Pages

Feb 29, 2012

Deep Zone, James Tabor


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.

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.

Jac flies home from New York to search for her brother and her childhood illness returns with a vengeance; she’s having flashbacks of Ancient Egypt and older France. Hot on her heels is Dr. Malachai Samuels in search of another memory tool, one the Chinese government is desperate to acquire at any cost.  Jac will soon learn she is one half of a love story that transcends time; and leaves tragedy in its wake.

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.

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.