The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey - a woman's body is found in a lake and Detective Gemma Woods is shocked to recognize Rosalind Ryan, someone she had gone to school with and been fascinated by. Gemma and her partner have a hard time finding a reason for the seemingly perfect Rosalind's murder, let alone a suspect. And Gemma has been thrown for a loop by Rose's death, it brings up unwanted memories of her high school boyfriend's death. Gemma is also having trouble at home and having an affair with her partner. The whodunnit and why is interesting, but oh my, Gemma is not likeable at all. She drifts along worrying about herself and seems to have quite an anger problem. This is written in present tense, broken by random thoughts from other characters that don't seem to have much to do with the main plot. And, if you must have unnecessary sex scenes at least don't use the same phrase to describe it every single time.
3 stars
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Threat Warning by John Gilstrap - Jonathan Grave, clandestine kidnap rescuer just happens to be at the scene when a terrorist opens fire during rush hour in Washington D.C. Just when he is about to apprehend the shooter he is arrested for being the shooter himself. Once that error is corrected he thinks that's the end of it. Until he learns that during the shooters escape they kidnapped the wife and son of a member of the his old special forces Unit. Now he and his team must find and rescue them, all without the help of official groups. The story alternates between Jonathan's efforts and what's happening to the kidnap victims and the group that is holding them. It takes a long time for the rescue effort. And just when everyone thinks it's over they discover that there's a much larger threat. This was the most enjoyable of the three in the series I've read but still not much character development.
3.5 stars
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Damage Control by John Gilstrap - this time the kidnap victims are a bus full of teenagers on a church mission to Mexico. Things go bad right from the start and Graves and his partner are accused of multiple homicides as is the one teen they rescue. The rest of the book is trying to get out of Mexico with the military and police, all of them controlled by a vicious drug lord, chasing them. Lots of carnage and torture. I can get these easily from the library on my kindle when it's late at night or too hot to go outside. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.
3 stars
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Right Behind You by Lisa Gardner - Sharlah Nash has finally found a permanent home with former FBI profilers Pierce Quincy and his wife, Rainie Conner. Eight years ago her brother killed their father when the drunken father was in a violent rage. And she hasn't seen or heard from him since. When four bodies are found it looks like he's snapped and is on a killing spree. Is Sharlah on his list? This is the 7th and most recent book in a series that I have not read. It was fine as a standalone.
3 stars
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Nightbooks by J.A. White - Alex leaves his apartment in the middle of the night to burn his books of stories in the basement furnace. But the elevator stops on a different floor and he is strangly compelled to enter the apartment at the end of the hall. Where he finds himself the captive of a witch and forced to read stories to save himself. The witch likes scary stories, the scarier the better, and Alex has just the thing in his notebooks. Scheherazade for middle schoolers with scary stories. And I did find the stories a little disturbing.
3 stars
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Force of Nature by Jane Harper - 5 women go on a wilderness hike for a corporate retreat and only 4 of them return. The resulting search for the missing woman very much interests fraud detective Aaron Falk and his partner because the woman was secretly getting sensitive documents for a police case. Has she been found out or is there another reason for her disappearance? The Australian bush is almost a character in this book too.
3.5 stars
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The Verdun Affair by Nick Dybeck - this book just didn't fulfill it's promise. Tom is a young American living in France after WWI. He was an ambulance driver during the war and now picks up the bones of the unidentified dead for a future memorial. He meets Sarah, a war widow searching for news of her husband before he wandered away from his unit and was never heard from again. They learn of an amnesiac patient in another town and also meet Paul, an Austrian writer. But the story is told in such a wandering fashion, going back and forth between 1921 and the early 1950's, that I just didn't care about any of them. It was all rather vague and it didn't help that none of the characters are completely truthful with each other. Disappointing.
1 star
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