The Gray Man, by Mark Greaney

This book reads like a bad action movie. No real plot other than save the captured princess (here the princess is played by twin girls) while racking up a huge body count all across Europe. The hero is an assassin with a heart of gold: "Court Gentry was the Gray Man simply because he believed there existed bad men in this world who truly needed to die." Two thirds of the way through, Gentry has a gunshot wound in his leg, a broken rib, a severely swollen wrist, deep lacerations on his knees and the bottoms of both feet, fallen off a mountain, and received no medical attention for any of these injuries. Seemingly cornered, he manages to perform a standing leap to grab a rafter, pull himself into an attic, and crawl through a small vent to safety. He later takes a vicious stab to the gut requiring stitches (delivered without anesthetic in a moving car which he was driving) and a blood transfusion. This all sets the stage for a huge gun battle where Gentry shoots his way into a fortified castle to confront his enemies. The Gray Man is part Jack Reacher, part Jason Bourne, and part Batman, but possessed none of the depth of those characters. This is a series, but not sure I'll read any more. Not bad, but not good either.

First Sentence:

The first gunmen arriving at the crash site were not Al Qaeda and had nothing to do with the shoot down.

Past Tense, by Lee Child

This book has four simultaneous threads happening: Reacher investigating his father, Reacher being targeted by the mob, Reacher being targeted by a group of local thugs, and a Canadian couple being held against their will in a strange motel. The last thread takes up maybe half the pages, and Reacher doesn't actually get involved until around chapter 35. A lot of suspense in this part of the story as we don't really understand what is happening to the couple until just before Reacher stumbles (fairly spectacularly) onto the scene. The mystery around Reacher's father is the most interesting of the four threads, and had a fairly satisfying solution. Oddly, the thread with the mob doesn't really get resolved, but everything else does, more or less. While this is one of the weaker Reacher novels, it is still pretty good.

First Sentence:

Jack Reacher caught the last of the summer sun in a small town on the coast of Maine, and then, like the birds in the sky above him, he began his long migration south.

The Escape Artist, by Brad Meltzer

This book captured my attention from the prologue. Nola Brown is killed in a plane crash, and the mortician that is processing her body discovers something is very wrong by finding a note she swallowed before dying that reads, "Nola, you were right. Keep running." That hook unfolds into a mystery that jumps back in forth in time, delving into the Nola's abusive past and her being hunted in the present by an off-the-books military unit. I thought the identity of the "big bad" was pretty obvious, but Meltzer did a good job with red herrings so there were other plausible candidates. The two main characters are fairly well fleshed out, but the others are a bit one-dimensional. The story moves so quickly though it isn't really a problem—much like a Liam Neeson action movie, it isn't deep but it is enjoyable!

First Sentence:

Jim "Zig" Zigarowski knew the pain was coming.

Crashed, by Timothy Hallinan

Junior Bender is the next in a long line of quirky criminals with a heart of gold. Okay, so heart of gold is a stretch, but Junior is a cross between Dave Robicheaux and Bernie Rhodenbarr with a dash of Spenser thrown in. The plot follows a wide range of shady characters, with the main thread finding Junior blackmailed by a dirty cop into finding a saboteur on a porn set starring a fallen child TV star. The mystery drives the action, but I sometimes miss the old Agatha Christie style where the clues are there for the reader to solve right along with the detective. Crashed follows the more modern style where the hero figures everything out using an observation he keeps to himself. The adventure is the thing, though, and this book delivers that in spades! This initial volume in the series is quite good and I'll be looking for the second soon.

First Sentence:

If I'd liked impressionism, I might have been okay.

Company Man, by Joseph Finder

This is a mediocre thriller about a small-town CEO, Nicholas Conover, caught in a cover-up for killing his stalker. The plot is fairly predictable, until we get to the surprisingly optimistic ending which seems massively unrealistic. Coupled with one-note characters (the misunderstood executive, the religious cop, the shifty security chief, the troubled son, etc.) this is a wholly unsatisfying book.

First Sentence:

The office of the chief executive officer of the Stratton Corporation wasn't really an office at all.

