'The Somnambulist' by Jonathan Barnes

ISBN: 0061375381
Format: Hardcover, 353pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: February 2008
Price: $23.95

Peopled with the odd and the outstanding, The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes is a macabre tale of crime told by an almost nameless narrator. We are warned from the beginning that this book contains no literary value and that we should not become attached to its characters. Of course the narrator does leave it up to us to decide and in the end you can’t help but be engrossed by the characters and tale that is spun like a web across the page.

Edward Moon is a man who once was the toast of this 19th century London; he is a conjuror, an illusionist of the highest order who also has a reputation for solving the unsolvable crimes that baffle the police. A constant companion to Moon is the Somnambulist, a man with no other name, who is completely silent, communicates via a chalk board and has a passion for milk.

But Moon has seen better times; he is past his prime, hair finally starting to thin and clothes which were once the height of fashion now worn. He belongs to an older time, an older London in which there were great criminal cases to occupy his mind and his theater was full every night as he performed his illusions with the Somnambulist. Those times have passed. A new century has begun and it seems as if Edward Moon will fade into the past, something he is loathe to do.

When there is a mysterious murder Detective Merryweather comes to Moon for help. Moon, desperate and bored, jumps at the chance to prove that he still has his edge and with the Somnambulist in tow he jumps into the investigation. But like any good 19th century sensation novel The Somnambulist is a twisty, curvy tale that leads you in many directions as once. While the answer in the end is constant the question throughout the book changes. The murder is just the tip of the iceberg and soon Moon is trying to uncover a conspiracy that could bring London to her knees.

The characters are unique and wonderful by turns as well as sick and depraved. My favorites are the deadly duo, those cheerful bringers of death and destruction, the Prefects. Yes, from the moment they stabbed someone in the heart with an umbrella and opened it they had my heart. These two men, one large and one small, are always dressed in school boy uniforms and both have permanently cheerful demeanors. You can’t do anything but love, or be slightly sickened by this very imaginative, murderous pair. There are also such standouts like The Fly, Mina a bearded prostitute, a man who lives his life backward, a vagrant that carries a sign which reads “Surely I Am Coming Soon. Revelation 22:20” and an albino civil servant with a penchant for arson.

In the final chapters the narrator is revealed and the story which up until this point was more of a period crime novel with elements of the fantastic becomes complete fantasy. It builds slowly so that once this change finally does happen it makes complete sense and you can’t imagine the story taking any other turn. The Somnambulist is a dark and slightly odd tale that is not to be missed whether you’re a fan of… well anything. This is simply a must read.

'Blood Price' by Tanya Huff

Price: $6.99
ISBN: 0756405017
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 272pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

I was in my favorite used bookstore the other day when I ran across a copy of Blood Price by Tanya Huff. I’ve heard a ton of good things about the series and I picked it up because I’m a sucker for anything with a vampire in it. I wasn’t disappointed.

Blood Price is the first in the Blood series which centers around an ex-cop and a vampire. Vicki “Victory” Nelson was the best detective on the force in Toronto and she left at the top of her game. Now a year later she’s working as a private investigator but she’s bitter about the circumstances in which she left.

Coming home late one night on the subway she hears a scream and runs to investigate. Though she knows that it’s a stupid thing to do without back up, and without even a badge, Vicki rushes into an unknown situation just to prove to herself that she still has what it takes. She finds much more than she was counting on.

Across the city people are dying in a horrific way; their throats are being torn out and their bodies drained of all blood. Henry Fitzroy is furious when he sees the headlines in the paper, and knowing that it’s only a matter of time before the public starts screaming ‘Vampire’ - he decides to do something about it.

When Vicki and Henry’s paths finally cross each must make the decision to trust the other. Henry gets someone to confide his secret in, the fact that he is a vampire, and Vicki gets a supernatural edge on a case that just seems to get worse. Throw in detective Mike Celluci, Vicki’s ex-partner as well as lover, a demon terrorizing the city of Toronto and you’ve got a paranormal mystery that’s hard to beat.

Blood Price is a great book. You get such a feel for the characters, especially Vicki, and each one comes across solid and three dimensional. One of the things that makes the difference is the fact that each back story is so well thought out. Henry Fitzroy is made more real for each flashback and Vicki and Mike are perfect because of their tumultuous history. You become lost in the story, and trust me it’s easy to do, as the three try to find a killer that is less than human.

Another cool thing for those fans of Tanya Huff is that this series has been adapted into a television series, Blood Ties, on Lifetime. I might have to break down and get cable just so I can watch this series because if it’s even half as good as Blood Price then I’m already a fan.

'Agents of Light and Darkness' by Simon R. Green

ISBN: 0441011136
ISBN-13: 9780441011131
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 233pp
Publisher: Ace /Penguin Group (USA)
Price: $6.99

John Taylor has a new case in Agents of Light and Darkness, the second book in the Nightside series by Simon R. Green. When the Unholy Grail turns up it’s only a matter of time before the people living in the Nightside think of John Taylor and his gift for finding things. But it isn’t only the major and minor players who are looking for this evil object; the forces of light and dark are after it as well. Heaven and Hell will turn the Nightside into a battleground looking for the Unholy Grail unless John can find it first.

