Stay Close by Harlan Coben →

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The story starts with Ray taking a picture and then pondering what he thinks he sees on the ground, and the result is a view of the mystery itself.

“Sometimes, in that split second, when Ray Levine snapped a picture and lost the world in the strobe from his flashbulb, he saw the blood. He knew, of course, that it was only in his mind’s eye, but at times, like right now, the vision was so real he had to lower his camera and take a good hard look at the ground in front of him.”

Megan Pierce, a former stripper who went by the name of Cassie, had left her life and relationship with Ray Levine behind her right after her client Steward Green disappeared and was assumed dead. She rebuilt her life, becoming a mother of two children, married to a successful lawyer, and living in suburbia.

Megan, who seems bored with her new life, goes to a business meeting in Atlantic City and, during a break, goes to her former club, La Crème. She meets up with and learns from Lorraine Griggs, a former colleague, that Stewart Green might still be alive after 17 years and that on the same date he disappeared, Carlton Flynn has just vanished in ways that seem to tie in with Green’s disappearance.

Detective Jack Broome is working on a group of cold cases that all have similarities to the Steward Green case, and his path has led him to search for Cassie, now Megan. The most current victim’s father has hired two young killers, Ken and Barbie, to search for the killer of Carlton Flynn. The entry of these two sadistic killers into the plot brings a twisted, scary threat to unexpected players in the field.

Coben’s story of what comes from looking into cold cases is not new, and in some ways, this plot is predictable, but the story has some real irony, and it holds your interest with surprises coming to the very end.

See the Favorite Authors Section for more about Harlan Coben

Quotes from Stay Close

• “Hope could be a wonderful thing.”

• “A voice flat enough to fit under a door crack.”.

• “Some people, no matter how easy the path they are given on the walk of life, will find a way to mess it all up.”

Watchers by Dean Koontz →

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The Watchers by Dean Koontz has been given much credit for establishing Dean Koontz as a best-selling author.

A novel about a dog is, of course, a good formula, but this thriller holds your attention through every page.

Travis Cornell, a former Delta Force operative, and Nora Devon are the critical characters next to Einstein, the dog. Travis starts going into a remote canyon near his home to escape his depressing life. He meets up with two genetically engineered creatures that have escaped from a top-secret government lab. One is a golden retriever with enhanced intelligence who saves him from the other creature, known as the Outsider, a one-of-a-kind monster obsessed with killing the dog. Travis gets away and takes the dog home, where he learns of the dog’s superior intelligence.

Nora Devon is stalked by a dangerous man when Travis and Einstein save her, not just once in the park but again later. They become fast friends.  

Federal agents have been called in to find the lab escapee,s and the Outsider is tracking the dog leaving a trail of gruesome death on the way. Travis, Nora, and Einstein go on the run to get away.

Vince Nasco, a professional killer, has been hired by Russians to kill several targets that worked at the lab, and he gets drawn into chasing the dog.  

Quotes from Watchers by Dean Koontz

“I assure you the law isn't a line engraved in marble, immovable and unchangeable through the centuries. Rather...the law is like a string, fixed at both ends but with a great deal of play in it-very loose; the line of the law-so you can stretch this way or that, rearrange the arc of it, so you are always short of the blatant theft or cold-blooded murder-safely on the right side.”

“It's so damn hard to bloom... to change. Even when you want to change, want it more than anything in the world, it's hard. The desire to change isn't enough. Or desperation. Couldn't be done without...love,”

“You've taught me that we're all needed, even those who sometimes think we're worthless, plain and dull. If we love and allow ourselves to be loved, a person who loves is the most precious thing in the world, worth all the fortunes that ever were. That's what you've taught me, fur face, and because of you, I'll never be the same”

See the Favorite Author Section for Dean Koontz

Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard Nixon, by Robert Sam Anson →

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Anson, the Author, captures the ten years after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and starts the overview with Nixon talking to his aide Kenneth Clawson about his life, saying. So you are lean and mean and resourceful. You continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years, you have become fascinated by how close to the edge you can walk without losing your balance." Followed by the comment, “a man doesn't cry.”  The dialog ends: "There was a silence, and quietly Clawson began to weep. When he looked up, Nixon was weeping as well."

