THE PANIC ZONE by Rick Mofina

Mira Books, July, 2010

Tall Mass-Market Paperback

ISBN: 978-0-7783-2794-3

$9.99/$11.99 CAN.



When Emma Lane's family picnic ends in a horrendous car crash, she is told her husband and infant son both died in the wreckage. Then why does she remember someone taking little Tyler from his car seat just before the wreck explodes into flames?



Jack Gannon is sent from New York to Rio De Janeiro to help cover a bombing that… Continue

Soho Crime, 2010

ISBN: 978-1-56947-613-0

Hardcover, 336 pages

$24.00

Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis



This is the third novel in the series featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva of the Brazilian Federal Police, and in it he faces one of the grim problems of his country: the forcible prostitution of the very young. I so doing, he must deal with corruption in the local police force, as well as higher-level… Continue

THE BRUTAL TELLING, Louise Penny



Minotaur Books, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-312-37703-8

Hardcover, $24.95

372 pages

Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis



One way for a great reading experience to occur is when a reader approaches a book skeptically, then is completely won over by the end. This was one such book for me. I had always heard good things about Louise Penny's Three Pines novels, but assumed they weren't my cup of tea.… Continue

Tyrus Books, 2009

ISBN 13: 978-0-9825209-2-5

Trade Paper, 204 pages

$14.95, U. S. / $16.50, Canada



Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis



Remington James has a lucrative job in advertising, a wife he loves but from whom he is drifting, and an emptiness of soul he can not fill. When his father dies, Remington returns to his northwest Florida hometown to carry on his father's business and see to the needs of his invalid mother.… Continue

REVELATION by C. J. Sansom

First published 2008 by Macmillan

Paperback Edition, 2009, Pan Books

ISBN 13: 978-0-330-44710-2







REVELATION is the fourth of C. J. Sansom's masterful stories about Matthew Shardlake, a hunchbacked barrister of Lincoln's Inn, London, during the time of Henry VIII's reign, specifically the boisterous decade of Henry's break with the Church of Rome. It is during… Continue

In the spring of 1541, Henry VIII faced another conspiracy in the north of England, whose people and nobles were still largely opposed to the 'new religion' and still loyal to Rome. While the conspiracy was uncovered and many of its leaders imprisoned and executed, Henry and his advisers hurriedly organized a grand Progress,setting out to York in July to consolidate his authority. This forms the backdrop to the third of C. J. Sansom's Matthrew… Continue

FAULT LINE, by Barry Eisler

Ballantine Books, March, 2009

Hardcover, $25.00 ($28.00 Canada)

ISBN: 978-0-345-50508-8



Reviewed by Larry W. Chavis



The United States has a long and treasured heritage of respect for the rights of the individual, personal liberty, and the rule of law. While it certainly hasn’t always played out that way in our history – one can think of our less-than-honorable treatment of the Native Americans, for example – still, this has been… Continue

BURIED STRANGERS

By Leighton Gage

ISBN: 978-1-56947-514-0

Soho Press, 2009

Hardcover, $24.00



In what has been called the largest urban forest in the world, the Serra da Cantareira, a young man seeking a dog stumbles across what turns out to be an entire clandestine cemetery. The local police delegado, Yoshiro Tanaka leads the investigation, but the case has also drawn the attention of the federal police, and Chief Inspector Mario Silva, who assigns his team to it… Continue

RCMP Constables Craig Nolan, Ashlyn Hart, and Tain (no first name) worked together on a case the year before that profoundly impacted all three. Since that time, they've not worked together. As the story opens, each is working a separate case: Nolan, a series of rapes, Hart a series of arson, and Tain a string of child abductions, one of which has turned to murder. As the separate investigations proceed, it becomes clear that they are linked in some fashion, bringing the three together again.… Continue

PLAYING DEAD

by Allison Brennan

Ballalntine Books, New York

September, 2008

Paperback, 462 pages





Fifteen years ago, police sergeant Tom O’Brien was sentenced to death for the murders of his wife and her lover, an assistant district attorney. The state’s key witness against him was his daughter, Claire, then fourteen, who found him at the scene, bloody and holding the murder weapon.



The thing is, Tom O’Brien was framed. With his execution date four… Continue

Hell Bent, A Brady Coyne Mystery

by William G. Tapply

St. Martin’s Minotaur

October, 2008

Hardcover

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35830-3

ISBN-10: 0-312-35830-X

320 pages





Brady Coyne is a Boston attorney, living with a dog named Henry David Thoreau in his Beacon Hill apartment. He is in a transition period – his live-in lover, Evie, has gone to California to attend her dying father, and she shows less and less intent to return as time passes, leaving… Continue