Contracted by a mysterious priest by the name of Jude, John sets out to recruit some help. He finds Suzie Shooter vegetating on her couch, her apartment a mess, but when he mentions work she brightens up and suits up in her signature studded black leather. Suzie, by the way, has a poster of Emma Peel on her wall with ‘My Hero’ scrolled in lipstick underneath it. I just love that.

So with Suzie by his side, John sets out to find the Unholy Grail. But things aren’t always what they seem, this is the Nightside after all, and nothing is going to be easy. When it is always 3am and the bad guys don’t have to wait for dark you never know what you might find around the corner. But he’s John Taylor, I mean come on, they know better than to take him on. That doesn’t stop them from trying though.

Besides the gruesome, graphic, utterly wonderful horror, there is a lot of humor here: dark, bitter, twisted smiles that curve the corners of broken lips as the grin-wearing fool wipes blood out of his eyes. I guess the phrase would be darkly comic. Well, Simon R. Green has mastered it and makes it seem effortless.

Razor Eddie, the Punk God of the Straight Razor, is back as well. From John and Suzie to Cathy, The Collector, and the gang at Strangefellows, how can you not love these characters? And with details like The Little Sisters of the Immaculate Chain Saw and Nasty Johnny Starlight, you have something that is so far beyond amazing it borders on insane. Yes, insane.

I read a lot, I think I read more than is good for my brain sometimes, and these books stand out like a decapitated body in a church. Read them.

You can purchase an electronic version of Agents of Light and Darkness straight from the publisher here. While you are at it check out the tribute site to Simon R. Green, Blue Moon Rising.

'The Devil’s Right Hand' by Lilith Saintcrow

ISBN: 0316021423
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 391pp
Publisher: Orbit
Price: $6.99

Dante is back in The Devil’s Right Hand, the third book in the Dante Valentine series by Lilith Saintcrow. After everything Dante has faced, the horrors of Rigger Hall, the death and rebirth of Japhrimel, and the very final passing of Jace Monroe, you would think that things couldn’t get any worse. But you would be wrong.

The Devil isn’t done with Dante. He’s been calling her for a long time and he’s tired of waiting for her answer. Dante has spent time recovering from her final battle in Rigger Hall away from Saint City, Japhrimel never very far away. She’s had time to relax and isn’t walking around with her sword in her hand all the time, an amazing thing for her. But when the Devil calls, you can’t ignore him forever.

The Devil contracts Dante as his new Right Hand. She has seven years to hunt down and kill four demons that have escaped from the bowels of hell. In return Japhrimel is given back his full demon powers and the Devil promises protection for Dante for all eternity. But he isn’t called the Father of Lies for nothing.

As Dante gets her first taste of battle since her near defeat by Mirovitch she realizes that she might be in over her head. She has become a pawn in the Devil’s game and he wasn’t kind enough to share the rules first. But it isn’t like Danny Valentine to back away from a fight and at the end of the day it is still one of the things she does best. With a new blade at her side, the first one lying broken at the bottom of the ocean, Dante wonders if she carries a blade that could kill the Devil.

One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed so far about this series is that with each book you get to see Dante and Japhrimel’s relationship evolve. All along Dante has treated Japhrimel like a human, no different from how she treats everyone else in her life. Dante seems to forget that Japhrimel is not a man but a demon and she receives a grim reminder of this fact.

Dante is also haunted by her past. Jace’s voice echoes through her mind, she sees his ghostly figure in a bar that he never visited in life, and once faced with a grown Eve all Dante can think about is her deceased friend and lover Doreen. It is a hard, hurtful past that she can’t put behind her, something that makes her more human despite the fact that she isn’t quite human anymore.

While you could pick this one up and enjoy it out of sequence with the rest of the novels I would recommend you start with Working for the Devil, the first book in the series. At this point there is just too much story, and while you would be able to pick it up along the way, wouldn’t you rather get to know Dante and Japhrimel from the beginning?

SciFiChick read and reviewed this one as well as Book Fetish

'Something from the Nightside' by Simon R. Green

ISBN: 0441010652
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 230pp
Publisher: Ace
Price: $6.99

Something from the Nightside is the first in Simon R. Green’s Nightside Series, a group of books based around John Taylor, a private detective that has a gift for finding lost things.

John has been living in London for five years when Joanna Barett, a rich business woman, asks him to find her missing daughter Cathy. She has one clue, Nightside. John left the Nightside, swearing never to go back, but he’s a sucker for someone in need and agrees to find the girl for a hefty price. The one condition Joanna has is that she gets to go along.

The Nightside is a square mile in the middle of London, except that it’s bigger than that, and it’s always three in the morning. All kinds live there: myths, monsters, dreams, and a few seemingly normal people just passing through. It’s where you go to find the things that can only live in the dead of night.

John, who’s name is still spoken of in the Nightside, goes back to one of his old haunts to collect some information on the missing girl. In Strangefellows, a bar that has been open since the beginning of time, John runs into one of his old friends, Razor Eddie, the Punk God of the Straight Razor. Except that in the Nightside things are not always what they seem and friends are not always friends. From there, it’s a wild ride through the dark streets in search of Cathy.