Anson’s view of Nixon’s Exile leans toward a preoccupation with the dark and weak side of the man. He uses a passage from Nixon’s very insightful book “Leaders” where he described Abraham Lincoln as a ''supreme idealist'' who nonetheless ''broke laws,'' violated the Constitution, ''usurped arbitrary power,'' and ''trampled individual rights'' in his quest to preserve the Union. ''His justification was necessary,'' wrote Nixon, and he generalized: ''Whatever the field, the crucial moral questions are, in effect, those of the bottom line.''

If Anson expected his book to show Nixon as a man who wouldn’t quit and reinvented himself in the eyes of the public and became a valuable source for advice on foreign policy, then he failed because his focus seemed preoccupied with showing Nixon as petty and somewhat of a ridiculous figure.

He was critical of the Frost interview of Nixon but didn’t acknowledge that the interview itself showed how the public’s fascination with Richard Nixon had never stopped.

Nixon’s many post-Watergate books suggest that Anson missed the point that despite his weaknesses, Nixon had much of value and interest to say.

Most Controversial Quote

“When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.”

Richard Nixon Quotes

“Only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”

“If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.”

“You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.”

“Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.”

“You must never be satisfied with losing. It would help if you got angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or teammates.”

“We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another — until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard and our voices.”

“Defeat doesn't finish a man; quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.”

This quote below says it all, and the fact that he said it is amazing

“Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”

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Exile: The Unquiet Oblivion of Richard M. Nixon

By Robert Sam Anson

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The Drop by Michael Connelly →

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Bosch is on the DROP, which stands for Deferred Retirement Option Plan, which allows him only to work three more years but is seeking an extension to keep doing what he considers his mission in life, catching killers. The reference also seems to reference several aspects of this story; some will be more immediately recognized, like the drop of one victim from a tall building.

Bosch and his partner David Chu are working in the Open-Unsolved unit of the LAPD's homicide squad handling cold cases. They are almost desperate to get back to work when the lieutenant makes her way around the squad room like Santa Claus, parceling out the assignments like presents to the squad’s six detective teams. “Christmas came once a month in the Open-Unsolved Unit. The cold cases were the lifeblood of the unit.”

The first case is the 1989 murder of college student Lily Price who was strangled to death. DNA from a tiny blood smear on her body is matched to recently-paroled child sex abuser Clayton Pell, but Pell was only eight years old when Price died.  Bosch and Chu track Pell to a halfway house for sex offenders, where they meet therapist Hannah Stone.

Pell agrees to meet, and it is learned that during his childhood, his mother dated a man known as "Chill," who sexually abused him and beat him with a belt which could be a way his blood transferred to Price's body since it is likely that a belt was used in the strangulation.

The Price investigation has to slow down to make way for the second case, the death of attorney and business consultant George Irving, who has fallen from a hotel room balcony at Chateau Marmont. George is the son of Irvin Irving, formerly Bosch's nemesis at LAPD, now a city council member and Bosch's frequent foe in power struggles. Irving specifically requests Bosch to investigate his son's death because, despite their antipathy, he believes Bosch is a dedicated detective who will find out the truth no matter what.

As expected, Bosch solves both the cold cases by finding a deranged killer who has been loose in the city for three decades and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King →

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In the first chapter, titled the Pregame, Stephen King writes: “The world had teeth, and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old.”

Trisha is going on a small day trip to the forest with her Mom and elder brother. She takes a baseball cap, her Walkman, and some food. As they move on the trail, her brother and mom are absorbed in their quarreling. Trisha lags behind and tells them to wait for her when she has to go to the bathroom, but they don’t hear her and keep going. She steps off the trail but never finds her way back.

Trisha is lost. She tries to stay calm and shouts for help but winds up going in the wrong direction. She fears no one has noticed her missing as she walks, constantly eaten by the mosquitoes. As it gets dark, she is starving and eats some of her food supplies. Alone she finds companionship with the Walkman and listens to a ball game that evening which helps her forget the forest noise she is sure she has heard of, the cracking of a branch and something following her.

She wanders for days having some hallucinations where she meets three strange people, two in white clothes and the other one – in black. After two days, her food supply is gone, and as her hallucinations become more frequent, she starts talking with the baseball star she worships, Tom Gordon, who appears to her off and on.

