Book Buzz

ANTHONY E. ZUIKER

Brilliant concept. Cybernovel. (They have copywrited the term Digi-Novel.) Every twenty pages or so the book refers you to the web page level26.com with a code to see a video of what is happening. The videos are generally well produced. Zuiker was the creater of CSI series so he has access to top quality production. But not all of the videos add to the story and the story is not gentle. Level 26 refers to the fact that law enforcement personnel have a code that categorizes evil on a scale of twenty five levels. Level 25 refers to the sickest murderer-torturers. For this new serial killer they had to create a new level : 26. It is definately adult reading and not for people with queasy stomachs.

Not particulary well written but it is a bit of a page turner. If you can stand the gore. Again set up for the sequel.

Daniel Browning Smith is creepy as all hell as evil incarnate in the video. He is also know as rubber boy the contortionist. Google his name.

GEORGE D SHUMAN

Blind psychic Sherry Moore   can “visualize the last memories of dead people,” is exposed to radioactive cesium 137 while trying to discern what caused an outbreak of possible hantavirus in New Mexico. Back in Philadelphia for tests and treatment, with trusted Dr. Salix, she touches the body of mental patient Thomas J. Monahan, an army private during the Korean War who was used in a government mind-control experiment in 1950. Thomas’s residual memories concern Area 17, a secret base in Mount Tamathy, N.Y., where a weapon was developed by Nobel Prize–winner Edward Case. Puzzelled, Sherry is helped in her investigations by her neighbour and good friend retired admiral Brigham. Of course not having had sight since she was five, Sherry can neither read nor drive. To be honest she would likely have had more problems adjusting to sight than the book suggests. Case’s handsome sociopath stepson, Troy Weir, sets out to dispose of Sherry and anyone else who might know anything about Area 17. While Sherry investigates Thomas’s past, she becomes attracted to Troy, much to the dismay of her Navy SEAL fiancé, Brian.

An alright thriller. After I finished reading it I found out that it is the fourth book about Sherry. The series started with Lost Girls. I won’t read any more.

STEIG LARSSON

A rousing read. Quite a page turner. GIRL is a continuation of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Set in Sweden, Michael Blomkvist ,the journalist, writer and publisher, is trying to help his friend and one time lover Lisbeth Salander.  Salander is wanted for three counts of murder. No one beside Blomkvist is looking for other leads. The murdered couple had researched and written an expose of human trafficking and prostitution. Some powerful people will be named when the book is published by Blomkvist. Salander was severly abused as a child. She trusts no one. Not even a friend.

Again a horrible cover in Canada. I borrowed this pic from Culture Witch.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO and CHUCK HOGAN

Modern gothic. I don’t want to say too much about this story. Let it surprise you. STRAIN is page turner and an easy read. An unusual plague has struck New York City. Bizarre things happen to the people who are infected. The medical officer and authorities are having trouble confining the contagion.

This is the first book of a trilogy. I won’t read more. Vampires as zombies. Not the cool sexy vampires as Anne Rice created.

ROB HARASYMCHUK

Dingo parents his sister and his special needs brother since the death of their parents. But in many ways this loss had happened years ago: the father had withdrawen into alcohol, the mother, depression and mental illness. His need to support his family leads him into temptation and activities outside of what is legal. What starts as a drama turns into a thriller when Dingo last heist is a farm chemicals plant. Set in Saskatchewan and Saskatoon Dingo is a good read.

STIEG LAWSON

Mystery within mystery. Journalist Blomkvist, recently discredited in a libel suit, is hired by a industrialist to solve the forty year old disappearance of his niece. Fascinating to see the different levels of research and studying he does as he proceeds. Blomkvist is given permission to write a history of the family. But then questions whether the shadows he uncovers should be revealed to the public. The second mystery is ferreting out the truth about the executive who won the initial law suit and how to reveal the truth. As for the tattoo? And Swedish attitudes about sex? You’ll have to read the book. It is a bit of a page turner.

(Having thought the cover totally stupid I borrowed this image from: http://hubpages.com/hub/DragonTattoos&usg=__SMPDEBmXXsuRJ8DPniEGiNwe1Tw=&h=291&w=260&sz=15&hl=en&start=19&tbnid=kQkcZXNFRBq7MM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgirl%2Bwith%2Bthe%2Bdragon%2Btattoo%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG)

NEIL GAIMAN

An excellent horror story for kids! The cover says for all ages but I wouldn’t read this to sensitive children age 9 or under. Coraline discovers an alternate world where her “other” parents have time to play with her, where the food would always be to her liking (not like at home where her real dad cooks weird food) and she could have any thing she wanted. When Coraline gets back to reality she discovers that her parent are missing. She finds them caught in the mirror writing “help us” in the mist. She must go back!