Bodyguards in Bed, by Lucy Monroe, Jamie Denton, and Elisabeth Naughton

I'm not exactly sure how this erotic anthology found its way onto my shelf. Three stories are included, and as the title indicates all dealing with a bodyguard that falls into bed with their protection assignment. Who's Been Sleeping in My Brother's Bed? by Lucy Monroe does an admirable job of trying to capture the will-they-won't-they vibe, but simple inclusion in this volume makes the answer inevitable. Acapulco Heat by Elisabeth Naughton is a straightforward thriller, with an ex-Army Ranger trying to save a supermodel mixed up with a Mexican cartel. The third entry, Hot Mess by Jamie Denton, is easily the best of the three, with the role of guardian being played by both sides of the couple at various points.

All three short stories are interesting but I felt each needed to be either shorter or longer. Monroe and Denton both craft characters that could carry a longer story; Monroe's tale in particular had more depth than most John Grisham novels. Naughton's entry dragged a bit and could easily be shortened—seven of the eight chapters were basically an extended chase scene. Overall this is a quick read, but felt more aimed at the chick lit crowd than my normal fare.

First Sentence (from Who's Been Sleeping in My Brother's Bed?):

Danusia wiggled the key in the lock on her brother's apartment door.

First Sentence (from Hot Mess):

Alyssa Cardellini considered herself a work-in-progress.

First Sentence (from Acapulco Heat):

His luck was in the crapper.

Jackdaws, by Ken Follett

Set in World War II in the week before D-Day, this is an uneven espionage story about an all-female group of Allied saboteurs. Only two characters—the main heroine, Flick, and the main villain, Dieter—get any degree of depth; the rest are cardboard cutouts that fill a role: the ditzy aristocrat, the gutsy gypsy, the perceptive boyfriend, the sadistic torturer, the dense Gestapo Major, and so on. The action takes place over ten days (minus a short afterward that gives the happy ending), and during that time Flick shows an unbelievable array of traits: loving, faithful wife that suddenly takes a new lover, heartless leader yet compassionate trainer, and stalwart soldier to cold-blooded executioner. A quick read and a rollicking story, but shallow characterization and an over-accelerated plot keep this from being memorable.

First Sentence:

One minute before the explosion, the square at Sainte-Cécile was at peace.

Locked On, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney

I loved some of the early Jack Ryan books, but gave up after Red Rabbit and The Teeth Of The Tiger because I thought they were really weak. I spied Locked On on the bargain table and decided to spend a few bucks and see if anything had improved. Surprisingly, there had only been one book between The Teeth Of The Tiger and this one in the last ten years so plot-wise I hadn't missed much.

The story here mainly follows Jack Ryan Jr. and John Clark; the former chasing a terrorist plot through Pakistan and Russia and the latter on the run due to a political witch hunt. Clancy hasn't softened his views towards politics any here; the Democrats are depicted as cartoonish and practically being pro-terrorist. The news outlets are savaged as well ("Liberal bias in the media was a fact of nature.") and shown to eagerly suppress information that shows Democrats in a bad light. While I agree with much of the sentiment here, Clancy takes it to an extreme. The terrorist plot is on nearly a James Bond scale; a Pakistani General steals two nukes from his own country and intends to force a war with India using a Muslim uprising in Russia as a distraction. I don't think this has the depth of The Hunt for Red October or even Debt of Honor, but it was nice to revisit the Jack Ryan Universe once again.

First Sentence:

The Russians call their Kamov-50 helicopter gunship Chernaya Akula—Black Shark.

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad

For a book considered to be one of the first and greatest espionage thrillers, it was murder getting to the end. The writing is stilted and overblown, and I often had to reread passages to make sense of them. "Mrs. Neale was the charwoman of Brett Street. Victim of her marriage with a debaucher joiner, she was oppressed by the needs of many infant children. Red-armed, and aproned in coarse sacking up to the arm-pits, she exhaled the anguish of the poor in a breath of soap-suds and rum, in the uproar of scrubbing, in the clatter of tin pails." Not an easy read.

The plot follows a somewhat incompetent agent provocateur that is playing both sides—talking to the police and working for an anarchist cell. He is forced into an act of insurrection that goes awry and tragedy strikes. I suspect that there are some insightful conclusions that can be drawn with modern terrorism and national security, but frankly I had such a difficult time getting through the superficial story that I was uninterested in looking any deeper. Disappointing.

First Sentence:

Mr. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.

