Thursday 31 October 2013

Review: HARD EIGHT

Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich
Book 8 of the Stephanie Plum series
Narrated by Lorelei King
Format: audiobook
Genre: crime fiction chicklit

About Hard Eight:
Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum has a big problem on her hands: Seven-year-old Annie Soder and her mother, Evelyn, have disappeared.

Evelyn's estranged husband, Steven, a shady owner of a seedy bar, is not at all happy. During the divorce proceedings, he and Evelyn signed a child custody bond, and Steven is demanding the money guaranteed by the bond to find Annie. The money was secured by a mortgage on Evelyn's grandmother's house, and the True Blue Bonds Bail Agency wants to take possession of the house.

Finding a kidnapped child is not an assignment for a bounty hunter. But Evelyn's grandmother lives next door to Stephanie's parents, and Stephanie's mother and grandmother are not about to see their neighbor lose her house because of abduction.

Even though Stephanie's plate is full with miscreants who missed their court dates, including old nemesis and violent drunk Andy Bender and an elusive little old lady accused of grand theft auto, she can't disappoint Grandma Mazur! So she follows the trail left by Annie and Evelyn-- and finds a lot more than she bargained for. Steven is somehow linked with a very scary Eddie Abruzzi. Trenton cop and on-again, off-again fiance Joe Morelli and Stephanie's mentor and tormentor, Ranger, warn Stephanie about Abruzzi, but it's Abruzzi's eyes and mannerisms that frighten Stephanie the most. Stephanie needs Ranger's savvy and expertise, and she's willing to accept his help to find Annie even though it might mean becoming too involved with Ranger.

Stephanie, Ranger, Lula (who's not going to miss riding with Ranger), and Evelyn's lawyer/laundromat manager set out to find Annie. The search turns out to be a race among Stephanie's posse, the True Blue Bonds' agent, a Rangerette known as Jeanne Ellen Burrows, and the Abruzzi crew. Not to mention the fact that there's a killer rabbit on the loose!

Strap on your helmet and get ready for the ride of your life. Hard Eight. The world of Plum has never been wilder.
Source: Info in the About Hard Eight was taken from at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6425.Hard_Eight on 21/10/2012.

Review:
I have to tip my metaphorical hat to Lorelei King! She's a true professional! Words are clear and distinct. Diction, pauses and enunciations perfect. I especially like the accents and voices she gives the characters! And I also agree with her interpretation of the book! I would listen and buy another Lorelei King audiobook again.

So I was a bit disappointed with the last book in this series so I stopped listening to Stephanie Plum for a while and picked up another audiobook. After sometime, I forgot my ire and re-listened to this audiobook again simply because it was already loaded into my Samsung phone. Eventually I finished the book... Stephanie's stupid factor increased tenfold in this book so much so that it is no longer believable, no matter one does, that a being this stupid could live. Not even with sheer dumb luck. Stephanie is just too stupid to live! So you go apprehend somebody, and you leave the key in the ignition?? Not once, but twice! And guess what? The FTA (failure to appear) drives away with your CRV... The stupidity is reaching new heights that it sank the believability factor down to the bottom of the ocean! If you are going to read/listen to this book, read it/listen to it for the humour, not for the story nor the story telling quality. Because otherwise you will be bitterly disappointed.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2
Character development = 2
Story itself = 2
Ending = 3
World building = 3.5
Cover art = 1
Pace = N/A
Plot = 1.5
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries

Wednesday 30 October 2013

WW28: SHADOWMARCH

WW28 book offering: Shadowmarch by Tad Williams

The old king, Ustin - those children's grandfather - he was a great one for festivals and parades, do you remember?

Sounds like a jolly kind of king...

