Alpabetical Summary Books Read in 2007

Authors first name first.

A
Alex Kava - Whitewash
Alice Thompson - Pharos

C
Chelsea Cain - Heartsick
Chris Mooney - The Missing

D
David Hewson - The Sacred Cut
Douglas Clegg - The Infinite
Douglas Preston - Tyrannosaur Canyon
David Ignatius - Body of Lies

G
Gayle Sanders - Mummy's Witness
Gordon Ramsay: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection

J
Jane Yolen - The Devil's Arithmetic

Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me
John Saul - Black Creek Crossing

M
Mark Billingham - Scaredy Cat
Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

P
Patricia Cornwell - At Risk
Patricia Cornwell - Book of The Dead
Peter Clement - The Inquisitor
Philip Hawley Jr. - Stigma


R
Ray Garton - The Loveliest Dead
Robert B. Parker - School Days

S
Scott Chandler - Ghostkiller
Steven Womack - By Blood Written

T
Tim Lebbon - 30 Days of Night

David Ignatius - Body of Lies

Subtly framing a highly elaborate plot, Ignatius tells the story of idealistic CIA agent Roger Ferris, newly stationed in Jordan after being wounded in Iraq. After a failed initiative to flush out a terrorist mastermind known as Suleiman, Ferris, who's dedicated to forestalling further al-Qaeda attacks, develops an intricate scheme modeled after a British plan used successfully against the Nazis.

Ferris's plot to turn the terrorists against each other by sowing seeds of suspicion that their leaders are collaborating with the Americans puts his personal life in turmoil and threatens his professional relationship with the head of Jordanian intelligence.

Honestly, I am not sure if I would have enjoyed the story written in a book. I listened to the audiobook which made it certainly easier. This is a political thriller about a driven CIA agent, determined that 9/11 won't happen again. He would give everything for his country. Everything certainly means he's endagering the women he loves.
A lot of spy, a lot of deaths and a lot of CIA mumbo-jumbo.

For me the narrator, Dick Hill, gave the story a whole new flair. His capability to speak in different accents and even in different languages filled the audiobook with life.

For those who might be interested in purchasing the audiobook:
Amazon's selling the unabridged version for about $26.95. audible.com sells the same version for about $17.49 downloadable on your PC.

Rating:
Visit David Ignatius.

Audio CD
Publisher: Tantor Media; Unabridged edition (June 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400104432
ISBN-13: 978-1400104437
Length: 12 hours and 22 min.
Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780393065039
ISBN-10: 0393065030
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Publication Date: 4/16/2007
Pages: 320
Book Type: Hardcover

New Releases 1. Quarter 2008

Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

Michael Prescott's second novel is a fast paced thriller that keeps you awake for quite some time. Don't begin reading it in the evening. You won't get much sleep because you won't be able to put the book down.

Kaylie is running from her past. She's become a shadow, knowing if she's discovered, she will be put back there where she fled 12 years ago. She is a hunter, hunting the man who killed 12 women. If he gets her no one will ever discover Kaylie's secrets and knowledge about the cruel animal.

John Cray is a well known author and psychologist. He's leading an institution for mental disabled people. He also is a hunter, stealing the faces of his killed prey.

They both hunt and both become prey, running against time where it always seems Kaylie's one step beyond and on the unlucky site.

Will the faces finally tell their story ? Read for yourself but be warned, they might have to tell a frustating, tense story.

Michael Prescott's written 9 books so far. If you'd like to read an excerpt visit his homepage.
If you've read the book, go there anyway, you will find a little surprise as he's publishing what has been cut off the book from the publisher.

Rating:
Visit Michael Prescott.

ISBN-13: 9780451198518
ISBN-10: 0451198514
Publisher: Signet
Publication Date: 10/1/1999
Pages: 432
Book Type: Paperback

David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

The snow is falling on the ancient streets of Rome. And in the heart of the city, under the Pantheon’s great dome, a woman’s body lies on the marble floor, carefully positioned with a gruesome carving on her back....In David Hewson’s ingenious new thriller, this horrific murder hurtles Rome’s police force into a collision with U.S. agents–and a secret that has festered for fifteen years, now unraveling in the world’s most enigmatic city.

When Detective Nic Costa arrives at the scene, he is unprepared for what he finds, or for the ambush that leaves his only witness vanished into the night. The dead woman was American. Within hours, U.S. agents descend with a take-no-prisoners style and a shocking story to tell: the killer has struck before, in monuments all over the world, leaving the same cryptic message carved onto the bodies of the victims.

