Nova Books

I liked the book. The over-the-top ending made me sigh. Also, small point: any lawyer worth her salt (and especially the prosecutor) would have invoked the rule of sequestration, so that another witness wouldn't have been in the courtroom during other testimony.
Misty really did sound vapid. If she was beautiful enough to make "any man" swoon (and more, without spoiling the plot), why was she working in a sleaze bar, even given her stupidity? I wanted a little more depth to her -- anything! She had no goals, she was utterly shocked when anything happened to her -- good or bad -- and walked through life with her finger stuck in her mouth like a baby. Boring. I got the impression that she was a woman who men would "not kick out of bed," but not much else. Hard to believe an educated, high-powered, very attractive exec would really be interested in her beyond sex. She wasn't witty or funny, she wasn't polished, and she was unfaithful. Nina was an interesting character, but she needed more feelings. Sounded like her son was raising himself (convenient of her to have a brother to run to, and no household problems with that), and throwing herself into one big case was taking her mind off her divorce. Not likely. I liked the Paul character a lot, and his machismo perspective. His lunging at Nina was pretty funny; maybe it was out of place, but there wasn't any silly buildup of romance lines. More readable than some Grishams. I liked Al the card sharp character -- funny, and realistic. I've been amazed to find out (from documentaries) that some of the best card counters live marginally. I just love the line about his dead wife and how much he loved her: "She let me try out anything on her."

Nina O'Reilly has to leave the firm she has been working for as they can no longer operate. So she seeks her own practice after finding a storefront to run from and an office girl Sandy whome everyone in the world knows and is quite bossy and a busybody.

The first big case Nina is met with is that of Michelle Patterson, Michelle had an abusive husband, Anthony, and when the couple have an explosive fight, Michelle knocks him over the head with a statue, just once, and he is bleeding. After this he disappears, and Michelle is running around scared, not knowing whether he'll come back to attack her, or what. But when the police find his body at the bottom of the pool, Michelle gets blamed for his death. How he ended up there is for Nina to discover.

Nina seeks the help of a colleague Paul to dig for more facts. Paul has also fallen for Nina and wants to be more than friends, but since Nina has just received a divorce from her husband Jack, she is not yet ready for the romance. She and her son had to move in with her brother Matt and his family until they can find a place of their own to begin with and start their own lives anew after solving this case.

I enjoyed the book very well. There are a lot of questions as to who killed Anthony Patterson, and Nina just knows that Michelle was not the one who actually did it, but someone who wanted to seek revenge.

The book was too long. I gave this book 3 stars because it finally got interesting during the last 100 pages or so.

This has got to be one of the worst written books I have read in quite a while. The characters are one dimensional and paper thin to boot. The plot is so full of cliches, that I doubt it would get a passing grade in a high school creative writing class. If this is all it takes to get a publishing deal these days, I may take a crack at it myself. I couldn't hope to do any worse.

I CAN'T BELIEVE SOME OF THE REVIEWS I AM READING ABOUT THIS BOOK, I THOGHT IT WAS VERY WELL WIRTTEN AND IT GOT MY ATTENTION. I LOVED THE ENDING IT HAD THE BEST TWIST TO IT, NO ONE COULS HAVE SEEN THAT COMING. I AM STARTING ON INVASION OF PRIVACY NOW AND I CAN ALREADY TELL THAT IT WILL BE EQUALLY THRILLING.

This story could have been much better.
For starters Hannah is not my favorite choice of for female heroine name. Brings to mind visions of char women from the 17th century. It's unflattering and doesn't seem to fit with someone who is attractive and talented. I apologize to anyone with that name. But it is just the first thing about this book that is bad. The other choice of character names isn't much better.
Hal is a little hard to read. I seem to be unable to define him. Is he mentally challenged? Is he emotionally challenged? Is he just out of some institution?
I also had some problem with the connections between events. Hall goes on and on with unnecessary descriptions. I could care less what everyone at a meeting is wearing. It had nothing to do with furthering the plot. The descriptions could have been more succinct. Well, just too much detailed descriptions and many are just corny sounding.
It seems like Hall is trying to make a romance between Hannah and Frank. It's a huge leap, since they didn't seem to have anything going on in the beginning of the book. How after 5 years Frank has made no effort to contact Hannah. I didn't get the reason she would have turned to him with the book if they haven't had any contact in that many years. Hall is really stretching it to try and create some hot romance there. I found it kind of creepy that the so called romance is not anything happening or any conversation between Hannah and Frank but by thoughts or conversations of The FBI woman Helen or Hal.
It seemed strange to me that Hannah didn't have any friends. Most people form friendships, have girlfriends, people to pal around with. Being a single parent would seem to be more reason for Hannah to have formed friendships with other single women. She should have had friends from when she worked at the police department, or from when she was in college. I'm sorry but that's just too big a leap of credibility that she would be without a single girlfriend.
I also wondered why she was not having any kind of therapy herself. How could she miss that if her son needed it that she would too.
Overall I'd have to say this book is boring, the characters have no depth. It's over detailed on rubbish. But lacking in good information to connect events. For instance the involvement of the FBI seemed slim at best. The way Hal is described here and there. Gosh, all I can say is this book really was flat.
I need to add that I'm listening to the audio version and Sandra Burr is not the best reader. Not the worst either but the sing song tone of her voice is annoying. And she does lousy at male voices. I've had some trouble following the characters because she doesn't give each character their own voice. But the book is still verbose to the extreme.
This is Sassyvic saying don't waste your time with this book. Look for something better.

