( M ) Books

Shadow of Power: A Paul Madriani Novel (Paul Madriani Novels)

Steve Martini

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Supreme Court is one of our most sacred—and secretive—public institutions. But sometimes secrets can lead to cover-ups with very deadly consequences.

Terry Scarborough is a legal scholar and provocateur who craves headline-making celebrity, but with his latest book he may have gone too far. In it he resurrects forgotten language in the U.S. Constitution—and hints at a missing letter of Thomas Jefferson's—that threatens to divide the nation.

Then, during a publicity tour, Scarborough is brutally murdered in a San Diego hotel room, and a young man with dark connections is charged. What looks like an open-and-shut case to most people doesn't to defense attorney Paul Madriani. He believes that there is much more to the case and that the defendant is a pawn caught in the middle, being scapegoated by circumstance.

As the trial spirals toward its conclusion, Madriani and his partner, Harry Hinds, race to find the missing Jefferson letter—and the secrets it holds about slavery and scandal at the time of our nation's founding and the very reason Scarborough was killed. Madriani's chase takes him from the tension-filled courtroom in California to the trail of a high court justice now suddenly in hiding and lays bare the soaring political stakes for a seat on the highest court, in a country divided, and under the shadow of power.

Executive Privilege: A Novel

Phillip Margolin

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin is back, this time with a powerful tale of murder that snakes its way through Washington, D.C.'s halls of power, leading straight to the White House and the most powerful office on earth.

When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees. But then the unexpected happens. One night, Cutler follows Walsh to a secret meeting with Christopher Farrington, the president of the United States. The following morning, Walsh's dead body shows up and Cutler has to run for her life.

In Oregon, Brad Miller, a junior associate in a huge law firm is working on the appeal of a convicted serial killer. Clarence Little, now on death row, claims he was framed for the murder of a teenager who, at the time of her death, worked for the then governor, Christopher Farrington. Suddenly, a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer find themselves in possession of evidence that suggests that someone in the White House is a murderer. Their only problem? Staying alive long enough to prove it.

Executive Privilege, with its nonstop action, unforgettable characters, and edge-of-your-seat suspense, proves once again that Phillip Margolin—whose work has been hailed as "frighteningly plausible" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and "twisted and brilliant" (Chicago Tribune)—belongs in the top echelon of thriller writers.

Deep Blue Good-by

John D. MacDonald

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Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

TRAVIS McGEE
He's a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He's also a knight errant who's wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out and his rule is simple: he'll help you find whatever was taken from you, as long as he can keep half....
With an introduction by CARL HIAASEN
JOHN D. MACDONALD
"....the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller."
--STEPHEN KING
"....a master storyteller, a masterful suspense writer."
--MARY HIGGINS CLARK
"....a dominant influence on writers crafting the continuing series character."
--SUE GRAFTON
"....my favorite novelist of all time."
--DEAN KOONTZ
"...the consummate pro, a master storyteller and witty observer."
--JONATHAN KELLERMAN
"...remains one of my idols."
--DONALD WESTLAKE
THE TRAVIS McGEE SERIES
"...one of the great sagas in American fiction."
--ROBERT B. PARKER
"...what a joy that these timeless and treasured novels are available again."
--ED McBAIN

Blonde Faith

Walter Mosley

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Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Easy Rawlins comes home from work, and finds more trouble on his doorstep in a day than most men encounter in a lifetime.

A friend has left his daughter at Easy's house without so much as a note. Clearly this friend, Christmas Black, a veteran of Vietnam, fears for his life and his daughter's.

Easy's closest friend, the man known as Mouse, has disappeared too--and his wife tells Easy that he is wanted for murder. Mouse has been a thorn in the police's side for so long that Easy is convinced that this time they will kill him as soon as they find him.

Worst of all, Easy's longtime lover tells him that she plans to marry another man. In a world of hurt, Easy strikes out on his own to try to find one friend, save another, and save himself from the pain that is driving him out of his mind. On his path he meets drug dealers, corrupt officials, every manner of criminal and con--and a woman named Faith who may hold the key to more than one life.

In his tenth Easy Rawlins novel, Walter Mosley writes with a grace and insight that few writers ever achieve. It is the clearest proof yet that Walter Mosley is "one of this nation's finest writers" (Boston Globe).

Nightmare in Pink (Travis McGee, No. 2)

John D. MacDonald

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not as good as others in the series 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I recently started reading the Travis McGee books for the first time (and in order.) DEEP BLUE GOOD-BY was a good, taught, lean -- if imperfect -- thriller. It was intruing enough, and McGee & his setting seemed to hold enough potential, that I was fired up to read NIGHTMARE IN PINK, thinking that the series, like many another recurring-hero series, would actually improve in sequence due to the author getting more and more comfortable with the character, setting, & style. Unfortunately, this book let me down.

