Blog Tour Review | QUICKSAND by Carolyn Baugh

Quicksand by Carolyn Baugh
Thriller/Mystery/Crime Published September 29, 2015
Forge Books
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

The beginning of an engrossing new suspense series featuring Philadelphia policewoman Nora Khalil

Officer Nora Khalil is used to navigating different terrains. As part of a joint task force set up by the Philadelphia Police Department, the FBI, and the local sheriff’s offices, she works to keep Philly’s mean streets safe from gang violence, while trying to honor the expectations of her traditional Egyptian-American family. She can hold her own against hardened murderers and rapists, and her years as a competitive runner ensure that no suspect ever escapes on foot.

Nora tries to keep her professional and personal lives separate, but when a mutilated body is discovered in a tough section of town, Nora must rely on both her police training and her cultural background to find out whether this is another gang-related killing or the grisly evidence of something even darker and more disturbing.

My Thoughts...

I have to say that I really enjoyed this book.  I started it one day while I was on my lunch break at work and because of all my school work wasn't able to pick it back up for 4-5 days, but once I did I finished it in one sitting.  I was pretty much hooked from the 2nd chapter and now I am going to have a hard time waiting for the next book in the series to come out.  What I really liked about it is that this book is pretty much a self contained story, but a tiny thread of romance that will hopefully be the "thing" that carries over to the other books in the series.

Nora Khalil is a young police officer who has been tapped to join a special gang task force that's been set up with the FBI.  John is her older more experienced male partner who loves her like a daughter while at the same time teaching her what she needs to know to survive her job.  She's Egyptian and her family is very strict in their beliefs and traditions.  She's falling in love with Ben, one of the FBI officers that she works with, and vice versa, but inter-racial dating/marriage is not something that's looked on kindly in her family so she keeps him at arms length.  Nora and John, along with Ben and his partner are working on a case where a very young girl is murdered.  They believe it's gang related and it pulls them in to a much bigger and potentially deadly situation.  Some of the key players in this case are Muslim and Nora's language skills and her cultural knowledge and background are the things that help to crack the case wide open.  At the same time, she is finding out things about her own family that will aid her in decisions that she must make about her own life and future, both personally and professionally.

I felt like this novel was very well paced and pretty much action packed from start to  finish.  The whole of the case plays out over the course of about a week, maybe a little more.  All of the characters are very well developed, especially Nora and John.  You can't help but feel for Nora and what she's going through and when she stands up for herself and her beliefs you feel the need to root for her.  This is the first Carolyn Baugh book that I have read, but it definitely won't be the last.  I think that she has tapped into something that is possibly lacking in this market.  Her knowledge of the Egyptian and Muslim community is extensive because of her education and I think that her choosing to use it in this way is excellent.  It's a lighter way to bring topics such as these to peoples attention.

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

Review | 99 PERCENT KILL by Doug Richardson

99 Percent Kill by Doug Richardson
Contemporary Crime/Thriller Published August 15, 2015
Velvet Elvis Entertainment
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

99 Percent Kill follows Lucky Dey, an on-again/off-again Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detective who is both willful and acerbic to a dangerous fault. While in a holding pattern for official reinstatement, Lucky accepts a one-time gig to track down the missing teenage daughter of a Midwestern software millionaire. The novel is the first in a series, but also lives as a stand-alone thriller, winding its way through an L.A. landscape where the lights are bright, but the edges can be dark, perilously frayed, and populated with mix of human predators, amusing losers, and ambitious fringe dwellers. 

My Thoughts...

As much as I enjoyed Blood Money, my first taste of Lucky Dey, and as much as I was looking forward to reading this new book...it just didn't quite meet my expectations.  To that end, I am going to keep this review pretty short.

So the synopsis pretty much sums up what the story is about.  It's set in the seedier parts of L.A. with a glimpse of classier places like the Biltmore Hotel, but the bulk of the story happens far away from that.  Lucky is on a missing teenager case at the behest of Conrad Ellis who we met in the first book.  It kind of baffles me that Conrad is associated with Andrew, but what do I know!  As with the first book here is a whole cast of extremely unlikable characters with questionable motivation.  Herm is in search of his "unicorn" when he gets a glimpse of Karrie. He spends the whole of the book trying to get his hands on her.  He is more or less a pimp on the lookout for the really young girls that no one will  look for when they disappear, but he doesn't count on Lucky.

It may be because I got an ARC and maybe there was still editing to be done, but I had issues with the pacing of this story.  There were a lot of scenes that didn't really add to the story, characters that didn't necessarily need to be there to further the story.  I got an icky feeling from Andrew from the beginning and that was warranted, but it was overdone at times.  Then when you get to the end of the story all the final conflict takes place in just a few pages and then there is a cliffhanger ending!

