Book Review: The Highway by CJ Box

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Amazon US here

Another departure for Mr Box from  Joe Pickett, but not totally unexpected as he has done so now on a few occasions.

The Highway is a pretty terrifying read describing in pretty explicit detail how to become a serial rapist, torturer and murderer..... And all you need is a very large  truck  and a tremendous amount of guiltless ruthless guile and cunning.

This is the story of one long haul truck driver who has turned the act of kidnap,rape, torture and murder into almost an art form as he travels about the U.S. This is a loners existence as you would expect but circumstances and his carefulness in avoiding the risks that have allowed him to do what he does without being caught  for years were circumvented by a domineering mother with a big mouth and a hoarding complex who said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and he was caught by a state trooper who pulled him over.  

Unfortunately for the victims though this particular Trooper, Rick Legerski, wasn't out to save anyone, he had his own agenda too and Ronald Pergram aka The Truck Lizard found himself with a partner in crime who wanted to share the victims without taking the risks! 

This is the story of Danielle and Gracie Sullivan on a road trip to visit their father when older sister and airhead Danielle decides to visit her long distance boyfriend instead, the son of Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Dept Investigator Cody Hoyt, and who end up in the glare of the Truck Lizards headlights. 

At the insistence of his son, even although the girls have only been missing for a few hours, Hoyt begins to investigate aided by his partner Cassandra Dewell.....

As is usual for a Mr Box novel, the pace of the novel is insistent but much much more visceral, invoking base emotions in the reader with his hard descriptive prose. It keeps you rooted turning page after page and surprises you when a sudden twist happens that was unexpected (Hoyt/Legerski) even although you forgive yourself afterwards as the signs were clearly there in the first place......

Editing for Kindle: 4 out 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 42
Page length: 320

Book Review: Henry Wood Detective Agency By Brian D Meeks

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This is first in a planned three books on Henry Wood by Meeks.  It was a strange wee read, but not in a bad strange way.

Henry Woods is a Private Investigator who likes, when not investigating, to dabble in woodwork, he lives and works in New York and the year is 1955, just....

While recovering from New Year celebrations in his office, a woman enters; her father is missing and she needs Henry to find him..

As it turns out a second female client also has a father who is also missing and Henry has good vibes about one but not the other.  The missing fathers are an accountant and the other an inventor and Henry soon finds that their disappearance is linked with, it is alleged, the accountant having been keeping a secret coded journal on one of New York's mobster family Bosses...

Everyone is looking for both men, the journal and the codex that will unlock the information, and as the boss of the family is not liked by the other bosses who sense a weakness, this starts a killing war around the city with the other families trying to weaken and be ready to take over Tommy The Knife's area, if and when the DA and police get a hold of the journal and the codex.  Tommy will either be dead, or in prison.....It's a race to find it and the codex and of course the missing men while trying to stay out of the firing line and remain alive in the process....

The strangeness of the book comes in the form of a cupboard in Henry's woodworking workshop, nearly every time he opens the cupboard he finds things.  Clues to the case, objects and books from the future, including a DVD on cabinet making (if memory serves) but I wasn't clear if he got the player to go with it, but the whole thing is not fully explained.  I have spoken with Mr Meeks on Twitter and he informs me that all will be revealed in future books as to how  this arose and why,  and all will become clear.

So, we have a murder mystery suspense book set in 1955 with a bit of 'time travel' thrown in with these 'strange objects' and messages appearing inexplicably from the future. We have a real estate agent who after Henry's office is burned down is ready and waiting to rent him a new office, an office with an address on a business card that is given to Henry, while he is still in the first office, but do you know what, as strange and as disconcerting as the lack of understanding for these things occurring, it did not detract from the overall flow of the story of a detective trying to track down a couple of missing men while being dogged by the mob.  There were a couple of interesting characters the mob lieutenant Sal, for one and I loved this bit, a great line, 'Sylvia's expression was easy to read, so Sal continued, “My day job is being a thug; by night, I am a secret literary critic who saves people from poor prose." '

