BOOK REVIEW: Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

Sea of Rust by Robert Cargill is set in a post-apocalyptic future where robots have completely exterminated humans. It’s a fascinating premise because it literally flips the script of the generic post-apocalyptic novel. The story is not about whether or how the few remaining humans will survive the dystopian future, because there are no humans left! Instead, all the central characters in Sea of Rust are “silicon-based life forms.” But that doesn’t mean that this sameness results in peace and a lack of tension among the various, computers, thinking machines and artificial intelligences. Even among computers, there is difference: in processing power, uniqueness, robustness/interoperability, former utility to humans and other factors. And where there is difference there is the potential for conflict.

Sea of Rust follows the path of a particular robot named Brittle who is something of a bounty hunter of and among other robots. Unsurprisingly, when there are no humans left, one of the most important things in the world is spare parts (and electricity/power). Brittle is a robot who hunts/tracks/finds other robots in order to salvage their parts. Brittle makes it clear that she (Brittle has picked her gender identity to be female) waits for the machines she is potentially getting parts from to have stopped operating before she disassembles them, but some of her fellow/rival salvagers are not so scrupulous. (It’s not completely clear whether Brittle is always so scrupulous herself, actually.)

When we meet Brittle, she is being hunted down by Mercer, who is the same Caregiver model of robot as Brittle is and thus needs the exact same parts. It’s pretty clear Mercer is perfectly happy to accelerate the process by which Brittle will become unoperational in order to reduce the time he will have to wait to gain access to the important parts (that are currently inside Brittle!) that he needs to remain functional. Basically, both Brittle and Mercer are facing the inexorable march of time and their inevitable obsolescence. This is an example of interesting philosophical question the author raises in the book: is cannibalism morally okay when practiced among robots?

However the existential battle between Brittle and Mercer is put on hold when a larger more dangerous threat arrives suddenly. One of the primary threats to the continued existence of individual robots like Brittle and Mercer are artificial intelligences that are attempting to dominate the planet and become a OWI (one world intelligence). Typically OWI (or their subsumed representatives, called "subs") approach other machine intelligences and offer them a “choice” to either join the OWI by subsuming their individuality to become a sub of the OWI or to be destroyed. (Not much of a choice, actually!)

The existence of potential OWIs as the villain(s) of Sea of Rust make it easier to see Brittle and Mercer as the heroes of the story. Because then the story becomes one of scrappy, independent David(s) fighting against a Goliath hive mind with orders of magnitude more resources, processing power and strength. However, at its core Sea of Rust is still a story about which of two silicon-based life forms will survive after human life has been removed from the equation. As a human reader it becomes difficult to be (and remain) very emotionally invested in the ultimate result, regardless of how unusual and compelling the setting is. As I mentioned earlier, another interesting aspect of the book is its incorporation of philosophical ideas and questions about the nature of intelligence and life itself in the context of an Earth where human life has been extinguished but artificial intelligence still flourishes.

Title: Sea of Rust.
Author: C. Robert Cargill.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 384 pages.
Publisher: Harper  Voyager.
Date Published: September 5, 2017.
Date Read: April 15, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: B+
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby

Blacktop Wasteland is the second  book by this author that I have read; I first read and enjoyed his Razorblade Tears. Blacktop Wasteland is the more celebrated of the two, having won a slew  of awards (Los Angeles Times, Anthony, Macavity, Barry). After enjoying Razorblade Tears so much I wanted to see if Blacktop Wasteland lived up to the hype. The answer is: yes and no.

Both books are in the same genre of “action-packed crime thrillers set in the rural South.” But that’s the end of the similarities between Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland. Razorblade Tears is basically a story about two very different fathers who reluctantly are working together to find out and get revenge on whoever shot and killed their gay sons at point blank range. Blacktop Wasteland has one central main character, Beauregard “Bug” Montage that the plot hinges on, with the central narrative tension being fueled by the answer to the question of whether Bug is a “good guy who sometimes commits criminal acts” or “a criminal who sometimes does good things.” By the end of the book I don’t think the reader has a definitive answer to this question besides “it’s complicated.”