This is my first foray into a book by James W. Hall. I found it to be an entertaining read with a couple of really good plot twists. The original premise of the FBI sting seems so silly that I cannot imagine anybody would permit it, but once I got past that part it was a great spring break thriller.

While the villains were fairly interesting, I found myself really rooting for the underachieving FBI agent, Frank Sheffield.

I wonder about the source of Mr. Hall's fascination with Indiana. I'm a lifelong resident of the Hoosier state so I was interested in the fact that the main bad guy comes from Evansville (his bare description of Evansville, even though it is vague, tells me that he's never seen it). Also, his knowledge of Indiana geography seems a bit sketchy since he has the boy in the foster care system in Evansville yet committing crimes in Indianapolis. They are a good 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive apart. Plus, Hall mentions some overweight teachers from Fort Wayne in a bar trying to get lucky with some Cuban lotharios. Yes, my beloved Hoosier state, home to serial killers and desperate big girls...

Despite that, I give this book a final grade of B+.

I listened to the audiobook while driving to and from work. It was entertaining, to a certain extent. It was certainly well read.

Hal Bonner was almost like a robot, at least that's how he was read in the audiobook, talks like a robot, doesn't understand common idioms, and of course doesn't really know what love is or could be, not even sex, actually. That's possibly understandable, in the perspective of his foster-home-in-the-mortuary upbringing, but believable? Too far-fetched. But, hey, it's a novel, right? It's not supposed to be non-fiction.

Okay, so Helen's ex-husband (and Randall's father) has murdered his in-laws, and no one knows about it, except Randall, for how many years? And then the inept fool is caught in an obvious trap, confessing to his wired son in the Miami airport. Believable? No, it's too contrived, but hey, it's a novel, right?

The Senator pushing the FBI around? Well, that part is believable, I guess, I'll trust Mr. Hall on that one.

Misty Fielding? No, I don't believe a young woman, no matter how bitter, would kidnap and kill a little boy. And the business about doctoring the videotape using a 12-year old hacker, well, that's far-fetched, contrived, it doesn't fit nicely as a plot device should fit, if the author is a real master.

The only character I liked in this mess is Frank Sheffield, the FBI agent son of a heroic FBI agent, who appears to lack ambition and live in a sort of Taoist funk, which is precisely opposed to our idea of an FBI agent. Of course, he comes out on top in the end, just as Lao Tse said he would.

Diximus.

First of all, despite what the header for this listing says, this is not a Thorn book; It's a stand-alone novel with new characters. Secondly, unlike Hall's Thorn books, Rough Draft just isn't very good. If you've read most of Hall's books like I have, you're probably beginning to feel like if you've read one, you've read them all. A fine writer in his early years, Hall has now gotten stale and boring. The plot for this book was fragmented and patched together, with a twist ending that just didn't work at all for me. The entire idea for this book seemed like a throwaway, something that Hall came up with at the last minute just to crank another book out. Reviewers make a big deal out of Hall's villians, and they are pretty interesting, but the female villian in this one is just like every other female villian that Hall creates, and the male villian needed more fleshing out to be truly classic. The good guys, however, are so plain and vanilla that I never cared one bit about them throughout the entire book. It was a struggle to get through this one, and I can't recommend it to anyone. For a good read, try one of Hall's earlier books instead.

Hannah Keller, ex cop and Author is being used as bait by the FBI to catch serial killer Hal, who kills people by bursting their hearts with his bare hands. Agent Frank Sheffield, who is unwillingly recruited to help the FBI in their mission ends up antagonizing the rest of the FBI team and helping Hannah Keller. Inspite of unbelievable characters such as Hal and Stevie, a 13 year old computer whiz, the book is a thrilling read.
[...]

I never quite got around to seeing this Bond flick. I am a casual fan, meaning that I eventually get around to seeing them, but not usually in the theater. I ran across this audiobook version and figured I'd kill two birds with one stone - liven up my long commute with some entertainment and cross this Bond story off of my list.