The book starts with an interesting quote: Fairy tales are necessary not to prove that there are dragons but to prove that dragons can be beaten.

A great book for youth. Already a movie.

STEVEN SIDOR

First, consider something that happened in the past to Matthias, the twelve year old brother of Jase (the narrator): Matthias walked into the Michigan woods one day, but never walked out; sometime later, dismembered body parts were discovered, and the torso of a body was found in the back of a van.

Years later a different family left their two-year old twin sons (Shane and Liam) in the care of a nanny (Regina); when a man presenting himself as a delivery man appeared at the Boyle’s home, he gained access but then brandished a weapon and changed everything – the boys were kidnapped, and the nanny was badly injured when the intruder/kidnapper used a knife to carve a nonsensical palindrome into the nanny’s inner thighs: mirrorrorrim.

Jase Deering who is now a ‘talented but difficult’ freelance reporter whose obsessive inquisitiveness will (in the very near future as it has in the past) seriously complicate his life.

Along with Robyn Matchfrost – Jase’s kinky, brilliant, brutal, and unpredictable girlfriend and writing partner – Jase becomes unstoppably interested in the unsolved Boyle case. So Jase plunges into a peculiar mystery that will bring him face to face with an assortment of unusual characters including a defrocked priest, an intimidating motorcycle gang, a cult leader who has an interest in sacrificial sacraments, family members with sordid secrets, and others who are all problematic for Jase.

Suicide, murder, mayhem, satanic rituals, and much worse stand in Jase’s way and threaten to ruin the obsessive journalist’s search for the truth. Filled with pulse-pounding action, and plenty of surprises, The Mirror’s Edge is dark, gritty,and unconventional. Recommended.

Lee Jackson

is a near future thriller. The US frightened enough by terrorism has cut back nearly all civil liberties. The story opens with Ben Trinity, a former college professor arrested for funding a terrorist group, hitchhiking to the west coast. Storm-stayed in a small Montana town, Redemption. Word about his past soon is common knowledge. Locals fear Trinity, speak out against his living there and even threatening his life. But there is always this undercurrent knowing of innocence.

The political ending swirls in far too fast. But it is still a good read and an author to keep an eye open for.

CHRISTOPHER RICE

A psychological thriller Blind Fall tells a military-themed story of redemption and revenge with the Iraq war as a backdrop. The protagonist John has many ghosts in his past: his brother who committed suicide, his estrangement from the sister who raised him, the mistake he made in Iraq that resulted in the near death of his captain, Mike. Knowledge that Mike is gay had complicated John’s feeling’s for Mike who he once adored. But the long over due visit does not turn out well. It is a compelling read.

HARLAN COBEN
Mike and Tia Baye are struggling with their son, Adam. He’s becoming more withdrawn and sullen, and the parents decide to monitor his computer to see what’s going on. This monitoring reveals that Adam is keeping some sort of secret, and he decides to run away to attend a party rather than obey his father and go to a hockey game with him. Mike puts everything on the line to find Adam and reunite the family. Meanwhile, there are a number of other stories going on… A psychotic killer is picking seemingly random women off the street and killing them in a very gruesome manner, all to find out some information that he believes they hold. Another father is furious with his small daughter’s teacher, as he made a snide comment about the child’s physical appearance that has made her the target of ridicule at school. The teacher is someone who has always taken pride in his work, and the comment was something he highly regrets. But he also realizes that his mistake could cost him his career. These stories swirl along at their own pace, and slowly start to come together as the relationships between the characters start to reveal themselves.

The action was constant and the characters drew me into their struggles. Every parent can empathize with understanding a withdrawn child, especially when it appears that there might be a life-threatening situation developing.

I found the book hard to put down.

DANIEL KALLA

The dicsouvery of a lake under 3 miles of ice in Anarctica is thought of a gold mine by investors. How can it be used? In France there is an outbreak of BSD, mad cow disease, and its human equivalent.  Are they connected? Author Kalla is an emergency room doctor in Vancouver. Interesting medical science mystery but not great.

JOSE LATOUR

Elliot Steill is an English teacher in Havana. Abandoned by his American father as a child he is just getting by. But a friend of his deceased father comes to help him escaped to Miami. The America he discovers is not the stuff of dreams. But it is an interesting contrast. Recommended
This Cuban writer has moved to Canada since publishing this book in 1999.

PATRY FRANCIS

This psychological thriller exposes an ordinary suburban family and reveals the lies and secrets that have been hidden for years. At first this book so reminded me of the movie “Notes on a Scandal” with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, I had to remind myself to listen to the author descriptions of the characters and settings. (Notes is a movie worth seeing.) The characters are well written and believable. The ending provides quite a surprising twisting. The other connection to a book is “We Have to Talk about Kevin”.