But one agent, beautiful, blond Emily Deacon, has yet another story to tell Nic–about a stunning act of deception that may lead back to the U.S. government, and her own chilling, personal connection to the killer. Now, as the first murder leads to more grisly slayings and a motley crew of veteran Roman cops jousts with the Americans, Nic is pulled into a woman’s harrowing search for the truth…a search that will take them both into the mind of a madman, into a shocking conspiracy–and into a dark episode in a nation’s long-forgotten past.

It's a bit difficult to write something about this book.
The book is likeable but then it isn´t. I enjoyed the plot but got distracted too often by the writer´s picturesque writing about Rome. I thought this is boring.

Good but in my opinion not remarkable.

Rating:
Visit David Hewson.

Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Dell (August 29, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0440242185
ISBN-13: 978-0440242185

Steven Womack - By Blood Written

Nashville: 2 girls are found murdered in a tanning salon. The murderer left two letters written in blood at the wall.

Manhattan: Author Michael Schiftmann and his soon to be fiancee, Taylor Robinson, celebrate his 6 million dollar contract for a series of books about a brutal, sadistic serial killer everybody is about to love.

Nashville: An old women reads the newspaper and enters the Nashville police department with a tote bag in the early morning hours. In it books written by Michael Schiftmann. She´s got a lead and no one´s going to stop her from telling that she know´s and who´s the Alphabet-Man.

Washington, D. C.:
FBI profiler Hank Powell receives a call from Nashville and listens to a crazy, almost impossible story that will begin the investigation to nail a killer without having anything at hands then four books. A recreation of the sociopathic Michael Schiftmann´s steps begins and his connection to the Alphabet-Man´s 14 killings begins to form but still they´ve got no evidence.

A race against time begins and sucks you up... you are going to love the killer and his fiancee. At least for a while.

A fantastic, thrilling novel I couldn´t put down. Bewildering and hardly to put in words the reader get´s a sense of the actual writer Steven Womack, his fictional character Michael Schiftmann and the fictional character Michael Schiftmann´s using in his novels.
It is difficult and intriguing to determine how much Womack put of himself into this novel. Especially in the beginning when Michael tells Taylor about his beginnings as a writer and praised novels he earned nothing from and how hard it was for him to get anything published at all.
Having read Steven Womack´s homepage I found out that it took him 5 years to find a publisher that was willing to publish this too edgy and too out-there book as a Hardcover edition in 2005. It is a success outside the usual crime-fiction, thriller and mystery genre. Compelling and an insider tip for everyone that likes to take a few steps out of the comfortable box.

Rating:
Visit Steven Womack.

ISBN-13: 9780061137709
ISBN-10: 0061137707
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: 11/1/2007
Pages: 416
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Gordon Ramsay - Roasting in Hell's Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection

Lovely !

I rarely read a biography almost impossible to put down. There is a honest way of writing there and you will learn about Gordon as a child until now and you really will understand what drove him to the top and keeps him reaching higher.

I now understand his temper and why he sometimes is the chef he is. There is a man that climbed from washing the dishes up to a multi millionaire. He literally worked his ass off in the worlds most famous kitchens, treated like a piece of shit. The man is adorable inside and outside.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780061191985
ISBN-10: 0061191981
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date: 3/1/2007
Pages: 288
Book Type: Paperback

Chelsea Cain - Heartsick

A Living Nightmare

Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful and brutal serial killer. In the end, she was the one who caught him -- and tortured him -- and then let him go. Why did Gretchen spare Archie's life and then turn herself in? This is the question that keeps him up all night -- and the reason why he has visited Gretchen in prison every week since.

A Deadly Obsession

Meanwhile, another series of murders is tearing up the Portland streets. Archie seems to be getting closer to solving this high-profile case -- until he finds himself in a fatal collision course with the killer -- one that inevitably leads him back to his former captor. Gretchen may be the only one who can help do justice. The only thing she can't do, this time, is save Archie's life.

-

Heartsick was announced as compareable to "Silence of The Lambs" and it keeps what the publisher promised.

Archie Sheridan is a disturbed cop. After surviving 10 days at the mercy of a female serial killer, trying to kill him slowly, his life and mind are all messed up. Two years after his torture he´s still depending on pills and can't forget what happened and what his secret feelings are.
Back into law enforcement he's dealing with a serial killer once again until everything makes one huge picture and finally sets him free from his obsession.

