The Q’s are up for scrutiny this week and it’s fair to say
I’m not overly spoilt for choice here. Racking brain frantically for a couple
of days, I’ve been unable to find 3 qualifying reads I have made in the genre.
Quirk,
Quinlan.........2 enjoyed
Joe Quirk – The
Ultimate Rush
No Exit Press published this in the UK back in 1999, I had
never heard of the author and probably seduced by the cover bought the book. I
sat it on the shelf until the mid-2000’s when I finally got around to reading
it. Fast, exciting and a little bit unbelievable. Ok in as much as it wasn’t
the worst book I ever read. I never really troubled myself to keep tabs on the
author to see what else he might have done. Not especially a recommendation,
just a “Q” I’ve read that pads the post out. I wouldn’t put anyone off reading
it either.
As the sole
rollerblade courier at a San Francisco delivery service, Chet Griffin is the
fastest messenger in town. Every day, he delivers critically confidential
packages, but when he hands over an already-opened envelope containing a floppy
disk with billion-dollar information, a deadly serious customer demands
satisfaction. On a routine run, Chet's co-worker gets killed, the finger's
pointed at him, and Chet finds himself on a rush job to save his own life.
Patrick Quinlan –
Smoked
Smoked came out in 2006 and the author seemed to be on a bit
of a roll, with 3 more books out up until 2009, The Takedown, The Drop-Off and
The Hit. Since then nothing, whether the creative juices have dried up or he’s
been dropped by his publisher or he’s had a complete career change, I don’t
know. I enjoyed Smoked and the second and third books and the last is waiting
on the TBR pile. I like tales of a lone man up against an organisation and this
is a great one.
Smoke Dugan is on the
run. An aging bomb-maker, he was a prized asset to organized crime for most of his
life. But when he finds out that one of his bombs was used to take down a plane
with innocent women and children aboard, he is furious. He takes his revenge,
killing the mafia boss and taking his 2.5 million. Now he’s the most wanted man
on the east coast. Hiding out in Portland, Maine, only delays the inevitable as
one by one, some of the most memorable killers, hit men and lowlifes in recent
fiction take their shot at Smoke and his tough-as-nails girlfriend, martial
arts expert Lola Bell. As the cat and mouse game plays out, the only thing left
is a violent showdown on the streets of Portland in a conclusion that will
leave readers gasping for breath.
Quigley, Quinn, Quirk,
Quammen..............4 unread
Sheila Quigley – Run
For Home
This one came out in 2004, the first in a 5 book series
featuring Lorraine Hunt. My wife read and enjoyed the first 3. All her books,
including her current second series featuring a male DI this time, carry song
titles as the name of the novel. My wife enjoyed the ones she read, so at some
point I should try a new female author, with a strong female lead. The series
runs as follows:
Lorraine Hunt
1. Run for Home (2004)
2. Bad Moon Rising (2005)
3. Living on a Prayer (2006)
4. Every Breath You Take (2007)
5. The Road to Hell (2009)
It's 1985. A man is
hunted down and killed by a woman assassin known as The Head Hunter. Sixteen
years later, his body turns up and Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is called
in to investigate. The day the body is found, Claire Lumsdon is the victim of a
violent kidnap - the fourth in a series of abductions of young girls. For
Claire and her sixteen-year-old sister Kerry, it's the beginning of a
nightmare. Convinced the police can't help, Kerry sets out on a frantic search
for her sister. But her hunt leads her to much more than she'd bargained for: a
violent underworld; a sixteen year old murder; and, finally, the secrets about
her past - and her father - which her mother hoped she'd never have to face.
And all the time, the clock is ticking for Claire –
Peter Quinn – Hour of
the Cat
If it wasn’t for my participation in the Alphabet journey, I
probably wouldn’t have this recently acquired book on my shelf. Browsing
through the mystery section for Q surnamed authors on Fantastic Fiction I
happened on this author and his 3 book historical mystery series featuring Fintan
Dunne, the third of which is published in October. If I enjoy this one, I will
probably go for the second. It’s not like I have too many unread books already!
On the eve of World
War II, "just another little murder" in New York City draws two
vastly different men - an American detective and a German admiral - into the
Gathering Storm. Hour of the Cat is a stunning achievement: tautly suspenseful,
hauntingly memorable, and brilliantly authentic.
Matthew Quirk – The 500
I noticed this last year when browsing the shelves of my
local supermarket. I managed to resist the urge to buy, though I was tempted.
Cheapskate that I am, when I saw a second hand copy earlier this year in a local
charity shop, I willingly shelled out my pound to buy it. It could be possibly
more of a thriller than a crime novel, who knows? Its premise reminds me of the John Grisham
novel/film The Firm, which I have seen but not read.
Mike Ford is a former
con artist who's been plucked from his Harvard Law School classroom to be an
associate at The Davies Group, Washington's most high-powered and
well-respected strategic consulting firm. Their specialty: pulling strings and
peddling influence for the five hundred most powerful people inside the
Beltway, the men and women who really run Washington -- and by extension the
country, and the world.
The namesake of the
firm, Henry Davies, knows everyone who matters; more importantly, he knows
their secrets. Davies' experience goes back 40 years -- he worked for Lyndon
Johnson, jumped shipped to Nixon, then put out his own shingle as the Hill's
most cut-throat and expensive fixer. Now he's looking for a protégé to tackle
his most high-stakes deal yet, and Mike fits the bill.
Quickly pulled into a
seductive, dangerous web of power and corruption, Mike struggles to find his
way out. But how do you save your soul when you've made a deal with the devil?
David Quammen – The Soul
of Viktor Tronko
Synchronicity? Coincidence? I was browsing an old National
Geographic magazine on Sunday that a friend of my wife had passed onto me and I
happened on an article written by David Quammen. Not the one and the same guy?
The guy responsible for “Viktor Tronko,” a highly regarded (in some quarters at
least) spy novel that has sat around for a couple of years unread on the
Criminal Library shelves? Apparently yes. Quammen in recent years has
concentrated on nature/science writing. This novel with the name –
Viktor Tronko – just piques and
intrigues me and makes me want to read about him. Time to pull my finger out
and get to it soon!
Peacefully engrossed in writing a biography of a termite
collector, Kessler gets a surprise visit from an old friend. Mel is a one-time
CIA agent now ready to reveal an espionage event that occurred two decades
earlier. When Mel is murdered, Kessler is seduced by the whiff of a really big
story. He pursues the leads that suggest one Victor Tronko was a fake defector
let loose to mask the presence of a KGB mole in the CIA's highest levels. When
Kessker dislodges the wasps' nest, retribution strikes. Sinuously intricate and
compellingly realistic, this cloak-and-dagger caper will be as well received as
The Zolta Configuration. While most thrillers let the reader bob like a cork on
the surface, this author's knack is to draw down a reader's full attention with
complicated dialogue, shifts in narrative, and intense activity. Barbara
Conaty, Medical Coll. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Next week it’s the turn of the R’s.
