The perfect life
A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she’s built in New York–including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can’t let him pay for the real killer’s crimes.

The perfect lie
Nina’s secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina’s world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity.

The perfect way to die
Now, years later, Nina risks everything she’s earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet–a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.

Liked:

• As with most of Patterson + fill-in-the-blank co-author’s works, this book featured a ton of short chapters and plenty of twists and turns to the storyline. I bet if I took the time to analyze 3-4 of these type of books, I could walk away with an almost page-by-page template of how to write a thriller. Maybe that should be my next summer project!
• I liked when the FBI agent approached Jeanine (before she became Nina) and told her she had to get away from Peter. That was very cryptic; and when Jeanine researched Peter’s history at the library, her situation became downright scary.
• I liked that Charlie Baylor (the Key West lawyer for falsely accused murderer Justin Miller) and Nina ended up together. They seemed like a good match, and really, after all that time with the wrong man and then alone, Nina deserved some happiness. Here’s hoping they get to review medical malpractice insurance Florida laws together for a long time to come!

Disliked:

• I didn’t think that Peter’s wife-killing tendency was explained adequately. Did he just get tired of these women, so he killed them? Was it because he didn’t want them to have babies? If the former, what the hell was wrong with a simple divorce(or why even get married in the first place)? If the latter, why not use contraception even after marriage or get a vasectomy or something?
• Along similar lines, I wish the authors had explained why Peter decided to get married AND have children after Jeanine left him. Why the sudden change of heart? That seemed like an important thing to know.
• Why in the world would Nina stop at New York? I don’t know about you, but if I had a psycho ex out there like that, I would have gone clear across to the other side of the country. Sure, at first glance NY might seem far enough away from Key West, but with Peter’s Boston connection I would still be worried. Wouldn’t Seattle or San Diego have been much safer? I realize Nina didn’t have any money when she started out, so she had to stop in New York, but after she got herself together, she could have moved again.
• I don’t buy for one second that Nina never felt compelled to Google Peter to see what he was up to. She was surprised that he was still in Key West, had become the Chief of Police down there, etc. If she truly feared for her life all those years, I’m SURE she would have been Googling him to make sure he didn’t transfer to New York or something.
• I found it pretty amazing (in a bad way) that the Jump Killer so miraculously happened to pick Jeanine up on the highway — right after she staged her own disappearance to make it look like the Jump Killer caught her. How lucky!!
• Speaking of the Jump Killer, Peter just happened to have that guy under his thumb too and managed to set Charlie and Nina up on an empty dinner boat with that guy? Um, okaaaay.

Rating:

At this point, I know enough to have limited expectations regarding James Patterson’s assembly line works. As such, even though my Dislikes greatly outnumbered my Likes for Now You See Her, I’m still going to give the book 3 stars out of 5. It’s a fast-paced book meant to be consumed in a weekend, and in that regard it serves its purpose.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab’s DNA cases currently in court.

Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving’s son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch’s longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation.

Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought the Irving case was built up in a pretty suspenseful way. I was anxious to learn if the death was indeed suicide or if it was a murder that had something to do with the father’s political dealings.
• I can’t believe Maddie is already 15 years old and helps Bosch with some aspects of his cases! I guess that’s to be expected, though. I can’t imagine Bosch’s daughter being a girly girl who would be Google searching prom dresses 2012 on her laptop instead of reviewing surveillance video with her dad. Oh, and the fact that she knows how to handle guns and now enters shooting competitions is pretty cool, too. I wonder if Connelly is planning to retire Harry and “continue” the series with Maddie in the lead role instead. That would be awesome!
• The twist about Chill being a serial killer with 37 victims to his name was grisly, but good. I certainly wasn’t expecting that at all.
• I really liked the way Chill was caught. He managed to escape detection all those years, but was ultimately undone by a single drop of blood that belonged to an ex-girlfriend’s child. The way Bosch and Chu went from Clayton Pell’s bloodstain to catching a killer was probably my favorite part of the entire book.

