A Deadly Exchange
By Sheryl Jane Stafford
Writer’s Showcase
Mystery
Paperback
December 2000
353 pages
$17.95 USD
ISBN: 0-595-15677-0
Setting: A sailboat on the
sea in the Bahamas region.
A Deadly Exchange begins with a special
agent being chased by a drug lord’s henchmen in the Bahamas. Surrounded at the
airport, he chooses to commit suicide rather than risk putting his fellow
agents at risk. From this point, the action never lets up. There is a high
level of suspense throughout the book.
When
Matt and Alex pick up their sailboat in the Bahamas, they have no idea that
drug dealers have stashed cocaine on the boat by mistake. They are well
underway with their voyage before the drug dealers realize their dope is
missing. Of course, the Columbian drug lord does not take the news lightly and
immediately dispatches the bumbling duo to retrieve the cocaine. A cat and
mouse game across the ocean begins.
Matt
hides the dope. The dealers take Alex hostage and Matt must trade the dope for
his beloved. Enter the DEA, with a traitor who is loyal to the drug lord. The
exchange turns deadly when the traitor agent warns the drug lord of Matt’s
arrival. Matt is greeted by a sadistic thug and savagely beaten. Meanwhile,
Alex escapes with plans to steal a boat and flee at first light. She overhears
two men talking about the new prisoner and realizes that it is Matt. Now, Alex
must figure out some way to free Matt without getting both of them killed in
the process.
I
am impressed with Stafford’s ability to portray such diversity in her
characters to intensely detailed extremes. She displays tremendous skill in
building believable characters that react in a manner that would be typical for
someone of their type, class, and gender. I was intrigued by her “former POW”
Vietnam veteran. There are so many things that simply cannot be researched and
many of these things lie deeply within the realm of the POW. Then I learned
that her husband is a former POW. I commend her for doing such an excellent job
with this character and for including the POW aspect in his makeup.
The
story moves at high speed and will keep you reading. It is quite difficult to
find a stopping point because there is always something going on that you need
to resolve. You know the answer is there … perhaps in the next few pages. The
plot develops chronologically and in an orderly fashion. The return to stasis
is concrete and leaves the reader well satisfied that all questions have been
answered and all conflicts resolved. It is an excellent book that should appeal
to a wide mainstream audience.
--Alicia
Karen Elkins, GWN Book Reviewer, Native American Editor
5/22/2003
A Superior Mystery
By Carl Brookins
Top Publications, Inc.,
Dallas, TX, 2002
Paperback, 302 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 1-929976-17-8
A
Superior Mystery is a strong mystery novel developed around the logging
industry of Northern Wisconsin. It touches on environmental issues and Native
American concerns about exhaustion of our natural resources. The author
obviously is not afraid to dive into controversial waters.
The
story opens in the 1890s with a logger working on the barges hauling logs. This
brief passage closes as he is shot. We jump to modern day and a sailboat race
during which Mary Whitney’s boat collides with another. She is left without a
boat for the racing season. We learn that she is involved with Michael Tanner,
a public relations specialist and that she has ties to the logging industry in
northern Wisconsin.
A
company has developed a plan to salvage logs that were spilled into Lake
Superior. They want to hire Tanner to promote their idea as an ecologically
sound alternative to further logging. He immediately becomes suspicious because
they seem to know everything about him and could have hired someone from their
own area. Instead, they have asked him to relocate. Their offer of the use of a
sailboat clenches the deal and he sets off for northern Wisconsin with Mary.
Things
were going great until divers discovered the body of the man in the
introduction, Jarl Rylston. Between the time they spotted it and the time they
went back to retrieve it, currents had moved the skull away from the rest of
the skeleton. The bullet hole in the back told authorities that they had a
murder on their hands, but they needed the whole body.
Next,
it jumps to a scene of a sheriff investigating the murder of a man in a logging
camp, supposedly from an argument. Now, back to the present. So it goes, with
the author feeding you tiny glimpses of information about the past, while
carrying forward the present happenings. It will keep you wondering “whodunit,”
but the outcome is rather predictable. I was not surprised and did not think
there were any twists, but I did enjoy the story.
Brookins
has a highly descriptive style, though his writing is not really
“conversational.” The way he arranges his phrases is more academic than
conversational. He is technically correct in his writing, but it is a fact that
few persons speak in a formal and grammatically correct way. His writing would
be much more personal and conversational if he would relax and let the true
nature of American mutilation of the Queen’s English shine through. According
to Stephen King (On Writing), you
should never say: “He stopped to perform an act of defecation” when what you
really mean is: “He need to go now!”
A Superior Mystery is the second book in the
Michael Tanner Mystery Series. The first book was Inner Passages. Brookins has been a freelance photographer, Public
Television program director, and a faculty member at Metropolitan State
University in St. Paul, MN. He is currently a freelance mystery reviewer.