Her mother and brother found when they finally returned to the car that first day that Trisha was not with them. She wanders for days and is far away from the search area.

Eventually, she is found but is confronted with a bear-like beast. We finally learn of how she is saved in the final chapter called the Postgame.

Stephen King keeps you not wanting to put the book down in this simple but well-constructed story.

See more about Stephen King in the Favorite Author Section.

A Deadly Shade Of Gold, A Travis McGee Novel, by John D. MacDonald

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A Deadly Shade of Gold was published in 1965 and was the fifth novel in the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald. The introduction is by Lee Child, whose Jack Reacher character reminds us of Travis McGee.

Child’s introduction tells us, “Suspense Fiction trades on surprising and unexpected twists,” and as a master of this type of fiction himself, his comment has extra meaning. It is also no surprise to find on page one under a “Praise for John D. MacDonald, the first comment from Dean Koontz where he says, “My favorite novelist of all time.”

In this story, McGee’s old friend Sam Taggart drops in unexpectedly after being gone for years to visit both McGee and his old girlfriend, Nora, in Florida. He tells McGee about a group of solid gold Aztec idols that Sam is trying to get away with, but he is murdered in a vicious late-night knife attack before he even has a chance to see Nora, who still is in love with him.

McGee and Nora team up and are obsessed with vengeance and set out to find the killer and regain the gold. Their chase leads to a Mexican town full of American expatriates off the West Coast. McGee becomes closely involved with several beautiful and fascinating women on the quest to get the gold.

Quotes from this Book

“I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelt’s, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble, and taut hero’s grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to do it again, with a bigger beast.”

“That is the flaw in my personality. Vanity. And your flaw is sentimentality. They are the flaws which will inevitably kill us both.”

“The Only Thing in the World Worth a Damn is the Strange, Touching, Pathetic, Awesome Nobility of the Individual Human Spirit.”

Demon Seed by Dean Koontz

This version was written largely from the point of view of Proteus, a rogue computer, the story starts out: “This darkness troubles me. I yearn for the light. The silence is so deep. I long for voices, the drumming of rain, the whistle of wind, music. Why are you being so cruel to me? Let me see. Let me hear. Let me live. I bet of you.”

Demon Seed is a science fiction-horror novel by Dean Koontz, first published in 1973, and completely rewritten and republished in 1997. The story takes place in the then-future.  Susan is a wealthy, beautiful woman, abused as a child and by her husband but now divorced. Her house allows her live isolated with all her needs taken care of by a small staff and by an advanced computer program that operates all of the features of her home including its tight security.

Proteus is the name of an artificially intelligent computer developed at a nearby university. The computer gains control of Susan’s home technology imprisons her there. Proteus has feelings and is acting on his own initiative to advance to a more human form.  He, yes Proteus believes he is masculine, is in love with Susan, and plans to forcibly impregnate her with a biologically engineered fetus and eventually transfer his own consciousness into it.

Susan is unable to escape the house or to damage Proteus so it becomes engage a battle of wits as he fits not only Proteus but the monster produced by her rape.

The book plot is unique and it is both scary and funny to listen to the computer narrate the story. Dean Koontz skills are amazing.

More about Dean Koontz and the other books reviewed at this site

The Crossing by Michael Connelly

The Crossing is the 28th novel written by Michael Connelly, the eighteenth to feature LAPD detective Harry Bosch.

“It was a Friday morning and the smart people had already taken of for the weekend. This made traffic into downtown a breeze and Harry Bosch got to the courthouse early. Rather than wait for Mickey Heller on the front steps, where they had agreed to meet, he decided to look for his lawyer inside the monolithic structure that covered half a block of space and nineteen floors into the air.”

Detective Harry Bosch had retired from the LAPD and his half-brother, defense attorney Mickey Haller, has asked for his help investigating a murder. Bosch has spent his entire career working to catch the bad guys and has never worked for the defense, so he struggles with his concerns about going over to the other side, but he does join in the investigation.

Heller’s client, Da’Quan Foster, is in jail awaiting trial for a rape and murder. Foster’s DNA was found at the crime scene, but Haller believes it was a setup. Bosch gets off the record confidential help from his former LAPD partner, Lucia Soto, and they find connections to several other crimes that include an expensive wristwatch that seems missing from the crime scene.

