KNIFE by Jo Nesbo a New Norwegian Crime Thriller

Knife by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo is the latest crime novel in the series that features obsessive 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.

A new case is devastating for Harry when someone personally close to him is brutally murdered. At first, it appears that a recently released convict Harry arrested a decade earlier is behind the murder in revenge against Hole. But then new suspects emerge with their own twisted motivations. Even though Harry is suspended from working on the murder case because of his connection with the victim, he is driven to pursue the killer on his own.

Knife is a heavy read at 450 pages that sometimes bogs down in too much involvement with Harry's own complex psychological obsessions. That said, Jo Nesbo fans will enjoy seeing iconic character Harry Hole on the case again.

TWISTED PREY a Bullet-Paced Crime Thriller

U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport returns to face a diabolical enemy in Twisted Prey, a new crime thriller from author John Sandford. An assassination attempt is made on a U.S. Senator on a lonely forest road, and the Senator's companion is killed. When Lucas is asked to investigate, he finds that a ruthless enemy he has faced once before may be involved.

Two years earlier, Lucas came up against Taryn Grant, a cold blooded sociopath with political ambitions, who appeared to mastermind several murders in order to further her Senate campaign. Lucas was never able to get enough evidence to charge Grant for the crimes. Now an elected Senator in Washington D.C., Grant is out to remove a fellow Senate rival in her plan to get to the White House. She has links to a shadowy firm of ex-military mercenaries who will do her dirty work for her and leave no fingerprints behind.

When Lucas Davenport gets in Taryn Grant's way again, she is enraged. First, a violent attack is made against a member of Davenport's family. Then Lucas himself becomes the target of a murder hit from a tenacious adversary who won't be stopped.

Twisted Prey is a compelling Crime/Political thriller with a plot that moves at bullet speed. It's another great read from John Sandford that should end up on many beach blankets this summer.

Dark, Violent Forces Swirl Through ROBICHEAUX

Robicheaux by James Lee Burke is a grim new crime novel in the long running series built around troubled Louisiana Sheriff's detective Dave Robicheaux. Still grieving over the recent death of his wife in a traffic accident, Dave retreats back into alcoholism and haunted memories of his own brutish past acts.

The novel is a swirling narrative of entanglements among a cast of hard edged, deeply flawed characters circling around Robicheaux. Smarmy, corrupt politician Jimmy Nightingale. Sordid, dirty cop Spade Labiche. Dissolute author Levon Broussard. Obese, terminally sick mobster Tony Nemo. Tough, Western-dressing detective Sheri Picard. And Dave's longtime soul brother, Clete Purcel, a hulking, brooding time bomb of violent potential.

Into this volatile mix comes a truly hideous new presence: a doughy, red lipped hit man nicknamed Smiley, whose childlike thought process as he executes his victims is blood chilling. With each new body, Robicheaux struggles to find a connection behind the seemingly random death list.

As always, the author's lyrical descriptions of the Louisiana bayou country are beautifully done. The pastoral portrait of weather and terrain stands in mute contrast to the fruitless cycle of human venality and violence that runs through Robicheaux.  

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

NIGHTCRAWLER A Social Drama of Obsession

Nightcrawler (Now on DVD) is neither a suspense movie nor a crime movie, although it contains strong elements of each.  Rather, the movie is a disturbing social commentary on the endless drive for visceral video footage in TV news coverage.

Lou Bloom is a freelance video shooter who makes a living selling raw video footage of car crashes, fires, and violent crime scenes to local TV stations in Los Angeles. He makes contact with a female news director eager to buy the most sensational footage Bloom can supply.

Bloom is a manipulative, ruthless competitor. He is  essentially a sociopathic personality with no internal moral workings beyond his own obsessive personal goals. He begins to cross all ethical and legal boundaries in his pursuit of the most graphic video images to sell.

Bloom's manic conduct builds tensely, with ominous foreboding of a bad end point coming. When it does happen, the violent results are sudden and hideous.

 Nightcrawler is also a biting commentary on the TV news culture itself. The daily news cycle is a ravenous beast that must be constantly fed with new red meat stories in order to attract viewers and gain ratings. Viewers are drawn to the most sensational video material. We can't look away from the graphic scenes of carnage in spite of ourselves.  TV news exploits this for its own commercial benefit.

The cycle goes on, day after day, always seeking the next new raw spectacle to report. This is the other side of the screen from Lou Bloom's amoral camera lens. And it all never stops coming.

MR. MERCEDES a Twisted Crime Tale From Stephen King

Stephen King's new novel, Mr. Mercedes, is a dark crime tale that involves a twisted, murderous contest of wits between a retired cop and a manipulative sociopath.

The retired cop is former Detective Bill Hodges. His sociopath adversary is Brady Hartsfield, a mass murderer who drives an ice cream truck. Brady had earlier plowed a stolen Mercedes into a crowd of people, doing horrendous damage before escaping. It was a case that Detective Hodges never closed before retiring.

The killer is back again with a taunting new letter to Hodges that reopens his investigation and sets off a new battle between the cop and the killer that moves inexorably toward another coming mass murder event.

The plot of Mr. Mercedes is not all that original, but it's a chilling, fast-reading work narrated in the author's usual sprawling, colloquial, "Big Mac and fries" style. Another familiar King touch is the joining of an oddball team of allies to stop an evil enemy. King has always excelled at the creation of offbeat characters. The most interesting one here turns out to be Holly Gibney, a middle-aged child-woman with mental stability issues, who nearly takes over the last part of the novel.

Stephen King is at his best in his Horror fiction, but he has tried his hand at other types of fiction as well. Mr. Mercedes is the best of the handful of Crime novels he has done, and is much more satisfying than last year's slow, tepid Joyland.

BEACH RATING:  3 Palm Trees

DEFENDING JACOB a Troubling Legal Mystery

Defending Jacob by William Landay is both an engrossing legal mystery and a troubled picture of a family cracking apart under the stress of a murder indictment against one of its members.

Andy Barber is an Assistant D.A. who is taken off a sensational murder case when his own teenage son, Jacob, becomes a prime suspect. One of Jacob's classmates is murdered in a local park. Evidence uncovered leads to Jacob's arrest and trial for the killing. Jacob insists he is innocent.

Andy Barber and his wife, Laurie, support their son even as the family become despised outcasts in their own community. But as the Barbers endure the trial testimony, they are forced toward a stark choice: either Jacob is entirely innocent, or their son is a deceptive, emotionless sociopath.

Defending Jacob is a compelling, disturbing read with a hideous twist at the end. Rich in character, the novel is a moral mystery with no comfortable answer.

BEACH RATING:  4 Palm Trees