SHADOW SANDS

 4 stars out of 5

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed several books by this author,

including the first in this series, Nine Elms. So even though I have at least three pre-release books on my Kindle that have review dates prior to this one, I simply couldn't wait to dive in.

And it certainly didn't disappoint. As this one begins in 2012, ex-cop Kate Marshall continues to put her life together years after an incident involving her ex-husband nearly ruined her life. At age 42, she's out of rehab and sober, but her parents took custody of her son Jake and haven't yet relinquished that designation. Now, she's a university lecturer in criminology, and Jake visits from time to time. Most recently, his visit didn't end well; diving in a reservoir near a hydroelectric plant that covered an abandoned village, they find a buried church - a good find - and a dead body - not so good. When the local police come to investigate, they conclude that the young man's death was accidental.

A few weeks later, however, Kate gets accosted by the young man's mother, who has heard of Kate's former police activity and insists that her son - an Olympic-quality swimmer - couldn't possibly have had an accident like this. Uncertain what to do, she tells her university assistant and good friend, Tristan Harper, that the mother is willing to pay good bucks to find out what really happened. They decide to look into things, trying first to confirm that the coroner's report was at best inaccurate.

Their investigation puts Kate and Tristan at odds with a very powerful local family that owns a vast amount of land near the hydroelectric plant. Meanwhile, one of their female university colleagues goes missing, adding yet another case to be solved and putting all three lives in danger.

From my perspective, it's another hard-to-put-down book in which the action never stops. Many thanks once again to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

Shadow Sands by Robert Bryndza (Thomas & Mercer, November 2020); 310 pp.

THEY NEVER LEARN

5 stars out of 5

Oh my goodness - this one will be close to the top of

my five favorite books for this year. Put another way, wow! Not that I'm all that surprised, mind you; the author's 2019 book, Temper, was a 5-star hit with me as well. This one, IMHO, is even better; I'd give it 6 stars if it were possible.

The story involves two primary characters: Dr. Scarlett Clark, an English professor at Gorman University, and Carly Schiller, a freshman at the same school. They are similar in one respect - Scarlett literally has been getting away with murder for years while Carly, the daughter of a mentally abusive father, is considering it as an option when she seeks revenge on her roommate's attacker.

Chapters flip back and forth between the two, highlighting what's going on in their lives (and trust me, it's plenty). Scarlett is intent on winning a hotly contested fellowship in London as she lines up her next victim; Carly is tentatively trying to make friends with her troubled roomie Allison, whose temperament shifts from hot to cold in just about every imaginable way. When Allison is assaulted at a party, Carly takes it personally and vows to get even.

But then, Scarlett makes rather a mess with her newest victim - mistakes that could lead investigators right to her doorstep. Compounding the issue is that a colleague, Dr. Mina Pierce, has compiled a list of past campus-related deaths (most of which were deemed accidents or suicides) and is enlisting help from colleagues with her personal investigation. Scarlett is worried and does her best to make friends with Mina, if for no other reason but to keep tabs on the woman's findings.

Everything else is a whirlwind of action, with a major (and totally surprising) reveal somewhere around the mid-point and an almost equally surprising ending. The whole thing felt like a roller-coaster ride, right down to disappointment when it came to an all-too-soon end. In short, this one falls into the don't-miss department - and I heartily thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me the thrill of reading a pre-release copy. 

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo (Gallery/Scout Press, October 2020); 352 pp.

SHADOWS IN DEATH

4 stars out of 5

Honestly, I have some mixed emotions after

reading this book, the 51st in the series (I missed a couple of the very early issues, but not a single one in a long while). Overall, I enjoyed it as always; it's well-written and entertaining, so for that alone it gets 4 stars from me. Other than that, the best I can do is lay out a few things on both sides of the "love" equation.

On the plus side, there's plenty of the hunky Roarke; he's long been near the top of my list of all-time favorite book male "heroes," so it's always a treat to get to know him better. And only once that I noticed did he turn into a controlling partner in the Roarke-Lt. Eve Dallas relationship as seemed to be a trend in a few past books. Except for "correcting" her fashion choice prior to one of her outings, he basically let Eve run her own show even though what was happening affected him in a very personal way.

And that's another plus: This time, the plot centers around Roarke and his background as a young punk (and worse) in his native Dubliln. At the beginning, a woman is knifed to death in New York City; when Eve and Roarke come to the crime scene, Roarke spots an old nemesis who happens to be one of the most dangerous on-the-loose killers in the world. Clearly, to Roarke's eyes at least, the murderer hung around specifically to send a signal to Roarke that he's back and most likely gunning for Roarke and his family.