This isn't a long read lasting only for 212 pages, formatting on ipad and Kindle seemed fine and I had no real issues with it. There were a couple of spelling / grammatical/ missing words, three, I think,  that stood out, which I'm sure will be fixed in an update.  Over all a good read and he has probably dragged me back in to find out how and why the time travelling objects are appearing and their overall significance to Henry

Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 4 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

You can connect with Mr Meeks at:  https://twitter.com/ExtremelyAvg
and on his web site at: http://extremelyaverage.com/

Book Review: Force of Nature (Joe Pickett 12) By C.J. Box

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Well after 4 years, that's me finally caught up with Mr Box's Joe Picket (although I do believe another one is due out shortly)! And what an explosive way to end the current crop,

This was more a Nate Romanowski tail than a Joe Pickett tail.  Over the last 11 books we have come to not know too much about Nate Romanowski as knowing who he is or what he has done would be more dangerous than stepping into an unprotected nuclear waste site, youd get a fatal overdose of contamination and your life expectancy would be reduced to milliseconds rather than years....

Force of Nature changes all of that and those that know Romanowski are dropping like bugs who've just been sprayed with DDT.

Nate's old bosses in Special Operations have decided that having him still on the loose with the knowledge that he has is just too dangerous, for them, and the only way to remove that danger is to kill him and anyone that he may have confided in, whether they know or not.  If they are loosely connected to Nate, they need to die, including the Picketts, all of them.

The best thing Joe can do is stay out of the way, pack up the family and head out of dodge until the smoke clears and the body count can be checked and then to wait and see who survives, although it doesn't look good as Nate explains that the hunter on his tail is even better at hunting and killing people than he is, and we know from past experience that Romanowski is skilled in his craft!

Is everyone we know to be trusted?  People we have known for years, newcomers with seemingly impeccable bona fides, who can be trusted, who can't?  Box mixes it up here for us and we end up trusting some we shouldn't and doubting others who we should have more sense about and then the final showdown, who survives and who doesn't and the biggest question of them all, does Sheriff Maclanahan get re-elected and I can tell you now, Box has left us to stew over that one, the swine.

Book 1 - Open Season √
Book 2 – Savage Run √
Book 3 – Winterkill √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt √
Book 5 – Out of Range √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight √
Book 7 – Free Fire √
Book 8 – Blood Trail √
Book 9 – Below Zero √
Book 10 – Nowhere to Run √
Book 11 – Cold Wind √
Book 12 – Force of Nature √


Editing for Kindle /iPad: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Page length on kindle /iPad: 396
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Standing in Another Man's Grave: A John Rebus Novel by Ian Rankin

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John Rebus, Inspector of Lothians and Borders Constabulary: Retired.... And we missed him, but Mr Rankin has saw sense and resurrected an old style copper, not one who breaks the rules, but instead bends them back on themselves if it is going to get the right result -  a 20th Century Copper who, some think, has no business in the 21st Century.

On the other hand if you are a reader of crime fiction, Rebus is. exactly what you want! A dog with a bone who won't let go, even if some of the places he ends up; no self respecting dog would want to be seen, especially when The Complaints are breathing down your collar again just waiting for the moment when they can pull the leash tight and hang you out to dry.

DI Rebus is retired but back at Lothian and Borders Police in the SCRU looking into unsolved crimes when he has a chance encounter with the mother of a missing daughter who believes that her daughter is also linked to a number of other disappearances on the A9 trunk road between Perth and Inverness (how I hate that bloody road - well not the road but the politicians who .... another blog post maybe) but none of the Police forces in Scotland have made the connection before.

This is another parent who can't and won't close the book on her daughters disappearance and move on with her life.  Rebus is, as he was in the past, non committal, but takes a look anyway and as it turns out was both bad and good for the mother - never ask for a stone to be upturned if you already know what dirt is underneath it waiting to be uncovered  .........

