Review: Tell No One by Harlan Coben

Title: Tell No One

Author: Harlan Coben

Publisher: Orion Books [originally 2000, this edition 2007]

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1702-5

Length: 346 pages

Genre: Thriller

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: A frenetically paced, superbly plotted yarn.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Eight years ago David Beck and his wife Elizabeth took their annual trip to the remote place where they had shared their first kiss. That night Beck was beaten and his wife kidnapped. She was found dead several days later, apparently the victim of a serial killer. Beck has since put some semblance of a life back together but it quickly unravels when he starts to receive messages that appear to be from his supposedly dead wife at the same time as two bodies are found in the spot where Elizabeth was kidnapped from. As Beck tries to determine if his wife might be alive after all, the authorities become convinced it was Beck not the serial killer who was responsible for her death and some nefarious characters who seem to know what really happened eight years ago take whatever action is necessary to ensure no one else finds out the truth.

I know it’s an over-used phrase but this book was, for me, a genuine page turner. Sure there are coincidences and plot contrivances to be found but I still read the book as quickly as I physically could, sneaking a few pages whenever I had a spare moment. The original premise hooked me immediately and the story, although far-fetched, sustained its internal logic throughout. There were multiple switches in point of view from first person (Beck’s) to third (virtually everyone else’s at one point or another) which helped give the frantic sense that lots of action was taking place simultaneously.

While the yarn was enjoyable unfortunately the characters were a little too predictable and trite for me to really connect with. Beck is so full of wholesome goodness (he’s a white doctor in a ghetto neighbourhood who never judges anyone not even the pregnant 12-year olds and is still in love with his dead high school sweetheart and is even kind to puppy dogs….) that if I met him in real life I’d want to beat him myself. Almost all of the rest of the characters are stereotypes too: the drug dealer with a heart of gold who helps Beck to go on the run and the evil generic Asian who has seen too much and can kill a man with his bare hands and so on. About the only character who I was really interested in as a person rather than a plot device was Beck’s best friend Shauna the plus size model who “stalks into a room as though it offends her”.

However, in a thriller more than almost any other genre plot is king and I can’t go past the fact that the book kept me interested from the first page to the last.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For some quite unfathomable reason I’ve never read any of Coben’s other books but based on the writing here I’m keen to try more so if you have a favourite Harlan Coben book or can tell me whether or not I need to start at the beginning of his Myron Bolitar series let me know in the comments below.

This book was supplied to me free by the First Reads program at goodreads.com (how a book that’s been available since 2000 qualifies as ‘first read’ has me baffled but I’m grateful for the book anyway).

Tell No One has been reviewed at Jen’s Book Thoughts and You’ve Gotta Read This,

 

Review: Murder Between the Covers by Elaine Viets

Title: Murder Between the Covers (the second dead-end job mystery)

Author: Elaine Viets

Publisher: Signet

ISBN:1-86254-486-7

Length: 268 pages

Genre: Amateur sleuth/cosy

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2.5/5

One-liner: A light, undemanding read

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Helen Hawthorne works for cash at Page Turners, a family owned bookstore in South Florida. The proprietor, Page Turner III, is horrible to staff and customers alike and few people are upset when he is murdered. Helen is forced to investigate his death when her friend Peggy is arrested for his murder and finds that almost everyone who knew Page Turner had a good motive for killing him.

The interesting fact behind this series (which as of this year will run to eight books) is that before writing each book Elaine Viets does the jobs that she describes in the book. She was, according to her website FAQ, a bookseller for over a year before (or perhaps while) writing Murder Between the Covers. I’m sure this is what helps to give the bookstore and its myriad of demanding, (and only occasionally lovely) customers. Having done my share of time in jobs dealing with the general public I found much to relate to in that aspect of the book.

The rest of the book is fairly standard for the genre. Each potential suspect is eliminated, generally via direct questioning, until there’s only one potential killer remaining and most of this was done quite believably although the ending was a little too contrived.  There are a series of oddball characters, such as Helen’s purple-loving 76-year-old landlady, Margery, who provided the kind of humour I tend to like in my cosies.

My one problem with the book is that I never quite bought into the Helen character. The premise is that she works for cash because any income she earns officially has to be shared with her ex-husband so even though she’s well-educated she works ‘dead-end jobs’. I suspect that in the real world someone smart in similar circumstances would just get themselves some good quality fake identification and get a better paying job. So there were quite a few points when I thought “well you really don’t have to be in that situation” and so I couldn’t summon up the sympathy I’m sure I was supposed to have.