About Shadowmarch:
Shadowmarch has lately fallen on hard times. Its king has been captured by a rival kingdom, the regent has been mysteriously slain, and the new regents are callow fifteen-year-olds. Moody, crippled Prince Barrick is uninterested in their responsibilities and haunted by eerie dreams. His twin, Princess Briony, takes their new duties seriously, but is hot-tempered and headstrong. How can they defeat the greatest threats in Shadowmarch history? Their nobles plot to overthrow them - and the plotters may include their pregnant stepmother, seeking the throne for her own child. The expanding empire of Xis has sent its agents into Shadowmarch. And, for the first time since it appeared centuries ago, the Shadowline has starting moving. As the maddening mist spreads south over Shadowmarch, it does not quite hide the powerful, uncanny, and vengeful Qar army of invasion.
Source: Info in the About Shadowmarch was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1017535.Shadowmarch on 07/01/2013.

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!
  • First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
  • Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
  • Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

Monday 28 October 2013

Guest Post: MARY BURTON


A few years ago I was attending The Writers’ Police Academy in North Carolina. If you haven’t heard of the Writers’ Police Academy (a.k.a. WPA) it’s a great event that brings authors together with law enforcement professionals once a year for an action packed weekend. Law enforcement graciously donates their time to bring us first hand, solid information about their work, techniques and challenges. Being there not only guides my own research, the time spent leads to new ideas and new perspectives on my plot and characters.

Anyway, it was last year and I’d headed down to the academy ready to dig in. The day was hot but no one seemed to care. After an action-packed morning of fingerprinting and ballistics, I headed to the afternoon session, which was a shallow grave seminar. Yep, that’s right. A shallow grave seminar. Lead by a pathologist, the class headed off into the woods. Our first task was to find the mock shallow grave, which turned out to be harder than any of us expected. Once we identified the site, our instructor began a fascinating discussion of how law enforcement finds and how it handles this kind of discovery.

The instant I walked out of the woods, I knew that I had the jumping off point for the book I would begin writing next, NO ESCAPE.

NO ESCAPE features Texas Ranger Brody Winchester and forensic psychologist Jolene Granger. The once married duo joins forces when a dying serial killer announces he will offer a final confession but he’ll only tell it to Jo. Brody and Jo travel to the state prison and meet with Harvey Lee Davis who, good to his word, tells them where they can find the bodies of the victims he buried alive. Jo gets more than she bargained for. Harvey not only tries to get inside her head with hints about her past and her family, but makes it clear that the copycat killer who just emerged from the shadows is not only someone he knows and has been secretly communicating with, but is his apprentice. What began as an effort to bring closure to the family of the missing victims becomes a race against time as Jo and Brody work together to stop this new killer at any cost. And soon enough it becomes clear that Jo is part of his plan to win Harvey’s approval.

I’m always asked where I get my ideas and I can honestly say it’s the research. Whether it’s the WPA, my local Henrico County Citizens Police Academy, a Sisters in Crime meeting or the FBI Citizens Academy, I always walk away with facts and ideas that sooner or later end up in the my next book.

No Escape by Mary Burton
Genre: thriller suspense

About No Escape:
He Was Taught How To Kill

Even behind bars, serial killer Harvey Day Smith exudes menace. Psychologist Jolene Granger has agreed to hear his dying confession, vowing not to let the monster inside her head. And Harvey has secrets to share—about bodies that were never found, and about the apprentice who is continuing his grisly work…

And Now He’ll Teach Them

He buries his victims alive the way his mentor Harvey did, relishing their final screams as the earth rains down. And as one last gift to the only father he knew, he’ll make the most perfect kill of all.

How To Die

Everything about this investigation is unnerving Jo, from Harvey’s fascination with her to the fact that she’s working alongside Texas Ranger Brody Winchester, her ex-husband. Harvey’s protégé is growing bolder and more vicious every day. And soon the trail of shallow graves will lead them to the last place Jo expected, and to the most terrifying truth of all…
Source: Info in the About No Escape was from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17381896-no-escape on 24/09/2013.

