Enticed by Chanta Rand

At first, I wasn't absorbed by the story, but when I tried it the second time around I hit my stride and enjoyed it.

Lucas has a larger-than-life ego and Nyla is determined to cut him down to size. Loved the verbal banter between these two and Nyla had some witty lines that made their conversations lively.

Although the story isn't very long, the writer does a good job of showing why the characters are the people they've become. 

Will definitely read other books by this writer.

Cover Note: Nice representation of the story line.

Source: I purchased Enticed on Amazon.

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Anatomy of Fear

STORYLINE:  Nate Rodriguez is a NYPD sketch artist who is drawn into an investigation where the killer draws pictures of his crime and  victims before killing them.  Rodiguez uses his skills to produce an image of an unidentified murderer.  The killer is highly intelligent and pits himself against Rodriquez in a terrifying game with dire consequences. One unique aspect of Anatomy of Fear is the fact that there are pictures and sketches within its pages.
 
PLAYERS:
Nate Rodriguez has gone through the Police Academy but uses his drawing skills to catch criminals. Detective Terri Russo brings him into the case as he had done a sketch in the past that led to a crime being solved. The two become close, however their relationship is hampered by the fact that Nate has issues with his father’s unresolved death, a carryover from his teens. He also seems unwilling to commit to a relationship based on his solitary existence.

Detective Terri Russo made a mistake in the past that had affected her career. Solving this case would take care of the baggage she’s carrying from that case. However, her life is complicated by the romance with Nate as she cannot seem to stay in a relationship for any length of time.

 I LIKED: the fact that the story covers a lot of ground to do with facial expressions and how we unknowingly reveal what we’re feeling. The sketches add an interesting element to the story. I’ve never read a book done quite like that. I think Nate’s character was well-written.

As the criminal planned his crimes his pictures took shape. In the same way, Nate’s drawing of the criminal took on more solid form the closer he got to catching him. It’s hard to explain how Nate’s gift helped him connect with the criminal, however, his grandmother had visions linking Nate to the man committing hate crimes. Nate has this gift to a much lesser extent, but his sixth sense helped him in putting a face and a name to a smart killer.

I COULD HAVE LIVED WITHOUT:  the way in which Detective Terri Russo is drawn. She comes across as a tough cop (which she is), who has been in and out of relationships (if you want to call them that). She’s sensitive about the way in which she thinks Nate sees her and gets touchy much too easily, (the word belligerent comes to mind) which leads to quarrels and walkouts. Thinking back, I still don’t know much about her history.

OVERALL COMMENTS: The book is billed as the ultimate in suspense by reviewers, but I didn’t get into the story until I was about a hundred pages in, but I’m not sure why that is. I may have been distracted by Russo’s past relationship with someone with seniority over her, and then there was the obligatory power struggle between the police department and the FBI.

The visions and premonitions experienced by Nate’s grandmother fascinated me because in Jamaica, these gifts are accepted, rather than frowned on or viewed as hocus-pocus.

Nate’s willingness to follow clues, even when he became a suspect, moved the story along in a tense race to an ending that could easily have resulted in disaster for Nate, and other unwitting participants in one man’s holy war.

There was an unresolved plot thread, however, I suspect that it might have been dealt with in follow up novel. If you’re big on crime and suspense, you won’t regret reading Anatomy of Fear.

My rating

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Red Chrysanthemum

STORYLINE:  The novel opens in Tokyo, with an investigation of a plot to overthrow the current regime. Sano Ichiro, a high-ranking samurai governs the investigation. An opponent, Lord Mori, is murdered and Sano’s wife found naked at the scene. Everything points to her being the killer. Sano races against time and diabolical enemies to save himself and his wife from being found guilty of treason and murder. 

PLAYERS: 

Sano Ichro – a powerful samurai detective who has more enemies than one person should have in a lifetime.

Reiko – Sano wife, an extra-ordinarily resourceful woman who questions whether she is delusional and if she has done the unthinkable.

 I LIKED: the flow of the story. I couldn’t put the book down for any length of time and moved though it at a gallop, wanting to find out what would happen next. I knew Sano would triumph, but had to know how. I found out in a little less than four hours.  As with novels of this nature, there were traps around every corner and political intrigue at every turn, which helped keep the tension high and the plot moving forward.

I COULD HAVE LIVED WITHOUT:  the child molestation aspect of the story. In the time that the novel is set (17^th century) child molestation was permissible. While the images presented were not graphic and that aspect was relevant to the plot, I still had issues. My only other niggle was with the language. Words like detective, valet, and some of the dialogue felt like modern day tidbits thrown in with an ancient setting. The shogun was drawn as capricious and feeble minded. I’m not saying that we haven’t seen rulers of this ilk in the world, but he came across as silly and dangerous, which I suppose is what the writer was after.  

OVERALL COMMENTS: I started the book on a tentative note, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to keep the characters straight in my mind. However, I forgot how much I enjoy stories that deal with old world Japanese culture. Haven’t read one in a while, but the Red Chysanthemum thrust me straight into scenes of intrigue and treachery, which are bywords for novels set in Japan.  Laura Joh Rowland paints vivid pictures in this novel, so much so that they were sometimes too strong. However, on the basis of plot, pacing and storytelling, my rating of Red Chyrsanthemum is a five. 

RATING:

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Mad Cows

STORYLINE: Madeline (Maddy) Wolfe gets arrested for shoplifting on her first outing with her baby, Jack. Despite her protests of innocence, she is locked away and subsequently refused bail.