Ambiguity or the fusion of positive and negative, or dark and light elements is a recurring theme of both Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland, with it playing an even larger role in the latter. Bug is a talented getaway driver just like his decades-absent father. He is a car whisperer with the automotive equivalent of what a “green thumb” is for gardeners. He used his ill-gotten gains from his participation in a previous heist to open his own auto repair shop in his very small town in southern Virginia and business is Not Good.

Bug has three kids, two boys  with the woman he lives with in a trailer and a daughter he fathered as a teenager more than two decades ago. His cancer-ridden mother is in an expensive assisted-living facility. Bug has a number of financial obligations and not many legitimate sources of income as an ex-con. So when some former criminal associates approach him for a “slam dunk heist” he is not really in a position to resist the siren call of easy money.  

Blacktop Wasteland is a more cerebral book than one would generally expect from an entry in the crime thriller genre. This may explain the broadness of its appeal and the level of hype it has received. A central element is its depiction of the moral/philosophical dilemma of its protagonist, with the author asking the reader in Blacktop Wasteland “What would you do if you were in Bug’s circumstances, with his past and talents and debts?” Bug basically has two choices: work with some sketchy (probably racist) good old boys to drive a getaway car from a jewelry heist OR try to make a sizable dent on reducing his debts by selling his pride and joy: his father Ant Montage’s car, called the Duster, which he has maintained in perfect condition for decades. Blacktop Wasteland begins with Bug winning a street race in the Duster (and then being part of a scam which results in him not actually bringing any money home that night) and it’s clear the Duster is more than just a car to Bug, it’s the last connection he has to the father he idolizes.

So the primary narrative tension of Blacktop Wasteland is sourced in the decision Bug will make about how he will earn money. But it’s clear that the scales are not evenly weighted on the sides of good and evil. It’s not easy for a Black man who has spent time in jail to earn enough money to support himself and others using only legitimate and above board means, especially when his skills and experience are so useful to successful criminal activity. So, it’s not really a surprise when Bug makes the choice he does. What is surprising are the twists and turns that the plot takes afterwards. There are serious and permanent consequences for lots of the people Bug comes into contact with during the story.

In the end, although I was glad I read Blacktop Wasteland and am also convinced it will make an excellent movie when Hollywood inevitably adapts it for the big screen, it didn’t leave as strong an impression on me as Razorblade Tears did. I think it’s because the two books have very different messages in the end. Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what message Cosby was trying to send with Blacktop Wasteland while the message in Razorblade Tears is very clear (accept your children as they are, don’t try to mold them into something you think they should be!) and one I agree with.

Title: Blacktop Wasteland.

Author: S.A. Cosby.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 305 pages.
Publisher: Flatiron Books.
Date Published: July 14, 2020.
Date Read: April 9, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Razorblade Tears is the first book by this author that I have read; it is his first book after his wildly successful Blacktop Wasteland which won a bucketful of genre awards (Los Angeles Times, Anthony, Macavity, Barry ). The reason I started with Razorblade Tears instead is because it was on sale for $2.99 on Kindle and also because of the intriguing blurb describing the plot.

The first thing that strikes you as you read Razorblade Tears is the superior quality of the prose; Cosby is a master of metaphor and is unafraid to dazzle the reader with the brilliance of his writing. There were several times in the first few chapters that I highlighted sentences and turns of phrases. Eventually one becomes accustomed to instead of entranced by the poetry of the text and the breakneck forward momentum of the plot demands one’s full attention.

The story in Razorblade Tears is incredibly fast-paced and action-packed. After the two dads Buddy Lee and Ike team up as an avenging odd couple trying to find (out) who killed their gay sons, they start poking around and unearth a hornet’s nest of violent gang members, racist bikers, corrupt rap moguls and drug kingpins who are connected to a conspiracy to keep an explosive secret out of public view. Unfortunately for them, they are up against two guys who have suffered the incredibly painful loss of their only sons and fueled by their grief at the violent deaths and their own shame at their own homophobia that warped their relationship with them when they were alive, Buddy Lee and Ike are ready and willing to go as far as it takes (and beyond) to find and punish the people who have brought them such pain by killing their sons. The body count rises rapidly and by the end of the book vengeance has been meted out but at a price which is significant and life-altering to the survivors.

