JULY 2022 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST!

A few more into the collection....

Paul Heatley - No Quarter (2022) - review copy via Net Galley

I do love Paul Heatley's work, but he writes too fast for me to keep up. I get up in the morning, go to work, come home and in the meantime he's written another book, possibly two. Slow down man, FFS!

It seems like only yesterday I read the first in this series - Blood Line -  and this is #6! (June, 2021 actually.)  I guess I'll have fun soon when I get on a Tom Rollins binge.

Tom just wants a quiet life. But destiny has other plans.

Tom Rollins is working as a forest ranger in Northern California. He’s leading a quiet life until the night he finds three armed men chasing a malnourished Mexican, Mateo, through the forest.

Mateo is too scared to say much, but Tom and local police officer Reiko are sure he has been held captive and put to work. They wonder if there is some connection to feared street gang, MS13, who have recently been active in the area. Tom knows that wherever MS13 show up, chaos and bloodshed is sure to follow.

But MS13 aren’t the only problem. There’s also a gruesome killing, suspected cartel activity, and the apathetic attitude of Reiko’s superiors. Soon Tom and Reiko realise they are up against a powerful network and it will take every ounce of their resourcefulness just to survive.

Death has no mercy, and Tom Rollins will show no quarter.

No Quarter – Book 6 of the superb Tom Rollins action thriller series. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Jason Kasper & David Archer.

James L'Etoile - Dead Drop (2022)  - review copy via Net Galley

Heard good things about this one. Hopes are high!

Hundreds go missing each year making the dangerous crossing over the border. What if you were one of them?

While investigating the deaths of undocumented migrants in the Arizona desert, Detective Nathan Parker finds a connection to the unsolved murder of his partner by a coyote on a human smuggling run. The new evidence lures Parker over the border in search of the truth, only to trap him in a strange and dangerous land. If he’s to survive, Parker must place his life in the hands of the very people he once pursued.

Border violence, border politics, and who is caught in the middle. The forces behind it might surprise you.

Jason Mosberg - Grift (2015) - purchased copy

Another author whose work I like the sound of. Another title to be checked out after this include My Dirty California.

Why would a 17-year-old girl pretend to be a prostitute?

Piper is a con artist whose canvas is the city of Las Vegas. She rolls with a crew of young grifters including a card-counting genius, a tourist-hustling pool shark, and a pocket-picking magician. Together, this crew of teenage outlaws live with their mentor Max in the penthouse of a hotel casino. They work hard and play harder. But unlike the others, Piper must balance her hyper-real Vegas fantasy with the reality of raising her 14-year-old half-sister Sophie. Disaster strikes when the Las Vegas mafia kidnaps Sophie and demands a multimillion-dollar ransom. With only five days to piece together the money, the crew races the clock to save her.

"Ocean's Eleven for the Reddit set, with a twist of Oliver Twist floating in a dirty martini none of the characters are old enough to order. Jason Mosberg deftly explores the very real world of Vegas runaways and misfits through the lens of a heist movie Sinatra's great-grandaughter would be proud of." -Sean Beaudoin, author of Wise Young Fool

Les Roberts - Wet Work (2014) - purchased copy

A bit of a punt, but not too much of a one as it was less than a pound on Kindle

Dominick Candiotti is a paid assassin employed by the shadowy Brownstone Agency. After one too many assignments, weary of the violence and a life of temporary identities, he wants to leave the profession. His anonymous boss, code-named "Og," isn't happy with the decision; he turns the tables on his employee and assigns fellow agents to eliminate him. Now on the run, Candiotti fights for his life, trying to stay one step ahead of deadly pursuers while he tracks down his nemesis boss and uncovers secrets from his own past. It's a gripping tale about the struggle for power and a suspenseful game of cat-and-mouse that leads through several U.S. cities. This is the second suspense novel featuring Domninick Candiotti by Les Roberts. He first appeared in "The Strange Death of Father Candy."

Lawrence Block - The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (2022)  - review copy from author

Just when he thinks he's done with the writing books malarkey, Lawrence Block surprises and delights with a new offering - the 13th Bernie Rhodenbarr book dropping in October.

My reading skates are on to get the first 12 read before this one is enjoyed. Three down, nine to go so far.

Suppose you’re Bernie Rhodenbarr.

You’ve got a dream job, running your own cozy secondhand bookstore, complete with Raffles, your caudally challenged cat. It’s in Greenwich Village, and your best friend’s dog grooming salon is two doors away, and the two of you lunch together and meet for drinks after work.

And you’ve got another way to make a buck. Every once in a while you put your conscience on the shelf and let yourself into someone else’s residence, and you leave with more than you came with. You’re a burglar, and you know it’s wrong, but you love it.

And you’re good at it. You’ve got two ways to make a living, one larcenous, the other literary and legitimate, and you’re good at both of them.

Nice, huh?

Until the 21st Century pulls the rug out from under you. All of a sudden the streets of your city are so overpopulated with security cameras and closed-circuit TV that you have to lock yourself in the bathroom to have an undocumented moment. And locks, which used to provide the recreational pleasure of a moderately challenging crossword puzzle, have become genuinely pickproof.

Meanwhile, internet booksellers have muscled your legit enterprise into obsolescence. The new breed of customers browse your bookshop, find what they’re looking for, then whip out their phones and order their books online.

Wonderful. You had two ways to make a living, and neither of them works anymore.

But suppose you keep on supposing, okay?

Suppose you wake up one morning in a world just like the one in which you fell asleep—but with a couple of differences.

The first one you notice doesn’t amount to much. The Metrocard in your wallet has somehow changed color and morphed into what seems to be called a SubwayCard. That’s puzzling, but you swipe it at the turnstile same as always, and it gets you on the subway, so what difference does it make?

But that’s not the only thing that’s changed. The Internet’s up and running, as robust as ever, but nobody seems to be using it to sell books. Doors are secured not with pickproof electronic gizmos but with good old reliable Rabson locks, the kind you can open with your eyes closed. And what happened to all those security cameras? Where’d they go?

All of a sudden you’ve got your life back, and your bookshop’s packed with eager customers, and how are you gonna find time to steal something?

Well, just suppose one of the world’s worst human beings has recently acquired one of the world’s most glamorous gems. When the legendary Kloppmann Diamond is up for grabs, what can you possibly do but grab it?

And what could possibly go wrong?

Tom Schreck - TKO (2008) - purchased copy

A recent discovery and an unknown quantity as yet. Down and Out Books are re-publishing his Duffy Dombrowski series of which this is the second. Needless to say I bought the first as well - On the Ropes

After twenty-five years in prison for the murder of a couple of cheerleaders, a quarterback, and the class president, Howard "Hacker" Reinhart gets discharged. His case is assigned to the Schlitz-drinking, Elvis-loving social worker and amateur boxer Duffy Dombrowski. Soon, local high school VIPs start showing up dead and Howard is nowhere to be found.

Although Duffy has a few other things on his mind - like a huge upcoming boxing match, a new hormonal girlfriend, and the ongoing misadventures of Allah-King, his Muslim basset hound - Duffy throws himself into Howard's defense.