A Reporter Tracks a Killer in FAIR WARNING

 Author Michael Connelly brings back crime reporter Jack McEvoy in a new thriller, Fair Warning. McEvoy appeared previously in the best selling novels The Poet and The Scarecrow, where his reporting helped hunt down diabolical serial killers. 

Jack lost his prior newspaper job and is now reporting for a small investigative website magazine called Fair Warning. But when a woman he knew briefly is murdered by an unknown killer, it leads Jack to look into her death. He uncovers a pattern of similar murders of other female victims, all having their necks broken in an identical manner. McEvoy reaches the chilling answer that a serial predator is at work.

The killer is called The Shrike. Jack finds the link between the scattered victims. All of them had sent their DNA samples to an ancestry analysis service. The Shrike used that same service to find his next targets.

The LAPD is also investigating and they don't want McEvoy interfering in the case. But the police don't know about the serial killer pattern yet. Jack is way ahead of the cops and he wants to be the first to publish a story on The Shrike. But the killer is already watching what McEvoy is doing.

Fair Warning is another addictive read from Michael Connelly. The novel follows the methodical work of a crime reporter as it builds toward a wrenching final reckoning for Jack McEvoy.

 

Two Cops Join Forces in DARK SACRED NIGHT

Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly is the latest police procedural novel in the series that features Detective Harry Bosch. Bosch is retired from the LAPD and now works at the small police department of San Fernando.

This time Bosch is teamed with another Connelly character, LAPD detective Renee Ballard. She works the night shift cases, dubbed the Late Show. Bosch and Ballard cross paths on a cold case involving the murder of a teenage girl by an unknown predator who may still be out there. The two cops agree to pool their efforts to find the killer.

At the same time, Bosch pursues his own murder case against a violent local gang. The case is fraught with danger. First, Bosch loses his key witness to a hit job. Then Bosch himself is kidnapped and set to be killed by the gang.

Meanwhile, Ballard is working her job as on-call night shift detective. She is called out on a house break-in, but little does she know that it may be linked with the cold case she is working with Bosch and bring her face to face with a serial murderer.

Dark Sacred Night is a riveting read that moves back and forth between the two main characters of Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard created by Michael Connelly, one of the best crime authors writing today.

HOLY GHOST an Offbeat New Crime Thriller from John Sandford

Holy Ghost by John Sandford is the latest offbeat crime novel in the series that features Minnesota State Police detective Virgil Flowers. Virgil is a laid back rural type, who sometimes pulls his boat behind his truck on the way to crime scenes, in case he gets time to do some fishing.

He doesn't get that chance in this new case. The dying small town of Wheatfield finds sudden new life when a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary begins to appear at the local Catholic church. Pilgrims flock to the new shrine, but with them comes a dangerous new threat.

An unknown sniper stages random shootings near the church. Two people are seriously wounded. The third victim is shot dead. As the toll mounts, Virgil Flowers struggles to stop the shooter. There is no obvious suspect to focus on. The victims have no common connection between them. Virgil can't find a motive for the shootings. But the sniper isn't stopping.

Holy Ghost is a fast paced, addictive read, peppered with the wry humor that marks the Virgil Flowers series. Once again, John Sandford doesn't disappoint with another entertaining crime thriller.

THE ALIENIST a Dark Historical Crime Thriller

The Alienist is currently airing as a mini-series drama on TNT cable. The series is based on the original crime novel best seller by Caleb Carr. For viewers of the TV version, the novel itself offers even richer historical depth and background to the story.

Set in 1896 New York City, during the Gilded Age period, the novel follows the hunt for a diabolical murderer of multiple young boy victims. The main character is the driven, acerbic Laszlo Kreizler. He works as an alienist, a term used for the then new field of abnormal human psychology. Kreizler seeks to use his professional training to catch the perpetrator of the string of boy killings. His methods are derided by the corrupt New York police force, who do not want his help in solving the case.

What Kreizler is really doing is trying to build an early version of what is now called criminal profiling in order to catch a serial killer. He is assisted by a team of colleagues, including a crime reporter, a female police secretary, and a pair of Jewish detective brothers. Backing up Kreizler's efforts is the young New York police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt.

