughout the book. The spy games and suspense are complicated at times, but the surprises will inspire readers to keep turning pages right until the end, when the next installment in the series is unveiled.

--- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

The first book in the series was pretty good.
I would recommend it to people who like crime,technology.
I ordered this book and it arrived on time

On the plus side, author Catherine Jinks' writing is still compulsively readable, and she has picked up more computer jargon since the first book, so the "computer genius" side of protagonist Cadel Piggott is more believable. On the minus side, we never do fully understand what GenoME is doing that is problematic, and given that most of Cadel's activity in the book is devoted to bringing GenoME down, this reader at least never "got" the hook. Moreover the presumption at the heart of the book -- that a group house of computer geniuses brought together to hack into an evil empire could easily be disguised as an assisted living facility for delinquents and fool the police, the CIA and the NSA, among others -- seems, shall we say, a bit implausible. Notwithstanding all of this, the book is still a lot of fun and will appeal to all Artemis Fowl and Alex Rider fans out there.

this is the second book in this series that my 14 year old read. He devoured it only problem was that I had to keep telling him to stop reading and get some exercise.

My four boys love these books about Mercy the pig. They make a great first chapter book for readers too. They now ask for toast with a great deal of butter at breakfast time.

Kate DiCamillo does it again with Mercy Watson fights crime. My five-year old loves these books and I love them too (my 9 year old neice loves them too). The illustrations are retro and really cool. The style of writing is something out of Leave it to Beaver - corny and cute all at once. Makes me want to make "some toast with a good deal of butter on it!"

I love these series. What a great story to share with all ages. My 1st grader loved it. I will get all of them. The hard back cover makes it very nice for the children to use. Great!!

My kids LOVE all of Kate Dicamillo's books. My youngest children really love Mercy Watson so when I saw this book was available I had to buy it. Easy to follow, fun story, nice illustrations, another hit by Kate Dicamillo.

Thanks for putting out such wonderful work Kate!

As a librarian, I read to kids all day. They LOVE the Mercy Watson books. In this one, they got a kick out of the "Yippee-ay-ooo" througout the story.

Even if you're not a big 100 Bullets fan you ought to give this one a spin because it's unlike the rest of the series and crawls into dark noir territory. Murderous Megan is around and the ubiquitous Agent Grave is there, too, but the multi-issue curve follows a cool personality crisis tale that's beautifully designed by Eduardo Risso. There's loads of sex and death here. Highly recommended.

A beautifully dark and gritty journey. The plot and dialog are comic book film noir at its finest. The artwork is muscular, where even the simple act of stubbing out a cigarette or throwing a wadded paper on the street is rendered in a way that evokes action and violence. Not for kids.

This is maybe stretching the the title joke a little far, but we have your classic down and out private eye here, that knows more, and is involved more than anyone can think. Of course, there is a deceitful, stunning, femme fatale in the picture, as well.

Much pain and bandaging ensues for him, and others.

If you are bored of the same crap everyday when it comes to entertainment, this is the solution: READ A BOOK! This one's got pictures and violence and swearing, can you describe a better book? The story is awsome too. However, I recommend you read volumes 1-4 first.

Brian Azzarello, 100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective (Vertigo, 2003)

The fifth volume of the 100 Bullets series is something new for Azzarello, at least within the scope of this series, and it's quite refreshing. This is more classic-noir style than the rest of the series, something Azzarello doesn't normally do. I can't say it's a surprise to see that he does it well (after all, he treaded the line, without ever going across it, in Hellblazer: Freezes Over), but it's a surprise to see that he does it, overall, better than most of the things he does. And Azzarello does everything well.

As most noir does, The Counterfifth Detective starts out with-- what else?-- a private investigator (whom we saw receive his hundred bullets in the background in A Foregone Tomorrow). Milo Garret's stay in the hospital, he finds, wasn't an accident, and Graves has offered him the opportunity to get even. From there, you have the basic revenge storyline that informs most standalone 100 Bullets stories, but filtered here through Dashiell Hammett and a dirty sweat sock.

The best volume so far. If you haven't discovered 100 Bullets yet, you want to. *** ?