I couldn't completely compare Heartsick with Silence of The Lambs. The story might have similarities but doesn't focus on the conversations between offender and victim.

I've heard this is the new beginning of a series and I will definitely follow it.

Rating:
Visit Chelsea Cain.

ISBN-13: 9780312368463
ISBN-10: 0312368461
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Publication Date: 9/4/2007
Pages: 336
Book Type: Hardcover

Douglas Preston - Tyrannosaur Canyon

Quite an adventure, hidden 65 million years under stones!

Tom Broadbent, known form "The Codex" hears some shots while riding through the canyons. He discovers a dying man who entrusts him a diary full of numbers, with his last breath demanding the promise to give the book to his daughter Robbie.
Without knowing who the man is, the police in his neck, a killer capturing his wife, Tom tries to do the right thing along with his new friend, a former CIA agent while someone, far away, very much unknown and at the end of the foodchain, makes the discovery of the century that will change the history of life and science.

Tyrannosaur Canyon´s a well researched thriller. The reader clearly notices Preston's background through his way of explaining complicated things in an easy way and building around that a thriller that knocks you off.
Having studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, chemistry, geology and astronomy and his work at the American Museum of Natural History, I can´t imagine someone better than him to write about fossils and dinosaurs.

Rating:
Visit Douglas Preston.

ISBN-13: 9780765349651
ISBN-10: 0765349655
Publisher: Forge Books
Publication Date: 8/29/2006
Pages: 416
Book Type: Paperback

Gayle Sanders - Mummy's Witness

To the outside world the Sanders family was a respectable one. The father a teacher, the mother a housewife and mother of three. No one could have believed what went on behind the front door of their large detached home.

The only childhood memories Gayle has are of unimaginable terror as she watched her father viciously abuse her mother - smashing her limbs and breaking her spirit. Gayle herself endures physical and sexual abuse. Desperate not to be noticed, she retreated into herself. There was no love, often no food, and no one turn for to support to.

Any semblance of family life came to burial end when, at just twelve years old, she was forced to witness her father kill her mother.

Her father pleaded manslaughter and received a sentence of three years, but served less than fourteen months. With incredulity Gayle learnt after his release that he had become a vicar.

Gayle meanwhile, numb with shock and grief, passed from foster family to psychiatric hospital where she narrowly survived a suicide attempt. Believing herself in safe nursing hands, she was to undergo the further shocking trauma of rape.

This isn't only a book you read, it's a book you feel from the beginning. Honestly, after reading the first 20 pages I had to turn it down for a day.

This is the sad story of Gayle, similar but even worse to Dave Pelzer, she suffered from seeing her mother beaten and in the end killed by her father. Gayle has been raped and beaten by him, too.

During her journey back to a life she creeps out of her inner darkness after multiple suicide attemps, the loss of her whole family which did not stand behind her and offered no help.
She tells about the anxieties she had, that her father would come one day to get her, feelings of guilt, her wish about being dead, her love for a mother who wasn't capable to feel enough for Gayle and herself and died because she finally found the strenght to do something and get away.
A girl, a teenager and as a women with lots of friends, Gayle was always alone with herself and her feelings and could not open up to people who tried to help her.

Encouraging and heartbreaking she lets us know how helpless she was and how helpless the people around her, social services, psychiatrics, were.

Today Gayle Sander's working for and with families where domestic violence is the order of the day.

Rating:

ISBN-13: 9780340933497
ISBN-10: 0340933496
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Pages: 280
Book Type: Hardcover

Douglas Clegg - The Infinite

This is the third novel about the haunted mansion "Harrows" and it really has some highlights that got to me.
The first half of the book is an outstanding example for introducing the main characters, a look into their life and why they were choosen to play their part in the book.

The plot reminds me of Shirley Jackson´s "Haunting of Hill House":
In the name of a psychic organization three persons with special abilities are invited (for money) to live in Harrow, to try to catch up if and what´s going on there.

Unfortunately in the end, when the book should be at it´s top, it lacks the scary excitement I expected.
Nevertheless it´s a good read, far better than "Mischief".

Rating:
Visit Douglas Clegg.

