Review: The Winter Girls

The Winter Girls by Roger Stelljes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the surface the plot involves the kidnapping of a young girl from a cabin in the wintery woods of Minnesota. But as the story develops there is so much more than such a simple, though heartbreaking event. International sex-trafficking, money laundering and murder. Keeps Tori Hunter and Will Braddock on their toes, and involves their connections to many other law enforcement agencies. Steak and Eggs get their fair share of the action, too! Lots of action and interwoven threads--an exciting and eye-opening read.

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Review: What She Found

What She Found by Robert Dugoni
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Solving mysteries with Tracy Crosswhite, Faz and Del is always a treat. Wish I could get an invite to the back room of Fazzio's--Italian food and wine and good friends!

Daniella is growing up and Tracy and Dan's marriage is a partnership extraordinaire.

Amnesia must be so scary--I cannot even begin to imagine. Despite that, Tracy gets the job done.

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Review: The Late Show

The Late Show by Michael Connelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Never read anything by this author though I really enjoy the TV adaptations of Harry Bosch and The Lincoln Lawyer. Took a couple of chapters to get into the rhythm of his writing but well worth the effort. The characters are so multidimensional you can almost see them and hear them. Renee in particular is clear-cut: driven, determined to solve her cases at all costs and willing to take on cases not her own. She has been shunted to the night shift, where she and her partner pick up the cases and then, come morning, after documenting their parts, they turn them over to other detectives to work.

Her partner, being a long time detective, is perfectly happy with that arrangement--his days are his own with no need to spend hours away from his family. For Renee, however, it is frustrating. She has only her dog and a Grandmother up the coast that she returns to when she has week-ends off. She made waves when a superior sexually harassed her and, though the rank and file, for the most part, took her side, he was powerful enough to side line her. Even her former partner, turned his back on her and is now the superior's right hand man.

Much of this turns around, once some of the pieces of the major crime, a murder of three big time losers in a nightclub, start to fall into place. She's been kept out of it but the former partner is right in the thick of it. In the meantime, she has her own case to tie up--the brutal attack on a transexual male prostitute--and almost loses her life doing it.

Good, dramatic, fast paced sleuthing all around.

Review: B is for Burglar

<B is for Burglar by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well, this is the second in the series and I had the murderer pegged by page 25! Knew most of the charade going on but wasn't sure at first if the sister knew what was going on. She's a good writer, Sue Grafton, and so her habit of sending Kinsey running all over the country trying to find leads and then tie them together is fun. Still, not sure whether the trope is going to encourage me to go too far into the series. Have four more letters to hand and will read them, but unless the cases are more difficult it may be time to find another more challenging series to read.

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Review: A is for Alibi

A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Robicheaux has retired and Ballybucklebo is in my review mirror so it is time to start a new series. Kinsey Millhone it is and I like her alot. A former cop, twice divorced at 32!!. and living in what could pass for a closet, Kinsey is a cool cucumber who doesn't seem to need anyone or anything. That is,until she meets the handsome former partner of a deceased divorce attorney. That guy was murdered by his wife or so it would seem--she was tried and convicted and just got out of prison. She always said she didn't do it and now, money being no object, she's just handed Kinsey $5000 to prove her innocence. But more than that--she wants to know who did kill him.

Fast paced, lots of road running from Santa Teresa. LA and Vegas--the case takes her looking for clues in logical places: first wife, kids, former mistresses, among others. All of them characters with personality and attitude--some you like, some you don't but all seem real and several kind of suspicious. Good ending, too--unexpected--a bit sad.

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Review: The Poacher's Son

The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Being a 24 year old first year game warden in the thick Northwest Maine forests has both pros and cons. Among the pros is the ability to live in what remains of a beautiful wilderness with its animals and trees and the sense that you are contributing to preserving it though " progress " in the form of increased population and development threatens at all times. There is a peacefulness and serenity in living close to nature in all weather and all seasons.

Among the cons is that your girlfriend doesn't share your enthusiasm for these things and is hoping you will go to law school. The change in profession would also mean an increase in financial strenght and stability. It would mean not living in a leaking cabin in the middle of nowhere, using a woodstove for heating and sweating without A/C. Also, there would be cell service so you wouldn't be cut off totally from civilization. Your hours would be better regulated--no middle of the night calls to run off a menacing bear, of evening calls to investigate the disappearance of a hiker just as dinner is to be laid on the table.

But, the biggest con of all is being the estranged son of a well known ne'er- do- well, poacher, ladies man, drunkard and now, fugitive on the run. Seems that the lumber company that owns the land in the area is trying to run the people who live on it off. Needless to say people held a meeting with company reps and lawyers in an effort to prevent the razing of their homes. After the meeting an executive of the company and his State Police bodyguard are ambushed and murdered. The chief suspect is Jack Bowditch, the father of Mike.

Putting his career on the line, Mike, who does not believe his father, as flawed as he is, could murder anyone, tries to join in the manhunt organized to find him. Jack is an experienced backwoods man not easily tracked and though he has called both Mike and Mike's remarried mother, the trail is pretty cold. Both are worried Jack will be shot on sight and neither can come up with a motive for Jack to have committed such an extreme crime.

There is lots of woods to cover, lots of characters to investigate, lots of people Jack has antagonized along the way. Did he do it? Or has he been set up?

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Review: Gated Prey

<Gated Prey by Lee Goldberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gated communities were things of TV show and movies to me until my first trip to the Southwest and West. Oh,there are gated estates along the Hudson and out on the Island but communities with gates like old west walled forts not so much. When I finally saw them for myself and even have friends who live in one, they amuse and annoy me. For one, the gate is never closed and the little guardhouse is never occupied. A little idiotic but also quite pretentious. Who are you keeping out? The Hispanic or Native American fellow residents of the area ? Probably--but who would admit that? Noooo, it is for safety from murderers and thieves.

Well, despite the undercover op in which Eve and Duncan are posing as a rich fat guy with a sexy younger trophy wife and are tooling around in an outrageously expensive Rolls Royce, the walls don't help. As a matter of fact, the crew of thieves who are robbing many of the elite homes and for whom our team is trying to lay a trap break into their pseudo domicile and two of them wind up dead! One takes a nose dive from the upstairs window into the pool and splat--the other gets it in the chest from Duncan's shot from the couch. The third makes a dash for it, Eve gives chase and destroys the Rolls. Third guy gets shot by the security guard for the grocery store in which he takes refuge from the pursuing Eve. There she goes again, acting impulsively and starting the case less than gracefully! Think that whole event of the security guard taking the shot a bit questionable.

Meanwhile, in another of the exclusive enclaves a woman seems to have had a stillborn child. Things don't quite add up and in time she admits she found the baby, dead, in her trash bin. Um, another questionable plot point.
Looks like Eve and Duncan will have their hands full and as usual, she aggravates her boss, and he tries to rope her in. But all ends well and the search for solutions to these unfortunate events in those elite compounds and the justice that drives Eve is, as ever, worth the read.

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