RIZZO'S FIRE - Joe Rizzo Series No. 2

by Lou Manfredo - available in hardcover and eBook

Det. Sargent Joe Rizzo is at the end of his career with the Brooklyn Police Department.  Rizzo and his partner, Det. Priscilla Jackson, arrive at the apartment of Robert Lauria who was murdered days earlier. 

Lauria was living like a hermit with no close friends or relatives, and Rizzo and Jackson believe his death is tied to the murder of a famous playwright in Manhattan.  Trying to stay under the radar to prove the connection without giving away their information to Manhattan is a difficult task, but Rizzo is convinced this is the case that will end his long police career on a high note. 

Meanwhile, Rizzo is facing a real problem at home; his youngest daughter wants to attend the police academy.  Rizzo is dead set against her career choice because of his knowledge of how frustrating police work can be. 

If Joe's retirement is truly just a year away, this series is going to be short lived which would be a shame.  The banter between old world Italian Rizzo and Priscilla, an African American lesbian, livens up Manfredo's latest.  RIZZO'S FIRE is a good, solid mystery, but the references to damaging information that Joe and his previous partner have on a local politico compel me to suggest that you read RIZZO'S WAR first.

ISBN 978-0-312-53806-4
292 pages

THE DUCKS ONE WEEK LATER

How quickly they grow! As you can see from the photograph, the ducks are a lot taller. Last Wednesday's photo showed their height at about half the height of a can of Pepsi. Just one week later, they're all as tall as the can!

Sadly, we lost the four smallest ducks this week.  Not as robust as the others, my husband tried valiantly to save them but they never really recovered from their trip to New Jersey.  The remaining 17 are thriving. 

We had a calendar mishap this past week and even though the ducks had just arrived, we had reservations out of state for the weekend.  Many thanks to ducky godmother, Candace Alderton, who hosted the entire flock at her home for two nights.  This was not an easy endeavor with three cats in residence, but all went well and the ducks will fondly remember their weekend sojourn with Candace. 

Since the flock is just beginning to outgrow their storage bin, we plan to move them to larger quarters this coming weekend.  Be sure to visit my blog next Wednesday for a new update.

FATAL ERROR

by J.A. Jance - available in hardcover and as an eBook

Ali Reynolds is in the middle of her Arizona Police Academy training course when she's visited by an old friend.  Ali and Brenda Riley were both TV news anchors before being considered too old for their respective slots.

Ali is more than surprised to see the condition Brenda's life is in.  She's not only an alcoholic but has lost everything and is living out of her car.  She wants Ali's help to locate her fiance, Richard Lattimer.   The problem is that Brenda has never met Richard and doesn't even know what he looks like.

With the help of her boyfriend's computer expert, Ali soon discovers that Lattimer doesn't exist, but Richard Lowensdale does.  In a cruel game of cyber-stalking, Lowensdale has been using fictitious last names to create bogus romantic relationships with women on the internet.  After leading each to believe he's in love with them, he drops them just when they think they're engaged to him.  When Lowensdale is murdered in his home, everything points to Brenda Riley.

Reynolds finds herself unemployed following her training and sets out to prove that Brenda is innocent.  With a murderer on the loose, Brenda disappears, and Ali teams up with Det. Gil Morris to find her friend and the killer.

Like Jance's other mysteries, FATAL ERROR is a fun, quick read.

ISBN 978-1-4165-6381-5
353 pages

DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION

by Carolyn Cooke - to be released June 2011

Goddard (God) Byrd is the philandering headmaster of the all-male Goode School, a financially struggling prep school.  Despite tradition and God's personal aversion to coeducation, Carole Faust, a brilliant, young and rebellious black woman has been admitted as a scholarship student through a clerical oversight.

The lives of Lil Hellman, a young widow, and her small child EV are interwoven with God's and Carole's in this coming of age story that richly encompasses the changing times, from the Kennedy assassination through civil unrest and the sexual revolution. 

Surrounded by young people, especially young women, who are embracing newly forged freedoms, God's unwillingness or inability to accept the shifting dynamics of the world around him deftly mirrors the struggles of the era. 

While reading DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION, I was in awe of the author's ability to bring her characters to such vivid life amid the backdrop of the political and social turbulence of the '60s through the early '80s.  Ms. Cooke's achingly beautiful and intelligent prose makes DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION a delightful and powerful literary gem.

ISBN 978-0-307-59473-0
192 pages

THE DUCKS HAVE ARRIVED!