Jane Whitefield, half-Seneca, all original, is a "guide" -- and not in the spiritual sense, either. She runs a sort of private Witness Protection Program, helping deserving individuals who are on the run to drop out of the world. Many of them are the wives of powerful and abusive men, or targets of gangland violence they don't deserve. John Felker is an ex-cop turned accountant who is being set up for reasons unknown by persons unknown, and he known enough about the way things work to understand that there's no way he's ever going to prove his innocence. He found out about Jane from one of her previous "clients" (though she doesn't actually charge for her services) and has come to her for help. She gets him squared away, after an interlude on a reservation in Canada (which is quite fascinating). But she's barely returned home when things begin to happen that make it clear she's made a dreadful error in judgment. Perry has done a great deal of research for this unusually, highly original novel and he develops his characters very well indeed. The closing section, which is brilliant and gripping, is set in the North Woods, and could have taken place two centuries ago. A marvelous book.

A couple of years ago, I read a novel called PURSUIT, which was one of the finest cat-and-mouse thrillers I've ever read. The author who wrote the book, Thomas Perry, is probably best known for his Jane Whitfield series, which involves a woman who helps people "disappear" from their enemies. VANISHING ACT is the first novel in that series, and I found it rather disappointing.

VANISHING ACT has a great concept, and a very strong beginning. Unfortunately, Perry's plot ultimately becomes quite convoluted, with so many digressions that it prevents the story from attaining any true narrative drive. Perry's a strong writer, but his writing style is long-winded, with too much exposition and detail in this book for its own good. The plot is also quite thin and predictable, with a twist that most readers will spot far in advance.

Many of Perry's fans seem to admire the Whitfield series, and Perry plans on producing another Whitfield novel in 2009, after a long hiatus. I'm guessing this series probably improves with later installments, but I'm in no hurry to try any new Jane Whitfield books after reading this one.

While learning some interesting facts ("Adirondacks" is Iroquois for "bark-eaters," a derogatory term for ineffective hunters, and George Washington ordered assorted massacres of Indian villages), I found this novel consistently engaging. The reviews suggesting the heroine's "gullibility" forget the difference between reading a novel and living an experience. Perry isn't interested in tricking his readers, but inviting them to see and experience the world as his heroine does. All in all, she's quicker to figure out the shape of a complex story than that reviewer would have been, and this novel's merits don't depend on "figuring it out" anyway. If a mythic heroince can be credible, this one is.

Perry manages to continiue to surprise you in the different ways he has Jane do some very tricky things to keep her friend and herself alive. Jane uses all her innate wisdom and makes use of most of her contacts to make everything turn out for the best.

Vanishing Act is the first in a series of five books about Jane Whitefield, an Indian guide who will take someone from where there are people who want to kill them -- to where they are safe. She provides people with a new identity and a new life. John Felker is looking for just that. He is a former cop turned accountant who is being set up as an embezzler. Someone is skimming money from the accounting firm's customers and depositing it into an account in John's name. There is also an open contract on his life, so he needs to disappear.

The book is written in two distinctly separate parts. The first part is about how Jane makes someone disappear. We follow Jane and John cross country as they are being chased by the men who are after John. We are introduced to people along the way who help make their escape possible by providing safe places to stay or creating fake documentation or getting them transportation. When Jane finally gets John safe, the story takes a new twist. The people we have met along their journey are being murdered. Someone has been tracking them and Jane fears for John's safety. She has to go back to save him before the killers find him too.

The Native American culture and history were very interesting. Jane uses her training and skills in tracking and in creating weapons from items she finds in the woods. I thought of a few questions along the way that I wanted answers to and was a bit disappointed when those answers, found late in the book, would have cleared everything up quite early. Surely Jane is better at this than I am and should have asked them herself. But then we wouldn't have had a story, right?

Armchair Interviews says: Definitely pick Vanishing Act and up the next one in this unique series.

These books by Anne George are so funny....they are Southern and such light hearted reading. I have sisters and have been to Birmingham several times so I love the characters and Steel Magnolia southern women.
I had already read all of her books but bought these to replace the ones I had loaned out and had never come back to me. When they came I read them all over again....love it!