Is it possible that up to 5 women have been abducted and murdered, and no one has made the connection? Has Scotland got a serial killer, and can a retired dinosaur crack the case?   Rebus is back in the mix with Siobhan Clark, his old Sergeant, now a DI and working out of the station on Gayfield again.  He is up and down that A9 like a yo yo and lo and behold not only is Siobhan back, but so is Rebus's old SAAB but by the sounds of it wearing a lot better than him in semi retirement.

Rankin hasn't lost his touch with Rebus, he is his usual cynical self, but there is an underlying maturity towards Siobhan in not wanting to completely drop her in it, although at times he doesn't always manage this.  The Complaints are on his tail but especially as he still seems to be rather cosy with the Edinburgh bad boy fraternity and there is no convincing them that he is anything but dirty and doesn't belong in a Police station, unless of course he is locked up.....    

He still has issues with his daughter, but .....

This was a great re-introduction to Rebus, and with the retirement age being changed since he left, he has the papers in front of him to get back in, but will he, and, will Rankin take the chance? I for one hope that he does give us more of Rebus, even if he doesn't make it back onto the force and gets a new warrant card.... Welcome Back, John


Editing for Kindle: 5 out 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
No of Pages: 363
Chapters: 69 

Book Review: A Game of Proof by Tim Vicary

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A Game of Proof, the first outing for Mr Vicary's Sarah Newby, a High Court counsel. Sarah Newby leaves school at 16 has a relationship with a lad who is slightly older than her and they have a son. They get a council house but, as is the way with so many of these relationships, it goes the wrong way. 

Having no money and family life is not, after all, what he wants. He begins to hit her, and leaves. She turns back to School, then college and finally University and law school.

While learning to become a lawyer she marries someone else, Bob, he is educated and a teacher. They have a daughter but Sarah is to busy becoming the best at what she does to spend to much time with her children and Bob is rising up the ladder as a teacher on his way to being a head teacher! 

The setting is York, England and Sarah is defending a  rapist. In fact, DI Terry Bateson who arrested Gary Harker believes that he is responsible for a series of rapes in the city and involved in one murder.  The rape victim Sharon Gilbert is a mother and prostitute and is accusing her ex-lover, Harker, a brute of a bully, of breaking in to her home and raping her in front of her children ending by then stealing her jewellery.

In between defending this detestable human being Sarah's marriage appears to be on shaky ground, Simon her son from her first relationship is estranged from her Bob and Emily, her daughter with Bob and to cap it all there is an undercurrent between her and Terry Bateson too.  Terry  Bateson is a widower with two young daughters and a drop dead gorgeous Norwegian nanny.  He was heading for promotion until his wife died at the hands of joy riders and now answers to a DCI Churchill whom he hates. 

A Game of Proof begins as a complex chain of links between this group which looks as if nothing can keep them together other than the tangled lives they are drawn into as bit players in a tacky piece of theatre only for it to become more degrading, tacky and hurtful as one bit player after another gets the upper hand in the too-ing and fro-ing against the other in court and on the streets of York.  Against the odds one man who you are sure is guilty, is found innocent, someone else is murdered and a family member is accused of murder and rape!

Again, like The Blood Upon The Rose, the first book I read from Vicary, this too was good, the pace was just right for a convoluted crime investigation and court room drama; dead ends in the investigations and the unique reason for the lack of clues in the rapes was pretty intriguing. 

I was slightly disappointed with this one in that a number of easy spelling and grammatical errors were thrown throughout the book and in the Kindle store when you purchase it, it tells you it is 400 pages long; There are no page numbers on the Kindle itself and on the iPad it is 12520 pages long but only goes to 12518.  Minor but irritating little things it has to be said.  The plot and the pace were thoroughly enjoyable but marking it down on the presentation.

Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Chapters: 44  

 

Book Review:The Valley Walker by TW Dittmer

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First book by Indie Author Tim Dittmer.  I follow Tim on Twitter and looked at his book a couple of times before 'taking a chance' on purchasing it.  Lets just say it looked interesting and it had been on my Kindle for about two months before I got round to it, well that's not strictly true, as I opened it a couple of times, read the first couple of pages, was slightly confused, put it down, read something else, opened it again and re-read the first couple of pages and put it down again.