This version is read by John Kenneth. Kenneth was confronted with a tough choice - how does he read Bond? Does his version of Bond sound like Connery? Dalton? Moore? Who? Kenneth's voice for Bond is unique and unforced, which cannot be said of some of the other voics he uses. At times, Kenneth presents the listener with a variety of increasingly-shrill British voices that sound more like the soundtrack of a Monty Python skit rather than a more serious presentation.

Being free of the movie format does offer the author, Raymond Benson, a bit of freedom and he uses it in two interesting ways:

#1 - the amount of sexual detail. Benson goes into graphic detail with Bond's sexual adventures. This is not in keeping with the movies which generally feature a wink and a nod and a female voice purring, "Oh, James!" as the camera fades to black. This is a trademark of the series, just as much as "Bond. James Bond" and "Shaken - not stirred" are and I think it should have been given more respect.

#2 - Benson explores the twisted background of a Bond arch-enemy rather than limiting his background to the bare oral briefing that Bond receives when he is assigned his mission. We learn all about the childhood of Renard, a terrorist bent on anarchistic chaos. I found that to be an interesting and welcome addition to the book.

Interestingly, this James Bond audiobook was directed by a man named Jim Bond!

Final grade for the audiobook version: C+

I saw the movie before i read the book so I knew everything that would happen but Benson does do an excellent job of explaining things!

I read the novelization of "Tomorrow Never Dies" before reading this. The thing I noticed with Benson is that in his novelizations he writes in third-person omniscent, allowing the reader to not only visualize everything, but know what the characters are thinking, which can obviously not be done in the movies. I had some of the movie before reading the book. After I read the book, however, I saw the movie and it made a lot more sense.

The world is not enough is the #1 book if you like action , excitment, and adventure its a book based on the 19th bond movie if you like bond you will like this!

Raymond Benson's second novel based on a screenplay is not entirely disappointing. It perhaps lacks the detail and depth of character evident in his "Tomorrow Never Dies" that was a top-notch adaptation of the screenplay. And that is what the cinematic THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH truly needed. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH atypically required a book to make sense of the confusing plot mixing the King family with Swiss Bankers, terrorists and British intelligence. In retrospect there are many intriguing elements of the film that somehow go undeveloped. The film's structure is more character based than driven by plot. Unfortunately, there was a great opportunity to delve deeper into the psyche of the central characters, but that opportunity went by the wayside. On a more practical note, it seemed rather incongruous to have M go out into the "field" and end up a captive behind bars in a seaside estate. This is completely out of character for the resourceful and worldly M characterized in TOMORROW NEVER DIES. The problem here is actually with the cinematic version of THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and not Raymond Benson's novel.

This has to be the most tedious and boring piece of writing concocted by the twin sob sisters that call themselves Perri O'Shaughnessy. The story line is obviously designed to tug at the heartstings of feminists. The overly detailed dialogue of the pretrial effort is difficult to wade through. The sex bits read as though some bimbo is reguirgitating a wet dream. The climax is more of the same, an implausable turn of events that further examplifies the sappy plot and writing. A wasted time for the reader.

I gave this audio book to a friend who is traveling a lot in the car. He thought it was a great book to listen to and he liked it a lot. I made somebody happy with it

I liked how the book kept you guessing, fast read with interesting characters. The only part that I did not like was the jury deliberating, that she could have skipped. Otherwise, nice read and a good ending.

This is the best work by Perri ever! I was very entertained while4 I was reading it! Pam and Mary did their research very well to come up with winner. I tell you that I could not put this bestseller down! I have read everything this author has out and I am in the middle of raeding the 10th book. It is well plotted. Don't read this book at night you will lose time and it is not a great thing to do.

This book is wrong in almost everything it says, for example:
In the trial of Mike and Lindy the jury SUPPOSE that Lindy lie when she said that she wanted to marry with Mike, but Nina proof that Mike made perjury in middle of the process, and all the jury were against Lindy because she is a liar.
The jury waste three days to take a decision, and then happened a "little" problem and when the judge make another jury they have their decision in three hours.
The worst of all the book, Paul, the boyfriend of Nina, he attacks her on the judgment, when the judgment ends, Paul investigates what happened with that "little" problem in the jury and he knows that if he does that Nina will lose everything she has, why he did that?
At the end of the book, what happened to Mike and Lindy is pathetic, but that Nina still loves Paul even if he left her is more than pathetic.

