Review of Casino to Die For: The Hunt for Tears of the Sun (Paperback)

Reviewing; Casino to Die For
I especially like the sometimes quirky, often warm and always real qualities you gave your characters.Your dialogues were purposeful and clear.I enjoyed Jim and Jennies' monologues. They brought out strengths and weakness we're all heir to.The story, moved at a fast pace while it simultaneously entertained and educated.
As I entered into the last 20 pages, I felt sad letting go of the people and characters with which I'd become involved.
Then an idea struck "When's the sequel coming?"

Product Description
Casino To Die For is a murder mystery, written in the format of a legal thriller. The year is 2002. The protagonist, Jim Ryan, is a defense lawyer, who has a new secretary, Jennie Bond, and a new Internet videophone. A glitch occurs that thrusts both of them onto the grid of mysteries and murders that span a thousand years in Arizona.

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Review of Where Evil Hides (Paperback)

In "Where Evil Hides" Dean Hovey does a marvelous job of depicting the job of a sheriff in this fast paced Murder Mystery set in rural Minnesota.

Product Description
Somewhere in rural Pine County Minnesota, a man of evilhides by day and stalks his female victims at night.His gruesomeacts of rape and murder point to a demented personality, yet hisability to elude the police shows the man to be of high intelligenceand cunning.Undersheriff Dan Williams and his deputies use everyinvestigative technique, yet the man seems to be invisible.As theyseek him out, Williams and his deputies become obsessed with apersonality turned from young innocence to enraged sadism.With thishis first novel, author Dean L. Hovey takes us into the inner workingsof a rural county sheriff's department as they attempt to findWhere Evil Hides.

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Review of Semiautomatic: A Novel (Hardcover)

I picked up this short crime novel 'cause I was in a rush and it had a nice blurb on the cover from George Pelecanos (one of my favorite writers). Well, haste definitely made waste for me, and I'm sad to report that Pelecanos gave me a bum steer. This story about a murder trial in Brooklyn is an utterly tepid and uninteresting piece of work. Part of the problem is that a lot of the backstory to the protagonist Giobberti, a 40-year-old homicide prosecutor for the District Attorney's office, resides in Reuland's debut, Hollowpoint. Apparently in that book Giobberti screwed up so badly that he was exiled in disgrace to the backwater of the Appeals Bureau. He also either then or subsequently lost his daughter in a traffic accident and his wife walked out on him. Now, some 18 months later, he is unexpectedly told to take over a routine case involving a teenager who killed a bodega owner in a stickup.

Already on the case is inexperienced junior prosecutor Laurel Ashfield, who's never tried a homicide. Most of the book revolves around Giobberti and her getting a feel for each other and the case. Almost immediately, Giobberti (and the reader) realizes there's something not quite right about the case, and it takes an awfully long time for the specifics to be revealed. Once revealed, the specifics end up being woefully uninteresting, revolving around the completely unshocking reality of cops and DAs playing fast and loose with the truth in order to put away bad guys in order to score political points. The theme of corrupt a corrupt legal system and bent cops has been exhaustively explored in film and fiction for over a century, and Reuland brings nothing new to the table here.

The author was himself a lawyer for the Brooklyn DA's Homicide Bureau, so the book does benefit from a certain authenticity of detail. Reuland is particularly strong in describing places and creating vivid mental images of the courtroom, apartments, bathrooms, offices, and so on. Unfortunately, the people moving through these spaces don't talk or think the way real people do. The dialogue tends to be so clipped and elliptical that one wonders if the author is trying to parody of pulp films. At one point Giobberti actually addresses Ashfield as "sister" and another character laughably tells Giobberti to "take your meathooks off me!" Worst of all, there's no suspense and no dramatic tension to be found anywhere in this entirely skippable book.



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Review of One, Two And Even (Paperback)

His office assistant Mabel is on LAPD cop turned lawyer Jimmy O'Brien's case for accepting only pro bono clients like Henry "Buck" Simpson who is obviously going back to prison.That is until the sheriff's department informs Jimmy that he hung himself in his holding cell.Jimmy rejects suicide as the career criminal was upbeat and even looking forward to playing in a prison baseball game.He asks a favor of his pal Sol Silverman of Silverman Investigations who learns that Buck was stabbed three times.