 

 

Review: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Title: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life

Author: Steve Martin

Narrator: Steve Martin

Publisher: Clipper Audio [2007]

ISBN: 9781407412740

Length: 4hrs 3 mins

Genre: Autobiography

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3/5

One-liner: A sombre look at a funny man’s life

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Steve Martin concentrates on only a certain portion of his life with this offering which, while incorporating elements of his childhood, focuses on his dozen or so years as a stand-up comic during the late 60’s and into the 70’s. I’ve always thought being a comedian would be one of the toughest jobs on earth and so was interested to hear him tell of the years of hard work and rejection that led to his success as a headliner of arena shows being a regular on such shows as Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show. He talks at some length about how he developed and honed his act from the mish-mash it started as to the more polished work it became where all the sweat and effort were hidden from the audience. It made me wish I’d been able to see him at one of his early live shows when he regularly took his audience members on a tour of the venue’s car park. There are also a smattering of anecdotes about his meetings and relationships with other celebrities though not a lot of these and, happily from my point of view, no dirt is dished on anyone.

While there are occasional interesting insights in the book it is for the most part simply a recitation of facts about Martin’s working life. There’s little reflection about the impact various events had on him, even when he talks about serious issues such as his depression or his strained relationship with his father. He says at one point that he’s a very private person and that becomes so clear by the end of the book that I wondered why on earth he bothered to include those more serious personal things at all if he only ever intended to boil them down to an unemotional sentence or two.

I thought it would be interesting to hear Martin read his own words but his delivery was, presumably deliberately, very flat. It didn’t matter whether he was re-telling a funny anecdote or recounting his emotional final meeting with his dying father: his tone of voice was exactly the same monotone. I think this is one of the few instances where I think I’d have enjoyed the print book more than the audio version as I’d have given a bit more emotion to some sections of the book than Martin did.

I enjoyed the parts of this book that dealt with the profession of stand-up comedy as I like peeking into worlds I know little about. I’d have preferred him to include more of these details than the snippets of his personal life that I assume he included reluctantly (or under pressure from publishers) based on the lack of substance those portions of the book had.

 

Review: Tilt A Whirl by Chris Grabenstein

Title: Tilt A Whirl

Author: Chris Grabenstein

Publisher: Audible Inc [2007]

ISBN: n/a [downloaded from audible.com]

Length: 8 hours 18 minutes

Setting: New Jersey, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Brilliantly narrated and entertaining feel-good book.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Sea Haven, on the New Jersey shore, is overrun by summer tourists and the most serious crime is a stole bike. One Saturday morning two local police officers, John Ceepak, a former MP, and Danny Boyle, a rookie part-timer, see a hysterical young girl covered in blood. She tells them her father was shot in the local amusement park. Ceepak is asked by his old army buddy who is now the Police Chief to head up the investigation into Reginald Hart’s murder and he also gives his word to Ashley, the young girl, that he’ll protect her from the danger which still surrounds her.

If you had told me that every time I pressed stop I’d be itching to get back to a single-body whodunit narrated by a 20-something party animal and featuring a goody-two-shoes ex-soldier who lives by a corny moral code I’d have given you the look. The “I don’t think you have a clue and thanks for nothing” look. But, based on the infinitesimally small chance I might be wrong, I accepted a passionate audio book recommendation from Belle (of Ms Bookish) and was thoroughly entertained from start to finish.

First I must mention that Jeff Woodman is a superb narrator: managing to give a completely different yet realistic sounding voice (complete with regional accent) to more than a dozen characters of different ages and genders. I have no doubt that his skill is part of the reason I so thoroughly enjoyed the book and had such vivid images of the setting and characters in my head.

I thought the choice of narrative voice in the story was a particularly good one. Using someone who is an observer and a participant in the action worked well, especially when combined with the fact that Danny Boyle is a rookie working with a more experienced policeman. This provided plausible opportunities for the kind of explanatory scenes and missed bits of action that can become clunky in first-person narratives. Danny also turned out to be a likable, engaging young man with a good sense of humour and the story unfolded quite naturally through his eyes.

The use of a ‘Duddley Do-Right’ style character in the form of John Ceepak (whose life motto is ‘neither lie nor cheat not steal nor tolerate those who do) is a risk because I cannot possibly be the only potential reader who is wary of such fantasies. However, even though he is too good to be truly credible, I found myself interested in his back story and smiling at his all around good-guy-ness and rooting for him to triumph over the bad guys. Maybe even natural born cynics like me need to take a day off from being jaded every once in a while.

Although there were some corny, predictable lines the broader story kept me guessing right to the end, the New Jersey Shore setting felt realistic, the characters were charming and overall it was the literary equivalent of a feel good movie. I’ll definitely be listening to the rest of this series (though unlike Belle who gobbled them all up at once I’m going to space them out).

