(D. M. Annechino,  I Do Solemnly Swear, ISBN B007NN52IM, Thomas and Mercer, 2012)

This is my second review of a book penned by Mr. Annechino (can we say that nowadays?  do authors still use pens?).  I also reviewed They Never Die Quietly.  They are very different books, which shows the versatility of the author.  I enjoyed this mystery/thriller more.  Let me state up front that it was fast-paced, suspenseful, and entertaining.  A real page-turner, as they say (again, can I use this cliché when reading with my Kindle?).  I sailed right through it in one session and smiled at the ending (definitely room for a sequel here).

That said, I want to scold the author a wee bit.  He could have done so much more with this plot and character list!  It’s a Tom Clancy plot-boiler in miniature (Executive Orders has a similar plot, for example).  I was always a sucker for early Clancy—not so much for his later work.  Clancy’s books were like 24-ounce prime rib with too much fat—he had a wealth of interesting detail and many participating characters (Red Storm Rising is worse than War and Peace in that regard).  Mr. Annechino had his chance with this one to do the same, but he preferred to release a book with minimal plot depth.  You also don’t have the chance to know many of his characters very well.  His book is like a very thin and lean strip steak.  Tasty, but I wanted more.

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The Montclair Film Festival (Montclair, NJ) is in its second year.  For 2013 (from April 29 to May 5, to be precise), it expanded, with more venues, films, speakers, and discussion sections (over 80 films and events).  We attended last year.  Because I’m an incurable people watcher (even though I’m introverted and don’t enjoy being in large crowds), I observed that there is a large overlap between films and book lovers.  Thought-provoking films make people think while they enjoy the film and lead to discussions afterward—these are the films shown at the Montclair Film Festival.  A thought-provoking book does the same thing.

“Thought-provoking” is a sloppy term.  I can easily enter a vicious circle—a thought-provoking book is one that makes you think beyond its plot and characters to more substantive issues.  Even a vampire romance can make you think of issues you might not consider outside of your reading.  My sci-fi thrillers will make you think too—they’re entertaining extrapolations into the future.  What I observed at last year’s crowd at the Festival was that thought-provoking films and books have a common audience—people were talking about films and books.

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With Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, I continue the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  The sleuths of The Midas Bomb and Angels Need Not Apply will embroil you in action and suspense yet again.  As a mystery novel (my first), it is a dark probing into the nexus the crime underworld sometimes enjoys with the rich and powerful.  Chen is arrested for the murder of a senator in circumstances that seem to leave no doubt of her guilt, but Castilblanco helps prove her innocence.  With this new crime novel, I continue the saga of your two favorite detectives as they and their companions fight the corrupting influence of the illegal weapons trade.  Available soon.  Here is an excerpt:

***

“That’s one mixed-up kid,” said Chen as we tried to flag a taxi.

“Maybe you were the only sane one who went to bed with the bastard,” I said.

“You manage to praise me and insult my choices at the same time, Rollie.  That’s very efficient of you.”

A taxi stopped, she climbed in, and slid to the street side of the seat.  I followed her.  The cabby took Central Park North to Fifth.

“I’m assuming it wasn’t his power or money, so I’m at a loss.  But I’ll apologize.”  I raised my hands in defeat.  “I don’t think she did it.”

“I know you like Drach for the murder.  He does seem to be key.  Unless it was the hot dog vendor.”  The slight smile meant she accepted my apology.  “I take it you don’t like any of the ex-wives or girlfriends.  Besides Drach, who else could it be?”

“Well, there’s Kingsman and the old lady.  And how ‘bout Grasso?”

“I think Grasso leads to Drach.  Maybe we should determine who told him to put out the contract on me.”

A motorcycle pulled parallel with us.  Single rider dressed as messenger.  Not carrying packages, though.

“Down!”

Safety glass shattered as bullets slammed into the car.  The driver slumped, the car spun and rolled, we flipped twice, slid upside-down into a crowd, and ended by destroying a hydrant on Fifth between 92^nd and 93^rd.

My window was intact, so I used my Glock to break it.  I decided on second thought I would never fit through it.  I pushed down the door handle and gave the door a kick with both feet.  After the third time, it popped open.  We crawled out.

The driver was dead.  Chen was cut by flying glass.  I was OK but pissed.  We backed away when the gas tank exploded.

Two uniforms came running.  We flashed our badges.

“Didn’t happen to see anything, did you?” I said.

“Heard the shots,” said one.  “I think it was a guy on a cycle.  Delivery guy, maybe?”

“Call it in—backup, EMTs, coroner, the whole nine yards.  Then do some crowd control and start finding witnesses.  I want a license number and description.  The guy didn’t have a helmet.”