To be honest, after putting it down for about the third time, I nearly put it into the archive file on kindle to be lost and forgotten but, I didn't, and after getting past the first couple of pages and then into the book proper, I enjoyed it immensely, but with a couple of reservations.  I was advised by someone, who had looked at the books on my review page that The Valley Walker would probably not be 'my cup of tea', and to begin with I thought they may be correct and it wasn't going to be when I discovered that ancient Laos Mysticism was involved and was actually at the heart of the story; not that I knew much about Laos mysticism, or any other mystical based cultures for that matter, but there you go, one can never quite tell until you dip your toe, as it were, into the water and then fully immerse yourself in the full experience.

So, what was it all about?

John Walker Michaels volunteered for the US army when he was 18, to go to Vietnam, we don't know how or why but while there he may have become part of the CIA or he may not! What we do know is he seemed to become a law unto himself and not many questioned him or what he did.  He attached himself to units and it was accepted by commanders that he was what he was, an enigma who came and went as he pleased, disappearing and reappearing like a ghost weeks later.

He picked up languages, Vietnamese and  Laotian by listening to conversations. He appeared to have almost mystical field craft skills and with weaponry too.

He was posted Killed in action turning up years later in a drug store in a town in Michigan where Terry Altro or Miss Altro or just plain Altro as she preferred to be known as, was waiting to have her prescription for contraceptives filled.

Altro was a special investigator with the Governors newly formed Drug Interdiction Unit and Walker, as everyone who new him before, had come to know him, was watching her closely, studying her and reaching out with his mind to make a connection, The Mysticism  .......

When Walker had been declared KIA, he had been adopted by the Hmong peoples of Laos an old race of peoples who started of tall and white with blue eyes, but over the years of moving through the furthest parts of Asia and China, hounded and exploited, they finally settled in the mountainous region of Laos, where over the centuries their features changed to that which we recognise as Asian today.  Theirs was a culture steeped in deep mystical belief a belief that the spirits can inhabit the body, both for good and for evil.  It seems that Walker discovered or was empowered by his adopted and 'ancient' Hmong mother to channel one such spirit and when doing so a tattoo of a dragon would appear on his head that seemingly come to life.  When he moved while in this possessive state it was to fast for the human eye to follow and made it easy for him to kill.  He could appear in a room and disappear as mysteriously, in the blink of an eye. If you can suspend belief while watching a film about ghosts, or witches or even vampires and enjoy what you are watching then you can enjoy this book.

The story centres around Walker and his fight with the Laos drug lords that started in Vietnam and Laos moving to America years later.  Altro who has recently been appointed to the newly formed Drug Interdiction Unit is targeted for assassination by them and their American backers, although the story doesn't quite get round to explaining why, she alone, of the new unit is singled out? Walker following her is vaguely explained in that he feels her presence but is pretty vague about why the connection was made.

The other four members of the unit are introduced.  A Pakistani who seems to be good at making very strong coffee and knows about every weapon under the sun.  A Vietnamese computer wizard who likes to sit with his feet up on his desk looking at Altro's ass, when he thinks she isn't looking, the 'Princess' who is gorgeous but good at her job whatever that was and Mallory the unit boss who it turns out was the last platoon leader that Walker attached himself to, before disappearing in Vietnam. That's about as much as can be said about them as their involvement in the story seemed to be just as gap fillers and completely incidental and who really appeared to play no major part in the story.

There were a couple of issues with the formatting, I read this mainly on the ipad and there seemed to be a lot of white and blank pages, and wasted space for example the 'Chapter 1' heading appears just below the centre of the page and then the first three lines of the first paragraph and this happened a couple of times and in a couple of places you got a complete blank page at the end of a chapter before the next chapter begins, same on the kindle as I opened it up on that too as a comparison.

Having said all of that though and ignoring the weak characters and the slight formatting errors I did, once I got into it, enjoy the story for what it was.  It also seemed at the conclusion that someone else may have similar abilities as Walker that may have been an opening by Mr Dittmer to write more about the realms of  mysticism ........