The Alienist is notable for its combining of a chilling criminal investigation with a distinctive historical setting. At over 500 pages, the novel is a heavy read, given the author's dense, and often ponderous writing style. But the wealth of background material may be worth the reading effort.

After the success of this novel, author Caleb Carr wrote a sequel, The Angel of Darkness, which features the same cast of characters, this time on the track of a fiendish female serial killer.

PARADISE VALLEY a Chilling Western Crime Thriller

Paradise Valley by C.J. Box is the author's third Western-set crime novel to feature sheriff's investigator Cassie Dewell, who appeared previously in The Highway and Badlands. Cassie is mid-thirties, not very tall, and somewhat overweight. But she's a sharp investigator and a good shot when she has to be. This combination makes her character both realistic and appealing.

Cassie began her police career in Montana, where she first got onto the track of an elusive serial killer called the Lizard King, a long haul trucker who abducts and murders his female victims across the country. She moved to a new sheriff's department in North Dakota, but has stayed alert for any new traces of the Lizard King. When her new lead on the killer leads to a disastrous police operation, it costs Cassie her job.

She doesn't give up and returns to Montana to continue her obsessive hunt on her own. Paradise Valley is a chilling cat-and-mouse contest between a determined investigator and a cunning predator set against a landscape of rugged mountain terrain. It's another great read from C.J. Box, who's one of the best writers in the regional crime thriller genre.

THE THIRST by Jo Nesbo a Hunt For Vampirist Killer

The Thirst by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo is the latest crime novel in the series that features Oslo police detective Harry Hole (pronounced Hoo-leh). Harry is a police legend for his past hunting down of fiendish serial killers, portrayed in previous Nesbo novels such as The Snowman and The Leopard.

Harry Hole is now a lecturer at the police college, no longer an active detective. But he is brought back onto an elite team trying to stop a new serial killer called the Vampirist. This sadistic killer has stalked and killed several female victims using a diabolical weapon --- a set of metal dentures which he uses to bite the victims, causing massive blood loss.

Harry obsessively pursues the killer, facing his own darkest inner demons as he does so. A suspect is identified, but the case takes unexpected twists as it appears that the Vampirist is not acting alone in his murder spree.

  The Thirst is a heavy read at 450 pages that sometimes bogs down in too much discussion of criminal psychology and motivation. The murder scenes are grisly and unpleasant. The plot is overly complicated and finally reaches a climax that seems somewhat contrived. That said, Jo Nesbo fans will enjoy seeing iconic character Harry Hole on the case again.

THE TUNNEL a Distrubing Crime Puzzle

The Tunnel is a ten-part crime series now seen on PBS. Back episodes are available on Comcast Infinity.

The series opens with a bizarre puzzle: a female body is found in the Channel Tunnel that runs between England and France. The body is placed exactly on the boundary line between the two nations. What's more, the body is in two pieces, taken from two different corpses. Half of the body is from a French congress member. The other half is from an English call girl.

An oddly matched team of English and French detectives is assigned to the case. The French woman, Elise Wasserman, is socially detached. The English detective, Karl Roebuck, is a sardonic cynic. They work grudgingly together at first.

Bizarre new deaths continue to occur as an anonymous killer, the Truth Teller, stages shocking murders meant to expose the ills of society and the political system. A distorted voice on the phone announces his intentions.

The Tunnel is a gripping and disturbing mystery with no sure sense of where the plot will go next. The awkward chemistry between the two main characters adds another element of uncertainty.

AQUARIUS Season Two - The Dark Side of the Sixties

Aquarius (NBC Network) returns June 16 for its second season. This crime series looks at the darkest side of the 1960s decade, while set against a background of the lifestyle and music of that era. Season One was uneven, but interesting enough to continue the series storyline.

The Sixties era was a time of political turmoil over the Vietnam war, when many kinds of revolution were in the air. It was a period that encompassed psychedelic drugs, the Summer of Love, and visionary rock music from The Beatles, Dylan, The Doors, and Jefferson Airplane.

But the Sixties was also infamous for the crimes of the notorious Manson Family - a ragged communal cult that committed a series of horrific California murders under the mesmerizing sway of the demonic Charles Manson.

Aquarius begins in 1967 Los Angeles as LAPD detective Sam Hodiak (played by David Duchovny) looks into the case of a missing teenage girl. He learns the girl may have joined a creepy band of hippie drifters. That puts Hodiak on the trail of the people who would become the Manson Family killers.

