George D. Shuman - Lost Girls

Sherry Moore becomes embroiled in her most perilous and disturbing case to date and finds that the lives of hundreds of women hang in the balance.

Sherry Moore would do anything for her confidant and best friend, retired Admiral Garland Bringham. So when he suddenly asks her to assist a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in a daring high-altitude rescue on Mount McKinley, she doesn't hesitate and soon finds herself flying across the country to hang vertically off an Alaskan cliff, tethered to Captain Brian Metcalf. Sherry, renowned for her ability to see the last eighteen seconds of a deceased person's memory, takes the hand of a dead climber, hoping to ascertain the whereabouts of his missing climbing team. But what she sees leaves her with visions that will haunt her long past Alaska.

While rumors of slave girls being trafficked around the Caribbean have circulated for years, little credible evidence has been uncovered about these "lost girls." When detective inspector Rolly King George recovers the body of a young blond woman, naked except for a shocking tattoo branded onto her cheek, he knows she may hold the key to toppling this criminal underworld. Through delicate back-channel negotiations, Sherry arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, to see the deceased and finds that things are more complicated than she thought: the remains are of Jill Bishop, an American teenager last seen in a Santo Domingo marketplace.

Carol Bishop, relentless in her pursuit to find out how her daughter died, and Sherry, the distressing images from Mount McKinley still fresh in her memory, embark on a frantic hunt for clues from the Domincan Republic to the remote jungles of Haiti, racing against time to save others from Jill's fate. Along the way, Sherry must confront a legendary voodoo priest, who possesses abilities eerily similar to her own, and take on a man whose depraved practices give new meaning to the word evil.

-

While in the Dominican Republic young and rich Jill Bishop is kidnapped, tortured and gang-raped, Sherry Moore is called to help to locate a group of missing climbers that were surprised by a storm.
With her ability to see the last 18 seconds of what a dead person was thinking she touches the body of a dead man who tried to leave coordinates painted on a wall for rescue teams to find his team.
The group is found but Sherry's horror-stricken by what else she saw: broken and tortured women, a one eyed man hovering over them and leaving a tattoo on their face.
More surprisingly she later learns the background of this man who was running away from his father's legacy.

When Jill sees the chance to end her life with a jump out of a flying planes door and into the ocean, she is watched by a senior investigator on holiday who happened to be part of a convention talking about human trafficking issues and exactly the tattoo he finds on Jill's dead body.
Hiding the dead body he makes the right calls to the right man who bring back Sherry to touch Jill's memory.

It is a race against time and law, bringing to strong women together, leading them into a nightmare.

-

Lost Girls is the most impressing book I've read this year. I literally couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting. Shuman like in his previous novels doesn't make Sherry the main attraction but the person connecting the dots and people.
Human trafficking has never been such visible and graphic for me. I mean I knew about it but did I really think about it ? I doubt it.
I had the shivers, I got frightened just by suggestions and my own imagination.
It's not easy to digest if you can't let go of what you think about and what your imagination shows you but if you do you are in for ride you won't forget easily.

I haven't forgotten my doubts after I read the first Sherry Moore novel, 18 Seconds, along came Last Breath which was quite good.

But Lost Girls leaves me with three words:
Excellent, frightening and unforgettable.

Rating:
Visit George D. Shuman.

Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (September 16, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416553010
ISBN-13: 978-1416553014

Franck Thilliez - Die Kammer der toten Kinder

Friends Vigo & Sylvain have been laid off work some six months ago. After a nightly, childish visit at their former employers walls, armed with spray cans Vigo decides a little race with himself with turned off headlights might be just what they need.
Too late he sees the man stepping onto the dark street. The man is dead, his duffel bag filled with two million Euros.
Although Sylvain wants to call the police Vigo can coax him into silence. His plan is to clean the scene as best as they can, make the body disappear and take the money for themselves.

Lucie Henebelle always wanted to become a profiler but destiny gave her two twin daughters to raise all by herself besides her police job.
Luck has it that she becomes involved in the disappearance of professor Cunar whose wife frantically called the police that he hasn't returned home from his way to pay off his little daughter from the hands of a kidnapper. The girls dead corpse is found in the house next to the scene where evidence is found of an accident. The kidnapper must have seen what happened to the father and although must have seen the car that killed the professor.

-

Die Kammer der toten Kinder (orig. La chambre des morts) is a fast paced novel that just sounds right to be made into a grueling movie.
Thilliez throws in some new elements to the thriller genre and easily tricks the reader into a plot that wasn't expected from what the books description tells up front. Taxidermy isn't a topic that I have met often while reading. The more it is interesting to read about it. it sucks out ones breath to just think about a killer mounting his victims.

