'The Thirty-Nine Steps' by John Buchan

ISBN: 0141033738
Format: Paperback, 148pp
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Price: $10.00

First published in 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps is John Buchan’s first book in which Richard Hannay has one of his many adventures. This newest edition is part of Penguin’s Great Books for Boys collection, which focuses on celebrating the adventurer within every boy. It’s not just boys who have an inner adventurer. The series, whether you’re young or old, male or female, will appeal to those who enjoy a thrilling edge-of-your-seat read.

Set just four weeks before World War I, The Thirty-Nine Steps is the story of Richard Hannay and his entanglement with international spies and a German plot to steal British military secrets. He is bored with London life and is considering moving on when he meets his seemingly normal upstairs neighbor. The man, who begs to be let into his apartment, soon tells a tale too grand to be a lie.

He is an American spy with knowledge of an assassination to take place on June 15th and that will rock Europe. Upon hearing the truth in the man’s words, Richard decides to help him. When he arrives home one evening to discover the spy’s body with a knife sticking through the heart, Richard realizes how entangled he has become. With one man murdered and the killers after him, Richard decides to run - and stay on the run until the 15th comes around so he can try to prevent the murder of another innocent man.

Through the wilds of Scotland, Richard is chased by a dark, unknown enemy, as well as his own country’s police. Between frantic chase scenes and thrilling escapes, Richard tries to unlock the secrets held in the murdered American spy’s diary. The diary is the key to it all, and Richard could save the day if only he could discover what “the thirty-nine steps” means before it’s too late.

One of the things I loved so much about this book was the feel for the era. It helps that it was written about the time the novel took place. I just don’t think, no matter how meticulously you do your research, that a modern author could have hit the same chords or achieved the same feeling. From the language and settings to the places and people, The Thirty-Nine Steps is perfect entertainment.

The book is short, just 160 pages, and you’ll want to read it all in one go. From the moment you first meet Richard as he becomes embroiled in a plot that covers nations, you just can’t put the book down. Honestly, why would you want to?

'Window on the Square' by Phyllis A. Whitney

Danger, romance, and suspense! All these things can be found in Phyllis A. Whitney’s Window on the Square. Published in 1962, this classic novel of romantic suspense was called a “haunting absorbing suspense” by the Columbus Enquirer and “a superior whodunit” by the New York Morning Telegraph.

The scene is late fall in New York in the 1870’s. The weather is just starting to get colder, leaves falling to skitter across the pavement, and the smell of snow is in the air. The women are wearing long gowns complete with bustles, and Megan Kincaid is all alone in the world. She recently lost her mother and only sibling, a younger brother with a disability, in a runaway coach accident. Megan, armed only with her inferior dressmaking skills, is facing the unknown.

Megan’s salvation comes in the guise of Mrs. Brandon Reid. At one time Leslie Reid had been married to the prominent New York District Attorney, Dwight Reid, the golden child of the city, who was gunned down in an unfortunate accident involving his seven-year-old son, Jeremy. Now Mrs. Reid is married to Dwight’s older brother, Brandon, and the house in which the murder happened is filled with the echoes of a single gun shot.

Asked to the house under the pretense of making Mrs. Reid a new gown, Megan knows her paltry skills would in no way please the coldly elegant beauty that is Leslie Reid. Once at the house on Washington Square, Megan is interviewed not by Mrs. Reid, but Mr. Reid. He apologizes for the false pretense and quickly explains he had heard of her wonderful success with her disabled brother and wonders if she would be willing to work with his nephew Jeremy.

Jeremy, he explains, is troubled and is heading down a path in which he could be lost forever. Megan, seeing the need of the small child, quickly agrees and moves into the house on Washington Square where she is installed on the third floor - but things in this elegant house filled with elegant people are not as they ought to be.

Observing Mr. and Mrs. Reid’s relationship, Megan notices the chill and reserve they both wear at times; the masks they use to hide whatever burning emotions lurk beneath. Mrs. Reid’s old governess, and now the keeper of Jeremy’s younger sister, Selina, Miss Garth instantly dislikes Megan and viscously attacks her character on several occasions. The children’s tutor, Mr. Beach, warns Megan that Jeremy is a lost cause and that she should escape the house as soon as possible, least something horrible befall to her.

What really happened that night so long ago between Jeremy and his father? Why does Miss Garth so viciously dislike Megan? What is it that Mr. Beach is so afraid will happen? Why does Mrs. Reid stay closed away in her room? And why, oh why, is Mr. Brandon Reid going out of his way to please Megan?

You will be kept on the edge of your seat as the story unfolds and Megan comes closer and closer to a truth that will destroy the imagined peace at the house on Washington Square.

'Ice Storm' by Anne Stuart

ISBN: 0778325008
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 352pp
Publisher: Mira
Pub. Date: November 2007
Price: $6.99

I am now a life long fan of Anne Stuart. After reading Ice Storm I can’t do anything else besides convert, there is just no use fighting it. You might find this a little extreme but I promise you it isn’t. And how can I even think of becoming a fan with just one book? Easily and you better believe I’m going to the bookstore to stock up on the rest of her titles in the Ice series.

