a couple of review copies, a couple of FREEBIES and a couple of purchases
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| Patrick Hoffman - Clean Hands (2020) - Edelweiss early reviewer site |
Clean Hands is the author's 3rd novel. I've not read his debut, The White Van yet, but I enjoyed his last one Every Man A Menace
Synopsis/blurb....
Corporate lawyer Elizabeth Carlyle is under pressure. Her prestigious New York law firm is working on a high-stakes case, defending a prominent bank that's been accused of fraud. When Elizabeth gets the news that one of her junior associates has lost his phone - and the secret documents that were on it - she needs help. Badly.
Enter ex-CIA officer Valencia Walker, a high-priced fixer who gets called in when wealthy corporations, people and governments need their problems solved discreetly. But things get complicated when the missing phone is retrieved: somebody has already copied the documents, and now they're blackmailing the firm. The situation gets murkier still when stories about the documents start appearing in the press and a tragic suicide appears staged, hinting that darker forces may be churning below the surface. With billions of dollars on the line, Elizabeth and Valencia must outmanoeuvre their tormentors, all the while keeping their hands clean.
In a world of private security, private diplomacy and private justice, a sharply-drawn cast of characters - including dirty lawyers, black-market traders and Russian criminals - take part in this breakneck tour through New York. Authentic, tense and impossible to put down, Clean Hands offers a vivid perspective on the connections between corporations, government and the underworld.
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| Tyler Dilts - A King of Infinite Space (2009) - purchased copy |
A new author for me and a bit of a punt after seeing this one on a recent list/essay about essential crime novels of LA. It's the first in a series of four books in Dilts's Long Beach Homicide series.
Synopsis/blurb.....
Awake in the darkness, long after midnight, Long Beach Homicide Detective Danny Beckett is trying to keep his past at bay. Haunted by all the things he's lost--his wife, his family, his hope--he begins to investigate the brutal murder of Elizabeth Williams, a popular High School English teacher. Soon Danny begins to understand that apprehending the murderer is not just a case to solved, but an act of personal redemption.
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| Andy Rausch - Until One of Us is Dead (2019) - Amazon Freebie purchase |
I've enjoyed Andy Rausch's work before - Riding Shotgun and Other American Cruelties - but he writes them faster than I can read them. There's a few more from him on the pile.
Synopsis/blurb......
When his young granddaughter Allie is suddenly abducted from a restaurant in rural Missouri, police officer Denny Davis' life takes a devastatingly dark turn.
After thirteen years, a fruitless manhunt has turned him into a troubled alcoholic plagued by guilt - but a twist of fate leads him stumbling down an unexpected path.
Trapped in a sinister game and shocked at its players, can Denny find revenge - and redemption - as he finally comes face to face with the perpetrator?
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| Cal Moriarty - Ten of Swords (2020) - Amazon Freebie purchase |
Cal Moriarty's debut The Death of Bobbi Lomax still sits on the pile. This is the follow-on.
Synopsis/blurb.......
MEET STRONG, BRAVE, COURAGEOUS, WILD, VULNERABLE LISS
When cop’s daughter Liss uncovers a murdered girl’s frozen face on a snowy mountain, she feels compelled to investigate what might have happened to the nameless girl.
Days later while working for book & coin experts the Rook twins, whose sister has gone missing a decade earlier, the mystery begins to take a dangerous turn.
As Liss, together with her close friend Bobbi Lomax, begins to uncover the towns buried secrets and lies, she becomes convinced that she may be the killer’s next victim -- and when another teen friend goes missing and is found dead, she knows the killer is sending her a deadly warning.
But it’s too late now, Liss can’t stop even if she wanted to. But will she find the killer, before he finds her?
Ten of Swords can be read as a standalone novel, or as part of Cal’s Wonderland series. The Killing of Bobbi Lomax (Wonderland Book 1) is also available on Unlimited and for purchase. Death in Wonderland (Book 3) is available for pre-order on 3rd March 2020.
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| Kevin Doherty - The Leonardo Gulag (2020) - Edelweiss early reviewer site |
Another new-to-me author. Sounds intriguing. It's his 4th book I think.
Synopsis/blurb.....
Perfect for fans who love the artistry of Daniel Silva and the passion of Greg Iles
Stalin's Russia, 1950. Brilliant young artist Pasha Kalmenov is arrested and sent without trial to a forced-labor camp in the Arctic gulag. This is a camp like no other. Although conditions are harsh and degrading, the prisoners are not to be worked to death in a coal mine or on a construction project. Their task is to forge the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. There is a high price to be paid for failing to reach the required standard of perfection; particularly as the camp commandant has his own secret agenda. When the executions begin, Pasha realizes that only his artistic talent can protect him. But for how long? Worse horrors are to come—if he survives them, will life still be worth living?
The Leonardo Gulag journeys to the sinister heart of Stalin's regime of terror, where paranoia reigns and no one is safe, and in which the whims of one man determine the fate of millions. Ultimately, the novel presents a moving portrait of the indomitability of the human spirit.
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| Ralph Dennis - Dust in the Heart (2019) - purchased copy |
Atlanta Deathwatch
The Charleston Knife is Back
Synopsis/blurb......
There's a killer stalking children in a small, North Carolina town...and the only one who can stop him is the local Sheriff, a man crippled physically and emotionally by a war that he's still fighting within himself. The haunting, powerful new thriller by Ralph Dennis, author of the legendary Hardman series of crime novels
Wilton Drake's hip was shattered by a sniper's bullet in Lebanon...and his heart was ripped apart by the wife who left him as lay in a military hospital. Now, after fiteen years in the Navy, he's returned to Edgefield, North Carolina a broken man, looking for a way to hold himself together. He finds it in a bottle...and behind a badge as Webster County's newly elected Sheriff...but his forbidden attraction to a mysterious stripper and his harrowing investigation into a horrific string of child murders might destroy what's left of him, body and soul.
"Ralph Dennis has mastered the genre and supplied top entertainment." New York Times
"His prose is muscular, swift and highly readable. " Joe R. Lansdale, author of the Hap & Leonard novels, the basis for the hit TV series.
The Doherty sounds really interesting to me, Col. The setting and the premise both caught my eye. The Dilts got my attention, too, especially the setting. I'll be interested in what you think of them both.
ReplyDeleteMargot, I like the Russian setting for the Doherty too and I do like an LA setting!
DeleteCol - Hope you like the new Hoffman novel. I enjoyed his “The White Van” when it came out. I am going to check out some of the other, new-to-me, authors.
ReplyDeleteElgin, I did thanks. I finished it a day or two ago.
DeleteClean Hands by Patrick Hoffman sounds interesting. I would like to try some of the Ralph Dennis books someday.
ReplyDeleteTracy, you might enjoy Clean Hands I think. I need to read some more Ralph Dennis myselfe
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