****
Written
by Alicia Karen Elkins, GWN Reviewer
5/20/2003
At Risk
By Kit Ehrman
Poisoned Pen Press, Scottsdale, AZ
Mystery
Hardbound
2002
www.poisonedpenpress.com
292 pages
$24.95 USD
ISBN: 1-59058-036-2
Setting: The heart of Maryland’s horse
racing country at one of the finer stables.
Twenty-one year old Stephen Cline had years of experience working with
horses when he landed the job as barn manager at one of the leading horse farms
in Maryland known as Foxdale Farm. Most considered him too young for this
position, but he seemed to be handling the responsibilities well until the
morning he interrupted a gang of horse thieves. He was kidnapped, thrown
into the trailer with the horses, and brutally hauled away. His escape
focused the attention of a ruthless, evil killer to a pinpoint on his
head. Steve found himself in a position of not being able to trust
anybody when he took up where the police left off.
Kit Ehrman has penned a superb mystery much in the style of Dick Francis.
Her experience with horses is evident in her language and descriptions.
The reader immediately understands that the author knows the horse world inside
and out. Her character development is intricate. The further you
read, the more you learn about the way the characters think and feel. The
story flows smoothly and things make chronological sense. She does not
jump around and confuse the reader.
For a first novel, this book is a real surprise. I am quite impressed
with the writing skill displayed here. The editing was clean and the
story well presented. If the author did such an outstanding job on her
first book, she is sure to become well known in the mystery genre.
Kit Ehrman has worked as a veterinary assistant, groom, and barn manager at
several facilities in Pennsylvania and Maryland. She is currently working
on the second Stephen Cline mystery while living on a horse farm in Columbus,
Indiana.
If you love horses, a high level of suspense, wonderful good guys, and horrible
bad, this is the book for you! It will keep you on the edge of your seat
and take you deep inside the high dollar horse circuit.
*****
Alicia Karen Elkins, GWN Reviewer, 5/21/2003
Deadly Perversions
Brett Arquette
The Lighthouse Press, Inc,
www.LighthouseEditions.com, 2002
Paperback, 405 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 1-932211-00-4
Deadly Perversions is my kind of book. It
takes the realities of human nature at its best and worst, adds the X factor,
keeps you turning pages as quickly as you can read until the very last page,
and leaves you feeling fully satisfied with the story. I am recommending this
book for the Marley Award. It is the best mystery (with definite horror
overtones) I have read in a long time.
The
super company, Talon, has developed a groundbreaking program in cybersex. You
simply buy their program and 3D glasses and you can have safe, anonymous
cybersex with anyone. If you do not like your body, you can change anything or
everything. If you want the face of a movie star with the body of your local
newscaster, you can easily create that desired effect. People around the world
are jumping on the bandwagon. Why risk getting AIDS or any number of STDs when
there is such an easy alternative that guarantees safety.
But
does it really guarantee safety? Suddenly people are dying in mass epidemic
numbers. The one link is the Talon cybersex program, yet we all know that
disease cannot be transmitted through cyberspace … or do we? Once you read this
book, you will never look at your computer in the same way.
I
was hooked from the beginning when the ultra-sophisticated blonde comes
strolling into the Talon building, hits a wet floor, does a three-point
landing, and slides right past the receptionist. I had tears rolling down my
face. The author must have stalked women for six months to have such a perfect
description of how a woman falls when snapping a high heel! I have been there,
done that, and can attest to the accuracy of his play-by-play.
Arquette
interweaves so many characters and subplots that it is impossible to select a
lead character. He draws you into their lives and makes you care about them.
His character development is extremely advanced and realistic. He takes you
behind the scenes of the American faces and into the darker personal realm.
From the bum on the street to the ambulance attendants, you will come to love
them all.
Brett
Arquette is the son of Lois Duncan, author of I Know What You Did Last Summer. Obviously, a flair for mystery and
horror does run in their family. He is a contributing editor for eWeek Magazine and columnist for Smart Computing, PC Week, and InfoWorld. He has the technical
expertise to make the impossible seem real.
Written
by Alicia Karen Elkins, GWN Reviewer
5/20/2003
By Beverly Brackett
Covos Day
Suspense
Trade
2001
www.mazoe.com
233 pages
ISBN: 1-919874-21-6
The
last thing Harriet Ross wants to do is return to the small South Carolina town
she used to visit as a child. This is
because when she was a teen, on a hot summer day when she wasn't feeling well,
her cousins, twins Yvette and Yvonne bugged her to go to the store with
them. She gives them some money and
asks them to bring her a grape soda...it’s 1966, a small town, no one thinks
twice about sending a pair of six year olds to the store. Sadly though, the unthinkable happens...one
the twins disappears, the other is eventually found hiding in a barn, her mind
gone from the terror that she witnessed and never recovered from.
Thirty
years later, Harriet is back, to probate her Aunt Missella Mayhew’s estate, and
to set up some sort of trust fund for Yvette, who now lives in a home. As she realizes that her Aunt couldn’t
possibly have afforded such an expensive care home for Yvette, and as guilt
leads her to question what more could have been done to find the kidnapper, she
asks her lawyer Balt Monroe to help her investigate. He knows he can’t help...but his old friend, Doc Halliday, a
private investigator, can. The case
will take them through strange twists and turns, through the evils of racism to
the ultimate and most sorrowful of crimes.