Buy Link(s):


Excerpt:
Her phone buzzed again twenty seconds later and she snapped it up, annoyed. “Mr. Gentry said this is in reference to Mr. Smith.”

“Mr. Smith?”

“That’s all he’d say.”

“I’ll take the call.” She punched line two. “Mr. Gentry, this is Dr. Granger. What can I do for you?”

A man cleared his throat. “I was the attorney for Mr. Harvey Smith. I assume you are acquainted with him.”

“I am.” She clicked through her memory. “And you defended him at his trial.”

“That is correct, Dr. Granger.”

She picked up a pen and doodled circles on her blotter. “What can I do for you?”

“Before he was arrested three years ago, he contacted me and gave me a package, which I was to deliver to you at the time of his death.”

She held her breath. “What’s in the package?”

He hesitated. “I do not know. All I know is that I got his assurance that it contained nothing considered illegal.”

What did Mr. Gentry consider illegal? When she’d read the trial transcripts she’d judged his definition as relaxed. “Can you send it to me?”

“You are to come to my office and sign for it personally.”

“I don’t have time for that. Would you courier it to me?”

“Mr. Smith was specific that I see you sign for it.”

She didn’t like having her actions dictated by a dead man. But to ignore the package was to ignore possible evidence that could help with the current murder investigation. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Good. Very good.” He gave her his address.

The drive across town took twenty minutes, and by the time she parked, a half hour had passed. Gentry’s office was located in a high-rise with sleek glass windows and a marble foyer. A scan of the directory in the lobby and a punch of the buttons and she arrived at Gentry’s tenth-floor office.

The offices were as nice as the entryway, and she could see that Gentry’s practice was profitable. He’d garnered a great deal of publicity from the Smith trial and had shown himself to the world to be a quick-minded attorney.

The receptionist was as sleek as the office and the moment she saw Jo she announced her to Gentry. The attorney greeted her within seconds of her arrival.

Gentry was a short man in his mid-fifties with a thick belly and dark hair that had thinned considerably.

But his suit wasn’t off the rack as it had been during Smith’s trial, but custom. Gold, monogramed cuff links winked in the light from a large picture window behind his desk.

He extended his hand to her. “Dr. Granger. So glad you could come quickly.”

She accepted his hand, noting it was too soft for her liking. “You made it difficult to resist.”

“I am following my client’s instructions.”

“Understood.”

He escorted her into his office and to a plush mid-century modern chair by a chrome desk. Behind him, glass windows offered a spectacular view of the river.

“Can I offer you coffee or tea? A soda perhaps?”

“I’m fine. I need to collect what Smith left me and be on my way.”

“Yes.” He reached behind his desk and lifted a small beaten-up shoebox wrapped in duct tape. The box stood in stark contrast to the office’s sleek surroundings. A spider in a lush bowl of cream. A cancer. A reminder that no matter how much money Mr. Gentry had spent on his new life, it had been built on the back of something very ugly.

She accepted the box, noting it wasn’t too heavy. God, but she did not want this box. Did not want this morbid connection to a dead man who’d dedicated his life to evil.

“I have a letter opener if you’d like to open it now,” he said.

She stared at the secured lid. “Thank you, but I’d rather not open it now.”

His face frowned his disappointment. “You aren’t going to open it?”

“Not now.” As he continued to stare she added, “I was to sign for it but I don’t need to open it in your presence.”

“No.”

“Excellent.”

He cleared his throat. “If you do not want the box I can take it for you, examine the contents and destroy it.”

She really looked at him for the first time. Keen interest sparked in his gaze. “What was Mr. Smith like when you represented him?”

“Honestly, he was delightful. He was courteous. Kept up with the current events and was always curious about what was going on in the world.”

“I would think he’d have worried about his defense.”

Gentry adjusted a cuff. “He never had a real interest in his case.”

“Odd, considering the consequences he faced.”

“Believe me, we had this discussion many times. I wanted him to be engaged and to worry about what could happen. But he didn’t care, as if relieved to be behind bars. As long as he could read and write he was happy.”