Our new baby ducklings arrived this morning from Denver, Colorado.  We received the call from our post office that our package had arrived and picked them up immediately. 

So cute and tiny, unfortunately five did not survive the trip, but we have 21 chirping little ducks hopping around.  As soon as my husband opened the box, one jumped out to explore his new home. 

After two days in transit, each duckling has to be introduced to drinking water and that went very quickly.  After placing them into a tall plastic storage bin, we gave them duck food sprinkled with sugar water.  Surprisingly, you can't provide too much drinking water at first because they can become waterlogged which isn't healthy.  Today I'll be tied to the kitchen timer to add or take away their water bowls until they're acclimated to their new home. 

The ducklings need to be kept warm and their box is currently sitting on a heat vent as well as a heating pad.  I've added a can of Pepsi to their box so you can see how quickly they grow as I post new pictures.

It's been four years since we raised a new flock and it will take about five or six weeks until they're mature enough to be released into our stream.  In a few days they'll have outgrown their plastic bin and we'll transfer them to a pen in the garage with heat lamps to keep them warm. 

When they get too large for the pen (not to mention, too smelly), George will transfer them to a specially designed cage in the backyard shed that allows them to go outside without the threat of predators.  They'll stay in the shed until they're old enough to be let loose.

We were really lucky with our first flock and didn't start to lose them to the coyotes or foxes for a couple of years.  When our last few decamped for someone else's house further downstream, we knew it was time for our new arrivals.  

FINAL EXIT A Suspenseful Tale of Passions Unleashed

by Joan Nelson - available in paperback or as an eBook

Take two self-centered and egotistical people; he’s married, she’s a new widow. He’s a successful surgeon, she’s a poetry babbling master of everything. Both are oversexed, selfish and narcissistic.  Add an overweight, whiny and possessive wife, a nefarious father-in-law, and two toxic grown children and I have just introduced you to the main characters in FINAL EXIT.

Like a Harlequin Romance on steroids, Bob and Jen very graphically hop in and out of bed like bunnies, all the while discussing art, flowers and beauty with such pithy post-coital comments as, “I like the Country French look.”

But FINAL EXIT would have no platform at all for the steamy sex if the wife of thirty years wasn’t a deranged stalker and if her father didn’t have dealings with criminals. When bad things start to happen, do our protagonists call the police like normal people? Of course not! They simply contact his good friend with the CIA who helps them change their identities and fake Bob’s death.

But wait! We’re not done yet. Bob’s CIA friend must really just work in the mail room because a PI is able to quickly locate them, bringing the reader to the kind of ending only found in a really bad “B” movie.

ISBN 978-160844-450-2
270 pages

A VISIT TO MY OFFICE AND MY BLOG

Now that my blog is just over a year old, and I've received over 7,000 hits, I thought you might like to know a little more about my blog and where I work. 

At any one time I have over 150 books waiting to be read and reviewed.  Like most of you, my dedication wanes when I spend too much time staring out the window, or on the internet playing canasta on Pogo, but most of the time I stay on track and try to do at least ten reviews each month. 

My husband George helped me assemble the right pieces to make everything handy in my office so that I can spend more time reading and reviewing.  I have to admit, it's my favorite room in our house!

I don't keep many books after I've read them, just some of my favorites or books signed by authors whose books I've reviewed on my blog.   

My blog features reviews of books that I've actually read.  Since I'm a one (wo)man band, I can't really read every book on the market so I try to pick and choose carefully, my favorites being mysteries, memoirs and women's fiction.

Although I'm linked to the websites of all fifteen Recorder Newspapers, and some of you have seen my recent review in their print papers, I am totally independent.  I don't receive any payments of any kind for my reviews. If you notice, I also don't currently have ads on my blog. 

My reviews simply reflect my own opinions and I try to be fair and honest when writing a review.  Not everyone will agree with all of my opinions but I try to write my reviews as if I were describing a book to a good friend and whether or not I think he or she would enjoy it.  

All of this is leading up to another point.  Recently I have been contacted directly by some authors or by friends of authors to review their books.  While I am happy to receive their books, I value my independence and integrity when reviewing ANY book.  I can't promise that my review will produce the result they're hoping for. 

This was the case with my recent involvement with Saloma Furlong, the author of WHY I LEFT THE AMISH.  She was referred to me by the woman who manages the blogs for the Recorder Newspaper group.  It was a pleasure and a delight to read and review Saloma's memoir, but the same is not always going to be true of every book I'm solicited to read. 