ISBN-13: 9780843950557
ISBN-10: 0843950552
Publisher: Leisure Books
Pages: 384
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Alice Thompson - Pharos

Set in Scottland, set in the nineteenth century, begins the probably most boring ghost story I´ve ever read.
A remote island, a lighthouse, a keeper, his apprentice and the keeper´s sister deal with the lost memories of a woman that appeared on their island after a ship drowned in a storm.

The women feels like a hostage on an island as the keeper and his sister try to keep her from leaving the island. A cozy ghost story for Sunday afternoons, forgotten on the next day.

Rating:
Visit Alice Thompson.

ISBN-13: 9780425200209
ISBN-10: 0425200205
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Pages: 160
Book Type: Paperback

Mark Billingham - Scaredy Cat

The book description says it all and there isn´t much to add from my side without revealing some of the great secrets the story offers.

***

This has been my first book by Mark Billingham and I am fascinated by the main character Tom Thorne. Intrigued by Mark Billingham´s homepage I got the book because the descriptions Billingham left of DI Thorne´s character made me think there is another interesting series worthy to read.

The book as itself has it´s ups and downs. Partly switching between present and past, which is interesting, but overall the books seems to be very long with lots of unnecessary details. Though the story is a thriller it develops very slowly.

DI Thorne´s personal thoughts and problems reminded me of the early Kay Scarpetta only his are much deeper and emotional which made me connect pretty fast to his character. Certainly I am going to read the rest of the series.

The Tom Thorne Series contains 7 novels so far:

1) Sleepyhead
2) Scaredy Cat
3) Lazybones
4) Burning Girl
5) Lifeless
6) Buried
7) Death Message

Rating:
Visit Mark Billingham.

ISBN-13: 9780061032202
ISBN-10: 0061032204
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: 4/2004
Pages: 448
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Tim Lebbon - 30 Days of Night

They have lived in the shawods.
They are the last of their kind and now their time has come.

Barrow, Alaska.
Preparing for the yearly 30 Days of Night most town residents left the town while around 120 people stay back to keep the town running or just enjoy one month without sunlight.
Some will survive while others surrender to death. The 30 Days of Hiding, crawling through the snow, freezing, starvation and fear have begun and there is only one person whose instincts might be able to save the last survivors until sunrise.

Finally someone wrote a book about the real nature of the vampire as a blood sucking monster. There is no mercy and who gets caught dies.

Scary, entertaining, Tim Lebon.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9781416544975
ISBN-10: 1416544976
Publisher: Pocket Star
Publication Date: 9/25/2007
Pages: 336
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Patricia Cornwell - Book of The Dead

Another sad reading experience by Patricia Cornwell.

The title and the book description are missleading. The book of the dead is mentioned once. Shortly and briefly. It's not even relevant for the plot.
It is hard to find any good words for the book so I will focus on the bad things which by far were enough.
The book says it is a Cornwell but it could have been written by anybody else. (I remember myself saying the same on an Amazon review about "Predator").

Gone are times were the reader knew how Scarpetta thinks and feels. Gone are the times were the reader was capable to follow the crime and the main characters life through Scarpettas eyes. The writing in third person, and the focus on the wrong things makes the story boring, unplausible and unbearable.

The whole books focus seems to be of Scarpetta´s, Benton´s and Marino´s messed up lifes, worthy to make a soap opera about it.

I can not say much without spoiling the book but what the h... did she do to Marino ! ? And then there is Dr. Self, you might remember her from "Predator". What a bad choice to turn her (again) into one of the key personalities.

***

Obviously I´m not the only person that had some hopes left that Patrica Cornwell would get back to her own writing, her early, inspiring Scarpetta novels. After Predator and the last few Scarpetta novels I can only see one direction which is downhill.

Rating:
Visit Patricia Cornwell.

ISBN-13: 9780399153938
ISBN-10: 0399153934
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Publication Date: 10/23/2007
Pages: 416
Book Type: Hardcover

Robert B. Parker - School Days

When a boy is accused of a shocking mass murder, only his grandmother is convinced of his innocence. When she hires Spenser to investigate, the inquiry grows more harrowing with every unexpected turn.

Horrible !

There must be a secret to Parker´s success of mass publishing books. However, I was not able to find it.
First of all this was my first book by Robert B. Parker and certainly it was the last one. I just can´t be friend with dull writing and sentences that rarely contain more than 10 words.