I do still really like the character of Lucky but was a little disappointed to see that his relationship with Lydia was already over when this story started.  That was one of the better parts of the first book and what made him so likable for me.  My other favorite character in the book was Cherry Pie, she was a great character and added so much to the story.  She really had so much more potential than she was given.

I would like to see where this story goes so I will probably continue to read the series, but I think in the future I will wait for a finished copy.

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the author in exchange for my honest review.*

Review | HELEN ONCE, HELEN TWICE, HELEN ONCE AGAIN by Robert Caryl

Helen Once, Helen Twice, Helen Once Again by Robert Caryl
Science Fiction published April 4, 2015
CreateSpace
Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Helen Anderson is certain she has no sisters, so the two women who look like her twins and share her DNA should not exist. And, they’ve been murdered – their bodies dumped in the small Outside nation of Texas, which in 2097 is a run-down backwater. The few thousand people still living there refused to join the Great Exodus of 2076 in which the bulk of the world population migrated into the portal-connected rooms and spaces called Inside. 

Shelby Darnell, the Texas Rangers’ only homicide detective, believes Helen innocent even as his nemesis, Insider detective Lt. Midori Yamamoto strives to thwart Darnell and convict the woman. More Helen look-alikes appear, most with someone else’s hand or foot. The only perfect “twin” is Athena Hendrik who is pursued by the Black Dragon Society, an Asian crime organization with a peculiar interest in the dead Helen look-alikes. Darnell’s own daughter, Darcy, goes to the top of his suspect list when evidence suggests she is one of the Dragons. 

The case takes Darnell from the “stacks” housing the Inside world to the drowned city of Venice, and to the ice-mining Temple of Gaia in the Antarctic. Everywhere, he encounters interference from anonymous police in powered armor who are bent on stealing the bodies of the murdered women before Darnell can examine them. Eventually, his investigation uncovers a world-shaking secret that he can handle only with the help of Athena, Helen and his daughter.

My Thoughts...

I really enjoyed this book!  It's a beast at 650+ pages long, but really the story is so fast paced I was able to finish it more quickly that I expected to.  This is a science fiction story set in 2097 in a world where most of the population lives "Inside".  Shelby Darnell is a Texas Ranger who lives "Outside".  When a woman is found dead essentially on his doorstep he gets pulled into an investigation that will literally take him across the globe via portals that connect the "Inside".

So basically the Inside is a massive series of what amounts to interconnected rooms, buildings, etc...that are connected by doorway portals.  Someone has discovered spatial "folding" technology or something to that effect. So instead to travelling via car, plane or the like you enter your destination into a panel at a portal doorway and when you step through you are wherever you want to be.  Houses work in the same way, each room is connected by a portal.  Essentially, each room in your home could be located in a different part of the world, but they are connected by these portals.  It's a very unique, at least to me, concept for the world that has been built in this story.  The Outside is a rundown version of our world that has is still inhabitable, but at this point in time the majority of the population now lives Inside.

The gist of the story is that women are showing up dead after they are dumped through one of the portals.  The odd thing is that they all look alike.  Shelby is the person who discovers the first body and as he investigates the cause of her death he is pulled into a web of deceit and intrigue.  This whole story is full of plot twists, fast paced action and more future tech than you can imagine.  The characters are well developed and you can't read fast enough to discover what will happen next. 

It's really hard to describe this story properly, but I enjoyed every minute of it and I know that it's the start of a series so I know that I will be picking up the rest of them.  If you enjoy a unique science fiction premise then you will want to give this one a read for sure.

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of the author in exchange for my honest review.*

Blog Tour | BLOOD TIES by Nicholas Guild

Blood Ties by Nicholas Guild
Thriller / Murder Mystery published May 12, 2015
Forge Books
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy the Book on Amazon

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Homicide detective Ellen Ridley of the SFPD is tracking a serial killer terrorizing young women in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ridley is sure she's cornered her most likely suspect: Stephen Tregear, a hacker and code breaker who works for U.S. Naval Intelligence. But Tregear is not the killer... he's the killer's son.

Ridley and Tregear team up to look for Tregear's father, Walter, in an elaborate game of murderous cat and mouse. As the body count rises, Ridley must race against the clock to stop Walter before he kills any more women--and Tregear must finally confront the father who has been trying to kill him for twenty years. Blood Ties is an elegant and frightening thriller from Nicholas Guild.

My Thoughts...

I just finished this book this morning and it was a pretty quick read for me.  Once I got started I didn't want to put it down.  I am not sure where to start my review.  There isn't really much in the way of spoilers as it's pretty cut and dry on who the killer is, etc... Most of it is just a psychological maze of piecing together the reasons why.