Soldiers are getting sick in Afghanistan , normally treatable
bullet wounds are somehow becoming infected by a virulent mutation of the ACE
virus. It has a 90% kill rate and it’s spreading. Desperate to keep a lid on the virus and the story the White
House puts together a team of scientists to pursue the only known cure, but
there’s a catch. First off the cure only grows at the bottom of the Cueva de
Luz-a supercave, deep in the Mexican jungle. Secondly the ‘sickness’ was
man-made to make some people a lot of money and those people don’t want their
potential profits to go to waste. Deep Zone is part medical mystery, part
Washington power struggle and part race against time in a cave where it’s not
only the sudden drops that could kill you.
I read a lot of books as I review books for an indie bookstore in SLC, Utah. I'm also a writer. The Mary Mac trilogy is out now.
The Nikki Doyle trilogy (Rollover, Thunderball and Ms. Scarlett) can also be found at your local indie. Excalibur - the Nikki/Mary crossover was just published.
N.B My blurbs give you just a taste of the plot. Reviews are a pretty subjective matter but the books you'll find here are books I have read and loved.
Feb 29, 2012
Dublin Dead, Gerard O’Donovan
DI Mike Mulcahy now heads up a small team of drug squad
officers but they need a big score or the axe of budget cuts will fall on his
fledgling department. Their current investigation-the seizure of a massive
drugs haul off the Cork coast-has stalled and that’s when his old flame Siobhan
O’Fallon-star reporter and author of a book about her ordeal at the hands of
’the priest’ the previous year-crashes feet-first back into his life. She’s
fleshing out one hell of a story involving a missing girl, money laundering,
rumours of a Columbian hit man on the loose in Europe
and a trail of broken bodies all somehow tied to the death of an Irish property
developer. But Siobhan’s mental scars aren’t fully healed and this story could
blow up in her face-with both barrels.
The Professionals, Owen Laukkanen
It started out as a joke, just like the degrees they’d
struggled to earn. Snatch rich targets all over the country and make the spouse
pay a sixty grand ‘finders fee’ for a safe return. Two years in and they’re a
well-oiled machine until they kidnap the wrong man…
Now the law wants them behind bars and the mob wants them
dead. Will anyone survive?
The Book of Lost Fragrances, M.J. Rose
An ancient perfume commissioned by Queen Cleopatra; with the
power to recover past lives and link souls together. Its just a myth? Isn’t
it?
Days before the his holiness the Dalai Lama is due to visit
Paris, TV host Jac L’Etoile’s brother Robbie goes missing; gone too is the
artifact he discovered whilst cleaning up the wreckage of his father’s
perfumers workshop, shards of pottery, covered in ancient markings and infused
with a scent Robbie’s nose isn’t sensitive enough to detect. Also heading for Paris is a group of hand-picked Chinese art
students outwardly loyal to their government but carrying multiple hidden
agendas.
Leap Day Post
Haven't blogged for a while because 'Rollover' has kind of taken on a life of it's own. People are talking about it like it's already been published. I had an e-mail from one of my ace tighteners in which she told me that she was going to read 10 pages before bed just to get a feel for it - and ended up reading the whole thing (first thirty pages).
If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's American Gods I would highly recommend it. We are doing this for bookclub and I got the chance to listen to an interview he did just after the book was published. He talked about ideas and characters coming to life in your head and I can relate, after all if the characters aren't alive to you how can you convince readers that they are worth investing in?
Anyway here are a bunch of new titles coming in March.
If you haven't read Neil Gaiman's American Gods I would highly recommend it. We are doing this for bookclub and I got the chance to listen to an interview he did just after the book was published. He talked about ideas and characters coming to life in your head and I can relate, after all if the characters aren't alive to you how can you convince readers that they are worth investing in?
Anyway here are a bunch of new titles coming in March.
Feb 17, 2012
Trifecta!
Bumper crop of arcs crammed into my box yesterday, James Tabor the guy who wrote Blind Descent (NF) has written a thriller Deep Zone-looks good. I don't know anything about Frank Peretti but the arc of Illusion sounds right up my alley from the blurb and who doesn't love a prequel to the awesome Luther series. Neil Cross I think I love you.
Feb 15, 2012
Trail of the Spellmans, Lisa Lutz
After a ‘disappearance’ of two years that inquisitive
family business Spellman Investigations is back and if Izzy doesn’t back away
from a certain ‘chinese wall’ she could find herself out of a job. But first
she’s got to find out why her mum Olivia is having someone else summarize her
bookclub books and falling asleep in class while trying to learn Russian. Why
Albert Spellman is muttering about ETAs. Her sister Rae has been kicked out of
brother David’s house and is currently residing in a tree on the Berkeley
campus. Coincidentally David’s daughter Sydney is say ‘banana’-a lot.
Izzy has
her own problems apart from a plethora of cases that seem to be falling on her
shoulders, boyfriend Henry Stone wants everything she doesn't-marriage followed by children. And Izzy’s got a new drinking pal-Henry’s mother Gertrude. This is all building up to a Spellman family thanksgiving that starts at Category 1 and ends up as a
full-blown Category 4. The Spellmans are back and better than ever.
The pleasures of completion.
Wow, did a whole bunch of things yesterday morning that didn't involve reading or writing. Including breakfast out, a double circuit of the park and a ton of housework (not fun but it has to be done) Then I settled in for an afternoon working on T'ball and suddenly it hit me, the beginning still sucks (mightily) So I'm busy fixing that today. I also found the time to read and comment on a bunch of blogs that I've let slip.
Feb 13, 2012
Done!
Yesterday, I completed the re-write by re-reading and printing out. Today I got my teeth into Broken Harbour, the new Tana French book. I think this could be her best yet.
Feb 6, 2012
No Mark Upon Her, Deborah Crombie
Did Olympic hopeful Rebecca Meredith drown by accident or
was it murder?
Superintendent Duncan Kincaid soon learns that ‘Becca was a
high flyer in the Metropolitan police force and his bosses want this case put
to bed before the media crawl all over it.
There’s even a convenient ex husband with no alibi but Kincaid doesn’t
like to have his investigation second guessed and with the help of his
wife-Inspector Jones-and members of Project Sapphire he uncovers multiple motives
for murder and a suspect who could end his career; and it seems that not all
‘Becca’s secrets died with her.
Revisions Revisited
The Rollover revisions have been taking up a lot of my time recently and I hope to have it completed this week which means that I turned it around in a month. I am still reading though, two books which are getting a fair bit of press are Mr G by Alan Lightman and The Fear Index by Robert Harris. I loved them both but never saw the arcs.
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