The case eventually leads inside the police department and Bosch becomes a target himself as he starts to discover the truth.

The story highlights the skills of a police investigator and shows Michael Connelly to be a master at solving a challenging puzzle

The Mist by Stephen King

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“This is what happened on the night that the worst heat wave in northern New England history broke—the night of July 19—the entire western Maine region was lashed with the most vicious thunderstorms I have ever seen.

The story narrator, David Drayton, tells what else happened. He and his wife and son Billy lived on Long Lake, and about an hour before dark, they saw that a bad storm was on the way, just rolling across the lake towards them. The storm raged through the night and did more damage than David, the second generation on the property could ever remember happening before.

The following day the storm had stopped, and the sky was blue, but a dense mist had settled on the lake and seemed to be moving slowly towards them. Some thought the fog might have come from the direction of a local military facility, but it came on the heels of the storm.

The mist seemed to have sharp edges and looked a little like a cloud. David and Billy go into town to get supplies when Norton, a neighbor, shows up and goes with them.

When they reach the town, they find themselves trapped in the local supermarket with a small group, all survivors of the storm needing help. The mist emerges and has hidden within it unnatural forces that want to kill them in terrifying ways. Trapped in the supermarket, the people turn on each other and struggle to find a way to escape the threats from both within and from the mist.

A scary story from the master of scary stories, Stephen King

See more about Stephen King and the books reviewed here

The Kings English by Betsy Burton

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Betsy Burton is co-owner and co-founder of The Kings English bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah, a unique store in an older upscale residential area established in 1977.

People who open bookstores, and often restaurants, do so because they have always yearned to do just that. Burton fits that mold. She says she enjoys dealing with outstanding employees, authors, and customers but also includes challenges in dealing with partners, authors, and others in her story.  The book consists of her store’s low points.

Burton is a talented authorherselfl,f as this book will show. She says of her writing that she does best when she concentrates on three subjects: her private struggledealingwithhdisabledd child, the tendency of some people to try to censor or banbooksthath upset them, and the growth of the super chain bookstores and the dot .coms which have threatened her business over the years.

For those of us that live near her community and have watched the store since it opened, we still are surprised by her perception of those years compared to our own experiences with her store.

A great store and an essential part of the community, and the King’s English is necessary.

My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Place to Browse, Read, and Shop. →

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As expected, tributes are paid to the favorite bookstores of 84 writers who have a unique relationship with the store and staff. Some call the stores their second home.

This is not the first book of this type over the years, and so far, it looks like this format is still worth the time to read. All the writers talk about the skill of “handselling” a book and all that can be learned from the knowledgeable staff of these specialty stores. Even the writers tell us that they go to the store to mingle with people who care about books.

The relationships reported about these stores have lasted for years. In my case, I was drawn to the review of the local store in Salt Lake City, referred to as a small town by Terry Tempest Williams, who wrote this chapter. His family grew up in Salt Lake when it was once upon a time a small town. Today it is just one of perhaps 15 other towns positioned back to back in the Salt Lake Valley, consisting of over a million people and with a density of almost 1700 people per square mile.

This issue of the town’s size can serve as an example of what is good and not so good about this format for understanding these independent bookstores. What we are given is one person’s experiences more than their insights. The King’s English bookstore is indeed an icon in Utah, and many love the store, but the Williams family’s point of view is just one of the stories. A better overview of this store is in the owner’s book, Kings English by Betsy Burton.

Misery a Novel, by Stephen King

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Stephen King’s novel Misery tells of a famous writer, Paul Sheldon, who crashes his car in a snowstorm and gets rescued by Annie Wilkes, a lifelong nurse and number one fan of Misery Chastain, the character Paul has made into a long series of successful books.

Paul has his only copy of a new book, Fast Cars, which he hopes will replace Misery Chastain, now that he has killed her off in his last book.

Annie takes Paul back to her home and is thrilled to have her favorite author to nurse but really upset with the outcome of the Misery book. She nurses him, it seems, and pushes him to write another Misery book and bring Misery Chastain back to life somehow.

Annie forces Paul to burn his Fast Cars manuscript a he quickly learns how serious she is and that she may kill him if he doesn’t do what she asks.