At
the heart of Sacrificed Lives is the
topic of racism. Brackett studies it
unflinchingly, as she introduces us to the harsh, vile world of the Klu Klux
Clan. She also balances things out,
trying not to overwhelm the reader with one viewpoint. For example, she has one white protagonist,
Balt, who is a good and generous man, and a Black protagonist, named Punch,
whose hatred of white people makes a basically good...if hard...man loose
control. Doc, our main character,
understands both these worlds as he tracks down clues. It’s also a novel with many surprises...from
the sorrow of the twin’s cloth doppelgangers that serve as mute testimony to
the fact that Missella never recovered from the loss of her children, to the
fact that from the beginning we know that Yvette is not quite as incapacitated
mentally as everyone thinks. The idea
of being stuck prisoner in one’s own mind is almost as frightening as the truth
of what she witnessed that night 30 years ago.
This
book is extremely well paced, thoughtful and exciting, filled with a true
flavor of the south and unforgettable characters.
4
out of 5 trench coats
Cindy
Lynn Speer, GWN Book Reviewer
May
5, 2003
Jennifer Macaire
Novel, March 2003, 164pp.
ISBN 1591050774
In
the not too distant future, the Net has become such a vital part of day to day
living that it has it’s own governing body and police force. One of the hottest places on the net is
Virtual Dreams; a site where people can take a virtual vacation that lasts two
weeks in net time but only two days in real time. It is the ultimate in virtual reality and participants can do
anything on his or her own except have sex.
The
owner of the business, Andrea Girt, has a waiting list a mile long and both she
and the net, which takes a cut, believe their site can only get better. When the first tour guide gets killed while
within the tour, net officials believe he had a heart attack but Andrea thinks
somebody killed the tour guide. When a
second attempt is made, the Net police are forced to look for answers to the
creators of the program, mutants that don’t officially exist and have never
left their cages in an underground top secret scientific laboratory. Only the mutant (who can pass for human)
Monkey can stop the killer but that means turning against his own kind.
This
science fiction mystery has a fascinating premise that readers will find pulls
them into the story line almost from the start. The characters are well developed and believable, but the star of
VIRTUAL MURDER is Monkey, a mutant with a human heart and soul, who can operate
independently of the net. Jennifer
Macaire is a talented writer who has found her niche in futuristic mysteries.
One hopes that readers haven’t seen the last of Monkey.
Harriet
Klausner, GWN Book Reviewer
4/3/2003
Green Girls
Harper Collins
http://www.harpercollins.com
Mystery
Hardcover
December 2002
384 pages
$24.95 US
ISBN 0-06-008737-4
You can sympathize with Jacob Winter
from the first. He took his son to a
makeup doubleheader, which means that he and his son could only stay for the
first game. He ends up coming home
early, to find the evidence of a romantic dinner on the table. The oyster minestrone soup that his wife
only makes when she’s in love, lobster and wine. The baseball game is on the radio, and his wife and his
ex-psychologist are standing around acting guilty. The psychologist, Price Ashworth, tries to control the situation,
but the outrage of it all is too much, and Jacob attacks him, then rips apart
the house. In jail, he doesn’t remember
anything after he looses his temper, but Price and Laura aren't pressing charges. Unfortunately, the State is, felony
assault. He is surprised to find that
Laura isn’t the one who posted the bail, it’s a woman he barely knew in
college, Alix Callahan. When he goes to
Alix’s exotic flower shop, Green Girls, to discover why, her answers are not
satisfactory. She is there with another
woman, July, and seems almost afraid of her.
For Jacob, the world becomes a
tangled mess...the prosecuting attorney is trying to convict him on the felony
assault, he’s lost his job until things get straightened out, he can’t talk to
his wife or approach his house because of a restraining order. Of course, it gets worse...Alix asks to meet
him on a bridge, and jumps off of it, just before July shoots at her, grazing
the rail with her bullet. July insists
that she saved his life, but can she be trusted? What part does Price Ashton play in all this? And who is this Serano guy who pops up every
once in awhile?
At first the book is a little hard
to get into, because everyone’s motives, from the faithless Laura to the
mysterious July, are completely muddled.
Jacob doesn’t have anyone he can trust.
His first and only priority is to hang onto his son Max, who he loves
very much. Once we get past the
beginning, story elements slowly unreel, showing us a very complicated
structure of deceit and the desire for power.
The characters are all very complex, and sometimes seem to be working
deliberately against the story, keeping readers wondering exactly what is going
on, and why is Jacob so thoroughly involved?
Once the events begin to fall into
place, there’s an almost audible click, and everything begins to make
sense. I kept reading because that’s
what makes it irresistible, the sense coming out of chaos.
4
out of 5 Calla Lilies
Cindy
Lynn Speer, GWN Reviewer
12/16/2002