Other stuff

Here is a review by Belle (from Ms Bookish) (thanks again for the recommendation) and a review of the whole series by Beth (from Beth Fish Reads) who introduced Belle to the series. Don’t you love the way the book blogging world works?

 

Review: The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl by Joseph Telushkin

Title: The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl (the 1st Daniel Winter mystery)

Author: Joseph Telushkin

Publisher: Bantam Books [1987]

ISBN: 0553258095

Length: 180 pages

Setting: Los Angeles, USA, contemporary present day

Genre: Amateur sleuth (with a smidgen of police procedural)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3.5/5

One-liner: An off-beat setting for a classic whodunnit.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

As well as being the Rabbi for a small Los Angeles synagogue Daniel Winter hosts a religious-themed radio show. One Sunday evening he puts together a panel of three women who are outspoken on the issue of feminism and general womens’ issues. One of these women is Rabbi Myra Wahl who is from a different synagogue in the city. The show is a lively one but towards the end Myra Wahl hurls an extremely offensive insult at Daniel Winter and when she begs his forgiveness he does not give it. As she jogs home from the radio station she is killed by a hit and run driver and Daniel is soon a prime suspect although Myra Wahl has made several other enemies in her young life. Daniel is provided information that the police don’t have access to and so runs a somewhat parallel investigation to the official one.

Reading a lot of mysteries as I do it’s difficult to find settings and characters that I haven’t seen a hundred times before so I was attracted to the premise of this book. Happily the execution lived up to the promise. In tandem with the classically well constructed plot was an exploration of the sorts of subjects we’re normally advised against discussing in polite company including religion, abortion and the treatment of homosexuality in the Jewish faith. I’m not sure that I’d want all my books to be so serious but I found it refreshing to read something of a ‘cosy’ that isn’t populated by women who shop.

Daniel Winter is a very likable character although he seems a bit too perfect to believe. However a minor thread of the novel, in which he has to decide if he wants to continue being a Rabbi or become a full-time radio host with a national show, made him seem more human. The only other character depicted with any real depth is Brenda Goldstein, a some-time member of his synagogue and a police psychologist who becomes involved in the investigation of Wahl’s murder. The one character I found difficult to swallow was Lieutenant Joe Cerezzi who is ostensibly in charge of the case but who seems remarkably cavalier about allowing a psychologist and a Rabbi to do almost all of the investigating.

Ultimately I found the depiction of both the rituals of the Jewish religion and some sensitive issues as seen from the point of view of a Rabbi a quite refreshing change from the more traditional mystery settings. It was definitely this aspect of the novel that led to me reading it in a couple of sittings as the mystery itself was perfectly serviceable but nothing extraordinary.

Other stuff

In all there were three books in this series although Josepth Telushkin, himself a Rabbi, has many non-fiction and religious works published as well.

 

Review: Bones by Jonathan Kellerman

Title: Bones (the 23rd Alex Delaware novel)

Author: Jonathan Kellerman

Publisher: ISIS Audio Books (this edition 2009)

ISBN: 9780753140802

Length: 11 hours

Narrator: Jeff Harding

Setting: Los Angeles, USA, present day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 2/5

One-liner: A dull, predictable yarn that isn’t about bones at all. Or much else.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in a protected marsh area in Los Angeles. Veteran LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis is called in to assist a rookie Detective by the name of Moses Reed. Naturally Milo brings his friend, psychologist Alex Delaware, along for the ride. A few more bodies are uncovered and there are hints that a prominent local family might be involved in the grizzly deaths.I stopped reading this series somewhere around book 9 or 10 due to their repetitive nature. And I chose this one from my local library’s meagre selection of audio books on the grounds that …well…it’s a meagre selection of audio books. So I’m admitting up front that I was undoubtedly going to struggle to love this book, although I am ever the optimist. Sadly I found the story dull and lacking credibility and it’s another that I’d like to assign the one-word review: meh.

People killing other people for garden variety motives like jealousy or the prospect of a large inheritance isn’t enough for Kellerman. If the world was as populated by knife-wielding psychopaths as he’d have us believe I’d never leave the house. Of course this is fiction and it doesn’t have to be realistic but I think Kellerman constantly ascribing his murders to the most twisted of people (who of course aren’t like ‘us’) allows him to avoid exploring an actual human emotion within the context of his stories.