I have read all eight books in this series. They are wonderfully entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud at Patricia Ann and Mary Alice. These two sisters remind me so much of my mother and her sister. If you anyone wants to read a fun, entertaining mystery I highly recommend all eight of these books. I only wish Ann George was still here to write more southern sisters mysteries.

I too found the end of this book a little confusing, but I enjoyed the book just the same. The antics that these two sixty-something sisters get up to are a lot of fun. I always feel that I want to get to know these two old girls. In this book, things seem to be happening to Patricia Anne's neighbour. First he's accused of murder, then his house burns, and finally he gets shot (in the backside of all places). Patricia Anne knows that there are some dirty dealings underneath all this, and she and her sister Mary Alice begin to do a little "follow the money". These books are very funny, and the characterizations are very real.

I love this series of books by Anne George. These southern sisters are a hoot. When I found out Anne George is deceased, I decided to collect the whole series so I can enjoy them over and over again. - Kathleen Novotny

Patricia Anne Hollowell (Mouse) and Mary Alice Crane (Sister) are sisters in their sixties who couldn't be more different if they tried. From their pets to their personality to their finances these two sisters are the very epitome of a divergent gene pool. Still they love each other dearly and their sisterly relationship is the corner stone on which this series is built. Anne George had a wonderful talent for creating dialogue between her characters that was both believable and entertaining and the dialogue between Sister and Mouse is absolutely brilliant.

In previous entries in this series the sisters have become involved in murder investigations for all sorts of reasons, most often to prove that a friend of theirs is innocent of the crime. That is the case again with this book as Mouse's next-door neighbor Arthur Phizer is accused of killing his first wife. Well, she isn't technically his first wife but then again there was a legitimate ceremony. As you can see, this author's storylines are also extremely imaginative and quite funny as you will see when you find out which of the characters gets shot in the behind and also as you discover why Sister bashed the bank president over the head with her umbrella. How in the world did a sweet looking little lady from Birmingham think this stuff up?

As with many cozy mysteries, the mystery tends to take a back seat in these books but in this installment the mystery is a little more noticeable than usual. Unfortunately though when the mystery is solved the solution gets so convoluted that it is all a little hard to grasp. I think that maybe the author was reaching a little when she finished up this book but after a little head scratching and rereading it will all finally make sense.

Despite a little weakness toward the end however this is another fine entry in this series. Mouse, Sister and crew are as entertaining as ever and I assure you that you won't be able to read this book without a loud chuckle or at least a broad smile. It's worth the price of the book and more just to hear Sister explain how she "accidentally" lost her innocence back in high school.

Young Cam Jansen is a great series for young kids learning to read. Very fun with creative content anyone can appreciate. No worries about questionable content for your young reader. My kindergartener loves them.

My 7-year-old daughter and I read this book together. She loved it! Cam - short for Camera, because of her photographic memory - helps her friends solve mysteries. In this case it was a lost tooth. This book has 5 easy-to-read chapters. The story moves along nicely from chapter to chapter, and my daughter did not want to stop until we had read the whole book. She was able to follow the story line as we read and could anticipate what was going to happen. Words were sometimes challenging but overall, an easy read. We will definitely look for more Cam Jansen books to read!

You have to love Cam Jansen. When you're a kid, you read all of these stories about magic powers, mystery, and adventure. But everyone tells you magic can't exist. Cam Jansen manages to solve every case without the use of magic... she's a real girl. That's what makes her special and what makes you want to red more and more. Cam Jansen is a real kid superhero, and the thought that a person like her could actually exist... makes her the best kid detective ever!

I remember Cam Jansen from when *I* was a little girl (and I am 27 years old). I always loved reading the mysteries and couldn't put them down. Now I get to share Cam with my own daughter. The Young Cam Jansen books are perfect for younger children. My daughter is 4 and 1/2 years old and loved the book! She has been reading since she was 3 years old so this was right on her level. It was enjoyable for us to read together and also for her to read on her own. She listened intently and helped Cam solve the mystery. By really thinking and solving the mystery, it gave her such a boost... I think that is one of the great things about the Cam Jansen books... they are "easy" enough for the childern to solve and they can be very proud of themselves for using their minds to solve mysteries. I highly recommend Cam Jansen and Young Cam Jansen books! Parents, don't be surprised if you find yourself reading them, too!