Overall, I was extremely impressed with this first encounter with the work of S.A. Cosby and I intend to read his other work. That said, I wouldn’t call Razorblade Tears a nuanced or complex book. It’s not trying to occupy the niche of the cerebral, densely-plotted mystery that unspools with increasing suspense and narrative tension. Razorblade Tears is more like a full barrel of bourbon rolling down a steep hill with a burning Confederate flag stuck in its side into a large hole that’s leaking profusely: it’s a combustible, compelling spectacle.

Razorblade Tears story moves so quickly that at first you don’t realize how simplistic the plot is. (It’s very easy to figure out who the person behind the boys murders and other crimes is.) But this flaw is outweighed by the overall message that parents should accept their LGBT children for who they are and not try to “change” or disown them because of some heteronormative vision they had of their (and their children’s) lives.

Title: Razorblade Tears.
Author: S.A Crosby.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 336 pages.
Publisher: Headline .
Date Published: July 6, 2021.
Date Read: March 8, 2022.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A+.

BOOK REVIEW: Black Rain Falling (DC Digger, #2) by Jacob Ross

Black Rain Falling is the sequel to The Bone Readers, the first two in what is apparently designed to be four novels collectively called the Camaho Quartet. These books were written by Jacob Ross, a Grenadian-born, award-winning author and poet who lives in Britain. They are police procedural novels, crime thrillers set on an island called Camaho (which is clearly a thinly disguised version of Grenada) featuring two psychologically wounded and ethically complicated detective protagonists in Detective Constables Michael "Digger" Digson and Kathleen Stanislaus and a host of colorful supporting characters and criminals.

The Bone Readers was memorable for its immersive depiction of island life while unspooling a captivating, suspenseful story and introducing the reader to DC Digger and DC Stanislaus (who is invariably referred to as "Miss Stanislaus" in the text). In Black Rain Falling, the stakes are higher for our main characters as Miss Stanislaus fatally shoots in self defense a known criminal (who was also responsible for her traumatic sexual assault when she was a teenager) and Digger’s frenemy/boss/rival Malan Greaves uses this incident to make his move to advance his career while crippling Digger’s and Stanislaus’ by dissolving the special criminal justice investigative unit that all three of them worked at by having them all transferred to a new police station where he gets a promotion and Digger's enemies get easier access to him.

However, the central mystery in Black Rain Falling is about how the international drug trade is bringing increased crime that is beginning to impact life on Camaho and neighboring islands. For example, there is a shockingly violent killing, an abundance of “hush money” and an incredibly powerful speedboat that can be used to ferry drugs between multiple islands. Digger and Stanislaus are trying to puzzle out the connections between these pieces before the corrupt powers that be strip them of their ability to do anything about it. 

By the end of the book both Digger and Stanislaus, who have complicated and ambivalent relationships with their fathers will need to rely on familial connections in order to persevere and ultimately succeed.

As with the first book, the reader can come for the compelling characters and thrilling plot but what really sets these mysteries apart from others in the genre is 1) Digger and Stanislaus’ chemistry and teamwork; 2) the verisimilitude of the depiction of the island setting of Camaho (Grenada) and 3) Ross' lyrical writing; the author is an award-winning poet and it shows in the quality of the prose.

Overall, Black Rain Falling is another excellent police procedural written by Jacob Ross, set in the Caribbean with two compelling characters in DC Digger and Miss Stanislaus whom I hope to spend a lot more time with in future installments of the Camaho Quarter.

Title: Black Rain Falling.
Author: Jacob Ross.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 432 pages.
Publisher: Mullholland Books.
Date Published: March 5, 2020.
Date Read: December 30, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Back Road (DCI Tom Douglas, #2) by Rachel Abbott

The Back Road is the second book by Rachel Abbott that I have read, after Only The Innocent. These are the first two books in the long-running series of police procedural, psychological thrillers starring DCI Tom Douglas. The series is up to 10 books so far and generally each entry has an average rating above 4.0 on Goodreads with 10,000+ ratings, which is quite rare (and impressive) territory for a series of genre books.

