Midnight Alley-Miles Corwin

Midnight Alley


Miles Corwin

Oceanview, Apr 16 2012, $25.95

ISBN 9781608090389



LAPD Felony Special Squad Detective Ash Levine looks forward to the weekend getaway in Santa Barbara with his estranged wife Robin. He hopes this will be a new beginning for them after a horrific two-year separation.



However, he is in Rincon twelve miles from his destination when his boss Lieutenant Duffy calls pleading with him to come home to work a highly visible double homicide case in Venice as most of the squad are out of state on vacations. One of the victims is Raymond Pinkney, the son of a LAPD bashing city councilman Isaac Pinkney. Robin surprises him when she tells him to take notes in detail to avoid the civil case Pinkney will file and to call her when he is finished. As he investigates leads that take the former Israel Defense Forces paratrooper into the dangerous milieu of the Russian Mafia, someone hires former convict Mullin to assassinate a cop.



The second Ash Levine police procedural (see Kind of Blue) is an action-packed thriller that soars from the moment Duffy calls the noir hero and never eases off the accelerator until the final confrontation. Although convoluted with ties to the Russian Mafia and Baghdad, Robin sums up the exhilarating tale with her dubbing Ash (for his over the top of Mount Lukens escapades) “Rambowitz”.



Harriet Klausner

The Kingdoms Of Dust-Amanda Downum

The Kingdoms Of Dust


Amanda Downum

Orbit, Mar 1 2012, $7.99

ISBN: 9780316068987



The recent disastrous events evolved from her investigation into a dead whore wearing the ring of the deceased queen of Selafai to Isyllt Iskaldur's master dying and assassins stalking her. Not only has she lost her position as the necromancer Agent of the Crown, she is exiled from the royal city of Erisin (see The Bone Palace). She and her mercenary friend Adam travel across the Caelurean Sea receiving sanctuary at the court of the Assari.



Dormant ancient spirits of entropy begin to awaken. If they break out of the imprisonment of dedicated mages, these spirits will destroy Assar and its neighbors. Isyllt and Asheris al Seth the jinn bound to a human body travel into the deadly burning desert in search of the lost ancient city of Qais. There they seek the vortex where the lethal ghost winds emanate from. If they find the city, they still have to figure out how to shut down the terrorizing ghost winds.



The latest Necromancer Chronicles fantasy series (see The Drowning City) is a great tale as Amanda Downum once again combines morality on an individual scale against the ethics of the greater good. Isyllt is the focus of the dilemma as she wonders whose needs belong on top of the food chain at the cost to others. She feels for her partner who fumes against his binding but she needs him to save humanity; she empathizes with the bound spirits trying to break out but also knows if freed they will destroy their mage guards (who she admires for their self-sacrificing vigil) and humanity. Filled with plenty of fast-paced action, The Kingdoms of Dust is fantasy at its most exciting morally thought provoking best.



Harriet Klausner

City of Slaughter-Cynthia Drew

City of Slaughter


Cynthia Drew

Fithian Press/Daniel & Daniel Publishers, Mar 10 2012, $15.95

www.danielpublishing.com

ISBN: 9781564745149



In 5661 (1899 in the Julian calendar) in the Jewish village Lucava, Reuven Akselrod the printer provides seditious documents for those Russians outlawed as traitors. The Cossacks burn Lucava to the ground killing Reuven and his wife Yona. Their daughters (thirteen years old Carsie and nine years old Lilia escape in a wagon driven away by disgraced Cossack Mikheladze. They make it to Trushkeny, but Lilia suffers from typhus. Max Siegel takes the three into his tavern where Mikheladze tends to the child. Lilia recovers but the kind Cossack catches the fever and dies. Months later Max proposes to Carsie who reluctantly accepts. However, sneaky felonious postman Zirl Bakhton needs the siblings to leave as they can read so he arranges for the sisters to travel in the caravan to the west sponsored by affluent Rothschild, but not before stealing most of the money.



The two sisters arrive in New York where they live with relatives in the overcrowded Lower East Side. Each obtains work in the sweatshops and by 1911 both are employed at the Triangle Waist Company while Carsie still dreams of becoming a milliner owner of her own shop.



City Of Slaughter is an excellent historical fiction novel that focuses on a Jew’s life under Pogrom Russia and in teeming New York. Character driven by courageous Carsie who watches loved ones die due to mankind’s inhumanity, but she refuses to quit on her life’s aspiration. Fans will relish this strong look at the plight, dreams, setbacks and triumph of a Jew who is far from an American princess as she brings a spotlight on the first quarter of the twentieth century.



Harriet Klausner

Slightly Irregular-Rhonda Pollero

Slightly Irregular


Rhonda Pollero

Gallery, Apr 17 2012, $15.00

ISBN 9781416590736



West Palm Beach, Florida Dane, Lieberman and Zarnowski paralegal Finley Anderson Tanner loves to shop for designer outfits at discount rates. However, though it bothers her inner karma, she breaks her prime rule of life when she horribly pays full price for the gorgeous dress she purchased to wear on a date to attend the performance of The Magic Flute with the firm’s new partner and her current boss Tony Caprelli. She feels fickle as she also likes Mr. Uncouth Testosterone private investigator Liam McGarrity.