She manages to spirit the baby out of prison and then makes her own escape. Her ex-lover - and the father of her baby - is of no use outside the bedroom, so Maddy is forced to find her friend Gillian (who has Jack) under her own steam. On her journey Maddy evades Edwina Phelps, (her assigned social worker, who is also intent on finding the baby), a lawyer who wants to have sex with her in exchange for her defense and a dangerous loan shark.

PLAYERS: Madeline Wolfe is left on her own after a passionate love affair with Alexander Drake, who she doesn’t know is married until it is too late. She is strong and independent and makes the best of a bad situation until her arrest and incarceration.

Alexander Drake: A shallow and selfish man who is only interested in his career and chasing young women.  Sperm donor for Maddy’s baby.

Gillian: leads Maddy on a not-so-merry chase to find her and the baby. Gillian has loose morals and over time, grows increasingly desperate for a baby. Jack fills the need to the extent where Maddie feels like a fifth wheel and steals him away.  Gillian continues her desperate quest for motherhood until she has en epiphany.

Mama Joy: A Jamaican trickster and someone with heart of gold, who helps Maddy find Jack after he's abducted by the social worker.

I LIKED: the fact that Mad Cows was a hilarious read from start to finish, despite the serious nature of the plot. Maddy’s a foreigner in England, has few friends and faces a situation so much bigger than herself. She does some crazy things, like giving up and deciding to give the baby to his father, but in the end she makes the best choice for herself and Jack.

I COULD HAVE LIVED WITHOUT: the parts where the stomach-turning lawyer kept trying to get into Maddy’s pants, but her thoughts about him and his body parts added to the hilarity.

OVERALL COMMENTS: I’ve decided to give away books after I’ve read them to free up some space, but not this one. It’s been on my shelf for years and for some reason I’ve only just read it. I like humorous books, but this is by far the funniest one I’ve ever read.  I should have suspected from the first line, which reads:

‘‘Mother Nature’s a mingy, stingy, two-faced bitch,’ muttered Madeline, as she readjusted her jumbo-sized sanitary towel, hoicked up the baby papoose and hobbled painfully into Harrods in search of prunes to ease her post-natal constipation.’

And the wise-cracks continue on each page. Seriously. On the very next page, Lette sent me into hysterical laughter with the following passage.

'Wincing and mincing, Maddy inwardly cursed all those beatific Madonna and child paintings.  In not one of them is Mary crying in agony from cramps, cracked nipples, mastitis, constipation, haemorrhoids – or ‘bottom grapes’ as her friend Gillian so quaintly called them – hair loss, tooth decay, nor the sets of crippling contractions triggered by the baby’s sucking…Yep. God was laughing when He made women.'

Believe me when I say I laughed through every page of this book.  There were times when Maddie’s situation was so desperate that I wanted to cry.  However, Lette is so skilled that I also wanted to laugh at the same time. As I read this on the bus to and from work, I suppose people wondered about the expression I wore as I laughed.  It ain’t easy crying and laughing at the same time.

Though the book mostly felt like a light-hearted read, Lette took jabs at ‘perfect parents’, you know the ones who know all there is to know about parenting and engage their children in a whirlwind of activities? She also spoke to the prison and welfare system and classism. Another good thing about this book is that I learned some new words which included some Aussie terms.

I’m sure I’ll be reading Mad Cows again at some point in the future.  I’ll also be looking out for other books by Kathy Lette.

Words to the wise:  Don’t read this book away from home if you suffer from any form of incontinence.

Rating: 

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Hello Darkness

Storyline:  Paris Gibson, a reclusive radio announcer, lands in the middle of lovers tiff because of advice she offers on-air.  The rebuffed lover makes threats to kill his girlfriend and then take up his vendetta against Paris.   She seeks help from the police and comes in contact with Dean Malloy, who takes her back to a painful time in her past.

Players: Paris Gibson, popular disc jockey, who shies away from public appearances and has still not reconciled the circumstances leading to her fiancés death.

Dean Malloy, crime psychologist, fiancé and father, trying to be all things to those around him. His re-introduction to Paris takes him back to another turbulent time in their lives and makes him determined to make Paris face the past in order to deal with the future.

I liked: The energy between the two main characters.  From the get-go, the reader is sucked into their combined history until their past connection is laid out in the open.

I wondered if the killer was who I suspected it was, but I wasn’t too sure since there were a few other red herrings thrown into the barrel. Ms. Brown spent some time developing some of these  other suspects to such an extent that readers could have forgiven for mistaking any of those men for the killer. The continued guessing games made the book interesting reading for me.

The scenes with the killer were kind of creepy, as his behavior demonstrated that he was unbalanced.

At one point, Malloy resorted to violence in dealing with his troubled teenage son, but the reality of the situation is that teenagers are hard to handle, so I readily forgave him that out-of-character reaction.  The gradual shift in their relationship was realistic and by the end of the book I was satisfied that the boy realized that his father wasn’t the enemy.

I could have lived without: some of the interactions between Paris and her coworker, Stan. I found him a little annoying. He was drawn as a somewhat pathetic sexual predator, or more like one of those men who doesn’t look before he leaps and so always finds himself in trouble.  However, I understand the need to keep the reader guessing.At one point I also remember thinking that the book was a tad bit long. Could be because I didn't read the novel all at once.

Overall comments:  Hello Darkness provided a good read. I liked the combination of crime solving and romance and the idea that even in a terrible situation, some good can emerge. I also learned a bit about the inner workings of the radio world. The book also speaks to the futility of holding on to the ghosts of the past because despite major catastrophe, life does go on and people and relationships do heal.

 Rating: Four-and-a-half stars.

 

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