The plot is equally uninspiring. It’s convoluted (I’m convinced that he added one of the evil doers at the end and then inserted them randomly in the story already written) and has all the suspense of a tax return. This time there isn’t even a fabrication of a reason why child psychologist Alex Delaware is involved in the case. In the earlier books there was at least be a pretence of a reason: a client of Alex’s or the relative of one would be involved or the case would somehow relate to the mistreatment of children for example, but here it just seemed to be universally accepted that a private sector psychologist would be involved in every facet of an investigation.

In short the book was formulaic, the characters stereotypical and the brand-name laden writing was plodding. Kellerman can do much better, in a standalone novel called The Butcher’s Theatre he tells a gripping tale and tackles some weighty political and social issues in the Jerusalem setting even though it too features a serial killer, but perhaps he lacks the incentive now that he’s a brand name all of his own.

 

Review: Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart

Title: Dead Days of Summer (the 17th Death on Demand mystery)

Author: Carolyn Hart

Publisher: William Morrow [2006]

ISBN: 0-06-072402-1

Length: 280 pages

Setting: America (South Carolina), present day

Genre: Cosy/amateur sleuth

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 3/5

One-liner: Nicely-paced yarn about an innocent man’s arrest with a guaranteed happy ending

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Proprietor of the Death on Demand mystery bookstore Annie Darling is preoccupied with a secret: the surprise party she is planning her husband Max’s 29th birthday. Max is killing time at his office one afternoon when a new client walks in asking for his assistance in locating her missing brother. Max agrees to go with her to a seedy bar which is the last place the brother was seen but after doing so he wakes up in a strange cottage with no memory of the previous night’s events. The woman, who he was seen with my several witnesses, has been found dead and Max is covered in her blood. When he is arrested things look bleak but Annie and their circle of friends soon rally around to clear his name.

I’ve read quite a lot of the books in this series, the last being Death of the Party which I read last year and did not enjoy very much. However I needed something light that I could read while distracted* and picked this one from the bottom of my large TBR. Happily it turned out to be a much better read than the last book in the series. The romance element is still present but it was held in check this time round because Annie and Max spent most of the book separated from each other so there was a limit to the schmaltzy dialogue between the pair. I don’t mind seeing a couple in love but sometimes the way these two talk is a bit much.

The story kept up a good pace too and I am a bit of a sucker for a wronged-man yarn. I live in mortal fear of going to prison for something I didn’t do (for some people it’s heights for me it’s being locked up) and am always inclined to an emotional interest in stories that involve this kind of scenario. Max’s feelings of helplessness while incarcerated (even if only for a few days) were quite well depicted. The rallying of Max and Annie’s friends is charming but unrealistic and the resolution is quite predictable but if you’re in the mood for a well-paced and upbeat story you could do a lot worse than Dead Days of Summer.

*I had to spend a day in a series of noisy medical waiting rooms as I took my turn looking after an old family friend who has a lot of ailments and some books require less concentration than others.

 

Review: Murder Packs a Suitcase by Cynthia Baxter

Title: Murder Packs a Suitcase

Author: Cynthia Baxter

Publisher: Bantam [2008]

ISBN: 978-0-553-59035-7

Length: 304 pages

Mallory Marlowe is newly widowed when she goes for a job interview at a Travel magazine. She wins the job and is immediately sent to Florida to discover if it has any of its old charm remaining after ‘Disneyfication’. When one of her fellow journalists on the press trip is murdered Mallory, who had a verbal altercation with the victim earlier that day, is considered a suspect. So, in between visiting some of the kitschier tourist attractions in Florida, Mallory tries to uncover who else might have had a motive for killing the unpleasant man.

As an amateur sleuth Mallory falls on the more believable end of the scale in terms of how she gets involved in the investigation and the methods she uses to solve the crime. However she’s a wee bit earnest and worthy for my tastes. I’m sure that seeing her discover she can cope on her own as a new widow is inspirational for some but I found that aspect of the book dull. The parts of the story that dealt with travelling through modern Florida looking for attractions that hadn’t been Disney-fied were more entertaining for me. I also enjoyed some of the characters accompanying Mallory on her trip such as the woman who wrote for a budget travel magazine who was constantly on the lookout for a cheap deal. Having backpacked my way around a good part of the world I could empathise with the penny pinching.

This is the first book in what I assume the author is looking to turn into a series and there is certainly much potential for brand new storylines with Mallory being a travel writer. If the series does continue on its present course I’m sure it will find many fans looking for a well written story featuring a heroine they can relate to and a hint of romance. For my tastes I’d like to see Mallory travelling beyond the US and also for the series to be a little more humorous but that’s just my personal tastes and I suspect others will be very happy just the way things are.