She dropped her gaze to the box and smoothed her hand over it.

He leaned forward. “Do you mind me asking you a question?”

“You may ask.”

“Why ask me to hold a box for you? Who are you to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Only once did he mention you. He’d been convicted and sentenced to death. I’d come to talk to him about appeals, but he showed more interest in an award you’d earned. It had been written up in the paper.”

She smoothed her hand gently over the rough cardboard as if it could bite. Finally she rose. “Thank you.”

“You’ll let me know what is in the box?”

“Why do you care?”

“The most notorious serial killer in the last fifty years leaves a box in my charge. I’m curious. Curious enough in fact to have it X-rayed soon after he gave it to me.”

“X-rayed.”

“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything really unseemly in the box.” He dropped his voice a notch. “I’ve read how killers like him like to keep trophies. Body parts and such.”

Somehow she doubted Mr. Smith would have left her anything gruesome. It would have been rude, uncouth.

She signed the receipt stating she’d accepted the box and with it in hand, she left a disappointed Gentry. Outside the building, she inhaled deeply, savoring the warm air, which eased the chill seeping from the box.

She didn’t think about where she was going because she knew if she thought too hard about her destination she’d find a way to second-guess herself. Going to Brody was getting to be a habit. A bad habit. And if she had sense, she’d find another way. But right now, she couldn’t think of another person to be with when she opened the box.

Fifteen minutes later, Jo walked through the main doors of the Rangers’ Austin office and stopped at the reception desk. “Is Ranger Winchester here? Jo Granger to see him.”

“Let me check.” The officer cast her a skeptical gaze when he announced her on the phone. His eyes widened with a startled surprise. Brody was coming.

Seconds later, Brody emerged from a side door. Jacketless and hatless, he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal tanned muscled forearms. “Jo, is everything all right?”

A week ago he’d called her Dr. Granger. Formality had been a polite a barrier between them. Somewhere along the way that fence had dropped and awareness had developed. They’d never be lovers again, but maybe there could be room for friendship. She certainly needed a friend right now.

“Is there somewhere private where we could talk?”

“Up in my office.” He pulled the box out of her hands as if he understood she hated touching it.

She flexed her fingers as they made her way to his office and didn’t release the breath she was holding until he closed the door behind them.

“Who sent you the box?”

She explained about Gentry and the call.

Brody’s jaw tightened, released. “First the visit. Now the box. Smith can’t stay out of your life.”

“Don’t forget the letter.”

“Smith didn’t write it. It’s a great forgery.”

She smoothed her hands over her skirt, trying to erase the weight of the box from her hands. “They’re taking over my life.”

“No, they are not.” Brody reached in his pocket and pulled out a pocketknife, flipped it open and pressed it to the old cracked tape. “I’m going to open this?” A single nod was all she offered as she folded her arms over her chest and watched.

With a quick sure stroke he pulled the blade over the tape’s crease between the lid and the box and sliced it open. Carefully, he removed the top.

Inside were stacks of letters. He picked up the first and studied the address. “It’s addressed to you. Dated twenty years ago. March 24.”

She frowned. “My birthday.”


Meet Mary Burton:
Mary Burton enjoys the hunt. This New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist, whose work has been compared to that of Steig Larson*, Lisa Gardner**, and Lisa Jackson***, has been intrigued by investigative work and the people who do it since Virginia, her home state, was stung by a string of serial killings that spanned more than twenty years. Not surprisingly, many of her suspense novels are fueled by the acts of multiple killers and the people who pursue them, as is NO ESCAPE, Mary's latest novel and the second in a trio of stories set in and around Austin. There she calls upon the people and resources of the state's lead investigative team, the Texas Rangers.