On the minus side is repetition; having Eve (or another character) explain the background of the police investigation to yet another character or group of characters got a bit tiring. Also a teensy bit irritating to me was the constant face-touching, hair smoothing I love yous, you're my everythings and assorted other sweet nothings between Eve and Roarke. Yeah, you love and trust each other - I get it. The sex scenes are graphic enough, so dial down the rest of it a bit.

As for the story, Eve and her NYPD crew - including the trendy all-pink Peabody, her trusty significant other McNabb and the uber-fashionable Dr. Mira - set out to solve the woman's murder and keep Roarke's childhood rival from accomplishing what it appears he's set out to do. Interspersed with the action is the fun stuff that makes this series a hit in my book - the technology that can only be possible in a futuristic setting like this (Auto-Chefs that can be programmed to make drinks and dinner, "magic" coats that protect wearers from bullets and vehicles that can lift off the ground like helicopters). There's even a one here I suppose would come in handy if one of the characters happened to run afoul of a skunk. 

The chase (and the bad guy) lead Eve and Roarke on a not-so-merry chase that culminates in a bang-up ending - one that's a stretch to believe, but satisfying nonetheless. Another one down - bring on the next!

Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb (St. Martin's Press, September 2020); 368 pp.

A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES

4 stars out of 5

My only acquaintance with this author's police Inspector

John Rebus character came several years ago via a short story co-written with Peter James for the "FaceOff" compilation. That was sufficient, though, for me to be very interested in reading one of the full-blown books - which I was able to do with a pre-release copy courtesy of the publisher (via NetGalley). Quite enjoyable, and I'll definitely be on the lookout for the next one.

As the story opens, a mostly retired Rebus, whose COPD has made stairs a challenge, has moved to a ground-floor flat in Edinburgh with sometimes grudging help from his not-so-old partner Siobhan Clarke. She and her team are working to solve the murder of the son of a man who is under house arrest in Saudi Arabia. As they are finishing up the moving (and trying to get Rebus's dog, Brillo, acclimated to the new digs), he gets a call from his daughter Samantha. It seems that her partner Keith, the father of her daughter, has gone missing.

Despite (or maybe because of) his rocky relationship with Samantha, Rebus wastes no time driving his ancient car to her place. What he finds isn't positive; no sign of Keith and no clues other than that he'd joined a local history group with an interest in an old World War II prison camp that they'd love to turn into a tourist attraction.

And here, the waters get murky; first, the local police seem to think Samantha may have played some kind of role in Keith's disappearance - putting Rebus at odds with the cops as well as increasingly concerned about his daughter. And second, the owner of the land now occupied by a local commune - sometimes visited by Samantha - has ties to a player in the murder case Clarke's team is trying to solve.

As for me, while the book stands alone well, I have no doubt I'd have enjoyed it more had I read previous books and been more familiar with the characters in them. Still and all, this is a clever story that's well-written - and as I said at the beginning, I don't plan on letting another one go by without getting my hands on it.

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown and Co., October 2020); 336 pp.

DEAD WOMAN CROSSING

4 stars out of 5

If the first entry is an example, the Detective Kimberley

King series should have a long run. For sure, I'll be waiting to get my hands on the next one.

Detective Kimberley King and her young daughter, Jessica, have relocated to Dead Woman Crossing in Custer County, Oklahoma. It's far a more remote, and presumably laid back, place compared to the NYPD she left behind (along with some not-so-good experiences). For a while, she'll be living with her mother and stepfather in what turns out to be a small cottage on the farm that her stepbrother and his wife operate.

The town got its name after an unsolved crime from 1905, when a young woman was murdered on the banks of a creek. Just as she's getting to know her way around - and to know the ways of Sheriff Sam Walker, her boss - another young woman is found murdered at the same place and in the same manner. Whoever killed the girl back then can't still be alive, so is someone trying to copy what happened back then?

Meantime, Kimberley works to find the murderer, but her family isn't as supportive as she'd like - especially when clues lead to the possibility that the killer is someone they all know. The outcome of that could lead to more than ruffled family feathers as Kimberley learns she and her daughter could be in the crosshairs of a very dangerous person.

All told, it's a solid start to a promising series. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

Dead Woman Crossing by J.R. Adler (Bookouture, September 2020); 347 pp.

NEAR DARK

5 stars out of 5

For whatever reason, I've missed the last couple of

books in the Scot Harvath series - as in did not read. Not long after I started this one, I realized I've missed them like I miss long-lost friends. As Celine Dion sang, "It's all coming back to me now" - and I've vowed not to make the same mistake going forward.