Disliked:

• I can’t stand Harry Bosch as a character anymore. I am just so sick and tired of his imperious, lone wolf ways that I have to start skimming whenever he interacts with his partner. Yeah, Chu was totally wrong to go to the LA Times with inside information, but would he have done so if Bosch had been treating him as an equal? If I were in Chu’s shoes and had a partner giving me orders ALL THE TIME without telling me the reason behind the tasks, I would get pissed and want to act out too. Harry has seniority and all that, but that doesn’t give him license to act like an asshole 24/7.
• I couldn’t keep up with all the changes of heart Bosch went through at the end of the book. First he wanted to use his influence with Kiz to get Chu transferred. Then he wanted to quit because he had been played and couldn’t see Irving’s death as the suicide it was. Soon after, he wanted to give Chu a second chance. And then immediately after that, instead of retiring for good he decided to ask for a full five years on his DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan). WTF???
• The relationship stuff with the doctor was boring and unnecessary.
• I just don’t enjoy the political angle that Connelly loves to insert in a lot of his books. Sure, in real life politics plays a huge part in what goes on within a big city police department. But I couldn’t care less about the fictional LAPD police chief, his assistant Kiz Rider, or councilman Irvin Irving. The stuff they’re trying to do to each other is tiresome and uninteresting to this average reader.

Rating:

My love-hate with Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series continues with The Drop. The book definitely had some positives that made it an entertaining read, but the bad points are ones that have become quite a trend with this author’s work recently and are becoming increasingly irritating with every installment. I’ll probably continue to read Connelly out of habit; however, he’s not a must-buy-on-release-day writer for me anymore. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Two ex-Secret Service agents, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, have been hired to defend a man’s innocence in a burglary involving an aristocratic, dysfunctional family. Then a series of secrets leads the partners right into the frantic hunt that is confounding even the FBI. Now King and Maxwell are playing the Hour Game, uncovering one horrifying revelation after another and putting their lives in danger. For the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to the most shocking surprise of all.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The copycat serial killer angle was interesting. I found myself looking up a few of the killers that were emulated, and wondered why Baldacci didn’t just do that for readers to begin with. He had to have known we’d be curious!
• I was kept guessing as to the killer’s identity for almost the entire length of the book. Was it the character Baldacci clearly set up to be the bad guy? Was it the briefly mentioned raleigh accountant with a hidden agenda against the Battle family? The clues were there and an attentive reader probably could have figured out that Eddie Battle was the one causing all the mayhem, but I failed to pick up on it until the answer was fairly obvious.
• Having a couple other murders thrown in as red herrings was a good twist as well. That subplot also kept me guessing for a while. I eventually did peg the medical examiner Sylvia as Bobby Battle’s killer, but I was nowhere near the right track as far as the motive went.

Disliked:

• The beginning of the book started off with a good hook, but the middle just dragged on and on and on. Seriously, this thing was at least 100 pages longer than it needed to be, and I had to slog through several dull interludes to make it all the way to the end.
• The part where Eddie had a fake vein in his arm with lock picking tools concealed therein was just way, way, WAY beyond belief. That was so ridiculous I actually yelled, “Yeah, right!!” pretty loudly, earning a concerned look from my husband in the process.
• All the crap about the Battle family’s history got boring after a while. Yeah, we get it… they’re just another fucked up, privileged bunch of rich white folks. No need to drill that point home over and over again.
• Some of the minor characters were just dropped like a hot potato once they outlived their usefulness. Lulu Oxley? What happened to her? Mason? I hate when that happens.
• So who killed Kyle (the medical examiner’s office assistant who was stealing and selling drugs)? Was it established that it was Sylvia? I thought she denied that when questioned by Sean. Was that just a run-of-the-mill denial, or was the person telling the truth? I guess I just wanted the book to end because at that point I wasn’t even paying much attention.