“That’s against the law now,” said the younger cop.

Maybe New York’s finest but not the brightest?  My expression wasn’t sympathetic.  Chen smiled.

***

 In libris libertas….

[If you enjoyed this post, support this blog: buy, read, and review some of my books.]

It might seem like forever, but only two weeks ago the American public had to face two acts filled with terror.  One of them was avoidable; the other, probably not.  The avoidable one was the fire and explosion at that fertilizer plant just seventy plus miles from Dallas in West, Texas.  The unavoidable one was the bombing at the Boston Marathon.

It’s ironic but expected that the event in Texas occurred where states’ rights and minimal federal government intervention is strong.  Our federal inspection system has been anemic at best, traditionally starved for funding and personnel and filled with corruption.  The GOP in general and the Tea Party in particular don’t want to fund anything that even carries the faint aroma of meddling in the affairs of the States, unless that meddling implies sending bacon back home to their constituent areas.  The sequestering will only exacerbate this.

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(William F. Brown, Winner Lose All, ASIN B00CEOKUR8)

Eyes play an important role in Bill Brown’s historical thriller and romance, Winner Lose All.  It’s his third historical novel; I reviewed his first for Bookpleasures.  Except for the fact that they take place during and after the final days of WW II, they are not related.  For the historical thriller part, here we have OSS spy Edward Scanlon, with the penetrating gray eyes, traveling to Leipzig and honing his spy skills with NKVD agent Hanni Steiner, a bright blue-eyed blond, whose allegiance is to a new Germany, her father, and Beria, the Russian spy-master.

Scanlon is captured and tortured.  Hanni helps him escape and flee the country.  From that moment, the OSS agent finds that he can trust no one—not the British, not the Americans, and certainly not the Russians or Nazis.  His second OSS mission, handled personally by Allen Dulles, is to obtain the plans and personnel associated with the Nazi experimental program to develop a new jet fighter, its prototype already playing havoc with the Allied bomber squadrons.  Stalin also wants those plans and personnel, so Hanni is given the same mission.

I’ll not spoil the rest of this thrilling story nor give away the poignant ending, but let me say there is also plenty of romance here in the relationship between Scanlon and Hanni.  I first thought that much of the dialog and description here was a bit schmaltzy, but I then thought back to those old classic films.  Yes, they talked like that back then.  Men wooed women and suffered in silence too, from Romeo and Juliet to Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca (that movie plot is similar, in fact).  This is great stuff.  I’m a sucker for it, although I don’t read many war stories anymore (and certainly can’t write them).

My one historical nit to pick: Allen Dulles might have been a brilliant chess master in the OSS and early CIA, but he and his brother’s paranoia toward world communism (partly justified, of course), as exported by the Soviet Union, definitely led to some bad choices.  One of these, the overthrow of the duly-elected government of Iran and the installation of the Shah, still haunts us.  Other gaffes in South America make it hard for me to put him on a pedestal as is done in this book, the last scenes of which take place in 1959, after that Iranian overthrow.  This is an insignificant item, however, within the broad landscape painted in the book.

This is the best book I’ve read so far this year.  In fact, it goes in the list on my webpage “Steve’s Bookshelf” in the “Stealth Reads—Books by New and Promising Authors” category, although Mr. Brown is certainly not a new author.  He has confirmed his subgenre-niche in writing this excellent historical thriller.  I hope he continues to keep writing them.

(Mr. Brown kindly provided me this ebook in return for an honest review.)

In libris libertas….

[If you enjoyed this review, please support this blog: buy, read, and review of some of my books.]

#254:  Guest post on “Writers on the Move.”  Thanks to the encouragement of Karen Cioffi, one of “the writers on the move,” I’m writing up my experiences with targeted ads directed at the local audience of attendees of the Montclair Film Festival (April 25-May 5).  I will be candid with this series of articles, no matter the results.  Whether positive or negative, it’s a learning experience for me I’m willing to pass on.  The series is titled “Targeting Specific Readers” and the first part, which appeared Wednesday (April 17), is subtitled “The Marketing Conundrum.”  I would be pleased if you follow the series.  (Note: it will NOT reappear here.)

#255:  Major writer goes indie.  Wednesday’s (April 17) NY Times reported that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author David Mamet is going indie for his next book.  When he released his last one, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, it sold well enough to make the Times’ best-seller list.  This year, when the author set out to publish his next book, a novella and two short stories about war, he decided to take a very different path: self- or indie publishing.  His reasons should be familiar—he wants more control.  (Note: One other so far, Hugh Howey, author of the Wool SF series, has managed to do both, and keep digital rights separate from paper rights.)