Simon R. Green fills the book with characters that really stand out. From Razor Eddie to Suzie Shooter, better known as Shotgun Suzie, and even John himself; these characters are never quite what they seem, just like the Nightside. John’s past is hinted at, but nothing really solid comes through. I’m hoping in the future books you learn more about his past and why his name is remembered, for one reason or another, by everyone in the Nightside.

Something from the Nightside is a quick horrific novel. From insects exploding out of a man’s body to faceless men with hypodermic needles for fingers, this novel is filled with images straight from your darkest nightmares. Throw in a little noir style and dark rich atmosphere, and you have one heck of a read.

'Dead Man Rising' by Lilith Saintcrow

ISBN: 031600314X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 380pp
Publisher: Orbit
Price: $6.99

When I finished Working for the Devil I immediately picked up Dead Man Rising, the second book in the Dante Valentine series. It picks up with Dante and Jace almost a year after the events of the previous book.

Dante has thrown herself into tracking down bounties with the death of Japhrimel still haunting her. The mark on her shoulder, Japhrimel’s name branded into her skin, has started to burn again after the long period of cold. Jace, who followed her back to Saint City from Nuevo Rio after she finished the Santino case, is working with her and trying to keep her alive. The real reason he is there remains unspoken between them — his love for her, despite the fact that she is still in love with a dead demon.

With the changes made to her body when Japhrimel changed her, Dante isn’t aging like the people around her. She sees the signs in Jace’s eyes with their crow's feet and dark circles, the few strands of grey running through Gabe’s dark hair, and lines around Eddie’s mouth. Dante wonders if once they are gone, once there is no one to remember how she was before, if she will be dead then, too.

When Gabe, one of Dante’s closest friends and a fellow necromancer, contacts her about a case, Dante can’t refuse. She feels honor-bound to help Gabe out despite the fact that she would rather not pick at old wounds. Psions, people with magical ability, are being brutally murdered and the one clue they have to go on leads to a past that Dante doesn’t want to remember.

Rigger Hall, the place of long buried memory, is somehow connected to the recent deaths. Dante grew up in Rigger Hall, an orphanage and school for those gifted with magical ability, which was run by the sadistic headmaster Mirovitch. That was years ago; Rigger Hall is closed and Mirovitch long dead, but deep down Dante knows the past isn’t going to stay buried.

With Jace refusing to leave her side and Japhrimel’s voice echoing in her head, Dante faces the horrors of her past. The Devil makes another appearance and asks a question that sparks hope in Dante, “Can it be you have not resurrected him?” But Dante knows better than to trust the Devil, the Father of Lies, and pushes his question away to concentrate on the killer roaming Saint City.

There is a lot of depth to these books. They aren’t just straight, mindless fantasy; the characters are dark, broken, and then sewn together with pure determination. Dante’s childhood, which she must face, is practically gruesome although there are other characters who have had it worse.

Dead Man Rising is dark, gritty, urban fantasy at its best. But what made it even better is the fact that it is the continuing tale of a character who is unforgettable. If you read these out of order you would completely miss the building momentum, the small things that add up to create a series that is truly fantastic.

'Working for the Devil' by Lilith Saintcrow

ISBN: 0316003131
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 384pp
Publisher: Orbit
Price: $6.99

Working for the Devil is the first in a five book series covering the life and times of Dante Valentine.

Dante, Danny for short, is the kind of character you can really sink your teeth into. A katana-wielding Necromancer, Dante doesn't take crap from anyone. Tough, smart, and deadly, she's built a reputation for herself in Saint City. She's one of the best, maybe even the best, and that is why one rainy day the Devil asks for her help.

The Devil has a job for Dante and he isn't going to let her refuse. A demon has escaped from hell with something very precious - an egg that, if opened, could mean an apocalypse for Earth. For Dante the job is even harder to turn down once she learns that the demon she will be hunting is the same one that almost killed her a few years before. The demon, Santino, had also killed her friend Doreen and Dante feels honor bound to hunt him down. Japhrimel, the Devil's right hand demon and most deadly assassin, is made Dante's familiar and protector.

Driven by a dark past that is only hinted at in Rigger Hall and the brutal murder of Doreen, Dante checks with her contacts in Saint City for any sign of Santino. Japhrimel is always a few steps away and at first Dante is uneasy about having the demon shadowing her. But after awhile the feel of his dark aura and his cinnamon smell become as familiar to her as her own skin.

Dante gets help, whether she wants it or not, from her Necromancer and cop friend Gabriele, Gabe's hedgewitch boyfriend Eddie, and ex-lover Jace who just happens to have ties to the Mob. Not to mention the demon. They follow Santino to Nuevo Rio where the hunters become the hunted.

One of the things that really stood out about this book was the world. The technology is advanced (think Blade Runner) and the mix of floating cars and laser guns with ancient Egyptian gods and swords fit perfectly. It's complicated and not everything is explained in depth. Things are just mention in passing, thrown at you and either you catch it or you don't. But this isn't a problem, it only adds to the feeling of reality, as Dante fights her way toward Santino and the egg.

Based in a world full of advanced technology and ancient magic, Working for the Devil is a dark urban fantasy that reaches out and grabs you by the throat. It is one kick butt start to what I'm sure will turn out to be one of the better series around. If Dante Valentine isn't on your reading list, you're missing out.

SciFiChick read and reviewed this one too...

