The Short Forever by Stuart Woods

Posted June 28th, 2009 by Reader | No Comments
Mystery |

The Short Forever by Stuart WoodsThe Short Forever was published in 2002 and is a Stone Barrington novel. If you're not familiar with Stone's background, the summer before his senior year in law school  he spent riding around the city in police cars; part of a law school program to give students a look at real life. He liked the work, so joined the NYPD. He spent 14 years there, finishing up as a homicide detective. After being injured and forced to retire, he took the bar exam and went to work for Woodman and Weld doing cases they don't want to handle themselves.

The Short Forever begins with Stone being hired by a mysterious John Bartholomew sent over by one the managing partner of Woodman & Weld. The job is to entice Mr. Bartholomew's niece back to New York and away from one Lance Cabot, a nefarious character with whom she is now living with in London. Stone starts the wheels turning to find out just WHO Mr. Bartholomew is as well as if there is anything on either his niece or the man she's living with in the short time he has before his flight to London leaves.

Upon arriving in London, Stone quickly finds his quarry and begins his investigations. He soon turns up that Erica Burroughs has no uncles and when he spots John Burroughs going into the American Embassy in London, begins to doubt the truth of any of the story told to him by the man.

The story takes several twists and turns on the main plot and then also has a couple of subplots that in no way detract from the main telling. Stone has a penchant for the understatement that at times seems almost "roll your eyes" droll.

Stone has a best friend, Dino Bachetti who is still on the NYPD and who often helps Stone out in his cases. Despite the fact that this one is taking place in London England, Dino shows up in the nick of time to extract Stone from a murder charge and get his investigation back on track.

The Short Forever by Stuart Woods
Published by GP Putnam's Sons 2002
ISBN: 0-399-14868-X

Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

Posted June 21st, 2009 by Reader | 1 Comment
Mystery |
Cover of "Dead Heat"
Cover of Dead Heat

Dick Francis has been a favorite of mine for many, many years so it would stand to reason that even a co-authored book would delight. I have to confess to being disappointed in this one.

Oh the plot is a great Dick Francis plot and the story line brings all of his humor and crime writing expertise to bear, but someone influenced Mr. Francis to "tone down" the British flavor of his writings and this is what is so disappointing. It's missing that flavor and like a dish with too little seasoning, it's bland. Please PLEASE don't do that on your next novel kind sir!

In Dead Heat we are introduced to a new character who is not a jockey and not a trainer, but rather a chef. A Michelin Star-winning chef to be sure! Of course our beloved horses and racing isn't left out as Chef Moreton's restaurant caters to all of the who-is-es of the racing world and it's as someone poisons the food he's prepared for the gala dinner on the eve of the  2000 Guineas that gets us pulled into this nefarious plot that involves smuggling, drugs, murder and mayhem.

Max isn't going to take having his food so maligned and sets out to discover who poisoned the food and why. That poisoning of some 20 guests and a subsequent bombing of the luncheon he serves the next day to guests at the racetrack proper gets Max's blood in a boil, but he's waylaid by health officials who first close down his restaurant despite it not having been where the tainted food was prepared, then he must answer a law suit and a criminal investigation.

It's not enough but during the course of finding the poisoners, he manages to fall in love, escape being killed outright three times and figures out the who, what and how.

Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Frances
Published by GP Putnam Sons 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-15476-8

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Fatally Flaky by Diane Mott Davidson

Posted June 3rd, 2009 by Reader | 4 Comments
Mystery | , ,

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I'm honored that noted blogger Alan Jobe has consented to write some guest reviews for the Nook. This is the first of what I hope are many insightful reviews.

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It is very striking to me when perusing the Mystery sections, that there seem to be more books written with female protagonists than with male ones.   When I stop to think of it,  there are at least four female detective series that I read faithfully and honestly don't remember the last time I read a Mystery with a male detective.  Which perhaps speaks more to my tastes than anything else, since there are certainly plenty of male detectives in the stacks. I have twice previously written about Diane Mott Davidson's series of culinary mysteries featuring Goldy Schulz-- the caterer who is married to a homicide detective in Aspen Meadow, Colorado.