Jimmy keeps digging into Buck's death while his associate Rita works a seemingly open and shut bank robbery case.That is until Laura calls Jimmy pleading for him to put on his halo as he did nine months ago.He rushes to her home in Beverly Hills, a long way from Van Nuys, to find her husband of six months Arnie Rosenthal, the meat packing king, dead with an apparent suicide note nearby.Detectives Corshank and Barnes find discrepancies that lead them to conclude homicide occurred and that the wife and her lover Jimmy did the deed.Though he has a paying client on the one hand for a change, Jimmy also realizes he must prove his innocence.

ONE, TWO, & EVEN is an entertaining legal thriller especially when Jimmy quotes precedence in courtrooms and challenges Corshank with rights.The exciting story line is also supported by a solid investigative subplot and a terrific secondary cast, but clearly this is Jimmy's tale.Fans will enjoy this fun novel and seek the previous O'Brien story, SIX TO FIVE AGAINST.

Harriet Klausner


Product Description
It is October, 1972. In the second exciting and fast-paced Jimmy O'Brien series, One, Two & Even, Jimmy finds himself defending a beautiful ex-hooker accused of murdering her rich meat packer husband, Arnie Rosenthal, the Los Angeles hot dog king. The murder was staged to look like a suicide. Of course, it wasn't. But was it a coincidence that O'Brien's other client, a penniless mugger, whose murder, while locked up in the L.A. County jail, was also reported as a suicide? O'Brien didn't think so, and now the Mexican Mafia was out to stop his investigation, stop it dead.

From the Publisher
In the nostalgic 70s when Watergate was just a building in D.C., Nixon was in office, and the war in Viet Nam was melting down, Jimmy O'Brien passed the bar and set up a small law office in the sleepy suburb of Los Angeles, Downey. His specialty, criminal law.

One, Two & Even takes the reader on a wild ride, traveling from the luxury of Bel Air and the stunning gold coast opulence of Newport Beach to the turbulent barrio of East Los Angeles, the meat packing district of Vernon, and even to an Island paradise twenty-six miles offshore, without taking a breather or pit stop along the way. You'll enjoy the ride.

Exciting, humorous, and fast paced, One, Two & Even is a fun read that will leaving you asking for more.

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Review of Una Vida: A Fable of Music and the Mind (Hardcover)

This book was interesting from beginning to end- and brought New Orleans, mystery, alzheimer's and history to life. I highly recommend it. I plan on buying copies for friends who have relatives suffering from this disease.

Product Description
In Dr. Nicolas Bazan s brilliant first novel, neuroscientist Alvaro Cruz finds himself haunted by a recurring dream of a banjo player in an elusive cornfield that leads him on a personal quest to uncover the mysterious past of a New Orleans street singer known as Una Vida. Stricken with Alzheimer s, Una Vida can only offer tantalizing clues about her past through her mesmerizing vocals, incredible recollection of jazz lyrics, and the occasional verbal revisiting of a fascinating life that s fading quickly and forever into the recess of her mind. As Cruz searches for Una Vida s true identity, he learns profound lessons about the human psyche, the nature of memory and himself.

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Review of Crater County: A Legal Thriller of New Mexico (Paperback)

This is a very interesting, clever, impressive thriller, a murder mystery that takes place in New Mexico. The heroine, Luna Cruz, is a lady attorney, which makes it all the more delicious. Miller is a very amusing writer with a somewhat cynical take, with a taste of hardboiled Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler thrown in. It is not your usual mystery fare but unusually gripping. Miller is a star that grows brighter with this, his second novel.I'm now addicted to his stuff.

Product Description
Mix the genres of mystery, thriller, and suspense set in a modern-day New Mexico outback, and you have the essence of Crater County. Prosecutor Luna Cruz hates being a lawyer. She's stuck back home in the slightly supernatural realm of Crater County, where senior proms are held at the local truckstop and nothing is what it seems. She falls hard for the only eligible man in town, mysterious defense attorney Sam Marlow. Unfortunately, he's the opposing counsel in a triple murder case. As more people around her start dying, Luna fears that Marlow might be imitating his client and that she might become the final victim.



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Review of Rough Draft (Mass Market Paperback)

I eagerly await each new book from James Hall, having read him from the beginning.Rough Draft is another outstanding South Florida suspense story.Each Hall book is completely different, with new characters, etc. But they retain the riveting writing style, perverse humor, and intriguingplot that grab you and won't let go.Hal and Misty in Rough Draft arecharacters that border on preposterous yet are still very believable intoday'sviolent world.

Hall doesn't seem to get the same recognitionas Carl Hiiason, Elmore Leonard or some other current greats but he'snumber one on my list of favorites.



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