Category: Thriller

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The Monster

The Monster is an e-book assumed published, copyright and written by Josh Soule.

The story opens at Chapter Zero with the protagonist reminiscing about life as it was in his earlier years and finally about the bedtime stories his parents told him. Especially he remembered his mother always telling of monsters, how they were real and among us today and that “Once in every generation, a monster awakens.” Then suddenly, he must breathe deeply to slow his heart rate, check himself to determine that he had no wounds and that the blood on his hands was not his. The room was a mess looking “like a warehouse in a low-budget horror movie” with a woman’s body on the floor leaking blood. He wondered if it was Debbie or just some unfortunate woman because “it was not unreasonable to think that an innocent person had died here, the world can be unpredictable and unfair like that sometimes”. Then chapter one begins with the twenty-two year old protagonist in a college class and gradual introductions to his close friend Tony, his ex-girlfriend Kelly and later his mother Susan who is a friend of Kelly’s mother Karen. We learn that Susan is undergoing therapy for a relatively recently discovered cancer lesion that had been caught early and responding well to the therapy. However she constantly picks fights and continues her pattern of poor treatment of him that has included quite intense verbal and physical abuse since his father left when the boy was twelve. The reader then is introduced to activity at the school and the school’s Halloween party where we meet Police Officer Erickson because of violence occurring from involvement of a shadowy figure that only our protagonist sees. The results make him appear to be the guilty person for the altercation, so he runs, meets and joins a group of misfits and criminals and the story escalates still without providing an indication of where the tale is going and how it will end. Regrettably, any further information would be a distinct disservice to interested readers.

Discussion: This is a very well-, and intriguingly-written psychological thriller following the activity of a mentally disturbed individual exhibiting much of the background for, and many symptoms of, dissociative identity disorder. The only disappointing features of the story from this reader’s perspective are the protagonist’s level of maturity which seems more that of a teen-age high schooler rather than that of a 22-year-old university student (which possibly can be at least partially excused as resulting from reaction stemming from the degree of abuse) and a seeming amount of unnecessary redundancy.

4* 5* Compellingly written psychological thriller; -1 for reasons described.

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Fractured

Fractured: Dereck Dillinger and the Shortcut to OZ ISBN: 9781483599373 apparently published copyright 2017 and written by Eddie McPherson.

Thirteen-year-old Dereck is plagued with requests from his younger sister Jessie to read and re-read stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and more. If he does not she runs to their mother complaining. However, he loves his little sister and complies. His widowed mother must make a short trip leaving him to take care of Jessie. A violent storm arises during the night, she awakens him calling for help, the electricity fails, attempting to find his way he falls into the cellar and steps into a seemingly bottomless hole. Eventually he strikes bottom and discovers it to be the same rabbit hole that provided the prominent beginning of activities in The Wizard of OZ. However, here he is offered a short cut to the Wizard which will allow him to return home much more quickly to discover what has caused his sister to call him.

Discussion: The author has developed a plot woven around the basic Wizard of OZ with added fragments of other of Grimm’s Tales, additional fairies, good and bad witches and similar figures of fantasy. Fundamentally it is a well-written action packed thriller with humor and periods of suspense that provides a strong positive message of kindness, perseverance and family fidelity. It should have an appeal to children in the 6 to 12 or possibly slightly older group and as an aside, parents may find it somewhat more enjoyable to read to their younger children.

4* As described.

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Nachash’s narrative

NACHASH’S NARRATIVE ISBN: 9781733957106 Seacoast Press, a novel copyright and written by Volker G. Fremuth.

