THE GIRL IN THE VAULT

3.5 stars out of 5

My feelings about this book are very mixed, I'm afraid. Oh, not that it wasn't engrossing; in fact, I stayed up 45 minutes past my bedtime because I didn't want to wait till morning to see how it turned out. It's just that the plot seemed so contrived that at some points it was borderline silly - and having read other of this talented author's books, it was a bit of a disappointment overall.
 

Faye Walker, a dirt poor gal from the South, has "made it" to New York City as a summer intern at a Wall Street bank. She's just one of several interns - all unpaid - who are vying for a couple of full-time slots come fall. Her math-inclined brain and near eidetic memory is serving her well, and her chances of making the final cut are excellent. Needless to say, she has very little free time, but she's managed to find the love of her life - an immigrant who's anxiously awaiting his Green Card and driving a carriage around Central Park.

But as the internship nears the end, Faye makes a discovery that convinces her the deck is stacked against her; no matter how hard she's worked, she won't be picked. That, in turn, not only infuriates her, but makes her want to get even. She hatches a devious plan, finds a willing cohort who also has an axe to grind and sets out to get not only vengeance, but several million bucks.

To say her plan is complex would be an understatement; at a few points along the way, the details got lost on me and I just tried to ride it out till the goings on turned back to reasonably coherent (I mean, I've been to New York City and ridden the subway, but the concept of counting support posts and dodging third rails kind of left me scratching my head). Still other details of the plan made sense, but it was hard to believe that even a person as smart as Faye could ever have anticipated every possible glitch and pulled off a caper of this magnitude. The ending wrapped things up with a few twists, but of course I'm not about to offer any hints. All told, it was an enjoyable ride (really!!) even if it fell a little short of my expectations and defied credibility. I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy.

The Girl in the Vault by Michael Ledwidge (Hanover Square Press, November 2023); 315 pp.

HARD TO BREAK

3.5 stars out of 5

I read and enjoyed the first book in this series but somehow missed the second; this, the third, was a bit disappointing compared with the first. Apparently, former Navy SEAL is on the outs with his former colleagues and is trying to remain under their radar. For too much of this book, he remains that way as he's captured early on and scenes jump around to other characters and scenarios that don't seem to make much sense till they eventually begin to come together.

Anyway, Gannon's grown son Declan is having a birthday before he sets out to do his thing, so Gannon decides a grizzly bear hunt in a remote part of Alaska is what he needs for a send-off. That trip goes south early on when he's waiting alone for snowmobile repairs and gets chased by a couple of big bruisers clearly intent on causing him bodily harm. As it turns out, they don't kill him; in fact, when he wakes up, he's a prisoner somewhere in Mexico (as far as I could tell).

Why he was captured and by whom takes up a lot of the middle of the book, and some of this part was confusing to me. It started to make a little more sense with the realization that his captor - a former military colleague - is now a filthy rich lunatic drug lord who's managed to twist the truth about his relationship with Gannon (or was brainwashed into believing a non-truth) into a vendetta.

And that's about all I can reveal, except to say that things turn exciting for the last quarter of the book, keeping me pretty much on the edge of my seat from that point on. I think fans of the series will like this one as well - as did I, but just not as much as the first one. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this one.

Hard to Break by Michael Ledwidge (Hanover Square Press, January 2023); 384 pp.

STOP AT NOTHING

4 stars out of 5

It appears this is the first book in a new series, and after reading this one, there's no question I'm up for more. The plot - and even the star character, former hot-shot veteran turned Bahamas dive boat captain Michael Gannon - are reminiscent of those from other authors, but this one is different, intriguing and action-packed enough to suit me just fine.

Gannon is out on his boat when he sees a Gulfstream jet crash; rushing as fast as his boat will take him, he dives to the wreckage to find six dead bodies plus a boatload of money and diamonds. Ethics be damned, Gannon sees an opportunity to swipe the loot, stashing it where no one else could possibly find it and looks forward to a rest-of-life not worrying about where his next meal will come from.

Meanwhile, U.S. Navy Lt. Ruby Everett of Naval Safety is with her sister, who's due to give birth any second. Looking forward to aunthood, Ruby is less than thrilled when she gets a call sending her to the Bahamas to check out the airplane incident. But when she gets there, she's told by high-up muckity-mucks to back off, even though the disaster falls clearly within her department's purview. As she mulls over the abrupt dismissal, an islander shows her a video he'd taken under water that clearly shows something isn't quite right. It gets worse when the official announcement of the crash is made public - with details that totally contradict what really happened as shown in that video. Whoa, Everett thinks, but there's not much she can do about it.

Gannon, meanwhile, also learns of the contradictions and starts to wonder how things really went down (so to speak). But on the other side, the bad guys - the ones who want to quash the real story because they're in the middle of preventing a huge international incident that would discredit them - realize the loot has been taken from the plane and will stop at nothing to find out who's got it and get it back.