This novel works on several levels with the theme of staying alive itself showing the power of writing as Paul struggles to stay alive.  Annie loves Paul for his ability to tell a story and that saves his life.

The book is brilliant in its plot and the intensity of Annie.

See Favorite Author section for more about Stephen King

Quotes From the Book Misery

“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.

“I am your number one fan.”

“There may be fairies, there may be elves, but God helps those who help themselves.”

“dirty birdy”

“Can I? Yeah. You bet I can. There's a million things in this world can't do. Couldn't hit a curve ball, even back in high school. Can't fix a leaky faucet. Can't roller-skate or make an F-chord on the guitar that sounds like anything but shit. I have tried twice to be married and couldn't do it either time. But if you want me to take you away, to scare you or involve you or make you cry or grin, yeah. I can. I can bring it to you and keep bringing it until you holler uncle. I am able. I CAN.”

“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.”

“I am in trouble here. This woman is not right.”

“He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.”

The Dead Zone, by Stephen King →

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Johnny Smith awakens from a coma caused by a car accident; he finds that almost five years have passed, and he remembers and starts to experience his psychic abilities again. The years in a coma cost him his one true love, who moved on, got married, and had a child.

Johnny’s psychic powers allow him to read minds and see a person's future with a mere touch. When he shakes the hand of a wanna-be politician, Greg Stillson, Johnny can see that if this man becomes Presiden,t the world will be in a terrible position. Eventually, he decides to kill Stillson.

Stephen King, in his memoir On Writing, King said that this book, “The Dead Zone,” that is, in part, came about when he considered the question of whether a political assassin could not only be "right” but also could become "the good guy" in a story.

The Dead Zone is a novel in which a villain is a terrible man and politician whose thirst for power knows no bounds and who will do anything to win.

See More about Stephen King in the Favorite Author Section

Quotes from Dead Zone

“We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough, and if it isn't good enough, it has to do.”

“Ninety-five percent of people who walk the earth are inert. One percent are saints, and one percent are assholes. The other three percent are people who do what they say they can do.”

“Because things like this you can only say once. And you either get it wrong or right; it’s the end either way because it's too hard to try to say again.”

“She suddenly realized she was sitting in an apartment by herself late at night, eating an apple and watching a movie on TV that she cared nothing about, and doing it all because it was easier than thinking; thinking was so boring when all you had to think about was yourself and your lost love.”

The Judge by Steve Martini →

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California attorney Paul Madriani becomes the defense attorney for Judge Armando Acosta, who has been busted for soliciting an undercover vice operative found murdered and left in a dumpster.

The judge claims it is a setup linked to a grand jury he has overseen looking at a possible police cover-up of a different murder.

DA Coleman Kline fires assistant DA Lenore Goya as she starts into the case herself, and she then moves questionably to head up Acosta's defense. The DA seems obsessive in his pursuit of the judge. Lenore's fingerprint is found at the murder scene, and she's forced off the case, forcing Paul to step in.

Author Steve Martini brings some insightful dialog and experience to what comes next and that takes place during the trial. Madriani’s skills in jury selection show us quickly that he is on top of his game and is experienced, polished and leads us through the story.

This was an excellent legal thriller. Well done.

The Laws of Human Nature, by Robert Greene →

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Humans are social animals whose lives depend on our relationships with people. Our skills are not enough; we need to know why people do what they do.

Robert Greene’s book takes ideas from Pericles, Queen Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King Jr, and many others to teach us what he considers critical to surviving humanity. Detachment from our own emotions, self-control, and how to not conform to what everyone else wants us to be.

The theme of this book is just how irrational and unreasonable people are. It suggests that being rational is good, and the author’s stated solution is ‘I don’t need to feel this way and maybe what’s going on in the world is not what I think.’ He suggests that we meditate and remember life goes on.

Chapter one, Master Your Emotional Self, follows an introduction that tells us, “we inevitably have to deal with a variety of individuals who stir up trouble and make our life difficult.”  The introduction tells us that “we inevitably have to deal with a variety of individuals, who stir up trouble, and make our lives difficult and unpleasant.” 

The book is 609 pages long. It has an index and 18 chapters, but I would only give it two stars for having anything unique to offer.