Rating:

Hour Game by David Baldacci was good in places, but dragged far too much and was too long to be considered anything other than average by me. The Sean King/Michelle Maxwell series still has potential, so I’ll continue reading the books when I have a chance, but they’ll never be a priority. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Warning: MAJOR spoilers below!

Liked:

• As with most Patterson books, the pace was pretty good. Things moved right along for the most part — except for the ridiculous “romance” angle.
• I can’t believe Alex Cross sticks with this kind of work for, what, 17 more books? That’s insane. If I were him, I’d start looking for Speech-Language Pathologist Jobs or try to get into family practice. As a widow with two young children, why would he put himself at constant risk like that?
• I was kind of surprised about the death penalties getting carried out so quickly. They weren’t in Texas, were they? Didn’t Jezzie and the other guy want to appeal anything? From trial to lethal injection in just a few months? Wow.

Disliked:

• What a wholly UNINSPIRED “twist” to have Jezzie actually be a dirty agent and only sleeping with Alex to get information from him. I don’t know… maybe that kind of thing was original back in 1993 when this book was published, but nearly 20 years later it just doesn’t go over well at all.
• I was really looking forward to my first Alex Cross book since he’s been around for, what, 20 installments? What a disappointment to learn that he’s one of the most boring protagonists I’ve ever encountered. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to continue with this series because he just doesn’t do anything for me.
• When a killer gets captured before the halfway point of the book, you can damn near bet the farm that he’s going to escape.
• I hated seeing “Soneji/Murphy” throughout the whole freaking book. It was as though Patterson wanted to make absolutely certain that we all understood the Jekyll/Hyde implications of the antagonist. Save some ink and just pick one damn name or the other!
• What was all that crap about interracial dating?? I know the book was written two decades ago, but weren’t interracial couples pretty common in the 1990′s???
• There were a bunch of other little details that nagged and bothered me while reading this; unfortunately, I can’t remember any of them now. I just remember feeling that the book was a bit sloppily written — which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me, given Patterson’s other work.

Rating:

I read James Patterson because it’s airport/escapist stuff, not because I’m expecting tightly plotted, character-driven literature. As such, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when the final product turns out to be something like Along Came a Spider. I give this one 2 stars out of 5.

And then change comes their way. More accurately, it stumbles in. David Zinc, a young but already burned-out attorney, walks away from his fast-track career at a fancy downtown firm, goes on a serious bender, and finds himself literally at the doorstep of our boutique firm. Once David sobers up and comes to grips with the fact that he’s suddenly unemployed, any job—even one with Finley & Figg—looks okay to him.

With their new associate on board, F&F is ready to tackle a really big case, a case that could make the partners rich without requiring them to actually practice much law. An extremely popular drug, Krayoxx, the number one cholesterol reducer for the dangerously overweight, produced by Varrick Labs, a giant pharmaceutical company with annual sales of $25 billion, has recently come under fire after several patients taking it have suffered heart attacks. Wally smells money.

A little online research confirms Wally’s suspicions—a huge plaintiffs’ firm in Florida is putting together a class action suit against Varrick. All Finley & Figg has to do is find a handful of people who have had heart attacks while taking Krayoxx, convince them to become clients, join the class action, and ride along to fame and fortune. With any luck, they won’t even have to enter a courtroom!

It almost seems too good to be true.

And it is.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• Score one for the big guys. Varrick came out on top, which is surprising for a Grisham novel. Usually he despises multi-billion dollar corporations and makes them seem like evil incarnate while his underdog lawyers move in for the big score. Not this time.
• This novel provided an interesting look at how class-action suits (mass tort) play out. Obviously I have no way of knowing how close to the truth Grisham’s picture is, but it was still cool to see how quickly the vultures circle overhead whenever there’s even a hint of wrongdoing.
• I’m glad there was no fairy tale ending for Finley & Figg. I was fully expecting Oscar, Wally, and David to practice happily ever after in their little boutique firm and to become a respectable outfit after all was said and done. I thought it was very much in character for Finley and Figg to essentially take the money and run, and for David to turn out to be the only one with a real love of the law and desire to make a future for himself.
• I knew the lead toy lawsuit would end up being the big winner; even so, I still appreciated the ending and am glad the firm (or David, really) got money through a more ethical and legitimate suit.