'The Reincarnationist' A Novel of Suspense by M.J. Rose

ISBN: 0778324206
Format: Hardcover, 464pp
Publisher: Mira Books
Price: $24.95

With the The Reincarnationist, M.J. Rose has crafted a novel that is as interesting as it is entertaining. The idea of reincarnation is the backdrop in this thrilling story that blends mystery and suspense together for a gripping read. M.J. Rose has studied and based her story as much as possible on fact; she even provides a reading list once you've finished her haunting novel.

When we first meet Josh Ryder, a photographer on assignment in modern Rome, he is on the verge of surviving a terrorist explosion. Josh witnesses a security guard arguing with a woman pushing a stroller when his world disappears in a bright flash of light. He survives, barely, but the bombing changes everything about his life. Suddenly he can remember past life experiences; a pagan priest in Ancient Rome and a young man in the 1900's of New York City are suddenly tantalizingly familiar to him.

With his present in ruins Josh has become obsessed with figuring out a past that haunts him. He becomes a member of the Phoenix Institute, a group of researchers that collect evidence of past life experiences from children. One of more prominent members, Malachai, offers to help him in return for his services as a photographer. Josh becomes a sort of pet project for Malachai, who has never had past life experience himself and to a certain extent is jealous of Josh.

As a member of the Phoenix Institute Josh returns to Rome less than a year after the explosion to photograph a freshly discovered tomb. In the tomb are the mummified remains of a woman, a Vestal Virgin, who Josh remembers. She is the woman who has been haunting him and in a flash of memory he knows her name and remembers her scent. But who was Sabina?

Julius is the priest from Ancient Rome whose life Josh has been remembering. With those memories comes Sabina. Lovely and vivacious Sabina, even as a memory, over shadows all other women for Josh. Julius, however, is living in a time when Christianity is overthrowing the pagan religions that Rome has lived with for so long, and he has found a little happiness in Sabina's arms. Despite that, Josh feels as if there is some tragedy tinting these episodes.

Through the tomb Josh meets Gabriella Chase, a woman he is drawn to, and he wonders if she has some connection to his past. When the tomb is robbed of a precious artifact that can help a man remember his past, Josh is pulled into the race to recover it.

As the story unfolds the connections between the past and the present are revealed. M.J. Rose uses the idea that we reincarnate to make right the mistakes of previous lives to propel her characters forward; to make connections where someone else might only see coincidence. As a result, The Reincarnationist is an unforgettable novel that will leave you with questions about the mysteries of the soul.

'The Intruders' by Michael Marshall

ISBN: 0061235024
Format: Hardcover, 400pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: $24.95

When I started reading The Intruders the first thing that struck me was the writing. Michael Marshall is talented and this book, his second, is one of the best books I have ever read. Not one of the best books I’ve read this year or in the past five; I mean ever. The writing is tight, and yet it flows so smoothly, giving you the picture perfectly. His characters are beyond three-dimensional, they are breathing. I took long lunches all week because I literally could not put this book down.

Jack Whalen is an ex-cop living in an idyllic little town with his wife Amy in Washington state. He seems lost right from the start, wondering if maybe he has it in him to be or do more. He had a book published almost a year ago and has been working on a new one except that there isn’t a new one. Then an old high school acquaintance, Gary Fisher, shows up out of the blue and confronts Jack with the story of two people who were murdered.

Gary is convinced that Jack can help him solve the mystery of what happened. Although Jack refuses to help him at first it becomes apparent that recent events in his personal life are somehow, in some inexplicable way, tied to these murders. His wife goes on a business trip and disappears only to resurface a few days later as if nothing has changed. Once again Gary approaches Jack with evidence that his wife is tied to the murders and Jack agrees to look into it.

Then Madison, a nine year old, girl goes missing from under her not-so-attentive mother‘s nose. She has blackouts and cannot remember how she came to be in a place all alone and so far away from the beach house she last remembered. It is as if something or someone inside of her is directing her, moving her forward toward a destination she knows nothing about.

When Jack finally begins to piece the bits and pieces together he starts to realize how large the picture is they belong to. Why were two people murdered for no apparent reason? What was Jack’s wife Amy doing if she wasn’t on business? Where is Madison going and why? Who are the intruders? These questions run through your mind as you hurtle towards an ending that will leave you stunned. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The Intruders features some very lost and broken characters. Deep tragedy and sadness fill the dark corners of their minds and hearts, pasts that are complicated and slowly revealed layer by layer. They are multifaceted and completely human. Jack especially is someone I became attached to. The story pealed back to reveal more and you came to understand that the calm man in the first few chapters was really hiding someone else. In the end, though, it is about the people in your life and the things that bind you to them.

“People never really leave," one passage contends. "That’s the worst crime committed by those who go and those who die. They leave echoes of themselves behind, for the people who loved them to deal with for the rest of their lives.”

'Lean Mean Thirteen' by Janet Evanovich

ISBN: 0312349491
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Price: $27.95


There was a time when I would rush to my local bookseller and pick up the latest in the Stephanie Plum series the day it came out. I would not get anything done until I had read it cover to cover . I haven’t rushed out the same day since Hard Eight. I hate to admit but I don’t even go out the next day. I’ve gotten to the point with this series that I don’t wait for the paperback but it is not the priority it once was.