He is the worst narrator of all time. i listen to alot of audio books while traveling, driving or working. but this reader is the worst of all time
his voice just b|ows, its so annonying. i hope not to ever run in to any of more audio books by him. i am trying to listen to Terry goodkind books but LORD jim bond is reading them.
its a freaking nightmare

The General written by Patrick A. Davis is a thriller at its best. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jenson is put in charge of finding out who killed General Watkins. That is not an easy task considering there is not much help from the army and Air Force. If the truth ever came out the United States of America would be in serious trouble. As Colonel Jenson investigates the murder he runs into all sorts of problems. For one, General Watkins was working on an investigation of POWs in Vietnam. The information he learned from the investigation very well could have got him killed. As time passes there are even a few more homicides. Will Colonel Jenson ever find the killer?
Patrick A. Davis is a retired Air Force Colonel. He is a full time writer and has three books out right now. They are: The General, the Colonel, and The Passenger. All are exceptional mystery novels.

ALthough Patrick A. Davis is my uncle, I do not read his books purely for that reason but because they are some of the most exciting books out there to read in my opinion. In this book, The General, Patrick's sense of the government, and his great knowledge helped him to write a very gripping book. There is homicide after homicide, and an exciting twist that pretty basically no one saw coming! It grabs your attention and you cannot turn away from it. You are stuck doing guesswork, trying to fit all of the puzzle pieces together to form an overview of the story, and also to try and figure out who is behind the vengefull, meaningless murders. You will never know unless you read the book just how great it is and I would definitly reccomend this wonderful pageturner to anyone who has had a military experience, who is into homicides, crime scene investigations, and putting the puzzle pieces of a book together. If you have read/ would like to read any of W.E.B. Griffin's books, I also highly reccomend this book to you, and if you do not like it, I guarantee it will not be bacause of the writing ability of the author but merely because you did not WANT to like it!

I've read all three of his books and this one is his best one. All of the suspects that Patrick Davis brings up die one by one until there are none left. It was hard for me to put down as I wanted to find out what was on the next page as there he was taking you on a suspenseful ride with twists thrown in. The ending has a surprise twist to it.

I couldn't put the book down. It was wonderful. I'm in the Air Force and everything he states is right on the money. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good work of fiction. I hope he continues writing for a long time.

Loved the book....but it was re-released as The Magdalene Cipher. You should know before you purchase.

In the wake of "The DaVinci Code's" success, many earlier conspiracy novels are being republished. "Kingdom Come" is a case in point. In it's current incarnation, it's been retitled "The Magdalene Cipher" to cash in on the craze spawned by Dan Brown's work.

"Kingdom Come" is an espionage-cum-secret society novel that combines fast action with unraveling a conspiracy. Its plot includes almost everything but the kitchen sink--Roswell, UFOs, cattle mutilations, visions of Mary, government cover-ups, ancient cabals, and Merovingian history. The story follows, Jack Dunphy, a CIA operative who is pulled out of his cover when the subject of a wiretap is murdered in a distinctively ritualistic way. Brought back to Washington, DC, Dunphy is assigned to a low level desk job where his career will likely wither away. His decision to investigate what really happened and why he's been sidelined leads to consequences he doesn't expect. Soon he and his British girlfriend are on the trail of a conspiracy whose origins lie buried in history.

Overall, this was a quick read, and I found it a lot of fun. Those who are looking for a book that focuses on Mary Magdalene, Merovingian history, and religious mysteries are liable to be disappointed. "Kingdom Come" is a spy thriller in which the actual reason for the conspiracy is less important than the conspiracy's role as a plot device. Given the unexpected twists and occasional flashes of humor, I got the feeling that Hougan didn't take himself or his conspiracy too seriously. Whatever the name this book is published under, it's a relatively intelligent thriller.

Jack Dunphy gets thrown out from the CIA after a professor he's watching gets killed. He wants to know why and starts his own investigation. What he finds is a global conspiracy which ties in with every strange event that ever took place. Every step he takes reveals a new secret being tied in to this conspiracy. Great action, characters and overall writting.

First off this book is not a "poor man's DaVinci Code" as it was originally published in 2000 prior to the DaVinci Code. Granted it has been re-issued to catch in on the religious conspiracy craze under the title the Magdalene Cipher but that is where the resemblance ends.

This novel is much more in the spy/suspense genre and the focus is around CIA operative Jack Dunphy who has found himself dumped into the position of editing Freedom of Information Act files after his previous assignment had gone astray through no fault of his own. Being both bored and curious, Jack decides to initiate a little research through his new position about what went wrong with his previous assignment. What he discovers soon puts Jack and his lady friend Clementine in great jeopardy.