NO ESCAPE's predecessor, THE SEVENTH VICTIM quickly became a USA Today bestseller. It was praised by reviewers, including Publishers Weekly, which says it "delivers action-packed suspense" and calls it "compelling.” Suspense Magazine hailed it as “an excellent thriller” and a “saga that readers will find unbelievably hard to put down.”

Mary's admiration for the work of law enforcement and the skills, insights and tools necessary to do it, is evident even in her earliest forays into suspense, such as In Dark Waters, in which a romance evolves when the Sheriff's office is called upon to solve a murder in rural Virginia. Future plots explored arson investigation, flaws within a witness protection program, and the reopening of a cold case.

Beginning with her novel I'm Watching You, Mary started connecting several cases and characters within the same department or agency. For I'm Watching You she invented a homicide unit for her hometown of Richmond, defined its strengths, weaknesses and resources, and kept those characters and elements in place through two additional stand-alone, but related, books, Dead Ringer and Dying Scream.

The three-book arc provided numerous creative options, especially as regards character development. This larger canvas allowed her to incorporate more of the forensic and procedural detail that fascinates her and her readers, and created new opportunities to explore dynamics unique to investigators working together over time.

Her other "connected" novels are Senseless, Merciless and Before She Dies, all set in Alexandria, and THE SEVENTH VICTIM, NO ESCAPE and YOU'RE NOT SAFE, which is being published in April 2014.

Mary's research has led her to interview a wide range of law enforcement personnel, to attend forensic seminars and to handle weaponry at the firing range. She is a graduate of the Henrico County Citizens Police Academy and the Richmond FBI Citizen's Academy, and has attended Sisters in Crime's Forensic University program and the Writers Police Academy in Jamestown, North Carolina, where the focus was on undercover work, autopsies, and the theories behind why people kill.

Despite her emphasis on hard facts related to the crimes she writes about, Mary's approach to each new novel is psychological. She backs away from details, whether it's forensic research or a plot point she's already fixating upon. To begin her story she needs answers to three questions about her killers: why do they kill, what demons drive them, and how do they choose their victims. The answers are critical to her plot, she says, just as they are for detectives solving a murder.

A Richmond native whose family roots run as deep as the nation's, Mary has lived there for most of her life. She graduated from Virginia's Hollins University and worked in marketing before deciding to write full time. Her first manuscript, a historical romance, was published in 2000.

Mary wrote several more romance novels and three novellas before embracing the dark world of suspense. She even managed to bring danger to her holiday novella, Christmas Past, which appears in the New York Times bestselling holiday anthology Silver Bells.

The author of twenty published novels and four novellas, Mary is a member of Thriller Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, for which she is president of the Central Virginia chapter. She travels frequently for signings, speaking engagements and other appearances. She is a frequent speaker at conferences, book festivals, book stores and libraries regarding writing and genre fiction, and is frequently asked to present her "Unraveling Romantic Suspense" workshop or her day-long program "Writing Your Book...The First Step."

An avid baker and an accomplished cook, Mary's discovered that the creativity of the kitchen entwines with her professional routine in unanticipated ways. It’s her ideal retreat when the writing hits a rough spot. Once there, she's working out dialogue, untangling plot lines and figuring out how to trap a killer before the oven has a chance to preheat.

When not committing murder, Mary pursues her Baking & Pastry Arts Certificate at the University of Richmond's Culinary Arts Program, and continues her involvement and appearances on behalf of Coordinators2inc, a lifetime adoption resource organization. She and her husband spend time alternately enjoying and lamenting their newly empty nest and spoiling their miniature dachshunds Buddy and Bella.

Mary is currently at work on her next novel, set in Nashville, and anticipating the November publication of her new Union Street Bakery novel, Sweet Expectations, written as Mary Ellen Taylor.
Mary's Link(s):
www.maryburton.com
www.facebook.com/maryburtonfanpage

Saturday 26 October 2013

Review: FANTASY IN DEATH

Fantasy In Death by JD Robb
Book 30 of the In Death series
Narrated by Susan Ericksen
Genre: SciFi murder mystery, police investigation, crime fiction
Format: (unabridged) audiobook

About Fantasy In Death:
In the latest novel from #1 New York Times-bestselling author J.D. Robb, it is game over for the criminals pursued by NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

Bart Minnock, founder of the computer- gaming giant U-Play, enters his private playroom, and eagerly can't wait to lose himself in an imaginary world, to play the role of a sword-wielding warrior king, in his company's latest top-secret project, Fantastical.

