Poison Flower, by Thomas Perry

I really enjoyed this book, but I'm in a bit of a quandary about whether I like the ending or not: on the one hand, Jane does the right thing (of course), and on the other hand she has made a seismic shift in the lengths she will go to to keep her runners safe. The very last line is extremely unsettling.

I wonder if Perry will have the nerve to follow that change through to its logical (to me) conclusion in the next books, or if this is it for Jane Whitefield. If the latter, I'm sad. I liked her. I admired her, in fact, and I'm not sure I do anymore.

Sworn to Silence, by Linda Castillo (on CD)

A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness

Wow. While not the best amalgam of history, fantasy, and romantic suspense, it's a pretty good story. We have a powerful witch who refuses to use her power, preferring to blend in with the human world, but that all ends when she 'draws' a coveted manuscript to her by accident. We have a powerful vampire who at first only wants the manuscript, then wants the witch herself. We have daemons--they are the eccentrics of the world, the savants.

And this is only the first book in a series. Wish I'd've known that when I picked it up.

Running Scared, by Lisa Jackson (on CD ... and paper)

I bailed on this CD near the end simply because I couldn't stand listening to it anymore. But I had to find out how the plot tied up. A little too neatly for my liking. Reminded me why I don't read romantic suspense novels very often. Ugh.

61 Hours, by Lee Child (on CD)

Great book. I knew who the Bad Guy was fairly early, but wasn't sure what the deal was really. And the ending is pretty spectacular.

One Shot, by Lee Child

I'm really liking the Reacher books. Good stuff.

Watchlist : A Serial Thriller, based on an idea by Jeffery Deaver

Uneven, a little patchy and unbelievable. Very much in the TV/Movie vein of suspense. Not horrible, but not the best book ever.

The Siege, by Stephen White

This is not about Dr. Gregory, which was a switch. Instead, it follows Pete as he is under suspension from the Boulder Police Dept. He ends up helping out a friend of a friend and gets involved in a hostage situation at Yale. VERY suspenseful, pretty good.

The Alexandria Link, by Steve Berry

Another Dan Brown clone. Not horrible, but not horribly believable, either.

Nothing to Lose, by Lee Child

Runner, by Thomas Perry

LOVE this series!! Glad Jane is back.

Gone, by Lisa Gardner (on CD)

Very good, but COLD!

Dakota, by Martha Grimes

Strange book.

Interesting character.

Andi Oliver is walking across the plains when she comes upon a woebegone donkey in a field. She rescues him, continues with him to the next town--Kingdom--and stops for a bit there.

The thing is, she has no memory of anything beyond a year ago. And she's got a bit of a savior complex about animals. She gets work at a corporate pig farm outside Kingdom and makes nothing but trouble for them, eventually hiring an attorney to sue them for multiple Ag. Dept. infractions. This, of course, earns her no friends. Between the corporate guys wanting to get rid of her and some guy who is following her around from Idaho across Montana and into North Dakota, she has every right to be freaked out.

She's close to being completely unbelieveable, but her sense of humor and wry awareness of how she must look to everyone else redeems her as well as the book.

Just One Look, by Harlan Coben (on CD)

Wow! I've never read anything by this author, and this was a good one to start with. The main character is Grace Lawson, whose husband disappears after she asks about a 15-year-old photo she just discovered. She takes it upon herself to try to track down her husband, which leads her back to a devastating accident that happened before she met him and brings her into contact with people who are willing to kill to keep the secret hidden.

Up until the very end, I had no idea what was going on. Coben sort of tipped his hand early there, but it still turned out well.

I realized about halfway through that many of the strongest main characters in this book are women, a REALLY welcome change from the normal suspense novel where women are constantly being rescued. This time, they go a good way toward rescuing themselves and making good choices that lead to solutions.

I may have to add Coben to my Authors List.