My 3-year old loves the pictures and the story line, and knows just when to say "Click!" along with Cam.

We have most of the Young Cam Jansen paperbacks and recommend them unreservedly for other read-along parents, especially parents of young girls. Less-than-ideal personalities, personal conflicts and misunderstandings are all presented, WITH good resolutions, character modeling, and handling of sticky situations.

The main character is a self-confident, intelligent girl thinker and investigator, with a boy as her best friend. Not exactly typical, and not for ultraconservative parents who think that only boys should use their minds and have adventures.

One particularly nice aspect is that most of the stories take place outside of a public-school setting, recognizing that most discovery and meaningful social interactions take place outside of that institution -- a point not lost on homeschooling-minded parents.

This particular story is set in the Art class, where creativity and fun are the dominant theme, not the lesser aspects of the typical public school experience.

Get and read the Young Cam Jansen series! ...

A non-fiction novel mixing history with the characters that, I take it, Ellroy is practiced at evoking. Publisher's Weekly piously calls the history "revisionist," reassuring us that nothing really happened that we need to worry about. In this environment, Ellroy's is about the best history we're liable to get.

James Ellroy burns all the bridges in this book. He spares no one from Castro to the Kennedy-s, from the FBI to the CIA, from Cuban immigrants to blue blood American aristrocrats. The story features two men: Kemper Boyd and Ward Little. While Kemper tries to climb above his class via crooked CIA plays leading up to the Cuban Revolution, Ward learns how to be a real man by figuring a way into the Chicago mob and beyond. They are on a collision course with history and each other.

Ellroy's prose is akin to machine gun fire and the pace is relentless. This is an American masterpiece about a time and certain places that were forever changed by men like Kemper Boyd and Ward Little. It leaves you wondering what was fact and what is fiction.

History has always been written by the victors - and they have the tendency to iron-out all its bloody details and hide all their dirty secrets. This a TRUE CLASSIC: imagine a history book that reads like a tabloid. Every story up close and personal, complete with every gory detail described. IN CINEMASCOPE & TECHNICOLOR.

The dirty making of the Kennedy fortune. Hoover as a hypochondriac cross-dressing extortionist. Everybody wiretapping everybody. The Camelot President clocked at 6 minutes. The Mob rigs the election for said President; invades Cuba with clansmen and Castro's exiles in blood-lust frenzy; gets burned - and then gets even the only way it knows how. And in the middle of it all, two FBI agents trapped in a downwards spiral of serving multiple masters.

JAMES ELLROY does not pretend to write the dark side: he has barely escaped it himself and knows all its intoxicating scents and shadows. Read for the plausible details of history's margins. Enjoy the staccato prose of natural wit, verbatim FBI communication files and 50's Tabloid lingo.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Let's get one thing straight. This book is bigger than your house. Taller, wider, deeper and more powerful than anything you have beheld up to now, it takes the myth that was once 'nice' John F Kennedy, fleeces it, rips the guts out of it and blasts the remains into the gutter from where it started.



This is a 600 page novel with a world-famous ending, the assassination of JFK. So you think, why should I read it? Well, it will change your knowledge (or what you had been taught) about one of the most significant periods in American History, and it will tell you things you definitely didn't know about a whole string of household names : Jack Kennedy, kid brother Robert, their seriously bad-news father 'Irish Joe' Kennedy, J.Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner and a colourful list of 'made-guy' underworld gangsters such as Santo Trafficante, Carlos Marcello, Johnny Rosselli and Sam Giancana. One of the low-life gangsters featured is a certain Jack Ruby, and I think we all know what he is best known for. In fact this novel is so daringly matter-of-fact about the lives (and loves) of most of the above-named that it makes me wonder how it ever came to be published at all. And it's no over-statement to suggest that you could write a book about this book.