The next morning, he is found in the same locked room, in a pool of blood, his head separated from his body. It is the most puzzling case Eve Dallas has ever faced, and it is not a game. . . .

NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is having as much trouble figuring out how Bart Minnock was murdered as who did the murdering. The victim's girlfriend seems sincerely grief-stricken, and his quirky-but-brilliant partners at U-Play appear equally shocked. No one seemed to have a prob­lem with the enthusiastic, high-spirited millionaire. Of course, success can attract jealousy, and gaming, like any business, has its fierce rivalries and dirty tricks-as Eve's husband, Roarke, one of U- Play's competitors, knows well. But Minnock was not naive, and quite capable of fighting back in the real world as well as the virtual one.

Eve and her team are about to enter the next level of police work, in a world where fantasy is the ultimate seduction-and the price of defeat is death. . . .
Source: Info in the About Fantasy In Death was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6542645-fantasy-in-death on 04/08/2012.

Review:
In this futuristic world, they have holo games so realistic that if you die in the game, you die in reality. Ultra mag!! So the murder weapon? A game console! Wow!! But how the heck do you arrest a game villain??! A nice twist in a long running series as the In Death series. It stops it feeling like same old, same old. I count that a real feat in a long-running series, indeed! That is the upside. The downside is that I didn't really like the ending. Somehow it was a bit of a downer for me... Oh, the bad guys were caught and the good guys won... it just didn't feel like an "upper" for me...

On another upside, I really like the way Susan Ericksen reads. The way she changes her voice to suit the character. I especially like the gravely voice she affects for Whitney! The filters she uses to indicate that the sound was supposedly generated by a machine as opposed to a human character talking. Real professional! That I wish that a lot of the narrators reads like she does. Or maybe I am just really used to her by now... And like I said in previous books in this series, the In Death books is like wine, it taste better as it matures. It grows on you. And by now I am a well-entrenched fan!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4.5
World building = 5
Cover art = 2
Pace = N/A (12 hrs and 23 mins audiobook)
Plot = 4.5
Narrator = 5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 cherries

Friday 25 October 2013

Review: DEATH BLOWS

Death Blows by DD Barant
Read by Johanna Parker
Book 2 of The Bloodhound Files series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Death Blows:
FBI profiler Jace Valchek was pulled into this parallel realm to hunt for Aristotle Stoker, a human serial killer who preys on vampires and werewolves. Now she works for the National Security Agency of the Unnatural States of America - and her boss is a vampire.

At a bizarre crime scene, Jace finds a bloodsucker murdered by magic, fried to the bone and dressed in the costume of the comic book hero the Flash - a character who isn't supposed to exist here. Comic books have been outlawed for their powers, including crossover spells like the one that transported Jace to this world. Soon, she's following a trail of dead bodies into the sinister underworld of black-market comics - where a deranged madman gives new meaning to the term "super-villain."
Source: Info in the About Death Blows was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6781162-death-blows on 26/10/2012.

Review:
Okey, so in Book 1, the main protagonist, Jace, had the tendency to be too stupid to live (TSTL) but I hadn't expected it to be compounded a million times over in this book. I guess I was being too optimistic. The TSTL was annoying like hell! So much so that I had to have breaks from it or I'll throw the damned book against the wall. Which made the pace of this book quite slow even with the convenience of the audiobook edition. Maybe for those readers with a whole lot more patience than I have will read this book quicker. And maybe for those audiobook listeners who does not read the paperback at the same time would find this book a little faster than I did. Maybe... The plot depended on Jace being stupid to create a story. Safe to say I wasn't terribly impressed. However, if you learn to ignore that fact, it did have a story where the main protagonist managed to save the world against all odds.