There are 97 chapters in this book but they are relatively short ones, but I believe in some books, this works well, and this is one of them and as it is a particularly well written with a flowing narrative it makes the book zip along at a good pace (except for the four hangers on), but their appearances, while interspersed throughout the book, is soon forgotten as you move along with the rest of the story.  Dittmer does write well and I believe as he learns his craft he will only get better.

You can connect with Tim at: http://twdittmer.wordpress.com/
or at: @TWDittmer

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5
Page length on kindle /iPad: 374
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

Book Review: The Eldridge Conspiracy by Stephen Ames Berry

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Ames Berry clearly wanted to catch his reader by the throat and shake them about a bit from the outset in this novel, as the villain of the piece looked at

" a freckled teenage girl in soft repose, was now a wailing, writhing horror of ochre scales and suppurating sores, it's tentacles battering the lid." 

It worked, the opening sequence introduced us to Doctor Schmidla another 'recovered' Nazi from the 2nd World War by the American government.  Unlike other Nazi's though, where they were, it seems, integrated into a life for good and betterment, Schmidla's purpose, on behalf of the United States Government was to actively seek out (with the aid of the CIA and FBI), experiment on and ultimately murder a select group of US Citizens!

It is difficult to review this book to much without giving away the plot line but if you are old enough, and if you're not check out the Wikipedia page here , you will remember the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, where the US Government attempted to make a US Battleship invisible, during WW2.  The attempt failed!

This book takes us to the present (or at least to the 80's when this book is set and doesn't suffer any for that) and to the fact that while the attempt to make the ship invisible failed, it did do something to the crew.  Whatever it did wasn't manifest in the survivors but in their children and even more so in their grandchildren.... Think X Men II


There are twists and turns everywhere in this book with a plausibility borne from the recent hash of super hero movies, but the real hero is a father who lost a baby daughter only to find that the mad Doctor arranged for her kidnapping (presumed death) over twenty years before..... and he finds a friend in the closing paragraphs wasn't the friend you'd want to have

There are some graphic horror scenes described, particularly when one bad-ass gets his comeuppance at the hands, or rather the mind, of one of the pursued 'Potentials' and I liked what she did with him, even if she herself didn't.

The book is well written and the characters feel real.  All of us by now, have seen far too many shows telling us that Governments are not always the protectors that we would want or believe them to be and  Ames Berry plays on this and turns it into a horrific story suggesting that the people in power for years have been killing citizens for a perceived threat, whether it was real or not and as with his futuristic space borne books he has left the door open in another reality for a come back and I for one , hope there is a sequel....

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5 based on a couple of formatting errors and no page numbers
Page length on kindle /iPad: 279 estimated although the page numbers are not shown on either iPad or Kindle - Come on Mr Ames Berry show the Bl**dy numbers
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Book Review: Blood Trail by C J Box

Blood Trail, number 8 in the ' Joe Pickett' series and yes I may as well say right out at the front - EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS 1 THROUGH 7!

Joe is back in Saddlestring with Marybeth and the girls, Nate is in Federal prison after he and Joe were double crossed by Portenson when investigating the 'perfect murder' in Yellowstone Park , the FBI agent who hates Wyoming and anything to do with the morons who live in such a godforsaken backwood, animal infested part of the country!

Joe and Marybeth have now bought a 'house' in town and Joe is filling in across the state for absent or sick wardens.  Nosey neighbours are making Joe wish that he was back in the isolation of their state owned house and hunting season is in full swing....  and it's not just the game that's being hunted.

A new hunter has arrived in the state, not hunting the wildlife but the hunters themselves.  Two have already been killed elsewhere when the third is killed in the hills outside Saddlestring and they are not just being killed, they are being strung up like an Elk sliced open and left on display....

The Governor again calls on Joe to investigate and Director Pope, Joe's boss who hates Joe as much as he (Joe) hates him, and not forgetting he was the guy who sacked 'our' Joe, want's to be in the field as part of the investigation and seems to be backing Joe up!  You just know that ultimately this means that there is going to be more trouble in store for him.