The story begins with DC Metropolitan Police Officer Leroy (Roy) MacRay patrolling his beat when he finds a young woman on the ground violently coughing copious amounts of blood and struggling for breath. She does not respond to his chest compressions and is pronounced dead by ambulance personnel upon arrival. They inform him that they will take her to “our medical examiner” rather than the usual “the medical examiner”. This simple phrase causes a question in his mind and initiates a tale describing terrorist activity among the population of the city along with betrayal, deceit, treachery and misplaced trust reaching the highest levels of government along with relentless activity by rabblerousing fear mongers aided and abetted by a biased media. Roy, along with long-time buddies in the FBI and CIA and Rebecca (Becky) Glendale, a young and very talented Investigative reporter attempt to unravel the complicated situation only to be most seriously affected, as are the inhabitants of Mac’s beat in a depressed area of the city in which he is its most respected and liked figure of authority.

Discussion: In fictional form, the author has set forth a stunning portrayal of activities that do not seem too far removed from a situation that could easily develop in the United States in its present state of disarray. It is conjecturally informative and tremendously thought provoking. Much of the action is thriller-like and the descriptions of characters and their thought and action patterns most creditable. Some of the descriptive material at times makes for sections of heavy reading but really are quite pertinent to the overall theme. Thus, after a considerable amount of thought, I believe I can add little to what has been said in introductory material in the book itself. The author dedicates the book “To the men and women of law enforcement, though peril is your kin May you combat the demons before you, and cope with those within. Be wary of the demons behind you, their contempt is set afire. They’re lurking in the shadows, with Nachash they conspire.” A Forward follows from a man who is attempting to ‘do something’ “about the decline of our country”. He states “This book reflects many years of close observation and deep consideration of our nation’s trajectory …… From top to bottom, our society is vulnerable, and Volker captures the threat to our nation in a novel that ranges from the White House to the poorest urban block.” And the author’s Epilogue provides a final note of interpretation of the ancient Hebrew presentation of Eve, the snake and the Garden of Eden. This is a book you will remember and ponder long after reading the last line.

5* A book you will remember as the unrest within the country escalates.

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APEX

APEX, A Max Algren novel ISBN: 9781543966428 Design and Production by Book Baby. Copyright and written by Ryan W. Aslesen.

Max Alegren, a former Special Forces, CIA, and now private operative is still attempting to avenge the death of his family but requires another name for his ‘hit list’. Congressman, former General Marklin, for whom he works sporadically, has such a name but will not provide it until Max has accomplished a seek and extract operation for a senator’s son who has disappeared. He encounters a rather weird young woman reporter who is interested in the situation and manages to be helpful enough to join him. Together they deduce where the young budding geneticist is probably being held. It is an island in the infamous “Devil’s Island” group owned by the French Government. Indications are that it also is under control of a dangerous geneticist who has escaped other missions to apprehend him. The French closely guard all evidence of the island’s existence which is rumored to house dinosaur-like creatures and even more vague tales of a hunting area where humans can be hunted for a million/day. Max assembles his team from former acquaintances and the story proceeds at break-neck speed, with only an occasional ‘break’ to provide pertinent material.

Discussion: The author is a former Marine officer and now security consultant as well as “a bestselling writer of military science fiction that is both authentic and replete with intense action and suspense”. This volume is another in the same pattern. The only regrettably negative aspect, and possibly from this reader’s overly developed pragmatic perspective, is a degree of discomfort mostly with parts of the action and the realities of weaponry, its supply, usage and results which in this volume seem to have moved, unfortunately, into the realm of difficulty with respect to credibility. But to reiterate, this could be as a result of many years spent in very practical activity.

3* Most enjoyable but providing an unfortunate personal impression as explained.

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Haliden’s Fire

Haliden’s Fire, A Pine Tree Book, published, copyright and written by Christopher R. Sendrowski.