My rating 2.5/5

Other stuff

Murder Packs a Suitcase is reviewed at A Book Blogger’s Diary

Am I the only person who reads books based on their physical size? I packed this book for a trip away solely because it was tiny and fitted in the bag I indented to carry round with me while away. As someone who does quite a lot of reading away from home the physical size of books is a constant issue for me.

 

Review: Panic by Jeff Abbott

Title: Panic

Author: Jeff Abbott

Publisher: ISIS Audio Books [2006]

ISBN: 978-0-7531-2626-4

Length: 11hrs 20mins

Evan Casher is a young documentary film maker whose life is thrown into turmoil when his mother urges him to return to his home town of Austin Texas immediately. When he does, he discovers her body on the kitchen floor of their family home and the killers are still there. Believing Evan has some information they want, the killers torture him then leave him for dead but he is rescued by someone claiming to be one of the good guys. What follows is a wild ride with spies, double agents and lots of unnecessary killing.

This is a perfectly serviceable thriller in which a normal person is thrown into extraordinary circumstances. There’s action a-plenty and a main character who is charming enough that I wanted him to beat the bad guys (however unlikely it should have been). However, I found the plot overly complex but not as engaging as it might have been. There seemed to be a few too many unnecessary twists on top of what was basically a story about a list of names. At no point during the entire book did I care a jot whose name was on the list or what happened to it and when the list was all anyone was talking about it made for some dull spots.

As with all thrillers of this type you have to suspend your disbelief about whether or not an average bloke could suddenly develop the skills to take on a gang of well-trained mercenaries and the CIA in MacGyver-like fashion but I found it more difficult than it should have been to do that here. However I’ll acknowledge that if I’d enjoyed the story more I’d have been less picky about the absurdities of Evan’s success against all the well-trained killers he faced.

To be fair to the author, part of my problem with this particular reading experience had nothing to do with the author. The narrator of the audio version I listened to struggled quite a bit to maintain the separate voices for each character (perhaps due to their large number) and some of the voices were just plain jarring to the ear. In particular the voice of one of the two main bad guys annoyed me intensely and, although there weren’t many of them, the bits of action that involved British characters were plain awful.

To me there was nothing unique about this thriller but it’s the kind of thing lots of people, including the types who commission Hollywood movies these days, really enjoy. There’s loads of action sequences, a decent amount of interesting deaths, a particularly nasty villain, an explosion or two and minimal character development. I’d have preferred a touch more credibility and a few less fight sequences but that’s just me. If you’re going to tackle Panic though I really wouldn’t recommend this audio version.

My rating 3/5

 

Review: Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Title: Crocodile on the Sandbank (the 1st Amelia Peabody mystery)

Author: Elizabeth Peters

Publisher: Warner Books (original edition 1975, this edition 1992)

ISBN: 0-445-40651-8

Length: 262 pages

This is the first book to introduce the impossibly unbelievable heroine Amelia Peabody. It’s around 1880 and Amelia is a 32 year old single woman who has just inherited a sizable fortune. She leaves her native England and, after a short stop in Europe where she acquires a companion by the name of Evelyn who has been ruined by an unfortunate love affair, she heads for Egypt. While waiting for their boat to be ready for a trip down the Nile, Amelia and Evelyn meet the Emerson brothers, Radcliffe and Walter, who they later encounter at Armanah where they are excavating. When the ladies join the dig a mysterious mummy frightens the local workmen away but Amelia is not so easily scared.

This series is something of a guilty reading pleasure for me. I have always been a little obsessed with things Egyptian and so love the tales of the digs and discoveries that are full of fun and adventure. It’s rare for me to want to swap lives with the fictional people I read about but I’d happily switch places with Amelia if such things were possible. Peters clearly knows her subject as even in this first book the historical details are accurate and she takes care to depict the excavations and other events as they would have been carried out at this period (assuming that a force of nature such as Amelia had taken part any way).

This book does a nice job of introducing all the characters of the series: providing some back story but leaving some things too for revelation in later books. Over-the-top Amelia is able to master all manner of skills including medicine, archaeology, negotiation, languages and virtually anything else she turns her mind to. I’m sure she’d be annoying to be around at times but her total disregard for the social conventions of the day would, I think, make up for her superiority complex. The rest of the characters are either equally wonderful human beings (Amelia wouldn’t settle for anything less in her friends) unless they’re dastardly rascals intent on mischief.

If you fancy a girls own adventure with a heroine you can’t help but admire and a liberal dose of humour then try Crocodile on the Sandbank for yourself. The plot is a little convoluted at times but it all works out in the end and, anyway, I like these books more for their sense of time and place and can forgive some annoyances with the plot.

My rating 3.5/5