The Forgotten Man

Detective Elvis Cole has finally gotten the call he spent all of his childhood waiting for, and it arrived at 3:58 in the morning.  After responding to a gunshot, the LAPD found an injured man in an alley.  The man confided to the officer on the scene that he was looking for his son, Elvis Cole, mere moments before he died.  The dead man has no identification, and the only personal belonging that the LAPD can find in his pockets is a slip of paper that bares Elvis Cole’s phone number.   The LAPD contacts Elvis, hoping that he will be able to identify the dead man, but Elvis has never seen the man before in his life. Elvis and the mystery man look nothing alike, which makes Elvis positive that the man is not his father. 

Elvis’s curiosity has been sparked though, and he decides to investigate the man for himself, an investigation that the LAPD advised him against.  His investigation leads him to a horrendous murder case that has gone cold, and a survivor desperate for retribution.  The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais is a mystery full of twists and turns, that just make you keep the pages turning, and I would recommend it to anyone.

No Way to Treat a First Lady

When the president of the United States is found dead in his bed, with a bruise and the name Revere stamped to his forehead, First Lady Elizabeth “Beth” Tyler MacMann is the prime suspect in his murder.   She’s accused of throwing an antique Paul Revere spittoon at her husband, and killing him with it.  An action that is not hard for anyone to believe, considering that it wouldn’t b e the first time the First Lady has thrown a heavy object at her husband.  To add more fuel to the pot, because the crime’s victim was the president of the United States, the attorney general is charging Beth with assassination in addition to murder.

Desperate to prove her Innocence, Beth gets the best attorney in the business, Boyce “Shameless” Baylor, who charges $1,000 an hour, and has represented everyone from the national-security sellout to the woman who murdered her husband in room full of people.   Beth believes she can prove her innocence with Baylor’s help, but when Baylor is arrested for jury tampering, the only person left to defend Beth is herself.

Christopher Buckley’s novel, Now Way to Treat a First Lady, is a legal thriller.  I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good legal story, and a good laugh.

Fire Will Fall

Months ago, Trinity Falls’ water supply was poisoned with a deadly virus developed by a group of bioterrorists called Shadowstrike.   Shadowstrike used the small neighborhood to test the virus’s effectiveness.  The virus has four stages. The fifth stage will kill you, there is no cure for the fourth, and only stages one, two, and three have a cure.  The virus's first fatality was Cora Holman's mother, who was quickly followed by a neighbor.   Teenagers, Cora, Scott, Owen, and Rain all have stage four of the virus.  The government treats the virus like an immune disease, and isolates the four in an old mansion, until scientists figure out how to send the virus into remission.  Together, the four teenagers try to keep their lives as normal as possible, but it’s just not working out for them.  Cora is haunted by her mother's ghost, no one is sure that Owen will live long enough to be cured, Rain can’t stand the isolation, and Scott’s anything but positive.

While this is going on, the government is trying to hunt down the remaining members of Shadowstrike, before they launch another experiment, with a virus ten-times as lethal as the one they used at Trinity Falls.

Fire Will Fall by Carol Plum-Ucci is the sequel to The Streams of Babel.  It is story of forgiveness, betrayal, and secrets. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Detour

Paul and Joanna want to adopt a baby, their lawyer tells them to get one from China, Korea, or Hungary, but that could take years, and the adoption wait is only two months in Columbia.  When Paul and Joanna arrive in Columbia they’re met by their driver, Pablo, the man who will escort them around the country during their stay, and most importantly take them to the orphanage to get their baby.  When they arrive at the orphanage they meet their daughter for the first time, and quickly fall in love with the little girl; they name her Joelle.  Upon the couple’s return to their hotel they meet Galina, the nurse who will help them adjust to taking care of their new daughter, until they leave Columbia.

One night though, Joanna notices something different about their new daughter, Joelle’s birthmark was missing, and the only person that's been left alone with the baby besides Joanna and Paul is Galina.  Quickly, Joanna and Paul confront Galina about their suspicions, only to be drugged, and kidnapped.  These kidnappers don’t want Paul and Joanna’s money, though, they want Paul to smuggle cocaine out of the country in exchange for the lives of his wife and daughter.  Now Paul has to decide what he’s going to do.  Is he going to refuse and get all three of them killed, go to the police, or do what his kidnappers ask of him?