There are a lot of reasons to love Stephanie Plum. Unfortunately it seems that lately there are some reasons to not like her as much. When this series first started it was gritty, funny too, but it had an edge that for me has dulled over time. I guess this should be expected or maybe, and I can admit this, it might just be me.

The books have gotten shorter, more choppy, as the series has progressed. If you have read any of Ms. Evanovich’s earlier work, titles that are being re-released such as Back to the Bedroom, you can see some similarities. It feels as if less time is going into a Plum book. The writing is not as tight, nor does it flow quite as well. I still enjoy it, don’t get me wrong, but Stephanie isn’t who she used to be and no amount of car explosions, dead bodies, and big sloppy dogs can change that.

The love triangle is another story. There are plenty for and against the continuation of the back and forth between Ranger and Morelli. But I’m tired of the limbo. There is no definition and it has lost it’s appeal for me. She has slept with both men, the sexual tension that was once white hot is a dull red no matter what is done to try to pump up the action.

Lean Mean Thirteen is mediocre. Stephanie is still doing her bond enforcement thing, Morelli is doing his cop thing, Lula is Lula , and Ranger is… well just Ranger. The characters feel as if they are in a holding pattern. Scenes that should have been funny fell flat and the mystery with Stephanie’s ex-husband Dickie, while good, just seemed to be missing something.

When Dickie goes missing Stephanie falls under suspicion for his possible murder. Wanting to clear her name, she starts to look into what her ex had been up to and uncovers a money-laundering scheme. Unfortunately for her she gets caught sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong, and becomes a target for a crazy flamethrower wielding psycho.

There were hints that possible change is around the corner but I have to wonder why we didn’t see more change here? Stephanie is keeping Ranger at arms' length but there is no action with Morelli. She is also thinking about the fact that maybe a home like her mothers wouldn’t be too bad but admits to herself that she thinks it’s a dream she could never realize.

There were some good things about this book. Exploding road-kill, Dickie Orr gets his nose broken, and Stephanie staples a man's private parts. I didn’t laugh out loud, but it was pretty funny. I enjoyed Lean Mean Thirteen while I read it. But once I was done I was not satisfied with the ending. Not as funny as previous books have been but with a decent mystery; I would just recommend to wait for the paperback to come out.

'Season of the Witch' by Natasha Mostert

ISBN: 0525950036
Format: Hardcover, 416pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Release Date: April 19, 2007
Price: $24.95

Mesmerizing from the first sentence to the last, each word in Season of the Witch is perfect; never are you jarred from the wild ride you take with Gabriel and the Monk sisters. Part thriller, fantasy, love story, and mystery, Season of the Witch balances all of these elements naturally with a sensual and brilliant voice.

Gabriel Blackstone is an information thief with a talent for remote viewing. He lives a life on the edge, but completely comfortable with his choices, and has beautiful things around him to show for it. But his past has horrors lurking on the cobwebbed edges and in his imperfection lies his great appeal.

When his old flame Frankie comes to ask for help in the search for her vanished step-son, Gabriel agrees to help reluctantly. He quickly learns that the step-son was last seen in the company of the Monk sisters. Morrighan and Minnaloushe. One of starlight, the other of sunlight, they are the most beautiful as well as possibly the most dangerous women he has ever met. Confident, even cocky, Gabriel has never met his match - until now.

The Monk sisters are solar witches, studying the Art of Memory and alchemy. Together the two have built a house in which everything has an order, everything a place. A house with a million doors that holds the key to all knowledge. Gabriel catches his first look at the house in all its beautiful brutal glory early in the book and each time he visits it seems to become more fantastic.

Gabriel is quickly drawn into the sisters' alluring world, almost forgetting his original goal of discovering what exactly happened to Frankie’s step-son. Soon events have spiraled out of control and Gabriel is faced with the fact that the Monk sister he loves could be a murderer.

What I loved most about this book was that it took everyday things and made them magical. Small things were brought to your attention, the smell of roses or a silk scarf, and suddenly they held a hidden meaning.

Season of the Witch, Natasha Mostert's fourth novel, is simply and completely stunning. When I closed this book the only word that came to mind was ‘Wow’; still overloaded with images and sounds, the feel of the book in my hands, I let the final sentence echo in my head. “Oh yes, most certainly a love story.”

'Rogue Angel - Forbidden City' by Alex Archer

ISBN: 037362123X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Harlequin
Price: $6.50


There are lots of reasons I love the Rogue Angel series. There are great characters, lots of great action, and each time I pick up one of the books I learn something I didn’t know before. Not every book you pick up can educate you as well as entertain you.

In Forbidden City Annja Creed, archeologist-adventurer and wielder of Joan of Arc’s sword, gets involved with a cursed Chinese belt plaque. Following a lead, Annja hikes into an old gold mining town in California with Huangfu Cao, a man who contacted her about finding the bones of his Chinese ancestor.

They uncover Huangfu’s ancestor. Just as Annja comes across the belt plaque, they are attacked by a group of marijuana-growers. Huangfu (who had seemed to be, if not an average man, was at least harmless) proves himself to be very dangerous. Out of nowhere Huangfu pulls out a gun and quickly kills the three men. Annja is forced to flee for her life with the belt plaque as Huangfu turns his guns on her.