It is, at the end of the day, a novel, which is to say a work of fiction, but I for one wanted to believe that every element of it was true because it helped me to understand so much more than I had been 'educated' to believe in the newspapers and other media down the years. But essentially American Tabloid surrounds the inter-twining lives of three men : hit-man Pete Bondurant, and two federal agents Kemper Boyd and his once protégé Ward Littell. Boyd devotes his career and in turn his life to the Kennedy cause and is nearly ruined when they ultimately turn against him. Littell dedicates his life, and takes life-threatening risks in doing so, to help expose the corruption behind the Kennedy family and the Jimmy Hoffa union rackets - and again gets trodden on by those he thinks he is working for. These two men end up in very different positions and with inverted political attitudes as a result. Meanwhile Bondurant flits between hits for Hughes, Hoffa, the FBI and the CIA and at times rightly regards himself as a CIA agent. Drugs abound, indeed heroin seems to be the leading if not traditional currency for the CIA in its financing of plans to invade Cuba and oust the new leader Fidel Castro.



The time period covered is 22nd November 1958 to the same date in 1963 - the two-year run-up to the 1960 US Election and the 1000-day tenure of JFK as President until his assassination in Dallas. But if like me you've always wanted to know who shot him, why he was shot, and many other questions surrounding his brief presidency, then American Tabloid must surely be the most eye-opening source of information even if it must presumably have its inaccuracies. The writing style may not be to everyone's taste (although I quickly became accustomed to it), but if you're only half interested in What Really Happened to JFK (and the Bay of Pigs disaster), you really must read American Tabloid. It truly is a revelation.



And if you love this, the great news is that you can then read The Cold Six Thousand, which is as instant a sequel as you could ask for, as it begins on the day of the John F Kennedy assassination and leads up to the killing of baby brother Bobby. Be in no doubt - James Ellroy stands tall among all peers and is, in my considered view, one of the very best writers alive today.

"They were rogue cops and shakedown artists. They were wiretappers and soldiers of fortune and f****t lounge entertainers. Had one second of their lives deviated off course, American History would not exist as we know it. It's time to demythologize an era and build a new myth from the gutter to the stars. It's time to embrace bad men and the price they paid to secretly define their time. Here's to them.

--from the introduction

James Ellroy has never been afraid to explore the sordid. His heroes (anti heroes?) are amoral creeps (usually cops) who'd betray their own mothers in the pursuit of quick cash. There are three such men in American Tabloid, Ellroy's fictional take on the Kennedy assassination--Kemper Boyd (who serves the Kennedy brothers, the FBI and the CIA simultaneously), Ward Littell (a disillusioned G-man turned Mob lawyer), and Pete Bondurant (a Howard Hughes bag man who becomes a linchpin in the ill fated Bay of Pigs operation). Three men, blinded by greed, patriotism, ambition and hate. Three men that history knows nothing about, but whose actions ultimately lead to the brutal murder of John F. Kennedy.

At the request of J. Edgar Hoover, Kemper Boyd ingratiates himself with the Kennedy brothers, first serving on the McClellan committee, then in the Kennedy administration. While serving in this capacity, Boyd finds time to align himself with the CIA, the Mafia, drug runners and anti-Castro refugees. Boyd lives in a world where no one is pure, deceit is commonplace and strange bedfellows are the rule. At first, he easily negotiates the complexities of this world. Eventually, however, things fall apart, and an American president dies as a result.

This book will shock, horrify, entertain and amuse. It's truly a tour de force in crime fiction. Ellroy's writing is hypnotic--the best analogy I can come up with is to compare it to improvised jazz. Especially amusing is his use of alliteration when he drops into the style of Hush-Hush magazine, a gossip rag supported by Howard Hughes. Lines like "Cancerous Castro communistically calcifies Cuba while heroic hermanos hunger for homeland" proliferate.

Read American Tabloid and see why many consider James Ellroy to be the premiere crime novelist of his generation.

While all of Silva's novels essentially have the same plot: a struggle between virtuous Israelis and evil Arabs, this one has the Vatican in its center. Silva, for all his disclaimers, knows as we all should that the Catholic Church is probably the most evil institution and the oldest evil institution in our history -- certainly the most evil after the Nazi SS.
The Vatican and its personnel claim a spiritual power but their power is simply the power of evil domination over ignorant billions of people. The Vatican's collabortion with Hitler in the demise of Europe's Jews is controversial but clear: the Church had no interest in saving the Jews, whom it regarded as the enemies of the Church. And it was correct: the Jews have been hated by Christians for 2000 years because the Jews knew that the Christians had fabricated a Jesus who never existed: a divine son of God dying to save sinners. The real Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who died defying Rome. The Jews have been uncomfortable for Christians from Paul of Tarsus to Adolf Hitler. Period.

