Review: Exit Music

I know I am going to love a book that starts with “The girl screamed once, only once…”. Ian Rankin uses this line to great effect as he sets the scene for a brutal murder in the first chapter of this hard-boiled who-done-it, Exit Music. In classic style, we tag along with Detective Inspector John Rebus and his loyal partner, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, as they begin a new investigation from the beginning; the blood is still warm and the crime scene is fresh. What first appears as a mugging gone horribly bad is quickly complicated when the identity of the victim is learned. He is a Russian poet who is highly critical of his motherland and the changes occurring there. In an era when Russian reporters and dissidents seem to have a higher mortality rate than a front line soldier, the victim’s connections suddenly open the doors to international intrigue and political implications. When a second murder is discovered, the victim being a material witness in the case, the heat is turned up, and it brings all the creeps out of the woodwork. [Read more...]

Review: Playing With Fire By Peter Robinson

Alan Banks and D.I. Annie Cabbot are investigating a fire that consumed two barges in the Yorkshire canal. Investigators find two charred bodies among the ruins, and are also able to determine the fire as having been deliberately set. Two nights later, another fire consumes a remote trailer and claims another life. The fires seem related, so Banks and Cabbot begin their investigation, trying to connect the dots that may link them while also trying to figure out why they are being set in the first place. The answer to that question will aid them in pinpointing the culprit and bring them to justice, possibly stopping them before any further lives are lost. [Read more...]

Review: Mind Scrambler

I think I have found a new crime fighting hero. Chris Grabenstein’s new John Ceepak novel, Mind Scrambler, the fifth in the series, rocked my world. The story revolves around two Sea Haven detectives who are on administrative leave  in Atlantic City. While there, Danny Boyle, Ceepak’s partner and the voice of the narrative, runs into a ex-girlfriend and makes an appointment to meet her. It is a rendezvous she will never make. Danny’s old flame is currently the nanny for a family of performing Magicians currently headlining at a major casino. She is found, after the show, in what appears to be an S&M sex scene gone bad, the victim of over-zealous asphyxiophilia.(GoogleGoogle it or ask your teenager.) With the Atlantic City PD overwhelmed with crime, and the potential media storm and bad publicity, Bolye and Ceepak are deputized to help with the case. As the clues mount, along with the bodies, it becomes crystal clear there is a lot going on behind the scenes, and uncovering the secrets this family of prestidigitators want to keep will not be easy. [Read more...]