'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?

'Dark Lullaby' by Mayra Calvani

ISBN: 159374907
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press, LLC
Pub. Date: September 2007

Dark Lullaby is the kind of novel that you will want to read in one sitting. As the tension builds, as the characters fall into their own personal hells, you are compelled to keep reading.

When Gabriel Diaz meets a mysterious woman he shoves all thoughts of his ex-girlfriend Liz, a bohemian librarian, from his mind. Even though she happens to be sitting next to him when Kamilah introduces herself at a bar and invites herself into their conversation about good and evil. Liz seems to recognize that there is something odd about Kamilah but Gabriel is blinded.

Gabriel is an intelligent introspective man, he had a difficult childhood and is struggling to work out who he is. Soon Gabriel infatuated with Kamilah, her beauty and mind draw him to her. When Kamilah invites Gabriel to visit her in her homeland in Turkey. But Gabriel’s sister Elena, his twin and close friend, is waiting for him in Belgium where she is expecting a child. Gabriel had promised to be there for the birth but Kamilah’s invitation drives it from his mind.

Once he is away from everything familiar, deep in Kamilah’s territory, Gabriel becomes sick and loses his cell phone. All communication is cut with Liz, who is extremely worried about him and his sister Elena, who has become frantic with worry over her brother. With her due date coming closer and Gabriel still missing she begins to wonder if he too will disappoint her, just as everyone else in her life has.

Meanwhile Kamilah, beautiful and strange, is acting oddly around Gabriel. She always seems to be hot to the touch and she seems oddly fascinated by the nature of good and evil. When Gabriel begins to suspect that Kamilah is somehow making him sick with hallucinations he struggles to find a way to escape her. But it could be too late for himself as well as for his sisters unborn baby.

Part horror and thriller with a touch of romance Dark Lullaby is a quick read that will keep you glued to the pages. Thoughtful, entertaining, and chilling the characters and the exotic settings will sweep you away.

'Beg for Mercy' by Toni Andrews

ISBN: 077832365X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: Mira
Price: $6.99

Beg for Mercy is one paranormal novel that (insert gasp here) has no vampires, werewolves, or magic. Crazy, huh? But for Toni Andrews and her character Mercy it works just as well without those things, and as much as I love those elements, it’s nice to dip into the paranormal without them.

Mercy has something she calls ‘the press’ which is a psychic ability she can use to make people do what she says. Mercy has learned that using her ability can cause problems, so she has put as much emotional distance between her and the rest of humanity as humanly possible. But no one is ever truly alone, as Mercy soon learns, and when she needs them, the friends she thought she never had coming running.

But before Mercy can learn some things about herself a whole bunch of stuff has to go wrong first. When her best friend Sukey brings another unsuitable guy around and gets burned, Mercy is there to pick up the pieces. Sukey gets drugged and dumped at the local emergency room and once Mercy is sure that Sukey is all right she goes in search of the guy who did this to her best friend. When she finds him she presses him to get out of town and never come back.

You would think that this should solve the problem for everyone. This is where you would be wrong and where handsome Dominic walks into the picture. Dominic claims to be a relative to the missing man and refuses to leave Mercy alone once he realizes she had something to do with his disappearance. At first he is charming and suave but soon he reveals a much darker side as he tries to press his own answers out of Mercy.

Along the way Mercy meets Sam, the new guy in town, and the two hit it off. Sam is recovering from a failed relationship and although he is attracted to Mercy he doesn’t like the fact that she seems to be keeping so many secrets from him. Both characters are damaged goods, two broken people in a broken world, but they somehow manage to keep it together.

Then things go from bad to worse as Sukey goes missing - thanks to Dominic. Mercy is given an ultimatum and warned that if she does not follow through her friend’s life is at stake. From there it is a wild ride as Mercy tries to discover where Sukey is and how she can save her.

The story takes place in Balboa, California and the setting is just as important as any of the colorful characters. The small town feel, the local bar, and marina all play a big part and Toni Andrews paints the setting perfectly.

Beg for Mercy is a paranormal tale with light romance thrown in but what drives the story forward, and kept me turning pages well past 2 in the morning, was the search and rescue of Sukey. The first in a series, Angel of Mercy has a release date of May 2008, and I can’t wait to see what adventures Mercy will have next.

'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.”

'Ishmael's Wrath' by Steven Shane Pate II

ISBN-10: 0805989757
Publisher: RoseDog Books
Paperback: $18.00

Ishmael’s Wrath is an action-packed debut from native Oklahoma author Steven Shane Pate II. You are kept on the edge of your seat as terrorists, secret societies, and Navy Seals battle for control of a weapon that could change the course of history.

Randy Madduck is a United States Navy Seal fallen on emotional hard times. When we are first introduced to the character he is blocking a painful past with alcohol and a desk job. Angry with himself, he seems to lack direction until he receives a phone call from a mysterious man in the middle of the night.

Randy is informed that the recent suicide of a high-profile senator was not suicide but an act of terrorist Abd al-Raham. When Hermes Sinclair, the senator’s son and Randy’s friend, disappears Randy worries that there might be a connection. Armed with this information and a warning of impending disaster Randy contacts an old military friend at the Pentagon. But when the line goes dead in the middle of Randy’s warning he realizes that things have taken a turn for the worst.

From there the story just explodes off the page as Randy must fight to stop Abd al-Raham from changing not only the world but history, too. With a team of seven battle-hardened Seals Randy travels to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem where al-Raham is hiding the weapon. Along the way Randy must come to terms with his life up to this point and what it will be like after, and if, he is successful in this life or death mission.

Part political thriller, part inner quest, and just a plain good time, Ishmael’s Wrath is peopled with very real characters. Randy Madduck is practically jumping off the page; as each chapter unfolds and layers of his personality are reveled you can’t help but like the slightly damaged but ultimately good guy that he is. While the terrorist Abd al-Raham’s devotion to jihad is chilling he is also a character that you come to understand if not necessarily like.

There are a few flaws in the editing, but not in the writing, and those few mistakes are easily overlooked. The story flows quickly and naturally. Available from Rosedog Books, Ishmael’s Wrath is a must for any action fan who enjoys something a little more thoughtful. Long after you have turned the final page, this is a story that sticks with you.

'Blood Evidence' by Mel Odom

ISBN: 1414303076
ISBN-13: 9781414303079
Format: Paperback, 448pp
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Price: $13.99

Blood Evidence is the second book in the Military NCIS novels. I have to admit that from time to time I have tuned into the TV show and while the mystery is a draw, the characters are what really make the show for me. The same can be said for Mel Odom’s series.

Commander Will Coburn and his NCIS team are called to investigate the kidnapping of a Marine Captain’s daughter. When a simple kidnapping turns into a gang fight we get a chance to see the situation from each character's perspective, as well as what drives each of them.

When the body of a Marine is found while Commander Coburn and his team are tracking down the gang members, it only complicates matters. The body turns out to be a Marine who has been missing for 17 years. While processing the body the NCIS unit finds a link to the murder of a Naval Officer’s daughter that took place around the time the Marine went missing.

While the NCIS agents are trying to solve the links between the cold cases, weapons smuggling, and a potential serial killer, their personal lives are changing. Commander Coburn is struggling to balance his personal and professional life; Nita the medical examiner is struggling with her marriage and the responsibilities that kind of commitment entails; Estrella still coming to terms with the suicide of her husband; Maggie has her past and present family issues; and Remy and Shel provide some great action while dealing with their own demons.

Will Coburn’s character, a Navy Commander whose marriage has ended in divorce, really stands out in the novel. He struggles to keep a relationship going with his son and daughter. Will thinks back on his career, the time he spent deployed, and wonders if things had been different could his marriage have survived, not to mention the relationship with his children?

Being a Navy brat myself, I know how hard it can be and it really touched me.

In the end Blood Evidence is not just about the crime but the people involved in all the aspects of it. Their personal struggles bring drama and depth to the action and adventure that propels the book forward.

I also have to mention the way the book is presented: it comes across as being carefully thought out, with "NCIS Crime Scene" tape crossing across the new chapter pages and time and place headings at the start of each new scene. Over all this is a great book, well written, and more than enjoyable.

'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.”

'Subterranean' by James Rollins

ISBN: 0380792648
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 410pp
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Price: $7.99

Subterranean was Jurassic Park meets Journey to the Center of the Earth, but with a lost tribe of marsupial humanoids. It was just great. Great action, great adventure, great suspense, great mystery, and even some great romance — this book had it all.

It starts with some great characters: Ashley, an American anthropologist with her son Jason; Ben, the Australian cave diver; Linda, an American biologist; Khalid, a Egyptian geologist; and Michaelson, the Army man with a hand full of SEALS backing him up. These people form a team that Doctor Blakely has put together to search a cave under the Antarctic continent. There are other characters that come and go, some a little more unexpectedly than others.

In the main cavern, Alpha Base, dwellings have been carved all along one wall. Thousands of years old, maybe millions, these small homes belong to an extinct humanoid creature, or so the scientists believe. There are worm holes leading off the main cavern and the team has been put together to search the worm holes. They discover right before their departure that they are not the first to go down — a team went before them but never returned. They are not only on a discovery mission but also a rescue mission.

What they find in the bowels of the earth is like nothing else. Ben, the man with all the cave experience, claims that it is unlike anything else on the entire planet. They encounter living dinosaurs, species thought to be extinct long ago. All sorts of creatures block their path and obstacles are constantly being overcome, as they move farther and farther down. Alliances are formed and broken as the darkness presses close and they become lost in the maze of caves.

Some of the descriptions were a little light. You get a pretty good feel for the caverns and the different caves but it wasn’t always a clear picture. Sometimes you forget the characters are in a cave but that didn’t happen very often.

The thrill and the action take the front seat and are the driving forces for the book. The action never lets up, leaving you gripping the edges of your book and turning pages at a frantic pace. At every turn something new has happened and you hate to put it down.

'Creepers' by David Morrell

ISBN: 1593153570
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 384pp
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Price: $7.99

Creepers are the people who explore abandoned houses, hotels, subway tunnels, factories, and old department stores. It is highly illegal and there are a lot of fines and penalties out there for those people that get caught, not to mention the danger that an abandoned building poses; have the floors rotted away, will there be homeless people hiding in the corners, and what wild animals have found a way in out of the weather?

At some point in time, mostly in the teenage years, I’m sure a lot of you have wandered into an old building, maybe in the middle of the night with a flashlight and a friend. I must have spent countless hours exploring an abandoned hotel in the city I live in. I could never make myself look in all the closed hotel rooms. I would clutch a shaking flashlight and hurry to the roof, twelve floors up, and then hurry back down. In one of the rooms I did explore I found a copy of a 1960s Playboy in the nightstand next to a copy of the Bible.

Creepers is a book about the people who have the guts to take a look at it all. Open every door, take a look in the basement, and even thoughtful enough to bring a camera to take some pictures. But the abandoned buildings aren’t always truly abandoned and evil never truly leaves a place it has left its mark on.

Frank Balenger is a reporter doing a story on urban explorers for his newspaper. He is invited to join a group of five preparing to explore The Paragon Hotel on the Jersey Shore. The Paragon has a sad history, being built and owned by a man who feared people and the world. It is scheduled to be demolished in a week’s time.

Through tunnels infested with deformed rats and a cat with three hind legs, the group breaks through a metal door and into the hotel. What they find inside is the hotel as it looked in the Victorian era. Lush furnishings and marble that have been slowly rotting all these years. Carefully exploring rooms, they find evidence of the hotel’s brutal and horribly evil past. What they aren’t expecting is that the evil is still alive and waiting just around the corner.

Parts of this book almost made me jump out of my skin. The tension skyrockets and you just can't put down the book until you find out what happens next. Before you know it's 4 o'clock in the morning on a work day.