Disliked:

• This book had one of the slowest, most boring openings I have ever plowed through! I couldn’t believe how long it took for the action to get going! I think it was close to 1/4 or 1/3 of the book before Zinc hooked up with Finley & Figg, and by that time I was predisposed to hate all three lawyers. What was the point of having David be drunk out of his mind before joining the firm? Couldn’t he have just had an epiphany and gone to a small firm? Couldn’t he have gone somewhere less than Harvard and accepted the job out of desperation? That setup was painfully bad.
• The dialogue in this book was awful from beginning to end. It sounded completely amateurish and had me flipping to the cover every once in a while to make sure this was indeed a Grisham book. (Not that he’s known for particularly stellar dialogue, but still….)
• David’s cross-examination in the Varrick trial came across as unnecessary and out of place. Was that just a sign that Grisham was unable to keep his hatred of pharmaceutical companies entirely under control for one novel? I mean, come on. After not having a single, solitary question for any of the defense witnesses, David suddenly sees the light and goes off about Varrick’s unethical testing in third wold countries? That’s a classic Grisham lecture for sure!

Rating:

While The Litigators was better than most of Grisham’s recent efforts, it still doesn’t come close to early works like The Firm, The Client, and A Time to Kill. The slow start, unlikable characters, and bad dialogue made it hard to get into the book with any real enjoyment, but the main plot and the ending were worthwhile. Overall I guess the good and bad points offset, so I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Now Stephanie’s back, armed with attitude — not to mention stun guns, defense sprays, killer flashlights, and her trusty .38, Stephanie is after a new bail jumper, Kenny Mancuso, a boy from Trenton’s burg. He’s fresh out of the army, suspiciously wealthy, and he’s just shot his best friend.

With her bounty hunter pal Ranger stepping in occasionally to advise her, Stephanie staggers kneedeep in corpses and caskets as she traipses through back streets, dark alleys, and funeral parlors.

And nobody knows funeral parlors better than Stephanie’s irrepressible Grandma Mazur, a lady whose favorite pastime is grabbing a front-row seat at a neighborhood wake. So Stephanie uses Grandma as a cover to follow leads, but loses control when Grandma warms to the action, packing a cool pistol. Much to the family’s chagrin, Stephanie and Granny may soon have the elusive Kenny in their sights.

Fast-talking, slow-handed vice cop Joe Morelli joins in the case, since the prey happens to be his young cousin. And if the assignment calls for an automobile stakeout for two with the woman who puts his libido in overdrive, Morelli’s not one to object.

Low on expertise but learning fast, high on resilience, and despite the help she gets from friends and relatives, Stephanie eventually must face the danger alone when embalmed body parts begin to arrive on her doorstep and she’s targeted for a nasty death by the most loathsome adversary she’s ever encountered. Another case like this and she’ll be a real pro.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I still think Stephanie Plum is a terrific heroine. I liked her in this book because she made realistic mistakes. She was neither too dumb, nor too perfect, which is the kind of character that I like. Now, if she’s still bumbling around by the 5th or 6th installment, I might start to have a problem with the author’s choices. But as for now, the characterization is good.
• I liked that Stephanie was a bit more kitted out in this book. In addition to her trusty .38, she had pepper spray, a stun gun, and a flashlight, so she was far more prepared for stakeouts and confrontations with suspects. Next, she’ll need some dark clothing, one of those Luminox blackout watches, and an inconspicuous car (ESPECIALLY an inconspicuous car!) and she’ll be all set.
• The stuff about the grandmother wanting to go to wakes and funerals was pretty funny. I usually don’t like those little subplots or secondary characters, but I could actually see old women acting like Grandma Mazur, so her comments cracked me up.
• The Morelli-Stephanie relationship is fun for now; but I’m afraid it will get tiresome if there’s no payoff soon one way or the other.