Hougan's fast-pace thriller soon encompasses a centuries old plot conceived by a secret society that explains the Roswell UFO's, crop circles and a black Madonna. The novel picks up incredible momentum as it goes along and although some of the plot devices almost defy belief Hougan's research and intimate knowledge of spy lore and trade craft manage to keep the story acceptable. One of the strengths of Hougan/Case's novels are his lead characters who react to the circumstances in which they find themselves in manner that is very human and realistic. Hougan's heroes are no James Bond types-sometimes they succeed in spite of themselves which adds realism to his novels and this one is no exception. If you like very fast paced spy novels with multiple twists and turns than you will enjoy Kingdom Come. (3.5 stars)

Disenfranchised, as it were, from the "Agency," Jack Dunphy has been reassigned to a desk closet, so to speak. His superiors are more than a little concerned over a case that's been bungled while in London (a "number" he's supposedly had underwraps, surveillance-wise, is dead!). Dissatisfied and just more than a little suspicious that his "handlers" are trying to ease him completely out of the picture, Jack begins his own investigation....and from there "Kingdom Come" comes alive. Well, to a point.

Granted, author Jim Hougan is compared (whether it's a complement or not remains to be seen) to Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming, and Dan Brown, among others. Certainly, Hougan has chosen the "spy thriller" genre and probably there's not an overabundance of new and brilliant and readable ideas there. Still, Hougan gives it a try and does well, everything taken into consideration.

Agent Dunphy has to fight the demons in the closet, so to speak, and he has a partner in Clementine and together they go after the conspirators in the usual do-or-die scenario. Still, Clementine is a nice additive and complements Dunphy admirably.

Still: it's spy-thriller-fiction. That said, Hougan has every right to go for it, literarily. "Kingdom Come" is a very readable thriller, and like Ludlum, Fleming, and Brown, those universal conspiracy cases can only go so far, and like these two, he has to stretch occasionally. Again, it's fiction. It's not a Dan Rather expose or a Bill O'Reilly revelation-it's fiction. And worth the effort. A pleasant read. (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

The most noteworthy part of this otherwise forgettable book is the half dozen quotes on the back of the hard cover edition I read. Each is an author who's output I follow and I usually enjoy reading. This is a first. Normally this many blurbs include some by authors I don't know or don't like. So this, for me is a special case and deserves comment.

Now I don't want to go off on a rant here, but I am not a callow moron. Countless times I finish an inferior book and am left to speculate darkly what book industry machinations ordained that Elmore Leonard or Michael Connelly blurbs shall be associated with it. Long ago I stopped believing it was the benign kindness of these paragons, who in their wisdom detected some promise in the work that completely escaped me. Because often I can't believe they'd actually hold still to read the thing. My social life became pretty much a dud since I overheard a friend's wife on the phone tell someone, He had to go back to school, at his age, while scuffling to the john. Surely only an unemployed smuck like me, unable to buy books under present circumstances winds up on holiday break with the library closed and has nothing better to do with his afternoon than finish a substandard piece of genre fiction. What excuse could Michael Connelly possibly have?

So because of its list of, for me, impeccable blurbs this case leaves me not merely wondering once again, What gives? but offended. Unlike the product of these favorites, the work at hand is lifeless and formulaic. It contains no humor, twisted or otherwise. No anger, vicious or righteous. Its author has no talent for character. Instead of showing us character's with behavior and dialogue he tells us how, for instance the main character's (I wince typing Thorn) two lovers are different. The villain(ess) is especially mechanical and bloodless which I find unusual. Often a cleverly wrought villain strikes me as the only apparent reason an otherwise undistinguished piece of genre fiction gets published. And the ploy of putting dialogue from gangster movies into the mouth of one of the bad guys to mark him wasn't just stupid because it's hackneyed; it glaringly illuminated the flatness of the rest of the dialogue. The only quality this author has is the stamina to grind his dreary harebrained plot and stock characters out to completion. But it's merely a fact that there's a lot of junk genre fiction out there, some worse than this. What I object to is its talented producers' collusion in hoodwinking their fans by promoting an example of it like this one, rather than using their blurbs to help us sift out the truly entertaining.

In deciding what books to acquire and then spend precious time reading, I often read through Amazon.com customer reviews. When I find a book that has received an average rating of four or more by at least a combined total of 25 or more reviewers, I consider it a good bet. Such was James W. Hall's Blackwater Sound, a well-crafted page turner.

I was put off by one customer reviewer who gave it only one star and went on to badmouth the book and its author in a big way. The reviewer assured us that he is not a "callow moron," but he fails to tell us what kind of moron he is. If you like an action-packed thriller with really evil bad guys and good guys you'll cheer for, then disregard the one ridiculous review, go with the percentages, and read this book!