In The Back Road Tom Douglas has left his position at the Met in London and is living in a small suburb called Little Melham when word comes of a young girl who was knocked over by a car and left for dead in the middle of the night. The entire village is shocked when more information comes out that Abbie  had been abducted via online messaging prior to the automobile incident on the back road, which is a short cut that basically only locals know about. Is the culprit someone they know?

The book is primarily told from the perspective of Ellie Saunders, a married mother of two young children who had been driving on the back road to see her lover the night in question and who happens to be Tom Douglas' neighbor. Her husband is a school teacher who knew Abbie and her sister, who was visiting at the time knows something is going on with her sister's marriage but it distracted by her increasing attraction to Tom. Ellie works as a nurse and is involved in Abbie's care and tries to comfort Abbie's concerned (adoptive)  parents.

I don't know if two data points makes a trend but in the two books I have read featuring DCI Tom Douglas female characters have been at the center of the mystery, often prime suspects or at the very least persons of interest with either motive, opportunity or means to commit the crime(s) in question. Also, the mental and emotional states of the women in the books have been complex and mostly hidden from Tom but presented in first person to the reader. In Only The Innocent, more time was spent on the investigation procedures because Tom was on the job then while in The Back Road we see the  investigation proceeding from the eyes of Ellie, the suspect. (Something similar had happened in the first book as well.)

For this reason, I would definitely call both DCI Tom Douglas books I have read so far to be psychological thrillers, because a significant aspect of the text is about learning about the psychology of the main characters and how the crime affects their emotions and thoughts. We also get access to Tom's thoughts and feelings about the crimes, the investigation and the suspects s well as developments in his personal life. This is pretty typical with police procedural, investigator-driven mysteries but what I think is new/different here is the focus on the internal psychological conflict(s) of others besides the primary protagonists. And, I'm not sure that I'm a fan of this particular twist on the genre. It takes attention away from the narrative tension of the mystery itself (who did it, how will "we" figure out who did it and what will the consequences be) which usually dominates works in the mystery genre. That, and the fact that there's not very much diversity in the supporting characters in the books is definitely making me reassess my commitment to continuing this series. If I'm going to read murder-mysteries with non-genre elements I'd prefer to spend my time with stories that have female protagonists (like Jane Casey's Maeve Kerrigan, Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway, Robert Bryndza's Erika Foster and Robert Dugoni's Tracy Crosswhite) or diverse casts (like Peter James DCI Roy Grace and Sarah Hilary's Marnie Rome). That being said, I do also enjoy books with just a plain old white guy as the protagonist (like C.J. Box's Joe Pickett and William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor).

Overall, The Back Road is an entertaining mystery novel with substantial suspense and psychological content. For those looking for a more traditional police procedural crime thriller I would suggest look elsewhere but clearly there are many people who appreciate Rachel Abbott's approach to the genre and I can see why.

Title: The Back Road.
Author: Rachel Abbott.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 472 pages.
Publisher: Black Dot Publishing .
Date Published: March 8, 2013.
Date Read: November 19, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Blind to the Bones (Cooper & Fry, #4) by Stephen Booth

Blind to the Bones is the fourth book in the police-procedural, murder-mystery series featuring Detective Sergeant Deborah Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper written by Stephen Booth set in the Peak District in the north of England. In the first three books, there have been three very different but compelling mysteries in that Cooper and Fry are the main protagonists and the plot revolves around each of them solving crimes.  Blind to the Bones is somewhat similar to the other books in the series but this time instead of solving crimes together, each one of them has their own assignment, which eventually they both reluctantly recognize are linked. One of the curious and compelling features at the heart of the series is the fractious relationship between these two very different police officers. They are colleagues but they are certainly not friends; they are very different people with different personalities, life experiences and views on life. But they are both members of a small police force so they often need to work together to successfully do their jobs “to serve and protect“ the public.

