Just a normal day at the office except for the fact that your daughter who has been missing for seven years and was declared legally dead four months ago just called your 911 line begging you to help her.

I really liked what Ryan David Jahn did with The Dispatcher.  As a reader, you are plunged right into the story about what and why this is happening to Maggie and how it has affected all those involved the past seven years.  One could almost feel bad for the kidnappers.  There are really no questions left unanswered.  I really think that if you are looking for a book to spend the afternoon with or need something to pass the time on a airplane ride that The Dispatcher is the perfect book for it.  Not only is this book a thriller but it asks the question What will you do for someone you love?

I became interested in this trilogy because I love CSI and Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator of the television series.  I was introduced to Steve Dark when I read Dark Origins and thought and still think he is a total bad ass and I was introduced to Sqweegel, who is one of my favorite ‘bad guys’ of all time.  I absolutely loved that book.  I was equally excited when Dark Prophecy came out and then couldn’t wait for Dark Revelations.  Dark is still chasing bad guys and has somewhat figured out how to balance that with being a father because he works from home with state of the art equipment in his basement.   Steve Dark has been asked to join an elite special force that come together to capture Level 26 killers.  This group has been able to capture killers that government agencies and even Special Circs have been unable to solve in the past.  The killer on the loose now is known as “Labyrinth” and he uses riddles, puzzles and wordplay to announce who his next victims will be.  With the use of social media he has created a media sensation and has followers from all around the world.  People are almost seeing him as a modern day Robin Hood because of the political and social messages that are behind his killings. Can Steve Dark and his elite team of crime fighters stay a step ahead of “Labyrinth” and stop him before he kills again?

If you are interested in a really good fast paced thriller then I would recommend this entire trilogy.  What is really cool is that this is a digi-novel.  As you read these books books will you will come across codes to access a cyber bridge that will allow you to watch a mini-movie on your computer to give you a little more of Steve Dark’s story.  I have enjoyed watching those as much as reading the books!

Agent 6

At the beginning of Agent 6 we are taken back in time to 1950 where we learn how Leo and his wife, Raisa met and learn about Jesse Austin, an American singer and member of the Communist party and his role in Leo and Raisa getting together.  We soon are back where The Secret Speech left off and Leo has left the secret police and is concentrating on his family. Raisa, Zoya and Elena are about to travel to New York City for the “Peace Tour”, which both countries are hoping will ease relations between the two.  Leo is not allowed to travel with them and is immediately suspicious of the real reason behind the trip and why his wife and daughters were invited.  Of course, something happens on the trip and Leo’s reaction to this tragedy is to enact revenge on the person at fault.

I am stopping there because anymore and I will spoil the thrill of the story!  I will say that I am glad that this is my first read of 2012 and I hope that the rest can live up to Agent 6!

In I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, we find Flavia up to her old tricks in the chemistry lab (built by her Uncle) but this time she is trying to make a concoction of very sticky birdlime to coat the chimney of Buckshaw mansion.  The reason behind this is to prove once and for all to her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, that Father Christmas is not a hoax.  She intends to then free him from the chimney and invite Father Christmas to stay for the glorious fireworks display that she has also been working on in the the laboratory.

Flavia’s father, due to his increasing debt, has agreed to let a movie production company use the family estate as a movie set which means that Buckshaw will not be decorated for Christmas, which is disappointing,but Flavia soon learns she will have all sorts of mischief to get into with the stars and film crew roaming around.

The vicar arranges for the entire town of Bishop’s Lacey to come to Buckshaw for a special performance of the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet to raise money to repair the church roof.  In true English mystery fashion, a blizzard ensues snowing everyone in and setting the scene for MURDER!  Flavia, of course, has found the body and even after several warnings not to meddle with the investigation just cannot help herself.  A grand “who dunnit” begins and soon concludes on Christmas Eve.

I recommend this as a fun and uproarious holiday read whether you have read the others in the series or not and guarantee you will be asking Father Christmas for the entire collection!

Here is a new title by a debut author that I think will work for Labor Day weekend either at the pool or while the game is on or maybe both!