From there, the chases get really complicated, but suffice it to say Gannon, Everett and several of their cohorts find themselves on a run for their lives as they try to find out what's really going on. The efforts also force Gannon out of retirement and put his not-so-rusty shoot 'em up skills to good use (which no doubt will be needed in future books). All in all, well worth reading; I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read a pre-publication copy.

Stop at Nothing by Michael Ledwidge (Hanover Square Press, March 2020); 416 pp.

BULLSEYE

4 stars out of 5

This one falls in the bad news/good news department. If you've loved the interaction between New York Detective Michael Bennett and his ginormous family (including elderly Father Seamus and Mary Catherine, the live-in nanny), you'll likely be disappointed. I admit to feeling a bit like that, but on the other hand, I've grown so weary of the is-it-or-isn't-it-real love affair between Michael and Mary Catherine that it was good news for me to not find much of that here.

The basic story is the identification, tracking down and arresting (or otherwise taking out of commission) of a pair of exceptionally skilled assassins. Some nasty target practice, it seems, was nothing more than a warm-up for their real target - the president of the United States. He's in Manhattan for a United Nations summit (other participants include Russian leader Vladimir Putin, so it's clear something really serious is going down here). In between are the typical turf wars with the police department, the CIA and Secret Service (yawn), lengthy chases that end in almost impossible escapes and the predictable dash to beat the assassins' lethal clock.

To be sure, there's plenty of action, but most of it happens on the killer end where everything was planned to the nth degree. On the police side, not so much; that they got anywhere at all in their investigation seemed more like happenstance than professional competence.

I should mention that there is a secondary plot here that relates to family, or at least one member of the large brood (son Brian) who's made friends with another kid (Marvin) who's temporarily moved into the Bennett household but whose background is spurious. The whole situation never quite gelled for me, and I'm still not sure why it was included at all.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book, even if it is a bit off center in comparison with the others in the series. In the end, I admit to wavering between a rating of 3.5 stars and 4, but the good writing and relatively fast-paced action won out.

Bullseye by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown and Co., August 2016); 339 pp.

ALERT

4 stars out of 5

The family of NYPD detective Michael Bennett - his 10 adopted children, his Catholic priest grandfather Seamus and his off-again, on-again love, Irish nanny Mary Catherine - take back seats to the action in this, the 8th in the series. And I can't say I'm terribly disappointed. Yes, it's sort of fun to watch the kids grow up and (since I'm no spring chicken myself) a bit difficult to see what the aging process is doing to the good Father. But when it comes to the love interest, I've grown a bit weary; for the love of Killarney, either make an honest woman out of her or send her packing to the Old Sod.

In fact, that's where this one begins; Michael and Mary Catherine are in her native Ireland so she can oversee the sale of family property. When that deal goes awry, he leaves her to sort it out and heads back to work in New York City. He's concerned about Seamus, who recently suffered a stroke that may left left him in the throes of dementia. Before that can be determined with any certainty, however, an horrendous explosion rocks the city's subway. Before that dust has settled, with all law enforcement on high alert, a high-level government leader is assassinated - triggering a level of anxiety the city hasn't felt since 9/11.

Chapters alternate from Bennett's POV on the ongoing investigation and that of the two unknown to the cops bad guys behind all the murder and mayhem. Clearly, the pair are hell-bent on blowing the city to smithereens, but to me there was a bit of a comic element as well. Every time they appeared, I was reminded of Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, the dangerous dudes from the cast of an otherwise unremarkable 1971 James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. 

At least one more act of mass destruction occurs fairly early on and the threat of another, even worse disaster prompts an unheard-of evacuation of the City that Never Sleeps. As the story progresses, I concluded that someone must have done some serious research to bring the whole thing together, on everything from weapon-making to history of New York - and that's a good thing. And, it's always interesting to watch the police and FBI fight over turf and credit (don't these two factions ever see eye to eye)? Ah well, at least Michael still gets on well with his old FBI friend, Emily Parker. As the search begins to zero in on the culprits, some of their "aha" moments test the limits of believability, but the action never slows down and I read the whole thing in almost record time.

There's a little family tension as the Irish college student Seamus found to take over in Mary Catherine's absence tries to get them all to safety during the evacuation. The young man's obvious rapport with the youngsters and slick organizational skills (surpassed only by Mary Catherine herself) also made me wonder if he'll take over the job permanently if Michael and Mary Catherine ever do get hitched. 

Alert by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown and Co., August 2015); 400 pp.