There are three main mysteries in Blind to the Bones: 1) Who killed the local man whose body was found in an abandoned train tunnel (at the beginning of the book)? 2) What happened to the woman who has been missing for just over two years and whose cellphone has just shown up? 3) What crimes is that family with multiple delinquent children hiding? Of course, with all good mysteries there are several other smaller questions/puzzles to be answered as well.

Blind to the Bones is an unusual entry in the series because much of it takes place in the small town of Withens, not the typical setting of Edendale, which is where Cooper is from and where most of the action in the first three books (Black Dog, Dancing with the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue ) took place. Cooper ends up being seconded to the Rural Crime Task Force to work on the dead body in the train tunnel while Fry gets assigned to deal with the delusional parents of the missing college student (who even after two years of not seeing their daughter refer to her in the present tense and have kept her things all over the house intact). Fry gets stuck working with the corpulent and indolent Detective Constable Gavin Murfin while Cooper has his own adventures in Withens and beyond.

Overall, Blind to the Bones was not as compelling a read to me as the first three books in the Cooper and Fry series. I’m not exactly sure why. I think it might have been because by having each of the protagonists work separately on their own mystery it reduced the amount of interaction they had with each other, and one of the key features of the series has been the emotional frisson between Cooper and Fry. It's also significantly longer than the median mystery novel, well over 600 pages. Another quibble that I had with this entry was that it was resolved just a little too neatly for my taste, in such a way that it seemed unlikely the reader could have found the answers on their own, which seems a bit unfair. Regardless, I do think I will continue reading the series because I am curious to see how things develop between Cooper and Fry in future books, especially now that progress has been made an important project that Fry was working on in multiple books (thanks to the actions of Cooper).

Title: Blind to the Bones (Ben Cooper & Deborah Fry series, #4)
Author: Stephen Booth.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 643 pages.
Publisher: Witness Impulse.
Date Published: January 7, 2014 (first published January 1 2003).
Date Read: July 8, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B/B+ (3.25/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Only The Innocent (DCI Tom Douglas, #1) by Rachel Abbott

Only The Innocent is my first book by Rachel Abbott and it’s a doozy of a psychological thriller. The main character is DCI Tom Douglas but the meat of the story is sourced in the sadomasochistic relationship between Laura Fletcher and Lord Hugo Fletcher. Lord Fletcher is murdered in the very first chapter and the rest of the book is about finding out whodunnit as well as why and how. The answers are riveting, repulsive and really surprising.

Only The Innocent is the first book in the "DCI Tom Douglas Thriller series" which would seem to indicate that it is a police procedural. And to some extent it is, with the main plot fueled by following DCI Tom Douglas as he tries to solve the case of who killed Lord Fletcher. But there's also no question that a significant fraction of the content of the book is centered around the internal thoughts of Laura Fletcher, in the form of letter she wrote to her best friend Imogen Dubois who was previously married to Laura's brother.

Lord Hugo Fletcher was a celebrity well-known for running a non-profit that combated sex trafficking of young women. Through Laura's letters we discover that the benevolent, patrician face Hugo shows to the world is very different from the face Laura saw when they were alone.

We slowly learn what a controlling person Hugo was (he took care of every single detail of their wedding, kept the location of their honeymoon a complete secret, claiming that he was doing this all for Laura's benefit). We also learn that he has some truly bizarre views about sexuality, although we don't get a full sense of the full extent of his depravity until near the end of the book.

For most of Only The Innocent, one reads the book with one's mouth agape in horror as the depths of Hugo's perfidy are slowly exposed through Laura's letters. In fact, this is where the book goes a bit off the rails because it's hard to believe that any sane person wouldn't figure out a way to flee the situation that Laura was in at the time. Instead she ends up being institutionalized (twice!) in the years before Hugo is eventually killed.

Another main theme of Only The Innocent is the inclusion of family drama. In addition to the marital strife between Hugo and Laura, we also find out more about Hugo's relationship with his previous wife (and mother of his young daughter, Alexa, who Laura dotes on). There are multiple years-long estrangements that are revealed as the story unspools: Imogen and Laura's brother Will, Imogen and Laura, and Hugo and his sister Beatrice.