The plot is centered in a time of the past in a land comprised of nine kingdoms with Circle and Tritan the governing houses. The protagonist is a particularly famous artist who has returned home while fleeing from a conflagration that is engulfing the entire collection of kingdoms. It is being accepted as the will of the gods by a cult of ‘Firestarters” who aid and abet the carnage. To act as a carrier of the entire town’s important documents, he becomes a “runner’ for them in the hope of reaching a safe place and must dispose of all of his wealth and most of his pictures to join the masses fleeing before the rapidly moving flames. He is assailed by constant thoughts of the wife he lost by neglect through his incessant need to paint, although during his flight he does experience some happiness with his very first love, whom he again encounters and also loses. The flight takes him through numerous most unappealing and perhaps even revolting, situations and places during which he is under constant threat and actual attacks by others in flight, as well as by horrendous beasts. The story eventually reaches an unpredictable but logical finale.

Discussion: Basically this book is a dark fantasy thriller and has been very well received by several reviewers and they have provided their reasons. Contrarily and most regrettably, this reviewer is far from being in accord. Although I can appreciate and enjoy selections from among fantasy tales, this one impressed me rather negatively as repetitive activity on the same theme with the only differences being in slightly different approaches in similarly unpleasant circumstances and places. Unfortunately, from my perception the author has described quite succinctly the reason for our ‘differences of opinion’. In his “About the Author” statements at the end of the book he says that writers “dig and toil among our private wastes, sifting through toxic sands and sipping swill alongside beggars and scoundrels. It’s where I’m most at home, at peace. But like all things in life, it sometimes comes from darker times, darker places. It’s a toll worth paying, though, and perhaps what’s necessary to spur my particular muse.” This reviewer has published 4 award-winning novels (plus several text books) and most fortunately has not found it necessary to delve into such depths to gain the necessary insights to compose. Neither have any of the authors of my acquaintance. However, this is not criticism per se. It simply offers an explanation for this reader’s opinion of this book.

2* Explanation for this reader’s review above.

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The Chosen Man

The Chosen Man ISBN: 9781942756057 Penmore Press LLC, an adventure/Romance copyright 2015 and written by J. G. Harlond.

Time and Place: The first half of the seventeenth century was a period of intense political and religious intrigue. The Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand had vowed to impose Catholicism throughout the empire before his death and was harrying the Spanish monarch, Don Felipe, to regain the Netherlands. Cardinal Richelieu of France signed a treaty with the Dutch, and French ships raided the Spanish galleons as they brought supplies to their troops as they attempted to regain the lost terrain. The Vatican aligned with the side espousing Catholicism, of course, and wide-ranging attacks by the Mediterranean corsairs known as Turks in such places as Cornwall estates in England for plunder and slaves was a constant concern throughout Europe.

Plot: John Hawthorne, a somewhat frail English priest is given the assignment by a conniving Cardinal of the Vatican aligned with Spanish Noblemen to make an offer to the “chosen man” to manipulate the tulip market in Holland so it eventually would collapse. The underlying idea was to take advantage of the “Tulip Mania’ affecting the country by undermining the country’s monetary system, thus a need to curtail funds for continuing war with Spain. “In the 1636 tulip bulbs in Holland were weighed on ‘goldsmiths’ weights but many of the bulbs were worth more than their weight in gold. One Dutch merchant paid 6,650 guilders for a dozen bulbs at a time when 300 guilders would have kept an entire family for a whole year.” The priest finds the ‘chosen’ Ludovico da Portovenere, a large, handsome, competent, purported Genoese Merchant who also appeared to have an unexplained working relationship with the Mediterranean corsairs. The story develops following Ludo’s activities but simultaneously rather equally interspersed with those of several others: Marcos Alexendro, son of a Spanish tavern keeper with ideas and hopes of upward mobility beyond his present station in life; Alina, the oldest daughter of a deceased mother and still living Spanish Grandee father impoverished by his constant attempts to continue court life, has dreams of romantic rescue and return to the life she had known; Sir Geoffrey, owner of the large estate, Crimphele in Cornwall England; Thomas, frail son and close friend of John Hawthorne since childhood who inherits the land. Additional interesting characters that contribute variously to the story include: Crook-back Aggie, the estate’s hunchback (?) cook who has occult powers; Meg, a young maid: Molly, another and sometimes caretaker of the young heir-apparent to the estate with her husband; McNab, the estate’s hired controller who had a hidden dark background and numerous nefarious plans; Elsa, a wealthy widow now enamored of the tulip market, as well as Ludo; and even more characters with still lesser influence on the plot, or rather intermingled plots.