A Wanted Man, by Lee Child

In Gone Tomorrow Jack Reacher finds himself in a NYC subway car with a suicide bomber. In Die Trying he is accidentally kidnapped. Here in A Wanted Man he hitches a ride in a car with three mysterious strangers during a statewide manhunt for a vicious killer. Reacher has some of the worst luck I've ever seen, but it sure does make for entertaining novels!

This is a good story, with virtually everyone the reader meets keeping a secret of some sort. Starting with a bizarre murder in rural Nebraska Child weaves a pretty good tale filled with twists; we know Reacher is in the car with the killers, but as he doesn't the suspense ratchets up well. Initially the storytelling is split between Reacher's POV and the murder investigation, eventually joining up for the second half. There are some pretty unbelievable twists but in the spirit of an action thriller I can let them go. The strangest scene was when Reacher communicates in a fairly ridiculous code using eye blinks and head nods to spell words. I can't imagine trying to drive a car at highway speeds at night while staring in the rear-view mirror and counting eye blinks; even for Reacher this seemed a bit much.

Also included is a short story "Deep Down" that is set in the late-eighties when Reacher was still in the Army. I like these glimpses into the past, and this one in particular tells how he earned his prestigious Legion of Merit award. While it wouldn't be a Reacher story without a few busted heads, the bulk of this is about an undercover investigation into a possible traitor. Workmanlike but entertaining—I can't imagine this story encouraging me to read other Reacher novels, but having already developed a fondness for the character I quite liked it.

As an aside, I recently saw the Tom Cruise movie Jack Reacher (based on the novel One Shot) and quite enjoyed it—but the 5'7" clean-cut Cruise didn't fit my image of the character. "Reacher was a big man, six feet five inches tall, heavily built, and that night as always he looked a little ragged and unkempt." Great movie, but I'm still waiting to see the Reacher I've read about on the big screen.

First Sentence:

The eyewitness said he didn't actually see it happen.

Frozen Heat, by Richard Castle

The Castle books continue to deliver. The plot here is richer than previous novels, but the humor and pop culture references are the reason for reading. There are several winks to the TV show throughout, from cracks about a bulletproof vest labelled WRITER to an Elvis convention in Atlantic City. This being a book by a fictional mystery writer I appreciated the meta humor of having the characters eat at Grill 23 in Boston, simply because that is where Spenser—a fictional detective from another series—enjoyed dining. My favorite bit of humor, though, was when the main character Jameson Rook says, "I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something I like about Malcolm and Reynolds." The dizzying nature of a line from a character that is a direct analogue for the fictional author Richard Castle who is played on television by Nathan Fillion that is in turn a reference to another character Fillion played I find enormously amusing.

As I mentioned earlier the story is stronger than other entries in the series, concerning a bizarre murder linked to the death of Nikki Heat's mother years before (another nod to the show) but the conclusion was a bit clichéd. A coda provides a cliffhanger that promises an interesting next novel, though, and gives a hopeful moment to an otherwise downbeat ending. I suspect this series will only be truly appreciated by fans of the show, but I'm certainly enjoying it!

First Sentence:

"Oh, yeah, that's it, Rook," said Nikki Heat.

Believing the Lie, by Elizabeth George

The Lynley novels have been uneven lately, but I haven't quite given up yet. Believing the Lie is just good enough to stand on its own, but still not as impressive as the earlier outings. The mystery is solid—George keeps us guessing as to the outcome until late in the novel—and the side-plots with one exception are intriguing as well. Homophobia is a major plot driver, with several minor characters showing a violent intolerance and others fully accepting; sadly nobody is ambiguous towards the topic at all removing the opportunity for any serious comment on the issue—everyone is a stereotype on one side or the other. At this point, though, we don't read this series for the plot but for the characters.

Inspector Lynley continues to act out after his wife's death, continuing his ill-advised affair with his alcoholic and unlikeable boss. Simon St. James is largely in the background here which is unfortunate. Deborah St. James however remains virtually intolerable; I don't understand how the reader is expected to believe people with the character and intelligence of the other leads would put up with the self-centered antics of Deborah who seems to exist only as a plot device. Barbara Havers continues to be my favorite; here she demonstrates the same grasp of Spanish I do: "I can't—of course—read the caption since it's in Spanish, in which language I can actually say una cerveza por favor but, believe me, nothing else."