Overall I enjoyed Only The Innocent and I was actually surprised by the identity of the perpetrator (although in hindsight it was really quite obvious who it had to be). We get good insight into how DCI Tom Douglas operates and I am definitely interested in spending more time with him and loo forward to reading the next book in the series The Back Road.

Title: Only The Innocent.
Author: Rachel Abbott.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 459 pages.
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.
Date Published: February 5, 2013.
Date Read: June 22, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆ (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Not Dead Yet (DSI Roy Grace, #3) by Peter James

Not Dead Enough is the third book in the long-running and best-selling Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series written by Peter James set in the Southern England area of Brighton and Hove. These books are British police procedural novels in the mystery, crime, suspense, thriller and detective genres. After reading the first three books I have a growing admiration for the superior quality of the series and understand why they have sols so well and are soon to be adapted into a television series by the BBC (what took so long?). In the first three books, we have been exposed to three very different but compelling stories which DSI Grace has successfully solved. Happily, these are not simplistic portrayals of our hero cracking the case on their own, figuring out things that have stumped everyone else through the use of magical power or plot devices. Instead the books are centered around depictions of collaborative teams of investigators working together to try and bring perpetrators of horrible and horrific crimes to justice.

In addition to Grace, other interesting characters we spend a fair amount of time with include DS Glenn Branson (Grace’s best mate who happens to be big, bald and black; he is going through some marital trouble in Not Dead Enough and so the two are currently temporarily living together!), Cleo Morey (Grace’s new heterosexual love interest) and a number of other police officers who are on Grace’s team (such as his frightful superior the Assistant Chief Constable, the boorish DS Potting, the up-and-coming DC Nichols, etc).

The central mystery in Not Dead Enough is pretty interesting and intriguing. The wife Katie (and mistress) Holly of a successful local business owner named Brian Bishop are both found dead, naked, raped and garroted with World War 2-era gas masks on their faces within days of each other. It takes awhile for the police to even realize that Brian is related to both deaths, primarily because even though he is the main suspect when his wife Katie’s body is found (it’s always the husband!), he doesn’t appear to be lying when he adamantly denies knowing Holly and repeats in every interview how much he loved his wife. He has a pretty strong alibi since he was having dinner in London right before his wife was being murdered in Brighton. Similarly, although there’s an eyewitness saying they saw someone matching Brian’s description the afternoon before Holly’s body was found, Brian was being closely watched by Brighton police in that time period. So, police need to find someone who looks like (and somehow has easy access to significant quantities of Brian’s DNA.) James does a good job of providing interesting twists on the expected solution to this mystery. (One of the tag lines of the book is "How can someone be in two places at the same time?"

Another thing the author does well in Not Dead Enough (and the other books in the series so far) is to strategically provide the reader with information about the motivations of multiple characters (even the perpetrator!) This works frighteningly well, especially when the characters we care about are placed in imminent danger and the suspense ratchets up to pulse-pounding levels. (Happily this time the source of suspense is entirely sourced not in the mortal danger to our main character. Overuse of this plot device is an annoying pet peeve of mine; far too many authors use it too often as a cheap means to engage readers in the story.)

Overall, Not Dead Enough is another excellent entry in the DSI Roy Grace series. We get advances in the lifestories of many of the main characters and they solve an exciting and puzzling mystery. This series is definitely on my list to follow to its conclusion.

Title: Not Dead Enough.
Author: Peter James.
Length: 546 pages.
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Pan.
Date Published: August 1, 2007.
Date Read: December 5, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2) by John Scalzi

 

The Consuming Fire is the second book in John Scalzi’s The Interdependency space opera trilogy. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the first book in the series, The Collapsing Empire, but then again, I am generally ambivalent about Scalzi’s work. I do think Old Man’s War and Redshirts are his best books by far, and some of his other stuff is just not very good at all (looking at you, Lock In!)

With Scalzi's recent press tour surrounding the release of the third and final book in the trilogy, The Last Emperox, I was reminded of the books’ existence and happily, Kindle copies were readily available at one of my local libraries.