Here´s a short excerpt:
"It had been a wet summer. Outside my office window, it was raining again. I was watching it. Pearl was resting om her couch. Later, when the excitement died down, I might read the paper. My phone rang. Pearl had no reaction. She didn´t care about phones. I didn´t either, but somebody had to answer, so I picked it up."

I rarely write bad reviews but this book deserved one.

Rating:
Visit Robert B. Parker.

ISBN-13: 9780425211342
ISBN-10: 0425211347
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: 10/3/2006
Pages: 320
Book Type: Paperback

Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

A fine thriller that kept me guessing until after the last chapters.
Introduced to the killers mind from the first page, Clement spun a web of characters with important roles and you never know who might be the killer. Bouncing from one person to the others you will keep guessing because all of them might have had a reason, might have had the time and chance to be the killer of non-DNR (do not reanimate) patiens.
In the end the whole story makes sense and the reader closes the book with the thought that there are Angel of Deaths and that leaves you with a little bit of a worry in case you've ever have to be a patient in the next hospital.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780345457813
ISBN-10: 0345457811
Publisher: Fawcett
Publication Date: 12/27/2005
Pages: 384
Book Type: Paperback

Chris Mooney - The Missing

The first time Darby almost died was on the night of her sixteenth birthday. Out with her two best friends, she witnessed a horrible scene - a woman who was tortured and beaten and left for dead in the woods. After being chased by the criminal, Darby looked to her constant savior - her father, "Big Red," a local police officer, and her hero. As always, he made Darby feel safe by promising to find who did this and bring him to justice.

Years later, Darby is now also a cop, having designed her career after her late father's. She is investigating a serial killer who has already slaughtered several young women. There is something eerie about this case from the beginning, and Darby is dismayed when she learns that two of the victims are her childhood friends - the same girls she was with the night she saw the woman in the woods. Soon, it becomes clear that this is no coincidence. Darby is targeted as the next victim, and this time Big Red is not around to save her. Instead, Darby delves further into the investigation, and quickly discovers evidence linking her father to the killer. With no one to save her and not knowing who to trust, Darby struggles to preserve her father's memory as she fights to defend herself against a ruthless killer - one with an unknown motive and a clear plan for murder.

I really enjoyed reading this flawless thriller. Even if the story as itself isn't new to me and won't be to other readers, it never lost it's pace and kept me guessing.

Early from the beginning the reader is introduced to Daniel Boyle, one of the serial killer, his way of thinking and organizing his own cover while the second one's revealed almost at the end of the book.

The end lacks a bit of excitement especially where the story should be at it's top and Darby McCormick finally learns who's the second serial killer.

However, people that like reading about serial killers and mystery friends will enjoy this read that keeps you turning page after page.

Rating:
Visit Chris Mooney.

ISBN-13: 9780743463805
ISBN-10: 0743463803
Publisher: Atria
Publication Date: 3/20/2007
Pages: 400
Book Type: Hardcover

Philip Hawley Jr. - Stigma

In southern California, a young Mayan boy with a blue-crescent-moon tattoo on his chest dies mysteriously. In central America, a puzzling illness is spreading among tribal villages. And soon—very soon—Luke McKenna, a pediatric E.R. physician in Los Angeles, will discover the link between these events and demons from his dark past. The secrets that haunt Luke are about to pull him and the woman he loves into a terrifying house of mirrors. The realm of science and the realm of death are colliding with devastating force, and the stakes couldn't be any higher—the future of the human species.

Time is running out, and only by reawakening the ghost of Luke McKenna's past can they discover the truth.

This is a great debut novel !
I couldn't stop reading it. This fast paced story keeps you sitting in your chair and jumping by the sound of a mosquito.
Keep breathing, this story's more then breathtaking and frightening at the same time.

Hawley is definitely a name one should keep in mind.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780060887445
ISBN-10: 0060887443
Publisher: Harper
Publication Date: 3/1/2007
Pages: 496
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Scott Chandler - Ghostkiller

The description of this book doesn´t exactly match the real content because it only tells us something about Nancy Greenbaum or better, Nancy Greenbaum´s body.