The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams

The Wishbone Killer is terrorizing Atlanta, Georgia.  Keye Street’s career in the FBI ended as her battle against addiction began.  She has started a new life working as a a private detective taking jobs when she can find them from tracking down bail jumpers and adulterers to finding people who have stolen company secrets.  The last thing she wants is to become involved in a case involving a serial killer but then the Atlanta Police Department comes calling but how can she say no since Lt. Aaron Rauser, her best friend, is doing the asking.  As she uses her skills acquired in the FBI as a profiler, Keye begins to realize that the Wishbone Killer just might be someone she knows and all those close to her could be the killers next target.

I really loved this thriller.  It was really fun to read especially if you are familiar with Atlanta and that the protagonist is a female detective.  It is nice to have a ‘southern belle’ saving the day instead of just getting the vapors!

Harley, a member of WOCOP but also Jakes best friend and confidant, has come up with a plan to get Jake into hiding and safe for awhile but Jake has other ideas.  He is really just tired, tired of the loneliness, tired of drinking scotch by himself and having sex with prostitutes (though he does have his ‘unfavorites’). He is tired of knowing that all he can do is kill his victim since no humans have been turned into werewolves for years due to a virus and tired of knowing that he will never find someone to love as he could in the past.

While he can confide in Harley, he does wonder how Harley has been able to deal with knowing that all these years he has been a co-conspirator in the murders that Jake has had to commit while on “The Curse.”  Jake has made his decision: he will die in 27 days.

Jake soon learns he is not in complete control of his own destiny. Rogue WOCOP agents start popping up everywhere and the stench of Vampire is everywhere around him.  His final days are just not as peaceful as he would like them to be.  Then the most surprising thing of all just steps off the train.

If you are a Twilight werewolf/vampire fan then this book is probably not the book for you, but if you like good writing with a supernatural twist then I highly recommend The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan.  I will be certainly be looking forward to the next one.

If you would like to order a signed first edition of The Last Werewolf click here.

“As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today.  I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning.  Thinking I”m still a child.  Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me…”

This is Christine’s life or some might say lack of a life.  Every night when she goes to sleep her memory is erased and she wakes up not knowing the who, what, when, where and how of her existence.  Her husband, Ben, has to explain that they have been married for over twenty years and there are pictures taped to the bathroom mirror to help her start her day.

Later in the morning, she receives a phone call from a Dr. Nash, who explains he is treating her and to prove it he tells her to read her journal.  The purpose of the journal is for Christine to write everything that happens to her in a day and any memories that she has down.  As this experiment goes on Christine begins to realize that Ben’s story, Dr. Nash’s story and her brief memories of her life are not the same.  Are things being kept from her or is she just inventing stories to make her own life seem complete?

Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson is a fantastic debut that really gives a whole new spin on the ‘amnesiac thriller’.  Dennis Lehane calls it “Memento on crystal meth” and I just have to agree with him.  I will be looking for more page turning thrillers from S. J. Watson in the future.

“Are you one of the chosen?”

Twelve-year-old Lisa, her cousin Evie, and brother Sam are constantly going on adventures in the Vermont woods behind their house.  Lisa is positive that Fairies live there and that the King of the Fairies is leaving her gifts.  One of the gifts she finds is  The Book of the Fairies, she decides that she is going to ‘cross over’ to the Land of the Fairies and become their queen.  She follows the instructions carefully and goes out one night and is never seen again.

It’s fifteen years later and Phoebe is in a relationship with a man who helps her conquer her fears of the dark and her nightmares.  She has never felt as safe with anyone as she does with Sam.  One day, Phoebe receives a phone call from a little girl:

“Tell Sam to look in the crawl space, behind the insulation.”

Sam immediately goes there and finds the missing Book of the Fairies.  Soon Evie contacts Sam and wants to meet at a cabin and talk about Lisa. When they arrive she shows them a note:

”I am back from the land of the fairies.  I’ll be seeing you soon. -Lisa”

All of sudden all of these strange and unexplainable things begin happening to Phoebe and Sam, and Phoebe begins to think that Sam is not telling her everything that he knows about the day that Lisa disappeared and soon a promise that Sam made is revealed that could ruin their lives forever.

Alright, I know that some of you are saying that you don’t want to read about fairies. I promise that you will not be disappointed. This is a story full of family secrets and is just plain perverse and creepy. Make sure that before you get in your lounge chair that you have a everything you need because you will not want to get up until you close this book!