Ben Stern is a Jewish scholar living and working in Munich. On sabbatical, he is murdered while working on a book. With his death, the manuscript is nowhere to be found and nobody seems to know what it was about. Gabriel Allon is called upon to investigate. As the story progresses, Gabriel must uncover a conspiracy in the Curia, learnthe truth about Nazi collaborators, save a new pope's life, and get an elusive assassin known as the Leopard.

THE CONFESSOR is a first-rate espionage thriller complete with convoluted plot, fast action, beautiful woman, and engaging characters. The issue of Vatican inaction during the Holocaust and the opening of papal archives from that period is a real one and provides an interesting backdrop to Silva's story.

My main complaint about this book, and the reason I didn't give it five stars, involves the ending. As THE CONFESSOR comes to a close, everything is tied up neatly except that the Leopard has gotten away. That's fine if you're going to follow it up elsewhere, such as keep him for another book. Instead, the author tacks on a two-page final chapter (what amounts to a very brief epilogue), in which he disposes of the Leopard without any fanfare whatever. It's as if Silva ran out of paper. It reads as though the character, who was reputedly so elusive that there were no pictures of him and his identity was a mystery, handed out cards with his name, address, phone number, and ID picture on them as he fled the scene near the end of the story.

Aside from what struck me as a letdown at the very end, I thought THE CONFESSOR was a fine book. It's not Silva's first story to feature Allon, so I'll go back and begin at the start, but I will definitely be reading more of this guy's work. I recommend this one.

"The Confessor", part of the Holocaust trilogy featuring Israeli spy Gabriel Allon once again delivers excitement, intrigue, human drama, and superb historical interest. The fictional Pope of "The Confessor" is the target of a plot within the Vatican intended to silence him because of his desire to confess the sins of the Church during the Holocaust. His impassioned words brought me to tears.

This is my first Daniel Silva novel, but definately not my last. In short, I am hooked. Why? Because Silva's writing is crisp, taut, and fast-paced, without being cliche. From the opening pages of the book, Silva writes in a way that keeps you with this work until (a)you can't read any more because you are tired(or out of time!), and/or (b)you have finished the book.

This work of intrigue at its complex/darkest is about an art restorer by the name of Gabriel Allon who investigates a friends murder at the hands of neo-Nazis, or so we think. The novel delves headlong into the Vatican's controversial history during World War II: whether or not they helped European Jews fleeing deportation to Nazi death camps, or did they faciliate their doom through inaction. Early on in the book we are introduced to the fact that the murder of Benjamin Stein is much larger than a simple hate-crime by a derranged Nazi.

The books plot does not take any unnecssessary twists and turns; a literary device all-to-common in most thrillers. Silva keeps the story line relatively simple, without being simplistic. His characters are rich and textured; the dialogue is incissive.

Like I said, this was my first book by this author, but not my last. If you love a good read that keeps you engaged throughout, giving you a good mental workout, that this work is for you.

(4.5 stars) The Leopard, an assassin who figures in a number of Silva novels, becomes a major player in this third Gabriel Allon novel, about the passive involvement of the Vatican in the Holocaust and its subsequent denial of all responsibility. Basing the novel on research by scholars like Susan Zuccotti (whom Silva credits in his acknowledgments) into the secret connections between factions within the Catholic Church and the Third Reich, Silva creates a chilling and utterly compelling story about the reasons that the Vatican might have feared the Jews were a threat to its own power and wanted to prevent the ultimate establishment of an Israeli homeland.

Gabriel Allon, an assassin for the Israeli Mossad (in his secret life) and a talented restorer of paintings and sculptures in Venice, often for the Vatican (in his public life as Mario Delvecchio), is working in Venice when he receives word that Ben Stern, the son of his Israeli mentor Ari Shamron, has been murdered in Munich while researching a book. The subject of his book is so secret that not even his Munich university department head knows what it is. Gabriel leaves Venice for Munich and discovers nothing, though phone records suggest that Ben has been investigating a secret church conference that took place at a convent in Brenzone, Italy, during the Holocaust.