Haungfu isn’t going to let her escape with the plaque. He does eventually steal it from her, but not before she kicks his butt several times and begins to discover why the plaque is so important. The inscription on the back turns out to be the key to a forgotten city in China where a vast treasure is buried.

Everyone is interested the city and what it contains: Professor Hu, an archeologist working the dig in search of the city; Ngai Kuan-Yin, a greedy Chinese business man obsessed with the treasure, who also has gagsters working for him including Huangfu Cao; Kelly Swan, a trained assassin hell bent on avenging the death of her father; and Garin Braden, Roux’s apprentice of sorts for the last several hundred years, as well as his enemy. Roux himself calls Annja and offers to pay her way to China in order to discover the lost city.

How the puzzle is solved and these very different people come to meet is what I enjoyed most about this story. We see a little bit more of Roux, getting a peak behind the front he puts up for Annja constantly.

This is a fun, fast read with a lot of great detail. Thoroughly researched, it creates a solid footing for the action and adventure that propels you forward. While this book could stand alone, you might miss a few details and I would recommend you start with the first book in the series, Destiny.

'The Meaning of Night' by Micheal Cox

ISBN: 0393062031
ISBN-13: 9780393062038
Format: Hardcover, 672pp
Publisher: Norton, W.W. & Company,Inc.
Price: $25.95

The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox was published by McClelland & Steward in September of 2006. This book was started over 15 years ago by Michael Cox and when you pick it up, feel the weight of it in your hands, and begin to read, you know that you are about to be consumed completely by a story that has lived inside this man for 15 years.

With the opening lines of this novel you are swallowed by an intricate compelling story.

'After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper. It had been surprisingly - almost laughably - easy. I had followed him for some distance, after observing him in Threadneedle-street I cannot say why I decided it should be him, and not one of the others on whom my searching eye had alighted that evening.'

Immediately you wonder why. Why has this character, whose own name we are unsure of until later in the book, killed a man whose name he does not know? What we do learn is that this man, Edward Glyver, has been wronged in some terrible way. Edward’s whole life has been altered by one man, Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, from being swindled out of his birthright to having his school career damaged beyond repair. Only Edward can see Daunt for what he really is, a charming, petty, self-absorbed thief.

Each part of Edward’s story is told by him to different people in his life. From Bella, the long-time lover he could never truly love, to his best friend from his school days, Le Grice. Little by little you come to know him and his complicated past. He is careful not to reveal too much to each person, but we as the reader see all, just as he intends us to.

Edward is an obsessive character, driven by this theft of his birthright. He is obsessive about books, a dedicated bibliophile and scholar. Edward tells you himself that he does things you will not like, from his occasional opium use to solicitation. He is only human, doing very human things.

Ten years after his mother's death, Edward finally starts to go through her papers. She was a successful novelist and there are stacks of things for him to sort, and while sifting through the drifts, he find her diaries, small, compact black books that reveal to him his true identity. He is not Edward Glyver but Edward Charles Duport.

For the first time he realizes that he belongs to one of the oldest and most powerful families in all of England. Edward decides to reclaim his rights, his standing in the world. He begins his restoration which brings him closer and closer to Phoebus Rainsford Daunt.

Beautifully written, this is a classic in the making. This novel has it all - a dark character you have to follow to the end. It covers the full spectrum of human emotion.

'Motor Mouth' by Janet Evanovich

ISBN: 006058405X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 376pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: $7.99

This is the second Barnaby novel in the series, the first being Metro Girl. I picked Motor Mouth up because the first one was so great. The story is told by Alex Barnaby, nicknamed Barney. She is a mechanic who likes pink and indulges in the occasional manicure. Not your run of the mill girl, she still has all those feminine qualities that men can appreciate.

In Metro Girl Barney hooked up with Hooker, the superstar NASCAR driver. In the beginning of Motor Mouth they have split because Barney found Hooker in bed with a salesclerk. There were pictures on the net so it isn't like he can say it wasn't him. Barney is still on the race team and spotting for Hooker. Somehow they have managed to still be friends, which I find a little hard to believe, but it does make for some nice sexual tension throughout the book as Hooker tries to win Barney back.

A Janet Evanovich novel would not be complete without a dead body. When you go back and read everything else of hers you find a common thread such as dead bodies, large drooling dogs, and little old ladies with very large handguns. Two out of three ain’t bad when you have a huge Saint Bernard named Beans and several dead bodies. I guess those make up for the old lady with a gun.

The action kicks off right away with the possibility of cheating in a race and a gigantic car crash. It only moves on from there with a plastic-wrapped body, dog-napping, and the possibility of illegal race technology.

Barney bumbles around at one point trying to rescue Hooker, which is just a shade too close to the first book for it to feel original. I have to admit that this book feels like it was hurried through and held together by the humor.

The conversations are sharp and quick, everything you expect to find in a Janet Evanovich novel. The humor is a little morbid at times, but often of the laugh-out loud variety, too. I have to admit that this isn't the best but it isn't the worst. I would just recommend waiting for paperback.

'Rogue Angel- The Spider Stone' by Alex Archer

ISBN: 0373621213
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Harlequin
Price: $6.50

The third book in the Rogue Angel series comes out November 7, 2006 and I am telling you right now that you need to preorder a copy. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and it is by far the best installment of Annja and her adventures. It’s my favorite of the three to date.