Isobel Lambert is a cold-blooded professional working for a covert organization called The Committee based out of London. They have highly trained assassins stationed across the globe, cold blooded men and women all with Isobel at their head. Nicknamed the Ice Queen, or Irion Maiden, there is much more to Isobel than meets the eye.

Serafin the Butcher is the most dangerous man in the world. The Committee has already tried and failed to have him eliminated once. But when his name comes up a second time it isn’t for termination. Serafin has brokered a deal with the Committee, in exchange for his personal safety he is willing to trade information about the third world countries he’s been hiding out and causing havoc in.

Isobel, the head of the Committee, is the only operative able to go. Not to mention that Serafin asked for her personally. Her mission is to extricate him from North Africa and get him safely to England where he can be debriefed and then given a new identity. A simple job to Isobel’s mind until she discovers that Serafin the Butcher is really a man named Killian, a man from her past that she thought she had killed years ago.

With the Committee falling apart around her ears and Killian stirring all kinds of feelings she thought she could control Isobel is coming to the end of her tether. Her past and present collide putting her in the difficult position of feeling emotion once again while trying to keep from falling apart. Plus you get great sex scenes and a body count, how awesome is that?

Stuart’s characters are wonderful. I could gush at you for pages about how well she wrote Isobel and Killian, not to mention the rest of the characters who have their own titles to explore. I’m in love and I just can’t help myself. But I won’t subject you to such mushy fan-ism, what I will say is that I have rarely come across such complex and three dimensional characters. The fact that they are some of the worlds deadliest assassins helps though, too.

Ice Storm was great. No, it was nothing short of brilliantly fantastic. I literally could not put this one down and took an extra long lunch just so I could finish it. If you haven’t read Anne Stuart start now. But if you beat me to the bookstore be sure to leave a few for me.

'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.”

'Wildfire at Midnight' by Mary Stewart

ISBN: 0060093579
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 324pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: $7.99

First published in 1956, Wildfire at Midnight is one of Mary Stewart's best romantic suspense novels. With the ruggedly beautiful Isle of Skye as her backdrop, the author weaves a tale of madness and murder; deception and love; hope and forgiveness; it's a novel that is nothing short of spectacular.

Gianetta, named for her ‘disreputable and famous’ great-great-grandmother Gianetta Fox, makes a splash in London just like her relative before her. Beautiful but very shy she quickly catches the eye of Nicholas Drury a handsome but moody author. They are married within three months of their introduction.

Gianetta was ‘wildly, madly, dumbly’ in love. But Nicholas was expecting a modern version of Gianetta Fox and soon the two have parted ways. But even once the divorce is final Gianetta can not bring herself to stop wearing her wedding band.

Years later Gianetta is escaping from London and its memories to Camas Fhionnaridh in the Isle of Skye. But the relaxing vacation she had planned at a peaceful inn turns out to be anything but tranquil. Gianetta finds herself surrounded by an odd mix of characters including, of all people, her very ex-husband.

When a young woman is found murdered on Blaven — a mountain looming over the hotel -- and then one of the inn guests goes missing, suspicion runs among the guests. Gianetta gets caught between Nicholas and the dashing blue-eyed Grant, and she knows in her heart that one of these men is a murderer.

One of the things I love best about this novel is the fact that Gianetta is so very human. She is this enchanting beautiful creature with all these wonderful flawed bits like everyone else. Gianetta is not perfect and her mistakes are easy to relate to. As you read you find yourself hoping that everything will turn out right for her, as you are meant to.

There is a chance that Wildfire at Midnight could seem dated, as it takes place in 1953. But the language still comes across as fresh and the dialogue charming. The references to clothes, hair, and life styles seem glamorous and alluring to me. While it lacks the swear words, blatant sex, and gore that can be found in any novel now it is still one of the most thrilling novels I have ever read.

'Dead Girls' Dance' by Rachel Caine

ISBN: 0451220897
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 256pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Price: $5.99

In Glass Houses, book one of The Morganville Vampire series we were introduced to Claire Danvers, a sixteen year old college student in the small Texas town of Morganville. She quickly learns that this college town isn’t what it seems.

Vampires rule the entire population except for the college campus. If the vampires weren’t bad enough, there are two groups locked in a fight to gain control of the town. Claire and her friends, Michael, Eve, and Shane, are stuck in the middle of it.

The Dead Girls’ Dance picks up exactly where Glass Houses left off - with a cliffhanger. I can’t tell you how glad I was to pick this book up and not have missed a single scene of the action. Michael, ghost during the day but solid boy by night, is seemingly killed. But the Glass House isn’t going to let anything happen to its occupants and soon Michael is back in action.