Light Raid, by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice

This was published in 1989, so it's a little dated in its view of the future. Having said that, it's always wonderful to read about an area of the world you know and this takes place in "Denver Springs" (i.e. the mega-city spanning the entire front range of the Rockies in Colorado). The political entities of North America have rearranged themselves so that Quebec has declared war on what used to be the U.S., while "Victoria" (British Columbia) has been neutral in the war and the rest of what used to be Canada is, I think, allied with the former states.

ANYway, the light raids are laser attacks that Quebec has launched against Denver Springs. And the rest of the story is pretty much boilerplate romantic suspense, but with computers and so forth. Oh, and also...the main characters in Denver Springs are Greek-ish. They all have Hellenic names (Ariadne, Gaea, etc.) and wear chitons and robes.

It sounds bizarre, and it is (I've left out the subplot about the water biots, which is primary to the story, but difficult to explain briefly), but it works. Generally. I like Connie Willis's imagination.

Masques, by Bill Pronzini

This was perfect timing: a book about Mardi Gras to read during the week of Mardi Gras. And this was a really creepy book about a guy being harrassed throughout his visit to New Orleans, and the two women he meets. Both of them may, or may not, have ulterior motives.

Remind me never to go to Mardi Gras. Yeeeshhh.

Prose Bowl, by Bill Pronzini & Barry N. Malzberg

The redeeming feature of this book is that it's a VERY fast read. It is set about 100 years after it was published (1980) when "Old-Sport" has been closed down and the "New-Sport" is writing prose in competition.

Yeah, interesting concept, and especially piquant for Bill Pronzini who cranks out the books like most people crank out...well, other stuff. And the "other stuff" is really what these competitors are shoveling. It's all about writing in genre as fast as possible under a time limit in front of cheering crowds in stadiums.

There's a suspense element to the book, but honestly the whole story is around the "ain't it cool, the future?" construct.

Yawn.

Lost, by Michael Robotham (on CD)

Three years ago, Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz tried to trace a girl named Mickey Carlyle who was kidnapped from her apartment steps. Although a body was never found, a man in her apartment building was arrested and jailed for murder on the strenghth of a bloody towel and lots of pictures of children on his computer. Somehow, Ruiz never was able to put the case behind him.

Then he wakes up in the hospital with a bullet wound in his leg, a missing finger, and anmnesia having been pulled out of the Thames near a blood-covered boat. He was carrying a photo of Mickey Carlyle.

Slowly as his memory returns, he works his way through the previous month, tracing his footsteps and trying to sort out why someone wanted--and still wants--to kill him. In the process, he loses his job, watches a fellow officer's spine get broken by a suspect, prowls the sewers under London, and is forced to admit in court that he never really believed the jailed man really killed Mickey.

Great story, fairly violent, rather unbelievable at points, but good. I've left out the bits about his mother--a WONDERFUL character in every sense!--his childhood and brother, the Nazis, and his psychologist friend with Parkinson's. Lots to chew on in this thriller.

What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

Fascinating book about two missing girls and the woman claiming, 30 years later, to be one of them. It's a suspense/mystery, but not a very deep mystery in the sense that you know how it ends. Sorta. So what did happen to these two girls, and is this woman really one of them, and if so: WHERE HAS SHE BEEN, and why? The creepiest bit is that both girls are about my age, so all the stuff about their childhood...pretty accurate and nostalgic.

A terrifying story finely told.

Games, by Bill Pronzini

The next on my list of books by Pronzini. We meet David Jackman, Senator and power-broker, as he decides to take his mistress with him to his childhood vacation home on his family's island off the coast of Maine. Within hours of their arrival, they find out they are not alone on the island, and the people with whom they are sharing it seem to be intent on causing them harm.

The majority of the book is suspense distilled down to its essence: what do these people want? How can Jackman and Tracy escape from them? How well does he remember the geography of the island? Why do their trackers seem to be able to anticipate his every move?

In the telling, it's a fun story, but at the end I just felt cheated by how quickly the denouement is handled. Very much the literary equivalent of "wham bam." Oh, well. It was, as Tracy would say, fun while it lasted.