It picks up with Annja being called in to Atlanta to help excavate the remains of slaves in an abandoned building dating from the Civil War. When she gets down to Atlanta she finds that there is more to the story than she expected. On the site she finds a carved piece of tiger's eye called The Spider Stone, a gift from the Spider God Anansi to the Hausa people of Africa. The stone was a promise that the Hausa people, as long as they carried this stone, would always have a home.

While Annja is trying to decipher the language carved on the stone, the archaeological party is attacked by gun-toting bad guys. By now, this being the third book and all, we know that Annja isn’t going to let herself be pushed around. The fight scene is great and at the end Annja tackles a man into a moving car. The imagery was just fantastic. I’m not a very violent person but it just feels so good when the bad guys get what’s coming to them.

Annja finds out that the men who attacked her at the dig site have ties to a warlord in Africa who is after the stone. She deciphers the writing and discovers that the stone is carved with a map leading to buried treasure and the records of the Hausa people. Homeland Security gets involved and offers to pay her way to Africa to look for this buried treasure hoping that she will draw out Tafari, the horrible war lord, who has ties to Al Qaeda.

Once in Africa the chase, which never slackens, picks up. Clues all start to point in one direction and Annja and Tafari are headed for a head-on collision. Annja has learned that sometimes it is kill or be killed, but she struggles with it. She is growing and learning that the sword she has been claimed by isn’t going to give her an easy path.

Annja is a very human character; she’s the person you would like to think you would be if you had to step up to the plate and fight absolute evil with a broad sword. All in all, it is great entertainment mixed with some interesting facts that you might not come across everyday. The author has really done his research about the period of time involving slave trade as well as some of the ancient African cultures. It was nice to have some facts tied into all the fantastic adventure.

'Rogue Angel- Solomon's Jar' by Alex Archer

ISBN: 0373621205
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Harlequin
Price: $6.50

I finished reading Solomon’s Jar this morning and I have to admit I am slightly disappointed. The basic story was good. It contained lots of action and even a romantic interest, unlike the first in this series, but it relied too heavily on the action to keep it together.

Some parts of the story weren’t explained very well. From the beginning the villains were lacking in backbone. You didn’t see enough of them to really feel like they were a threat and when they did show up they were just one-dimensional, not fully realized at all.

The book picks up with Annja in the Amazon basin running for her life from mercenaries. She has found an ancient book of medicine that everyone wants. This part of the story has nothing to do with the rest of the story. For the first 26 pages you bite your nails as she is chased through the jungle by bad guys, never really knowing who sent them and why. But she prevails, kicking butt and living to fight another day.

With no transition she is in New York, home finally, coming back from the grocery store. This was the biggest problem I had with this book; there were no transitions between her destinations. The author went from New York, Amsterdam, Rio, and England with nothing to let you know that Annja is flying on an airplane eating bad food. I found myself wondering if Amsterdam was a street in New York.

In Amsterdam Annja is looking for Solomon’s Jar. She’s not sure what she is going to do with it but knowing she must find it. Instead she finds a dead shopkeeper. She is caught going through the caller ID by Aidan Pascoe, another archeologist who is after the jar. They in turn get interrupted by the Russian mafia. They escape together, Annja saving Aidan’s life only to have him tell her to leave him alone.

In England Annja is almost killed by a cult called The White Tree. It’s a brief encounter and Annja hacks her way out of it with her sword. The White Tree leader is one of the villains of the story, but you only see him twice in the book, at the beginning and the end.

Another big jump and Annja is in Jerusalem getting chased by an angry mob of half-crazed men for no reason. She is saved when a door opens in a wall and a little old lady pokes her head out and tells her to come inside. The woman helps Annja, giving out good advice like a kind of mystic guide. Later in the story that same old woman shows up, only she isn’t as old that time.

Annja leaves the old woman and runs into Aidan getting beat up on the street. She kills all of the attackers and Aidan is sick for a moment. Having saved his life again, they have coffee and talk. They part ways once again with Aidan telling her to push off.

Eventually Annja and Aidan side together, but only after he saves her life. By the end of the book though, she saved his life at least four times. They run around together trying to find the jar before three other groups do. The problem is that you never really get the sense of that. The fact that other people are looking for this jar just isn’t explained very well. At the end they all end up together in a smelting factory in the Amazon and it’s almost a surprise. You wonder why all these people are here with guns.

Overall it was fair. It was hard to get into because of all the inconsistencies. I expected much more after reading Destiny, but it doesn’t stop me from reading the next one.

'Rogue Angel - Destiny' by Alex Archer

ISBN: 0373621191
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Price: $6.50

This book is the first of the Rogue Angel series and I have to say I can’t think of a better way to kick off a series. Full of butt-kicking, sword-wielding action as well as a great mystery, the story keeps you involved and turning pages.

Annja Creed is an archaeologist working part time for a TV show about chasing down history’s monsters. She is the serious, intelligent, college graduate of the show while the other girl who works there just tends to lose her top quite a bit. This makes for some very funny dialogue throughout the book.

While working in a small town in France tracking the legendary monster Le Bete, Annja is attacked by two black leather-clad men. She finds out that they are the goons of a crime boss who believes that she has become too close to the mystery of Le Bete. She sends one to the hospital; the other escapes to his boss.

