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:
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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:
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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