Disliked:

• The plot was a bit nebulous here. It was hard for me to care about either the army theft or the stolen caskets because not enough info was given about either. Yeah, I know this was a “mystery” novel, so not everything was going to be spelled out every step of the way. But it seemed that Evanovich was particularly stingy in releasing clues and details, making me lose interest quickly.
• The undertaker guy (I already forgot his name) talked in the most annoyingly clipped way. I couldn’t tell what Evanovich was trying to do with him. Yes, he was supposed to be creepy, and I guess he was to a certain extent. But the dialogue was so awful as to be distracting, which is definitely not something the author wanted.

Rating:

While Two for the Dough certainly didn’t pack the same punch as One for the Money, I will continue to read the Stephanie Plum series. I was still sufficiently entertained to want more, and considering the fact that the author has cranked out 17 such novels, there must be at least some merit to them. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The basic outline of the story was a good one. I liked the whole idea of an unofficial witsec person (Wendy) having to come out of hiding to prove that her good friend didn’t kill her.
• I liked that Jack was a competent investigator, but not a superman. He wasn’t able to rig complicated traps armed only with a utility knife, nor did he ever figure out that it was Paul and Sylvie tracking them. Despite not catching Wendy’s would-be assassins, he still managed to keep her safe and get the testimony required to clear Eric.
• The reveal that Wendy was more involved in Kit Stoddard’s disappearance than she let on was a nice little twist. I never would have guessed that she was taking money to introduce pretty girls like Kit to rich men.

Disliked:

• I hated how Perry gave such detailed background information about SO many different characters. I understand the concept of wanting to flesh them out, but this was going overboard. Did we really need to know about Sylvie’s, ahem, film history in order to understand that she was insecure about losing her husband? Did we need to hear about “Ann Delatore’s” pimp/prostitution background to understand why she would be willing to help Wendy? Did we need all the details about Scott Schelling’s business deals, history with Carl, and one-night stand with Jill so late in the game? NO! The book would have been half as long and had much better pacing without all the detours.
• Were readers supposed to feel sympathetic towards Sylvie or something? Why was so much of the story told through her and/or Paul’s eyes? I didn’t find them intriguing; just mostly annoying. I know this book predates Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but I saw the movie first, so I couldn’t help getting that kind of vibe from Paul and Sylvie. And that’s not a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.
• Ugh, Jack and Wendy sleeping together? Again, this is a personal pet peeve, but I just cannot STAND it when two people who are running for their lives and have professional killers on their tail, somehow find time to have sex. Why would sex even be considered at a time like that???
• I disliked that nothing was resolved between Paul and Sylvie by the end of the novel. Was there a sequel to this one? If not, I felt I deserved a real end, with one of them killing the other. Instead, they head off to Spain together, each one planning how/when to off the other. After sticking with them that long, a resolution was definitely in order!

Rating:

This was the first Thomas Perry book I ever read, and I don’t think I’m going to go back for more. Maybe I’ve just spent too much time with this genre recently, but I couldn’t get into Silence at all. Most of it felt rehashed from any of the hundreds of other novels, movies, and television episodes treating similar topics and situations, and there was very little originality injected along the way. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.

It almost works—until his fiercely loyal, if sometimes morally challenged, friend Win shows up with a message that blasts Myron back to New York…and reality. Esperanza, Myron’s best friend and partner at MB Sportsrep, has been arrested for the murder of a client, a fallen baseball star attempting a comeback.

Myron is determined to prove Esperanza’s innocence. But she isn’t speaking. And neither is her lawyer, except to say that Myron would do best to keep his distance, lest he hurt her case. Only Myron is already too close to the case to back away. For twelve years ago a young agent tried to help an up-and-coming athlete. It was a fatal mistake—and now Myron may have to pay the price.

