Author: Tom B.

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Book Review – American Predator, by Maureen Callahan

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st CenturyAmerican Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

American Predator is an enlightening and horrifying look at the relatively unknown serial killer, Israel Keyes. His depraved history rivals that of people like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and BTK, but his name has been kept out of the limelight, largely because of agreements made between Keyes and the law enforcement community while the latter were interrogating him to discover just how many people he had killed. Keyes was especially terrifying because he had absolutely no victim preference – he chose his victims indiscriminately because of the god-like feeling such choices gave him. The author succeeds in horrifying the reader with her impartial and objective reporting derived from actual FBI interviews of the debacle that was Keyes’ capture and subsequent interrogation. She makes it clear that it’s very likely that Keyes never would have been identified if he had not made the mistake of hunting in his own backyard.

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Book Review – A Place of Execution by Val McDermid

A Place of ExecutionA Place of Execution by Val McDermid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Place of Execution is the best book I have read in quite a while. After reading the first few pages, I had to check to make sure it was indeed a novel and not a true crime story. It’s journalistic style heightens the suspense. While not a cozy, the author pays similar attention to details of setting and character as you would find in the best cozies. The plot is convoluted but believable, and truly horrifying because it is believable. I will surely have to read the rest of Val McDermid’s books.

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Book Review – Stormy Kind of Love by Tia Lee

Stormy Kind of LoveStormy Kind of Love by Tia Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Stormy Kind of Love is a book with potential. Unfortunately, it did not reach its potential, because it’s really unfinished. It’s a story about a young woman who has affairs with two men–one, a handsome bad boy and the other, your all-around good guy. These characters are well-thought out and have some depth, as do the important secondary characters. The plot is somewhat predictable, but this is a romance, so that is to be expected. The book falls down in two areas. It was obviously not professionally edited, as there are numerous typos, grammatical errors and formatting glitches. Also, it has two endings, one of them labeled the alternate ending. The alternate ending actually led to a Hitchcockian plot that could have really rocked, but I got the feeling that at that point, the author wanted to be done with book. I wish she had chosen one ending (the alternate had the best potential) and then spent the time to really polish the story. She could have had a five star book. As it is, I have to give it 2.5 stars, rounded up.

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Book Review – Kisscut, by Karin Slaughter

Kisscut (Grant County, #2)Kisscut by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kisscut is the second entry in Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series, and it is a gem. New depth is added to familiar characters, the action is taut, and the villains are villainous indeed, their actions disgusting and horrifying. The worst pat is the knowledge that people like that actually exist. My only complaint is that sometimes all of the subplots overwhelm the main plot, making the book a tad longer that it ought to be. I also found an egregious error involving someone trying to slip a magazine into a revolver, which should not have gotten past an editor in a traditionally-published book. But all-in-all, I enjoy the author’s work and intend to read the rest of the series.

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Book Review – Penhallow, by Georgette Heyer

PenhallowPenhallow by Georgette Heyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Penhallow is a tour de force of psychological suspense. It’s a crime novel but not a mystery–the reader is privy to all details of the crime and its sad denouement. Its strength lies in Heyer’s masterful portrayal of her characters’ inner thoughts and emotions. Its conclusion is logical, unexpected and ironic, leaving one with bittersweet feelings about the Penhallow family members’ respective fates. Its only fault was its excessive length, generally due the repetition of facts that had been previously presented. Penhallow is a masterpiece in the English country house/gothic genre, and should not be neglected by anyone partial to that type of story.

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Book Review – Say Nothing, by Brad Parks

Say NothingSay Nothing by Brad Parks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A strong entry by popular author. Parks knows how to twist a plot, and hit all those emotional buttons to keep a reader reading. However, some of his rationalizations were weak or uninformed and the book on the whole was about five chapters too long.

View all my reviews A strong entry by popular author. Parks knows how to twist a plot, and hit all those emotional buttons to keep a reader reading. However, some of his rationalizations were weak or uniformed and the book on the whole was about five chapters too long.

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A Disappointing Opening to a Popular Series

Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret, #1)Pietr the Latvian by Georges Simenon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is the first Maigret book I have read, so I started with the first book in the series, which may have been a mistake. I thought that the plot was weak and the writing terrible, which frankly surprised me, given the enormous respect Maigret and Simenon have gathered over the years. It’s possible that some of the problem was a poor translation, because I found a fair number of sentences in improper English. But the plot wasn’t affected by the translation. Some of the action was frankly unrealistic, and the big reveal at the end was meh. I’ll try another of the Maigret books when I get over this one, only because of the author’s reputation.

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Review of Lever Templar, by Matt Gianni

Lever TemplarLever Templar by Matt Gianni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lever Templar is a tale of two eras – the 1300s during the time of the suppression of the Knights Templar by the King of France and the Vatican, and the present day, when Islamic factions and the West are still at war. The ancient story focuses on the discovery and concealment of an even more ancient scroll that contains information that could be shattering to Christianity, while the modern tale chronicles the search for that scroll by terrorists who would use it to destroy their most potent enemy, opposed by western warriors.
The two stories are told in alternating chapters, and dovetail nicely. The protagonists are noble, likeable and have considerable depth, and the antagonists are also three dimensional. Sometimes the impressive amount of historical detail causes the tension to flag, but there’s also a lot of Tom Clancy-like technical detail, both ancient and modern, for those who like such things.
I enjoyed Levar Templar, even though I thought it was a bit too long. It would have only been made better by judicious editing of some of the more arcane details, and consolidation of the last few chapters into a concise ending after the revelation of the principal mystery. Still if you enjoy historical fiction or modern techno-thirillers, give it a try. You won’t be disappointed.

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Here is the 3M Detective Agency Newsletter for June

I can no longer send .pdf files to my subscribers with Mailchimp, so I am resorting to this method to attempt to get it to you. I will send the url of this blog to all of you via Mailchimp, and you’ll have to download it from here. I’m sorry for the difficulty of this process, but I must do what I can.

I also must say that I’m very disappointed with Mailchimp and will be finding another service to host my broadcast emails soon. Mailchimp has always been difficult to use and unresponsive to their clients, and now they seem to have disabled the ability to host either .pdf or .doc files on the site. They never allowed traditional email attachments, so the only way you could send a file was to upload it to Mailchimp and send a link to the subscribers. Apparently, that no longer works.

Please contact me and let me know that you’ve recieved your copy of the newsletter by using the contact form on this website. Thanks.

3Mnewsletter-2_6-1Download

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The Natalie McMasters Mysteries Have Gone Wide!

The big news of the day is that you can now buy the Natalie McMasters e-books from many other distributors besides Amazon and in other formats besides Kindle. Stripper! and Revenge! are no longer on Kindle Unlimited, and Trafficked! will come off at the end of this month.

To celebrate this milestone, the first volume of the series, Stripper!, is available for $0.99 for a limited time from the following distributors.

Please tell all your friends who use these formats.

Stripper! is the first book of the series. It tells of Nattie’s decision to go undercover in a strip club to search for a vicious assassin who killed her best friend and critically wounded her Uncle Amos. It sets the stage for the other books in the series, Revenge! and Trafficked!