In the end what threw me off was the books ending which didn't met the standard the reader got used to by Thilliez but maybe that's just me who prefers to read English rather than my native language. Whatever it is, it was a fine read with great movie opportunities and a good Hannibal Lecter feel.

So far the book hasn't been translated into English yet.

Rating:
Visit Franck Thilliez.

Perfect Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg. (July 31, 2007)
Language: German
ISBN-10: 3548266673
ISBN-13: 978-3548266671

Barbara Delinsky - While My Sister Sleeps

An Olympic marathon contender, self-centered Robin Snow often rubs her younger sister, Molly, the wrong way. After many years in her sister's shadow, Molly takes out her resentment with petty actions, such as refusing to accompany Robin on a run. Fatefully, Robin has a heart attack while training and falls into a coma. As Robin's condition fails to improve, Delinsky digs tediously into the family's woes: Molly's touchy relationship with Robin's ambitious reporter ex-boyfriend; middle son Chris's dealings with a would-be blackmailer; mother Kathryn's trouble coming to terms with Robin's dire prognosis.

-

The two sisters Molly and Robin Snow couldn't be more different from each other. Robin, the elite marathon runner training for the Olympics, depending on her sister Molly's help managing her daily life and her job at the family plant and tree nursery.
Life changes when 32-years-old Robin suffers a heart attack that leaves her brain dead, forcing the family to come to terms with family issues, deeply hidden secrets and revelations. During the process deciding on what to do with the earthly remains of Robin, her mother Kathryn lives in denial while sister Molly becomes Robin's advocate and voice on what Robin would want.
Reading her sister's diary Molly sees a different side of her sister she's so often despised but never the less deeply loves but the journal also opens doors to revelations that could shatter the whole family.

-

While My Sister Sleeps is one of those stories you live and feel while you are reading. I downloaded an excerpt which included the first chapter and I instantly wanted the whole story. The beauty of this book is in the non-dramatic way Delisnky tells us the story. Of course it is dramatic and sad but her way of telling is no nonsense, not overly tearful but mature.
I fell in love with this until now unknown author and will definitely read more of her novels.

Rating:
Visit Barbara Delisnky.
Watch the trailer.

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (February 17, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385524927
ISBN-13: 978-0385524926

C. J. Box - Three Weeks To Say Goodbye

Jack and Melissa McGuane have spent years trying to have a baby. Finally their dream has come true with the adoption of their daughter, Angelina. But nine months after bringing her home, they receive a devastating phone call from the adoption agency: Angelina's birth father, a teenager, never signed away his parental rights ad he wants her back. Worse, his father, a powerful Denver judge, wants him to own up to his responsibility and will use every advantage his position of power affords him to make sure happens.
When Jack and Melissa attempt to handle the situation rationally by meeting face-to-face with the father and son, it is immediately apparent that there's something sinister about both of them and that love for Angelina is not the motivation for their actions.
As Angelina's safety hangs in the balance, Jack and Melissa will stop at nothing to protect their child. A horrifying game of intimidation and double crosses begins that quickly becomes a death spiral where absolutely no one is safe.

-

Melissa and Jack McGuane went through the adoption process to finally receive their newborn daughter Angelina nine months ago. Life has changed but they are a happy family until the birth father and his father, a influential and powerful judge claim the child back due to never have signed the parental rights away.
Facing the legal loss of their daughter the McGuanes' are left with three weeks to say goodbye to the little girl.

Three weeks that fly by in an instant but not without the McGuanes' using own resources to find something on the judge to discredit him in court. But everyone is shying away in fear of the judge's grudge. Left with two dear friends they find worrying clues but nothing substantial.
With their daily life being messed with the parents know nothing good can come of the judge's family and they begin to fear for Angelina's life.

-

Three Weeks To Say Goodbye is a novel where you literally fly through. With a
no-brainer writing style Box catches the reader on a beach read that is enjoyable but not overly exciting. The missing surprises and the cliche-ish characters didn't match the usual standard I have gotten used to by C. J. Box.

Rating:
Visit C. J. Box.

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (January 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312365721
ISBN-13: 978-0312365721

Gillian Flynn - Dark Places

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnake, Kansas."
as her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer.
Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust fund created by well wishers who've long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details - proof they hope that may free Ben - Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she'll reconnect with players from that night and report her findings to the club ... and maybe she'll admit her testimony wasn't so solid after all.
As Libby's search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby's doomed family members - including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have drive3n him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town.
Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started - on the run from the killer.