The good news is that the best parts of The Collapsing Empire, are in its sequel, namely lots of snarky commentary, snappy pacing and sympathetic characters (Emperox Grayland II, Lord Marce Claremont and Lady Kiva Lagos). There’s also a ridiculously convoluted plot with internecine palace intrigue taken to the extreme, but clearly points are being made about the nature of elites and concomitant corruption.

I appreciate the difficulty of what Scalzi is trying to do here. He is combining humor with social commentary in the context of a putative space opera about advanced human civilization with near-magical transport methods and an extremely mercantilist society.

I don’t know if I am just in a different place/mindset than I was when I read the first book, but I quite enjoyed the second book. I connected with Marce, Cardenia and Kiva in The Consuming Fire strongly enough that I was invested in what happened to them for the entirety of the book and I am also quite curious to find out what will happen to them next in The Last Emperox. That, at its most basic form, is a description of a successful book. Additionally, there are some interesting developments in The Consuming Fire about the existential threat to human society caused by the imminent collapse of The Flow, the multidimensional space through which most interplanetary travel occurs.

Overall, The Consuming Fire is a very strong sequel to The Collapsing Empire, and an excellent and amusing space opera book in it’s own right.

Title: The Consuming Fire.
Author: John Scalzi.
Paperback: 304 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: October 16, 2018.
Date Read: August 14, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Embers of War by Gareth Powell

Embers of War is a curious example of a space opera. The main character is a sentient ship, called the Trouble Dog, which was a warship that was involved in a horrific genocide that ended a war and is now part of an organization which resembles an interstellar version of the International Red Cross known as The House of Reclamation. Other characters in  Embers of War  include Ona Sundak, the former warship captain who actually ordered that genocide and who has been hiding incognito for years; two spies for opposing governments, Laura Petrushka and Aston Childe, who could be and may be more than just friends and Sal Konstantz, the current captain of the Trouble Dog.

The heart of the story is is about a conflict between a multitude of competing factions who are trying to control a precious resource. A major theme is also about the nature of forgiveness and the after-effects of war. A planet-spanning sentient forest was exterminated by Sundak in an attempt to end a war in order to save lives that would be lost if the war continued. How does one weigh the consequences of such an act? Are genocidal acts ever"reasonable"? As I said, this is an unusual topic for a military SF space opera tale, but it is a compelling one. 

However, overall, I was not as enthralled with Embers of War as I expected to be, considering the genre it is in and the fact that it was nominated for Best Novel in the British Science Fiction Awards (BSFA). One of the problems for me was that I didn’t really connect with any one of the human characters. The most compelling character in the book is the ship, but “she” portrays herself as such (it probably shouldn’t have a gender but it thinks of itself as female based on the source of the cells that comprise the biological substrate of the ship’s mind). Speaking of gender, the majority of the characters are female and the male characters are either viewed as incompetent or as needlessly and recklessly violent. This may have been another reason I didn’t emotionally connect with the story. I would note that there’s a lot of action in Embers of War, which is a nice feature of the book and there is also a significant presence of aliens and ships can travel faster-than-light by moving through the equivalent of "hyperspace." Overall, I'll probably still read the other books in the trilogy (Book 2 Fleet of Knives was recently released), but I'll probably wait until the entire series is complete.

Title: Embers of War.
Author: Gareth L. Powell.
Paperback: 411 pages.
Publisher: Titan Books.
Date Published: February 20, 2018.
Date Read: February 25, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: A Merciful Death (Mercy Kilpatrick, #1) by Kendra Elliott

A Merciful Death is the first book in Kendra Elliott's Mercy Kilpatrick police procedural series set in Oregon.

I didn't know much about the series when I started the book except that there's a fair number of entries in it so far (at least eight( and that they are pretty cheap on Amazon Kindle.

As it turns out, judging from the first entry A Merciful Death, these books are a cross between murder-mystery, police-procedural and suspense thriller with a touch of romance and family drama thrown in for good measure. As with most genre works, especially detective novels, in my opinion the key factor in assessing the quality of the books is the complexity of the main character. Here that person is Mercy Kilpatrick, a FBI agent who left her small-town of Eagle's Nest, Oregon at the age of 18, estranged from her patriarchal family, who are anti-government, self-sufficient, doomsday "preppers" (people whose lives revolve around preparing for the end of civilization).