Thorn is back and so is Alexandra Rafferty. Fans of James W. Hall's Florida thrillers would recognize those names from previous novels. Thorn is the quintessential Florida hero who prefers to spend his time fishing in the keys. His idyllic life is commonly placed on hold whenever he is subjected to outside evil forces that he must contend with. In this case, he witnesses a jumbo jet crash land in the gulf while he is fishing there. After rescuing as many passengers as he could he notices something not quite right going on. He soon discovers the existence of a device that could shut off electricity at a distance. Hence, the ability to cause massive power failures, not only among aircrafts such as the one Thorn witnessed, but, in whole sections of cities. The device is being sold by the miscreant family called the Braswells. The father, AJ, is obsessed with the capture of a huge marlin responsible for the freak death of his eldest son Andy. Johnny, mentally deficient, is a psychopathic killer and his beautiful sister, Morgan, is evil incarnate. It is this family that Thorn must battle to stop the sale of this potentially devastating weapon. Teaming with Thorn is Alexandra Rafferty, the heroine of BODY LANGUAGE. Alexandra is a Miami PD photographic specialist. Her father, Lawton, suffering from Alzheimer's has stumbled upon the device and is held hostage by the Braswells until it is recovered.
The unique aspect of James W. Hall's books is the combination of a superior thriller with truly poetic and lyrical language. He is, not only a superb storyteller, but is a highly talented writer. He bears comparison to James Lee Burke in evoking the Florida landscape. The descriptions of fishing for the marlin is so magnificently described that one can't help thinking of Hemingway's OLD MAN AND THE SEA. The villains are quite similar to those in previous books. The psychopath, Johnny Braswell, bears an uncanny resemblance to Butler Jack, the terrorist of BUZZ CUT. The characters, however, are an overall believable bunch and ones that are quite familiar to fans of Mr. Hall of whom I proudly count myself as one of them. Highly recommended as are all of his books.

After taking some time off from his series character, James Hall has returned to writing about Thorn, a man who treasures his fierce independence only slightly less than his love of crusades. When last seen, Thorn was recovering from a mad doctor's unnecessary treatments, but now (without any real explanation) he is back to peak health and enjoying the mellow life of fishing, beer and beautiful women.

In this story, his idyllic life is disrupted when a plane crashes while he is out at sea. It soon becomes apparent that this crash was not accidental, but is the result of a dysfunctional family and the nasty weapon they have developed. This also gets Thorn entangled with Alexandra Rafferty, the heroine of Hall's previous novel, Body Language.

For Hall, one of the sharper writers in the field, this is not his best effort. Compared to past novels, his villains this time are only slightly warped and the chemistry between Thorn and Alex is relatively minimal. In addition, Thorn isn't as interesting as in the past, perhaps getting stuck in the rut of many series characters.

Nonetheless, even weaker Hall is entertaining reading, and there is a lot of fun along the way. If you've never read Hall, you'd think this was pretty good crime fiction (and you'll be even happier when you read his other books). If you are a Hall fan, you should find this slightly disappointing, but still a worthwhile read.

I know I've enjoyed a book when I go online to discover which other books the author has written. As soon as I finished 'Blackwater Sound' I found myself searching for the next book by James W. Hall that I would read. Hall's charachters are vividly drawn and though flawed, very likeable. I was happy to discover that Hall's newest novel revisits Thorn, Alexandra, Lawton and Sugarman as I've grown to love them.

In 'Blackwater Sound' Thorn is accidentally visited by an injured old man, Lawton Collins, who is suffering from not only a knife wound but the early stages of Alzheimer's. He likes Lawton and tries to help him by giving him a place to stay and some rudimentary first aid. Lawton wanders off and his daughter, Alexandra, in an effort to find her father encounters Thorn. She is understandably upset with Thorn's irresponsible care of her dad and each goes off separately to search for Lawton and to investigate his connection to the murder of a shady friend, a missing electronic device and a recent airplane crash. Inevitably they find they must work together to solve this intriguing mystery.

The plot is original, the writing crisp and the charachters are unforgettable. You'll really enjoy this one!

I had never read perri o'shaughnessy until i picked up 'writ of execution' at a library sale. I was a third or so the way thru when i looked at the back cover to see if there was a bio, as i began to suspect this might be a female writer. to my surprise, 2 females. sisters! I was drawn in to this book by the charactors, and layers of mystery surrounding each one. From the slot machines to the court room, including personal difficulties unrelated to the mystery. wonderful balancing act. Definitely a charactor driven book, i can't wait to read another. I love finding gems like this thru serendipity.

... though not always for the better.

A young woman wins a multi-million progressive jackpot on a slot machine.

Desperate to hide her identity she takes off with the stranger who was playing next to her (a down on his luck computer programmer who is is minutes away from putting a bullet in his brain) and heads off to lawyer Nina Reilly.

In a first attempt to hide her identity, a quick marriage between the two (for the pice of one million dollars) is arranged, to allow the woman to give a false identity to the press who are covering the event and to hide her from whoever may be on her tail.

The plan does unravel, due to a lawsuit, and there is also another claimant who would kill to get her millions. He has his reasons for thinking the jackpot should be his.

Overall I found this an enjoyable book, though there are some weaknesses that the other reviews have pointed out. I waivered between a 4 and a 3 star rating. Ultimately, what made the difference for me is that the book went into some interesting details on the gaming industry, how these large jackpots actually work, and what the gaming companies can or cannot do. This bit of research made the difference in my rating.

A good crime/legal/detective novel with enough twists and turns to keep me interested.

A story full of twists and turns. Its a very interesting plot, winning the big pot, was it a strike of luck or a bad joke from the devil? What deep dark secret can keep the winner from collecting what is lawfuly hers? These and more mysteries lead our picturesque team of the sensitive but persistent lawyer, the reliable with an almost frightening sense of protecting detective and his naive indian partner to play a who done it game with very powerful and dark charachters, that sometimes wear their angel disguises to perform their evil duties.

This was my first Perri O'Shaughnessy book. I got it free at the Bouchercon in Austin last October. I MIGHT read one of the earlier titles but it won't be first on my list. Perhaps it is the result of co-authors, but I found the writing to be difficult to navigate. Many times it was hard to determine who was talking. Too many thoughts to oneself interspersed with dialogue. Too many coincidences to make the story believable.

I admit I am not fond of the female in jeopardy genre. And this one had TWO women making foolish assumptions and stupid moves. I had little sympathy for either of them.

Nina Reilly is the single mom to a young boy. He is conveniently absent or accounted for often during the book, although Nina sporadically wrings her hands in concern for him. Her detective, Paul, seems to want to be with her regardless of her personal difficulties but he is often oblivious to those difficulties, too.

This book was just too PC for me. A little of everything was thrown in for good measure, along with a lot of editorializing on the favorite soap boxes of the authors.

Still, I finished it and did find it somewhat entertaining. The sisters need a good proofreader.

This is a mediocre legal thriller, and my first introduction to this author. While moderately entertaining, I probably will not seek anymore novels by this author, as the writing tends to be pedestrian and formulaic. I also found the character of the attorney, Nina Reilly, to be uninteresting and an embarrassment to women in the legal profession. Perhaps, this was in part due to the fact that I listened to the unabridged audio book, where the reader infused Ms. Reilly's character with a breathy, little girl voice, that made her sound just this side of stupid.

Still, the book had its interesting moments. The plot revolves around a young woman, purportedly of Washoe Indian descent, who calls herself Jessie Potter and has just won a seven million dollar plus jackpot at a Nevada casino. She wishes to maintain a low profile, as she has a deep, dark secret, so she retains Ms. Reilly as her attorney, seeking to collect the jackpot, while maintaining her privacy. Unbeknownst to Ms. Reilly and her client, someone else feels entitled to that jackpot and will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get it.

In constructing the plot, the author, through one of the secondary characters, gives an interesting account of how these jackpots are designed to work, as well as a bird's-eye view of the gaming industry. Moreover, the courtroom scenes are of some interest. Still, this is not enough to make this a top notch legal thriller, as the writing never rises beyond hack status. The plot was too pat and contrived, at times, and the characters remain two dimensional throughout. I found myself neither caring for nor very much liking any of the characters. This over rated book remains simply a quick, throwaway read.

This is the fist Hall book I have read. I don't think I will be reading anymore. I was a little bored with this story. Things were ok until characters Emma and Norman entered. They are so weird, that the story lost its substance. I got tired of the cockroach riddles and stories. Adding Jennifer to the duo just made them that much more uninteresting. I'm not sure where Alex's political friend was supposed to fit in the story. It seemed like a chapter from another book got mixed up in this story. I would have preferred more follow up with the murders than all the dialogue between Alex and her Alzheimer ridden father. That got a little old.
Thank goodness this was a library book and didn't cost me anything.

This book was terrible. I was told it was good so I started to read it, but I found I could barely finish it. I don't even read mystery books and I knew who the killer was in the first twenty pages. The "heroine" of this tale (I use this term very loosely) was boring and uninteresting and frankly also kind of easy. The other characters in the book weren't much better. None of them were developed past a name and physical description. The action sequences were bumbling and the subplot confusing. There were some good ideas in this book but the author never took the time or energy to develop them. It read like someone's leftover brain storming ideas thrown hastily together. Don't even bother with this book.