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…of what’s wrong with American government.  Who makes the laws of the land?  The lobbyists and special interests, that’s who!  We don’t have single payer health insurance and universal health coverage because of the demands of health insurance and pharmaceutical companies and all the healthcare industry—AMA, hospitals, clinics, doctors, and nurses.  Every special interest pressures Congress, the executive branch, and, increasingly, the judicial system, especially Wall Street and other corporate lawyers.  But the special interest group that screams the loudest, puts its money where its big mouth is, and effectively makes 90% of the American public their slaves is the NRA.

Yes, stats are out: about 90% of every public sector—whites, blacks, Hispanics, women, men—are for at least extensive background checks.  You’d think that would guarantee passage of something.  We just commemorated the death of Martin Luther King.  I saw recently a clip of RFK announcing his death—Bobby died a few months later.  James Brady took a bullet meant for Ronald Reagan thirty-two years ago.  Four months ago, we lived through the Newtown massacre.  Over a span of thirty plus years, America has proven that it’s addicted to guns.  Thirty plus years and no significant change!  If anything, our leaders kiss the butts of the NRA hierarchy now even more as vast sums of money pour into campaign coffers and the Association campaigns against any candidate that dares to attack them.

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(Bob Adamov, Sandustee, ASIN: BOOBMZNCMU)

Here’s another great Indiana-Jones/Da-Vinci-Code-style adventure, and it’s arrived on my Kindle just when I thought I’d seen the last of them.  Many readers still enjoy a good tale along these lines.  I do too, if it’s done well.  H. Rider Haggard could do it well.  Dan Brown at least receives credit for reviving this adventure subgenre while managing to infuriate Catholic orthodoxy.  Problems occur when readers, or authors, start taking these books too seriously.

Bob Adamov’s investigative journalist Emerson Moore (no relation) is much more believable than Dan Brown’s Harvard professor.  The larger-than-life characterization might trouble a few readers, but I enjoyed the swashbuckling and somewhat ingenious Emerson Moore and his nemesis (who the latter works for is one of the nice twists) as they both follow the clues that lead them to the Nazarene’s code (contents never completely divulged).  The settings and clues were carefully researched as near as I could tell—Masonic symbols are not as prevalent as in some books in this subgenre (and not a Gnostic reference was to be had).

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#248: New ebooks for your enjoyment.  Let’s start with my most recent release, The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan.  Thriller and conspiracy lovers, take note.  Women tired of vampire romances, take note.  Baby boomers tired of watching ups and downs of their retirement funds, take note.  This book is fast-paced entertainment that’s gripping and thought-provoking.  What would you do if the U.S. government sponsored a retirement plan designed just for agents and other employees with early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s and too many secrets?

Detectives Chen and Castilblanco, my favorite NYPD homicide detectives from The Midas Bomb, Angels Need Not Apply, Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java, and Virginia above will be featured in my very first true mystery titled Teeter-Totter Between Lust and Murder.  Besides the title themes, they will take on arms smugglers and militia members in their new adventure.  I’m in the final editing stages on this one—look for it.  Coming soon!

#249: Review of Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James.  I write reviews; this is not my review.  Mandi M. Lynch, author and reviewer writing for the Book in the Bag book review blog, tells it like it is.  She made the effort to read the book and try to find some redeeming qualities.  I never had the courage (Prurient interest? Misogynist sociopathy?  Puerile curiosity?  Pornographic sadism?) to even consider reading this book.  I do want to see a sociology or psychology thesis on why this book is so popular with suburban soccer moms and their desperate husbands trying to find out where the closest S&M-hardware shops are located.  The review confirmed my opinion (well developed, even though I didn’t read the book) that this book is just trash.  What’s your opinion?

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I have many friends who are avid…well, I’m not sure what to call them.  On a long commute or a plane ride cross-country, they listen to a book.  In other words, they purchase audio books instead of paperbacks or ebooks.  If the reader for the audio book is a first-rate master of the spoken word and not like my sophomore English teacher, that’s a fine way to read a few books.  In fact, it harkens back to the days before books when storytelling was a vocal tradition.

Poetry has more of a modern oral tradition.  Even if the poet writes his poems in silence, he’ll often be called upon to read them aloud.  That doesn’t work so well when the poet, like my sophomore English teacher, has a voice that is soporific.  Too often, poets and other writers don’t seem to be inspired by their own prose or they just don’t have the skills to read aloud and make it interesting.  Many parents do better with bedtime stories for their kids than some poets and writers do with public speaking.

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