I like Johanna Parker's narration though. And would continue to buy audiobooks by her. I am obviously an old fan of hers, so that opinion might be more than a little biased.

Anyway, at the end of it, I am a fan of vampires and shapeshifters and this world have those in spades, but I don't think I would be buying any books in this series or of this author. If ever, I would borrow it from the library.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2
Character development = 1
Story itself = 1
Ending = 3
World building = 3
Cover art = 4
Pace = 1 (9 hours of listening time)
Plot = 1
Narrator = 5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries

Wednesday 23 October 2013

WW28: DEATH MESSAGE

WW28 book offering: Death Message by Mark Billingham

We have to remain sensitive to the integrity of evidence.

sounds like somebody is anal about following procedures.

About Death Message:
Thorne looked at the picture, feeling the pulse quicken at the side of his neck. There were times when he couldn't see what was staring him in the face, but this, for better or worse, was his area of expertise. Thorne knew a dead man when he saw him.

Delivering the "death message." That's what cops call those harrowing moments when they must tell someone that a loved one has been killed. Now Detective Investigator Tom Thorne is receiving messages of his own: photographs of murder victims sent to his cell phone.

Who are the victims? Who is sending the photographs? And why is he sending them to Tom Thorne? The answer lies in the detective investigator's past, with a man he had once sent to prison for life. But even behind bars, the most dangerous psychopath Thorne has ever faced is still a master at manipulating others to do his dirty work for him. And Thorne must act fast because the photos keep on coming, and the killer's next target is someone the detective investigator knows very well. . . .
Source: Info in the About Death Message was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/964989.Death_Message on 26/12/2012.

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!
  • First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
  • Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
  • Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

Monday 21 October 2013

Review: BROKEN HOMES

Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch
Read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
Book 4 of Peter Grant series
Genre: urban fantasy, police investigation
Format: audiobookAudiobook

About Broken Homes:
A mutilated body in Crawley. Another killer on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil; an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man? Or just a common or garden serial killer?

Before PC Peter Grant can get his head round the case a town planner going under a tube train and a stolen grimoire are adding to his case-load.

So far so London.

But then Peter gets word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on a housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans and inhabited by the truly desperate.

Is there a connection?

And if there is, why oh why did it have to be South of the River?
Source: Info in the About Broken Homes was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16078584-broken-homes on 29/07/2013.

Review:
Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration took a lot of getting used to. A lot! And it has been a while since the last book. A year, in fact. So I was trying to get used to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith all over again. And it took a good part of three quarters of the book before I finally did. And I had to borrow the hardcopy from the library while I was getting used to the narration. But I really do like Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's accent impersonations! They sound very authentic! But the thing I like best about this book is the humour between the pages! Awesome sauce!! My sides hurt!! Plus the plot building is solid and substantial with nice twists. However, having said that, this is probably the book which garnered the lowest rating yet in the whole series. This is mainly because of the ending. It bordered on being a cliffhanger. And I don't like cliffhangers! It left so many threads in the story hanging! And I also like seeing justice done. This is a police story, for goodness sake! A fictional one. So I was expecting the murders to get justice! I was indignant!! But I'm still kinda hoping that it'll get some answers in the next book. But having said that, my interest in this series is seriously waning... I might borrow this book from the library if ever I decide to continue reading this series rather than buying it.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 3
World building = 5
Cover art = 2
Pace = (10 hrs and 17 mins listening time)
Plot = 4
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Rivers Of London Series / Peter Grant Series:


RCT LibraryThank you!Thank you to RCT Library for lending me a copy of this book.

FTC Disclosure:
The hardback copy was borrowed from the library. The audiobook was purchased with private funds.
No money received for this review.