James Hall is a gifted writer; that's why I can't understand why or how this book was written. Hall writes two types of books; the series about unofficial private detective Thorn, and stand-alone books in the crime category which feature bold plots and crazy characters in the tradition of Elmore Leonard. Body Language was obviously meant to be the second type of book, but in addition to the "crime-gone-wrong" plot which is littered with bizarre villians, there is also a second plot which is a hackneyed, boring "Silence of the Lambs" rip-off plot of the type that sprang up in dozens of horrible novels after Thomas Harris hit the jackpot with his masterpiece in the early 90s. I honestly can't belive that anybody, especially a writer of Hall's caliber, would tackle such an overdone genre these days. He attempts to combine the serial killer and "crime of the century" plots, which turns the book into a muddled, confusing novel that doesn't seem to know what it's trying to be. The writing is also far below his normal standard; there are some sex scenes that are written so poorly that even the most low-paid romance writer would be embarrased to put her name on them. Hall's dialogue in this one is also stilted and uninteresting. In addition, the "mystery" of the serial killer is so simple and predictable that most readers will have it figured out before the first 100 pages. Try Hall's other books if you want a good, entertaining read. Only try Body Language if you're having trouble sleeping.

Read Under Cover of Daylight, Buzz Cut or Mean High Tide if you want a good book by this author. This one has some great possibilities, but it just doesn't quite live up to those. Situations were too contrived and obvious. Check it out of the library and you will get your money's worth. :-)

I really did want to like this book. I have a fondness for the gruesome, and this book's blurbs all bill it as a serial killer procedural introducing Alexandra Rafferty, a scene of the crime photographer. I was more than a little surprised to find it was mostly melodrama even including the short trips into the mind of 'The Bloody Rapist.' The crimes consist of a series of women who are raped, their throats slashed, and then are left in contorted positions with trails of blood leading to their bodies. Unfortunately, procedure is almost completely lacking, and what passes for detection is mostly serendipitous luck.

Alexandra is an unfortunate heroine. A rape when very young has left her with permanent scars, not the least from killing the boy who violated her. She is married to an egotistical football player who is several cells short of a brain. And her father is falling victim to Alzheimer's. This would be a tragic life in most circumstances, but when her husband decides to mastermind the robbery of the contents of the armored card he drives, the whole thing falls apart. Alexandra discovers her husband's girlfriend, her father discovers the money and soon a pair of psychotics are chasing after her. In addition to Mr. Bloody Rapist, who is, for some not so mysterious reason, fascinated with Alexandra.

The key problem is that the plot keeps advancing by accident and coincidence. The characters betray very little sense including Alexandra who uses her rape at the age of 11 as the reason for becoming an accessory after the fact and causing several deaths as a result. I also find that turning Alzheimer's into comic relief (and the plot primary mechanism) is inappropriate. One gets quickly tired of this sadly damaged man wandering in to a scene and mostly due to silliness, finding clues everyone else has missed.

Hall is a good writer, and I've long been a fan of his Thorn series, but this story is one of those books that simply shouldn't have been written. And having been written, it should have been heavily edited. My advice is to skip this book and look into Hall's others, in particular the Thorn books.

One of my favorite Greeley's novels.
Life in our grimm world needs more of acting angels.
Let"s dream for a while.

As a "cradle Catholic" I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the characters of Michael and Gaby and "The Other". Unthinkable when I was learning the Baltimore Chatechism in the late '40's.
Greeley's wry humor is always good for a laugh out loud. I did get just a wee bit weary of the descriptions of passion. Brevity would have been appreciated. Even so, I have recommended it to many of my family and friends.

I pride myself in taking a good deal of thought and preparation into writing my reviews.......unforunately this is all I can come up with:

There is an old adage that goes, "If you can't find something nice to say about someone, say nothing." I extend that to be "if you can't say anything good about a book, say nothing." NOTHING!!!!

Our hero is Mr. Raymond Anthony Neenan, CEO and President of a large media corporation and multi gazillionaire, who finds himself sitting on an airplane next to a big black man with an earring in his ear who claims to be what we earthlings call "an angel", though prefers to be called a "seraph". At first Mr. Neenan thinks the guy is a nut, and then he thinks perhaps he had too much vodka. When the plane is sent hurtling towards earth, luggage flying everywhere, nose diving into a certain crash, and then righted again, with everyone else on board unaware of what has just happened, Mr. Neenan believes. He is told he does not have long to live, and should sign this contract to save his immortal soul. He signs. What follows is humor, good fun, some sadness, and a lot of emotional turmoil for our hero. He now must right all of the wrongs he has done in his life, and he has only a short time in which to do so. As the story progresses, it becomes somewhat of a reach, but hanging in there is worth it. I did not like the ending at all, but of course cannot give that away. Instead, I recommend you read it for yourself and decide. All in all, I was happy with this book, found it very well written and an extremely easy read, and enjoyed almost every page.

I read somewhere recently that Fr. Greeley has written 43 novels. I believe it is closer to 53 if the truth be told. I myself have read 39 of them so far and this is one of my all time favorites. It is a wonderfully accessible story about the grace of forgiveness and of trying to do better every day, whether other people respond favorably to you or not. I could not recommend this book highly enough.