Meanwhile her mom demands she bring a date to her sister’s marriage at about the same time as her former boss Ellen Lieberman abruptly quits; leaving Finley with clothing and jewelry as remittance for a favor. Finley sell the stuff on eBay with the help of her BFF Becky Jamison, a lawyer at the firm. When Ellen and then Becky vanish, Finley panics and begins to make inquiries only to learn her former boss is not who she thought she was and the jewelry leaves several people including her in danger.



The fourth fun F.A.T. frolic (see Fat Chance, Knick Off and Knock ‘Em Dead) frolic is a lighthearted, brisk and breezy tales as the heroine lands in mostly amusing but some dangerous scenarios. Fans who prefer their mysteries light (with late suspense) and their couture deep will enjoy the heroine’s escapades; especially her chick lit asides even facing a knife as Finley has a case to solve and two maybe hunks in her personal life, but maybe no one to attend the wedding in order for her to shut up her mom’s mouth. This is a delightfully charming tale.



Harriet Klausner

Come Home-Lisa Scottoline

Come Home


Lisa Scottoline

St. Martin’s, Apr 10 2012, $27.99

ISBN 9780312380823



Philadelphia suburban pediatrician Jill Farrow feels her life and that of her thirteen years old daughter Megan has finally moved on passed the crippling divorce from William Skyler. She and Jill live with her fiancé serene Sam Becker.



Jill’s former stepdaughter nineteen years old Abby arrives to inform her that William died from an apparent overdose. Though she knows her reaction is not comforting, Jill does not care what killed amoral William. However, a despondent Abby claims her dad was murdered and she needs Jill’s help to find his killer; as the police closed the case as a drug death. Unable to say no to a daughter she still loves (as she does her other stepchild Victoria) although they have been estranged since just before the divorce, Jill reluctantly agrees to investigate, but her kindness upsets Megan and Sam and threatens her life while interfering with a related inquiry.



Come Home is an entertaining extended family drama in which the relationship dynamics supersedes the dueling investigative suspense subplots. Filled with too much relational angst, still fans will appreciate Lisa Scottoline’s enjoyable tale.



Harriet Klausner

Lucky Bastard-S. G. Browne

Lucky Bastard


S. G. Browne

Gallery, Apr 17 2012, $23.00

ISBN: 9781451657197



In San Francisco, no one understands luck like private investigator Nick Monday does first hand as he makes his living by stealing, with a touch, luck from a victim and selling it on the black market commodity exchange. He has no interest as to who his clients are or why they purchase purloined luck, but he knows luck is fickle like a lady as it runs out at the most inopportune moments. Still swiping and selling luck keeps Nick rolling in Lucky Charms and gourmet mocha coffee though he understands the karma of stealing luck as someone is fated to pay the price.



The daughter of the city’s mayor, Tuesday Knight arrives at Nick’s shabby office with an offer he can’t refuse as she will pay him $100,000 to recover her father’s stolen luck. Before he can begin the recovery, Chinese crime boss Tommy Wong makes an offer that Nick better not refuse as he wants the sleazy poacher to steal the rare pure luck. Additionally, Nick notices Feds and Scooter Girl are following his latest adventures into the world of the avaricious and if his luck turns good he will have plenty of mocha coffee to wash down his Lucky Charms and apple fritters.



This is a superb satirical Noir fantasy starring a charming rogue who finds his luck turned bad since the femme fatale entered his office as the cosmos demands karmic equilibrium with his debt in the stratosphere. Fast-paced and filled with all types of biting humor, readers will appreciate the antics of the Lucky Bastard as he deals with Greedy Bastards that would make even Dylan Ratigan’s head spin in disbelief.



Harriet Klausner

Angels of Vengeance- John Birmingham

Angels of Vengeance


John Birmingham

Del Rey, Apr 10 2012, $26.00

ISBN 9780345502933



Several years have passed since the catastrophic wave of energy destroyed the United States killing millions in 2003 that came like a tsunami Without Warning; scientists remain baffled as to the cause and why it abruptly vanished a year later. President Kipper and the White House moved to Seattle where the new America is formed in the Pacific Northwest (see Without Warning and After America). World War III explodes as many nations want to fill the mantle of superpower.



In Uruguay, South American Federation, Echelon senior field special agent Caitlin Monroe seeks Ramon Luperico, held prisoner by a dictator; as she plans to interrogate the former prison governor of Guadeloupe detention center to learn how a terrorist escaped to destroy New York City and her loved ones. Teenager Sofia Peiraro survived the murderous rule of General “Mad” Jack Blackstone by fleeing to Kansas City with her dad Miguel; but a homicide hits home has her retuning to Texas to even the score with Mad Jack. In Darwin, Australia British smuggler Lady Julianne “Jules” Balwyn calmly waits for her stalker contract killer Norman Parmenter so she can kill her predator.



The final super alternate historical post-apocalyptic thriller works on four prime fronts (though there are other lesser ones) to show a world filling a power vacuum. The President’s problems in attempting to help the country heal and recover have issues from dissenters within his circle, from vicious despots throughout the nation and potential foreign invaders. The subplots led by the three female led subplots display how much the earth changed and yet remains the avaricious same since the wave. Together they make a cohesive exciting international tale as they converge as Angels of Vengeance.



Harriet Klausner