ZOO

3 stars out of 5

This is a book I've had on my Kindle Fire for at least a year - probably two - but I just never got around to starting it. When I heard that it will be the basis for a new 13-episode TV series beginning June 30 on CBS, though, I decided to give it a go. First, I looked at the book reviews; to my dismay, as of late April there were 1,903 at Amazon, and an astounding 413 reviewers gave it the worst possible rating - one star - and the average is only three. Well, that's TV executives for you, I said to myself - who else would decide to take a book with that many lousy reviews and tout it as a must-watch series? 

Nevertheless, I was determined to read for myself, and now that I've finished, I learned two things: First, the book probably wouldn't make my Top 300 List of favorites, but it isn't anywhere near that awful. Second, those TV execs may be onto something after all. Think "Planet of the Apes" meets "Under the Dome;" it's got all the hot buttons including animals of every kind in every country - even domestic pets - inexplicably forming packs and turning on humans, who suddenly find themselves being hunted down in a world in which they once ruled supreme.

Enter Ph.D. dropout Jackson Oz, a young biologist (and conveniently, a chimpanzee owner, which takes on significance as the plot unfolds), who begins to notice a sea change in animal behavior. When a major "event" takes place in Botswana, he travels there from his New York City home to see for himself. He narrowly escapes being killed by what appears to be an unusually coordinated pack of male lions, and he saves a beautiful young woman named Chloe from the same fate. They, together with a few like-minded folks, conclude that this is the start of HAC, or Human-Animal Conflict. If the cause isn't found and soon, it could mean the end of the civilized world.

Needless to say, hardly anyone of any importance buys into the theory until it's almost too late, so the scramble to find the reason(s) behind the behavioral shift extends over years - giving Jackson and Chloe time to marry and have a son. Fast-forward to a later time, when the animal attacks have grown more frequent and more vicious (cue up "Twilight Zone"-style background music for the TV series and close-ups of Texas-sized incisors as noses and other human appendages are savagely removed). There's no shortage of action and more than enough blood-and-guts to make for great TV scenes (if the lions and dogs don't get 'em, the rats will) as the race to save the human race from extinction heats up.

I can't explain more without giving too much away, but the reason behind the animals' behavior and the actions required to reverse it are a bit of a strain on the imagination (not to mention more than a little "preachy"). And given what the scientists discover, the ending makes almost no sense to me at all. I'm guessing that's what prompted the dislikes from other readers; I know it's why, even though the book held my attention just about every page of the way, I gave it three stars instead of four.

That said, I'm glad I read it prior to the start of the TV series, and I plan to watch the series debut and see how it goes. I could be wrong, but my bet at this point is that this will be one of very few instances when the movie really is better than the book.

Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown and Co., September 2012); 417 pp.

BURN

3-1/2 stars out of 5

After reading countless books by Patterson and his co-authors du jour, I'm aware of two things when I open up the next one: It won't tax my aging brain or put me on the edge of my seat, and the pages will whiz by in a flash. This one, the seventh in the series featuring Detective Michael Bennett and his rather large family, fit that pattern perfectly.

Well, almost; I gave four stars to each of the other six, but I just can't muster up more than three for this one. Exactly why I'm not totally sure, except this one seems to be more of a mishmash of story lines, with an ending that sort of left things hanging and felt thrown together at the last minute.

Here, Bennett and his crew return to their New York City home; they've been spending time in witness protection after Bennett captured a crime biggie who was intent on payback. Shortly after his return, Bennett is called in by a boss who's carrying a grudge; instead of a pat on the back for bringing a top criminal to justice, Bennett is reassigned to what's called an "Outreach Squad" in Harlem. 

The ragtag squad members have been hardly working, but with a few carefully chosen phrases, Bennett turns them into professionals who are working hard (yeah, right)! Most of the calls to the squad are complaints from neighborhood residents that aren't even police matters, and when one speaks of seeing some well-heeled dudes having a strange get-together in an abandoned building, Bennett figures the caller is a nut case. That is, until a charred body turns up in that building - bringing a whole new meaning to barbecue spit.

Ah, but we're not done yet. After a short time at the squad, Bennett is called by an old friend who's pulled some strings to get him back to his old job to help capture a team of robbers who are hitting high-end jewelry stores. Of course, Bennett's offer to return is conditioned on his solving the case and bringing the thieves to justice within two weeks. Because Bennett has bonded so well with his new crew, he just can't force himself to abandon them - so he insists on investigating both cases simultaneously.

As if all that weren't enough, Bennett continues to deal with feelings for his children's "nanny" and housekeeper, the very Irish and beauteous Mary Catherine, the health crisis of a close family member and - whew! - the threat that he'll lose one of his adopted daughters to her biological father.

Hey, don't shoot the messenger - I told you early on about the story line jumble. All things considered (and clearly there are plenty of things going on here), it's not an awful book. But I'd at least wait till the paperback comes out and it won't cost as much.

Burn by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little, Brown and Co., September 2014); 433 pp.