Discussion: This is a tale consisting actually of quite complicatedly interwoven plots with a large number of characters. They are wrapped together in a manner that provides details of a most fascinating occurrence in history in just as fascinating and chaotic period of world turmoil. If the prospective reader is interested if fictionalized history with action and romance thrown in, this book is for you.

5* For readers as designated.

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Trail of Fear

Trail of Evil. Fearless Publishing, an e-book published first in 2011, copyright and written by Jansen Mancheski.

Following ‘The Chemist’s’ capture, he names an African known only by the single name Kinsella to escape at least the murder charge of beheading the first of his kidnapped women. Cale van Waring, the senior investigating officer believes this to be simply a ploy but does contact his FBI friend who verifies the man’s existence with additional information that he had been deported from Great Britain back to Liberia because of his purported association with human trafficking. Cale, even though his investigative results had been superb and he had received commendations, had been suspended from the police force for ignoring police procedure during the events moving up to the arrest. Thus, in typical Cale fashion, he decides to travel on his own to Liberia to request Kinsella be turned over to him to be brought back to the United States for trial. Through a friend, he has the complete backing of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and tacitly Interpol because the human trafficking problem is immense. He is put in the hands of Jacek Tumaj, a Czeck freelance mercenary, and his team in Italy. From there the action proceeds to Liberia where Cale’s meeting with the government officials is shunted to meet with Colonel Tazeki “Taz” Mabutu, the head of the Liberian National Police. It seems that Taz also is an extremely highly placed African voodoo priest, a botono or master of all loa, especially the petro loa or dark gods. As such, it is believed Taz can possess another person’s body turning them into a zombie slave to do the botomo’s bidding. Regardless, the colonel is an unusually cruel individual and like many other Liberians, enjoys human meat. It is here that an incredibly horrendous series of activities begin with Jacek and his team becoming totally responsible for Cale’s survival. The action is fast and suspenseful leading to a finale that provides a legitimate introduction to Book III of the series.

Discussion: On the good side, the action is high octane with plenty of suspense. On the bad side, Cale’s mental as well as physical actions are difficult to accept. His expectations of journeying to a totally unstable country and expecting their government to deliver one of their citizens for expedition to the United States because of a mid-western detective’s request is incredibly unrealistic. Similarly, his superior/questionable (?) attitude in general is that exhibited unfortunately by numerous Americans travelling to foreign lands and the source of the term ‘ugly American’ widely heard at one time. And one more inexplicable, but in character, attitude is that toward learning any of the tricks of survival the mercenaries attempted to teach him.

Conclusion: An interesting, but disappointingly flawed follow-up to the first book in the series that reader’s still may enjoy for the high octane action.

3* Enjoyable suspenseful tale; rating reduced for reasons described

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The Chemist

The Chemist, an e-book of an award-winning novel first published in 2010. Fearless Publishing, copyright and written by Jason Mancheski.

The story opens with the kidnapping of a young woman in an unusual manner and with her disappearance even her automobile cannot be found. The perpetrators are described to an extent with specific attention to the shadowy ‘Chemist’. The reader then is introduced to Cale Van Waring the detective lieutenant heading the special crimes unit of the Green Bay, Wisconsin PD. He becomes lead investigator on the missing woman case that begins to worsen when more blond young women completely disappear along with their automobiles. He is aided in his search particularly by longtime partner James “Slink” Dooley and Sargent Anton Staszak and their first ‘break’ is the gruesome discovery of the first woman’s decapitated body appearing in the waters of Lake Michigan. Cale has other, personal, problems with which he is struggling. He and Maggie Jeffers, a beautiful young lawyer with the Public Defender’s Office, have been living happily together now for fourteen months but since the relationship appears to be going nowhere, she has given him until a late July date to make up his mind, or she will leave. From here, the manner in which the story proceeds to unfold, both with respect to the missing persons’ investigation and the Cale/Maggie relationship, is quite convoluted. It also, is this reviewer’s opinion, would be a disservice to the prospective reader to divulge more aspects of the process. Suffice it to say that the story involves Chloe, Maggie’s 2-year-olded clairvoyant sister, along with several gang members, and other sinister characters with a mounting amount of evidence pointing toward the despicable but unfortunately lucrative human trafficking industry.