Further investigation brings Allon into contact with members of Crux Vera, an ultra-conservative organization within the church, with their leaders well entrenched in positions of power close to the Pope. These must publicly hide their involvement because the new, liberal Pope Paul VII is anxious for transparency and reconciliation with the Jews. When the Pope decides to attend a meeting with the head of a Rome synagogue to express his regrets for any Vatican failures in responding to the Holocaust, the Crux Vera goes into action, contacting The Leopard to be sure that their involvement is never discovered.

Silva's use of recent research to give veracity to the plot and his sensitivity to the various political influences at play create incredible tension. Allon, Shamron, and the supporting characters, many of them Catholic church luminaries, come to life and develop as the action evolves. Allon is a sympathetic protagonist, despite his violent actions to protect the interests of the Israelis, and his sense of honor shines through, even as he kills his enemies with seeming impunity. Ultimately, Silva creates a fascinating historical atmosphere and fills his novel with accurate historical research showing the complicity of some church luminaries to prevent the establishment of a Jewish homeland. n Mary Whipple

Moscow Rules
Prince of Fire
A Death in Vienna
The Marching Season

Picked this book up at Barnes a day ago, and finished it today. Given that I read through it in two days, it was a good read and engaged me throughout. I can't say I was ever bored, which was good.

The things keeping this book from getting five stars:

** SOME SPOILERS **

- some of the situations struck me as over-reaching. The climax of the book during Policefest seemed too easily solved. It also seems like if they were going in the wrong direction, they wouldn't have reached the destination they wanted to go.

- I didn't really connect with any of the characters. While they were amusing to read, I didn't find myself emotionally investing in them, which makes this book more of a beach read, rather than something I'd read multiple times.

- The feeling of Jack being invincible. I didn't feel she was in any danger during the story, despite all of the deaths occurring around her. Sure, she took a couple of hard hits from the Chemist, but none of them had the feeling of "yikes, she might DIE!"


Still, I think it's a four star book, and it was enjoyable. I'll definitely read the other ones in the series.

This series of books is great. Just wish they would come out closer together. I will continue to read them as they do get published. I like them as well as Sue Grafton stories.

The thing that J.A. Konrath does exceptionally well is move a story right along. And he does it with wit and style in 'Dirty Martini.' Danger lurks on nearly every page, as a maniac is poisoning grocery stores and restaurants in and around Chicago, which has the police department stumped.

Yet another in his 'Jack' Daniels mysteries series, 'Dirty Martini' is a short, quick read, reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen in many ways. Konrath, like I've said, knows how to get to the meat of the story and doesn't waste time with a great deal of internal monologue or explanation of character motives.

Which is great but can, at times, leave you wondering why they would do things that are so brash. It almost makes you wonder if it's to do the dreaded move-the-plot-along thing. I don't think it works to the detriment of the novel, on the whole, however. Most, if not all, of the characters, are brash and headstrong and so their actions fit well into the story.

Overall, Dirty Martini is a wonderfully entertaining genre novel.

J.A. does it once again with Dirty Martini! I have yet to even finish the book and this is surely one of his best to date. Funny. Surprising. Vicious. Scary. I defy you to go out and eat at a chain buffet after getting halfway through this book.

Oh, and you could say I have so much faith in this book that I'm comfortable making an appearance in it. That's right, you'll find me on pages 108-114. I'm the police officer with the motor scooter who gets into an unfortunate (and stinky) accident.

Buy this! Buy this! Buy this!

Over the last year or so J.A. Konrath has become one of my favorite authors to read. He has a great way of making his characters stand out, and adds a great mix of humor, horror, and thrill to all his novels. I really enjoy reading the Jack Daniels series and have read all four so far, and look forward to reading all the future titles. This in my opinion is the best book of the series to date. I can definitely tell that JA is getting better at the writers craft the more work he produces. You will definitely want to check this title out! Happy Reading!