Up in the mountains the next day Annja meets an old man who calls himself Roux. There is something strange about him, even though she can’t quite put her finger on it. Suddenly the earth begins to shake and buckle, throwing Annja to her knees. Roux helps her to her feet, directing her to his car down the mountain, but before she gets very far the earth opens up before her feet. Annja falls into the hole, the darkness swallowing her completely.

In the enveloping cave Annja discovers a small charm, the size of a coin, with signs etched onto both sides. The crime boss has sent more goons after her, determined to find out exactly what she knows about Le Bete that he doesn’t. They find her in the cave and Annja gets cornered. Roux comes to the rescue and they escape.

Not everything is what it appears to be as Annja quickly learns; Roux double crosses her and black-robed monks show up armed with guns. The monks as well as the crime lord want the charm that Roux has stolen from Annja. But before she gets abducted at gunpoint a tall, dark, and handsome man dressed all in black shows up to save her. “Annja Creed I’ve come to help you!” he yells as he shoots down a monk who is about to shoot her.

Garin saves her and takes her to Roux, who turns out to be a very old friend, to recover her charm. Once at Roux’s home Annja discovers that her charm is part of something much bigger and that it is her destiny to bring all the pieces together.

This was a fun and fast read. I wished that I could have called into work so that I could have finished it faster, it really was that hard to put down. Next on my list is Rogue Angel: Solomon’s Jar, the second book in the series and I hope it will be just as good

'Maisie Dobbs' by Jacqueline Winspear

ISBN: 0142004332
Format: Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Price: $14.00


Maisie Dobbs is the first in a series of private detective novels that take place after the First World War. This book takes place in 1929, with flashbacks to 1914 and the First World War. Maisie Dobbs is taken in by Lady Rowan, becoming a maid in her great house, setting the coal in the grates and polishing the mahogany until one day she is found by the mistress of the house reading in the library. She is a hungry learner and when Lady Rowan realizes it she finds her a tutor.

Maisie is at university when the war breaks. The people are hoping it will be over by Christmas, trying to ignore the horror of it all. Pricilla, Maisie’s school friend, joins the nurses who are going to be the ambulance drivers in France. She's leaving school early because she can’t sit at home when all three of her brothers are over there. She says, ‘Me too, me too.’

After a friend from working at Lady Rowan’s is killed when a munitions plant explodes, Maisie also signs up but then she falls in love with Dr. Simon Lynch. They have a few bright moments in the sun, glorious because you know they are so precious. He proposes and she asks him to ask her again when the war is over. Maisie just has this feeling that things might not go as planned. He says to her, ’I love you, Maisie, and I want you to be my wife. I promise that as soon as this war is over, I will walk across miles of trenches to find you, and I will stand there in my muddy clothes until you say ‘Yes!’.

Years later, after the war, Maisie has opened a private detective agency. She has a gift for reading people. She thus has to face the things from her past she has buried. The Great War and what the war left her with; she has to come to terms with what has happened to Simon and her love for him.

I enjoyed this book. It was well written and worth the read. It was a little choppy, the flow broken, but still well done, well researched, and I have to tell you I think I cried once every two chapters. It was very sad - the views of the war, the broken men with the broken families.

'The Black Dahlia' by James Ellory

ISBN: 0446618128
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 371pp
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Price: $7.50

I have a writing teacher who tells me that the difference between a man's romance novel and a woman's is that in the end of the woman's the girl gets the boy and they all live happily ever after; in the man's, the woman dies. Yes, that's right, the woman goes toward the light leaving the man with nothing but the memory of her love to keep him warm at night. But on the bright side he doesn't get the nagging, closet-hogging, three-hour-bath-taking woman who will try to change him from the rugged man he is into a man who actually does dishes or brushes his teeth. So it's a trade.

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy is a Man's book (with the capital M). It was really well written. Fantastic writing. You really got a feel for the era and how people felt about it all, he did a wonderful job on the slang. I enjoyed that part of it a lot. I learned a lot of derogative sexual terms for African-Americans as well as Mexican-Americans. I didn't know some of those words before.

When you pick up this book you have to keep in mind that this is a fictionalized version of events that happed out in California in the 1940s. The real Elizabeth Short was never in a pornographic film, was not a prostitute, and was just a young naive girl looking for love.

“I never knew her in life. She exists for me through others, in evidence of the ways her death drove them.” Bucky Bleichert narrates the story of his life before and after the murder case of Elizabeth Short, also known as The Black Dahlia because of her penchant for tight little black dresses. While on a case, Bleichert and his partner Blanchard find the body of a woman. She is completely severed in half, her legs spread wide, and her mouth split from ear to ear. The murderer has completely drained her body of blood and has washed and styled her hair.

Bucky becomes obsessed with The Black Dahlia and eventually he falls in love with her. Everyone wants what they can't have, right? He sleeps with a girl who looks like her, even imaging her to be Elizabeth Short. Even when Bucky finally does find a form of happiness in the end, he promises Elizabeth his love.

The Black Dahlia is haunting, incomplete, because you never truly know what happened or who the murderer is. It is peopled with very real monsters in people skin; rapists, pedophiles, druggies, prostitutes, and killers, all the horror of humanity paraded in front of the ever constant Elizabeth Short.