The Ghostkiller died after suffering from terrible burns in the emergency room. Simultaniously, just on the other side of the curtain, doctors are fighting for the life of Nancy Greenbaum, suffering from a brain trauma.
The Ghostkiller dies and while the real Nancy´s too weak to fight against an intruder in her body, the Ghostkiller takes her body and Nancy´s soul is pushed out of it. Like a ghost, floating above the events, she witnesses what happens and sees her own body opening her eyes. Like a ghost she follows her former body to discover terrible homicides when she is suddenly dragged into the body of a dying 14 years old teenager. Her soul in the new body she begins her fight against something older then she or anyone else could ever imagine.
Finally she´s able to get in contact with the detective which was responsible for the death of the Ghostkillers former host.

***

The Ghost Killer´s a well written horror-suspense-mystery mix with a lot of peaks and twists. I really enjoyed the run against time.
In 1998 there was a movie with Denzel Washington named "Fallen" and these two stories are quite similar. I really was surprised to learn that the book was written three years later and almost is read somewhat like the movie tie-in. At least the reader gets the impression the movie was based on this book. I knew the movie and that took quite a lot of my usually fun in reading good stories.
However, the book as itself is worth a read as long as you aren´t too familiar with the movie. It still has different incidents and characters and of course a somewhat different ending.

Since 2001 and "Ghostkiller" Scott Chandler hasn´t published another book but I´ve got this author on my watchlist to give him a second try if there should be another book.

Rating:

ISBN-13: 9780425181003
ISBN-10: 0425181006
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Pages: 288
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Alex Kava - Whitewash

Tallahassee, Florida
Sabrina Galloway is one of the top scientists at EchoEnergy�a company that has made a successful breakthrough in the quest for an alternate fuel. There is the promise of a cleaner tomorrow, and the economic impact on world markets could be staggering. But in the euphoria of excitement, Sabrina makes an alarming discovery: someone has tampered with the production process, and an eco-disaster of equally staggering proportions is imminent. Toxic waste is leaking into the Florida waterways and the Gulf of Mexico.

Washington, D.C.
Jason Brill, one of the youngest congressional chiefs of staff, prepares for the upcoming International Energy Summit. Working for influential senator John Quincy Allen, Jason is eager to prove himself. Despite his zeal and admiration for his boss, Jason begins to realize Senator Allen�s support of EchoEnergy, as well as his personal friendship with the firm�s CEO, may be more of a liability than an asset.

Sabrina and Jason have never met, but both are unwittingly drawn onto a sinister plot that puts corporate greed and corruption above human life. As the energy summit draws near, Sabrina�s determination to expose EchoEnergy�s lethal secret has made her the target of silent, faceless enemies.

As the net is tightening, held in the relentless grip of powerful shadow players whose identities reach Pennsylvania Avenue itself.

I don't get it!
I really liked all Kava books except the one outside the Maggie O`Dell series. So I eagerlie awaited the new book Whitewash and it was a huge disappointment.
Mrs. Kava tried to write something like a polit-thriller which is, in fact, a good idea. The whole plot is a good idea.
Unfortunately she did no manage to write it very well.

Let me tell you what I did not like:
The plot is really good but I really got the feeling that chapters have been shortened by the publisher or author. I had the feeling that the reader is missing important informations and I did not like the short chapters. Some chapters had only three pages and you had to jump to another character. The two main characters did not deal with each other, they did not know each other and honestly, I would not have mind if one of them (Jason) would not have been a character in the book at all.

Whitewash is a strong book but it has too much pages with insufficient sentences to tell the story in one whole piece.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780778324409
ISBN-10: 0778324400
Publisher: Mira
Publication Date: 6/1/2007
Pages: 429
Book Type: Hardcover

Ray Garton - The Loveliest Dead

To most people it´s just a large house, old and a bit run-down.
To the Kellar family it´s a new start, a chance to wipe out the painful past and begin again.
But soon it will become a living nightmare.
The terrors begin before the Kellar´s have even finished unpacking. They hear things, see things, shadowy glimpses into the impossible, things that are there -- and then gone.

Who are the mysterious children playing on the rusty, vine-covered swing set in the backyard ? Who is the figure sitting in the dark corner of the bedroom at night ?
Who or what waits in the basement ? They are the dead and they cannot rest. Horror stalks the halls of the Kellar house. And the secrets of the past are reaching from beyond the grave to destroy the living."

An all around successful horror classic, an old story revided. The plot´s for a lot of horror readers nothing new but Mr. Garton set a new course that will fascinate every reader.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780843956481
ISBN-10: 0843956488
Publisher: Leisure Books
Publication Date: 1/3/2006
Pages: 372
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback

Patricia Cornwell - At Risk

A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy.
His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk-its motto: "Any crime, any time."
In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder-in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?