Discussion: The author has provided a quite involved plot with variously described characters set in a suspenseful multi-genre tale. The protagonist perhaps is a little too strong in his tenacity of purpose when mixed with his ambivalence on a number of counts and his strong adherence to his own particular mindset with respect to others. However, it is a tale that most readers should enjoy and the brief synopsis at the end of this volume presenting the following book’s opening lines should enhance one’s interest in proceeding to the next in the series.

4* Suspenseful multi-genre tale readers should enjoy.

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Redfish Oak

Redfish Oak ISBN: 9780997598650 On-Target Words (Kindle Edition) copyright and written by George Putnam and Jewel Grutman.

The authors have set forth a historical novel covering the often viscous post- Civil War Era particularly in the south. Four hundred year old St. Augustine, FL is the setting. Young, beautiful and well educated Nan Carew is living temporally in town with her father Lance, a distinguished lawyer, while their mansion is being renovated. Nan, along with another lovely young woman, Abigail Kearney, teaches black children and is attempting to educate them to converse more with whites. Nan befriends a young black boy, Lija Taylor, who is in her class and also Boy Hunting, a young Kiowa Indian brought into the area with a number of other Kiowa and Cheyenne by Captain Pratt as an experiment to train Indians in white man’s ways, who is also being taught by the two young women and their mentor. When Abigail is killed under mysterious circumstances, former Confederate General Wood, a dedicated black/Indian hater, now St. Augustine’s Sheriff, arrests Lije’s father. Nan, a headstrong and most determined individual decides to fight the unleashed open hatred of blacks and Indians exhibited by Wood and others and the story escalates into a suspenseful thriller peopled by these and other interestingly characterized villains and heroes.

Discussion: A captivating tale provided by unusual authors and containing characters a reader can love and hate while learning of a most vicious prejudicial era simultaneously with a sizeable number of historical facts well documented by the list of authoritative individuals and references included.

5* Suspenseful thriller with authentic historical bases.

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Shattered Shield

Shattered Shield ISBN: 9781793114907 assumed published, copyright and written by Camden Mays.

The story opens with the crossing of the southern border of the U.S. by a group of illegals, one of whom is an Iranian whose activity includes killing persons here in order to effect his escape into the country. From this point the reader is shifted to the tale’s protagonist, a former Navy Pilot, recently divorced with settlement of their home in Virginia still contentious. He had left his prosperous consulting firm in California at the urging of a friend to become a member if the CIA. His wife had returned to California where their daughter was a university student. At present he has second thoughts as to the wisdom of his decisions and is about to resign when he is offered a new position of importance in a newly formed operation being established to nullify terrorist activity that had been initiated. The plot progresses from here to provide an interesting look at the step by step procedures taken by government agencies to foil terrorist plots and apprehend and/or eliminate the perpetrators.

Discussion: The author has set forth a fascinating picture of how the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security departments might function to establish and jointly perform to successfully combat the work of a terrorist and/or his organization. The early contents of the book required to establish the basics of the plot move rather slowly, but gradually the pace accelerates. The characters are empathetic, romantic and familial aspects are credible as are the thriller/suspense aspects that gradually expand. The finale provides a natural entre to the next volume. Judicious editing would greatly enhance the story’s enjoyment.

4* 5* Enjoyable anti-terrorist thriller/suspense; -1 editing required to enhance.