After a 15-year break, there are more murders in her hometown and Mercy is sent to investigate the deaths of three old male preppers who each had large stockpiles of guns and ammunition that have disappeared and the FBI is interested and concerned about determining what happened to these weapons. Back in Eagle's Nest for the first time since she she fed as a teenager, Mercy meets the new, hunky police chief Truman Daly whose uncle is one of the recent murder victims. The previous set of murders had been of young women close to Mercy's age and these events were related to why she had been forced to leave town. She hasn't had any contact with her family since then so there is a lot of family drama when she returns home, especially as an employee of the hated federal government.

Overall, I thought the first book in the series was quite effective as a thriller and as a story. Both Mercy and Truman are compelling characters and I enjoyed spending time with them. The secondary characters (her niece Kaylie and blind sister Rose) were also interesting. The plot was resolved a little too neatly but I suspect I'll be reading more of these books in the future.

Title: A Merciful Death.
Author: Kendra Elliott.
Paperback: 352 pages.
Publisher: Montlake Romance.
Date Published: January 17, 2017.
Date Read: February 5, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: The Torment of Others (Tony Hill/Carol Jordan, #4) by Val McDermid

The Torment of Others is the fourth book in the Tony Hill/Carol Jordan series written by Val McDermid. The main characters are recovering from the harrowing events of Book 3 (The Last Temptation). In addition to dealing with those after effects, Carol and Tony have two (unrelated) major crimes to solve in this book. 

DCI Jordan is brought in to run a new special squad in Bradfield and immediately has to deal with someone who is killing prostitutes in a most horrible way (it involves dildos, handcuff and razorblades!) which is an identical method to four murders that had occurred nearly two years before and whose perpetrator had been supposedly identified, found, convicted and locked up in the looney bin. In addition, two young boys (under 10) have gone missing  a few weeks before the events at the beginning of the book and the police have no leads on finding them and (of course) are considering them as homicide cases, not just kidnappings. 

Dr. Tony Hill is in yet another professional setting, this time as a consulting psychologist at a local mental hospital in Bradfield. Of course, he is treating the 4-time convicted murderer and trying to discover his patient’s connection to the new crimes.

Tony and Carol work together to solve the crimes but their relationship is complicated by a handsome geologist(!!) who gets involved with Carol as well as a theory of the case that Tony develops that he feels he can’t reveal to her.

This fourth entry into the Hill/Jordan series was as full of high-pitched suspense as the previous books but I think it also had more obvious flaws than previous books by McDermid. First, there’s a scenario depicted that ends up with a female police officer (who is working undercover) getting into extreme danger and I just didn’t believe that a trained officer would behave that way in the situation (they let themselves be handcuffed to a bed because they think they are still under surveillance unaware the video/audio connection has been severed). Second, the reveal of the perpetrator of the prostitute murders and how they were able to copy the killing method is done somewhat suddenly (I thought) but maybe that’s because I didn’t figure out who the criminal was before the police did. (In general, I would say the ability of a mystery writer to extend the suspense by delaying the revelation of the perpetrator is a strength of a mystery novel but for some reason in this instance it felt off to me but in hindsight a fair amount of clues that post facto appear obvious were given by the author.) Third, there really is no connection between the pedophile murder-kidnappings and the prostitute killers in the end so the reason they are both included in the same book is unclear, except maybe to put extra stress on Carol and Tony's relationship.

Overall, despite some flaws in this entry, the core story involving Tony and Carol is very strong and definitely a reason to read this book as well as the earlier entries in this series of high-quality, suspenseful police-procedural crime thrillers. I look forward to reading Beneath the Bleeding.

FOUR STARS.

Title: The Torment of Others.
Author: Val McDermid.
Length: 448 pages.
Original Publisher: Harper Collins.
Date First Published: February 4, 2002.
Date Read: May 12, 2018.
Version Read: Kindle.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.