Her investigator is not so sure - not sure about anything to do with this woman, really-but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but the lives of everyone around them. It's not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed . . . and they're about to get much worse.

How disappointing. I was wondering if this book was written by P. C. ?!
After all this years it finished my enthuiasm for Cornwell and I will never again buy a book without waiting for enough positive (!) online reviews made by happy readers.

After "Predator" which was disappointing as well, I truly believed it can't get worse. Unfortunately it can.

Let's hope that Win Garano will vanish like the Andy Brazil series and Mrs. Cornwell reads our reviews. It's not worth to be continued.

Rating:
Visit Patricia Cornwell.

ISBN-13: 9780399153624
ISBN-10: 0399153624
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Publication Date: 5/23/2006
Pages: 224
Book Type: Hardcover

John Saul - Black Creek Crossing

Angel Sullivan, a plain-looking 14-year-old who never fits in, gets a chance for a fresh start when her family moves into the plush community of Roundtree.
Myra, her obsessively religious mother, and Marty, her lazy, alcoholic father, buy a house on Black Creek Crossing, even though the place is rumored to be haunted.
Soon after they settle in, a black cat mysteriously appears out of thin air, smoke from a nonexistent fire fills the house and a girl's face appears in the darkness, reflected in a mirror.

Meanwhile, Angel, with the help of another school outcast, Seth Baker, begins to investigate the history of the house. They discover an ancient book of spells that may have belonged to the house's original owners, members of a Salem-like community of witches, and the teens proceed to cast spells on the bullies who torment them. But the sinister forces inhabiting the house are just biding their time until they turn their malice on Angel and Seth.

The first 100 sides are thrilling. After that it becomes slowly and boring.
You know what will happen that's what made the whole book very long-winded.
Maybe because I've seen a few movies which had the same story line ?!

J. Saul tells a true story about young people outstanding which made them to outsiders, teased by classmates. That's a true message. ;-)
The other part was fiction, boring and not on his usual high level of fascinating readers like me.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780449006542
ISBN-10: 0449006549
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: 5/31/2005
Pages: 480
Book Type: Paperback

Jim Thompson - The Killer Inside Me

This book was first published in 1952 and it is 2007 and it is still very timely.

Lou Ford is a deputy sheriff somewhere in Texas. Everybody likes him because of his friendlyness, helpfullness etc. .
In the beginning of the first pages the reader experiences Lous other side:
Behind all the niceness and helpfulness lurks a sadistic animal whose veins lie in bodily and mental abuse.

The book is written out of Lous perspective, the psychopath without mercy for his victims. Based on the events of his youth, the loss of his brother, who took Lous guilt and paid with his life, a hate-love developes particulary against a special type of women.
Lou kills several people and seems to be always in control.
What has to be will be done, is necessary for him. He is confident nobody could possibly do any harm to him.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780679733973
ISBN-10: 0679733973
Publisher: Vintage
Publication Date: 3/13/1991
Pages: 256
Book Type: Paperback

Jane Yolen - The Devil's Arithmetic

One might imagine the books description tells all and you already know what will happen etc. but let me tell you, I have read a lot of books about the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Hard facts, peoples destiny during those times.
This book is fiction, told by a author with Jewish descent, thinking it is time to let go and no longer remember at any holiday or occasion what happend in the past.
She writes what most German people of the second generation past the Second World War feel, think and live. Most people are sick of hearing of it, sick of being blamed for what their ancestors did, sick of paying and sick of still wearing the invisible sign of being a German. I know that because I am German and had a lot of discussions with people from other countries.

So it is quite fantastic and emotional that a jewish author picks up this high sensible topic to write a book why people are sick of remembering and why it is important to not to forget.

There is this little girl Hannah, who is bored and rebellious with all this jewish rituals every year. She opens a door and is transported into the past. Not any past, it is the past of her own ancestors and a journey that ends in a concentration camp and the gas chamber.

It remembered me that when no one´s left to remember mankind, there won´t be someone who´s going to protect us against the same happening again and to tell us what can happen all over the world when there´s one person with the ability to influence a whole nation and more.

Rating:
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ISBN-13: 9780142401095
ISBN-10: 0142401099
Publisher: Puffin Books
Publication Date: 4/12/2004
Pages: 176
Book Type: Paperback

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