Detour by James Siegel is a story I would recommend to anyone, it’s full of mystery, betrayal, deception, and bone-chilling suspense.

Maximum Ride: The Final Warning

     If you love to read books of fantasy and adventure, you need to read James Patterson's Maximum Ride: The Final Warning.  It’s the fourth novel in Patterson’s Maximum Ride Series.   Max and her five friends are just your average group of kids, except for the fact that they have seven-foot wingspans and can fly as high as an airplane.   Max and her friends, who have come to call themselves the flock, were genetically altered with avian DNA before they were even born, by an evil corporation called Itex.   But, for now Itex is the least of flock’s worries, because for once in their life they don’t have to run from the corporation.  The flock’s happiness is short lived though.

    
After rejecting the government's plans to protect them, an attempt is made on their lives, and the flock is forced to run, again.  Max's mother has an idea though, and she's sure it will keep Max and her friends safe.  She sends them to Antarctica, with a group of scientists to study global warming.  They don’t realize that there’s a traitor among them, until it’s too late, and Max and her friends end up kidnapped for the sole purpose of being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The Neighbor's are Watching

In the city of San Diego, on Fuller Court, the neighbor's keep to themselves, aside from a party every now and then, and while doing so, they keep their secrets.  Their neighborhood’s façade of solitary happiness is shattered, though, when Joe Montana's daughter, Dianna, shows up literally unannounced on his doorstep.  Joe was fully aware he had a daughter, which was something that he neglected to inform his wife of eight years.  Dianna's arrival sets off a chain reaction of events that the makes the secrets of this little neighborhood more likely to destroy it, than the approaching flames of two huge Californian wildfires fanned by Santa Ana winds.  Fights are started, people are betrayed, secrets are revealed, lives begin, and lives end.

            The Neighbors are Watching by Debra Ginsberg is a novel full of twist and turns, with an unpredictable ending.  In this story people are tested as they learn things about themselves, and the people around them that they never expected.  If you like to watch strings of lies unravel, than I would recommend this book to you.     

The Poacher's Son

 

      

After two years of no contact with his estranged father, game warden Mike Bowditch comes home late one night to find the man's voice on his answering machine.  The next morning he discovers that a local cop has been murdered, and that his father had been arrested, but has escaped from police custody, making himself the prime suspect in the murder.  Mike has seen the level of his father's brutality first-hand, but doesn't believe the man's capable of murder.  Mike firmly believes that his father, Jack, is not guilty, and he is the only person who does so, a belief that causes him to become alienated from his colleagues and those around him.

But Mike manages to gain the help of retired warden pilot, Charley Stevens, and together the two of them search Maine's deep wilderness for Mike's father, interview a few suspects of their own, take a look at the scene of the crime for themselves, and meet a woman who is supposedly the mistress of Jack's father.  The Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron is a captivating story of blind loyalty and betrayal.  I would recommend this story to anyone who loves to read a good story of adventure, or mystery.

Bullet Point

Bullet Point by Peter Abrahams is an absolute thriller.  I think it’s one of the best young adult books I've read in a long time. In this story, the only thing Wyatt Lathem has ever really liked about school is baseball.  So when his school cuts baseball from its budget, he decides to transfer Silver City, so that he can keep playing ball, only to discover that the school has already filled the only transfer spot they have on their team.  But, after exchanging blows with his step-father, Wyatt decides to transfer to Silver City, anyway.  Eventually he meets Greer, and through her he learns about his biological father, Sonny Racine.  A man he's never met, who's been severing a life prison sentence since before he was born, for a robbery that escalated into a murder.

Wyatt has never really been curious about his father, but after hearing bits and pieces from Greer, and doing a little investigating into the event that lead to his father’s imprisonment, he can't help but be interested.  Eventually, Wyatt goes to visit Sonny in prison, and the man's funny, smart, and cool; the complete opposite of what Wyatt expected.  Now that Wyatt has met the man, he can't help but think about his father's crime, and how it just doesn't seem to add up.  Wyatt can't help but wonder if Sonny's innocent, either, and with the help of Greer, he decides to help Sonny and find out the truth.  If you love a good mystery, and can handle a little bloodshed, I recommend that you read this book.