To solve a case as bizarre as it is difficult, Myron will be obliged to view it from the strangest angles: a transsexual nightclub, a baseball owner with a long-lost daughter, a dubious drug test, an impossible murder scene, and a computer disk with the image of a disintegrating girl. But most bizarre of all is that as he tries to unearth, Myron’s own investigation points to only one other suspect: himself…as this spellbinding novel twists, jolts, and careens towards its dazzling finish.

Warning: Spoilers below!

• I really loved the ending. Myron is generally a good person, but he had no right lecturing the Yankees owner about exacting revenge for her daughter’s death. Myron and Win are the very definition of vigilante justice and mete out their own form of revenge whenever they see fit. I thought it was completely fitting that Sophie got away with the her crimes.
• The book was really fast-paced, with only a few scenes that dragged a bit (the transvestite bar stuff being a prime example). This was fun, light reading — perfect for the summer!
• Glad to see that the Win character was toned down here. He only assaulted two people in this book and didn’t kill anyone. That seems far more reasonable than him being a combo of Chuck Norris and James Bond.
• I liked that Clu didn’t actually slip up and start using drugs again. Some people are indeed able to recover from their addictions and lead a productive life. It might take a stint at a malibu rehab treatment center and some 12-step meetings, but it does happen.
• Myron is finally moving on with another woman. Great! Let’s forget about Jessica, please. I never got the feeling that she was the love of his life anyway. She treated him like shit, so why would he even waste his time on her?

Disliked:

• The scene with Myron’s dad in the country club seemed forced. That kind of came out of nowhere and slowed the action down a bit. The Bolitar family has been in each novel, but only as periphery characters. They don’t need to take up that much space, IMO. (And is it just me, or was that the first mention of Myron having a brother? He seems like such an only child!)
• The original Clu Haid murder mystery was boring as hell. I didn’t believe for a second that Esperanza did it, so there wasn’t any suspense there at all. Lucy’s disappearance was the far more interesting case, and though they ended up being directly related in the end, I would rather have skipped all the Clu stuff.
• I got annoyed by Myron waxing philosophical about what he and Win do. He just comes off as whiny when he does that.
• I wish Coben wouldn’t make Cindy so goddamn clownish. Big and bold I get. Getting done up in orange from head to toe (including her skin) was just way, way overboard and ridiculous.

Rating:

The Final Detail by Harlan Coben was a standard paint-by-numbers Bolitar book until the twist at the end. I’m glad the bad guy (I mean, woman) got away with it and that there was no happy ending for those involved (except Esperanza, who was cleared of all charges). In fact, the non-happy ending is what made this book for me, so I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Cape Cod attorney Marty Nickerson, formerly a prosecutor, faces hard questions as defense attorney for Buck Hammond. With TV cameras rolling, Buck took justice into his own hands. Now he is charged with murder one but he refuses the only viable defense: insanity. Marty and her partner in love and law, Harry Madigan, are already stretched thin when, on the eve of Buck’s trial, a bleeding woman staggers into their office. Her attacker has just been found — dead — and he’s an officer of the court. Now Marty has two seemingly impossible cases. But legal motions and courtroom strategy may be the least of her worries, as shocking revelations soon bring fear to the Cape and devastating twists to Buck’s trial….

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This was an easy, breezy, uncomplicated read that was perfect for a lazy summer weekend. It did not require the use of any brain cells, which is certainly a good thing every once in a while!
• Marty Nickerson is a decent protagonist. I wish she had a few more layers to her, but maybe other aspects of her character will be developed as the series moves along. So far, we’re really only getting one side — with a few very brief scenes of her and Luke (son) and her and Harry (lover) to show that she’s more than just a lawyer.
• I’m glad the Kidd didn’t have a bigger role in the murder trial. It would have seemed very unrealistic to have him go from handling bankruptcies and commercial collections to murder one in the blink of an eye.
• Geraldine Schilling seems like a pretty interesting character. There needed to be more of her in this book!