Believing the Lie is better than the last few outings, but still not what I'd hope. The last few pages, however, cause me to eagerly await the next volume which looks to focus on Havers and Lynley. Hopefully Deborah will stay off page and quiet!

First Sentence:

Zed Benjamin had never been called into the office of the editor before, and he found the experience simultaneously disconcerting and thrilling.

Agents of Treachery, edited by Otto Penzler

I like anthologies. Not being one of the many e-book enthusiasts, I usually have a book of short stories stashed in my truck so I have something to read when unexpectedly stuck somewhere. Agents of Treachery appealed to me because of both the subject matter (I love spy thrillers) and one of the authors is one of my favorites: Lee Child. Overall, this was a solid set of stories well worth my time.

While Child's name on the cover was a draw, his story Section 7(A) (Operational) was the weakest of the bunch. It concerned the formation of a black ops team, but came off as simply eight pages of character introductions. James Grady's Destiny City was better, showing how a terrorist cell is tracked in today's world. Andrew Klavan's Sleeping with My Assassin and David Morrell's The Interrogator were other highlights, but Joseph Finder's Neighbors was my favorite with an Arlington Road vibe. Good stuff.

First Sentence (from the Introduction):

The international thriller is one of the most successful literary genres in the world, its primary oractitioners becoming household names, insofar as any author's level of fame can compete with an entertainer, sports figure, or world-class criminal.

The Shadow Patrol, by Alex Berenson

Spies, drugs, and terrorists in a war torn Afghanistan. Not exactly original, and Berenson does nothing to make this his own. A plodding plot and uninspired characters makes this an extremely average book—more of a cartoon than a thriller. I found this book in the pocket of an airliner; it made for a passable read on the plane but I'm very glad I didn't pay for it.

First Sentence:

Growing up in the scrubland of west Texas, Ricky Fowler had done some stupid things.

The Camel Club, by David Baldacci

The plot on the surface isn't deep: four political crackpots accidentally witness a murder by rogue government operatives and spend the next 600 pages being chased by a powerful conspiracy with far-reaching goals. Of course, all four witnesses have unique skills and make a few well-placed friends along the way to a climactic showdown inside a secret CIA training facility. After a few predictably ridiculous coincidences, other than the one tragic death of a minor character the heroes all end up "happily ever after." Not the most original story, but it was entertaining and a guilty pleasure.

The undercurrent of politics in The Camel Club shows that the American government has morphed into Big Brother, with all the main intelligence gathering agencies combined under a single command. Considering the recent scandals with government spying this looks at first blush as if Baldacci is prescient (this was written in 2005), but we quickly see that the author is simply writing from a liberal point-of-view when radical Islamists kidnap the President using tranquilizer darts rather than live ammunition against the Secret Service—remember that America is evil here and not the misunderstood terrorists! Interestingly, at the close of the book the governmental espionage organizational apparatus remains in place and all the crimes of the novel are blamed solely on the responsible individuals; the lesson seems to be America isn't evil after all but needs to keep a closer eye on its people: Big Brother is justified!

First Sentence:

The Chevy Suburban sped down the road, enveloped by the hushed darkness of the Virginia countryside.

Code to Zero, by Ken Follett

A man wakes up in Washington D.C. in a public toilet with no memory. He is dressed like a bum and smells like he's been on a bender. He doesn't know his name but discovers he is remarkably skillful at spy craft and staying alive while being chased. If this sounds a lot like The Bourne Identity then you are right—except for without the compelling characters and exciting plot. One dimensional and trite, this is a huge disappointment from a talented writer like Follett. Don't read this—go pick up his Pillars of the Earth instead.

First Sentence:

He woke up scared.

Violets Are Blue, by James Patterson

Picking up immediately from where Roses Are Red leaves off, Violets Are Blue tells the tale of Alex Cross hunting down his most recent nemesis. The secondary mystery is utterly silly, concerning a cult of people that believe they are vampires, but the reason for reading is the race to discover and capture the Mastermind. And frankly, that isn't a very good reason; rip out the vampire nonsense and tack the remaining fifty pages or so to the end of Roses Are Red and that book would have been much better and this one unnecessary. I guess that would have robbed Patterson of another truck load of money, though.

First Sentence:

Nothing ever starts where we think it does.