With that said, I hope you enjoy the "tour" of my office and have a better understanding of the purpose of my blog.  Feel free to email any comments to me at lynnkimmerle@aol.com

Thanks for stopping by!

Note:  If you double click on any of the photos I've posted, you can see the titles of some of the books in my "to read" queue. 

THE FUND

by H.T. Narea - to be released May 2011

In this near-future thriller, Narea takes us on a journey of Islamic terrorists plotting numerous assaults on the United States and the West with the use of dirty bombs in an attempt to change global economics forever. Frighteningly realistic, THE FUND follows the money trail of funding for these assaults. 

Kate Molares, a U.S. Defense intelligence operative, is assigned to follow the money.  Kate is working with all of her government contacts to piece together what the large money exchanges represent, trying to discover how the money is being used. Using her resources, she stumbles upon a serum being tested in Cuba that's designed to create super warriors willing to die for their causes. 

Molares is reunited with her college lover, Nebibi Hasehm, neither realizing just how much on opposite sides they are.  Hasehm is on a quest to create an Islamic money fund that will provide the necessary funding for the terrorists' plans.  The countries backing these terrorist acts include Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Muslim extremists. 

In this race against time, Narea's sweeping novel keeps the reader on the edge of the seat wondering if all of the pieces of this puzzle will fit together before the world is changed forever.  Intricate and exciting, THE FUND is going to be the beach read of 2011!

ISBN 978-0-7653-2890-8 464 pages

THE OTHER LIFE

by Ellen Meister - just released in hardcover and as an eBook

When Quinn's artist mother was pregnant with her, she attempted suicide.  Because of this very close brush with death, baby Quinn was born with an unusual ability; she knew there was another Quinn living a different life and that she could identify the "portals" to reach the other side.  Throughout the years, her mother protected her from reaching through these portals. 

Fast forward thirty-odd years and Quinn Braverman is a young married mother with one child and another on the way. After undergoing tests, she and and husband Lewis are faced with the horrible choice of terminating the pregnancy or giving birth to a severely disabled child.  Quinn's mother had finally succumbed to her depression and died of an overdose, and Quinn desperately wants to talk to her mother about her baby.

Quinn finally uses the "portal"; a crack in the wall in her basement laundry room to visit the road not taken when she left her self-centered, neurotic lover for Lewis.  On the other side, her mother hasn't chosen suicide and Quinn is still with her ex-boyfriend, living a sophisticated urban life.  Coming back through the portal to her life with Lewis and her son is more difficult each time Quinn goes through the portal to the other side, and Quinn has to finally face which life is more real and important to her.

Who wouldn't want to be able to view the fork in the road of life we didn't take?  But Meister's trite treatment of this subject as well as a selfish protagonist who uses a crack in a cement wall to escape the difficulties she and her husband are facing is more than silly.  Especially since Quinn always seems to get back to reality before her young son's school bus arrives. 

THE OTHER LIFE tries to straddle the line between serious women's fiction and the supernatural and ultimately fails at both.  Save your money and skip this one.

ISBN 978-0-399-15713-4
320 pages

LIVE WIRE - Myron Bolitar Series No. 10

by Harlan Coben - Just released in hardcover and as an eBook

Celebrity agent Myron Bolitar and his friend Windsor Horne Lockwood III (Win) are back in this new mystery from Harlan Coben. 

In this latest installment, Myron is visited by a very pregnant Suzze Tervantino.  One of Myron's first clients, Suzze wants him to help her locate her rock star husband Lex Ryder, as well as find out who left a damaging message on her facebook page.

Bolitar's investigation takes him to a Manhattan nightclub where he catches a glimpse of his estranged sister-in-law Kitty.  Myron hasn't seen Kitty or his brother Brad in sixteen years and is determined to find a way to reconnect.  Suzze and Kitty were budding tennis stars together years ago and Myron is quickly immersed in a deadly investigation that includes both women as well as ties to organized crime.  As usual, blueblood Win has Myron's back and is more than willing to use physical or deadly force to protect his friend. 

Along with his investigation, Myron is dealing with a very ill father and a belligerent teenaged nephew he's never met before.  Seriously involved with the woman he plans to spend his life with, it seems that Coben might have different plans for his characters in the future. 

I've been a longtime fan of Harlan Coben and have read and enjoyed all ten of the Bolitar novels.  His seamless writing and intricate plots make his books a total pleasure to read.

ISBN 978-0-525-95206-0
384 pages