Ah yes, Memorial Day, the beginning of summer.  I decided that this weekend will be the perfect time to make sure that you all know about Harry Hole.  Harry is someone that y’all can get acquainted with this weekend and hang out with him all summer long.   Jo Nesbo is the creator of the Harry Hole series and while all his books have gotten rave reviews, his newest novel, The Snowman, is going to be the book that takes him out into the public eye.  So far four of Nesbo’s novels have been translated into English and we are so happy about that and the great thing is that Nesbo’s three previous books are all in paperback so you can take them to the beach!

The Redbreast

This novel takes the reader between the last days of WWII and modern day Oslo while recovering alcoholic, Inspector Harry Hole, chases a neo-Nazi who has escaped prison on a technicality.  After overhearing something on surveillance Harry Hole is drawn into a twisted mystery with roots in Norway’s dark past of collaborating with Nazi Germany and now 60 years later disgraced old soldiers are being murdered one by one.

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Nemesis

Harry awakens with a serious headache, no cell phone and brief memories of a drunken night with Anna, an ex girlfriend who called out of the blue.  He and a young detective have been investigating  a string of bank robberies one of which ended with a bank teller being shot.  Harry is dealing with his relapse while trying to solve one murder when he himself becomes a suspect in the mysterious death of Anna.  After tying the bank robberies to a notorious bank robber (who is in jail) he soon begins to wonder if Anna’s demise is connected some how.

The Devil’s Star

Harry has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid.  He also has a new partner, Tom Waaler, whom Harry hates and thinks is responsible for the murder of his partner.  When another woman is found murdered in the same circumstances Harry realizes that they have a serial killer on their hands and his determination to catch the killer and expose Waller’s crimes will lead him down paths that he never expected.  He will be forced to make difficult decisions about his future while both cases merge together in the shadows.

The Snowman

The first snow has fallen in Oslo and a young boy awakens in the night calling for his mother.  Where is she?  Out on the lawn a mysterious snowman appeared earlier in the day and now Jonas sees that his mothers pink scarf adorns it’s neck.  Harry suspects a link between the disappearance of Jonas’s mother, at least a dozen other women and a letter which he received all on the day of the first snow fall that November.  As the case goes on Harry is pulled into a ‘game’ where the rules are devised and constantly revised by the killer.

I hate making comparisons of authors because frankly, I’m not very good at it. But if you have liked the other Scandinavian authors, i.e., Henning Mankell and Steig Larsson and Michael Connelly’s character, Harry Bosch, then I know that you will be thrilled to be introduced to Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole.

We’ll be visiting a range of fantastic independent bookstores across the south and west, with Lemuria as my very first gig, talking about the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, crime thrillers and food, I hope.

Now, the Telegraph newspaper in the UK has asked me to keep a travel blog on its pages, kicking off with a print piece on detectives and travel, and I’d really appreciate the help of you blog readers here.

Back in the mists of time, I wrote travel books – one, in fact, about walking across Europe to Istanbul – but I believe that it’s in crime novels that some of the best ‘travel’ writing is being done these days. I mean, a trip to Venice is much enhanced by following Donna Leon’s Brunetti through the watery streets, just as London will remain, for generations to come, the city of fogs and rattling horse-drawn cabs depicted in Sherlock Holmes. And when James Lee Burke gets going on Louisiana, I smell the swamp – don’t you?

So I want some tips from you guys – who, in your opinion, really captures the scents and sights, not to mention the seamy underbelly, of some of the places I’m set to visit on this compendious book tour? Let’s see: Jackson? Alabama. New Orleans. Austin, Texas – does Austin have a fictional crime fighter I should know about? Houston?

And who’s the go-to crime writer for Arizona? I can do Raymond Chandler for LA, obviously; less obvious to me is San Diego. Give me a few top tips for San Francisco, too: who really puts the Bay Area on the page? We wind up in Portland, Oregon. Is there a murder mystery I don’t know of, set in the city, or the state?

It’s a parlor game, really: try it, and drop me a line if you can. You can find me at jsn.goodwin@gmail.com and all suggestions are welcome. I also blog at thebellinicard.wordpress.com

If the writer you propose is published in the UK, so much the better – but let’s leave no stone unturned here!

Maybe we can blast somebody really good across the Atlantic…

Lemuria is where the US Magic Carpet Tour for April 2011 is kicking off.
I’ll be there on Wednesday, April 6th at 5:00 pm for reading and talking and signing. Come along – and send your friends, too!

-Jason Goodwin