The TV series is set against the colorful backdrop of the Sixties culture scene, when the wild permissive freedom of the era degenerated into the frenzied, amoral blackness of the bloody crime scenes left behind by the Manson Family cult. Aquarius shows that beneath the surface of good vibes and pounding music, something evil and violent was already stirring.

GATHERING PREY - New Crime Thriller by John Sandford

Gathering Prey by John Sandford is the latest in the popular crime novel series that features Minnesota State Police investigator Lucas Davenport.

What begins with a young panhandler drifter going missing leads Davenport into a multiple murder case that just keeps spreading in scope.

Lucas gets on the trail of a roving, rag-tag crew of disciples led by a sociopathic, self-styled guru named Pilate. The disciples travel the country in a road convoy, luring and killing random victims to suit their whims.

As Davenport closes in along with a posse of local police officers, the hunt turns into a multi-state chase that leads up to a wild gun battle in a one-horse town in the backwoods of the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

The novel moves like a bullet train through the twists of the chase and the running shoot-out with the fleeing, ruthless disciples. John Sandford continues to produce inventive new plots built around the long running main character of Lucas Davenport. Gathering Prey is an outstanding read that further confirms Sandford's place in the top rank of crime thriller authors.

BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees

POLICE by Jo Nesbo Another Top Notch Crime Thriller

Police by Jo Nesbo is the latest in the outstanding crime novel series that features Oslo police detective Harry Hole.

This time, Harry is no longer active on the police force after being seriously wounded in a prior case. He now works as an expert criminology instructor at the police academy.

Meanwhile, a series of police officers are being murdered in gruesome fashion at former crime scenes that they worked. A diabolical serial killer is behind the string of deaths.

A team of Harry's police colleagues pursues the killer in Harry's absence. The character cast is familiar from earlier novels in the series. Forensic expert Beate Lonn. Detectives Katrine Bratt and Bjorn Holm. Criminal psychologist Stale Aune.

But in a shocking plot twist, one of the team members becomes a target of the vicious killer. That event brings Harry Hole himself into the hunt for the cold blooded butcher of policemen.

Police is another great read for fans of the Harry Hole series and reaffirms Jo Nesbo's place as one of the best crime novelists in the genre.

James Lee Burke Novel a Violent Picture of Evil

James Lee Burke's new crime novel, The Light of the World, is a violence-filled meditation on the existence of absolute evil in the the malignant swamp of the criminal mind.

The novel is the latest in the series that features Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux. This story takes place in Montana and is filled with a volatile mix of characters: Dave's hair-triggered former cop partner, Clete Purcell; Clete's angry daughter, Gretchen, herself at one time a contract killer; a psychotic former rodeo clown and his equally unbalanced girlfriend; and a vicious sociopath and escaped serial killer named Asa Surrette.

This toxic brew inevitably explodes into a chain of violent encounters and dead bodies, culminating in an almost Biblical final battle with ultimate human evil in the person of the demonic Surrette.

Light of the World is a continuing portrayal of the series' long running theme of Robicheaux's sour cynicism toward the rancid nature of humanity which he sees in his police work. The novel is one of James Lee Burke's strongest and will surely be on the list of this year's best works of crime fiction.

BEACH RATING:  4 Palm Trees

This Year's Must-Read Mystery: THE LEOPARD

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo is the must-read mystery novel of the year so far.

Set in Oslo, Norway, the novel continues the chilling series that features Oslo police inspector Harry Hole. This new entry follows on the heels of The Snowman, an outstanding thriller that was one of the best mystery novels of last year.

The Leopard is a gripping, psychologically complex, and nearly epic hunt for a serial killer who uses a fiendish device called the Leopold Apple on his victims. In his obsessive pursuit of the killer, Harry Hole continues to battle his own personal demons of alcoholism and drug use.

Jo Nesbo's novels are rich in character and twisted, large canvass plots. Nesbo takes over as heir to the title of best Nordic mystery novelist from the late Stieg Larsson and his great Dragon Tattoo series.

For those new to Nesbo's work, The Snowman is highly recommended as a starting place. Then get your hands on The Leopard.



BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees