NYPD Red 6

Title: NYPD Red 6
Author: James Patterson, Marshall Karp
Published: December 15th 2020 by Cornerstone Digital
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: NYPD Red #6

I was beginning to think that James Patterson and Marshall Karp had given up on this series. Long gone were the crimes affecting the rich and the sexual chemistry between ex-lovers and current partners Detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan. But not so fast, there is yet another crime, or two, that needs the special attention of the NYPD Red team -- a special task force formed to protect Manhattan’s wealthiest and most influential inhabitants.

Erin Easton, a blogging and social media superstar, just married the son of a modeling agency icon when she was abducted through a secret door in her changing room. From there, the NYPD Red team springs into action. Pressure is coming at them from all sides. The ransom demand is too high for her new husband, and his mother would rather take a nap instead of helping her new daughter-in-law. The team has a lead, but higher-ups ok them not releasing any names, that is until the abductor decides to eliminate a problem.

Now the usual Patterson twist comes into play. But I’m not so sure it was a twist. All fingers pointed to the only suspect left. It might have been a leap to go there, but go there I did because no one else made any sense. And it paid off in the usual Patterson neat little bow with a cherry on top confession. There is a secondary plot, but that lost my interest early on only to be resurrected with a good guy/bad guy chase scene and a let’s tie this up quickly explanation.

Overall, the book isn’t bad. A good bit of mind candy to get you through the weekend.

The Scorpion's Tale

Title: The Scorpion's Tail
Author: Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Published: January 12th 2021 by Grand Central Publishing
Format: Kindle, Hardcover, 480 pages
Genre: Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Nora Kelly #2

A little mystery, a little history, and a young sheriff that will remind the reader of a young Walt Longmire.Though FBI special agent Corrie Swanson and curator Nora Kelly of the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute are central characters, I found Sheriff Watts to be more engaging. A local sheriff that added humor, skill, and insight into what would have otherwise been a dull and dry book.

When a mummified corpse is found in High Lonesome, a ghost town on federal land and Watt’s starts to investigate only to be shot at, he decides he needs to call in another set of guns -- those belonging to the FBI. When a body is recovered, along with a gold jeweled encrusted cross dating back to the Spanish colonial period, interests begin to peak. When the remains are identified as a man that disappeared in the 1940s, and a legend of missing treasure buried along the Jornada del Muerto discussed, all eyes suddenly focus on the investigation. What no one was expecting was what was going on at the local military base at the time and how lore was passed from father to son.

Interesting twists, a great deal of history, well-placed humor, and a memorable young sheriff with nothing to prove but a whole lot to say.

The Alice Network

Title: The Alice Network
Author: Kate Quinn
Published: June 6th 2017 by William Morrow Paperbacks
Format: Paperback, 503 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

Usually, when you come across a novel like this, you find a single-story line and a character or two that appeals to you - it is a mark of a brilliant book when each page keeps the reader engaged. Not one plot point is any less mesmerizing than the next, or a single character appeals more than another. From start to finish, this book held me and would not let go until the last page.

Charlotte "Charlie" St. Clair, a 1947 Bennington college student with “a little problem” her French mother has decided will be best handled with a little vacation so she can return with a brighter future. Charlie has other plans - she wants to find Rose, her beloved cousin that went away and never returned. This is where Eve Gardiner and her story comes in and leads the reader down the rabbit hole that was once known as the Alice Network and the exploits of the courageous women of 1915 WWI takes the reader in an unexpected direction.

As the chapters unfold, you can see how Charlie and Eve begin to transform while intermeshing the past and what life was like under watchful eyes. Through hope and tragedy, the ghosts of the past resurface. Yet, they are stronger than their circumstances, and between the two of them, the wrongs will be righted, leaving the truths laid bare.

One Poison Pie

Title: One Poison Pie
Author: Lynn Cahoon
Published: Kensington Books January 26, 2021
Format: Kindle, 272 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Kitchen Witch Mysteries #1

The book was wasted on me. Chili Cauldron Curse, the prequel novella to jumpstart this series, was full of spells, covens, and a family legacy. One Poison Pie, on the other hand, has no magic, just a woman, Mia Malone, trying to start a cooking school in a town that has magic running through it, but a witch who doesn’t call on it to solve a murder or to keep herself safe. A disappointing book from start to finish.

Mia is a kitchen witch who has decided to start over in Magic Springs, Idaho. With her grandmother’s support and the sister of Mia’s ex-fiancé to help, she is determined to get her cooking school and food delivery business off the ground. What she didn’t plan for was the body of the town mimesis in the dining room of her first catering job.

There are a couple of plot confusions, but once you get past them and the lack of magic in the book that is supposed to have magic as the central theme the book lays flat. I can’t say there is any one character I could depend on to get me over the boring parts, so for me, this will be a miss.

The Broken Spine

Title: The Broken Spine
Author: Dorothy St. James
Published: January 19th 2021 by Berkley Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover, 320 pages
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Beloved Bookroom Mystery #1

First in a new series, finds Assistant Librarian Trudell Beckett flummoxed when her beloved Cypress, S.C., library is transforming into a “bookless” library where patrons can download books or borrow tablets. For Tru and her faithful patrons, this won’t work, they want to feel a book. In a clandestine mission, she decides to start moving select books to a secret library in the basement. All is going well until town councilman Duggar Hargrove, who was behind the library change, is found dead.

Now with time running out before all the remaining books are moved to the town dump, Tru and her band of friends, including a high school nemesis turned police detective, must find out what is really behind the library’s transformation and as a rotating group of possible suspects floats to the top, she finds herself in a delicate balance.

The Broken Spine may be a new series, but the librarian saving the day, complete with a cranky Head Librarian, is redundant and too reminiscent of Jenn McKinley’s Library Lovers Mysteries. The small town with inhabitants as poor as church mice that can warrant their own detective never sits well with me, and the rest of the characters being single dimensional is leading me to think that this series will be a pass.

The Arctic Fury

Title: The Arctic Fury
Author: Greer Macallister
Published: December 1st 2020 by Sourcebooks Landmark
Format: eBook, Paperback, 300 pages
Genre: Historical Ficton

Told in a back-and-forth style, the reader is taken on a historical adventure based on real events surrounding the Franklin Expedition. Virginia Reeves, who had lead pioneers across the Sierra’s, has been asked to lead twelve women to discover what had happened to this group of missing men of the Erebus and the Terror. Lady Jane Franklin wants this expedition to be covert and her name not mentioned but has strong opinions regarding who is to be part of the enterprise, leaving Virginia with a group ill-prepared for what lay ahead.

As the women set out and the horrors revealed, Virginia must fight her internal demons while keeping the group focused. As each woman exposes their strengths and deficits, they slowly decrease in number until there is no other choice, and those remaining must turn back. Upon returning to Boston, the real horror begins, with a trial that will lay Virginia Reeves’ bare.

Those more knowledgeable in this part of history may have guessed “the very bad thing” sooner than I did, but once revealed, there was an ah-ha moment that may have felt anticlimactic to others but was eye-opening all the while. Readers will have questions regarding why things played out the way they did, but that is what historical fiction is all about. Take parts of the truth, mix them up with a good imagination, add some more, and what you end up with is a gripping story.