But the distress call that Shane placed to his father, Frank Collins, during the last scene of Glass Houses, brings more hurt than help. A self-proclaimed vampire hunter, Frank has returned to Morganville to clean the place with Shane’s help. One group of the vampires has offered protection to those of the Glass House and Claire and her friends are relatively safe. But Shane’s father doesn’t care about the alliance, or Shane’s friends for that matter, and quickly lands the four teenagers in trouble.

When Shane gets tangled up in his father’s mess, Claire has to discover a way to save him from a horrible death at the hands of the vampires. Desperate to save the boy she loves Claire visits each faction of vampires. But things are not that easy and in the end everyone must make drastic changes in their lives.

If you haven’t read the first book I can guarantee you that you will be a little lost in this one. While it’s easy to figure out the plot and the characters' relationships to each other, they do discuss past events quite a bit. Not to mention you wouldn’t understand why these two sets of vampires are at each others throats.

Some characters are three dimensional — Claire, for example — while others are flat and have not grown enough from the last book to make them interesting. The action in Dead Girls’ Dance is constant while you follow the characters — from page one all the way to the fiery end — with a death grip on the book.

Is this a satisfying follow-up? Yes. Am I looking forward to the next book in the series? Yes. It’s a good story with decent characters. Just don’t expect something out of the ordinary.

'Glass Houses' by Rachel Caine

ISBN: 0451219945
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 256pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Price: $5.99

Claire Danvers is a 16-year-old college freshman in the small town of Morganville, Texas. She hates being stuck at a tiny party college when she could have gone to MIT, Yale, or Caltech. Claire is only in Morganville because it’s close to home; having led a very sheltered life her parents didn’t want her going to college far from home. Too bad they didn’t take a closer look at Morganville before Claire arrived.

Claire is having a hard time at school, not with her classes but with some of the other girls. The leading beauty Monica has made it her personal mission to ruin Claire’s existence. When Monica pushes Claire down a flight of stairs with a promise that Claire will get what’s coming to her, she realizes that the dorms on campus are not a safe place for her to stay.

Claire immediately begins looking for a new place, and in the want ads she finds an advert for a place called The Glass House. It is shared by three roommates who seem to be very close. At first that intimidates Claire but she’s so desperate that she overcomes her shyness and goes out to the house to see if the room that is offered is still available.

Only two of the three roommates are around when Claire arrives: Eve, a very stylish Goth who works in the local coffee shop, and Shane who’s just plain good-looking. Both are over 18 and do not want someone underage living in the house. But when they see the bruises that Claire has from her run-in with Monica they can’t turn her away. Later Claire meets Michael, the mysterious owner of the house who is only around during the night.

Claire learns from the trio that Monica is not an enemy to have and that Morganville is not a place you want to walk around in after dark. Eve explains that most of the town is under the protection of different vampires, the people that are protected wear bracelets with a certain symbol on them.

It’s only a matter of time before the vampires of Morganville notice Claire. Unfortunately being Monica’s enemy has already brought her under their scrutiny. But Claire isn’t alone, and with the help of Eve, Shane, and Michael she can face what is coming.

This is a quick read, full of suspense and even a touch of romance, a page-turning introduction to the Morganville Vampire series. The second book, Dead Girl’s Dance will be released in April of 2007 and I can’t wait to pick up the continuation of Claire’s story. Especially since this one leaves you with a cliffhanger ending.

'I See You' by Holly Lisle

ISBN: 0451412214
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Price: $6.99

I picked up I See You by Holly Lisle because it came highly recommended by a friend. I don’t venture into the romance section of a bookstore too often, but this book was well worth the woman sniggering at me in the aisle. It has lots of action, suspense, and two very hot sex scenes. Not to mention the really nice human details that just make you smile while you read.

Dia is an EMT in Florida and she loves her job. Four years previously her husband, Mac who was also an EMT, died in an ambulance wreck caused by a car stopping suddenly to avoid hitting a child on a bike. She was the first on the scene, she couldn’t save her husband or her co-workers, but she could save the man in the car. She worked the scene like a professional. Years later, Dia still works with the same crews and wouldn’t ever think of leaving; they have become her family.

Brig is a detective who is working car accident scenes that aren’t exactly what they appear to be. He sees Dia for the first time on a huge wreck and notices her immediately. She is strong, confidant, and in control; he’s drawn to her even though after a bad marriage ending in divorce, he’s sworn off woman.

Brig goes to Dia’s station to explain bombs are causing the car accidents that have been happing. He asks if they have seen anything and passes business cards around. When he gets to Dia he makes sure to include his personal numbers as well as the professional. She just smiles and brushes it off, still not dating since the premature death of her husband.

That night when Dia gets home, she finds flowers on her doorstep with a note saying, “Thank you for saving my life.” No name signed, nothing. The next night a letter shoved under her door says, “I love what you did for me” freaks her out just a little and she calls Detective Brig.

Things heat up and speed up from there. We find out Dia is being stocked by a crazy psychopath who is obsessed with keeping a balance between light and dark. The psychopath is convinced Dia has upset the balance. Throw in some really scary nightmares, a ghost leaving notes on fogged up mirrors, and some alligators and you have a great afternoon read.

'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.