What that boils down to, in book review terms, is that I absolutely loved this one. Maybe it's because I saw a less gung-ho, more circumspect Harvath, still reeling from events that happened in previous books. There was plenty of action, but it didn't seem as rough as usual, and I sensed that Harvath's heart wasn't really in it. Besides that, the author's sometimes lengthy diatribes against some issue or other were noticeable to me in their absence. Quite honestly, all that made this book more interesting to me, but I'll venture a guess that die-hard fans might not be quite as enthusiastic. My husband - also a fan of this series - just started reading this one, and I'll be interested to get his take.

As it begins, Harvath is drowning himself in his sorrows (more accurately, in substantial quantities of alcohol) in Key West when he gets bad news; a  beloved colleague has been tortured and murdered. The news gets even worse: apparently, someone is offering an almost unbelievably high bounty on his own head - to be paid to the first player to achieve success. Over his years working for the Carleton Group, which functions as a more clandestine CIA, Harvath has accumulated no shortage of enemies. But is it possible that the two bad news scenarios are somehow connected? 

Enter beautiful and well-skilled Norwegian agent Solvi Kolstad, also a protogee of Harvath's murdered colleague and an intelligence agent, who is on the warpath to find the man's killer. What's more, she wants to hook up with Harvath and put their heads together (with a hint that a few other body parts might be shared as well somewhere down the line). The trick, you see, will be ferreting out the colleague's murderer (and, depending on who that is, who ordered the hit) while avoiding the bounty hunters who will do almost anything to snuff out Harvath for good. The sometimes bloody trail takes him and Solvi to a few countries and a few narrow escapes and culminates, I must say, in an ending that's satisfying to some characters but not to others.

The conclusion to my review is a non-conclusion; I have no idea from whence my copy came. Most of the books I read I get as advance review copies from publishers via NetGalley, but this one - a hardcover edition - simply showed up in the mail with no accompanying documentation. I have a vague recollection of entering some kind of giveaway - possibly from Bookish First - but thus far I haven't been able to confirm it. So for now, all I can say is whoever you are, I thank you very much. 

Near Dark by Brad Thor (Atria/Emily Bestler Books, July 2020); 349 pp.

ROBERT B. PARKER'S SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

 5 stars out of 5

Spenser is one of my all-time favorite book

characters (and one of very few who translated well to the small screen, IMHO). When this author took over from the late Robert B. Parker, I was skeptical; but he's done an exemplary job of staying true to the original. My only "complaint," if you will, is that I've seen little of Spenser's cohort Hawk - another favorite character - and when he did appear, he didn't quite "sound" like himself. Well, folks, Hawk's back in this one - both in person and voice. . Spenser is his usual self, although he did seem more inclined to respond in quotes from literary works than usual.

Several years ago, Spenser helped teenager Mattie Sullivan; since then, she's attached herself to Spenser to learn the investigation business. Now, one of her childhood friends left a backpack containing a laptop at a posh club when she ran out after being coerced into giving an elderly gentleman a "massage." Mattie promised to get it back and asks Spenser for advice on making that happen. When he goes to the club to ask for the return of the backpack, he gets a decidedly frosty response that convinces him there's far more to the story than meets the private eye.

On the home front, Spenser's long-time love, Susan, is trying to adapt to the third iteration of Pearl, their lovable dog (the second Pearl died recently). Spenser swears the two recent dogs are the original Pearl reincarnated, but Susan isn't quite ready to buy into that theory. She also doesn't quite buy into the need for Spenser to get involved with Mattie's case.

After a bit more investigation, Spenser and Mattie learn that the club is frequented by a billionaire who has properties and important contacts all over the world and an apparent taste for girls not yet old enough to drive a car. The guy turns out to be a hedge fund manager with at least one getaway outside U.S. jurisdiction, where he treats his friends to illicit meetups with smuggled-in girls, some recruited by his female accomplice. Needless to say, that rankles Spenser, who asks Hawk to help him get the girls out safely and put the Jeffrey Epstein wannabe behind bars. But soon enough, Spenser learns it may not be a walk in the park; the couple they're after are in cahoots with the so-called Gray Man, a hired assassin who nearly killed Spenser not long ago - and Spenser isn't exactly itching for a rematch.

All in all, it's another fast-paced, easy-to-read adventure that should satisfy most Spenser enthusiasts. For sure I'm happy, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read an advance copy.

Robert B. Parker's Someone to Watch Over Me by Ace Atkins (G.P. Putnam's Sons, November 2020); 320 pp.