For more than ten years now, I have been following Goldy's career as a caterer who is forever getting into sticky situations when people end up getting murdered at the fancy parties where she caters.    Those who have read any or all of the previous fourteen volumes in this series will be immediately at home in, her latest, Fatally Flaky.   This time out, Goldy has been hired to cater the thrice re-scheduled wedding of an older bride whose temperament and demanding personality have earned her the nickname "Bridezilla".   Sadly,  it is not the bride who is killed but rather Goldy's godfather, Jack, who has recently moved out to Colorado from New Jersey and settled into an older house just across the street from the Schulz's,  As well as his best friend and drinking and fishing buddy Dr. Finn, who has also been Goldy and her family's personal physician, prior to his retirement.

As always, Goldy's catering assistant Julian and best friend and local gossip queen Marla are on hand to help Goldy with the cooking and social aspects of catering a major event and solving the inevitable mystery.   Davidson remains in fine form and in this volume especially,  I found myself quite literally laughing out loud at many of the situations Davidson contrives for her characters and the very witty remarks they spit out.   About half way through the novel,  I found myself thinking that these "Goldy" books are in fact very formulaic,  but a chapter or two (and several Loud laughing fits) later,  I continued to be hooked and hurried to finish the book and find out who the killer is.  I was just a little disappointed that Goldy's son, Arch, appears only briefly this time out,  though the fact that he is now a teenager and spends his summer away from home with his friends is certainly believable.   As always,  recipes for some of the dishes that Goldy, Julian and the other characters cook are included in an appendix following the story.  (I am going to try very hard to get my partner Ron to make Nutcase Cranberry Apricot Bread which sounds WONDERFUL!)

If you are a cooking enthusiast, a foodie and/or a mystery lover,  Fatally Flaky is sure to please and is Highly Recommended.

Fatally Flaky by Diane Mott Davidson
Published by Harper Collins 2009
ISBN: 9780061348136

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Night Fall by Nelson Demille

Posted June 1st, 2009 by Reader | No Comments
Mystery | , , , ,
Cover of "Night Fall"
Cover of Night Fall

I was first introduced to John Corey and his wife, Kate Mayfield in Wildfire a novel about a group of home-grown terrorists who plot to set off a nuclear bomb. Since John and Kate are part of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, it stands to reason that they encounter terrorists in many different forms.

John Corey is a former NYPD homicide detective and Kate is an FBI agent. John harldy ever goes by the book where Kate almost always does. Night Fall has Kate straying from her "by the book" path and involving John in a search for the truth about TWA Flight 800.

TWA Flight 800 if you don't remember, was a Boeing 747 bound for Paris with 230 passengers and crew on board that exploded off the Atlantic coast of Long Island in July of 1996.

Many theories about what happened to the ill fated aircraft have abounded from it being shot down by "friendly fire" from one of the Navy vessels in the area that were performing war games to the final decision by the CIA and FBI to call it a tragic accidental explosion triggered by a vapor build up in a fuel tank and an short in an electrical system.

Five years after the tragic event, mourners still gather on the beach close to where the plane went down to mourn those lost. Kate, who worked the case in its early days still harbors a feeling that something was missed; something that would give a better answer that would tie all the conflicting statements of the more than 200 eyewitnesses together and answer the mysterious question of "where did the flash of light that preceeded the explosion come from?"

Rumor has it that there was a couple on the beach who video taped the explosion, but no tape has been turned in by any citizens and all attempts to find the couple have dead ended.  But that's before John Corey's powers of dogged detective work are turned loose on the case.

He not only uncovers the missing couple, but the conspiracy to hide the truth from the American public only to have it all literally go up in flames as yet another terrorist attack occurs on American soil.

This was an exciting don't-put-it-down book from start to finish. You are enticed into the mind games played by the agencies involved in the FATTF and their often conflicting goals. I won't spoil the ending for you, but trust me, you'll be saying "ohmygod!"

Night Fall by Nelson Demille
Published by Warner Books 2004
ISBN: 0-446-57663-8

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