Disliked:

• I hated how Maggie, the daughter of Sonia Baker (the battered woman being held for murder), was just carrying on at Marty’s house as though nothing had happened. Sure, I get that she didn’t like her mother’s boyfriend and that the guy was an abusive pig, but still… I really felt that she should have been more traumatized, serious, and perhaps even withdrawn instead of carrying on as though she were on a sleepover with the most popular boy in school.
• The second judge in the Buck Hammond murder case was annoying. Maybe I found her particularly grating because I’ve seen more than my fair share of antagonistic judges on shows like The Good Wife, or maybe that kind of blatant bias just struck me as so obvious as to be unbelievable. Whatever the case, I found her antics to be eye-roll worthy.
• I thought the ending was completely bogus!!! So let me get this straight: The prosecuting attorney, J. Stanley Edgerton, decided to kill the parole officer, take a “stab” (ha ha, get it?) at the first judge, and go after Harry too just because he thought they were all “corrupting the system” or something???? Oh, puh-leeze. What a terribly far-fetched motivation that completely undermined all the buildup from the previous pages.

Rating:

On the whole, I thought Temporary Sanity by Rose Connors was your average courtroom drama. There’s nothing spectacular about her prose or her characters, but she manages to get the job done in a satisfactory manner (for the most part). The ending could have been a lot better, but I’ve definitely read worse. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol—every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments…and time is running out.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought Palmer had a great premise here. It was very 24-like, with every political leader in the whole country trapped inside the Capitol after being exposed to a deadly virus. I thought the setup had the makings of a terrific thriller.

Disliked:

• The writing was just terrible. I thought for sure Michael Palmer was a first-timer who had just gotten his big break, so I was surprised to learn that he has a number of bestsellers to his name. The phrasing was amateurish, the text was littered with cliches, and there was practically zero character development at all. Honestly, I’ve seen ads for payday loans that were more compelling and interesting than anything found on these pages.
• I couldn’t understand why Palmer elected not to discuss any worldwide reactions to the situation at the Capitol. Obviously, with some 800 of the most important politicians in the country, including the President, VP, all members of Congress, all Supreme Court justices, and every Cabinet member in line for presidential succession (save one), the press would be going wild and average citizens would be freaking out. But Palmer barely even mentioned what was happening out in the world, which definitely detracted from the gravity of the situation.
• Speaking of gravity, I never felt the ticking bomb in this story. Yes, Palmer repeatedly said that the virus was deadly and exposed victims only had days to live, etc. etc. But he never ratcheted up the tension by showing the situation getting worse by the minute. He had, what, one laughable scene with people clawing at the Senate chamber door like zombies, but that was about it. We needed to see the President on his deathbed or something!
• I hated the romantic subplot involving Griff and the reporter. What a coincidence that his ex-flame happened to be right there when he was being whisked in to the Capitol to assess the situation. How convenient that both of them were so adept at outsmarting a group of seasoned international terrorists. How sweet that they ended up together on a tropical island after Griff inevitably saved the world. Ugh, NOT.
• WTF was up with all that crap about testing on animals?? I don’t support animal testing either, but this was so clearly a case of an author injecting his own personal beliefs into a story whether they fit or not that I couldn’t believe an editor didn’t flag all the references for revision or excision. It wasn’t just one or two mentions, which I guess might have been OK. It was page after page of lengthy diatribe-like, holier-than-thou lectures about the evil of animal testing. Gimme a break.
• This book was way too long for the amount of “suspense” Palmer included. Griff’s search for a cure was dragged out interminably, with no real action or new developments to keep the plot moving along and to hold reader interest.

Rating:
I had rather high hopes for A Heartbeat Away based on the early setup, but Palmer doesn’t develop the story to its potential. What should have been an exciting thrill ride was boring and plodding. The characters were dull too, and no one was worth rooting for. I give the book 1 star out of 5.