Joe also finds Stella Ennis is back, this time working for the Governor, Joe nearly fell for her and this damaged his marriage for a while, what will happen when Marybeth finds out that Stella is back?

Joe asks the Governor to intervene with the FBI and have Nate released, but he refuses and brings in a specialist tracker, who also ends up getting killed while out with Joe....... as does ......  (no spoilers - but sadness is felt)

Joe knows that there is something more to the killings but can't figure it out, as usual.  A high profile Anti Hunt protester and his Indian wife arrive in Saddlestring and this complicates the enquiry as he hails the 'hunter' as a hero.

Vern Dunnegan, Joes predecessor and mentor and the guy that Joe had to arrest all those years ago when he was involved in an incident that got Marybeth shot and nearly killed and resulted in them losing an unborn child, is back in the frame somehow and Joe has to confront him in prison....

Once again you think you know what the outcome is going to be but Box leaves it until about the last few pages to confuse and reveal the real killer it was a surprise, until you realise that the answer was also staring you, as it was Joe, right in the face.

Box, just continues to provide an enthralling read.  In between the business of Game Warden and Murder we get the 'mundane' family life;  growing daughters with the angst that that brings, nosey and irritable neighbours  and of course the continuing saga of Missy Vankueron-Longbrake, Joe's mother-in-law.  The narrative flows seamlessly from the high octane of danger and death to discussions  on homework, school and cleaning the roof gutters and fixing tiles and fences to keep the neighbours happy, how many authors do you read, that are this good?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail                    √ 

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5*
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 301 for the book (and 1st chapter of next book taking it to 314)
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

* found another word with a hyphen that shouldn't have been there Mr Box 

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

Book Review: Free Fire by CJ Box

I think by now you will have realised that I am a huge fan of 'Joe Pickett' and indeed the Pickett family and of course Nate Romanowski as written about by Mr Box and I really haven't a bad thing to say about any of his books as I work my way through them, this is number 7 in the reading order of 12  and still I have nothing bad to say, even although for the first time in all seven books I found two errors, one of which was a stupid hyphen in dan-gerous WTF!

Setting aside that, and I have marked it down in my editing for Kindle (Harsh but what can one do), what about the story.Well, you may recall that by the end of, 'In Plain Site'  Joe has been sacked from his job as Game Warden and in Free Fire we find him working as Ranch Foreman on his Father-in-laws ranch while Marybeth's accounting business is expanding.

Out of the blue the new Governor turns up in Saddlestring and offers Joe his job back but with strings attached.

A multiple murder has taken place in Yellowstone Park and it looks as if, for the first time ever, anywhere in the world, 'It is the perfect murder'. They know who did it, he even handed himself in immediately after killing 4 people, but they had to let him go!

Yellowstone Park might be in the state, in fact it is in three US states, and therefore comes under Federal law because of its status as a National Park.  The Governor thinks the Federal authorities are not doing enough and tells Joe that he wants him to visit the park and find out what the hell's going on, even although he will have no jurisdiction.

After discussing it with Marybeth Joe takes the job, knew he would, and is reinstated as a Game Warden with no loss of service.  Director Pope who we don't miss from the story still manages to stick the knife in, by making sure Joe doe's not get his original badge number back which would show him as a senior Warden, instead sending him Badge no 54, reserved for rookies!

Joe sets off for Yellowstone in a brand new truck, you just know what's gonna happen to that, just as Joe can't hit a barn door if he was standing in front of it with his gun, you just know what's gonna happen to that truck (oh, it's deliciously funny) followed by Nate Romanowski as back up.

Soon he is in the thick of it, more murders are committed, and just to mix things up we learn of events from Joe's past, about his brother, how he died and where he is buried.  His parents break up and why Joe has hated his father and always avoids discussing him and ghosts from that past become real in Yellowstone all lead to complications in the investigation.

A thrilling climax to the book ends with the FBI and an old adversary from that organisation double crossing Joe and Nate but this after Joe in his usual stumbling way, solves the crime.