First, it was set in New York City, which, while not neccessarily a bad thing in and of itself, does detract from a lot of the attractiveness of the McGee series -- to me, a big part of the selling point is that in other McGee books, the setting is South Florida (where I was born & raised) in the mid-1960s (over a decade before I was born.) New York seemed a much more generic setting -- I mean, how many books (and movies!) are set there? It's been covered already!

Also, the dialogue -- something I had a problem with in DEEP BLUE was that the dialogue seemed to be dated, even by the standards of four decades ago (I'm basing this on having read a lot of books & seen a lot of movies from back then.) The dialogue reads like 1930s and '40s movies, when the actors still hadn't yet realized that they were no longer on stage and so could talk more like normal people. Some of the dialogue is outright caricature. (How many times in one conversation can a character start and/or end a sentence with the word "Darling" before it starts to get annoying?) It's like MacDonald was trying to write hip dialogue and ended up with dialogue that WAS hip -- when he was a young man, ie before World War II.

The McGee series does, however, have enough of a good reputation that I'll assume this one is just a lemon that MacDonald, like all good writers, produce from time to time, and I'll at least give book #3 a chance to redeem the series for me.

Editorial Review:

"A knight in slightly tarnished armor, " "the thinking man's Robin Hood, " McGee lives alone on his boat, the Busted Flush. Rejecting the modern world, adhering to a timeless sense of honor and obligation, he is more and less than a private eye. From the author of The Deep Blue Good-by. Original.

A Purple Place for Dying (Travis McGee, No. 3)

John D. MacDonald

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great title, good book... 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

A Purple Place for Dying is the third book in John MacDonald's Travis McGee series, and McGee comes upon his most troubling case yet. McGee is brought to the Midwest by a big, brassy, bossy Blonde who needs help. Mona Yeoman suspects that her husband has pilfered her trust fund, and she wants a divorce. McGee's job is to find out what happened to the money. McGee doesn't particularly like Yeoman, but is tempted to take the case because he needs the money. But before he even has a chance to say yes, Mona is murdered right in front of his eyes, and this changes everything. What makes things even more mysterious is that her body disappears when the police are called to the scene of the crime.

McGee could simply take his return plane ticket and fly home to his native Florida. But for whatever reasons, he decides to stick around and do some snooping. There are many twists and turns and also a few more mysterious murders. As usual, McGee finds himself in danger the closer he comes to the truth. And the truth comes as a complete surprise.

Each MacDonald book gets better than the previous one. We also get to see McGee become more fleshed out as a character. Still, it seems that the early books in this series are more of a novella length, but MacDonald corrects this with later books.

Overall, the McGee series is a true gem, and I'm glad to have discovered these wonderful mysteries.

Editorial Review:

MUST HAVE COPY.... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING USABLE ON COVER....MARKED BOTB.

Quick Red Fox (Travis McGee, No. 4)

John D. MacDonald

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Like eating potato chips... 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series is like eating potato chips: you can't eat just one. But unlike potato chips, each book tastes better than the last. In The Quick Red Fox, the 4th book in this series, MacDonald really hits his stride.

Film-star Lysa Dean calls in McGee on a top secret and very sensitive job. Dean was at a party with nine other people when some compromising pictures were taken. The actress has been blackmailed once over these photos, and a year after the original blackmail scheme, she receives more photos and a threatening letter. Afraid that the release of these pictures will jeopardize her film career and interfere with her planned marriage to husband number five, she asks McGee to investigate. She also gives McGee her young, beautiful and efficient, but very frosty personal assistant, Dana Holtzer.

McGee and Holtzer crisscross the country trying to interview the other members from that fateful party. Some are scarred, some are missing and some are mysteriously murdered. But despite all the odds and lots of dead ends, McGee is able to assemble the pieces of this intriguing puzzle.

The Travis McGee series continues to get better and this was the best one yet. I can't wait to start number five.

Editorial Review:

From the author of A Purple Place for Dying and The Deep Blue Good-by comes the republication of the bestseller starring Travis McGee, a real American hero. Reissue.

Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)

Walter Mosley

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Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins has few illusions about the world--at least not about the world of a young black veteran in the late 1940s in Southern California. His stint in the Army didn't do anything to dissuade him from his belief that justice doesn't come cheap, especially for men like him. "I thought there might be some justice for a black man if he had money to grease it," Easy says. Fired from his job on the line at an aircraft plant, he's in danger of losing his home, symbol of his tenuous hold on middle class status. That's a good enough reason to accept a white man's offer to pay him for finding a beautiful, mysterious Frenchwoman named Daphne Monet, last seen in the company of a well-known gangster. Easy's search takes the reader to an L.A. few writers have shown us before--the mean streets of South Central, the after-hours joints in dirty basement clubs, the cheap hotels and furnished rooms, the places people go when they don't want to be found. Evocative of a past time, and told in a style that's reminiscent of Hammet and Chandler, yet uniquely his own, Mosley's depiction of an inherently decent man in a violent world of intrigue and corruption rang up big sales when it was published in 1990 (although the movie version, with Denzel Washington as Easy, never found the audience it deserved). The minor characters are deftly and brilliantly developed, especially Mouse, who saves Easy's life even as he draws him deeper into the mystery of Daphne Monet. Like many of Mosley's characters, Mouse makes a return appearance in the succeeding Easy Rawlins mysteries, such as A Red Death, Black Betty, and White Butterfly, every one of which is as good as Devil in a Blue Dress, his first. --Jane Adams

As the World Churns: A Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery (Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries with Recipes)

Tamar Myers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Pun-filled Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Magdalena Yoder is balancing her new marriage to mama's boy, Gabe Rosen, with entertaining a bed-and-breakfast full of guests who have come with their cows to complete in the Hernia Holstein Competition. Complications arise when one of Magdalena's friends is badly beaten and she herself ends up in the hospital. Eventually Magdalena's husband and daughter disappear and she, her friends, and her mother-in-law are in hot pursuit of some kidnappers. This book is full of puns, plot twists, and downright silliness at times, but it's a quick and easy read and will probably please fans of this series.

Editorial Review:

Magdalena Yoder may finally be married to big-time Manhattan doctor Gabriel Rosen, but she's still a small-town girl at heart, and thrilled to be the emcee for the first annual Hernia Holstein Competition. As a bonus, the PennDutch and its barn are booked solid. But then someone clobbers the contest's originator, Doc Shafor, while he's admiring the cows, and both Gabe and his daughter Alison go missing. With the help of her best friend (and the hindrance of her mother-in-law), Magdalena vows to track down clues until the cows-and her family- come home.

Deadly Shade of Gold (Travis McGee Mysteries)

John D. Macdonald

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Extreme McGee 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

"A Deadly Shade of Gold," the 5th in the Travis McGee series is bawdy and brutal; a bloody chase novel taking McGee from Florida to Mexico to LA. MacDonald has a wondrous sense of place and you can feel the sensuous breezes and see the spectacular sunsets he creates for you. There are a few creaky spots: Nora, Travis's love interest, is so `50's lady-like, you expect her to be white gloved and hatted even in the shower; -- all characters are super sun worshippers while the reader uneasily thinks about skin cancer. Be that as it may, it's a fine rousing tale with careful characterizations and Travis's philosophies served up painlessly.

Old buddy Sam Taggart, a three-year missing person, contacts Travis in dire need of his services as a salvage consultant. The deal sounds shady at best as Sam claims he is the rightful owner of 28 crude golden idols dating from pre-Colombian times. The hitch is 27 of the 28 have been stolen from him, and he wants them back. Sam is down on his luck and appears to be on the run. When he took off three years ago without a word, he left the beauteous Nora high and dry. Now he is back to redeem himself. Before Trav can get Sam and Nora together, or even decide whether he wants to accept Sam's offer, Sam is brutally murdered. Nora hires Trav to find the killer, but insists on accompanying him (natch) when the trail leads to Mexico. The action is fierce, retribution is swift and oh-so-well-described, and Trav and Nora find something more in common than Sam.

"A Deadly Shade of Gold" at 434 pages is long for a Travis McGee novel, but moves swiftly. MacDonald takes great care in setting up his locales, which makes for lovely reading. Though Sam exits early, he is with us throughout the book, and gradually an entirely different Sam emerges posthumously. This is handled cleverly by friend's ruminations, and we are allowed to derive our own conclusions. Travis is not yet fully formed; he's still pretty rough around the edges, but this novel sets the course for the future.

Editorial Review:

Here's another bestselling novel featuring P.I. Travis McGee. According to Publishers Weekly, 20th Century Fox, "with an outlay of six figures, has cleared the way for Ruben/Robinson Productions to launch their own Travis McGee series." And according to Larry King's USA Today column, Harrison Ford has said, "I am interested in doing Travis McGee, the great detective character. Previously published.