Roses Are Red, by James Patterson

It is sometimes difficult to start reading a long series of books by starting in the middle, but that is what I did here with Roses Are Red, the sixth of twenty-one (and counting) Alex Cross novels. Patterson's simplistic writing style and accelerated pacing—we are in chapter ten within the first thirty pages— make it easy to jump in the middle, though. Detective Alex Cross is the hero, chasing an enigmatic villain calling himself the Mastermind while solving a string of deadly bank robberies. The identity of the Mastermind is revealed (to the reader but not to Cross) in the epilogue, setting up the next book in the series Violets Are Blue; the reveal is shocking only in that it seems completely out of character for the individual, although I suppose that is one facet of a sociopath.

I read this book (and the sequel) on a plane trip from Sacramento; as a distraction and a way to pass the time it did the job nicely. If you want a well-crafted suspense thriller, though, check out One Shot by Lee Child or The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte instead.

First Sentence:

Brianne Parker didn't look like a bank robber or a murderer — her pleasantly plump baby face fooled everyone.

The Firefly, by P. T. Deutermann

This novel is truly awful. The Firefly is a cookie-cutter thriller that finds a retired Secret Service agent trying to prevent a tragedy that no one else believes is real. Written in 2003 the author clearly had the 9/11 attacks firmly in mind, as our government goes to unbelievable lengths to combat the "cancer of international Muslim terrorism."

Unbelievable is an excellent word to describe this tripe as the plot barely holds together as the one-dimensional characters pinball from chapter to chapter. The main villain has plastic surgery that not only changes his looks, but gives him inflatable breasts and an internal pouch for his genitals so he can transform into a woman and back again. He tries to kill everyone that worked on him, but one nurse escapes; she goes to great lengths to explain to the cops and agents investigating that she couldn't possibly identify anyone as the clinic had strict protocols for insuring privacy but the terrorist spends over half the book trying to kill her anyway. Coincidences abound; what luck that the Washington D.C. car lot where the terrorist is buying a vehicle happened to be right across the street from the auto mechanic at which the nurse is having her car serviced—and of course they were there at the same time! His luck also held when neither neighbors nor federal agents noticed he sawed a three-foot-square hole in the roof of a duplex in a dense neighborhood a mile from Capitol Hill the day before a presidential inauguration. The inauguration ceremony is at the heart of the plot, but the security measures put in place by the Secret Service are ludicrous even for a fiction book: the stock markets were closed, all government workers were furloughed for the day, the airports and train stations were shuttered, public cell phone networks disabled, cable and satellite television was shut down, and over 300 "people of interest" were sent to Guantanamo Bay for the duration. While I can certainly see the presidential detail liking these measures, believing they could actually happen is laughable. The resolution of the novel is as ridiculous as the rest, with the United States creating a massive deception (that was kept completely secret from the world despite massive troop movements and expansive special effect filming) that would justify every stereotype of American aggression during the height of the Bush era.

The Firefly is somewhere between silly and preposterous, one of the worst books I've read in a long time.

First Sentence:

The man who calls himself Jäger Heismann awakes in the dimly lighted recovery room of the private cosmetic surgery clinic in northwest Washington, D.C.

Night Over Water, by Ken Follett

Set largely aboard the Pan Am Clipper, the legendary aircraft that launched commercial transatlantic service, Night Over Water is a somewhat entertaining, if far-fetched, read. The multiple plots follow the passengers and crew of a flight from the UK to the US immediately after war broke out between England and Nazi Germany, intertwining when they all board and begin interacting with each other. The descriptions of the plane were captivating and it often seems almost another character rather than the setting; as a reasonably frequent overseas traveler the luxury in which people traveled back then is virtually unrecognizable to the state of air transportation today. Of course, having three stops between Southampton and New York taking over 27 hours to make the journey is also hard to imagine today! Unfortunately, the people aren't as compelling; most are shallow caricatures—the lucky thief, the whiny teenager, the English fascist, the forthright engineer, the evil sibling, and so on—and more than one appears in a scene or two and then simply vanishes from the book. The multiple plots vary enough that they hold your interest, though; if it wasn't for the somewhat graphic sex scenes I'd say this was a good novel to give to a younger reader making the switch to adult fiction. While I won't recommend this book to anyone, I won't dissuade anyone from reading it either. Very average, which is disappointing for Follett.

First Sentence:

It was the most romantic plane ever made.