This really was /is as good as the previous six books and Mr Box just keeps getting better and better.  The Perfect Murder scenario was a master stroke in finding it and building a story around it and it worked well, I wonder if that little loophole has now been closed in reality (hope so, wont be in a hurry to visit that corner of Yellowstone Park until I know it has been!)?

Book 1 - Open Season                  √

Book 2 – Savage Run                   √
Book 3 – Winterkill                      √
Book 4 – Trophy Hunt                  √
Book 5 – Out of Range                 √
Book 6 – In Plain Sight                √
Book 7 – Free Fire                       √

Book 8 – Blood Trail

Book 9 – Below Zero

Book 10 – Nowhere to Run

Book 11 – Cold Wind

Book 12 – Force of Nature

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5 
Page length on kindle /iPad: 380
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

You can purchase Free Fire At Amazon UK here or at Amazon US here 

CJ Box can be found here

Book Review: The Affair by Lee Child

You either like the Lee Child character of Jack Reacher or you don't, there really is no middle ground.  And can I just say at the outset, just to get it out of the way, Tom Cruise buying and starring in the movie franchise doesn't matter a jot.  A book is a book is a book, that sometimes gets made into a movie and generally the movie is well below the standard of the book, so people get over it and concentrate on the books and stop bloody whingeing!

Jack Reacher has been wandering around small town America for a couple of years now doing his best to wear out the tarmac of the roads leading into the middle of nowhere, arriving nowhere and finding the locals being bullied. Reacher doesn't like bullies and generally takes on the baddies in defence of the defenceless and cowered locals and he does it so magnificently and with so little effort, that we keep following him around from nowhere to nowhere, stopping occasionally to buy a new shirt and pair of pants; well when your walking and covering the miles that he does the last thing you need as an encumbrance, is a suitcase full of clothes.

The Affair takes us back to 1997 when Reacher was still a Major in the Army as an  MP and takes us back to the final case he worked on, before taking up his peripatetic wanderings through small town America.

1997 and Reacher is called to his boss, Leon Garbers, office. A woman has been Raped, killed and mutilated, her throat slit near an Army base in Carter Crossing, Mississippi.  Reacher is despatched undercover to get close to the local police while another MP investigates the Army side of things at Fort Kelham.  Sent off with half a story and finding that the local Sheriff is an ex Marine MP, Reacher discovers that there has been more than one murder and in fact there have been possible other murders elsewhere that can be linked to the local ones.  The nature of Army bases is that they can have followers who move around Army bases  setting up wherever they are, so they have no idea whether it is a civilian killer or an Army killer, but the underlying message is, 'that the good name of the Army, must be protected!'

As usual Reacher gets to the truth and all questions raised in the story are conclusively answered in the closing pages, including just why Reacher decided it was time to hang up his uniform.

Disillusioned with the Army at the same time that it was downsizing, a less than stellar report from an Army Colonel on his attitude and tactics which would have seen him marking time career wise.  The blackening of innocent peoples reputations by politicians, and the Army, these were all the things that were vaguely referred to in previous story lines, and going back to 1997 gave us the story behind the myth that is Jack Reacher.

Reacher is a killer, but a killer with scruples and a sense of what is morally right and what is not.  He knows that not everyone on the planet is capable of looking after themselves either physically or by engaging the law, and so he is prepared to look out for their interests.  Killing will never be right, but when it is done out of a clear sense of justice that the normal course of the law would not get to, whether it be for a cover up, or lazy and useless police work , he can easily become, judge, jury and executioner , even when it is the Army, Federal or Local  Government, or just pure criminality; he will take them all on....... and I will be there again, when Reacher arrives at the next small 'nowhere' town.

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Page length on kindle /iPad: 405
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Lee Child / Jack Reacher can be found here


Footnote:  I love my Kindle but I do wish they would take a leaf out of the Kindle App for iPad and show the book tile and Authors name on each page and more importantly, show the page number as it does when reading through the Kindle iPad app, just saying.