 

Room

I finished reading Room by Emma Donoghue a couple of days ago, and I got to say it's a hard book to put down.  This story is told from the point of view of five-year old Jack.  Jack and his mother live in an eleven-by-eleven foot room, the room where Jack was born.  Jack has never been outside of the room he calls home, and his Ma hasn't since she was locked inside of it seven years ago, not that she hasn't tired, though.  The only things they ever see of the outside are through their TV, and the only window they have, a skylight.

Their prison is sound proof, and kept locked by a security door, and only Old Nick, the man who put Jack's Ma there, knows the code to get them out.  Jack doesn't know his home is a prison though; in fact Jack loves it, because it’s the only home he’s never known.  He doesn't know much about Old Nick, either, not even his real name.  He only knows that Old Nick comes at night, after Ma puts him in the wardrobe, and leaves them their Sunday treat.  He doesn't know that this isn't how people are supposed live, or that the TV isn't an imaginary world, and he's content to stay that way.  But, when Old Nick's house goes into foreclosure, Jack's Ma realizes that if her and Jack don’t escape soon, they probably won’t be alive much longer.  So Jack’s Ma comes up with a plan, that just might get Jack out, and if everything works out, her as well.  I would recommend that anyone read this book, because in Jack’s world there is never a dull moment.

Deep Shadow

  

Deep Shadow by Randy Wayne White is the 17^th novel in the Doc Ford series.  One of the things that I love about these books is that you can read them all out of order (like I had to), and not be completely lost.  The series revolves around, a marine biologist who isn’t exactly your average citizen named Marion "Doc" Ford, and his hippie friend Tomlinson.  In this book Doc, and Tomlinson, along with their friends Cpt. Arlis Futch and Will Chaser, scuba dive a lake in remote Florida, where they believe a plane stocked full of stolen Cuban treasures crashed in the late 1950s.  Will, Doc, and Tomlinson dive the lake, but leave Arlis topside to keep watch. 

But, one of the three men makes a drastic mistake while diving, and accidently causes an underwater landside that leaves Tomlinson and Will trapped underneath the lake.  Doc, after unsuccessfully trying to rescue the pair, surfaces to get help, only to find another disaster awaiting him on land.  Arlis, who is a very old man, has been forced out of his truck and beaten by two ex-cons and murders, that are currently holding a gun to him.  Now, Doc has to figure out how to deal with the two fugitives, before Tomlinson and Will run out of oxygen, while trying to avoid ending up dead himself.

Doc Ford novels are one of my favorite book series, and if you like a lot of action, and can handle gore, I would recommend that you read this book.

The President's Daughter

I just spent my afternoon reading The President's Daughter by Jack Higgins.  When I read it, I practically had no idea what the book was going to be about, because when I bought the book it didn't come with a sleeve.  So I mainly read it, because I normally like this particular author's books and I figured I would like this one as well.  So as I it turns out, I ended up liking this book a lot. 

The book has a great plot.  The president, Jake Calzat, has a secret, a secret that only four people, including the president himself are aware of.  The secret is that French Countess Marie de Brissac is his daughter.  Somehow against the odds, his secret is discovered by a terrorist named Judas.  He kidnaps Marie, and Sean Dillon, an ex-terrorist, and uses the pair to blackmail the president into signing on to a plan that would essentially cause the destruction of three counties.  If the president doesn't sign, Judas will have his daughter executed, but Dillon manages to escape Judas.  Now, Dillon is in a race against the clock to rescue Marie, before time runs out, and the president is forced to choose between the life of his daughter and the lives of millions.

SAT Study Guide

Lately, I've been preparing for the SAT, so the only book I've really had my nose in is The Official SAT Study Guide Second Edition by College Board.  I haven't taken the SAT yet, but I think this book is going to be pretty helpful.  The book breaks down the writing, critical reading and mathematics sections of the SAT, and provides a lot of strategy and test taking tips for each individual section of the test.   I think the mathematics section of the book is going to be especially helpful, because it basically tells you which mathematical concepts that you should know for the test and give you a little mini-lesson for each concept.  So the math section of the book is kind of like one big math review.  It even tells you which kind of math will not be on the SAT, for example trigonometry and logarithms will not be on the test.  The book also includes 10 official SAT practice tests with answers keys for each one.  If you plan on taking the SAT, whether it's your first time or a repeat, I think this book would be very helpful to you.