-

Libby Day's family was slaughtered when she was seven years old. Since then she's passed time living of a the fund well wishers built for her. 25 years is a long time and now the fund is at its end. With no education or working experience chances are that sooner or later she won't be able to pay her rent and what than ?
When Lyle Wright approaches her in the name of the The Kill Club, a society that of crime fans, approaches her and offers money just for talking in front of some people about her past she's more than desperate enough to accept the offer but soon learns that the majority of the club believes in Ben's innocence and thinks she was coached into her testimony against her brother.
Desperation brings her to agree to talk to people of her past for money and she soon finds herself thrown into a past she didn't know about. Beginning to believe that maybe she was coached she learns about the dark side of her brother's nature and the ultimate conclusion what really happened on January 2, 1985.

-

Dark Places is an easy, conclusive read, with three main characters: Libby in the present, Ben and Libby's mother Patty Day in the past. It is difficult to find any sympathy for the protagonists except for the mother but the lack of character doesn't hurt the whole story which is a great mystery.
Some things add up strangely and make the book especially in the end very weak but ultimately it kept me reading probably because it was such an easy read where one got everything served on a platter.

Rating:
Visit Gillian Flynn.

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books (May 5, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307341569
ISBN-13: 978-0307341563

Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone crunching zombie mayhem. As out story opens, a mysterious plaque has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life !

Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers and even more violent on the blood-soaked battlefield.
Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan ? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry ?
Complete with romance, heartbreak swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

-

People who know me, know that once in a while I dive into a zombie novel enjoying some gore and flesh eating. This novel however didn't get me at all. Instead I gave up after about 30 pages. Instead of the usual zombie gore I got a huge zombie bore and still feel very disappointed in this novel.
I understand this book should have some sort of zombie humor in it but even this one I couldn't find.

In the end I believe this book is more for the original Pride and Prejudice fan than it is for the zombie fan. Romance fans probably don't have a clue about zombies and might find some humor in this one the zombie fan probably won't.

I liked the cover art. :-)

Rating:

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Quirk Books (April 4, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594743347
ISBN-13: 978-159474334-4

Steve Alten - MEG: Hell's Aquarium

The Philippine Sea Plate:
The most unexplored realm on the planet. Surrounded by subduction zones and no less than six abyssal gorges - including the seven-mile-deep, 1,500 mile long Mariana Trench, the sea is also home to an incredibly anomaly, for hidden beneath its primordial crust lies the remains of the Phantalassa, an ocean that dates back 220 million years. vast and isolated, the Phantalassa is a purgatory of existence, inhabited by nightmarisch sea creatures log believed extinct.

Tanaka Institute, Monterey, CA:
Four years have passed since Angel, the 76-foot, 100,000 pound Megalodon returned from the Mariana Trench to birth her litter of pups - five females - far too numerous and aggressive to keep in one pen. As accidents mounts, one solutions presents itself: A Dubai royal prince is building the largest aquarium in the world and seeks to purchase two of the "runts".
The deal hinges on hiring Jonas Taylor's twenty-one year old son, David, to be their handler.
Jonas reluctantly agrees, and David is off to Dubai for the summer of his life, not realizing he is being set up to lead an expedition that will hunt down and capture the most dangerous creatures ever to inhabit Earth.

-

The Tanaka Institute located at the beautiful coast of Monterey, California, holds the most desired attraction for shark fans and therefore the most dangerous monster ever captured alive: Angel, the Carcharodon megalodon and her litter of five pups. Since the pups are getting too big for the aquarium and "casualties" have already happened, Jonas Taylor faces decisions on how to handle their space problem. The offer from Dubai to buy two of the pups and some submersibles comes just in time as the animals become more and more annoyed with each other. Maybe this will keep the activists threatening to boycott the aquarium away for a while.
He reluctantly agrees to send his young son David with the sharks to keep an eye on them and also to teach a group of pilots how to handle the submersibles.

David didn't anticipate that the main goal wasn't to get him as a teacher but rather get him into diving the depths of the dangerous Phantalassa. He is lured into the deep dive with more than the possibilty to never come back.

Jonas knowing what awaits his son deep down has to react when he learns his son's submersible is missing.

-

What an adventure packed in a single book that easily could have been two books with two themes ! I couldn't get enough of the happenings in the Institute and on David's
excursion into the difficult to imagine depths of the ocean.
Having read all of the MEG books I easily say this one is the best of them all.
The pups are food for your nerves, never letting you sit back in your seat and relax. The book mostly keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering how crazy one would be about a movie and a movie it should be.

Meet old characters of the Taylor family and their closest friends and get to know the new generation of Taylors' and their friends, most certainly building the foundation for more dangerous adventures.

All I can say is, that I want more and already took out the older novels to re-read them again.

Rating:
Visit Steve Alten.

Hardcover: 342 pages
Publisher: Variance Publishing LLC (May 19, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935142046
ISBN-13: 978-1935142041